The last day of autumn was hot and bright as midsummer. Still as a millpond, the sea reflected a cloudless blue sky. Seabirds wheeled and called, soaring lazily on the warm thermals above the sun-baked sands of the shore.

Two hares stood shaded by the cave entrance, watching a fully grown male badger plough his way wearily across the beach toward them. He was big and dangerous-looking, the fierce light in his eyes glinted off the metal tips of an immense warclub which he carried easily in one paw.

The hares stepped from the shadows of the rock into the sunlight, the stranger stood before them, pointing at the mountain.

“What do they call this place?” he asked.

The oldest of the hares, a male, answered him.

“Salamandastron, the place of the fire lizard.”

The badger gave a huge sigh. Leaning against the rock, he rested his club on the sand.

“I feel as if I’ve been here before,” he said strangely.

The female hare produced victuals from within the cave entrance. “Rest awhile. Eat and drink. I am called Breeze, and this is my brother Starbuck. What do they call you?”

The badger smiled. He touched one of his headstripes, which was yellow rather than white.

“Some call me Sunflash the Mace. I am the son of Bella and Barkstripe. I’m a traveler.”

Starbuck nodded in satisfaction. “Your traveling is at an end, Sunflash, you are the grandson of Boar the Fighter and great grandson of Old Lord Brocktree. It is written on the walls of our mountain that you would come here someday.”

Sunflash straightened up. He stared hard at the hares.

“Written, you say. By whom?”

Breeze shrugged. “By whoever wrote that other hares will follow after us. That is the way it has always been and always will be.”

Both hares stood in the cave entrance. They bowed to the badger. “Welcome to your mountain, Sunflash the Mace, Lord of Salamandastron.”

The high sun above watched as the badger and the hares went together into the mountain on the shores below.