Ferahgo the Assassin

Ferahgo the Assassin is the main antagonist of the book Salamandastron, the fifth book within the Redwall novel series. He is the charismatic yet power hungry leader of a group of Corpsemakers infamous for his hobby of skinning his enemies alive who seeks to conquer Salamandastron, having murdered the badger lord Urthound and his wife years ago, by any means necessary, leading battles against the mountain's current badger lord, Urthstripe, the son of Urthound and his wife, and his army of hares called the Long Patrol to accomplish this goal.

What Makes Him Magnificent?[]

He has an immense amount of charisma and politeness which, while faux, he often displays to enemies and allies alike, even speaking this way to his own troops occasionally even while treating them badly, sometimes even using this as a form of trickery on his opponents.
He managed to conquer the Southwest Forest years ago by tricking badger lords Urthound and his wife Urthrun into letting him into his home, using his manipulative nature, and arranging a meeting with them where he would kill them before leaving their corpses with the infants they had with no one in the forest anymore to oppose him.
He manages to build a fearsome reputation throughout the Southwest Lands, having started a reign of terror that had spread and flourished throughout until the whole country trembled in fear at his name, namely through his reputation as an assassin and one who skins his enemies alive.
He sets up a plan to capture the current badger lord of Salamandastron Urthstripe's daughter through having Klitch charm and manipulate her into coming along with him (with a hare friend she brought called Pikkle, who was part of Urthstripe's army) to Ferahgo's army, the Corpsemakers, who would ambush and attempt to capture them, though they would be unsuccessful in this attempt.
He concocts a genius plan to conquer Salamandastron where, knowing that he has Urthstripe and his troops of hares bottle up inside Salamandastron, he has Farran the Poisoner, a fox whom he's worked with before, sneak into the mountain while Ferahgo leads a nighttime attack on it so that he could poison the food and water supplies to ensure the death of everyone within, this managing to at least get two of the hares killed. While Farran gets caught, it's only because he put too much poison to the point of where it took its effect too fast and it's only behalf of an error he made rather than Ferahgo.
He conveys care for his son, Klitch, tolerating whatever insults and threats he gives him and arguments he engages in, something he would've killed or at least severely hurt anyone else for and admitting at one point that he would always let him live regardless of whether he talks behind his back or not, partially because he enjoys the competition between them and partially because he's his son, though he would kill anyone plotting with him. He displays this again later on by telling two of his minions while they're tunneling to Salamandastron to keep him to one side, guard him carefully, and not let him get hurt.
He manipulates his captains into joining him in a plot to kill Farran the Poisoner by stabbing him in the ribs with a dagger while they congratulate him on a job well done upon suspecting him of wanting the treasure within Salamandastron by promising to give them a fifth of the treasure once he's out of the way when he's implicitly planning on betraying them, laughing and calling them fools after they agreed to help and departed.
He makes a plan to tunnel into Salamandastron through a spot he marked with his dagger containing cracks and loose boulders, recognizing it as a fault in the rock, knowing that any beast that may still be a live and in fighting form within the mountain might suspect of them to try unblocking one of the entrances when they will instead be doing the unexpected.
Despite being in no condition to fight due to his back having been burned by boiled hot poisoned water unleashed on him and many of his troops by Urthstripe, he manages to skillfully outwit Raptail and Forgrin, two members of his horde who attempted to betray and murder him by setting up Sickear as a decoy in his resting place covered with a cloak soaked in saltwater for the wounds on Ferahgo's back, having also set him up through words of politeness by commending him for doing a good job on helping with healing his back, before ambushing the two after they kill Sickear and fall for it by dispatching Raptail with his knife and throwing his knife at Forgrin.
He gets Urthstripe ambushed by his troops by tricking him into engaging in a duel to the death against him and Klitch under the guise that it would be just them 3 fighting to determine who gets Salamandastron only for Ferahgo to signal his army to attack Urthstripe when he proved difficult to defeat.
While the fight itself was a ruse, during it, Ferahgo manages to hold up fairly well throughout, managing to land some scores against Urthstripe using his weapons like his mace and chain to trap his footpaws and stabbing his footpaws with his knives.
Noticing the big space the Long Patrol had unblocked near the entrance to the mountain, he has some of his goons muster the rest of the horde as they'd never get a better chance than this to conquer Salamandastron, though this would be foiled by Mara, Log-a-log and his shrews, and Urthwyte, the brother of Urthstripe.
He manages to sneak up on Urthwyte while he's battling his troops behind his back and almost manages to kill him by leaping with his knives, though this would be foiled by Urthstripe tackling him.
He goes out fighting by stabbing Urthstripe with his knives while he's tackling him before the both of them go over the cliff and fall to their deaths.

What Makes Him A Baddie?[]

He had killed the badger lord Urthound and his wife Urthrun after tricking them into arranging a meeting with him before abandoning them along with the infant sons they had, Urthstripe and Urthwyte, to die to the cold of the winter in order to conquer the Southwest Forest and to have no one that will oppose him.
He had skinned many of his enemies alive with his knives and would keep their skins as trophies, having a whole kilt of them on his belt and tons of them amongst his banners of blood red and standards decorated with skins, hanks of beast hair, and skulls and would build a reputation around this, being feared by the whole country. According to him, he has been murdering and skinning when most of his army were infants.
He threatened to skin one of his minions, Feadle, alive if he missed Ferahgo's son, Klitch, and his friend, Goffa.
He threatened Dethbrush when he reported to him that he was unable to find Dingeye and Thura, telling him that it does not please him when his orders are not carried out before ordering him to continue tracking them with his rats tomorrow and to bring either them or their heads back to him for deserting him, which would lead to one of their deaths at Dethbrush's hands (the other died of a fever along the way).
He pierces the shoulder of one of his other minions, Sickear, to intimidate him while he tells him about the treasure within Salamandastron, seeming to take delight in it before telling him to accompany Feadle in keeping a lookout for Klitch and Goffa, giving the both of them another threat to skin them with his knife if they don't do as their told.
Upon hearing another minion Bateye complain about the bread they had gotten, calling it stone instead of bread, Ferahgo throws his knife at the crust held in his paw, with blood draining from the ferret's face as Ferahgo picks up the knife with the crust fixed to the blade before forcing him to eat it, causing a tooth of his to break and fall out, still forcing him to eat it despite this. When Bateye tried to speak only to produce a strangled noise, Ferahgo tells Forgrin and Raptail to give him more bread out of the sack to force him to eat the other breads, only stopping when Sickear informs him of Klitch and Goffa arriving with two others (Mara and Pikkle).
Noticing Mara and Pikkle with Klitch and Goffa, after Klitch returns to him, Ferahgo initially made a plan to ambush them only for their cover to be exposed by Sergeant Sapwood, who had snuck up on Mara and Pikkle, alerting them of Ferahgo and his army, prompting Ferahgo to lead a chase on them only for them to escape much to Ferahgo's anger as he instead decides to muster the whole horde and march on Salamandastron that night.
When Migroo returns and informs Ferahgo of his failure to capture Mara and Pikkle, Ferahgo proceeds to cut his ear before declaring that the next one who disobeys him will lose their head and then making a speech about himself and rallying them with him to conquer Salamandastron.
While negotiating with the badger lord Urthstripe of Salamandastron, he threatens him while putting on a polite facade, telling him he's aware of the hares he has as his army, 10 of them being with him and 30 more being inside his mountain. When the badger lord still refuses, Ferahgo engages in war against him, leading his horde against Urthstripe and his hares while glossing over the deaths of his own members at the hands of the hares firing arrows at them. During the battle, Ferahgo's horde would fire flaming arrows up at the mountain themselves, leading to the vegetation and crops that had been cultivated on the crevices and ledges of the fortress to be turned to blackened stubble.
He shows no remorse over the death of Goffa, Klitch's lackey, when he was struck with an arrow meant for him, merely showing amusement at the context of the situation, though Klitch himself was apathetic about it too.
After a while, he has 4 of his goons be summoned and also requests Farran the Poisoner to be summoned too so that he can sneak inside Salamandastron after Ferahgo launches a nighttime attack on the mountain and poison the food and water supply within, knowing that Urthstripe and his hares would want some now that he's got him bottled up inside the mountain and cannot leave. This would lead to the deaths of 2 hares inside, though Farran's poisoning of the supplies would be realized before he gets caught by them and killed to be used as a decoy.
He is conveyed to have hired Farran for murderous schemes in the past before, telling him that they have worked together in the past and he's always rewarded him well while conversing with him.
Suspecting Farran to be plotting to want all the treasure within Salamandastron for himself when he hasn't shown up (unaware that this is due to the poisoned attempt having gone wrong), Ferahgo makes plans to kill him with his captains by stabbing him in the ribs with a dagger while congratulating him on a job well done while promising to give his captains a fifth of the treasure if they help. After they agree and depart, Ferahgo laughs and calls them fools, implying that he plans on betraying them as well.
Upon making it inside Salamandastron with the tunnel, when he spots a beast standing with their back to the entrance, unaware that it was really Farran who had been killed with his own poison by Urthstripe, he sneaks up behind him and stabs him in the ribs to kill him before tossing his body to his captains to which only then would he realize that it was Farran, followed up by Urthstripe sending in cauldrons of boiling hot poisoned drinking water at Ferahgo and his troops to get them out, resulting in a large area of Ferahgo's back being covered with painful areas of blistered flesh.
Suspecting that some of his horde may seek to betray and murder him, Ferahgo tricks Sickear into lying down on the rock he was initially lying down on himself covered with the cloak soaked in seawater for Ferahgo's back, getting him killed as a decoy by Raptail and Forgrin who stabbed him.
He proceeds to kill off Raptail and Forgrin for attempting to betray him by dispatching the former with his skinning knife before throwing his knife at the latter, telling him that the game ends with the weasel killing the fox and insincerely wishing him sweet dreams as he dies. While this was out of self-defense, Ferahgo is hinted to have taken joy in this with the text describing his eyes as looking almost jolly as they smiled at and that his eyes lit up with happiness after the ordeal. Not to mention Forgrin was running away after this, so Ferahgo's life was no longer at risk.
He permits his son, Klitch, to hold two of Urthstripe's Long Patrol hares that their horde had caught hostage and threaten to kill them in front of the badger lord if he does not surrender Salamandastron.
When the hares escape, Ferahgo and Klitch order their troops to stop and kill them if they have to.
He killed Feadle for the escape of the two captives, hanging his lifeless body bound to a stake in front of the entire horde.
He sets up an ambush for Urthstripe by making an agreement with him to take him on in a battle with his son in a fight to the death and that if Ferahgo wins, the mountain is his, but if Urthstripe wins, Ferahgo's army leaves and that the battle is to be fought with just them three where then once they fight a bit, Ferahgo cheats in it by having his horde attack and try to kill him.
When the Long Patrol arrived to help Urthstripe in the battle, Ferahgo and Klitch ordered their army to kill them too.
After trying once again to conquer Salamandastron by entering it with a group of the horde, when spotting Mara, Log-a-log, and his many shrews along with other allies they made, who had arrived to stop Ferahgo from conquering Salamandastron, Ferahgo orders his mob to kill them.
Spotting Urthwyte fighting amongst them, he has his troops try to kill him, promising to make whoever slays him rich before making a valiant attempt to kill him by sneaking up on him behind his back, drawing his knives, and leaping at him only for Urthstripe to tackle him.
While being tackled by Urthstripe, Ferahgo stabs him with both of his knives, though Urthstripe ends up jumping off the cliff with the both of them, putting an end to both of their lives and saving Salamandastron from Ferahgo.

Trivia[]

He, Bane, and Mokkan are the only characters from the Redwall books to qualify as Magnificent Baddies.

External Links[]

Ferahgo the Assassin on the Redwall Wiki
Ferahgo the Assassin on the Villains Wiki
Ferahgo the Assassin on the Near Pure Evil Wiki