This was the first Redwall book I ever read back in the 1990s, it was always my favourite. I got the chance to get the audiobook and it stands up. The cast of voice actors make the variety of accents easier to understand - and the different characters ea ier to differentiate - than the phonetic writing ever did for me, which is just an overall improvement. 

In terms of the plot, Jacques has several threads that mostly stay separate, until Book Three (the final third of the book, which is divided into three smaller books). The primary two are the Salamandastron plot thread and the Redwall plot thread, a siege and a sickness, and the threads that draw them together: villainous characters and mysterious places. Trust and friendship are forces that triumph over greed, malice and mistrust, but not without a price.

Well worth the reread.

This really has two parallel stories that come together with the finding of a new badger guardian to occupy the long-unfilled position at Redwall Abbey. It takes its time getting there, with multiple points of view, multiple plot threads, and a big cast of characters. 

While the villains, a father-and-son duo of weasel assassins at the head of a large horde of "corpsemakers", are pretty standard Redwall badguys, right down to the plotting to stab each other in the back, the addition of an epidemic threatening the abbey brings a new type of threat to the fore.

The author does an excellent job of juggling multiple groups of travelers on multiple quests and journeys, and the descriptive language is as lush as always in this series. There is also some nice character growth among several of the main characters as they begin young and reckless and get a hard lesson in the dangers of the world.