Mouse Guard Week: David Petersen discusses Mouse Guard Vol 3: The Black Axe

NERDAGE: You’ll get into the next full volume of Mouse Guard this fall.

DAVID PETERSEN: That’s correct. It’s going to be a prequel.

NERDAGE: Why was this the next story that you wanted to tell?

PETERSEN: In Winter, the character Celanawe, who is the Black Axe, promises to tell Liam a story about the day his paw first touched the Black Axe.  And, not to spoil anything if you haven’t read Winter, but at the end of Winter, Celanawe dies before he gets the chance to tell that story.  So this is my opportunity to give the readers that story.  With the passing of Celanawe at the end of Winter, now is the time to reflect on his life and his past and see where things came from, before we see where they go.

NERDAGE: Have you thought about where the story goes after that?

PETERSEN: Right now the plan is, after Black Axe will be another prequel, actually, “The Winter War,” which I’ve alluded to a couple different times in the Fall and Winter books.  It takes place in 1149, and it’s a massive war against the mice and the weasels.  I don’t really want to show too much of what’s behind the curtain, or let you see the marionette strings, but I have a reason for putting these stories in the order that I’m putting them in.  That now going back and seeing some of Celanawe’s past, and then, stuff that happens in the Winter War, will eventually all tie together, so when we get to what would be the fifth Mouse Guard series  — which I don’t have a title for yet, but I kind of know what I want to do with it  —  the reader will be as informed as I want them to be in order to tell that story.