Once again, the Meadowlands were stretched before them. Once again, Judy and Nick sat upon a flat rock in the midday sun, passing berries to each other from pouches made of folded leaves tied with strips of pliable bark.
Judy shielded her eyes as she looked out across the valley where they had met the wolf. She knew that it was not their destination. Instead, they would be heading west into unexplored territory to decide once and for all whether the Meadowlands were safe.
"Judy." Nick's voice came through a mouthful of blueberries. He seemed to pick and choose them from the pouches, hoarding them for himself. "Your father's will is to move here. I am no farm fox, but…"
"But, Nick, we must obey. He is leader of our clan. He and the elders. The land we farm has thin soil, and will soon yield nothing. These lands are yet fertile. I hope that we can come here." As she spoke, she continued to stare into the distance. Occasionally she popped a strawberry into her mouth and chewed.
"What else do you hope?" Nick asked, ears raised curiously.
"I hope…" Judy had to pause to think. What did she hope for? Peace? Love? What would happen when all was safe? Would she stay with the clan or strike out on her own? It had been a long time since there was contact with any other rabbit clan. Judy was unsure whether a potential made even existed. And where that left Nick… she didn't know.
"Nick, I hope that we can both be happy one day. That we can both find something to keep us happy."
The words were unclear on purpose. Didn't they already each have that something?
The soft breeze from the east seemed to blow as if directing their passage. Further trek west revealed even more broad, flat plans, though untamed by the paw of a farming clan.
"Do you think we'll find more wolves?" Judy asked, pressing her paw to a birch tree as if to channel the memory of her mother's grove.
"I can't say. I hope to never see another wolf again." Nick replied. He kept low, on all fours with his head barely above the grassline. Packs tied to his back carried provisions and water. "Judy, wait. I smell something."
Judy again cursed the relative weakness of her sense of smell compared to Nick's. She smiled wryly and stroked his back. "Ever the alarm. What is it?"
"It is… char. Burn. Like a fire pit to roast carrots and tell tales."
Fire? Judy's eyes narrow. Fire meant intelligence. Even worse, fire also meant the wanton, callous whims of Nature's Doe, the rabbit from which all had spawned. Which was it this time? Judy crouched low and follow Nick toward the smell, the end of his tail like a guiding beacon through the bushes and tall grass. Patiently, she scanned the horizon for signs of smoke, but found none. No fire seemed to burn at present.
Nick stopped in front of her, his tail signaling her to do the same with a slightly up-down motion of the tip. She held her position, and then she saw the black tip of a tree standing out against the blue-grey sky to the northwest.
"I see it, Nick. Do you smell mammals?" Judy asked, and her paw reached out to grip the end of Nick's tail gently.
"No mammals but you and I." Nick answered. He continued walking a moment later, pulling Judy along. As they neared the tree, its true form become clear. It was not a tree. It was a structure. There were several of them, burned out homes, the skeletal lines of their construction made that evident. Huge swaths of black, charred ground surrounded the charcoal bones of what must have been a village.
For once, both Nick and Judy were speechless. The village looked like enough to house dozens of rabbits, though not a clan as large as Clan Hopps. They could see the echoes of paths between the destroyed structures, but there was no indication of what could have done this.
"Nick. A lightflash? Or… Or someone…" Judy held her breath. The strong, flight-inducing scent of burning surrounded her. She knew logically that she was in no danger, but a cold trepidation crept into her body.
Nick didn't answer. He didn't know. But he sensed Judy's apprehension and stayed close to her, ensuring that his body was continually touching hers in some small way. The fur on his back stood on end and her swooped his head left and right, anticipating some unknown danger.
"This is a dark place. I feel… I almost feel as if this happened recently…" Nick's voice was soft. He was trying to stay quiet, just in case.
"Then we will work to know." Judy decided. She moved away from Nick and caught his eyes as she did. She pointed to another structure. "Go. Search." She commanded, and Nick did so. He pushed his nose through collapsed piles of burned wood and ash, searching for anything that would give some small hint of information.
Meanwhile, Judy investigated the remnants of another structure. Marks in the ground seemed to indicate the former presence of bed boxes and furniture. The ashen husk was once lived in, and she was flooded with thoughts of something so terrible happening to her own village. How could so many Hopps Clan bunnies escape the predatory licks of a hungry flame? She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head to resist the horrible temptation of that line of thinking.
Judy slowly pushed against a burnt pile of wood, fearing at first to touch it as if it were still hot. As it tumbled aside, she looked at the space beneath it and the area around it. There were scratches. Claw marks, they were unmistakable.
"Nick!" She called, turning her head toward him.
Nick came running, darting over and ducking under fallen lengths of burn trees.
"Nick, look. Scratches. Put your paw there. How big are they?"
Judy watched as Nick put his paw down amidst the scratches. There were four lines, and they were spaced more broadly apart than the shiny black nails on Nick's paws.
"A wolf, Judy?"
"No… No… What wolf knows fire? No, it can't be…"
"Then what?"
Judy wished she had an answer. Instead, she lied.
"I… I do not know."
"I saw more such marks in the other structure. The claws of wolves. Fearsome and many, or… Or one and berserk."
"Either is bad. This is a bad place, Nick. We should continue on."
Judy took Nick by the strap on his back and pulled him with her away from the wreckage of the village. She headed westward still, head hung low and she pondered what it all meant for the Clan.
Nick knew this even without asking.
After an hour of overland travel, the beginnings of a mountain range became visible. It had been on the horizon for some time, but the hills were growing more steep and rocky.
"For a moment, here, we will rest." Judy's instructions came as a surprise to Nick. They hadn't traveled far from the burnt village. Nevertheless, he curled up at her feet as she sat in the grass and the shadow of a grey boulder.
"Let me think… Nick, do you know how father knew of the Meadowlands? How should he know of this place where he has never been?"
Nick spoke without lifting his head. "Perhaps the elders told him, for they are wizened and know much."
"No… I think not. Nick, do you remember the Bin-Kie Clan?"
"The traders. They came to the Hopps Clan last… some six summers past, yes. Jolly mammals, them."
"Yes… They know much of the world through their travels. I heard from a Bin-Kie girl they had traded with many sorts of mammals, mammals of which I have not seen not heard. Gnu. Buffalo. Mammals with great horns, tall as trees."
"It must be so. If they know these lands, was that their village?"
Judy shook her head. "It couldn't be. I smelled no Clan Stones and saw none placed around the village. A rabbit clan would be foolish not to identify its land with such stones."
Nick shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling listlessly as he rested his muzzle on his paws. "Then I have no other guess."
A sudden rustling broke the quiet moment. Nick and Judy flew into response, Judy pulling her sling from her waist and Nick raising to stand on all fours and sniffing about. Something was coming out of the grass near the edge of a forest that flanked the beginnings of the mountain behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Judy saw a cave in the mountainside that she hadn't noticed. Caves meant few things, but all of them were bad.
"Nick… Nick, stay back." Judy whispered. She crouched and thrust herself up into the air, landing atop the boulder they had been resting against. She took a stone from a pouch and pulled the sling back, waiting quietly for the creature to show itself.
Out of the grass toddled the tiny body of a wolf cub. It was white-grey, dappled with dirty-looking patches of darker fur that, perhaps, it would outgrow to match the white pelt of its mother.
As Nick and Judy watched, the cub yipped and its tail began to wag. It did not back away in fear. Instead, it came toward them, sniffing with excitement.
A moment later, a familiar white shape moved out of the grass and Judy almost let fly her stone. It was the mother wolf from their last scouting in the Meadowlands. She was looking better, stronger, though Judy could see her walk with the slightest of limps. She called out to the cub, her attention on it rather than Nick and Judy.
"Kida, no no." She said, padding toward the cub. She circled around it and licked its head. "Out, no. Danger. Why do you go… Cub…" Her lips were curled into a smile, some slight amusement in her voice. Then she raised her head, and her body flinched when she caught sight of Judy. Her jaw fell and her eyes widened. Quickly, she circled herself around the cub and turned her head. When she looked again, her expression softened.
"You! You were… kind rabbit. Are you still?" Her eyes darted around, searching for Nick's red fur amidst the light green grass. She knew him to be near. The painful memory of their last encounter ensured she would never forget.
Judy held the sling for a few moments. Then she lowered it, and she felt the feeling of guilt return to her belly.
"Come out, Nick, come out. Be kind." Judy said. Nick poked his nose from the tall grass as Judy jumped down from the boulder.
"You live here?" Nick asked the wolf. He sat on his haunches.
The wolf remained in a protective position. Her cub peeked between her legs at the two unfamiliar creatures.
"I try." The wolf said, a hint of dejection in her tone. "Do you… do you hunt me? My cubs?"
Judy swallowed. "No, no…" She tried to assure the wolf, but she knew it was little consolation. The cub was small, small like one of her baby siblings, and she felt bad.
"Wolf, you… Wolf, tell us, tell us of the black village." Judy knew this was her one chance to make sense of the village. Perhaps the wolf looked at her. She looked at Nick for reassurance, but he was staring at the wolf and her cub. He was smiling.
Finally, the wolf laid down around her cub. She kept it between her forelegs, and she licked and groomed it carefully.
"Kida, bad you leave the cave. Sisters do not leave. Why you, always you?" It was the voice and the words of a concerned mother, like Bonnie's voice when Nick and Judy were still young.
Kida didn't reply with words, only yips and little noises that were new to Nick and Judy. He rolled onto his back and his mother licked at his belly.
"The village… Please." Judy repeated.
The wolf nodded her head. She turned it to Judy and spoke. "Village of rabbits, once. Moons past since it burn black."
Judy narrowed her eyes. "I saw marks, wolf. Maybe claws, maybe your claws. Did you attack the village? Do you use fire of make, or… or of lightflash, to help you kill the rabbits?" She was suspicious. The marks were wolf marks, they had to be.
The wolf knit her brow in confusion. "No. I only smell fire, see smoke. My home is cave. My pack…" She caught herself, and stopped talking briefly. She closed her eyes as if in pain. "Old pack home is forest, deep in forest. There trees have marks of territory. Claws."
Nick pieced this all together in his head, passively listening as Judy and the wolf spoke. So the wolf was innocent, or so she said. Could it have been her old pack that attacked the rabbits? There were no signs of any rabbits. How could she know so little of she lived so close? He nudged against Judy's arm as if to encourage further inquiry.
"This is all you know? All you saw? Have you cause to lie, wolf? For you fear my stone and my sling? You fear my fox?"
The wolf sighed. She nosed at her cub. "Go cave. Home. I return soon." She ordered. The cub seemed to understand, because it got up and began to toddle off toward the cave in the distance, where Nick and Judy could spy the pointed tips of four little ears peeking out from over a pile of rocks in front.
"I fear you." The wolf said. "You are kind rabbit. Not all rabbits so kind. My pack eat on bugs, and berry, and small small mammal. Never rabbit. Yet rabbit come deep into forest and from all sides they attack. All rabbit knows is war. All rabbit even you. But you know war… and you know peace…"
Judy tried to make sense of the statement, not for the different in their vocabulary, but in the impossibility of what the wolf was telling her. How could rabbits wage war? Her Hopps Clan lived a life of farming and defense, little else. And these wolves, these wolves who were gentler than most, they were attacked? How could such a thing happen? Judy wasn't sure if she could believe this.
"Your words are known, and only maybe believed. Tell me once more wolf, and I will go. What of the black village? Do you know more?"
The wolf rested her head down between her paws. Her ears went flat, and she whined. It was the whine of fear, the same as when she had been struck and when Judy had been poised to kill her.
"Black village… is cause of Whiteflock."
Judy felt her jaw drop, she tried to concentrate. Sheep?
"Whiteflock come one day, with fire. They come with spear. I lay low in the grass… And see the smoke, hear the fight, know the blood, smell the blood. When all is passed, I go to village, I go, brave, to see. No wolf claws those marks. Those marks from spears. Whiteflock spears, sharp as fang.
"Judy! Judy Hopps!" A sudden voice rang out before Judy and Nick had the opportunity to digest the wolf's story. Jolted into fear, the wolf raised to her paws and began to growl in the direction of the noise.
Was it an attack? The rest of the wolf's pack coming to kill her and Nick in an ambush? Judy didn't know what to think. She was on the verge of panic, and raised her sling again.
A young bunny came running through the tall grass, his vest bobbing and flapping as he ran. "Judy!" He called, waving his arms. He stopped meters away and rested his paws on his knees, gasping for air.
"Peter! Peter why are you here?" Judy demanded, looking between the wolf and her brother. Nick stayed close to Judy, his fur bristling in anticipation of a fight between the wolf and his family. His fight response began to overtake him.
But Judy's paw fell onto his neck and stroke slowly, calmingly.
"Father is ill. He grows ill. The Clan prepares to move, and will soon. Before you get back. I was sent ahead to tell you this." Peter said between gasps. He blinked as he noticed the wolf, like it had suddenly appeared there, then instantly fell back onto his bottom.
"W-wolf!" He shouted, and shielded himself with his arms.
The wolf tilted her head quizzically, her lips lowering from their teeth-showing scowl, and sat on her haunches as Nick had been before.
Judy couldn't help but laugh, but she fought the urge to do so loudly. Peter's news was grave indeed.
"You came alone, so far… I'm proud of you, Peter. On the way home I will teach you to pick the perfect sling stone."
Peter nodded, tail shivering as he pushed himself backwards with his legs to put a few more inches between him and the wolf.
"Blue eyes…" He whispered, "Blue like Bonnie…"
The wolf looked away. She turned, and her tail swished.
"Wait!" Judy pleaded, and the wolf paused.
"The Whiteflock. Is it near?"
"Maybe. Too far to smell. Maybe north."
Judy nodded, and thought. A flock of sheep had traveled so far to seek out and raze a village of rabbits? Sheep had used spears to emulate the claws of wolves?
The Hopps Clan did not have relations with sheep. Judy knew sheep to be herbivores, like her, and little else.
A pit seemed to fill her stomach. How could a sheep conjure up a greater dread in her than wolves?