Back at his home in their hutch, Flash and Splotch had been tormented by a
dog. Every day from before ni-Frith till around sundown, the dog spent most
of it's time jumping up on the cage wires, trying to dig under the hutch,
chewing at the wood door, and just simply barking at them. Even though it
would leave sometimes to bark at something else or just mill around the
other side of the yard, the chow/spaniel mix terrified the two small
animals nearly into insanity.
Eventually, Splotch got used to the loud barking and clawing at the wood, but Flash had always despised it. Flash, in order to keep from insanity, began to 'fight' the dog by cuffing and biting at its front paws or it's nose when it jumped up on the cage. Flash made a game of it, and soon, his fighting skills became about as good as the rabbit Bigwig. His skills continued to improve, and before he was released, Flash's fighting skills were better than those of an Owsla sentry. Twice, Flash had given the dog a scratch or a bite to make it think twice about attacking the cage. Even though it never did, Flash and Splotch both knew that if they ever made it out into the wild that they would have a good chance of fighting off small enemies.
The first elil that Flash and Splotch met out in the wild was an old and sick tomcat that had been driven off of it's farm by the younger cats. The cat hadn't eaten in hrair days, so it was willing to go after the first small creature it met. In this case, it was Splotch and Flash. The cat chased the two terrified animals until it cornered them. It then was attacked by Flash. Flash and the cat fought for a few minutes until the cat decided that it was to old to fight off a fight hungry animal and decided to find it's meal elsewhere. From then on, Flash had the willpower and the courage to fight any elil that cornered him and Splotch, save for foxes, and to never give in to death. With five stoats attacking him, however, things were different.
Splotch could not fight at all. Two stoats were surrounding him, ready to take his life. Splotch was only alive because of one fact. The fact that he was a guinea pig. The two stoats surrounding him were very hesitant to attack him merely because they hadn't seen or even heard of his kind before. They didn't want to flat out attack the guinea pig because they were afraid he might be like a rat, and give them something to remember before he went down. Nevertheless, the stoats were starting to realize that small Splotch was just plain harmless.
Horace kicked out at one of the three attacking stoats before it pinned him down. Horace was horribly injured. "Horace," Flash screamed as he jumped over a stoat and ran to help his friend. Flash kicked the stoat off of Horace before it could put up a fight, but before he knew it, Flash himself wad surrounded as all the stoats started tearing at him. Splotch came charging over, but before he could skull bash one of them, the two stoats surrounding him tackled him and started to kill him. Everything stopped, it seemed, when a sickening thud could be heard from Snowfoot's battle area. The rabbits, the guinea pig, and the stoats all turned to see the lead stoat lying flat on his back, bleeding from many places and not moving at all. They also saw Snowfoot charging powerfully to the battle scene.
"I coming comrades," yelled Snowfoot. The lead stoat had injured Snowfoot a little bit, but the large rabbit could still put up a good fight against the stoats.
"Hold him Feela," screamed the second-in command of the stoat unit, "Keep him back long enough for us to kill off these three." Feela, a female stoat, and the smallest of the stoat unit, turned away from the group and waited Snowfoot's charge.
When Snowfoot was just inches away from slamming Feela with his shoulder, Feela, who was anticipating the charge, jumped two the right, and closed in on Snowfoot's side. Snowfoot kicked her off before she could pin him and then charged her. Feela jumped to the right again, but Snowfoot, who wasn't planning to ram her in the first place, stopped his charge, and smashed Feela with the side of is head. Feela went down, but before she could get up, Snowfoot was on top of her, pinning her, cuffing and kicking her. In less than a minute, Feela lay silently in a small pool of blood. All the while, Horace, Flash, and Splotch had all been taking a beating from the eight stoats. By the time Snowfoot had finished off Feela, all but Flash had log since put up any resistance. All three looked hurt and tired.
With a loud roar, Snowfoot slammed into three of the stoats at the same time. All the stoats turned to face Snowfoot. Seeing his chance, the least injured of the group, Splotch, saw his opportunity, and made his first successful attack. Splotch slammed his head into a stoat, and sent it stumbling. Splotch attempted to scratch open its throat artery, but the stoat blocked his attack, and bit him lightly on the chest. Splotch yelped, and the stoat went in for a more powerful attack. Before it could, however, Flash tripped it and pinned it. Another Stoat came up and knocked Flash off before he could do any damage.
All off a sudden, a stoat went flying into a tree. Another let out a roar of pain. Flash turned to see Bramble the hedgehog slamming every stoat that came near him with his spiny head and his spiny tail.
The second-in-command of the stoat unit tried to bite Bramble, but Bramble turned around and slammed him with his thorny tail. The stoat reared back in pain, and Bramble turned to face a pair of charging stoats. The first stoat jumped on top of Bramble, and tried to role him over, but in the end, all the stoat got was his feet, legs, and belly covered in spikes. The stoat collapsed immediately. The other charging stoat attempted to scratch Bramble's bare stomach, but Bramble head butted him before he could do so. The stoat screamed in pain and ran off into the forest. The second-in- command attacked Bramble again, but before he could reach him, Snowfoot kicked out with his back legs and sent the stoat into a tree. The second-in- command got up and yelled out for each stoat to attack one of their opponents. The battle seamed to have taken a turn for the worst for the stoats, with one stoat running as fast as he could away into the wood and five lying in heaps on the floor. The four remaining stoats were about to attack, when the second-in-command decided that it would be utterly useless.
"Retreat," screamed the second-in-command. As soon as he said this, the four remaining stoats took off into the woods. Upon seeing that Horace was badly injured, Flash ran over to the badly injured rabbit and began to clean his wounds. Meanwhile, Splotch and Snowfoot thanked Bramble for saving their lives.
"Without you, we would have definitely reached our doom," Splotch said rather dramatically.
"All but Snowfoot, that is," said Bramble soothingly, "he could have ran away, none of them would have followed him."
"Snowfoot would never abandon us, would you Snowfoot," joked Splotch.
"Hmm, let me see, if I had ditched, I could live the life of a fighting wanderer, not go to that death-trap of a warren you've been talking about, oh, and of course I wouldn't have gotten all these scratches and bites all over me from fighting the leader and the one called Feela," Snowfoot joked. Upon seeing Splotch's bewildered look, Snowfoot then said, "I was just joking, I would never abandon you guys. Besides, if you hadn't searched for me when I was lost, I wouldn't have caught a whiff of your scent and found you."
"That's all I need to hear," said Splotch.
"Hold on a minute," said Bramble, "you're going to the Warren of Shining Wires, aren't you?"
"If that's what it's called, then yes, we are," said Splotch, "you've heard of it."
"Yes, I have heard of it," said Bramble, "and if you don't already know, it's not a death hole anymore. It's changed."
"We already know," said Snowfoot, "a few hares told as just a couple of days ago."
Splotch and Bramble continued to talk as Snowfoot made his way over to Horace to help him up. As for the downed stoats, one of them had pulled himself up and made off into the forest, but the others remained down.
"Come on, old chap, get up, I know you can," said Snowfoot to Horace. Horace wasn't mortally wounded, but the others would need to help him along in order for him to survive.
"By Frith, just get up Horace," grumbled Flash, "you're not mortally injured, you'll be just fine. Just get up, would you."
"All, right, all right," grumbled Horace. With the help of Snowfoot, Horace got to his feet, and the travelers started preparing to make off into the forest. Just when they were about to leave, however, the lead stoat got up and looked around him. Then he looked straight at Snowfoot.
"If it wasn't for this yona here, you'd all be dead by now. I'll get all of you back for this, I swear I will," the lead stoat snarled. He then turned and strutted off into the forest.
"Oh, I'm so scared," grumbled Snowfoot sarcastically, "I mean, what can he do to us, three of his fighting force are dead, and the rest probably won't fight, even if he offered them the lead job."
"I know," said Flash, "they weren't just defeated, they were pulverized. I can guarantee that if Bramble's with us that we won't see even the luminous glow of their eyes."
All of sudden a voice came from the top of a tree. "Oh, believe me, they'll get you back sometime or another." The whole group looked up to see one of the wild cats that Bramble's mom had told them about.
They stared at it for a few moments before Horace said, "what do you mean by they'll get us back sometime or another. We heard from a reliable source that there weren't many of them. Plus, we completely decimated their fighters"
"It doesn't matter how badly you defeated them, they'll still find a way to get you back," the cat said, "it probably won't be today or tomorrow, but they'll come after you in a few days, don't get me wrong."
"You mean they're actually going to try and fight us openly again," Snowfoot blabbed out, "you can't be serious, if you haven't noticed, three of them are dead. Their leader almost died at the hands of yours truly."
"Great, three of them are dead, just give the stoats all the more reason to find you and kill you," the cat said tiredly. Neither of the rabbits, Splotch, nor Bramble knew whether the cat was trying to help them or not. "Let me tell you something," the cat continued, "these forest stoats are a lot different other wild stoats. For one thing, they live in a colony just like you rabbits do in a warren. The chief stoat is large and vicious, you'd better thank Frith that he didn't come with his Owsla to fight you."
"Wait a second," Horace said, "this doesn't make sense. Stoats don't live in colonies and they don't have Owslas or chiefs. They live on their own, and sometimes they mate. They don't depend on each other for survival."
"These particular stoats do," the cat said, "I have studied these stoats for a long time. And let me tell you something. Every single one of them is a fighter, even the females. What you faced today was not their Owsla. These stoats have lived in this forest for so long that they have nearly forgotten the ways of life of their ancestors. Their "leader" that this big rabbit here almost killed was the only Owsla member of the group. If this big rabbit."
"Snowfoot," Snowfoot interrupted.
"If Snowfoot hadn't surprised him, then he would have fought a lot harder," the cat said, a little bit bothered by Snowfoot's interruption. "And in answer to your question," the cat said to Horace, "there are three tens of stoats living in this forest. There would be a lot more of them if they didn't attack every creature that moved."
"Hold on a second," Flash snapped, "you mean you saw the whole battle take place and you didn't even bother to help us!! We could have been killed. And even a moron would know that these things aren't coming back for a while. You're just trying to mess with our minds."
"For your information I would have helped you if your yona friend hadn't dropped in and joined the fight," the cat snarled, "let me tell you a story about these stoats."
"Go on, go on, we're all listening," Horace said, "we want to be out of this weird forest before nightfall, so make it snappy."
"All, right," the cat muttered, "when I was young and first discovered the stoat clan, a homba came wandering into the forest. It was a young male fox that was ready to fight to the death for its first mate. No animal, not even hedgehogs dared to cross its path. Then, it wandered straight into a stoat ambush. The brilliant thing about the ambush was that stoat scouts were watching the fox's progress and keeping the chief stoat updated with all of the fox's progress. Eventually, an ambush was put together. Like I said, the fox walked straight into the ambush, and before he knew it, hrair stoats came at him from out of the trees and bushes. Before the fox could do anything, the stoats were all over him. Problem was, the stoats had made a mistake. They thought that the homba was just a yearling that had just left its mother, not a fox that was ready to kill anything in its path. Only four members of the Owsla were with the fighting group. Well, I watched the fighting from a tree, and after a few minutes, the fox drove off the stoats. Hrair of the stoats lay dead, including three of the Owsla members, and only several were retreating. The fox, knowing that the stoats would be back with reinforcements, chased after the survivors. He took down two of them on the run and cornered a third that fought him single handedly."
"How did it do," asked Splotch inquisitively.
"How do you think it did," the cat said, "hrair stoats had been killed by that homba at the same time, so how do you think that one stoat would do against it. It died within seconds. Anyway, the fox looked for the three surviving stoats, but when he couldn't find them, he tried to get out of the forest. He was injured, you see, and he couldn't fight another group of hrair stoats. I followed him from the treetops into the forest, and after a while, he fell into an ambush of stoats again, this time it was a larger group of stoats, and those who were in it were better fighters. Well they took the fox down in a couple of minutes, and only two stoats went down with him." Seeing the five listeners looking horrified, the cat said, "you'd better get out of here as soon as possible, I'll show you the way, but you don't know these stoats. They're a lot stronger and more organized than they were when they took down the fox, so watch out, let's go."
"Hold on one second," said Flash, "who are you anyway. Do the cats in here operate the same way as the stoats, or do you keep your normal ways?"
"No, the cats in here don't thrive the same way as the stoats, because most of them once lived on farms. I'm one of the few that was born in here, and I have lived here all my life," said the cat. Then he said, "in case you're wondering, I've never fought the stoats, but I have tracked them and learned their ways of life. I'll tell you my name later. Come on, we must hurry."
On the whole long journey to the end of the forest, the stoats never came out at them. As the cat said, they were most likely trying to formulate a plan. It was nearly nightfall when they reached the edge of the woods. Then the cat said, "here you go, you should get away from the woods and go to sleep out farther in that field. Then you can travel to the warren in the morning. Keep Bramble with you until you head on out, and put up sentries as you sleep. I'll be going back to the forest, we shall meet again." And with that, the veteran cat took off into the forest.
Bramble and Flash led the way to a nice soft place in the field where they could sleep. Snowfoot was going to be the first sentry, followed by Bramble, then Flash, then Splotch and Horace.
"I wonder how those stoats got to be like that?" Splotch wondered aloud as he lay down on the soft ground.
"I guess they're ways of life were forgotten over time," said Bramble as he nursed a coupled scratches on his belly from the fight with the stoats, "my guess is that a couple pregnant stoats got lost in there, and they had their litter. But honestly, I've never heard a thing about those stoats until that cat told me. But I bet my mom knows."
"Not to change the subject, but Bramble, do you think we should just walk up to the warren and ask if we can stay there?" asked Flash, "we've heard from several animals that it was polluted with snares. There might be a chance that there still are snares there. I think we should have asked that cat about it."
"You know," said Bramble, "the warren is free of snares. That I know for sure. My mother told me a lot about that warren. But I don't know how they have been adapting to regular "wild" life. You see, their ways of real life was forgotten, just like those stoats, because the farmer fed them and protected them. I think you should patrol it and take a look at it to see if you like their ways of life first before entering it."
"Good idea," said Flash, "we'll try that. What do you think Splotch?"
"I think it'll work," Splotch replied, "but I think we should keep off the patrolling until we all get over our stoat wounds."
All three animals agreed on that, and before long, the hedgehog, the rabbit, and the guinea pig joined Horace in the world of dreams as Snowfoot kept an eye out for elil.
Eventually, Splotch got used to the loud barking and clawing at the wood, but Flash had always despised it. Flash, in order to keep from insanity, began to 'fight' the dog by cuffing and biting at its front paws or it's nose when it jumped up on the cage. Flash made a game of it, and soon, his fighting skills became about as good as the rabbit Bigwig. His skills continued to improve, and before he was released, Flash's fighting skills were better than those of an Owsla sentry. Twice, Flash had given the dog a scratch or a bite to make it think twice about attacking the cage. Even though it never did, Flash and Splotch both knew that if they ever made it out into the wild that they would have a good chance of fighting off small enemies.
The first elil that Flash and Splotch met out in the wild was an old and sick tomcat that had been driven off of it's farm by the younger cats. The cat hadn't eaten in hrair days, so it was willing to go after the first small creature it met. In this case, it was Splotch and Flash. The cat chased the two terrified animals until it cornered them. It then was attacked by Flash. Flash and the cat fought for a few minutes until the cat decided that it was to old to fight off a fight hungry animal and decided to find it's meal elsewhere. From then on, Flash had the willpower and the courage to fight any elil that cornered him and Splotch, save for foxes, and to never give in to death. With five stoats attacking him, however, things were different.
Splotch could not fight at all. Two stoats were surrounding him, ready to take his life. Splotch was only alive because of one fact. The fact that he was a guinea pig. The two stoats surrounding him were very hesitant to attack him merely because they hadn't seen or even heard of his kind before. They didn't want to flat out attack the guinea pig because they were afraid he might be like a rat, and give them something to remember before he went down. Nevertheless, the stoats were starting to realize that small Splotch was just plain harmless.
Horace kicked out at one of the three attacking stoats before it pinned him down. Horace was horribly injured. "Horace," Flash screamed as he jumped over a stoat and ran to help his friend. Flash kicked the stoat off of Horace before it could put up a fight, but before he knew it, Flash himself wad surrounded as all the stoats started tearing at him. Splotch came charging over, but before he could skull bash one of them, the two stoats surrounding him tackled him and started to kill him. Everything stopped, it seemed, when a sickening thud could be heard from Snowfoot's battle area. The rabbits, the guinea pig, and the stoats all turned to see the lead stoat lying flat on his back, bleeding from many places and not moving at all. They also saw Snowfoot charging powerfully to the battle scene.
"I coming comrades," yelled Snowfoot. The lead stoat had injured Snowfoot a little bit, but the large rabbit could still put up a good fight against the stoats.
"Hold him Feela," screamed the second-in command of the stoat unit, "Keep him back long enough for us to kill off these three." Feela, a female stoat, and the smallest of the stoat unit, turned away from the group and waited Snowfoot's charge.
When Snowfoot was just inches away from slamming Feela with his shoulder, Feela, who was anticipating the charge, jumped two the right, and closed in on Snowfoot's side. Snowfoot kicked her off before she could pin him and then charged her. Feela jumped to the right again, but Snowfoot, who wasn't planning to ram her in the first place, stopped his charge, and smashed Feela with the side of is head. Feela went down, but before she could get up, Snowfoot was on top of her, pinning her, cuffing and kicking her. In less than a minute, Feela lay silently in a small pool of blood. All the while, Horace, Flash, and Splotch had all been taking a beating from the eight stoats. By the time Snowfoot had finished off Feela, all but Flash had log since put up any resistance. All three looked hurt and tired.
With a loud roar, Snowfoot slammed into three of the stoats at the same time. All the stoats turned to face Snowfoot. Seeing his chance, the least injured of the group, Splotch, saw his opportunity, and made his first successful attack. Splotch slammed his head into a stoat, and sent it stumbling. Splotch attempted to scratch open its throat artery, but the stoat blocked his attack, and bit him lightly on the chest. Splotch yelped, and the stoat went in for a more powerful attack. Before it could, however, Flash tripped it and pinned it. Another Stoat came up and knocked Flash off before he could do any damage.
All off a sudden, a stoat went flying into a tree. Another let out a roar of pain. Flash turned to see Bramble the hedgehog slamming every stoat that came near him with his spiny head and his spiny tail.
The second-in-command of the stoat unit tried to bite Bramble, but Bramble turned around and slammed him with his thorny tail. The stoat reared back in pain, and Bramble turned to face a pair of charging stoats. The first stoat jumped on top of Bramble, and tried to role him over, but in the end, all the stoat got was his feet, legs, and belly covered in spikes. The stoat collapsed immediately. The other charging stoat attempted to scratch Bramble's bare stomach, but Bramble head butted him before he could do so. The stoat screamed in pain and ran off into the forest. The second-in- command attacked Bramble again, but before he could reach him, Snowfoot kicked out with his back legs and sent the stoat into a tree. The second-in- command got up and yelled out for each stoat to attack one of their opponents. The battle seamed to have taken a turn for the worst for the stoats, with one stoat running as fast as he could away into the wood and five lying in heaps on the floor. The four remaining stoats were about to attack, when the second-in-command decided that it would be utterly useless.
"Retreat," screamed the second-in-command. As soon as he said this, the four remaining stoats took off into the woods. Upon seeing that Horace was badly injured, Flash ran over to the badly injured rabbit and began to clean his wounds. Meanwhile, Splotch and Snowfoot thanked Bramble for saving their lives.
"Without you, we would have definitely reached our doom," Splotch said rather dramatically.
"All but Snowfoot, that is," said Bramble soothingly, "he could have ran away, none of them would have followed him."
"Snowfoot would never abandon us, would you Snowfoot," joked Splotch.
"Hmm, let me see, if I had ditched, I could live the life of a fighting wanderer, not go to that death-trap of a warren you've been talking about, oh, and of course I wouldn't have gotten all these scratches and bites all over me from fighting the leader and the one called Feela," Snowfoot joked. Upon seeing Splotch's bewildered look, Snowfoot then said, "I was just joking, I would never abandon you guys. Besides, if you hadn't searched for me when I was lost, I wouldn't have caught a whiff of your scent and found you."
"That's all I need to hear," said Splotch.
"Hold on a minute," said Bramble, "you're going to the Warren of Shining Wires, aren't you?"
"If that's what it's called, then yes, we are," said Splotch, "you've heard of it."
"Yes, I have heard of it," said Bramble, "and if you don't already know, it's not a death hole anymore. It's changed."
"We already know," said Snowfoot, "a few hares told as just a couple of days ago."
Splotch and Bramble continued to talk as Snowfoot made his way over to Horace to help him up. As for the downed stoats, one of them had pulled himself up and made off into the forest, but the others remained down.
"Come on, old chap, get up, I know you can," said Snowfoot to Horace. Horace wasn't mortally wounded, but the others would need to help him along in order for him to survive.
"By Frith, just get up Horace," grumbled Flash, "you're not mortally injured, you'll be just fine. Just get up, would you."
"All, right, all right," grumbled Horace. With the help of Snowfoot, Horace got to his feet, and the travelers started preparing to make off into the forest. Just when they were about to leave, however, the lead stoat got up and looked around him. Then he looked straight at Snowfoot.
"If it wasn't for this yona here, you'd all be dead by now. I'll get all of you back for this, I swear I will," the lead stoat snarled. He then turned and strutted off into the forest.
"Oh, I'm so scared," grumbled Snowfoot sarcastically, "I mean, what can he do to us, three of his fighting force are dead, and the rest probably won't fight, even if he offered them the lead job."
"I know," said Flash, "they weren't just defeated, they were pulverized. I can guarantee that if Bramble's with us that we won't see even the luminous glow of their eyes."
All of sudden a voice came from the top of a tree. "Oh, believe me, they'll get you back sometime or another." The whole group looked up to see one of the wild cats that Bramble's mom had told them about.
They stared at it for a few moments before Horace said, "what do you mean by they'll get us back sometime or another. We heard from a reliable source that there weren't many of them. Plus, we completely decimated their fighters"
"It doesn't matter how badly you defeated them, they'll still find a way to get you back," the cat said, "it probably won't be today or tomorrow, but they'll come after you in a few days, don't get me wrong."
"You mean they're actually going to try and fight us openly again," Snowfoot blabbed out, "you can't be serious, if you haven't noticed, three of them are dead. Their leader almost died at the hands of yours truly."
"Great, three of them are dead, just give the stoats all the more reason to find you and kill you," the cat said tiredly. Neither of the rabbits, Splotch, nor Bramble knew whether the cat was trying to help them or not. "Let me tell you something," the cat continued, "these forest stoats are a lot different other wild stoats. For one thing, they live in a colony just like you rabbits do in a warren. The chief stoat is large and vicious, you'd better thank Frith that he didn't come with his Owsla to fight you."
"Wait a second," Horace said, "this doesn't make sense. Stoats don't live in colonies and they don't have Owslas or chiefs. They live on their own, and sometimes they mate. They don't depend on each other for survival."
"These particular stoats do," the cat said, "I have studied these stoats for a long time. And let me tell you something. Every single one of them is a fighter, even the females. What you faced today was not their Owsla. These stoats have lived in this forest for so long that they have nearly forgotten the ways of life of their ancestors. Their "leader" that this big rabbit here almost killed was the only Owsla member of the group. If this big rabbit."
"Snowfoot," Snowfoot interrupted.
"If Snowfoot hadn't surprised him, then he would have fought a lot harder," the cat said, a little bit bothered by Snowfoot's interruption. "And in answer to your question," the cat said to Horace, "there are three tens of stoats living in this forest. There would be a lot more of them if they didn't attack every creature that moved."
"Hold on a second," Flash snapped, "you mean you saw the whole battle take place and you didn't even bother to help us!! We could have been killed. And even a moron would know that these things aren't coming back for a while. You're just trying to mess with our minds."
"For your information I would have helped you if your yona friend hadn't dropped in and joined the fight," the cat snarled, "let me tell you a story about these stoats."
"Go on, go on, we're all listening," Horace said, "we want to be out of this weird forest before nightfall, so make it snappy."
"All, right," the cat muttered, "when I was young and first discovered the stoat clan, a homba came wandering into the forest. It was a young male fox that was ready to fight to the death for its first mate. No animal, not even hedgehogs dared to cross its path. Then, it wandered straight into a stoat ambush. The brilliant thing about the ambush was that stoat scouts were watching the fox's progress and keeping the chief stoat updated with all of the fox's progress. Eventually, an ambush was put together. Like I said, the fox walked straight into the ambush, and before he knew it, hrair stoats came at him from out of the trees and bushes. Before the fox could do anything, the stoats were all over him. Problem was, the stoats had made a mistake. They thought that the homba was just a yearling that had just left its mother, not a fox that was ready to kill anything in its path. Only four members of the Owsla were with the fighting group. Well, I watched the fighting from a tree, and after a few minutes, the fox drove off the stoats. Hrair of the stoats lay dead, including three of the Owsla members, and only several were retreating. The fox, knowing that the stoats would be back with reinforcements, chased after the survivors. He took down two of them on the run and cornered a third that fought him single handedly."
"How did it do," asked Splotch inquisitively.
"How do you think it did," the cat said, "hrair stoats had been killed by that homba at the same time, so how do you think that one stoat would do against it. It died within seconds. Anyway, the fox looked for the three surviving stoats, but when he couldn't find them, he tried to get out of the forest. He was injured, you see, and he couldn't fight another group of hrair stoats. I followed him from the treetops into the forest, and after a while, he fell into an ambush of stoats again, this time it was a larger group of stoats, and those who were in it were better fighters. Well they took the fox down in a couple of minutes, and only two stoats went down with him." Seeing the five listeners looking horrified, the cat said, "you'd better get out of here as soon as possible, I'll show you the way, but you don't know these stoats. They're a lot stronger and more organized than they were when they took down the fox, so watch out, let's go."
"Hold on one second," said Flash, "who are you anyway. Do the cats in here operate the same way as the stoats, or do you keep your normal ways?"
"No, the cats in here don't thrive the same way as the stoats, because most of them once lived on farms. I'm one of the few that was born in here, and I have lived here all my life," said the cat. Then he said, "in case you're wondering, I've never fought the stoats, but I have tracked them and learned their ways of life. I'll tell you my name later. Come on, we must hurry."
On the whole long journey to the end of the forest, the stoats never came out at them. As the cat said, they were most likely trying to formulate a plan. It was nearly nightfall when they reached the edge of the woods. Then the cat said, "here you go, you should get away from the woods and go to sleep out farther in that field. Then you can travel to the warren in the morning. Keep Bramble with you until you head on out, and put up sentries as you sleep. I'll be going back to the forest, we shall meet again." And with that, the veteran cat took off into the forest.
Bramble and Flash led the way to a nice soft place in the field where they could sleep. Snowfoot was going to be the first sentry, followed by Bramble, then Flash, then Splotch and Horace.
"I wonder how those stoats got to be like that?" Splotch wondered aloud as he lay down on the soft ground.
"I guess they're ways of life were forgotten over time," said Bramble as he nursed a coupled scratches on his belly from the fight with the stoats, "my guess is that a couple pregnant stoats got lost in there, and they had their litter. But honestly, I've never heard a thing about those stoats until that cat told me. But I bet my mom knows."
"Not to change the subject, but Bramble, do you think we should just walk up to the warren and ask if we can stay there?" asked Flash, "we've heard from several animals that it was polluted with snares. There might be a chance that there still are snares there. I think we should have asked that cat about it."
"You know," said Bramble, "the warren is free of snares. That I know for sure. My mother told me a lot about that warren. But I don't know how they have been adapting to regular "wild" life. You see, their ways of real life was forgotten, just like those stoats, because the farmer fed them and protected them. I think you should patrol it and take a look at it to see if you like their ways of life first before entering it."
"Good idea," said Flash, "we'll try that. What do you think Splotch?"
"I think it'll work," Splotch replied, "but I think we should keep off the patrolling until we all get over our stoat wounds."
All three animals agreed on that, and before long, the hedgehog, the rabbit, and the guinea pig joined Horace in the world of dreams as Snowfoot kept an eye out for elil.
