Disclaimer: I do not own Watership Down
So yeah, this chapter is pretty much an action chapter from start to finish. I guess that's good when the whole movie of Watership Down was talking and then action.
Tacca didn't really get what all the panic was about, but it didn't matter what his young mind processed as the older Buck's knew and one of them, Blackcurrant, was pushing him to move to the left side of the tracks.
The kestrel finally went into action diving down and going for them. Kestrel's were small birds, but even small birds eat other animals, mostly mice. What made this kestrel different from the rest of its kind was it was willing to go for a rabbit, the small kitten Tacca.
A kestrel would never hunt a rabbit, that was more what the hawk's and vulture's do.
The kestrel drew in close, raising its claws to grab Tacca. Unfortunately for it at the last moment Tacca fell into a hole causing its grip to be for the air.
Being a small bird fluttering at a small altitude wasn't wise. It quickly rose high up until it could see Frith face-to-face. While it was seeing the wonders rabbits could only dream of, the rabbits were getting close to their salvation, the train heading their way.
If they could get behind the train before the kestrel dived close to them they could stop it from grabbing Tacca.
There it was in full view, the light that could make a rabbit go thrawn. Fortunately for the trio it was too bright outside for them to even notice the light from the train. All they knew was it would help them stay alive if not for another day.
Ebony looked in the sky to see where the kestrel was but it wasn't in his line of sight.
"Blackcurrant, do you see the kestrel? Is it coming down?"
Blackcurrant looked all over the sky while his nose twitched trying to find that sneaky elil. Either the kestrel left or its species was becoming more elil than a homba.
Their running went to a halt when their noises trilled. This was a familiar smell, an alert to the presence of an elil. Ebony could tell there was one in hiding. He saw its paw near a small tree with flay thistles all over the branches. It was big, it was gray with a few spots of white, and its talons were long and black.
Blackcurrant grabbed Tacca in his paws before turning around; Ebony following him.
"There's no way to run any further and there's nowhere to hide with a flying predator. What should we do, Blackcurrant-Rah?"
Blackcurrant couldn't vacillate between facing the wolf or facing the kestrel. He decided not to look at either; focused completely on the train. Like the rumbling in the ground from heavy machines mowing over their burrows, his brain hatched an idea.
"Tacca, run as fast as you can to the left side."
Tacca followed the older Buck's directions veering left at full speed, but stopped when he saw Blackcurrant unmoving.
"Aren't you going to come with me?"
"Get back! Get Back!" Blackcurrant yelled at him.
Tacca dashed back to where Blackcurrant was sitting stolidly. He just thought the bigger rabbit was taking a break due to him lugging his hefty body around all over the landscape. When he finally was inches away from him, the older Buck bobbed his head down and plowed into the smaller kitten.
Tacca was pushed and rolled in the middle of the track.
Tacca didn't know himself how the wheels didn't crush him on his way there. What he did know was his guardians were running again and the kestrel was fluttering just a foot away from him after missing another chance to grip his talons on his soft body.
Once that pain in his head from being pushed subsided, he looked the other way to see the wheels going by with a fleeting sight of space wide enough for him to run through. It was clear now Blackcurrant saw this and knew his small body could fit through it before the wheels crushed him.
He didn't dare move. He was smart enough to know his body and how he wasn't springy enough to get through any space before the wheels crushed him. His best choice of action was to wait until the train was gone; the elil's both bored and going somewhere else to hunt.
Ebony and Blackcurrant were nearly captured by the wolf. Praise to Frith, the trauma of losing his fellow Buck's and does to the foolishness of one former friend and witnessing their deaths distracted Ebony from how tired he was; he wasn't sure what was helping Blackcurrant move so swiftly.
"Now! Follow me now, Ebony-Ray!" Blackcurrant shouted.
They bobbed their heads down and jumped low, their paws stretched out and feeling the wind against their fur as the jaws of the wolf snapped and missed them.
Their entrance into the rail tracks was less of a painful experience than Tacca's. The moment they were in they moved forthwith down their straight path they encompassed with dozens of wheels passing by every second.
Suddenly, from another gap, sharp teeth snapped at Ebony!
Ebony was fortunate the wolf wasn't smart enough to bite him from behind and that he was too big to fit through the gap, otherwise he would have clenched his soft flesh in his awaiting fangs and drag him out to be his dinner.
The wolf trekked by the train trying to find a way to capture them; not knowing the rabbits had a moving locomotive barricading them from his fangs.
They finally found Tacca, curled up with his ears flopped down, shivering and quivering from the fear of the wolf and the noise of the train.
"I know things aren't easy," Ebony told the kitten, "but we can help you escape. Do you trust us?"
Tacca's eyes fleeted open to have a quick glimpse of them before he shuddered them shut.
"I don't know! You're both wise but your scary."