Chapter 7

Rukkar was moving south with his one thousand vermin. He had appointed new trackers, a fox called Marshsnout and a pine marten called Riptooth. They were scouting ahead somewhere. Rukkar now always stayed by the stream. It was familiar to him, and if he encountered any random searats he could round them up and add them to his horde. Suddenly, Rukkar heard shouts coming from up ahead, and seconds later Riptooth came flying into camp.

"Gorvim, Chief! Down the stream, they got Marshsnout, an' I'm only here cos' I ran as fast as I can, Chief!"

Blueback and some of the Gorvim appeared from behind some bushes, firing arrows and stones. In seconds, five rats and a weasel were dead, pinned to trees or other vermin.

"Charge!" shouted Blueback.

And charge they did, with short swords and long spears everywhere, running into tents and killing all of Rukkar's vermin inside. Other Gorvim hid behind bushes or trees and used bows and arrows. Rukkar grabbed his sword and joined the fighting. Riptooth hid up in a tree and sniped several Gorvim before he was hit by a slingstone and fell out of the tree. His flailing limbs knocked several vermin of both sides to the ground. His mate Takki found him and dragged him into a tent filled with dead vermin that was serving as a kind of morgue.

"Ew, it stinks in here, Takki!" said Riptooth. It did smell of sweat and blood and... ferret?

Within moments they found a young ferret hiding behind the corpse of another ferret. Riptooth and Takki were confused.

"Why are yer here, ferret?" asked Riptooth.

"Go away, pine… thingies!"

"We are pine martens, not pine thingies, ferret. Wot's yer name?"

"I said, go away, pine martens, nobeast cares about Yura, an' don't even bother pretending yew do!"

"Fine, we'll go away, Yura."

Hehe, that'll teach those clods not to mess wi- blech!"

Riptooth had pushed a stack of dead stoats on top of the ferret.

"Don't insult us, young un, or we'll push more dead stoats on top of yer!"

"Wot are yer tryin' ter do, suffocate me? Idi- ew!"

Takki had pushed another stack of dead stoats on top of Yura.

"There's no more stacks of dead stoats here, should we pu- blech!"

The vermin outside had thrown yet another stack of dead stoats, this time on top of Riptooth. Another stack followed, landing on Takki. Yura laughed.

"Hehe, clods! "

Riptooth and Takki dug themselves out of the dead stoats fairly quickly, and then began throwing rat carcasses at Yura, who ran around the tent, dodging them.

"You can't catch me, clo- oof!"

Yura had run straight into a pile of weasels, and the pine martens began burying he ferret under more dead weasels. Yura dug himself out and retaliated with a fox. After that, it was just a free-for-all, with at least two dead vermin flying through the air at any given time. In about five minutes, the pine martens and ferret were tuckered out, and finally came out of the tent. Several nearby ferrets ran away from the stinky trio, and until they bathed in the stream, the three vermin were left alone. Riptooth was demoted because everybeast could smell him from fifty metres away, and the trio got their own tent. However, they had to forage for themselves. Hunting was nearly impossible, as everything they tried to kill just ran or flew off. They ended up climbing a bunch of trees, searching for bird eggs. Then, they would climb the tallest tree in the area and shoot arrows from there.

One night, a daring weasel and two rats rolled the trio into the stream. They immediately woke up.

"Glub glub, blub!" Takki tried to say something but failed, and then she surfaced.

Yura surfaced and immediately said "Clods!"

The ferret swam to shore and then was pushed back into the stream by the big weasel.

"Why'd yer do that?"

The weasel replied,

"Cos' yer stink like fifty stoats who haven't bathed in two seasons!"

"Wot? We don't stink that bad!"

Riptooth had surfaced a few seconds later than Yura.

"Yes we do," said Takki.

"Really? I can't- Wait, I can't smell anything!"

Riptooth felt around his snout and found something very slimy that seemed to be attached to him.

"I can't pull it off!" he shouted and began thrashing around until finally, with a gross squelching sound, the thing pulled off.

"Now there's something sticky there!"

Riptooth looked at his paw and discovered something.

"The thing was sucking me blood!"

"Wait, is there- There's another one!"

Riptooth ripped it off his snout, and Takki and Yura saw the two slimy things crawling on Riptooth's paw.

"Wot are those?" asked the young ferret.

"I don't know, what should we call them?" answered Takki.

"Er… leeches!"

"Leeches? Why leeches?"

"I don't know, it just popped inter me head."

"Leeches, I like it! Alright, those slimy things are now called leeches- Riptooth, where did yew put them?"

"I threw them on the bank, an' I'm watchin' them wriggle around… Wait, they stopped."

"We should go back to- Where did the weasel an' the rats go?"

"I don't know, let's go back to the tent an' sleep."

"Aye, we should."

And they went back to the tent and slept.