Chapter 16: Fools, Cowards and Idiots.

"However, his staff were only allowed to be there to work, and went to their own homes at night - George wouldn't allow any "common folk" to live at his precious estate."

-Bill Welch, The Promised Friend (chapter 5, available here on ff dot net in the WD section)

-"FOOOOOLS!"

General Woundwort had taken a few rabbits on patrol. When he had ordered them to "take cover", one pounced onto another, one lied down as flat as she could, and the others remained motionless; nobody had actually followed his orders.

-"How am I to get anywhere with this band of ignorant fools?"

-"Perhaps," Cowslip said, "if you explained what you want from them instead of shouting all the time, they would be more receptive."

-"When I want your advice, I'll ask for it. Until then, kindly shut up."

Woundwort turned to the group of rabbits he had brought on patrol.

-"When I say "take cover" I mean "hide where the enemy can't see you! In a ditch, under a bush, anywhere!"

Even with this new information, nobody actually obeyed Woundwort's order. A few cast nervous glances at a nearby ditch, but moved. It did not take long for Woundwort to realize why.

-"Cowslip," he said menacingly, "how far away from the warren to the wires stretch out?"

-"Freedom is a lie. There is no escape..." Cowslip heard a faint growl coming from the General. "Some distance, further away than most rabbits ever go."

-"Show me where they are, so I can remove them."

Cowslip sighed, and carefully walked into the undergrowth where he showed Woundwort the snares.

-"You do realize, I hope," he explained, "that if you keep tearing these snares apart, the farmer will stop giving us flayrah? He might try something more drastic. It was a fine life until you came along and ruined everything."

-"I'm not ruining anything. I'm making you great again." He tore out another snare. "And besides, we won't be here very long."

-"What do you mean, we won't be here very long?"

-"As soon as I have a decent owsla, we will march towards the enemy. We will have revenge against the deserters, the outsiders and everyone else I'm not thinking about at the moment."

Cowslip remained silent for a few moments. After so long, he would finally be able to have revenge on Hickory, Marigold and the others.

-"Wonderful," he said.

-"Yes. What's not so wonderful are those rabbits of yours. They are really large, I'll give you that, but it's all flayrah and no muscle. And then there's that runt Silverweed. There's no way he will ever be able to do anything useful."

-"Silverweed has some special talents of his own. You should not underestimate him."

-"Talents! Telling creepy poems that everyone listens to. How can that help me win a war?"

-"He has other talents..."

-"Well, I think that's the last snare, now. Let's get back to training."

As Woundwort walked out of the undergrowth, however, he realized he was alone with Cowslip. The other rabbits had run back to the warren and could be seen eating from the pile of fresh flayrah. Woundwort ran up to them.

-"What do you think you're doing?"

The rabbits were stricken with fear at his sudden arrival.

-"Uh...when you vanished..." one of them started to say, "we assumed that...that training was over, and..."

-"Stop lying! You assumed I had been SNARED, didn't you?"

The rabbit remained silent, but the look on his face indicated that Woundwort was telling the truth.

-"Stop assuming so much. Training is never finished until I say it is. And right now, it isn't. Now TAKE COVER!"

The look on Woundwort's face absolutely terrified the other rabbits. Under most circumstances they would try to avoid the undergrowth, out of fear of being snared, but the General was even more terrifying. Most of them jumped into the ditch, which had fortunately been cleared of snares by Woundwort earlier that day.

However, loud rustling could still be heard, and a few tails were sticking out. Suddenly, one of the rabbits bolted out of the ditch screaming; several followed soon afterwards. Woundwort pounced on the last one.

-"What is going on here?"

-"A hedgehog! RUN!"

Woundwort hopped off the other rabbit and looked into the ditch. Sure enough, a lone hedgehog was sitting there with a sad look on her face.

-"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't want to hurt anyone..."

Woundwort sighed loudly at these rabbits' incompetence. They still had a lot to learn before they would be ready for a war.

-"YOU IDIOTS! Hedgehogs aren't dangerous!"

Vervain had been travelling for an entire day. He was not going anywhere in particular, he was just wandering. At first, he felt very excited to be free from Woundwort. However, as time went on, his excitement turned to worry. This was a new world to him. While wide patrols took up most of his time when he was in the owsla, he never strayed very far from Efrafa, and if anything ever went wrong, he could retreat to the warren, where he would be safe unless the General was in a bad mood. Now, he was further from the warren than he had been in seasons.

Suddenly, he saw some rustling in the bushes nearby. There was clearly some creature hiding there. He did not know what it was, and didn't really want to know. He bolted in the opposite direction. After running a while, he stopped to catch his breath, and turned around to see if the creature had followed him. Further away, he could see the dark shape of a rabbit.

Vervain felt rather embarrassed at his mistake; hopefully he didn't look too stupid now in the stranger's eyes. However, the stranger could potentially make a good travel companion, so Vervain decided to approach him.

The stranger was a lop-eared, middle-sized rabbit with pale fur. As soon as he saw Vervain, however, he immediately bowed and closed his eyes.

-"I'm sorry, Vervain sir, for running away from Efrafa, I..."

-"You're an Efrafan?"

-"Yes sir, I'm...

-"State your name and rank!"

-"Aspen, sir. Rank of corporal. I'm sorry I ran away..."

-"You ran away from Efrafa?"

-"Yes, I confess to everything, please don't kill me, I'm sorry I..."

-"Stop whining! If it makes you feel any better, I ran away too."

Aspen seemed to calm down.

-"YOU ran away?"

-"Yes...don't rub it in..."

Vervain felt disappointed. He was hoping that this stranger would be an experienced hlessi who could guide him through this new journey. Unfortunately, he turned out to be an inexperienced Efrafan officer, who underranked him and had run away from his post like a coward. Vervain started to walk away, when Aspen ran after him.

-"Uh...sir...do you think I could...uh...travel with you sir?"

Vervain thought quickly. This rabbit was a massive disappointment but, he reasoned, it would be better to travel with an idiot than to travel alone.

-"Sure, go ahead. Just remember that I outrank you, so don't go around giving me orders."

-"Does it really matter now, sir? We're not in Efrafa anymore, so I'm not a corporal anymore, and neither are you a captain."

-"Never mind. I don't feel like arguing."

-"Neither do I."

-"Then DON'T ARGUE."

The two rabbits walked silently for a long time, until at last Aspen asked:

-"Why did you leave Efrafa, anyway?"

-"I'm searching for a friend. I have to talk to her. Tell her I was wrong, and I'm sorry."

-"Yeah...I don't know what you did, but I hope you find her. Any idea where she could be?"

-"I don't know."

-"Why don't you go to the last place where you saw her?"

Vervain looked at Aspen angrily, too proud to admit that he had not thought of this himself.

-"That's exactly what I was going to do!" he lied. "Follow me."