AUTHOR'S NOTE: due to real life, there will be a short break following this chapter. The next chapter will likely be posted on 12 March. Sorry about that.

Chapter 215: The Darkhaven Challenges.

"keep your distance for him, okay? I don't quite trust him."

-ShadowJinxed22, Wounds heal to scars

General Woundwort was on the training grounds, supervising the fighting simulation. He was positively surprised with how well things were going. He was impressed with the way everyone was doing; they would soon be ready to fight the war. The only thing preventing him from attacking the outsiders was the fact that he didn't know where they lived; just a minor technicality, should be resolved soon.

Much to his annoyance, however, he was suddenly interrupted by Granite.

-"General Woundwort sir, there's..."

-"Granite! What are you doing here? Didn't I send you on patrol with Shale?"

-"Yes sir, but there's someone who wishes to see you. She used to live here for a while, then left, and has now returned."

-"Left?" Spartina pretended to be furious. "I didn't leave. I was abandoned."

-"I'm not interested in such pointless details," Woundwort said, before turning to the doe. "I have three questions for you. One: what's your name?"

-"Spartina."

-"You are to address me as SIR!"

Spartina did not reply.

-"Anyway, second question," Woundwort continued: "do you know where we can find the outsiders?"

-"No...sir."

-"All right. This last question isn't really a question, but an order: ditch the feather! I have already told everyone else to do so, now it's your turn."

-"Why?"

-"Because I say so. If you are to survive here, you are going to have to learn to obey orders."

Spartina placed her front paw on the feather at the base of her ear. As she stared at the General, an idea formed into her mind: she would try to test him.

-"I've had that thing ever since I was a kitten. It's like a part of myself, I feel like I'm in control of my body, and I'm vulnerable without it."

-"I don't care. It goes OFF."

-"No."

-"That's not a request, that's an order."

-"It stays right where it is! I'll fight you in single combat for it!"

-"Fight me? How dare you! Do you know who I am?"

-"Why sure, you're called Woundwort. Or at least that's what Granite said."

-"That's GENERAL Woundwort! As the leader of this great warren, what I say goes. If you disagree, too bad, your opinion doesn't matter. I don't have any more time to waste arguing with you. This is your last chance: take off the feather, or I will have my owsla forcefully remove it."

-"The feather is staying."

-"As you wish, we'll do this the hard way. Campion, Orchis, you know what to do."

Actually, Campion did not know what to do. He was not paying attention to what Woundwort was saying; instead his mind was filled with worries regarding the bird encounter, this mysterious new stranger, and the best way to recruit Aspen. He would simply have to follow Orchis and hope for the best. However, he soon tripped on a pebble, and Spartina was able to quickly get away. Orchis had taken a shortcut behind some barrels, but as he jumped in front of Spartina, she ran in the opposite direction, kicking dirt in his eyes.

As Woundwort saw this, his attitude slightly changed. While he was still opposed to letting Spartina keep her feather, he was rather impressed with the way she had escaped. She might be useful in his owsla in the upcoming war against the outsiders. After Orchis and Campion made a few additional attempts at apprehending her, and failed, she hopped back to him.

-"The feather stays," she said firmly.

-"On one condition."

-"What would that be?"

-"You go hunting for elil, alone, and bring back proof of your success." Escaping was one important skill, she also had to be a good fighter to earn a spot in his owsla; elil would make decent targets. If she failed, then she would likely die, and she wouldn't have been worthy of being part of the owsla anyway.

Spartina was left with mixed feelings. Her defiance was part of a plan to destabilize Woundwort, but it had worked too well. Now, he had sent her on a mission; while she was optimistic that she could pull it off, this would delay the rest of her plan.

-"I can go right now, if you wish." The sooner she started, she sooner she would be finished.

-"Yes, go."

As Spartina hopped away, Woundwort returned to supervising his owsla; surprisingly, they were all still hard at work, training. However, it did not take long before he was interrupted again, as he saw Lady May approach; she looked angry. He did his best to pretend not to see her, hoping she wouldn't be coming to whine to him about something unimportant, as she usually did.

-"Yo, uglyface!" she suddenly shouted.

Woundwort sighed. Why did she have to be so nasty all the time?

-"What now?"

-"I just wanted to thank you for the recent flayrah delivery."

Wait, she was actually being polite? That was a first; perhaps there was hope for her after all.

-"It's no trouble. I hope it meets your satisfaction."

-"It does! I appreciate it."

She was about to hop away, but she soon turned back.

-"Also, you were supposed to find someone to groom me, other than that creepy doe. I'm still waiting."

Of course there was a catch. She wasn't being polite to him because he deserved it, but because she wanted something from him. He glanced around the crowd, and recruited the first rabbit he could find for the task.

-"Kurai, you go and groom her."

-"With pleasure, General," Kurai replied with a smile.

Lady May led Kurai over to the mirror, so that she could look at herself while he groomed her. It was in a secluded corner, so they would not be interrupted. Kurai started by sniffing the fur to determine which part needed to be untangled first; after a minute or so of this, he got to work.

-"You know, you're actually pretty handsome," Lady May said. "Your fur colour is really nice. If you weren't a wild rabbit, you would likely win many prizes."

-"You have a big knot here, I will have to use my claws to untangle it."

Lady May was disappointed, he had not reacted to her flirting. This reminded her a bit of her previous attempts at getting Orchis to notice her; that had not gone well either. She really had rotten luck finding a good-looking rabbit to mate with. The only one who seemed to actually like her was also the ugliest...

She was snapped out of her thoughts as she felt hard pulling around her neck.

-"You may be going a bit too hard right now."

Kurai mumbled something, an apology, she thought (hoped). But he did not stop pulling her fur. In fact, he started tugging even harder, even ripping off a small patch. He made contact with the bare skin, stroking it with his sharp claws. This was highly uncomfortable for Lady May, not to mention terrifying, it seemed that any moment, Kurai might perhaps slit her throat. She tried to flee, but with his other front paw, he maintained a firm grip onto her, there was no escape.

-"Stop, please!" she begged.

-"They all say that at some point," he whispered chillingly in her ear. "But I never do."

Lady May was completely panicked. This was it, she was surely going to die. In desperation, she gave one final kick with her hind legs. This was enough for her to free herself from Kurai's grip, but this ripped off a large a chunk of fur. Before he could tackle her again, she ran away squealing. Her fur may have been damaged again, but at least she was alive.

Spartina returned early that evening, just as training had ended and Woundwort was dismissing everyone for the night. She had a few minor scratches, but was otherwise unharmed. She dropped a few objects in front of the General; he was left stunned by what he saw.

-"My mission was a success," Spartina calmly said. "I have killed a fox; here is part of its tail. On the way back, I stumbled upon a weasel, so I killed it too. Here is one of its teeth." She had enjoyed the fights more than she would be willing to admit. She was filled with intense happiness as she tore the weasel's throat open and her claws were covered with blood. Although, judging by the disturbed look on Woundwort's face, she may have overdone it.

-"Fine, the feather stays. Starting tomorrow, you're going to help me teach the others how to fight. They could benefit from learning the techniques you used to defeat these elil."

This was bad news, Spartina thought. She was supposed to sabotage the Darkhaveners, not teach them fighting techniques. She would have to deploy the ultimate weapon soon, and that meant finding it quickly. She would wait until Woundwort went back to his burrow, then she would start searching for the spot where it had been buried, and digging it up.

In the end, LH quickly gave up on trying to clean up the mess. There was just too much damage for one person to fix on their own. Instead, he would just try to hide it the best he could. He placed a tarp over the ruins of the bulldozer, and used duct tape to try to plug the leak in the gas tank. The papers in the filing cabinet were soaking wet, and it would likely be impossible to recover anything written on them, so he simply threw them away. Hopefully Fredrick wouldn't be too mad...