Chapter 225: The Dark Future of Darkhaven.
"His other eye flashed dangerously. 'You are trapped.'"
-Bushkasonic, Hazel the prisoner
Early in the morning, Woundwort went on a stroll around Darkhaven. This allowed him to survey the damage caused by the fire and the explosion the previous evening. It was worse than he had thought: the collapse of the main structure had resulted in debris being scattered across the pit. These were sometimes very small fragments that could easily damage the paws of any rabbit unfortunate enough to step on them. While the fire had been put out quickly, the burning smell lingered everywhere. There was one thing that Woundwort appreciated, however: the humans did not appear to be present today.
He made it around halfway across the pit when he first came across another rabbit. He was a bit surprised to find someone else awake at this early hour, especially someone sensible like Granite. The two rabbits stopped right in front of each other, staring at each others' eyes.
-"Granite."
-"General."
-"I ordered you to bring back a tree."
-"Yes, sir."
-"Is there a tree here now?"
With all the confusion of the previous evening, Granite wasn't sure where the branch that he and Shale had brought back was. As a result, he was left with only one possible answer.
-"No, sir."
-"Where is it?"
Granite hesitated for a few moments, trying to come up with a convincing explanation that wouldn't get him punished.
-"Brain destroyed it." While this was false, it was plausible, (or, at least, it sounded plausible in Granite's mind), but would Woundwort believe it? The next few moments were tense.
-"Too bad. The tree is my least concern at the moment. You won't have to get a new one, not today. You will have regular training instead."
Once Woundwort hopped away, Granite breathed a sigh of relief; he would later tell the good news to his patrol partner Shale at silflay. That evening, however, Woundwort's choice of words dawned on him: "not today". What if Woundwort ordered him get a new tree in a few days, to replace the one Brain had supposedly destroyed? Hopefully not...but the mere possibility of this happening was enough to keep him awake much of the night.
Woundwort, meanwhile, continued his walk around the pit. The next rabbit he encountered, a few minutes after Granite, was Lady May. She was in the middle of a patch of weeds, slowly nibbling. She found this highly undignified, not to mention the atrocious taste, but Woundwort had banned her from the flayrah chamber, and starving was not an option. She grimaced with each bite; as she saw Woundwort's shadow tower over her, she closed her eyes.
-"Do you remember what I told you last night?" he asked.
-"Yes," she whispered, terrified at what was likely about to happen.
-"Have you made up your mind as to your future? If you're leaving, I'll have Vervain escort you back to where he first found you."
Lady May was on the verge of tears, her life was truly falling apart.
-"I haven't seen Vervain in a while..." she said, hoping to delay the decision, even if just for a few minutes.
-"He's gone on patrol!" came Orchis' distant voice.
-"Why is he always gone on patrol, even when I haven't even sent him on any," Woundwort mumbled. "Anyway, since Vervain is currently unavailable, Kurai will be escorting you instead. Or, if you prefer, you can stay here and join the owsla. Which will it be?"
Lady May had not given this much thought, clinging on to the faint hope that someone, anyone (except creepy Kurai) would rescue her from this horrible fate.
-"Well?" Woundwort was tired of waiting for an answer. She was not willing to risk a trip to the wilderness with Kurai: he could easily kill her, and nobody would ever find out. She was left with only one option.
-"Owsla! Owsla owsla owsla owsla! Just don't kill me!"
-"Owsla it is, then. Since you're by far the least experienced rabbit in this warren, I will have Spartina teach you the basics."
Spartina had spent much of the night continuing her search for the weapon, digging random holes all over the pit, hoping to locate what she was looking for; she did not find anything. She had hardly slept since she left Watership Down a few days before; she could not continue like this much longer, she would have to take a break at some point soon.
When she learned that Lady May was assigned to her, she happily accepted the task: training only one rabbit was better for Watership Down than training everyone. She started by examining her new student's body, to better know what she was up against.
-"Help me," the former hutch doe whispered; as much as Spartina wanted to, there was nothing she could do.
-"Let's start with a short run. Come over to me as quickly as you can."
Spartina ran over to a nearby pile of tires; it only took her a few hops to cross the distance. For Lady May, it was much slower, as her paws were shorter. As she reached the halfway mark, her front paw got tangled in her fur, she stumbled to the ground; tears appeared in her eyes. This was enough to confirm Spartina's suspicions: Lady May would never amount to anything in the owsla.
-"I'm tired, can we take a break?" she said, as she got up, and tried shaking the dust out of her fur, with little success.
Spartina looked around her; in the distance, she could see the rest of the owsla, and they all appeared largely motionless.
-"Yes, of course, let's take a break, I'll be right back."
As Lady May lied down, Spartina ran towards the others. She soon discovered why they weren't moving: they were at silflay. This wasn't a planned break: Woundwort was hungry, and since he couldn't supervise everyone and eat at the same time, they took a break too. Looking throughout the crowd, one rabbit was conspicuously absent.
-"Have any of you seen Campion?"
-"He was sent on patrol earlier this morning with Feldspar," Granite said. "He probably won't be back until late tonight, or maybe tomorrow."
Spartina was disappointed: it seemed that talking to Campion would have to wait a bit longer. Until then, however, she could still ask around about him, and perhaps get an idea how the others felt about him.
-"What do you think of him, Granite?"
-"Always talking about Campion," Orchis mumbled. "Can't we talk about someone else for a change?"
-"He's...he's good," Granite replied. "Loyal. Why, do you have a crush on him?"
-"A crush on him? What makes you think that?"
-"He has some great muscles. A doe like you would be lucky to get a buck like him."
-"No, that's not quite...ah..."
Spartina did her best to sound unconvinced with her denial. She didn't know Campion very well, nor was she in love with him; her heart belonged to Bigwig. But if the others thought she and Campion were having a romance, it would allow them to spend time together and discuss their rebellion without attracting suspicion.
-"Do YOU like his muscles?" she said, trying to change the subject.
The question appeared to leave Granite feeling uncomfortable.
-"I like his scars. I wish I looked like that."
-"You want to be scarred?" Spartina knew that Darkhaveners had weird goals sometimes, but this was beyond crazy.
-"Those are the mark of a true warrior. Alas, I am not there yet..."
-"Do you want me to scratch and bite you?"
Spartina knew that Granite would never accept this, she just wanted to make a joke, to lighten the mood in this otherwise demoralizing warren. She smiled as she saw the disturbed expression on his face.
-"No thanks, I'll be fine..."
-"Enough talking!" Woundwort shouted. "Everyone get back to work!"
Like Granite had said, Campion and Feldspar were on patrol. As far as patrols went, it was pretty boring. All scents and tracks they encountered were ancient, making it impossible to use them to try and find the outsiders, or elil. This was intentional: Campion deliberately steered the patrol away from Watership Down, without Feldspar's knowledge.
They stopped around mid-day to silflay, and it was then that an idea formed in Campion's mind: what if he tried to recruit Feldspar like he had tried with Aspen? He had never known Feldspar to express any doubts like Aspen had, not to mention that the Darkhavener seemed rather unintelligent, so he would have to take things more slowly. He would try something similar to what he had done to Orchis: weaponize Lady May's presence.
-"What do you think of the former hutch doe?"
-"It's disturbing how such a useless rabbit is getting special privileges," Feldspar replied; this seemed promising, Campion thought.
-"From what I heard last night, these special privileges are over. She either has to join the owsla, or leave."
-"He seriously thinks he can train her? He's even crazier than I thought, that's a total waste of time, no amount of training will make a warrior out of her. She would be much more useful as target practice. As for letting her leave, that's even crazier. One does not simply leave Darkhaven. The only way out is death."
Even more promising, Campion thought. Time to take things to the next level.
-"So, I take it you don't approve of the way that he's running things."
-"Details. Just because I don't approve of one decision, doesn't mean I won't support him."
-"Don't you wish YOU were in charge instead?"
-"Hey, what are you trying to pull?" Feldspar seemed furious. "Woundwort said he would kill anyone who dared to rebel against me. Do you want me dead or something?"
Campion realized too late that he had taken things too far, and it had now backfired. Time for damage control.
-"No! No, not at all. Just curious, that's all."
-"Curiosity can be dangerous in Darkhaven. I suggest you keep any further silly questions to yourself."
Campion sighed: this attempt at recruiting Feldspar had ended poorly. Maybe he had planted the seed of a doubt in the fellow buck's mind; that was all he could hope for now...