Chapter 21: The Lack of an Alternate Path.

"[...] driving at the speed limit - hideous thought."

-Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun

Blackberry and Primrose left Redstone early in the morning, as they had planned. Before leaving, they wished Hickory and Marigold the best with their warren.

Travelling by daylight and in calm weather, along with the fact that Blackberry was now familiar with the path, helped the two does to travel faster than during their initial trip. No unusual events happened during their journey, until they reached the canal. The water level seemed to have risen since their previous visit. The gates had been destroyed when they had crossed them; therefore the bridge to the other side no longer existed. The human authorities were aware of this, and were in the process of installing new gates. Until then, however, the area was off-limits to the rabbits.

-"Are you sure there's no other way across?" Blackberry asked.

-"None that I know of," Primrose replied. "The first time I returned to Redstone, with Hazel, we travelled a long time alongside the river without finding anything, so I decided to use a boat as a stepping stone. It didn't work out and we both nearly drowned. We discovered the bridge on the way back, and that's what has been used in all trips since. But now that the bridge isn't there anymore, I don't know what to do."

-"There has to be another way. It may take us a while to find it, but it must exist."

Blackberry started to walk along the canal. Primrose, however, remained on the edge, staring down at her reflection in the water below. Her thoughts were soon interrupted by Blackberry:

-"You coming?"

-"Ye- yes, I'm coming."

She ran after her friend, and the two started their search for another way across the canal.

-"I'm tired. Let's rest, shall we?"

Without waiting for an answer, Cowslip lied down in the patch of clover. He had been travelling with Woundwort and the rest of the owsla for most of the day, and was starting to feel tired.

-"What do you think you're doing?" Woundwort asked. "We have an enemy to defeat, and we won't defeat anyone by sleeping."

-"I know, but we won't defeat them if we're too tired to fight them, will we General?"

-"Fine. If you want to sleep, sleep. I'll go on with the others, and once you have rested, you can try to catch up with us."

-"I'm tired too," another rabbit somewhere in the crowd said.

-"You stay here and rest too. In fact, anyone who wants to rest is free to do so. The rest of you will follow me."

Woundwort started to walk away from the crowd. A certain number of rabbits ran after him, but most of them remained where they were, whispering.

-"Why did we ever follow that crazy freak?"

-"Yeah, let's go back to the warren!"

-"We'll follow our tracks."

-"Good idea."

-"You forgot that crazy Woundwort fellow taught us how to walk without leaving tracks."

-"Cowslip, which way do we go?"

-"I don't know, I really don't know, I've never been so far from the warren before!" Cowslip cried, on the verge or hysterics. "We have no choice but to follow him."

Cowslip ran after Woundwort as fast as he could. His followers stared at each other in confusion, before joining him. Cowslip made his way back to the front of the crowd, next to the General.

-"I didn't think you would stay away very long," Woundwort said.

-"I just want to know what your plans are, how long this war will go on, and..."

-"The plan is simple: find the outsiders' warren and kill everyone. The outsiders can't fight, so I would say the war will end less than a day after we get there.

-"When we will be able to go back home?"

-"The true home is the battlefield, not some oversized old warren full of snares."

-"My warren is the best in the world. Fresh flayrah daily, the po-"

-"Shut up. I've already heard this many times before, and it doesn't sound any more exciting than the first time you said it."

-"You can't appreciate good things when you see them."

Woundwort did not reply; the rabbits continued their journey for a long time, until they came to a hrududu trail. The road was diverging in three different directions, and a few hrududil were rolling around the roundabout.

-"General Woundwort, wait!" Cowslip said suddenly. "You're going the wrong way. Redstone is closer to the road on the right."

-"Who said we were going to Redstone?"

-"Bu- but General! You said you wanted to train an owsla so you could help me get revenge on the traitors."

-"It's not my fault you were stupid enough to believe that. You see, I was merely using you. Now that I have an owsla, I am free to lead it anywhere I want. I know the outsiders' warren isn't in the same direction as Redstone, so we're going another way. After the outsiders are all dead, maybe we will go to Redstone and destroy it too. Maybe."

With that, Woundwort crossed the road without even bothering to see if it was safe; most of his owsla followed. Suddenly, a hrududu arrived; Cowslip stared at it in horror as it approached his people. The driver slammed on the brakes, hoping his car would be able to stop in time: cleaning rabbit blood off his shiny vehicle would be very time-consuming. The vehicle stopped near the middle of the crowd. While most rabbits were unharmed, a few were crushed by the wheels. The driver poked his head out of the window and shouted:

-"LIFE IS BETTER AT THREE DIGITS! NOW GET OUT OF THE WAY."

Woundwort and the others stared in horror at the remains of the corpses, lying in a puddle of blood around the wheels.

-"Why don't you idiots watch where you're going?" Woundwort said angrily. "I spent a lot of time training you all, and you're of no use to me dead. Let's get going."

The survivors stared nervously at the hrududu, half-expecting it to start moving again. But it didn't, and the driver kept shouting at them; while they couldn't understand what he was saying, it didn't sound very friendly. Eventually, they finished crossing the road without looking back at the scene.

Cowslip could not get over the coldness with which Woundwort had commented about all the deaths. He briefly wondered whether this was hypocrisy, considering his own detachment towards the deaths of rabbits at his warren, but soon brushed away these thoughts, unwilling to admit his own faults.