Chapter Thirty – Five

A New Danger

Campion, Yew and Blackavar sat in silence whilst waiting for Bigwig and the others to return.

Yew and Blackavar were chatting away nervously because they didn’t know what to say to Campion, who was just staring blankly ahead.

It soon started to rain, it thundered dangerously off the vegetation and made it almost impossible to hear anything else. It wasn’t long before all three rabbits were drenched through.

“Trust Bigwig to tell us to stay here, where there is no cover,” Blackavar moaned.

“Correction, he told Campion to stay here. We skived remember?” Yew reminded him. “They should be back soon. I wonder what is holding them up?”

“I hope they haven’t been caught, that would be nearly the whole warren then,” Blackavar said anxiously.

“I hope they were wrong about Primo-,” Blackavar began before receiving a meaningful look from Yew, as he indicated to Campion. He was lying with his head on his paws in the mud with a glazed look.

“Oops, sorry.”

“Do you hear something?” Campion sat up suddenly.

“It’s just the rain, or maybe there is thunder coming.” Blackavar looked up at the ominous clouds overhead.

“There is something else,” Campion disagreed. “It sounds like there are a large number of animals charging through the wood up ahead.”

“It might be Bigwig, Fiver and the others returning,” Yew said. “I don’t like the fact that they are running though.”

 “What!” Fiver cried as Ivy swept past him.

“It’s the owsla, they are after us!” Blackberry replied for her. “Fiver, hurry!”

“But surely, we could fight them off? We have more numbers than them,” Bigwig said confidently.

“No Bigwig, they raided another warren and have a massive owsla,” Spartina gasped between breaths.

They had hesitated too long and four guards jumped onto Blackberry, Ivy, Primrose and Spartina.

“We should have known better than to trust you lot,” a dark brown buck snarled.

“Clover, get behind us!” Hawkbit shouted out at the only standing doe.

The guards looked up and saw the large band of rabbits and did a double take.

“What are you doing here?” one of them asked in surprise.

“Not the brightest acorn in the tree is he?” Bigwig mumbled to Fiver.

“We are taking you in,” another said.

“Well come on then,” Bigwig crouched down and showed off his claws.

They hesitated and glanced to the dark brown as if he were the leader.

This gave the does an opportunity, exchanging glances they all nodded in agreement.

They rolled to the side, throwing the owsla off their backs and depositing them in a nearby bush.

“That was easy enough,” Blackberry said and got up, shaking the streaming rain water off her back.

“You call yourself owsla?” Bigwig laughed menacingly, as three of them ran off.

“This isn’t over; you can’t watch every single rabbit in your warren all day and night,” the dark brown said, backing off slowly.

“No offense mate, but I don’t think I’ll need to with you and your owsla on the job. Our kittens could take you on.”

Unable to think of a suitable answer the last owsla member followed his retreating friends.

“Right , that’s them sorted. Are you all alright? And how did you manage to get out?” Bigwig dropped back down into an unthreatening stance.

“Blackberry and Ivy were clever.” Primrose smiled.

“It was all Ivy really,” Blackberry said modestly.

“Yes, but we all had to give up something,” Ivy insisted back.

“Okay, okay, point taken. We’re just glad you are all back with us and safe,” Bigwig said.

“Maybe you want to tell us what your escape plan was later?” Fiver asked quietly.

“It’s really not that interesting,” Blackberry said quickly.

“No really, it would help me train my owsla,” Bigwig disagreed. “The more escapee tactics we know, the better of we’ll be if something like this ever happens again.” He pushed them to tell because he had a good idea himself of what it had been but he wanted them to be sure.

“Can we talk about this later?” Ivy interrupted. “Some of the owsla might come back you know.”

“Of course.”  Fiver nuzzled Ivy.

“Amm, yeah they might have told Campion you were dead,” Bigwig said hesitantly to Blackberry as they hopped home.

“Yeah I know.  Hemlock ordered Cloud to do that. Did you tell Hazel that Primrose was dead as well?”

“No, because he isn’t with us.  He’s still unable to walk much, and we left Shadow and Brunnea to guard the kittens and the warren.”

“Is he away home then?” Blackberry asked cautiously, meaning Campion.

“I told him to wait up ahead, and Blackavar and Yew decided to stay with him, against my orders if I say so.”

Blackavar appeared, sodden and miserable looking from a nearby ditch.  He blinked hard when he saw Blackberry and Primrose with them.

“O…kay? I guess we have to learn not to believe our enemies without proof.”

“Are Campion and Yew still there?” Fiver interrupted.

“Yep, we were just getting worried. We heard intruders?”

“Slight problem, but it’s all sorted out now though. We should probably not push our luck and get out of here,” Hawkbit sighed.

“Do we really have to travel in this rain?” Dandelion moaned.

Bigwig just ignored him and started forward again, entering the ditch and coming up the other side first.

“Hey Campion, turns out things aren’t so bad for you after all,” Yew said and smiled as he saw all the does behind the bucks.

“Oh, they got the others out.” Campion sat up. “I’m glad.” He began to turn to go home, or anywhere. He wasn’t sure he could face all the happy reunions from the others.

Blackberry blinked the relentless rain out of her eyes and stared at Campion thoughtfully.

“Hey,” she said softly, going up to him and stopping him.

“Blackberry? They didn’t?” He gave up speech and ran up her and threw his head over her shoulder, hugging her tightly.

“Please you two, get a burrow,” Bigwig said lightly.

He was ignored, so he shrugged and turned to Fiver but he was too busy talking away animatedly to Ivy so in the end Bigwig was forced to talk to Holly about whether or not they should return home straight away.

Holly started up at the dark sky in thought. “It’s nearing dawn. We should probably wait until the owls have returned from hunting then we could go immediately. I don’t fancy staying out much longer in this.”

“Some of us might get sick,” Yew added.

Bigwig looked around the drenched group, the brown rabbits and grey rabbits were now black, Ivy hadn’t changed much, Blackberry had turned dark silver, Primrose and Clover, a darker shade of cream and he felt extremely heavy with his fur collar weighing him down more than the others.

“We’ll shelter in that ditch we seen; it’s away from the worst of the wind and the drifts of rain.” Bigwig turned back the way they had gone.

“That’s if we don’t drown.” Hawkbit pointed at the water at the bottom, it completely concealed their paws.

“I doubt it will rise much further,” Fiver said wisely.

“You hope you mean,” Ivy replied worriedly.

“We live on a hill, we’ll be fine,” Campion said cheerfully, hopping down the bank first.

“Yeah, but we’re not on a hill now.” Blackberry joined him. ”It might be a bit deeper because it was until recently a river.”

“What happened to it then?” Ivy peered down, still teetering on the edge above.

“Man made some kind of dam,” Blackberry replied.

One by one, each of the rabbits followed them until the group were all huddled together, hind to hind.

Their ears were resting on their back to avoid the slight wind and they had to pick up their paws and replace them every so often so that they wouldn’t sink in the mud.

Campion, Blackberry, Fiver and Ivy were the luckiest of the large group, they had a ledge overhanging above them protecting them from the rain.

“You know what? I ‘m getting bored, I’m going to dig a couple of scraps,” Hawkbit hopped over to where the four lucky rabbits were sitting and started to, surprisingly enough, dig.

“Hawkbit, no! It’s too dangerous!” Blackberry cried. “Do you want to suffocate?”

“She’s right you know,” Strawberry put in. “A burrow falling in on top of you is not a nice experience.” Of course, he knew from experience.

“You lot of kill joys. You are just jealous that you didn’t think of it,” Hawkbit said and continued to dig.

“I never thought I’d see the day Hawkbit starts to dig out of free will.” Bigwig shook his head with slight difficulty.

“Blackberry’s right Hawkbit.” Ivy attempted to pull him out by grabbing one of the flying paws with her mouth. “It will slip and fall.”

At that moment a bit of mud slid onto Hawkbit face and he growled up at it in annoyance.

He swiped the bank in frustration when the small opening he had created had been filled in.

“Hawkbit no-” Blackberry started, then gasped as the whole wall behind them trembled and started to cascade down.

“Fiver, Ivy, Campion, Blackberry! Can you hear me?” Primrose cried and ran over.

“Quick, dig them out!” Bigwig panicked.

“It’s too much to dig through,” Yew shouted in desperation as the mud he threw out of the way seemed to manifest back.

“Guys….” Blackavar said hesitantly, stopping his frantic digging.

“Blackavar help us!” Bigwig said with annoyance.

“No, you might want to look up. I mean, like now?”

Bigwig turned with impatience to where Blackavar was standing, his ears were tight against his back in terror and his eyes were as wide as lily pads.

Coming up the ditch at alarming and electrifying speed was a great spiral of water. And the rabbits were right in the path of it.