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*****

There's an old joke about a recipe book, where the first step in preparing a feral rabbit stew is "first, catch your rabbit." It was all well and good that we were on the way back home. The problem was that the forest in between our goal and us was heavily infested with the enemy, even at this hour.

There was also the two-fold problem of the snow. For one thing, it showed our tracks. For another thing, it was damned cold, and two of us were not wearing our cloaks. Even with the vigorous exercise that we were all getting, Aethelwulf and I were shivering.

We got out of the city proper in the same way we came in; the Grand Duke still didn't have enough troops to keep a watch over every entrance and exit to Sainted Oaks. But we still had the problems of not being able to use the road, and moving relatively silently through the forest.

Meadow had to remind me that looking like a hunk of granite was all well and good for the city, but a bit unusual for a stretch of primeval forest. We had to put the Captain down while I adjusted myself (and, for that matter, camouflaged the Captain and his stretcher).

Meadow wandered off a few paces while I was doing this, to the evident puzzlement of Aethelwulf, who had no idea of what she was up to. When I'd finished my job, I looked over and found her with her head pressed against a tree, eyes shut. She stood there for a minute, and then headed back to us.

"Patrol a half mile ahead, moving across our path left to right. Let's move right to left diagonally and pass back of them."

Another thing I'd forgotten: I'd taught Meadow how to speak to the trees, and more importantly in this case, how to listen to them. I swiveled my ears, and I picked up the same murmurings about the "dogs-two-legged-grey."

In the event, we ended up dodging that mini-pack by about a hundred yards, pausing to lie still on the cold, wet ground. I prayed that there were no wolves listening to the trees, and at least in this case, my prayers were answered. We moved on.

Our progress was a series of stops and starts. Even with the snow becoming heavier, the Grand Duke's Army was out in force and on the move. At one point, we had to make a wide detour to avoid a full encampment. We were almost given away by a nervous, high-strung ant, which began to gronk and click its mandibles in our direction. It was only a generous fate that its master was too busy having his dinner, and told his mount to shut up and stop making a fuss. (This, incidentally, telling you how close we had to pass them.)

We had some advantage, in that we were only just past the Solstice, and therefore the nights were nearly as long as they could be. Visibility was poor, although that counted against us as well. (It was why we almost stumbled upon the outskirts of that encampment.) Without a good view of the sky, forest canopy and all, we had no way of telling how much dark we still had left.

While the trees were of some help, we got less and less from them as they began to be blanketed with snow. Their ability both to "see" and to "speak" was being obscured. Just short of the junction with the Lark's Rise road, the trees stopped speaking to us altogether.

The junction had been cleared of its pathetic remnants of refugees, as well as the less pathetic grouping of the wolves that I had poisoned by turning their wine into wood alcohol. In its stead, there were a dozen wolves dug in on both sides of the road leading to Lark's Rise. The pits were partially covered over, and to all appearances, they appeared warm, comfortable and alert. There was also constant traffic of carts heading down the road to Flourford, which the three of us watched with foreboding.

It was clear that going down the road to Flourford was not going to be wise, and that it would be well-nigh impossible for the entire group to go through the roadblock straddling the Lark's Rise road. More to the point, only two of us (Aethelwulf and I) were familiar with that road.

The snow was getting heavier, and I could see the occasional deluge of powder as a breeze blew down an accumulation. It was this observation that gave me an idea.

A careful inspection of the trees near the road eventually found one that had been crippled, probably by some kind of disease or accident. It was not likely to see another spring, if I was any judge. Still, its bare branches had a plausible accumulation of snow. Pressing my paws against the trunk, I half-whispered something, and half-imitated the sound of a feral woodpecker. I left the tree delicately balanced and poised at an angle, aimed at the road.

Rejoining my comrades, we picked up our burdens and edged as close as we dared to the road, and listened. It took the better part of an hour, and a number of stifled sneezes, before we heard what we wanted.

With a thundering crash, the tree that I had manipulated could be heard to topple onto the road. Apparently, it almost hit a patrol, and there was a call for assistance. The furs guarding the roadblock edged out of their shelters and peered across the junction to where the tree lay.

The distraction was just enough for us to slip behind the guards. At this point, we threw caution to the winds, and headed rapidly down the road. Tracks in the snow or no, we needed to move, and move fast. I could tell already that there was a lightening in the sky, and the closer we were to home, the better.

A few things happened when we were just short of Lark's Rise. With a sustained groan, Burgomaster Chestnut drifted into consciousness. Aethelwulf had to put his massive paw gently over the chipmunk's mouth, and whisper into his ear. I could see the poor fur attempt to look around, through swollen eyes, at his surroundings before giving a dazed nod.

For another, we could see scouts in the area, and these were aggressive furs. They were repeatedly interrogating the trees, and in some cases actively kicking the trees to remove the snow from the branches, waking them up. They were looking around suspiciously, and feeling the edges of their spears with calloused thumbs. Even with the continuously falling snow, I didn't want to test the marksfurship of this lot.

The worst thing, though, was the howling.

At first, it was only far away, many miles to our rear and nearer to Sainted Oaks. But like a rolling tide, the noise began to rumble closer and closer, until it rippled past at the junction well behind us, and toward Flourford. A branch of it began to ripple down the Lark's Rise road, and the two scouts that we could see snapped up their heads, and changed their spears for bows.

It was 200 yards or so to the relative safety of the edge of the hamlet, but I had every expectation that those 200 yards were covered by expert bow-furs. Expert bow-furs that were now under orders to shoot to kill, one imagined.

Each of us had something vital. Aethelwulf was guarding the Burgomaster, Meadow was taking care of the still-unconscious Captain Chitterleigh, and I had in the pocket of my tunic a packet of intelligence documents, wrapped securely against the wet, that had to, hell or high water, get to Flourford and eventually GHQ.

But the option of making a break for it with out charges wasn't practical. We would have, at best, one armed fur against a number, and our sling-staff was still supporting Captain Chitterleigh's stretcher. And the night was rapidly running out.

I had another look at Lark's Rise. It was still dark, its occupants likely asleep. Likely, but given the howling, not a certainty. I motioned to the others to make ready, and I put my paws to my muzzle.

The sounds of a feral owl soon began to hoot across the forest. One of the scouts was briefly startled, while the other narrowed his eyes and looked suspicious. I repeated myself, twice more, as loud as I could.

Both of the scouts were now scanning the woods very slowly, with a moral certainty that they were not hearing an owl. My heart stopped as one of them came to a halt and signaled to his partner. They both readied their bows, and I could see them make calculations for an aimed shot.

They never made it. Their six arrows twanged off at oblique angles as they collapsed into the snow, which began to turn red. Each had four arrows squarely between the shoulder blades.

It was now or never for us, and the four of us that were conscious now bolted for the village, the Burgomaster being half-carried, half-dragged by Aethelwulf. A door slammed open in front of us, and the big canine and his burden roared through. So did we, but not before I felt the breeze from one arrow pass right past my ear and two more pass through the door, high.

We skidded across wet flagstones before tumbling against a pile of potato sacks. A number of paws reached out and grabbed Captain Chitterleigh before he could be pitched out of his stretcher. As I extricated myself from some smashed tubers, I looked up and saw a pair of rabbits flanking a high barn window, each with a readied bow. They took occasional blind snap-shots toward targets outside, while a few others began to stealthily creep toward another opening, ready to flank their opponents.

We were safe, for the moment, but it didn't take much imagination to realize that the scouts might decide to switch to fire-arrows, which would make things decidedly uncomfortable. My hosts had the same idea, and we were all hurried out the back of the barn and into the village proper.

By this time, the Burogmaster was chittering, half with fright and half with cold. Already, there were howls starting to echo around the village, mixed with yells and screams as the shadows were engaged by the rabbits.

And what was I doing? Why, asking brusquely for a stylus and ink, that's what. It was provided to me, while the others looked on in puzzlement.

I retrieved my cloak and the papers inside. Shuffling through them, I found one that had a blank back. With some pretty lousy pensfurship, though still legible, I scrawled:

"As the legally elected Chief Burgomaster of the United Cities, I hereby request that Adler, High King of Faerie, provide any and all assistance necessary to preserve, protect and defend us, pursuant to the provisions of the treaty between our realms.

/s/ Hugo Chestnut, Chief Burgomaster

Done this day at the hamlet of Lark's Rise, United Cities.

Witness: Cpl. Westersloe Winterbough V, authorized representative of His Majesty the High King."

Meadow, who was watching me draft this, squeezed my shoulder. She understood what I was doing. As long as we were on United Cities territory, Chestnut, as the head of the government recognized by our King, could act. More to the point, we could, legally, be directed to carry out combat across the border. This couldn't be done in Mossford; it had to be done in Lark's Rise.

Chestnut blinked at the document placed before him, and fumbled in his pockets for a pair of spectacles that were not there. I quickly read the document out to him, and he nodded. Taking the stylus with a shaking paw, he scratched his name at the bottom, and I followed with mine.

There was one further edit. Below my name was written the following:

"Witness: Meadow Grainmaster, authorized representative of His Majesty the High King."

I tucked this document back into my bundle, and re-secured it. It was now time to leave, and fast. We had one added advantage, now: three of the villagers volunteered to go with us to help bring Chestnut and the Captain. A staff now replaced Aethelwulf's sling-staff on the stretcher, and that canine readied a pawful of lead bullets. I readied my bow, and Meadow hers.

With a blast of cold air, snow, and two arrows, we started in on the dash to safety. We trusted to the ability of the archers in the village to at least keep the scouts occupied while we all slogged through inches of snow. The going was not nearly as fast as I wanted it to be, even when we were heading downhill.

At this point, I realized that I had not brought with me the sounding-horn that Sir Jasper and Lady Eudora had given me (how long ago was it?). Right now, that would have been very useful, indeed, and I could only hope that the squaddies were not engaged in the middle of an early-morning brew-up while we were running pell-mell toward the Mill River.

There was no sense in trying to do what Aethelwulf and I had done coming over, and sneak around the ford. This time, the best plan was to get between point A and point B in the shortest possible distance, namely, by a straight line. The fact that the ford of the Mill River was likely to be well-guarded on the United Cities side would simply have to be dealt with.

The first obstacle appeared when a scout, blinded by the snow, stumbled across our path. Unluckily for him, Aethelwulf was in the vanguard, and that worthy didn't break stride as he lowered his shoulder and caught the wolf square in the stomach. I had the presence of mind to grab his bow on the run, as he dropped it, making his supply of arrows useless.

As we got closer to the ford, we ran into a cross-fire of arrows, and one of our escorts went down with an arrow to the head. Meadow circled back, picked up the dragging end of the stretcher, and managed to hoist it free. That first fatal shot might have been lucky, but the archers were getting the range, and in spite of some zig-zagging were getting closer and closer.

We hit the old river bottom with a shower of powder, and began to struggle up the riverbank. Here is where we would be slowest, and at our most vulnerable. The other rabbit on the stretcher went down with an arrow to the arm, and it was my turn to grab the fallen burden. We struggled and floundered up the rise toward the river, just making it as the arrows continued to whiz past us, and one even made itself fast in my short-staff slung across my back.

It was at this point that a loud, confused noise could be heard. Stumbling forward, out of breath, we were greeted by the sight of what seemed to be nearly all of the two dozen or so members of Thorn Platoon. Most of them were waving their short-swords and shields, while a few others were wildly flinging lead bullets from sling-staffs at no target in particular. Within seconds, we were in the midst of the yelling mob, some of who were getting their upraised shields riddled by arrows.

We splashed across the bone-chilling waters of the Mill River, and continued to half-run, half-stagger toward Mossford. I suspect that I was not the only one with a painfully aching pair of lungs when I finally collapsed, just short of the two hills. It was Millwright and Hedgeton who grabbed me under my arms and dragged me to the shelter.

Off in the distance, we could hear the echoing sounds as the wolves called to one another across the snows, reporting the news of our escape.