Russa Nodrey added twigs to the fire embers, peering upward at slatey skies that showed between treetops that morning. “Hmm, doesn’t look too good out there t’day. No point in leavin’ camp awhile, those vermin’d probably ambush us afore we got out o’ these trees.”
Tammo looked up from the beaker of hot mint tea he was sipping. “Y’mean the rotten ol’ vermin are hiding in these woodlands? I thought you said they’d ambush us out on the flatland.”
The wily squirrel pointed a paw at the sky. “So they would if it were fine weather, but put y’self in their place, mate. You wouldn’t stand out in the open soakin’ an’ freezin’, waitin’ fer us to come out of a nice dry camp like this. No, if’n you’d any sense at all you’d get under cover, out of the weather. They’re probably creepin’ through the trees toward us right now.”
The young hare dropped low, drawing his dirk. “Are you sure that’s what the rascals are up to?”
Russa added more wood to the fire. “Sure as liddle apples, if I know anythin’ about vermin!”
Tammo was amazed at his companion’s calm manner. “Then what’re you standin’ there loadin’ more bally wood on the fire for? Shouldn’t we be doin’ somethin’ about the situation?”
Russa hid the haversack away beneath some bushes, then rummaged about in her back pouch. She tossed Tammo a sling and a bag of flat pebbles. “Here, I take it y’can use that.”
Tammo loaded a pebble into the tough sinewy weapon, and swung it. “Rather! I was the best slingshot chucker at Camp Tussock!”
Russa twirled her hardwood stick expertly. “Right, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take to the trees an’ pick ’em off as you draw ’em out. Use the sling, leave yore blade where ’tis unless they get too close, then don’t fool about, use it fer keeps. Move now, I c’n hear ’em comin’—sounds like there’s enough o’ the scum. We’ll have our work well cut out, mate.”
Tammo heard a twig snap some distance away and heard a harsh cry.
“There’s one of ’em, come on!”
He turned to answer Russa, but she was not there.
Suddenly a rat came leaping over the fallen beech at him. Tammo reacted swiftly. Swinging the loaded sling, he brought it cracking down between his assailant’s eyes. The rat fell poleaxed by the force of the blow. For a second Tammo froze, almost paralyzed at the sight of the rat’s broken body, half shocked, half exhilarated at this victory and escape. But there was no time to think. Instinctively he began whirling his sling. Leaping backward a few paces, he centered on a shadowy form in the shrubbery and let fly. He was rewarded by a sharp agonized cry as the slingstone smashed home. The young hare turned and ran a short distance. He was stopping to load up his sling when a sharp-clawed paw gripped the back of his neck.
“Haharr, gotcha!”
There was a heavy clunking noise, and the vermin collapsed limply. Russa leaned out of the foliage of an oak, directly over where Tammo stood. She waved the piece of hardwood at him.
“Best weapon a beast ever had, this ’un! Get goin’, Tamm, there’s more of ’em than I reckoned!”
The woodlands became alive with vermin war cries. An arrow zipped past Tammo, grazing his ear before it quivered in the oakwood. Then they came pounding through the woodlands toward him, a score or more of snarling savages, brandishing an ugly and lethal array of weapons. Whipping a slingstone at them, Tammo took off at a run, only to find he was headed straight in the direction of another group.
Whichever way he wheeled there were vermin coming at him. Foliage rustled overhead, and Russa came sailing out of a tree to land beside him, her jaw set grimly.
“I never figgered on this many, mate. The villains’ve got us surrounded. Pity it had to happen yore first time out, Tamm. Still, there’s one consolation—if’n we go together, I won’t be left t’carry the news back to yore mum.”
Tammo felt no fear, only rage. Drawing his blade, he gritted his teeth and swung the loaded sling like a flexible club. “Stand back t’back with me, pal. If we’ve got to go, then let’s give ’em somethin’ to jolly well remember us by. Eulaliaaaaaaa!”
The vermin rushed them but were swiftly repulsed, such was the ferocity with which the two friends fought. Four rats went down from blade thrust, sling, and stick. Whirling to meet a second onslaught, following hard on the heels of the first, Russa stunned a weasel with the butt of her stick, grabbing him close to her so that he took the spear thrust of a ferret behind him. Tammo whipped the loaded sling into the face of another and slashed out to the side with his dirk, catching a rat who was sneaking in on him.
A big, wicked-looking fox swung out with an immense pike. The heavy iron blade thudded flat down on Russa’s head, stunning the squirrel and knocking her flat. Tammo tripped over a wounded rat and stumbled awkwardly. The vermin pack flung themselves on the pair. Tammo managed to slay one and wound another, then he went under, completely engulfed by weight of numbers. Stars and comets rattled about in his head as the butt end of the fox’s pike flattened him.
*
Waves of throbbing pain crashed through the young hare’s skull. He struggled to lift his paws to his head but found he was unable to. Noise followed, lots of noise, then an agonizing pain across his shoulders. Opening his eyes slowly, Tammo found himself facing Skulka. She was swinging the thorn-covered wild rose branch that she had just struck him with.
“Hah! I thought that’d waken ’im! Would yer like another taste o’ this, me bold young warrior?”
Tammo’s paws were tightly bound, but that did not stop him bulling forward and up, catching the ferret hard beneath her chin with a resounding headbutt. Her jaws cracked together like a window slamming as she fell backward.
A rat ran forward swinging a sword, shouting, “I’ll finish ’im!”
Russa had recovered sufficiently to kick out at the rat with her tightly lashed footpaws, and he was knocked sideways, striking his back sharply against a tree trunk.
Rubbing furiously at his spine, the rat came at Russa, sword held straight for her throat. “I’ll show ye the color o’ yer insides fer that, bushtail!”
He was stopped in his tracks by the big fox’s pike handle. “No, y’won’t, cully. I want some sport wid these two afore we put paid to ’em. Now then, young ’un, where’d yer ’ide that bagful o’ vittles you two’ve bin totin’ around?”
Tammo glanced down at the pikepoint pricking his chest. He smiled contemptuously at his tormentor, and said, “Actually I stuffed ’em down your ears while you were asleep last night, figurin’ that owing to the lack of brains there’d be plenty o’ room inside your thick head, old chap.”
The fox quivered with anger but held his temper. “You’ve just cost yer comrade ’er tail, and when I’ve chopped it off I’m gonna ask yer again. We’ll see ’ow smart yer mouth is then, bucko. Skulka, Gaduss, grab ’old o’ that squirrel . . .”
Suddenly the fox stopped talking and stared dumbly at the javelin that appeared to be growing out of his middle. A blood-curdling cry rang through the trees.
“Eulaliaaaaaa! Give ’em blood’n’vinegar!”
This was followed by a veritable rain of arrows, javelins, and slingstones. Taken by surprise, the vermin scattered. One or two who were a bit slow were cut down where they stood. From somewhere a drum began beating and the wild war cry resounded louder: “’S death on the wind! Eulaliaaaa! Eulaliaaaaaa!”
The vermin had obviously heard the call before. Whimpering with terror they fled, many of them falling to the rain of missiles pursuing the retreat.
Tammo was busily trying to sever his bonds on the fallen fox’s pikeblade, when the drums sounded close. He looked up to see a very fat hare striding toward him. Amazingly, the creature was making the drum sounds with his mouth.
“Babumm babumm barabumpitybumpitybumm! Drrrrrrrubbity dubbity rump ta tump! Barraboomboomboom!”
A tall elegant hare with drooping mustachios, carrying a long saber over one shoulder of his bemedaled green velvet jacket, stepped languidly out of the tree cover.
“Good show, Corporal Rubbadub, compliments to y’sah. Now d’you mind awfully if one asks y’to give those infernal drums a rest?”
With a smile that was like the sun coming out, the fat hare threw up a smart salute and brought both footpaws down hard as he gave two final drum noises.
The tall hare’s saber whistled through the air as he spoke to Tammo and Russa. “Stay quite still, chaps, that’s the ticket!”
The two friends winced and closed their eyes tightly as the saber whipped around them like an angry wasp. In a trice the cords that had bound them were lying slashed on the ground.
Russa smiled one of her rare smiles. “Captain Perigord Habile Sinistra to the rescue, eh!”
The hare made an elegant leg and bowed. “At y’service, marm, though I’m known as Major Perigord nowadays, promotion y’know. Hmm, Russa Nodrey, thought you’d have perished from vermin attack or old age seasons ago. Who’s this chap, if I may make so bold as t’ask?”
Standing upright, Tammo returned the Major’s bow courteously. “Tamello De Fformelo Tussock, sah.”
“Indeed! Any relation to Colonel Cornspurrey De Fformelo Tussock?”
“I should say so, sah, he’s my pater!”
“You don’t say! Well, there’s a thing. I served under your old pa when I was about your seasons. By m’life! Then you’ll be Mem Divinia’s young ’un!”
“I have that honor, sah.”
Major Perigord walked in a circle around Tammo, shaking his head and smiling. “Mem Divinia, eh, great seasons o’ salt, the prettiest hare ever t’slay vermin. I worshiped her, y’know, from afar of course, she was ever the Colonel’s, and me? Pish tush! I was nought but a young Galloper. Ah for the golden days o’ youth, wot!”
He broke off to listen to the screams of the fleeing vermin growing fainter, then turned to Corporal Rubbadub and said, “Be s’good as to call the chaps’n’chappesses back, will you, there’s a good creature.”
Still smiling from ear to ear, Rubbadub marched off in the direction of the retreat, his drum noises echoing and rolling throughout the small woodland.
“Barraboom! Barraboom! Barraboomdiddyboomdiddy boomboom!”
The Major perched gracefully on the fallen beech trunk. “Complete March Hare, ol’ Rubbadub, took too many head wounds in battle, doncha know. Never speaks, but the chap makes better drum noises than a real drum, or four real drums f’that matter. Brave as a badger and fearless as a fried frog, though, a perilous creature t’have on your side in a pinch.”
Tammo remembered the term “perilous hare,” so he gave the polite rejoinder, “As you say, sah, a perilous creature, an’ what more could one ask of a hare?”
Perigord nodded his head and winked broadly at the younger beast. “Rather! ’Tis easy t’see you’re the Colonel’s offspring, though I think that fortunately you favor your mother more.”
Tammo touched his aching head and leaned back against the beech.
Major Perigord was immediately apologetic. “Oh, my dear fellow, what a beauty of a lump they gave you on the old beezer—you too, Russa. Forgive me, chattin’ away here like a sea gull at suppertime. We must get y’some medical attention. At ease in the ranks there, sit down an’ rest until Pasque gets back. She’s our healer—have y’right as rain in two ticks, wot! You’re with the Long Patrol now, y’know, no expense spared!”
Despite his headache, Tammo managed a bright smile. “Did you hear that, Russa? We’re with the Long Patrol!”