Part Eight: Ends and Beginnings

Lord Mortateris Blackhawk smiled. It was all going according to plan. Nothing could stop him from being king over all of the rabbits, not even their puny princeling. He screeched for the next wave of his soldiers to swoop the annoying rabbit archers on the wall. After the archers were taken care of, Mortateris would start his own attack. He loved being in the thick of battle, to watch devastation come upon the rabbits. It was his way to come before the army, and lead the first wave, though some thought it risky. If it should come to the worst, if Mortateris was killed in battle, then he had charged his army to fly back to the High Bleaks, for Mortateris did not want his son to have no army to avenge his father. But, of course, that would never happen. 

Suddenly, he felt something on his back, like a small knife being driven into him. Mortateris looked over his wing and saw light brown fur and a glint of red and green. The princeling! Mortateris screeched and banged his back into the palace roof as the rabbit stabbed him over and over. Mortateris swerved, trying to reach the rabbit with his sickle. But he could not reach his back. Again he flew backward into the roof, but the annoying princeling hung on! He was in a panic and flung himself into the roof with all the force he had, but the prince would not die. The last thing Lord Mortateris heard was, “For the Mended Wood!” then he remembered no more.

Walter was falling. He was falling fast on the back of a monstrous beast. The bird’s wings were now useless. King Walter had climbed to the top of the palace roof and leapt onto the back of Lord Mortateris. A leap to make his ancestors pleased. He had been hit again and again into the roof, but Walter had kept stabbing the beast with his sword. Eventually, Mortateris had died, and now Walter was falling. He braced himself for impact, but the feathers of the bird cushioned his fall. A cheer rose among the rabbits. Walter looked up. The army of birds was retreating! The rabbits would not be destroyed today! Walter stood up and winced, he had many broken bones and bruises from being rammed into the hard palace roof. Both the Green Ember and the Whitson Stone gleamed around his neck. The rabbits flocked to their king and kneeled each with his fist over his heart. Jonathan Fletcher was the first to speak, and everyone joined in.

“My place beside you! My blood for yours! Till the Green Ember rises, or the end of the world!”

The rabbits of Natalia named their king King Good, and Walter named his growing kingdom the Thirty Warrens. For many years King Good led his army against the wild wolves, and they pressed them back exceedingly. It was again relatively safe in the Great Wood, though Walter could not destroy the wolves entirely.

When the time came Walter got married and started a family. Junafur was his bride and she was a great queen. They had three sons, Bleston the eldest, who looked a lot like his grandfather, Nathan the second son, who was a very sickly creature and the king and queen feared for his life, and finally Jupiter, who was very much like his father. Their uncle, Oaken, became a great warrior under the direction of the king and Jonathan Fletcher, and the young princes looked up to him as a great role model. 

So the kingdom of the Thirty Warrens grew in the west, and peace slowly spread. But a shadow loomed in the east. After the battle in which Mortateris fell, Walter could not find the horrible black sickle that killed his father. A small bird had stolen it while the rabbits were occupied with burying the dead, which included the late king Henaphiz. The bird had flown it back to the High Bleaks where Lady Mortateris sat on her egg. It would go to her fatherless son. The son hatched and was found to be more evil than his father. The young Blackhawk grew into a massive, horrible creature, bent on the destruction of rabbit civilization. He found that not all rabbits were loyal to their king, and he used that against them. 

So while Good rose in the west, Evil rose in the east, and that Evil was called Morbin Blackhawk.

THE END.