The stranger disappeared before Helmer and Sigrid could make their way to where he had been standing. Fearing what such a rabbit’s presence might mean, Helmer suggested that they locate King Jupiter and Chief Tarvan. With apologies to Gunvor, Odo, and the younglings, the pair hurried through the streets to Chief Tarvan’s dwelling. Sigrid soon gained them admittance, but as they neared the receiving room they heard tense voices speaking.

“You must be pardoning my skepticism, Jupiterking,” Chief Hardrata was saying. “But we of the bluff is being minding our own affairs for long years. We have not been needing First Warren, and it seems First Warren has not been needing us. Perhaps it is only being you who is feeling the need to have all rabbitkind under your heel.”

“I am not a tyrant seeking slaves,” Jupiter replied earnestly. “I am the heir of Lander, of Whitson, and of Flint Firstking himself. My purpose is to reunite our race, so far as it is possible. It is only through such unity that we can find our greatest strength under Everfather. And only with such strength can we stand against those who threaten us, and bring about the Mending we all hope for.”

King Jupiter’s words seemed to provoke a variety of reactions among the chieftains and their lieutenants. Murmurs of both wonder and approval seemed to be the most prevalent. But Helmer also heard one or two snorts and even a grunt of callous laughter. Then there came a sharp sound that it took a second for Helmer to realize was slow, loud clapping.

“A pretty speech it is being, Jupiterking. Worthy of our finest orators. But words will not be keeping the Northwolves out of our settlements. And unless that army you is bringing is being intended to be staying on the bluff, I is failing to see what we is being gaining from your visit.”

Resisting the urge to draw his knife and throw it at the insolent Hardrata, Helmer walked into the receiving room with Sigrid at his side. Their entrance drew the attention of those present, with Hardrata’s eyes narrowing as he regarded the pair. Helmer could tell that the chieftain was assessing them, much as Helmer had done upon seeing Hardrata earlier that day. Whatever he thought, Hardrata affected an air of boredom as he turned his eyes away from Helmer.

But as the chieftain regarded Sigrid, his eyes lingered and gleamed in a way once again made Helmer’s knife hand itch. It was clear that the buck had no respect for Sigrid as either a warrior or a doe. The way Hardrata looked at Sigrid would have offended Helmer had he seen it directed at any doe. Seeing it aimed at Sigrid, however, was enough to make his blood boil.

Sigrid undoubtedly saw Hardrata’s expression as well, but if so she gave no sign. Instead, she turned and bowed in the direction of King Jupiter and Chief Tarvan. Helmer’s anger turned to amusement as he noticed that this involved turning directly away from Hardrata. The chieftain’s leer, in turn, became a look of thinly veiled annoyance.

“Pardon mine intrusion, Jupiterking and chieftains of the bluff. Lieutenant Helmer and I is being having news that is being most urgent. We were being celebrating elsewhere when we is seeing a strange rabbit. He is being disappearing before we is reaching him, but we is seeing him smile with sharpened teeth.”

Jupiter’s eyes widened, and he turned to regard Helmer. “That sounds just like…”

“The nightwalkers-yes, Your Majesty,” Helmer replied. “While he didn’t have the same fur paint and wolf ornaments we saw on those villains, his teeth had clearly been filed or chiseled in a similar fashion. I can’t say whether he lacks such paraphernalia generally, or whether he omitted them in order to enter the settlement without attracting attention. As First Guardian Sigrid stated, we were unable to intercept or follow him.”

Chief Hardrata scoffed. “More empty words; where is being your proof? I am thinking that Chief Tarvan is being making a pact with you First Warren interlopers. He seeks to make himself Lord of the bluff, and is thinking that his new friends will be helping him do it.”

“It seems you is being ever ready to be casting doubt and blame upon others, Hardrata,” Chief Tarvan responded with impressive calm. “Mine First Guardian’s word is being ever truthful, even when it is not reflecting well on mine chieftainship. Even if I was being such a rabbit as to make such a plot, she is not being such an one as would speak falsehoods on mine behalf. You was making similar remarks when she spoke to all chieftains of Garlackson, the wolf captain with red eyes.”

Perkin stiffened at the description. “Did you say red eyes?”

“Yes…is you knowing of such a wolf?”

As if in answer, Perkin raised a hand to his eyepatch, closing his remaining eye as he did so. “Unless there is more than one among the leaders of the wolves from the north. I met him as a fresh soldier, some way north of Vandalia. He’s the one…who did this.”

“So at last we can put something of a name to that foe,” Jupiter said, eyes hard. “Garlackson.”

“How convenient it is being,” Hardrata said smugly. “You is also being aware of an enemy for whose existence we have only the word of the First Guardian and her underlings. Doubtless you would next be having us believing that the dragons is being living again, and that only you can be saving us from them. Ah, but that would be speaking against the legend that your ancestor Landerking was slaying them all, would it not?”

Much as Helmer would have loved to argue the factuality of the ancient Dragon War with this increasingly obnoxious chieftain, he knew better than to bother. He had met many rabbits even in the Great Wood, in First Warren itself, who dismissed those tales as mere myth. Even his and Airen’s friend Snoden, who had heard their family stories and Helmer’s own account of Grimble Island, was unwilling to believe that such creatures had ever existed.* It was enough to make Helmer wonder sometimes what Airen saw in Sno. Then again, Airen did love a good argument.

Looking disappointed rather than angry, King Jupiter spoke calmly. “You can choose what you believe, Hardrata, but you can’t change what’s true.** I know my officers-my friends-to be rabbits of truth, just as Chief Tarvan has vouched for First Guardian Sigrid. Their news troubles me, as it should trouble us all, for rabbits such as the one they speak of once brought the Great Wood to the edge of ruin.

“My rabbits are at your disposal, Chief Tarvan, if you deem a search for this rabbit or others like him to be the best course. If not, we would gladly be of whatever other service you would deem most prudent. And I would invite you, the chieftains of Tarvan Bluff, to join us in that effort.” Jupiter’s words brought a silence, and even Hardrata seemed to have no snide response.

Tarvan, too, was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke. “I is being grateful for your offer, Jupiterking. But I am thinking that a search would be troubling the rabbits of the settlement and those who are being here as our guests. Mine counsel is that we be sharing this report among our officers, so that they may be on the watch against any trouble that this strange rabbit or any like him may be bringing among us.”

Of the other chieftains, most quickly nodded in assent to this proposal, either deeming it prudent or at the least seeing no harm in it. Hardrata and one or two others were less eager, only agreeing when it became clear that they were in the minority. The various lieutenants of each chieftain were thus dispatched to spread the word among their guards. Lord Captain Perkin gave Helmer the same charge with a single glance of his remaining eye, silently indicating that he would remain with King Jupiter.

Nodding in acknowledgement of the unspoken directive, Helmer turned to walk out. Sigrid accompanied him, no doubt intending to spread similar instructions to her own subordinates. Helmer waited until they were alone to speak, and even then he did so quietly. “I’m about ready to boot Chief Hardrata off the edge of this bluff and see if he can fly.”

Sigrid had been expecting Helmer to make a remark of this kind. Helmer had hidden it well, but by now they were close enough that she could sense his reaction to the unwelcome attention Chief Hardrata had shown her. The sentiment wasn’t so different from thoughts she herself had briefly entertained over her years of dealing with the unpleasant chieftain. And capable as she was, she was touched because she knew that Helmer’s outrage came not from jealousy or possessiveness, but from affection and his own sense of honor.

“I am fearing that his bluster would be holding him up in the air like a kite,” Sigrid said, half-smiling. “Or, failing that, his hard head would be cracking the bluff and be making it all be falling to dust.”

Helmer managed a smirk at that. “Has he always been so…personable?”

“For as long as I has been having dealings with him,” Sigrid answered with a grimace. “Many chieftains of Hardrata’s line have been being troublesome, though in different ways. Their forefather was being one of the loudest in being opposing the continued rule of Chief Tarvan’s ancestors as lords of Tarvan Bluff. If they could have, they would have been taking the lordship for themselves, and more than one chieftain of their line has been trying to do what their forefather could not be doing.

“Chief Hardrata has been saying more than once that I should be laying down my role as First Guardian and be coming to his settlement. He is claiming that I would be living as richly as any queen of rabbits has ever been living. But I have been hearing the stories of how things are under his rule. Does in his settlement are for being seen and not heard, and not even seen if they are not being pleasing to the eyes of the bucks whom they serve.

“Younglings and elders, unless they are being tied to power, is not being honorheld either. They is being madepressed into soldiery or servitude long before they are agefit, and long after they are no longer being so. Hardrata’s settlement is one that is not being sending their rabbitkin to us for care. Living there-letting alone being Hardrata’s prizewife-would be being a slower and more painful death than by swords, mine think.”

Gripping her hand, Helmer continued speaking quietly. “Can nothing be done for those rabbits?”

“Not the way things is being now, mine Helmer,” she answered with a sad smile. “For all his coldtalk and slylooks, Hardrata is being a chieftain of power. And others is being standing with him, whether from being of like mind or because they is fearing him. Mine Chief Tarvan is doing what he can be doing, but he must be walking a line that is like a narrow trail looking over a widepit.

“On one side is the wall of what he cannot be doing. And on the other side is the the fall of what he must not be doing. That is, if he would not be being as bad-or worse-than Chief Hardrata. Mine hope, and that of mine fellows, is that one day Chief Tarvan is having the means to be climbing the wall…and moving away from the fall.”

Quiet settled between them after that, and they set off in search of their respective fellow officers together. It didn’t take them long to locate Lord Captain Stam and Lieutenant Hewson. The hulking Lord Captain, clearly having been enjoying himself, became solemn and serious at Helmer’s report. Hewson, however, was skeptical, and Sigrid sensed Helmer bristling in response.

“A strange buck with chiseled teeth, like those cursed nightwalkers? What would a buck like that be doing this far from the Great Wood? I think you must have been seeing things, Rickson. The king stomped out those brigands.”

“I didn’t say he was a nightwalker, Hewson,” Helmer shot back. “But the nightwalkers tried to look and act like wolves, and it’s quite possible there are rabbits here who might do likewise.”

“Lieutenant Helmer is right, Lieutenant Hewson,” Stam said before the other buck could retort. “And while ye may question his opinion, ye may not question orders conveyed from King Jupiter and Lord Captain Perkin through him. So get ye to yer work, and let Lieutenant Helmer get back to his.”

With a curt nod, Hewson set off. Sigrid and Helmer set off again, while Lord Captain Stam set off in a third direction. Sigrid waited until they had spoken with a few of her fellow Guardians and a fellow lieutenant of Helmer’s. Then she decided to broach a subject she’d been wondering about.

“Mine Helmer…I has been seeing that there is not being much friendship between you and Lieutenant Hewson.”

Chuckling mirthlessly, Helmer looked at her. “That obvious, is it? Hewson is the son of a lord back in the Great Wood. Lord Hews, his father, is a good sort, but I think he dotes on Hewson.

“That lordling thinks he’s Everfather’s gift to rabbitkind, and he has no respect for those of us whose families weren’t fortunate enough to be born with wealth. I think he’s particularly galled to find himself equal in rank to the son of a First Warren farmer. By his reckoning, I should be delivering produce to the back door of a kitchen, not sitting in the officers’ mess.”

“Just as Hardrata is being thinking that a doe should be serving for the pleasure of a buck,” Sigrid remarked quietly.

Returning her gaze, Helmer smiled sympathetically. “You have it a lot worse than I do, I imagine. Much as I dislike Hewson, I don’t think he’s nearly as bad as Hardrata. And Captain Stam, as you’ve seen, never puts up with his nonsense.”

“Or yours,” Sigrid replied with a gentle smile and a nudge in his side. That brought a smirk to his face, and the two continued on their way. As they went, they spotted the other chieftains’ lieutenants on occasion, and once or twice Lieutenant Hewson and Lord Captain Stam.

As the pair were nearing the main gate to the settlement, Sigrid’s happy mood dissolved. What she saw-or rather, didn’t see-was puzzling and troubling. She had arranged for a rotating roster of Guardians to keep watch on the main gate. This was to ensure security while also giving them the chance to take part in Leaping Week festivities.

But she could see no Guardians now. Not atop the wall over the gate, not on their way to or from it. And as she turned her attention to the gate itself, she realized with alarm that the locking bars were not in place. Indeed, she could see that they had actually been removed from the gate and broken and bent to the point of uselessness.

Helmer saw the same things she did and quickly gave a loud yell, intended to bring anyone and everyone within hearing distance running. Sigrid was opening her mouth to do likewise when the doors suddenly burst open. Only strict discipline kept Sigrid from screaming at the sight that greeted her:

Dozens of wolves pouring into the main settlement of Tarvan Bluff.

*A bit of a spur of the moment idea as to why Weezie evidently doesn’t know the full history of the Dragon War despite being a descendant of good old Brindle “Helmer” Cove. I figure it might be partly skepticism from her father’s side of the family, and partly the flaws of whatever sort of “education” system might have been in place in First Warren while she was growing up.

**Longtime fans may recognize this line as being near-identical to one that was spoken by Jupiter’s daughter Emma in The Green Ember. It seemed appropriate for this situation.