Mont'mar had already decided.

"Not yet we aren't," growled Peter. "To the surface!"

All the remaining rabbits and hares ran up into daylight, more afraid of what they knew was behind than what they thought was ahead. Except, of course, there weren't any of Rodney or Donald's men left on the surface. They'd all found an unprotected exit on the other side of the colony and gone under.

The last of the rabbits (by choice, Peter) only just escaped by a hare's whisker before the two attacking hordes met at the bottom of the hole.

Boxer had chosen his battalion chiefs wisely. Both Rodney and Donald led from the front. Rodney led the mob that had systematically driven most of the remaining rabbits and hares back this far. Donald, on the other hand, had been going through the burrow with his pack, slaughtering random stragglers. His battalion had been the one that chased Mopsy all the way back here.

The two leaders stopped for breath.

"Where'd all those rabbits come from?" Donald snarled.

"I recognised one of them," Rodney said hoarsely. "He came before the Emperor earlier this week, looking for his daughter." He hacked up some sticky phlegm and spat it to the side. "I knew he'd be trouble..."

"Wait until the Emperor hears about this!"

Rodney grinned evilly. "Let's finish this."

Then the horde scourged onto the surface.

"Hold the line!" Mont'mar called, but despite her orders, some of the hares still scattered and fled. The rabbits didn't even flinch. They were beside Peter in formation but behind him in spirit. They'd come this far on a fool or a hero's errand and they all had too much faith to contemplate defeat.

The defenders had retreated to the base of the hill, for no other reason than that was as far as they'd got before their attackers reappeared. It offered no great strategic advantage, but the enemy would have to come uphill to engage them.

To Rodney's men, who emerged from the burrow first, the rabbits awaiting them looked like they were all caught in headlights. A row of bunnies, standing upright but rooted to the spot, their eyes as wide as could be.

"Spill their blood!" Rodney hollered.

Peter finally faltered. He let out a staggered breath and shot a look at Mark, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. "Take Mopsy," he whispered. "We can hold them off long enough. Get back to the haven."

"I am here, you know," Mopsy said indignantly. She was standing to the other side of Mark. "And here's where I'm staying..."

"Mark, please!" Peter hissed.

"Oh, piss off," he snorted jovially. "You need me here. Here's why."

And with that, he launched himself toward the approaching attackers. His hefty bulk picked up momentum as he careered through the air. When he landed amongst Rodney's men, he squashed one instantly dead. But he picked himself right up and, giving a war cry that was clearly a mockery of the horde's chant but which sounded like he was being sick, he started to fight the rest.

"For freedom!" Peter saluted his paw.

"For victory!" Mont'mar corrected, though had any of the rabbits and hares present actually been in battle before, it would surely have sounded the most insincere of rallying cries they had ever heard. But it worked.

The rest of the rabbits and hares charged downhill to Mark's aid. The horde was bounding up to meet them. Neither dared stop, nor turn. They finally clashed at the very edge of the peat bog. It was a brutal collision. Bones were broken. Another of Rodney's rabbits died instantly. One of the hares also fell.

This frontline quickly became a sort of gauge. If one of Rodney's men had their paws on grass, then they were winning. If one of Peter's rabbits or Mont'mar's hares had their paws on peat, they were winning. But most of the time, the fighters were battling out on the very boundary between the two.

It turned out to be a pretty even fight. Mark proved to be quite an inspiration, hacking and thumping and biting with reckless abandon. He was actually having a hard job telling ally from foe. But he wasn't alone. At one point, he and Tom ended up with their paws on each other and were about to kill.

Peter had the hardest time. To win each bout his attention had to be on his opponent the entire fight, but his attention was split, half spent keeping tracks on where Mopsy was. He wished she'd stayed out of it. Her very presence was a distraction. But she was doing okay, coupled with Benjamin.

When they saw the fight wasn't the apocalyptic one they'd feared, many of the hares that had run away came back and joined in. After that, there were a lot more paws on peat, and a lot less on grass. The balance was tipping.

Suddenly, proceedings took a turn for the vicious.

Rodney's men abandoned the one-on-one approach and split into threes, each little group targeting a specific hare. It was an unexpected move. Two hares were killed outright before Peter's platoon could even adjust their tactics. They could no longer fight on both the offensive and defensive at the same time.

Slowly, they were being forced back onto the grass.

Rodney and two others turned their attention to Bo'bil. Flustered, she was caught unaware. She turned to retreat, kicking back with her powerful back legs. Two of the rabbits were sent sprawling, but Rodney charged between their spread-eagled forms and pounced when Bo'bil tried to kick him as well.

He landed on her back. She yelped.

"Bo'bil!" cried Mont'mar.

The queen had found an infallible way of dispatching her opponents. She stood upright, thrust out her chest, swung back her forelegs and then let them spring forward again. Anyone coming at her from the front got smashed around the head. No skulls were cracked, but the rabbits staggered, dazed, and then it was just a case of a quick slash or bite and their corpses fell slack at her feet.

"Mistress!" Bo'bil screamed.

Mont'mar charged across the battlefield, knocking allies and enemies aside alike. Peter saw what was happening and ran after her.

A couple of Rodney's rabbits noticed where the battle's focus had gone and charged in to intercept them. The four of them collided in an ecstasy of thumping and scratching and biting. It gave Rodney enough time.

His two spread-eagled companions got to their feet. Bo'bil didn't see them coming in time to kick. They knew their rabbit anatomy. They went straight for her hind legs and bit right through her tendons. Blood filled their mouths and covered their faces. They ran blindly to well-deserved deaths.

Bo'bil screamed. Rodney was still holding on. She could no longer shake him off, her back legs floppy and useless behind her. He was going for her neck. She tried to nip him over her shoulder, but couldn't reach him.

Rodney bit deeply. At first she felt nothing. Then she felt the warmth running down her neck. But then she started to feel cold instead. Soon the right hand side of her face went numb and she could no longer see out of that eye. By that time, she didn't even know whether Rodney was still holding on or not.

Shortly after Bo'bil died, Peter and Mark turned up. Mont'mar wasn't far behind. She wailed when she saw Bo'bil collapse. Peter and Mark pounced on top of Rodney. They scuffled and tumbled, too close for their thumps and scratches to do much damage. But by the time they climbed off, he was dead.

Mont'mar stood over Bo'bil and sniffled. Peter and Mark stopped to catch their breath, but the battle continued to rage behind them.

Donald watched Rodney die from afar.

"Noo!" he cried.

But he had his own fight to contend with. Two cunning hares had worked out what the rabbits were up to, breaking into three-men gangs, and had banded together themselves. Two against six, rather than three against one. Only the same odds if you're a mathematician. Donald was one of that six.

Larger though they may be, there isn't really enough room on a hare for three or six rabbits to attack one simultaneously. So they were taking turns.

It was Donald's turn. He leapt forward with a war cry that he'd hoped would sound guttural and intimidating, but came out as little more than a squeak. He caught the nearest hare on the side of the face. It bashed him away again.

Then it was another rabbit's turn. The hares had to fight continuously, but the rabbits got a breather in between. Donald picked himself up and retreated to a safe distance to gather his wits. He found himself near the burrow.

Another of the six charged at the hare, managed to nip it, but was also sent flying. He rolled over and over, finally coming to a stop near Donald.

"You, soldier, what's your name?" said Donald.

"Alistaire, sir," the little rabbit replied.

"Right, Alistaire, I want you to go down into the tunnels and tell all of the other men waiting down there to come up and fight."

"Sir?"

"Do it!"

"But sir, there aren't any..."

"What are you talking about, boy?"

"This is it, sir."

"It?!"

"Everyone left in the tunnels... is dead, sir."

"What?!"

"They're already dead, sir."

Donald staggered backward. He looked incredulously between the bloody corpses of his comrades, staring glassily with their tongues out, littering the various entrances to the hare colony, and the battle before him.

"You mean... we're outnumbered?!"

Alistaire performed a quick count of their forces.

"Yes, sir." He gulped.

Donald stared at the fighters. The fight was heading back in his direction, onto the peat bog. There weren't anymore scuffles on the grass. Like he and Rodney had done before them, the hares and their rabbit allies were turning the tide of battle by using their attackers' own tactics against them. There weren't enough invaders left to gang up on the hares anymore. Indeed, the enemy had started to gang up on them instead, separating, isolating them, and going in for the kill.

"Retreat!" Donald hollered. "Retreat!"

For a brief second, the battle stalled, even in mid-bite, as both sides wavered at this unexpected development. Then it started again.

But Donald's dwindling forces - now numbering less than twenty - were fighting a defensive battle, a rearguard action.

"Retreat! Withdraw!" he called again.

It was all right for him. He was already a good distance from the fighting when he gave the order. The rest of them had rabbits and hares on their tails, literally, every step of the way. Donald didn't look back. It was every bunny for himself.

Mont'mar and Peter's allied army fought with a new enthusiasm. They chased the invaders back to the edge of the peat bog. And then they chased them even further beyond it. They killed another three of Donald's men before Peter finally gave the order to stop. By then, there was only a quarter of Rodney's original tally left.

"We should kill 'em all!" Mont'mar salivated.

"No," Peter said. "Let them go back and tell Morellius what happened."

"But..." Mont'mar began, but didn't continue.

The victors returned to the peat bog in a state of euphoria. Hares and rabbits, never the animal kingdom's closest kin, sang and danced to victory anthems they made up on the spot. Their lyrics were full of hoary clichés about blood, honour, might and superiority. However, these creatures having not fought a war in generations, their words seemed fresh and inspired to them.

A couple of the invaders were found to be still alive. They were systematically slaughtered, to great cheering from those around. Several of the bodies were dragged forth for desiccation. Even Mont'mar joined in the communal urination over Rodney's tattered remains. Benjamin quickly became a hero when all the gore made him sick and he vomited over one of the enemy's corpses.

But Mark, Tom, Mopsy and Peter remained aloof. Mopsy stood watching the proceedings with her two uncles, slightly perturbed by some of their allies' antics, but were themselves too glad to have won to vocalise distaste.

"You wouldn't think that half their colony had been wiped out in the last hour, would you?" muttered Pete. But he didn't seek to intervene either.

The mindless celebration went on for a good half-hour. Then Mont'mar's jaw began to seize up from all the laughing she was doing and everybody calmed down after that. Talk rapidly turned to the topic of retaliation.

"We should strike back immediately!" a plucky hare said.

"Yes, wipe out every rabbit at Roadkill Turnpike!" another agreed. There was silence. "Present company excluded, of course..."

Then there was a lot more agreement.

"What do you think we should do, Pete?" Mont'mar asked.

All eyes turned to Peter. None of those present had forgotten his role in their victory and fell silent with due reverence. For a moment, he continued to stand on the sidelines, but then he headed into the middle of the crowd.

"I think," he began slowly and quietly. "You should bury your dead, booby trap your burrow, and then get the fuck out of here..."

At first the silence continued, more shocked than reverential now. Then the mutterings began. Mont'mar was quick to quash them.

"Pete, what are you saying?" she asked.

"That if you stay here," he said, getting louder. "You're all going to die."

This isn't what the hares wanted to hear. Some of Peter's own men weren't in the mood for his bluntness either. A wave of whispered dissent hopped between rabbits and hares alike, culminating in a low booing.

"But Peter... we won!" Mont'mar said.

Peter snorted and began to walk amongst the mob. None of them had the courage to boo him to his face. "Oh, yes, your splendid victory," he said. "By all means celebrate. It'll be your last chance to here..."

"Now, look here..."

"You haven't won anything." Peter was addressing the crowd now. "Yet you are all acting like the war's over. Whilst it hasn't even begun."

The last of the euphoria seeped away.

"You certainly haven't defeated an army," Peter continued. "You've killed how many? Forty? Forty five? That's not a success. That's less than one kill for every hare that fought. And you needed our help to do even that."

"Pa, this isn't-" Mopsy hissed.

"No, you listen too, Mopsy." Peter scratched a tick. "Your greatest achievement is that you're all still alive. Your greatest failure is that it took the deaths of half your entire colony just to manage that..."

"We were outnumbered!"

"And you always will be," Peter snapped. "Do you know why you're all still alive? No? Luck, my friends. You survived because of luck. You were lucky because Morellius didn't send enough men. You were lucky because we helped you and the enemy wasn't expecting that. But your luck's run out."

Mont'mar shuffled uncomfortably.

"The enemy was overly confident. They thought you were small in number and lacked forewarning. They thought the numbers they sent would have been enough. And they would have been, if we hadn't helped. Next time, whether we're here or not, they'll be expecting us. Don't think for a minute they'll be afraid of losing again. They'll come in such force that couldn't possibly happen. Over that hill are a thousand rabbits baying for blood. You've just given them a collective bloody nose, that's all. When they come back, you won't stand a chance..."

There was no more booing. The hares began looking at each other. They began looking at their rabbit allies, too. The way Peter had been speaking, it was as if the alliance was over. He kept saying "you", not "we".

"We could fortify the burrow," Mont'mar said quickly, her eyes flitting back and forth rapidly as the ideas came to her. "Cave in all but two of the exits. Our forces were too divided this time. That's why our tactics failed. But next time we can make them come at us from only two directions and then..."

Peter wasn't the only one shaking his head.

"Well, what do you suggest?" she said.

"That you give up any hope of defending this place," he said plainly. "You dig yourself into that hole in the ground and it'll become your tomb. Here's exactly where they're expecting to find you, waiting for them..."

"We've got nowhere else to go!"

Peter glanced over at Mark and Tom.

"Come back to the haven," he suggested.

"The what?!" Mont'mar shrieked.

"There are hundreds of rabbits there," Peter explained. "And more are coming every day. If Emperor Morellius is going to be overthrown, that's where the rebellion is going to start. And if that rebellion takes a war, then that's where it's going to be fought. You'd be perfectly welcome there..."

The hares began to mumble again.

"Hares?" said Mont'mar. "Live in a rabbit warren?"

"It's more than just a warren," said Peter.

"Plus it has a certain strategic advantage," Mark added. "Morellius has to come up and over the hill rather than down it, like here."

"It has an even better strategic advantage than that," Peter said. "Because Morellius doesn't know it's there yet. And that gives us the best strategic advantage we could hope for at this stage." He paused. "Time..."

Mont'mar nodded thoughtfully. "And we'd be welcome?"

"I expect they'd all want to meet you," Peter said. "The hares who fought the first battle of the war and defeated the Emperor's men..."

Mont'mar frowned. "But you said..."

Peter smiled.

"Oh."

Then Mont'mar swallowed, and turned to address her people. "Prepare to abandon the colony," she announced. "We're going to the haven!"

She nodded at Peter. He acknowledged. But rather than the chaotic frenzy both of them were expecting, the hares were sedate, united in purpose once more. With her people reduced, the queen had no choice but to muck in. Peter sent his platoon to assist in the burials. He remained on the surface with Mopsy.

"You were lying to her," she said, when they were alone.

Peter frowned. "Was I? When?"

"You gave her the impression the haven was united."

He shrugged. "Why? Isn't it?"

"No. When are you and I leaving?"

Peter paused. "How about when I've won?"

Mopsy grinned. So did Peter.

NOTES:
Written in 500 word bursts, I think this chapter comes off better than the last two, most probably thanks to the tighter prose style. There's not so much whimsical slackness. It's just naked prose aimed straight for the jugular. I rewrote portions early on when I'd hoped to write the entire chapter in a day, where it was overly descriptive. All that matters in these kinds of chapters is the action. And that's going to be the way of things for the remainder of the story. Incidentally, Alistaire is how I thought my middle name was spelt up until the age of 13 or 14.