As Jack crept through the trees, the captive breds reached the haven. Jack was following the same route Morellius' fleeing legions had days before. Every now and then he came across a stiff corpse, abandoned during their flight, some with signs of interest from sharp-toothed predators. He kept close to the edge of the wood, where the undergrowth wasn't very thick and there were fewer obstacles to catch his bad leg on. He saw the captive breds storm the hilltop rabbit-hole.

Mont'mar and Ball'rdo were inside. They had been supervising the caving in of the top three tunnels. There were only five other hares left apart from them. It took them all, burrowing at the walls of the tunnels, to cause the roofs to fall in. Blinded by dirt, deafened by the sound of their own exertion, none of the hares were aware of the invasion. Mont'mar herself was down in the mud, cutting great swathes out of the earth and kicking them behind her as if she was swimming in it. The first she knew of the attack was when she suddenly felt teeth in her back.

But it wasn't a captive bred. It was Ball'rdo. He was trying to get her attention. "Look!" he cried, over the cacophony.

She jerked her head. An endless horde of captive breds was clamouring up the slippery slope toward her and Ball'rdo, even though the tunnel was coming down all around them, causing a landslide of rolling, tumbling dirt.

"We've got to go!" Ball'rdo told her.

"Just another minute!" she cried back.

"There's not enough time!" he hollered.

He scrambled up the tunnel as giant clumps of earth fell around them. He thought she was right behind him. And for a while, she was. But then she saw the haven's defences, all twelve of them, waiting petrified at the end of the tunnel - and returned to her digging. Ball'rdo didn't realise until it was too late.

"Your Majesty!" he wailed, heartbroken.

But she was still digging when the horde reached her.

"Kill 'em all!" went their war cry.

She even thought she recognised some of the voices...

"Well, fuck you," she growled.

And then the tunnel finally collapsed in on top of them.

"Mont'mar!" Ball'rdo sobbed.

Skirting the edge of the battlefield, Jack saw the influx of rabbits into that top tunnel suddenly drop off. Not many came out, but those that did were filthy and coughing. The captive breds set their sights on the next tunnel and thundered down the hillside with an enraged roar. But Jack kept on going.

"Father! Father!" Mopsy hollered until hoarse.

She was fighting her way through the tunnels. They were packed with rabbits, solemn and determined-looking rabbits with fixed expressions and not a splinter of fear, but they were flowing toward the surface and Mopsy was going against the current, deeper into the warren. But there was no sign of Peter.

That's because he was himself heading in the opposite direction. He'd just received some bad news from Mark: "Mont'mar's dead. They only managed to cave in the top tunnel. The captive breds are attacking the next two."

If it was bad news they'd lost Mont'mar in one tunnel, it was even worse news that she hadn't managed to take out the other two first. It had never been part of the plan to defend these. The captive breds would overwhelm them.

"We've got to take the fight to them!" Mark cried.

The crowd was carrying him and Peter along.

"It's suicide!" Peter shook his head vehemently.

"We have no choice, Pete..."

Meanwhile, back on the surface, Jack was just about to pass out of sight of the haven. If he were going to follow the trees around the side of the hill, he would have to leave the haven behind. And that brought his decision back to him, and for a moment he stopped to consider whether it was the right thing to do.

But as he stood there beneath the boughs, and glanced back, he witnessed the haven's counter-strike. He watched, touched though distantly so, as the first wave swarmed out of the haven and engaged the enemy. He didn't know whether this was glorious resistance or heroic last stand. For the first time, belonging to neither one side nor the other, Jack was seeing the carnage for what it was...

Wherever their loyalties lay, the combatants were all fighting amongst their own dead. Only Jack seemed to notice that there were now more bodies strewn across the bloody battlefield than there were rabbits battling on it. He supposed it wasn't something that mattered to those still fighting. In war, Jack sorely realised, the dead cease to matter when they stop being alive, and can no longer fight.

And then he knew he'd made the right decision.

Mopsy had just found her father. She'd reached the cavernous heart of the haven and found it abandoned; cold and dead, like it had been that way for hundreds of years. She'd followed the distant echoes of the processions, marching to war through the tunnels, like an unflinching carnival of rabbit courage. She'd joined the end of the ranks, but due to her size, had quickly slipped ahead.

"Mopsy!" Peter spotted her immediately.

"Papa!" she called back.

Peter pushed back against the flow, at first futilely, but then Mark, Tom and Benjamin saw what he was doing and came too. They made it to a side tunnel. It was completely abandoned. Obviously - it didn't lead to the war.

The crowd carried Mopsy to them.

"Father!" she cried, embracing Peter.

"Where have you been?!" he said, nuzzling her close. "I haven't seen you since the attack! I thought you'd... you'd... been..."

"I've been with Jack," she told him, looking into his eyes from a distance of no more than an inch. "Papa, he's hurt. I left him in a burrow." "But you're okay. That's the main thing..."

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. What's going on?"

"We're under attack, my dear..."

"I know that! But why are you heading to the surface?!"

Peter lowered his eyes, and his voice. "Mopsy, I want you to go back to Jack."

She shook her head. "Don't be evasive, father. We talked about this."

"Not at all," Peter said, biting his lip with obvious regret that his daughter had him completely sussed. "I... I have a message for him, that's all..."

"What message?" she said suspiciously.

So Peter had to think of one. He gulped.

"Tell him... tell him that we're winning, that we're doing fine, that our defences are holding, and not to endanger himself by trying to help, and that, actually, he should find somewhere safe to get better in the meantime..."

Mopsy looked up at her father and frowned.

"Of course," Peter said, breaking eye contact again. "You should go with him, Mopsy. Help him... heal. Away from here. Far... far away from here..."

And then she understood. Tears welled in her eyes.

"No, no," she mouthed, shaking her head.

"Do it for me, Mopsy. Do it for us both. Me and Jack."

Mopsy, Tom and Benjamin were standing in a loose semi-circle around her, and when she looked at them, they were nodding too. Just then, the stream of rabbits passing through the main tunnel tapered off, and there was silence.

"I love you," Peter said.

Mopsy couldn't say it back. She just ran.

Of course, she didn't find Jack. By the time she got back to the burrow where she'd left him, he was just entering Roadkill Turnpike for the first time in what seemed like months. He sneaked in inconspicuously. Most rabbits were distracted by the noise coming over the hill. Those that did notice him, as he made his way out of the trees and across the field, also recognised him, and bowed their heads subserviently. He acknowledged them, but felt like an impostor.

Jack went directly to Emperor Morellius. The fat despot was dozing on his throne, snoring loudly and drooling on himself. But as Jack stormed in proudly - it was all an act - Quentin and Charles woke him with their gasps.

"Jack?" the Emperor slurred. "Jack, is that you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," said Jack, ducking his head.

"Praise be, it really is you!" Morellius clucked.

"It lifts my wallowing spirits to see you again, sire," Jack enthused. "Long did I fear that I might never get another chance to do so..."

Morellius snorted with delight. "Quentin," he grunted (for it was a name suited to the sound). "Go and find Boxer and tell him immediately!"

Quentin and Charles recognised Jack too, of course. Though they hadn't been courtiers when he'd last been seen in these parts, Jack was notorious. They looked disgruntled; his return was a blow to their promotion prospects.

Quentin left the clearing scowling at Jack.

"Now, you," said Morellius, punching the air in Jack's direction. "Mind telling me just where the hell you've been these last few days!"

"Yes, sir. I've... been a prisoner, sir."

"A prisoner?!" the Emperor cried. "Of whom?"

"Of those rebellious fiends from the haven, Your Majesty."

Morellius' eyes widened. "Tell me everything..."

Across the hill, Peter, Mark, Tom et al had just surfaced. Benjamin had run ahead of them and was now leaping from captive bred to captive bred. Except that every one he began savaging he found to be already dead.

Peter surveyed the battle as he was jostled toward it. Obviously neither side had a battle plan. As with the rest of this war, there was only one strategy, and that was to kill as many of the enemy as necessary. Mark was also taking stock of the situation. Both sides were now entrenched where they were.

"We're holding out!" he said with relief.

Meanwhile, Emperor Morellius listened with goggle-eyed fascination to Jack's story. When Jack finished, the Emperor stared in disbelief.

"Let me get this straight," he droned. "During the first attack, some captive breds cornered you, but when they recognised you, instead of killing you, they took you prisoner instead. Did I grossly mishear any of this?"

"No, Your Majesty," said Jack.

"Righty ho," Morellius went on. "So you were held prisoner in a burrow deep inside the haven itself for the duration of the battle, where you were interrogated for our battle plans, but otherwise kept alive and healthy."

Jack continued to nod.

"However, they failed to break your spirit, and so you didn't actually tell them anything. And then today, when the captive breds attacked, they overwhelmed the haven and... liberated you. Was that it, Jack?"

"Well, I wouldn't say they liberated me, sire," he replied. "They swept through the haven and wiped them all out, so there was nobody left to guard me. And I took the opportunity to escape, that's all."

The Emperor went: "Hmm..."

"Of course," Jack got in quick, glancing at an equally sceptical Charles. "The key point is: the haven's gone. The captive breds have wiped them all out. There's nobody left over there. I saw all the bodies. It was a massacre."

Emperor Morellius looked at him blankly.

"It means the job's done, Your Majesty," he prompted quietly. "There's no need for you to send our forces over there too..."

The Emperor turned his nose up disappointedly. "Oh," he said.

"I know our troops will be discontented," Jack said. "But if we must sate their thirst for blood, why not let them attack the captive breds? After all, did they not ally with the haven against us in the first place, Your Majesty?"

Morellius looked vexed. "But they turned against the haven in the end."

"Exactly! Proof that the captive breds can not be assimilated into any other community, that they can not live in peace and harmony within a non-captive bred society, that they seek nothing other than domination!"

The Emperor bristled with alarm.

"The time is now, Your Majesty!" Jack hissed. "The captive breds will have been weakened and exhausted through fighting the haven."

"Oh, but I just sent Boxer to make peace with them!" Morellius cried.

"Yes, but you just sent Quentin to fetch him back," Jack added.

The Emperor spied Charles. "You, boy!" he bellowed. "Quickly! Go and find Boxer and Quentin! Tell them to muster our forces at once! I want to attack the captive breds before the sun rises again! Hurry, boy!"

Charles scampered out of the trees.

"A wise decision, my lord," Jack said. He turned and watched Charles go, grinning to himself. Now he and the Emperor were alone. Jack waited until Charles was out of sight, and then he turned back to Morellius.

"Even if I just kill one enemy" - Mopsy's words rang inside his head so loudly and clearly it was like she was standing beside him saying them - "that's one less for those that survive me to deal with..."

"Jack, what are you doing?"

The Emperor's final words.

Charles didn't find Boxer. Neither did Quentin. But they did find each other. Charles was coming up the hill, and Quentin was coming down it.

"Where's Boxer?" they both said together.

"Let's go back to His Majesty," Quentin suggested.

Back when Jack had been a Morellius loyalist, one of his more heartless tasks had been to suppress an urban legend that was doing the rounds. Apparently, someone had started a rumour that the Emperor couldn't lie on his back, and that if he did, because of his weight, he would suffocate. Casper, who had been the Emperor's favourite courtier at the time, had sent Jack to kill any who repeated it. And he had done so. But only, he assumed, because the legend was true.

Once he'd kicked Morellius in the face, and the Emperor had toppled over and fallen onto his back, killing him didn't call for any particular violence. Jack just had to sit calmly on top of his bulky form, stopping him getting up or rolling over. He tried to struggle, kicking out with useless legs weakened through inactivity, but he couldn't supplant Jack. Morellius choked and gagged and spluttered, the weight of his own blubber crushing him, making it impossible to breathe.

Even beneath the reams of fat that swam around his chin, and the fur on his neck, the Emperor's twin carotids throbbed with increased effort, and Jack watched with perverse fascination. When finally his victim's eyes glazed over, and the choking and struggling stopped, Jack climbed down off of the body and bit into one of those arteries. Blood didn't spurt out, as it would from the living.

Emperor Morellius was dead...

"I underestimated you, Jack."

Jack's knees almost collapsed, he was so shocked. He spun toward the voice, but he already knew whom it belonged to. Boxer was standing at the edge of the trees, not fifteen feet away, composed and unemotional.

"You!" Jack hissed, his throat dry.

"I always thought you had a little too much heart for this job," Boxer told him as he strolled into the throne room. "But I guess I was wrong. You could have just bitten the guy. But no, choking him to death. Nasty!"

"How long have you been there?"

"Long enough, Jack," Boxer said.

Jack watched him, his heartbeat a rollicking overture, as Boxer walked around the corpse, looking at it distastefully. He turned his nose up when he reached the bitten carotid. Congealing blood was seeping out slowly.

"This never was a job for an intellectual, was it?" Boxer asked.

Jack just watched him. Soon he came to face him.

"I suppose the last thing Morellius needed," Boxer continued. "Was somebody who could think for himself. To his - and your - peril..."

Jack tensed up. "You didn't stop me."

"No. I didn't want to interfere." He grinned.

"That makes you a traitor too, Boxer."

Boxer started to walk slow circles around him. "I have this theory," he explained. "About the natural order of things. If I'd stopped you killing him, I could have seriously disrupted that. Who knows the consequences."

Jack turned with him, but winced on his bad leg.

"You see, Jack," Boxer went on. "This world doesn't survive on the principle of who is strongest. You need only look at the bodies strewn across the hillside up there for proof of that. No, the survivors, ultimately, will be those who have the intellect to control and manipulate the strongest."

"Like you?" Jack sneered.

"Like me." Boxer beamed. "Mock and sneer as much as you like, Jack, but why exactly is your beloved haven at war with the captive breds? I thought you were allied with them against your common enemy: this lump here."

Jack frowned, and looked at the corpse.

"Oh, yes, Jack," said Boxer, his eyes glinting. "I'm afraid you've just been another piece in my game. And like all the others, you were far easier to control when you thought you were a player yourself. Which you weren't."

"What are you saying?" Jack hissed.

Boxer chuckled. "Our alliance with Jesus?" he said shortly. "Didn't exist."

"No, no, you lie. I saw you talking with him!"

"Oh, I'm not saying it never existed," Boxer continued. "Indeed it did, for a while, when Jesus was content with being a piece in the game and not a player. But as soon as they joined your rebellion, there was no further talk."

Jack frowned. "But... Ethan, the courtier..."

"Just another piece, Jack. Jesus was on your side by then. Chances are, if Ethan ever reached him, Jesus would have ignored him." He paused. "But I knew the chances of him getting that far were pretty slim to begin with..."

Jack staggered back, began circling Boxer too.

"Still," Boxer said. "It was enough to convince you."

"Fuck," Jack almost said, but no sound emerged.

"There never was a double-cross in the end," Boxer concluded. "Well, not until one of your lot killed Jesus. No wonder the captive breds turned against you after that. And all it cost me was one lackey. Cheap at twice the price."

Jack was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Tell me, Jack," said Boxer, stepping toward him, and noticing Jack's limp as he stepped back. "Who was it who killed Jesus? Was it you? Did you kill him yourself, Jack? Didn't it feel good again, righteously killing?"

"Fuck you," Jack spat hoarsely.

Boxer laughed. "No. Fuck you."

And then he pounced. Jack wasn't caught completely unawares. They tumbled together, over and over. They rolled through the Emperor's blood. When they fell off each other, and hopped to respective corners, both their faces were stained red by the blood. Neither showed any emotion at all. Two pairs of unblinking dark eyes stared out from amidst the blood, sizing the other fighter up.

Then they both leapt into the air. Jack's leg hurt, but he couldn't let the pain effect his fighting. They collided in mid-air and fell to the earth together. Instantly, they were up on all fours, scrapping with teeth and claws.

Boxer slashed Jack's face. Jack didn't close his eyes in time. One eye was slit through, blinded forever, but Jack fought on regardless.

Jack landed several hard kicks into Boxer's chest. There was an audible, though muffled crack as several ribs broke. Boxer winced.

They fought on, rolling once again. At one point Boxer was sent flying, and Jack hopped up onto the Emperor's corpse and then body-slammed his opponent, which winded him, and sent him running for cover.

There was a brief respite, in which they retreated to opposite sides of the Emperor's body. Then they began circling each other again.

"This is a pointless fight, Jack," Boxer jeered. "You're going to lose. You have to lose. It's the natural order of things. Trust me."

"We'll see," Jack said, breathless.

Then they tore toward each other again. Their heads butted together. They staggered apart for a brief moment, then Boxer lashed out. His claws caught Jack in the neck. Jack suddenly lost his footing. He choked.

Boxer dragged the flailing Jack across the earth a couple of times, for no better reason than to prove who was winning this fight. But then suddenly Jack lurched away, even though Boxer's claws had to tear through his flesh.

Boxer was quite surprised by that.

The bleeding, and the agonising pain, just drove Jack harder. He returned to the fight, paws swinging at an even faster rate. He was hollering at Boxer, but his heart was racing so hard in his ears he didn't hear himself.

Boxer was suddenly on the defensive. That's not where he liked to be. He gave a few swipes in retreating, but when he returned to his corner, Jack didn't go back to his. He followed him there. The next time the fighting stopped, Boxer realised, would be when the fighting was over.

And Boxer didn't intend to lose.

"I'm going to kill you, Jack," he announced between attacks. "And then I'm going to wipe out every rabbit in the haven, too..."

Jack was beyond hearing. But he already knew the stakes. On they fought, as the blood wasn't so much shed as it flowed. Increasingly exhausted, they took to encircling each other once again, but the fighting didn't really stop.

Boxer kept changing direction, lurching this way and that, hoping to catch Jack out. But he countered, stepped out of the way, parried. Then he struck out with an attack of his own. Sometimes they hit each other.

"Give in, and I'll make it painless..."

"Never!" cried Jack with glee.

He was just getting ready for his next strike. He reared back and up, trying to build some momentum in his balled paws. Only in the split second that followed did he realise what Boxer had been doing, driving him.

Driving him onto the blood!

Rearing up, he was unbalanced. He put his good leg back into the blood and when it slipped out beneath him, his bad leg couldn't hold him up. He crumpled to the ground, crying in pain as he landed on his tail, his leg trapped underneath.

Boxer was already standing over him.

"Well, you asked for it..." he said.

And then, for Jack, it was all over.

After the kill, Boxer staggered back, away from the two bodies, lying side by side, and plumped himself down on grass that wasn't tainted in their blood. He shut his eyes and concentrated on his breathing for a few minutes.

When he stirred, it was because of the wailing.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Oh, NO!"

Quentin and Charles had reappeared.

"Sir!" Quentin cried, suddenly spotting Boxer.

The pair of them ran over, helped him up.

"Oh, sir, what has happened?!"

"Assassination!" Boxer hissed dramatically. "This... bastard, this... traitor, came here and killed the Emperor! I... was too late to save His Majesty, but I managed to kill the murdering son of a bitch!"

Quentin and Charles both burst into tears.

"Pull yourself together, men!" Boxer hollered. "This is no time to be crying like infants! This is a time of great crisis for Roadkill Turnpike!"

"I'm crying because it's all my fault!" Charles whimpered. "I left them together! If I hadn't gone looking for you, I could have stopped him!"

"And I'm crying because... he has no heir!" cried Quentin.

Boxer narrowed his eyes. "No, he doesn't, does he?" he muttered.

Then both Quentin and Charles started bawling again.

"I demand silence!" Boxer said. And he got it. "Now, there's only one obvious solution that presents itself. In the absence of an heir, and given the perilous crisis we are facing, I propose to appoint myself as Prince Regent..."

Quentin and Charles looked at each other.

"I will need your loyalty, of course," said Boxer.

Both Quentin and Charles looked dubious.

"And seeing as you two left His Majesty to be... butchered by this traitorous bastard, I think that's the least I can ask for," Boxer snarled. "You should be very lucky if I don't tell Roadkill Turnpike whose fault it is!"

Quentin and Charles gulped and nodded.

"We'll support you!" they both said.

"Good!" Boxer said shrilly. "Excellent!"

Then he stepped around the Emperor's fallen corpse and lowered himself into the newly vacated throne. Sitting down on the worn roots was as satisfying as a good shit in the morning. He fitted even better than Morellius. He smiled.

"Now," he said. "For my first task as Prince Regent, I need a volunteer. I have a mission for you. Which one of you will accept it?"

They both volunteered enthusiastically.

"I want you take word to the captive breds," the Prince Regent said. "Offer them peace and reunification. Request their terms. And then give them to them. If emancipation is what they demand, then they'll get it."

Charles and Quentin couldn't believe it.

"I want Roadkill Turnpike united once more," Boxer explained. "Together we will defeat the haven. And once the haven is vanquished, we'll bury the very concept of rebellion along with it..."

NOTES:
A long-ish chapter (over 4000 words, bringing the total over the 130,000 mark) that might suffer from jumping around a bit too much. Two major character deaths (and one less major one) make this a pretty important chapter, and I'm largely happy with how it turned out. Incidentally, I calculate that the number of named, speaking characters who have died so far is 52. And that's not including those referred to as having died, but which we don't actually see.