Before Bageye could rise to his paws, Wartclaw and Snakespur, two other weasels, jumped on him. Their iron hooks flashed once. “We’ve got this one, Threeclaws, go on, finish Halftail!”

Halftail fought like a mad creature, he wounded Skinpaw and was about to finish him when Snakespur struck him from behind with his hook. Halftail was dead before he hit the ground.

*   *   *

The survivors of the mutiny sat about licking their wounds and eating any provisions they could find. Out of the crew that had taken the young ones from Mossflower there were only five weasels remaining, Skinpaw, Fleaback, Threeclaws, Wartclaw and Snakespur. Undecided, they lounged about the camp. Threeclaws fancied himself as leader, but after the slaughter that had taken place he decided to stay in the background lest one of the others challenge him for supremacy. Besides, who knew? Slagar might come back, and then there would really be trouble.

As if reading Threeclaws’ thoughts, Snakespur grumbled aloud, “Deserted, that’s what we’ve been mates, deserted. That scurvy fox has left us in the lurch and gone off to get the reward for the captives himself. What makes me so mad is that we’ve followed him like a pack of fools all this time. ‘Yes, Chief,’ ‘No, Chief.’ Huh! Now where are we? Half a season’s journey into the middle of nowhere, with empty paws and empty bellies too, by the look of those slack ration bags.”

“But what about little Vitch,” Fleaback interrupted. “I wonder what’s happened to him?”

Snakespur slashed at the grass with his iron hook. “Dead as a pickled frog, for all I care. What’s one rat or more got to do with us? We’re weasels, mate. Oho, I tell you, I’d like to have that fox’s guts at the end of this hook right now.”

“Brave words from the scum of the earth!”

A large male badger had walked quietly into the camp. He stood testing the edge of a big double-headed battleaxe with his paw. The weasels leapt up, unsure of what to do against the huge warrior, without a leader to galvanize them into action.

Orlando gave a cold smile.

“Run or fight, eh, baby stealers?” His voice was deceptively calm. “I know you haven’t the courage to fight. There’s only five of you and not a gang. Ah well, if you’re not going to fight then you must run like the cowards you are. But even then you won’t get far, because you’re surrounded.”

Matthias and his friends stepped from the bushes and the rocks.

Wartclaw began trembling violently. “It was Slagar. It was his idea. We don’t even count. Look at the way he’s deserted us.”

Matthias pointed at the bodies of the fallen. “Tell me, weasel, what happened here?”

“It was the masked fox. He did it!”