“Aye, m’dear, I know ’xactly how you feel. I don’t like this place one little bit meself.”

As if to punctuate the hedgehog’s remark, an arrow whistled out of the darkness to stand quivering in the elm bark.

“Ambush! Everyone take cover!” Lady Amber called aloud from her vantage point.

Immediately, the mice and hedgehogs were screened by a wall of otters. Skipper bounded to the fore, ducking a spear as he swung a sling loaded with several stones.

“Over yonder, crew. By those thickets. Give ’em a rattlin’ good broadside, mates.”

Ranks of brawny otters made the air rain heavy with hard river stones.

* * *

The dinting and thudding of rock upon armor and pelt was mingled with screams and cries from the ambushers.

When the fusillade slackened, Tsarmina sprang forward, urging her attackers onward. “Charge. Rush them now. Up. Charge!”

The soldiers pounded toward the woodlanders, yelling and shouting threats as they waved pikes, spears and javelins.

* * *

Lady Amber watched coolly. She notched an arrow to her bowstring as, all around her in the high branches, squirrels followed her example. She laid her tail flat along the bough of the elm.

“Steady in the trees there. Let them get well into the open, then watch for my signal.”

Though one or two otters were down with spear wounds, Skipper had heard Amber and he backed up her strategy. “Otter crew load up. Don’t sling until the arrows are loosed.”

* * *

Now the Kotir army had covered over half the distance, Fortunata slacked off, dropping back with Ashleg and Cludd. Tsarmina alone led the field. Confident that the charge would carry the full distance, she turned to yell further encouraging words to her troops.

* * *

Lady Amber decided they had come far enough. Her tail stood up like a banner as she called, “Archers, fire!”

The waspish hiss of arrows halted the advance in its tracks, the back and middle ranks colliding with the fallen in front.

“Slings away hard, crew!” Skipper’s wild call boomed out across the melee.

A second volley of stones flew thick and fast into the confused soldiers.

* * *

Now Tsarmina was forced back into her own ranks. Furiously she began snarling out orders.

“One rank crouching, one rank standing. Give me a wall of shields to the front and carry on advancing. Poke spears out between the gaps in the shields. Quick, fools. Fortunata, group archers at the rear. Tell them to fire over our heads into the woodlanders. Hurry!”

Realization that they were in danger of being under serious attack galvanized the Kotir troops into action.

* * *

Ben Stickle and Columbine were crawling about, whispering to the noncombatants.

“Friends, help the wounded. Go with them quickly and quietly around the back of this tree. Foremole has arrived with help.”

They slid away, with Skipper’s crew masking their retreat.

The soldiers were firing arrows now. They rattled off tree trunks and stuck into the earth, some finding their mark among the woodlanders. The shield-fronted advance moved slowly but steadily forward.