The ferret, who was wielding a dagger, lost his nerve completely—two angry creatures with a broken javelin were closing in on him, their eyes alight with battlefire. With a shriek of fear he dropped the dagger and ran for his life.

Mara picked up the dagger. She was breathing heavily and snarling to herself. “Try to stop me, eh? Just let’s see them try!”

Pikkle’s ears drooped in amazement. “Good grief, old gel. I never realized you were such a swashbucklin’ warrioress!”

The young badger was trembling all over after her first experience of warlike action. “Nor did I, Pikkle, nor did I. It’s a frightening thing to have the fighting blood of a badger running through your veins!”

A burst of whooping and shouting from across the dunes announced that many more of Ferahgo’s army were coming.

“No time for gossipin’ now, chum.” Pikkle grabbed Mara’s paw. “Come on, we’d best make a run for it— there’s too many for us to cope with, by the sounds of that lot!”

Together they dashed off willy-nilly across the sandhills.

*   *   *

Sapwood had run off in the opposite direction, with the main pack hard on his heels. The hare Sergeant was an experienced campaigner, and he put on a turn of speed that could not be equaled by his pursuers, knowing that he could not keep running at that rate for any length of time. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that three frontrunners, all weasels, had broken away from the pack and were trying hard to catch up. Smiling grimly to himself, Sapwood dropped out of sight behind a dune, mentally gauging their approach. At exactly the right moment he sprang out in front of them, paws at the ready. Before they could stop, he had laid two of them flat, one with a superb double frontpaw volley to the nose, the other by lashing out with his long hindlegs and catching the weasel square under the chin. The third he mistimed and dealt a glancing blow to the stomach. As he turned to finish the job with a hooking leftpaw, the winded creature swung out with his curved sword and gashed Sapwood’s paw heavily. The rest of the hunters were too close now, so Sapwood gave a grunt of pain and took off swiftly, ducking, bobbing and dodging as he ran.

*   *   *

Ferahgo and Klitch stopped running and stood together on top of a dune, Ferahgo watching the main band chasing after Sapwood.

He spat angrily into the sand. “Hellteeth! They’re no match for a running hare—he could run and dodge at half that speed and those oafs would never catch him. How are the others doing?”

Klitch stood on tip-paw, scouring the dunes in the other direction. “I can’t see them anywhere. They should be able to catch ’em. There’s enough of ours chasing those two.”