Of Mice And Chicks

Georgia got all this in bits and pieces from Slim Jim and the other mercenaries as they bounced across the meadows toward battle. Curls led the Howard war party. Lani didn't care about what was going on one way or the other. She knew which side she was on, and the side she wasn't on was the enemy. Georgia wished the world were as simple as Lani made it out to be.

"Who's going to be in charge of Baron Ritz's men?" Georgia asked.

"Probably his son, Al," Slim Jim answered. "He's the oldest Ritz brother."

"Is he any good?"

"He ain't bad. His pa's a lot ritzier, though, if you know what I mean." The sergeant dropped his voice. "Of course, same thing's so about old man Howard and Curls. What worries me is, folks say Baron Ritz has hired a bunch of crackers up from the south. Some o' them are rough customers."

"They'll all be in gray, right? And their captain'll wear one of those fancy plumed hats?"

Slim Jim nodded. "Sure sounds like crackers to me. You have been around the block once or twice, haven't you?" Georgia warmed at the admiration in his voice. But he went on, "What about it?"

"I'll tell you what," Georgia said, and she did.

"You reckon that'll work?" Slim Jim asked, and then, "You want we should do it, or should we leave it to Curls?"

"We oughta take care of it," Georgia said at once. "Either that Curls won't do it at all or else he'll do it the wrong kind of way."

The sergeant glanced over toward Baron Howard's son, who was lolloping along on his war bunny without a visible care in the world. "I reckon you sized him up right the first time. All right—we'll handle it." Georgia nodded, pleased with herself and him both. Maybe friendship was blossoming there, maybe even something more. Whatever it was, she'd worry about it after the battle.

When they got to the fence between Baron Howard's land and Baron Ritz's, Ritz's archers shot at them till Howard's bowmen made the enemy soldiers keep their heads down. The rest of Baron Howard's men used cutters to open a way through the wire. What that meant, of course, was that till the fence got fixed the rabbits on both sides could go wherever they pleased. Rabbits going where they pleased was most of what the war was all about. Nobody seemed to worry about that, not even a little bit. They could have been fighting about rock oil coming up out of the ground or something else equally stupid. Every so often, they just wanted to fight.

As soon as they'd hopped a little ways into Baron Ritz's lands, Georgia saw why his bunnies were leaping the fence. Baron Howard had much better grazing country, full of clover and alfalfa and buckwheat and other tasty things for the little rascals to eat. Baron Ritz's border country was bloody boring, and would have been boring to a bunny, too.

Horns blared. Ritz's riders bounded toward Baron Howard's. The border country was about to get bloody in the literal sense of the word.

There was the cracker chief—sure enough, plumed hat over gray surcoat. Before setting spurs to her own bunny, Georgia and Slim Jim both smacked Lani on the back. "That one! Go get that one, Lani!" they yelled. "The one with the feather!"

"The one with the feather," Lani agreed. "I'll do it. You betcha I will." She couched her lance, let out a war cry that didn't have any words but that made every hair on Georgia's head stand bolt upright anyway, and thundered down on the foe.

And the rest, as they say, is history, or possibly fantasy.

* * *

A battlefield after a battle is not a pretty place. The only thing worse than fighting a battle, though, is fighting it and losing it. If you've fought a battle and lost it and you're still on the field afterwards, the most likely explanations are that you're a prisoner or you're dead. Neither of those is anything to write home about. Of course, if you're dead you probably won't start writing War and Pieces any time real soon, no matter how much you might know about war or be in pieces.

Bits of Ritz's army bucketed off in all directions—anything to get away from the ferocious warriors and fierce bad war rabbits who fought for Baron Howard. Curls was beside himself with glee—and if one of him was annoying, two would have been downright obnoxious, to say nothing of excessive. "We whupped 'em!" he shouted to anybody who would listen. "We beat the bastards, and we bounced their buggering bunnies!"

He wasn't wrong. That didn't make him any less irritating. Georgia stayed as far away from him as she could. Slim Jim made much better company. Surveying the chili con carnage, the sergeant nodded to Georgia and said, "Well, you was right, no two ways about it."

"About what?" Georgia wasn't beside herself with glee. The looting hadn't been as good as she'd hoped. Baron Ritz's troopers must have been as broke as she was. Now a lot of them were not just broke but broken.

"That Lani, she fights like a son of a bitch," Slim Jim said. "Them crackers just weren't the same after what she done to their captain."