City of Oom: War Bunny Chronicles, #3

Published by Harvest Oak Press, April 2024

Copyright © 2024 by Christopher St. John

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

First Printing, 2024

ISBN: 978-1-7368857-6-5 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-7368857-7-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7368857-8-9 (hardcover)

Cover art by Belle McClain

For the animals

Synopsis

City of Oom is the third book in the War Bunny Chronicles.

The first book, War Bunny, told the story of Anastasia, a plain brown rabbit living in the Million Acre Wood, doing her best to fit in with her warren and its deep commitment to the worship of Dah. Plagued by compulsions, she was already an underbunny before her imperious mother, Olympia, forcibly cast her from the warren. Scared and alone, Anastasia resisted the teachings that directed her to embrace glorification, which would mean becoming food for predators. In a fateful encounter with a fox, she learned she could fight back.

Meanwhile, other bunnies were finding themselves thrust into the dangerous unknown. Studious Freddie, struggling with farblindness, barely managed to escape a weasel attack on his warren that seemed to be an inside job. And flirtatious Love Bug, flouting the rigid hierarchy of rabbit warrens, was violently kicked out of his home. These two wandering bunnies gravitated to Anastasia, who had begun to defend herself and her small burrow. She allowed them into this new kind of warren, in which the dream was not glory but life. One by one, more small creatures made their way to Warren Sans Gloire.

This affront to the world order wasn’t taken lightly, either by the predators who enforced it or the upper echelons of rabbit society who benefitted from it. Word of prey animals fighting back spread through the Million Acre Wood, reaching the foxes, raptors, and weasels who experienced it firsthand, and then the coyotes who oversaw the domain. While most predators guffawed at these tales, the limping coyote Gaetan was smart enough to know when to bring in upper management—in this case, Aliyah, heir apparent to the Summerday Clan of golden wolves. And Olympia, seeing her daughter as a dangerous heretic, sought to undermine the new warren by any means necessary, risking the lives of young bunnies as Dah’s Flowers in the process.

As the weeks went on, Warren Sans Gloire was bolstered by newcomers of diverse talents and species. Wood mice, led by the honorable Death Rage, lent their warrior prowess and tenacity. The craftrat Bricabrac created for Anastasia a blade she could wear—the Dragon Claw—and armor to keep her safe, along with weapons for other creatures. Rabbit Readers, none better than wise Nicodemus from Anastasia’s home warren, provided knowledge gleaned from scraps of pages penned by the Dead Gods. But it was the arrival of the barbarian lop-eared rabbit Wendy that introduced a world-changing idea: hunting predators.

Anastasia could not stomach the thought of deliberately killing another living creature. She staunchly refused to sink to that, believing that only the defense of herself and her loved ones was justified. Her new community, however, could feel the pressure bearing down from the predators of the Wood. To maintain alliances with neighboring warrens, her friends decided to kill a coyote while Anastasia was away.

But before they could put their plan into action, a coyote found Nicodemus at a vulnerable moment and Anastasia, returning from her journey, was forced to intervene. To save her friend from danger, she struck the killing blow against the coyote. Word spread through the Wood that a coyote had been slain by a rabbit, and Anastasia wrestled with her faith and the future of this new power. By the end of the book, the predators had momentarily withdrawn, and Olympia was stunned. The denizens of Warren Sans Gloire came together to enjoy a party out in the open, free to live in peace, if only for an evening.

The second book, Summerday, picked up the story a few weeks later. Anastasia and her Warren Sans Gloire compatriots were working hard to prepare themselves for whatever might be coming next. Then reports reached them that the golden wolves of the Summerday Clan were coming to investigate the warren and its revolutionary ideas. Not long after, an assassination attempt with poison against Anastasia was almost successful. Animated by threats from all sides, the Free Warrens set out to gather every advantage they could, from Dead God secrets to long-lost survivalist caches.

The wolves, however, were making moves of their own. Troubling reports from crows indicated that the restless prey of the Wood were becoming braver, and the introduction of the upland wolf Tennyson, though of particular interest to Aliyah, was just one more mouth to feed in a pack that had seen too few deer lately. Driven by hunger to the criminal act of eating racoons, they decided to finally put down the revolt for once and for all, sending out a call for all the predators to join the fight.

Scheming also continued in the orthodox rabbit warrens, led by Olympia. Her spy in Warren Sans Gloire, Coriander, was proving less and less effective. And having been the originator of Anastasia’s poisoning, Olympia was anxious to find another way to neutralize her growing power, because it was disturbing the natural order and attracting wolf-led reprisals.

Then Anastasia sent a spy into the wolf fortress, the brave warmouse Death Rage, and there she discovered that the wolves and crows together were manipulating the rabbit religion through turncoat rabbit priests, and the holy words of Dah were crafted to make rabbits easier prey.

Anastasia, now freed from the strictures of her religion, leaned toward a more aggressive stance. And the Free Warrens, seeing a mighty battle coming, threw all their efforts into fortifying themselves. The discovery of farkillers—crossbows—promised a tectonic shift in the balance of power. And the small animals and their new raccoon allies got to work building and practicing with these new machines.

As the impending fight neared, many smaller conflicts erupted. Bricabrac had helped his sister gain a commission with the wolves to build armor for them, and he was imprisoned by the rabbits for this act. He only escaped when Death Rage took pity on him. The Ascending Squirrels managed to save young bunnies from wolves out on a hunt. Later, Coriander sacrificed himself to save Sunbeam. And when Love Bug and Wendy came face-to-face with a Summerday wolf, they fought for their lives and just barely managed to kill him.

On the eve of the final clash, Olympia, coming to realize that the rabbit religion was a sham, called off another attempt on Anastasia’s life. And Aliyah Summerday and Tennyson had a romantic encounter, fueled by dirty apples and night-before-action jitters.

When the day of battle arrived, Anastasia was captured and taken behind enemy lines. Her army rose to the occasion, and with the help of their crossbows and trenches, managed to hold off the onslaught of predators. Anastasia was rescued by songbirds, and when the Summerday alpha wolves charged, they too were killed by the crossbow quarrels. Aliyah, seeing her lover and her parents dying, fled the battlefield.

Anastasia allowed the surviving predators to go free, but warned them to never again harm a living creature while in the territory of the newly established Free Nation. She reunited with Freddie, recognizing him as the partner she had always needed, and they enjoyed a victory party while pondering what was in store for their new world.

City of Oom begins a few weeks later. It is now winter, and the rabbits are realizing that Free Nation faces two existential threats. One from within and one from without.

Chapter 1

Before the bears came to City of Oom, there was no life and no law. It was a wasteland carpeted with bones of the Dead Gods.

—Thimble Thimbalian, History of the Known World

Anastasia

If the bears don’t come down from the uplands and rip us apart, we will devour ourselves from inside, said Anastasia as the snow swirled around her. She shook the flakes off her long brown ears. Unless we get this figured out, our little nation will die. She stood shivering on the embankment the rabbits had just finished building before the snows came, with fifteen crossbows spaced out along the top.

Freddie squinted into the breeze. We’ve come so far, he said. No animals have ever done what we’ve done. She could hear that he was trying to sound confident.

Anastasia pressed against his thick black-and-gray fur, her lean muscular form hungry for warmth in the January cold. I wish it was the bears that scared me most, she said. Who would have thought that our biggest enemies would turn out to be ourselves? She started quietly murmuring strings of numbers again. One, two, four, eight, sixteen…

After a few moments, a brisk wind whipped up more snow flurries as the pale day drifted toward an early twilight, and the two bunnies continued on with their perimeter walk.

Anastasia touched the stock of each crossbow as she passed it. They were all aimed at the foot of the Stone Stair, a long staircase built into the Boreal Cliffs. It was one of two points of entry from the uplands, which made it the likely invasion highway for the grizzly bears from City of Oom, or their corps of enforcers, the Municipal Wolves.

She paused and gazed at the weapons, her forepaw resting on her owl claw necklace. Many of these crossbows had been hauled south from the Battle of the Narrows, where they had helped bring down the Landlords of the Million Acre Wood just two months before. It was because of these wooden machines that Free Nation existed today.

As they reached the end of the embankment, they came upon Stan, the bluebird Air Captain of the aerial wing of the Armée Libre. He was taking a turn on sentry duty, and had made a little snow cave for shelter from the wind. The two rabbits sat down near him with their flanks pressed together.

Come and get warm, said Anastasia.

Thanks, Godmother. Stan gratefully slipped in between the two rabbits and arranged himself with just his balding blue-feathered head sticking out of the snug rumple of rabbit fur. Anastasia could feel his cool little body squirming around as he settled in.

Geez, it’s frickin’ cold out here, he growled. Now I know why bluebirds migrate south. I’m freezing my tail off.

Thanks for staying with us this year, said Anastasia.

Next year, I’m going, said Stan.

For a few moments, all the animals sat in silence, looking out at the snow whipping past the crossbows, each with its stash of stone-pointed quarrels neatly stowed in a loading box nearby.

Then Anastasia glanced up at the top of the cliff, where some flashes of color showed that songbirds were foraging along the cliff edge, a hundred and fifty feet above. Still having that problem? she asked.

Ya, ya, said Stan. Our peeps are fierce, but we can’t make any headway against the upland songbirds. And the swarming tactic that worked great against raptors doesn’t work against birds our own size.

What do you think’s causing it? asked Freddie.

"Songbirds have always been territorial, but someone has them convinced that we are the enemy, said Stan. Dumb clucks, right? But there’s no reaching them. He paused for a moment and cocked his head. If you listen now, I think you can hear them singing their song."

Freddie and Anastasia swiveled their ears to point upward, and the faint sound of birdsong came to them from above.

"Birds of Upland, let us fly

Toward our future filled with glory

Praise our homeland, lift it high

Tell again the grand old story

Dirty ones came from away

Tried to harm our noble forebears

And then on our darkest day

We were helped by mighty warbears

Birds and bears in brotherhood

Bound in friendship now and ever

Swore a great oath in our wood:

Keep out dirty ones forever!"

Anastasia frowned. Is that new?

It is, but it sounds like you’ve heard it before, doesn’t it? said Stan. Plus it has just the kind of sing-songy melody songbirds like to learn and repeat. They sing it all the time now.

Is this real? asked Freddie. I mean, are these real events? Dirty ones and bears and whatnot?

Stan shrugged. For songbirds, if a new song tastes good to learn—and sing—it’s real. A big snowflake landed on his head. He shook it off. "Clearly, this is trouble. And not just that, a new kind of trouble. Somehow, the bears are making this happen."

But we’re still not at war, said Freddie.

Anastasia looked at him. Yet.

Aliyah

Aliyah Summerday, the last golden wolf drawing breath in the world, stood on the edge of a strange country, dusted with snow.

After climbing the Midsummer Path two months before, she had drifted steadily south along the tops of the Boreal Cliffs, her gaze drawn constantly to the Million Acre Wood spread out below. She had crossed the peaceful blue Shandy, wandered through the spindly woodlands covering the Tikituk Hills, and finally arrived at the Braided Gorges of the fast-flowing Delf River.

The hot rage and grief that she had felt after the destruction of the Summerday Clan and her first days of exile to the uplands had now cooled to a heavy ache in her heart that never left her. The one bright spot in her existence was the litter of pups growing in her belly. They were the Summerdays to come, a new world waiting.

She gazed out over the deeply fissured Braided Gorges area. When the Delf River entered the soft limestone that underlay this part of the uplands, it splintered into many channels, all of which cut far into the earth.

Some streams ran through gulches only twenty feet wide, with steep walls that rose seventy feet or more up to the surface. The channels twisted back and forth, re-joining others and then dividing again, following the logic of what had once been random cracks in the limestone. All the watercourses eventually reached the Boreal Cliffs and poured out through steep-sided gullies, falling a hundred feet or more to the Downlands, creating the Southern Marshes that bordered the lower edge of the Million Acre Wood.

Gaetan the coyote appeared with two small kills in his mouth, limping on his injured leg. He laid the bodies in the snow. "For you, my Lady."

Just two? was all she said. Then she scarfed them down quickly, not asking if he had already eaten.

Over the past two months, Gaetan had accompanied her as she wandered, ever loyal, ever solicitous. They were bound together by their shared memory of what had happened at the Battle of the Narrows, when little animals with farkillers and dishonorable tactics had laid waste to the ancien régime of the Million Acre Wood. Now she was the heir apparent of a kingdom that no longer trembled at her name. And he was the lone retainer of a noble house that had recently joined the ranks of the wandering penny gentry.

I need to find a place for a birthing den, said Aliyah, licking the last of her meal off her lips. I’ve never done this before, because at the Spires, the birthing dens had all been in use for generations … She trailed off and looked down, her breathing fast and thready. Gaetan came near her and nuzzled her side. I’m fine, she snapped, raising her head.

Gaetan stepped back. "Dois-je aider?"¹ he asked.

Aliyah looked away from the Braided Gorges. Let’s go back. See if we can find a little canyon with a stream, she said. Someplace beautiful. Someplace fitting— her eyes took on the thousand-yard stare —for the rebirth of Clan Summerday.

Anastasia

In the last days of autumn, Anastasia had supervised the digging of Stone Base, to house the Stone Stair garrison. It featured several entrance ramps which began near the crossbow embankment and led down into a large open space. So if the crossbows were overrun and the wooden gratings at the entrances were breached by enemy, they would find themselves confronted by several hundred Armée Libre fighters all at once.

The entry tunnels and central space were sized for raccoons, and around the edges were alcoves designed as bunks for smaller animals. There were also working areas for craftmice and raccoons, lit by small skylights.

On this day, the cold and clear weather had dropped temperatures past freezing, even in the newly mild Canadian winters brought about by four hundred years of warming climate. So most of the animals were inside the base, working, dozing, gossiping, and telling stories to pass the time. All the body heat made the chamber toasty warm.

Anastasia snuggled with Freddie in her alcove as they talked quietly about their plans. He started singing a silly little song he’d made up recently as he nuzzled her ear.

"Who’s the best pookie in the whole wide Wood?

Everyone loves the little bunny that could."

Anastasia scoffed and elbowed him. As always, it was hard for her to relax, but she was trying to take a moment before she started the trek north to Warren Sans Gloire to get back to the work of governing. Her new nation still stood on wobbly legs and she was determined that it would not fall.

There was much to be done. Some warrens were having food shortages. The efforts to exhort the citizens of Free Nation to have fewer young needed to be amped up. The denizens of Musmuski Grove were demanding more representation. There were reports of raccoons making grabs at mice in the hinterlands that had to be looked into. And on and on.

Across the open space, Anastasia could see Lorazepam and Wellbutrin, the two kindly local raccoons who had helped her wrangle their fierce cousins a few weeks earlier. Apple growers by trade, they were here for their weeklong rotation on crossbow duty as members of the Free Nation militia. In the dim light, Wellbutrin held Lorazepam’s paw clasped over his heart, and their tails were intertwined. They chatted drowsily with Dingus, the leader of the Ascending Squirrels, as he leaned into forward fox pose.

Like this. Ah … chek, murmured Dingus as he settled into a deep stance.

Sweet, chuckled Lorazepam. You’ll have to teach me that one, honey.

Nearby, Anastasia could see Nicodemus, the wise Elder Reader, playing a game of Terre Soleil with Mabel, the priestly party girl who was still trying to figure out the how to reinvent rabbit spirituality now that the rabbits’ god, Dah, had been exposed as a fraud.

Nicodemus moved a large piece of earthy brown hematite forward and said, Bear launches attack.

What is the nature of bear? asked Mabel, as she pulled a black ear down and cleaned it.

The nature of bear is muchness, said Nicodemus.

Mabel moved a sparkly chunk of chalcopyrite to the side. Fool finds a way.

A few feet away, Wendy, the lop-eared barbarian commander of the Armée Libre, was reclining in her alcove near one of the ramps. The doughty warrior Love Bug, first rabbit to kill a Summerday wolf, was lounging nearby. He was rubbing a fine oil scented with cedar and allspice onto the pads of Wendy’s large back feet, while she sang a deep, rumbly song about Love Bug the Goldkiller that she had composed herself.

"Woof big like sky and gold like sun

Hoo hoo haroom!

Coineanaich² no place to run

Tha e fìor³ haroom!"

Death Rage and a group of warmice, all of whom loved both fighting and singing about fighting, were sitting nearby in a semicircle, clapping their small hands and chiming in on the harooms.

After a few verses, Death Rage slipped over to her bunk in the mouse alcove and came back with an ornately carved flute her father had made for her out of an ancient juniper twig. She began adding accent trills that extended the melody Wendy was singing.

"Wendy fly and cut woof bad

Hoo hoo haroom!

But mighty jaw make Wendy sad

Tha e fìor haroom!"

Wendy nodded approvingly at Death Rage’s contribution. So another warmouse ran and got a tiny gourd filled with cactus spines, and began to add a soft shooka-shooka under Wendy’s rumbling voice.

Anastasia smiled. On some days, it was so good to be a rabbit.

"Then Love Bug pull his blade and say

Hoo hoo haroom!

Goldkiller come this very day

O seadh, a ghràidh,⁴ haroom!"

Suddenly, three songbird sentries were racing into the hall shouting, "Wolves! Wolves! Wolves! They circled the hall, feathers cascading behind them, calling, Stations! Stations! Stations!"

Anastasia felt a hot smear of adrenaline burn down her back as she rolled out of her alcove with Freddie at her side. Wendy was already lunging up the ramp, raptor claw necklace jangling, Love Bug a step behind. And all the creatures of the garrison were pouring out of their alcoves and racing for their positions, the central space boiling with small, fierce animals in motion.

When Anastasia reached the embankment, she could see the silent forms of gray wolves slipping down the Stone Stair, ghostly in the late winter twilight flecked with puffy snowflakes. Municipal Wolves. She had never seen them before. She stood for a moment, watching them move, as Wendy rapped out a series of rapid-fire orders and Love Bug threw paw signs to direct the Loving Auntie’s Guard to form a perimeter around her.

The crossbow teams hurled themselves into the fight. Wellbutrin and Lorazepam, slipping in the fresh snow, scrabbled into place on their backs on each side of their crossbow, bracing their back feet against the stock and pulling the bowstring up to the catch-hook. Then Lorazepam slapped a quarrel into place, snugged it against the bowstring, and they both rolled away from the loaded weapon.

Now Dingus was leaping into position on his balancing platform, seizing his trigger string, and taking control of his machine by shifting his body weight. Within a few seconds, most of the crossbows were loaded, bow riders in place, sights sweeping the battlefield. As they brought the noses of their farkillers to bear on the wolves coming down the switchbacks of the long stairway, Dingus was calling out in his silvery command voice: "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

Thirteen of the crossbows snapped, and an instant later, snarls of rage from the dimly lit stairs proved that some had found their targets. Then, as the crossbow teams were reloading, a flurry of crows descended on them like a black rainstorm, pecking at the eyes of the raccoons and driving the squirrels off their platforms. Anastasia flicked out her Dragon Claw and leaped skyward, slashing at the dark flyers. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mabel bounding ahead, jabbing her bite blade into the midst of the crows. And a moment later, she heard Stan calling orders as he hurled his songbirds into the aerial scrum.

Some of the wolves had reached the bottom of the long stairs, but they did not come racing toward the embankment. Instead, they stayed behind cover, flickering from tree to boulder to stump. Clearly, the forces from City of Oom had learned something from the destruction of Clan Summerday at the Battle of the Narrows.

Nine of the crossbows got off another shot. This time, there were no snarls or yelps from the wolves. Anastasia paused and crouched down, breathing hard, as a multicolored rain of feathers fluttered down from the aerial combat just overhead, stippling the pale snow. She could see more wolves arriving at the foot of the stairs. And they were dividing into two groups and moving to the sides, staying behind cover. More crossbows snapped. None seemed to find their targets.

Suddenly, there was a great crashing in the branches of the trees that grew near the cliffs. The sharp sound of large tree limbs breaking seized everyone’s attention. What is that? A moment later, a large granite boulder several feet wide landed on the sloping ground at the foot of the cliffs and came spinning towards them, bouncing as it came. When it struck the ground, it landed with the force of a giant’s fist.

Anastasia could feel the vibrations of each impact. It was coming straight towards the embankment, covering the ground in great leaps. That’s why the wolves moved out of the center. She started to back away from the boulder’s path, snow slipping under her feet.

Wendy was yelling orders at the fire teams, and the raccoons in the center of the embankment grabbed their crossbows and dragged them towards the sides, with the rabbits pushing. Anastasia threw her shoulder against a nearby crossbow, and for a moment found herself face to face with Wellbutrin, his eyes wide and scared in his dark mask. Love Bug and the Guard joined in the effort, and even Nicodemus was doing his best to shove a crossbow along, rear claws sliding in the mush.

After a few more seconds, when the boulder reached the embankment, even the songbirds and crows disengaged from their aerial slugfest enough to move out of the way. The boulder bounced forward and landed halfway up the slope, then rolled upward, launching off the lip and flying over their heads. A moment later it was crashing into the shrubs behind them as it rolled over the top of Stone Base and on down the long slope of the hill.

The Municipal Wolves were coming toward them now, slipping through the trees, creating a two-pronged attack heading for the flanks of the embankment. Some of the raccoons were trying to drag their crossbows back to the center, crawling over the slippery mess of churned-up snow and dirt. "No move! shouted Wendy over the raucous swirl of songbird attack melodies fighting for dominance with harsh crow calls. Load now!"

Where had the boulder come from? Anastasia scanned the cliff top in the dimming light, trying to see through the jumble of leafless branches. At last she picked out several teams of raccoons, a hundred and fifty feet above, using levers to push against the boulders that dotted the cliff edge. A moment later, another boulder gave way and dropped straight down, smashing through a scree of small tree limbs. Three seconds later, it had reached the foot of the cliff and came hurtling forward, snapping the dry winter brush. It hit a large tree at an angle, then headed off to the side, away from the battle.

The wolves on each side of the embankment were getting closer. Anastasia could see that they each had a loop of metal in one ear. And their amber eyes seemed to glow in the frosty twilight. They were calling to each other now, quietly, sharing information, giving orders. She tilted her ears forward, trying to screen out the noise of the birds fighting just overhead. There were more than fifteen wolves on her side. That’s as many wolves as the whole Summerday Clan.

The memory of her time at the mercy of the golden wolves washed over her, and the bitter, metallic taste of fear filled her mouth. She shook her head and flicked out her Dragon Claw. The rabbits still had some surprises in store, but it could get ugly quickly if everything didn’t go according to plan. She felt her feet starting to shuffle backwards, and forced herself to hold her ground, as she knew her example was the most powerful weapon she wielded. Love Bug pulled the Guard closer around her. Death Rage and several other warmice ran past her, seizing positions of advantage among the jumble of boulders at the end of the embankment, leaving tiny tracks in the snow. "Timent muram!"⁵ shouted Death Rage.

The raccoons on top of the cliff pushed off another boulder. This one fell through the branches and came straight down the center. It mowed through a stand of young trees, which slowed it down and set it rolling instead of bouncing.

Anastasia could see the wolves gathering for a charge. Some of the crossbows were firing, brushing the wolves back when they got too close. But many of the shots were wild. It was clear the crow attack was crippling the crossbow teams’ effectiveness, and the wolves were making good use of cover. Anastasia