The Return of the Rabbit
“Beware! Beware! The tree-born rodent of death shall be your end!”
The old nightgoblin seer cackled once more as she held aloft the entrails from which she interpreted the mystic portents. A few of the assembled greenskins sniggered—this was something to fear? Why, they has slain pinkskins and stunties in this Waaagh… a rodent certainly seemed little to worry about. Most went back to their fermented fungusbrew, or continued their mud-wrestling with little heed to the crazed gobbo and her disemboweled chicken parts.
Glarsnot Bloodcurdle, however, had a very different reaction. He, unlike most of his illiterate throng, had read the Ancient Texts of Peverse Wikkiality, and perused the dog-eared scrolls of the ancient sage Miscreant Blogger. The old goblins warning sounded eerily like the legend of the Large Wooden Rabbit of Genocidal Intent…
And so it was, in the time of the noble confederecy of King Betrand, that the high bishops of the Kingdoms did cause to have built a rabbit of wood, and did pray upon its construction saying “Verily, by the mercy of our beloved Lady, we do consecrate this rabbit unto the power of Her most beneficent grace and love, so that those that accompany it shall bloodily slaughter our foes and generally people who don’t look like us, being shorter or greener or having ears of pointyness, for they are but an abomination upon the face of creation….”
Bloodcurdle shuddered as he remembered the ancient tales—how the wooden contraption had sparked the Great War of Extermination, whereby the Bretonnians and their human allies had sought to cleanse the realms of orc, goblin, dwarf, and elf alike. Few knew of it today, for the later need of the human kingdoms for non-human allies had led them to purge what records there were of those ancient times from the history books, and indeed to dismiss it all as mere propaganda. Others had done so too—neither the Orcs nor Dwarves wanted to remember a time where they had fought together as allies.
Still, if it were all true…
And so, as the Eleven Armies did achieve a bitter and bloody victory over the humans, felling King Bertrand and his cohorts. The Rabbit, however, was taken by the priests, to a location unknown, and concealed by powerful magicks—to vanish from the eyes of creatures and the pages of history for a millenia or more, until its powers had recharged and it could once more summon the hearts and swords of men in the service of its great crusade…
The Orcish General turned to his aides. “Prepare da army now.. weez gunna march at once!” He also turned to his most trusted scout, the famed goblin agent Germz-Beyund. “Germz, yuz gunna take this to da stunties.. yes, da stunties.. dey must be warned.”
With this, he handed the dusrprised goblin a piece of paper, bearing both his writing and his waxen seal. It contained but four mysterious words: “Da rabbit is back…”
Our next several battles were all inspired by a Monty Python-inspired wooden rabbit, which my daughter had crafted many years ago for her local Cub Kar (pinewood derby) competition. (Despite its complete and utter lack of even the faintest semblance of aerodynamic elegance, it had done very well too!)
