Chapter Text
Judy could feel the torch hitting the stake to which they were tied. At the same instant, she could feel the ground shift underneath them and all of a sudden they were falling, falling towards the burning hole in the ground. Judy began to panic, squirming around, struggling to break free of the ropes that bound her wrists and tied her to the wooden pole.
And then, as if by magic (none of hers, unfortunately; spells had to be verbal and with her mouth gagged she was as useless at magic as a bullfrog) both sets of ropes snapped and she found herself falling freely.
She had barely touched the blazing ground when she was already rolling away from the impact site and into the tunnel that had been dug underneath the town square. Judy had no idea how it had been constructed, especially without anyone noticing, but she didn’t have time to question it and began sprinting away as fast as she could. Despite his injuries, Nick kept up with her fairly well.
After a few minutes, the dim light provided by the fire glowing in the mouth of the passage was too dim for her to see by, and she had to let Nick take the lead. She grabbed on to his tail to keep from getting separated. Thankfully he seemed to know where he was going, because the number of passages would have confused her to no end.
Judy began to recognize the pattern of the tunnels as belonging to a rabbit’s warren. She marvelled that the entire town hadn’t collapsed if this extensive substructure was present the entire time.
Eventually the tunnel began to get lighter and after no time at all, they emerged out of the tunnel on the outskirts of the town, looking at a very familiar structure…
The sound of hoofs and the creak of a wagon’s wheels drew her attention, and she was giddy with relief when she saw the buck sitting at the front. “Mister Swift!” She let go of Nick’s tail and threw herself into the cart at the older rabbit. “But how?”
“The shop back in Salem wasn’t the only land that our ancestors owned, my dear,” he replied, giving her a fierce hug before depositing her onto the seat beside him. “This farm has also been ours, long before Tri-burrows was founded. Now… Well, I sold it earlier today at the behest of Mister Wilde over here. Mister Johnson, Jr. seemed eager to buy it; said he was hoping to put his sons to work in the fields.”
“We should go,” Nick added, heaving himself up into the seat beside them with a grunt of pain. Judy put out her hand to steady him. “They won’t be far behind, and if the Cardinal has any inkling of these tunnels, he’ll be here in heartbeats.”
“Don’t have to worry about that, Mister Wilde,” Swift replied with a chuckle. “Those tunnels have been just as secret as our shrine and the old tomes.” A shocked and angry Judy turned to the black rabbit with rebukes ready on her lips. Nick cut her off before she could say anything, however.
“Don’t worry, Judy; I knew everything before I ever spoke with him. It’s how I convinced him to trust me. I managed to weasel it out of the Cardinal’s agent that followed you, and then I put two and two together from descriptions I’d heard from the residents of Salem when I was doing research there. I must admit, it was difficult to piece together that he was your uncle.”
“You… you knew…”
“Nothing to do about it now, Judy,” her uncle Swift said. “Just let’s get a move on. I’ve got all the tomes in the back, hidden under the bags of oats, under the tarp. I’ve also picked up your stuff from your shop; wasn’t hard once those lunatics had kicked down the door. I got most everything, I think.”
“I… Thank you, Uncle. I appreciate it.”
The rabbit nodded and leaned forward to speak to the horses pulling the wagon. They both nodded their heads and began pulling the cart at a trot. The two rabbits reclined against each other and the fox leaned back to look at the stars as they made their way off to the north, away from the village and on to new adventures.