animals leave several rat carcasses outside his lodge. Meanwhile, Bully organizes a hunting party of the largest and strongest rats to dispose of Adder, and the rats find Sinuous and attack her. Sinuous strikes and kills Brat, Bully's chief lieutenant, but the other rats gnaw at her body and only release her when they are sure she is dead. The Warden finally becomes aware of the rats and searches for them on his rounds, and the animals are satisfied that he will deal with the threat. The attacks against the rats have tired Badger out and he finds it difficult to move. A young female badger named Frond, who has been driven out of her home by the rats, discovers Badger's set and asks for shelter, then collects food for him while he is unable to move. Badger enjoys being looked after and Frond stays with Badger to look after him. The Warden finally locates the rats and sets out poison for them, but they are too experienced to take the bait and it achieves nothing. Bully finally decides to launch his attack on the Farthing Wood animals and the huge colony of rats swarm into their corner of the reserve. Mossy is spotted and killed by Bully's lieutenant, Spike, before Holly notices the attack and alerts Tawny Owl. Soon the battle rages, but the Farthing Wood animals are overrun by the rats so Leveret and Dash head off to alert all the other animals in the reserve, who arrive to join the fight. With the other animals' help the rats are finally forced to retreat and Adder avenges the death of Sinuous by killing Spike. Vixen pursues Bully and crushes him with her jaws, then tosses him over the boundary fence and out of the reserve. Within hours the park is finally free of the rats and the animals can live peacefully once more. A few days later, Whistler discovers that a fence has been erected along the downland between the two reserves, then sometime after that Dash discovers that part of the boundary fence has been removed and the park continues onto the downland and has been linked with the other reserve, meaning that White Deer Park has become twice as big so there is more space for all the animals to live their lives. TV series The events of this book are covered throughout the third season