Rock Conies

Overview

Rock conies are the small, round, short-legged animals that sit in rows on the sunny rock of the Windscar, warming themselves at dawn. Every hunter on the shelves eats them, from eagles to dogs, and every Orc child of the kindreds sets a first snare for one. The kindreds call them the eagles' bread.

Appearance

A rock cony is the size of a large rabbit but rounder and heavier, with no tail to speak of, small round ears, and short legs ending in soft, rubbery pads that grip bare rock. Its coat is thick and coarse, grey-brown flecked with darker hairs, matching the stone it sits on, with a pale patch down the middle of the back. It moves in short scurries and sudden bounds between cracks. A colony keeps up a soft twittering while it feeds, and its alarm is a shrill whistle that sends every cony on the face into the rock at once. Their latrine ledges, used for generations, are stained white and smell sharply.

Habitat and Range

They live in colonies of a few dozen on rocky outcrops, scree, escarpment ledges, and the stone walls of the rims, across the High Scars and the spurs of the Rimward Basins. Old stronghold walls and abandoned cairn chains suit them well, and a long-quiet rim terrace may hold a colony in its stones.

Behaviour and Temperament

Conies feed on grass, leaves, and thorn shoots in short forays from their cracks, mostly in the cool of morning and evening, and spend the middle of the day and the cold nights packed together inside the rock. One always sits watch on a high stone. They are nervous and quick, and they will not stray far from a crack.

Life Cycle

Females bear two to four young after the windy season, born furred and open-eyed, able to climb within a day. They breed at a year old and live a few years more, if the eagles and the dun dogs let them.

Uses and Dangers

Conies are meat and fur for the kindreds, small but plentiful, and the skins are sewn into children's caps and the linings of winter hides. A colony in a rim wall loosens stones with its burrowing and can start a slump, and stronghold keepers clear them from the cistern walls.

Lore and Belief

A High-Scar child's first cony is cooked and shared with the whole camp ring, however small. The kindreds say that conies sunning in a line mean a calm day and conies gone into the rock at noon mean a storm before dark, and on the shelves, where weather is the first fact of life, nobody laughs at that. The white latrine ledges are read as old route marks by travellers who do not know better.

Where It Appears

• Overview: Animals