Fearing for his life, Chisholm, the self-styled emperor of his kingdom, entrusts the safe-keeping of a magical talisman to his friend Ripley the hare. When Ripley is murdered, and the talisman goes missing, there begins a war of attrition, during which the struggle for power is shifted between three opposing armies. Coalitions are formed and then broken, before a final showdown takes place on the site of the ruined woodland.