“I have touched the fox,” Little Fur said slowly. “The scars on his body are nothing compared to the scarring of his spirit. Though I have healed his wounds, his ailing spirit will eventually undo all I have done. Quite soon, he will have his wish, whether or not he goes on this expedition.”
“We have no hope but the strength of his will,” the Sett Owl said.
“It does not seem . . . honest to use the sickness of a creature to solve a problem,” Little Fur said.
“A great darkness looms over the world, and if it comes, this one fox’s sickness will be as a single drop in a deluge of pain.”
“You are saying that the earth spirit is more important than the fox?”
“Yes,” the owl said.
Little Fur was silent for a time, mixing the tisane. “When I was healing his wounds, I was as careful and gentle as I could be, yet the fox shrank from my touch. Is it because I am part troll?”
“The fox shrank from his memories.”
Little Fur sighed. This mystery was too bleak and deep for her. She looked at the owl again, into those enormous eyes. “Do you know where he is now?”
“The fox sleeps under the hedge where your crow companion skulks, clacking his beak. The fox’s dreams are full of blood and pain, but they will not last long, for already a red dawn stains the sky.”
CHAPTER 8
The Black Dog
“Where are the spies?” The fox seemed refreshed by his brief rest.
“The ferrets are waiting outside,” the Sett Owl said. “Kell and Shikra are their names. They are brother and sister. Gazrak you have met.”
Hearing his name, the rat emerged from a tangle of shadows, red eyes full of malice and terror.
“Ye said there would be others. I don’t suppose ye have managed to see any of their faces as I slept?” the fox asked.
Little Fur felt the still magic in the beaked house swirling wildly and she heard herself answering, as if in a dream. “I will go.”
The fox turned to stare at her. “I want no healer,” he said coldly.
“What you want does not matter,” the owl said. “Your chance of success is greater with the healer by your side. While you slept, I saw that your company will number nine.” She glanced up at the long, narrow windows above the raised part of the floor, where faint light was beginning to strain through the jewel-like colors. “It is time for you to leave.”
Sorrow still stared accusingly at Little Fur. “Underth is no place for a healer. If ye fall into their hands ye may wish to be dead. Have ye thought of that?”
“If the earth spirit is hurt by whatever it is that the Troll King is planning,” Little Fur said softly, “all the world will be wounded and it will be a wound that no healer can mend, however skilled.”
“So be it, then,” said the fox.
And so they gathered: Little Fur; the fox called Sorrow; Gazrak, reeking of resentment and fear; and the brother and sister ferrets, Brave Kell (as he called himself ) and Shikra. The ferrets wore small backpacks containing water bottles. Little Fur carried her own pouches, into which she had put a small package of dried leaves, given to her by the Sett Owl, which would hide the true scent of anyone who rubbed it on their skin or fur.
Little Fur dropped her hand to Ginger’s soft pelt after they slipped through the encircling spiked fence. She hoped the cat did not mean to accompany her farther than the troll hole that would lead them to Underth. She had drawn him into danger before, and she did not want to do it again.
They had gone only a few steps when Crow swooped to the ground. Gazrak screamed, but Crow ignored him.
“This being a great stupidness, Little Fur,” he cawed, glaring at her. “You not having weapon to fighting trolls. Must not going on this expedition!”
“The Sett Owl—” Little Fur began.
“Sett Owl full of trickiness!” Crow screeched.
Little Fur looked at Ginger, but the gray cat made no comment.
Crow gave a sharp croak of frustration. “Must coming back to wilderness. That where you belonging. What Old Ones saying about this, eh?”
Little Fur said softly, “The Old Ones know what I do and why.”
“Enough talking with this crow. We must go at once!” hissed Gazrak, who had recovered from his fright. He turned his red eyes up to the sky, which was growing brighter by the second.
“Yes,” Little Fur said. “I’m sorry, Crow. I wish you could understand.”
He took to the sky, and as they continued, she could feel him circling high overhead.
“He does not wish to lose you,” Ginger said quietly.
“The Sett Owl said there is no hope for the earth spirit if we do not find out what the Troll King is planning. She did not ask me to go, or even suggest it. But when I offered, she said there is a better chance of success if I do.” Little Fur was talking to the fox as much as to Ginger. Sorrow had said nothing throughout Crow’s tirade, but she had smelled his approval of the bird’s opposition. Of course, she could not tell Sorrow that her purpose in going was not to fight but to keep himalive. . . .
Gazrak brought them to an older part of the city where many of the stone houses were empty and half had tumbled down. Little Fur had not been here before. Everywhere she looked, there were boards fixed over doors or webs of wire. All of the front gardens she could see were tangled and unkempt, and the windows were like empty sockets. But Little Fur’s heart thrilled, for earth magic ran freely about the ground, where grass and moss and small plants were growing in a wild, happy tangle amidst the ruins.
The sun had lifted its eye high enough now that light was pressing down into the night shadows still lying damp and heavy in the cobbled lane. It would not be long before the shadows were vanquished. Then they would have to be very careful, for although this area was abandoned, it belonged to humans.
Little Fur thought of the owlet that she had left in the tree hollow. The Sett Owl had all but said that she must become its family, and yet here she was, setting off on a dangerous journey from which she might not return. Now she saw the wisdom behind the cruel-seeming philosophy of the owls about nests and fallen eggs, because life was full of unexpected abandonments. Perhaps her own parents had left her meaning to return, but had been unable to do so.
She looked up. There was no sign of Crow, but the bond between them told her that he was near. The thought of going away from him was heavy in her heart.
They came to a lane that crossed over the one they were following. Sunlight flared on the walls of some of the buildings. Gazrak stopped abruptly and hissed at the brightness. The rest of them waited as he sniffed and twitched and chewed at the ends of his paws before springing forward. As they hastened after him, Little Fur thought what an uncomfortable journey it would be if it must be made with such sudden stops and bursts of manic speed. There was no doubt in her mind that Gazrak knew exactly where he was going, though.
“It is getting very lightful,” said Shikra to her brother.
“Soon we will go into darkness,” he answered.
The ferrets’ fur was deep gold at the throat, matching the gold flecks in their brown eyes, but their bodies were a deeper shade, brown misted with gray and black. In the shadows, they were almost invisible, even to Little Fur’s eyes. The owl was right about their being the perfect spies. Beside them, the fox’s fur and brush were like a tongue of fire, and she knew her own hair was no less vivid.
At length, inevitably, a black road ran across their path. Little Fur explained that she must find some way to cross it that would not sever her from the flow of earth magic.
“We cannot wait!” the rat snarled, glaring frantically at the sun. “You must find your own way across and follow us.”
The fox looked at Ginger. “Ye will stay with her?”
“Always,” said Ginger very quietly.
Little Fur watched the rat, the two ferrets and the fox cross the black road and make their way down the cobbled lane on the other side. They had gone out of sight
when Crow spiraled out of nowhere to land beside her.
“Now is timeliness for going back to wilderness,” he said.
“Crow, I can’t,” Little Fur said firmly. “But will you help me to cross the black road?”
He gave a disgruntled croak and took to his wings. Her eyes followed as he flew high and then banked left, out of sight, behind a building. Soon he flew back to report that the road was narrower and more broken in that direction.
Little Fur set off at once. Crow came hippity-hopping along beside her and reminded her of all the stories of savage trolls they had heard.
Little Fur needed no reminding. “Dear Crow,” she said, “when I had to leave the wilderness the first time, there were terrible risks, but you understood why I had to go. It is the same now.”
“But Crow cannot coming with you under the ground!” Crow cawed forlornly. “Who will watching for danger?”
“My eyes see well in the darkness. My claws are sharp,” Ginger said with a soft fierceness that made his orange eyes flash. Little Fur’s heart clenched. Partly she was glad that the cat was determined to come with her, but what if something happened to him on the way to Underth?
“Trolls seeing better. Their claws being sharper,” Crow muttered.
“I made a promise.”
“Promise!” Crow cried. “Who caring of promisings? Trolls will eating you! They will sucking the marrow out of your bones! Then what will your promisings be but meat in troll’s hairy belly?”
“I have said I will go,” Little Fur insisted. “Maybe the troll bit of me will help.” She touched the green rock at her throat that was a gift from her troll mother, as her lost cloak had been a gift from her elf father. Of course, she did not remember the giving of either, but what else could those two things be but gifts?
They came to an older part of the road. Grass grew up thickly through the cracks. Unfortunately, there was no space to walk back along the road on the other side. Little Fur crossed anyway, Ginger by her side. Her previous expeditions into the city had shown her that eventually all of the roads in the city connected. In any case, it was growing late and each moment that passed increased the danger of their being spotted by a human.
On the other side, Sorrow appeared, coming along the lane toward them.
“There is a dog in the lane where the troll hole is,” he said at once. “The rat and the ferrets managed to get into the troll hole before the dog got to them. I sprang away to lead it aside, but it would not follow. It waits by the opening.”
“Waits for what?” Little Fur asked. The idea of a dog terrified her.
“I do not know,” the fox said impatiently. “I came to warn ye to turn back.”
Little Fur frowned at him. “Are you giving up, then?”
“No. I do not fear the dog. I will fight it if I must and then join the others. I swore an oath to the Sett Owl. But ye must go back to your wilderness.”
“No,” Little Fur said. “I made a promise, too, and it is no less important to me than your promise is to you.”
The fox stared at her, pale shafts of gold and scarlet showing in his eyes. Without a word, he turned and padded back down the lane. Little Fur followed on legs that suddenly felt weak. As they approached a bend in the lane, she smelled the fury of the dog ahead. She clenched her teeth to stop them from rattling. The fox stepped around the corner into the sunlight, his pelt blazing. Little Fur tottered out into the light behind him.
Then Little Fur saw the enormous black dog barring their way. Her breath caught in her throat, for she knew this dog.
CHAPTER 9
A Painful Parting
“Move and let us pass, Dog,” commanded Sorrow. He shone like a long lick of flame, the utter opposite of the midnight-black dog facing him.
“I have no quarrel with you, Fox,” the dog announced in a husky voice that smelled to Little Fur of burnt flesh and singed fur.
“Then stand aside, She-dog,” the fox said.
“I will not. But you and the cat may pass without harm. My business is with the thing from the last age that stands behind you.”
The fox gave off the scent of disbelief mingled with genuine surprise. “The healer?”
“I swore to drink her blood and crunch her bones. She and the one-eyed cat,” the dog snarled.
“I have never done harm to you,” Little Fur managed, her voice as frail as a dry leaf.
“I swore,” the dog repeated. “I escaped and followed the cat reek here. It is convenient that you are here, too. I will kill you, and then I will find the one-eyed cat and kill her.”
“What is all of this?” Sorrow demanded.
“A cat called Sly tormented this dog when it was trapped. She taunted it and made it hurt itself. I don’t know why,” said Little Fur.
The fox sighed. “This night is full of conflicting oaths.” He turned back to the dog. “Ye must kill me if ye would kill the healer, for I am on a quest and she is part of it.”
“A quest! I care not,” growled the dog, the smell of madness boiling out of her. “I will tear out the heart of your healer and then I will seek the other. The cat. I have dreamed of revenge over and over. I have dreamed of the salt taste of her wicked blood.”
“Then ye have dreamed of death, for I cannot allow ye to touch one of our company,” the fox said.
The dog snarled and crouched. Her muscles bunched in readiness to attack.
“Be glad of your hatred, Dog,” the fox said in a voice so strange and hollow that the dog paused, “for rage fills ye with life and hot purpose. Know that if ye kill these two, ye will become as cold and empty as an old bone in the wind.”
These words seemed to rise up from the very heart of the fox’s mysterious grief. Little Fur shivered. The dog did not move or make any answer. But the smell of rage remained. Crow gave a cawing cry high in the air. Instinctively, the fox looked up, and the spell was broken.
The dog gave an enraged roar and lunged toward Little Fur. Her great jaws opened. Little Fur’s bones seemed to dissolve as she looked into that red swallowing darkness.
Ginger sprang, twisting in the air to land on the dog’s back. He bit savagely, sinking his sharp claws deep so that he would not be thrown off. The dog bellowed in rage and pain, and whipped her head around to catch the gray cat in her teeth, but she could not reach him.
Now the fox leaped, too, mouth opening to reveal teeth like needles. He caught the dog on the ear and dragged her sideways. Ginger jumped away as the dog went down, and then he attacked again, clawing the dog’s tender underbelly.
Little Fur could not bear it. “Oh, please!” she cried. “Stop! Don’t kill the dog! Don’t hurt her anymore!”
Her voice was shockingly loud. The harsh grunting and rasping sounds stopped.
Then the dog erupted into action again. She shook Ginger and Sorrow off like two kittens. Little Fur realized that the dog had never been in any danger of being killed. It was the others who would die—and herself!
But instead of attacking, the dog approached Little Fur, the smell of madness and hatred fading into a muddle. Both Sorrow and Ginger were poised to spring again, but the change in her scent made them hesitate.
“You . . . told them to stop,” the dog growled, her small eyes glaring down at Little Fur. “Why?”
“I . . . I thought they would kill you,” she whispered. “I would have killed you if they had not attacked. Why did you not urge them on?”
Little Fur felt sick from the hot, meaty reek of the dog. “I . . . I am a healer,” she said.
The dog regarded her for a long moment, its scents shifting and changing. Suddenly Crow was swooping overhead and shrieking, “Craaak! Humans coming!
” Instantly the dog turned and bounded away and out of sight. Sorrow leaped sideways through a small crumbled opening in the wall beside them. Little Fur and Ginger followed.
They found themselves in the remnants of a human garden. The fox went to ground behind some ripe, fat pumpkins in a tangle of we
eds and Ginger wove cat shadows about himself. Little Fur pressed herself against the wall and held her breath.
Over the drumming of her heart, Little Fur heard human voices and boots thudding on the cobbles. As the humans came nearer, she smelled anger and a black excitement. A few humans paused beside the opening in the wall. To her amazement, Little Fur could smell the black dog in their words. They were looking for her.
Now there was the roar of a road beast. It came into the lane with a long, horrible wailing cry that went on and on. Little Fur clapped her hands over her ears. Even through tightly closed eyes she could see great flashes of blue light like sky-fire. There were more humans and more talk, but all she could do was curl into a ball. At long last, the humans and the road beast went away. Little Fur did not dare to take her hands from her ears until Ginger nuzzled at her.
Sitting up shakily, she still seemed to hear the dreadful scream of the road beast, though all was quiet. She noticed the fox watching her. She expected him to tell her again that she ought to go back to the wilderness, but he only rose and slipped through the opening back into the cobbled lane. Little Fur stood up and climbed unsteadily after him.
There was no sign of Sorrow, but Ginger padded down the lane to the troll hole, where the black dog had been. The bitter smell of troll made Little Fur hesitate. Crow spiraled down to land on the cobbles.
“More humans come,” he warned. “Little Fur not going down to Underth!”
“Crow, dear Crow, I must.” Little Fur reached out to stroke his black plumage, shining in the sunlight. “Go back to the wilderness. Tell Tillet what has happened and help her to watch over the baby owl.”
Before Crow could beg her again, Little Fur climbed into the troll hole. It led to a human cellar with an earth floor. The animals’ eyes glimmered in the shadows.
“You are wasting time!” the rat accused.
“Then let us waste no more,” Sorrow said coolly. He turned, and Little Fur saw that behind him the cellar floor opened to reveal a wide crack with a ramplike path down into the earth. Sorrow leaped lightly into it and disappeared. Gazrak and the ferrets followed, leaving Little Fur and Ginger to bring up the rear. It grew darker as they descended, but Little Fur’s troll blood helped her to see clearly. The animals did not need much light to see, and where there was no light, their noses guided them.