Little Fur felt the softness of Ginger’s fur against her bare leg and was glad, though she was certain that the bond between them was responsible for his devotion, which made her feel that he did not really have any choice. The same bond told her that poor Crow was flying in frantic circles in the air above the troll hole. There was a physical pain in the separation.
Ginger pressed against her side and said softly, “Earth magic does not work against nature. It can only strengthen what already exists.” Then he went ahead of her, and Little Fur stared after him. It was the first time any of them had spoken of their bond, and she had always wondered if she had imagined it.
The path leveled off, so it was easier to walk. Little Fur’s nose told her that the crack was natural but had been widened by a burrowing animal before being used by trolls. Her troll blood also helped her feel that there were spikes and strands of human-made stuff pushed into the earth all around them. Some of these protruded into the tunnel they were passing along. She reached again to touch the green stone around her neck.
Little Fur was not tired when the fox called a halt, but when she sat, her knees and the fronts of her legs ached from the steep angle. Earth magic flowed through the ground around her, but it lacked the liveliness of the magic that ran closer to the surface, where there were growing things.
“How long is this tunnel?” Sorrow asked Gazrak.
“We have gone only a small part of the way to Underth,” Gazrak said. “We must go on now. If a troll comes, there is no place here to hide.”
They continued down, and Little Fur noted changes in the earth about them. The yellowish clay with hard white stone and a sweet, elusive scent was replaced by chalky earth streaked with black that glittered with its own fierce radiance. At last, they came to the end of the path. It opened into the side of an enormous human tunnel. Little Fur saw with amazement that twin metal rails ran along the tunnel floor.
Aboveground she had seen such rails before, as well as the long metal snake with a single eye that had roared along them.
“Go quickly now,” Gazrak said, “for the road serpents pass often and fill the tunnel with their roaring bulk.”
“Go where?” Sorrow asked, sniffing the air.
“There is another troll hole farther along this human tunnel,” Gazrak said. He scuttled off along the rails. Sorrow and the ferrets flowed after him, but Little Fur could not move so quickly. She did not want to touch the metal rails, for she could smell that they had been splashed with stinging poisons. Humans—she could smell them close by!
The tunnel curved and straightened. Little Fur saw light ahead; bright false light poured from a cave set high into the side of the tunnel. As they neared the cave, she could see humans moving about and looking along the tunnel. Little Fur realized they must be waiting for the road serpent. Perhaps this was another sort of beast feeding place.
The fox was making his way along the wall that ran beneath the opening to the cave. Little Fur pressed herself against the side of the tunnel and followed him. She had just gotten clear of the cave when wind began to tug at her hair. Puzzled, she turned to look back along the tunnel. Then the metal rails began to sing.
Terror clogged her throat as a road serpent roared into view, its glaring white eye blazing. But it was slowing; screeching and shuddering, it came to a halt beside the high cave. This was a feeding place!
Little Fur hurried on, praying the other troll hole was near. She stumbled again and again on the loose stones scattered over the rock floor of the tunnel, but she quickly righted herself. Ginger stopped each time until she had clambered to her feet.
Suddenly the road serpent screamed. The tunnel had curved so that Little Fur could not see the metal serpent, but when the rails began to sing, she knew that they had only seconds to find the troll hole. Luckily, Little Fur saw Sorrow just a few steps ahead, at the mouth of an opening in the side of the tunnel. She and Ginger reached the hole as the road serpent came roaring into view. The fox and the ferrets made room for them as they squeezed in. The sound as the beast passed was deafening.
“Too slow!” Gazrak gnashed his yellow teeth at them all once the terrible creature had gone.
No one spoke as they set off on another downward path. Rougher but less steep than the last one, it brought them swiftly to a section that had been greatly altered by humans. They passed through many caverns strung with wires, and human-made tunnels lit by dazzling false lights. There were also holes made by humans that led straight to the surface, high over their heads. Sometimes Little Fur was startled, stepping into what she had thought was a pool of false light, only to find it was true sunlight. The smell of humans was strong, and Little Fur asked Gazrak if they were likely to encounter any.
“We would hear humans long before the great clumsy creatures would have a chance to see us,” Gazrak sneered. “The real danger is trolls.”
Little Fur said nothing, for she had seen that without Gazrak, they would have been utterly lost. There were so many passages and channels, all smelling of human and troll, yet the rat led them this way and that without hesitation, over wires, alongside pipes that gurgled with sluggish liquid and through tunnels. Little Fur had never imagined that humans had penetrated so deeply into the earth. It made her wonder what else they did that she could not imagine.
Only when they reached the level beneath the city where humans did not go did Gazrak allow a halt in a shallow cave. The two ferrets immediately shrugged off their packs and set out small portions of food. They paid no attention to Gazrak’s demand that the guide ought to have twice the amount of food as his followers.
The smell of troll and human had stolen away Little Fur’s hunger. Instead of eating, she drank water from her bottle while the others drank from minute wooden bowls the ferrets gave them. At her insistence, the rat passed her the gourd of herb mixture that Little Fur had made in the beaked house. As she cupped her hand for the fox to drink a mouthful of the tisane, a discreet sniff assured her that his wounds were still clean. But she could also tell that much of his energy was being used to fight the infection.
“How is it that we have seen no trolls?” Sorrow asked Gazrak.
“All trolls but the oldest and youngest go to say farewell to the king. But soon, trolls will turn back, and those who guard the tunnels will come here,” Gazrak answered.
“Does the Troll King fear invasion, that he keeps guards in these levels?” Ginger asked.
“The Troll King fears humans will discover Underth,” Gazrak answered.
The ferrets cleared away the scraps from the meal, and Little Fur remembered the leaves the owl had given her. She got them out and made sure the others rubbed the leaves into palm of paw and sole of foot before she attended to herself. The fragrance of the dried leaf was mild but distinctive; Little Fur could not see how it would hide the strong musk of fox and ferret, let alone her own scent.
They set off again, and came to another downward troll hole. This was also a natural fissure in the earth, but it had been worked and honed by burrowers. Little Fur smelled pain and cruelty and weariness in the smooth walls. She guessed that the trolls had forced animals to labor for them.
A little farther down, she was startled to see the flaking remnants of ancient carvings. They were not the work of any sort of creature Little Fur knew, nor could she smell human on them. She asked Gazrak who had made them, and to her astonishment, he said that they were old troll work. Little Fur had always thought of trolls as primitive, yet the carvings proved there had been trolls who valued patience and beauty and skill. Perhaps her mother had been such a troll!
“Does earth magic flow in Underth?” Little Fur asked after a time, for although the earth magic now moved like near-freezing water, its flow was still strong.
“It is in Underth,” Gazrak said, “but there are many places where it cannot go. The Troll King seeks to poison all of the city so that the earth spirit cannot pry into his domain.”
The tunnel became steeper and les
s well kept, and in some sections, there had been cave-ins. The companions had to move carefully, lest they send an avalanche sliding down to warn of their descent. Ahead, Gazrak and Sorrow stopped often to sniff and listen.
As they walked, Little Fur’s fear was left behind. Her mind was completely occupied by the complexity of the earth about her. To her troll senses, it was as diverse and enchanting as the wilderness was to her elf senses.
At last, the tunnel flattened out and they came to a doorway carved into the rock. It was only after studying the intricate pattern carved into its frame that Little Fur noticed small luminous mushrooms growing thickly in damp patches along the edges of the tunnel. Her nose told her that they were poisonous, but her instinct told her that they were also valuable. So she broke off one of the toadstools and pushed it into the hem of her dress, where a clever pocket had been sewn.
Gazrak suddenly stiffened. “A troll comes,” he said urgently.
“Is there a place to hide ahead, or must we turn back?” Sorrow asked.
“We should go on,” said Gazrak, “and fast and quietly.” They hurried to another crack and crept into it. Little Fur hoped that the Sett Owl had been right about the leaves hiding their scents.
It was not long before they heard the thud of heavy feet. Little Fur’s elf blood surged with curiosity. Then came sounds like guttural voices. Little Fur thought Gazrak was mistaken about there being only one troll, but when the troll appeared, she saw that it was talking to itself. She could not understand its snarling language, and wondered how Shikra and Brave Kell would get the information they needed from the trolls.
The troll was enormous, with clublike arms hanging almost to the ground and a huge, bent body. The troll turned its head, and Little Fur pressed her fist into her mouth to silence a cry at the sight of its dreadful misshapen face. Its bald head grew out of its massive shoulders, and its nose was a lump of bristling flesh squeezed between two slitted eyes that gave off the same pallid radiance as the toadstool she had plucked.
Little Fur found it impossible to imagine that she was kin to this terrifying beast. Yet its ears, though many times bigger, were furled and pointed like hers, and like her, it had four great hairy toes and four fingers, but all ending in long, curving yellow claws. The worst thing about the troll, though, was the reek of its hatred, which flowed out from it like thick smoke from a fire.
The troll stopped right beside their hiding place. It muttered something in its rough language that sounded like a question. Then it began to sniff.
Little Fur held her breath.
But the troll merely stood sniffing and muttering for a time before shaking its head and continuing on its way.
CHAPTER 10
The Troll King’s Domain
Little Fur and her companions hid from many trolls as they continued, all as dreadful-looking as the first, though not all as huge and hairy. Many were lean and hairless, like pale spiders, and ran upon all fours. Some smelled of illness, and aside from being filthy, many were covered in black sores. All bore bruises and grazes and cuts that spoke of their aggressive nature. But worst of all were their pale glowing eyes and the persistent reek of hatred.
For the first time, Little Fur understood why those who knew of her parentage wondered at it. But none of the trolls that had passed them in the tunnels had been she-trolls, so maybe the females were less grotesque than their brothers. How could her father have loved her mother otherwise? Yet if all of the trolls that journeyed from Underth to the surface were male, how had her parents met? Little Fur shook these confusing questions out of her head.
The Sett Owl’s leaves saved the travelers from being found, but almost all of the trolls that passed by their hiding places did stop to sniff long and curiously before going on their way.
They came to a strange chamber carved out of the rock, where the path they had been following split into several paths, each with its own opening. Like the carvings Little Fur had seen higher up, it was ancient troll work. Unlike the other chambers they had passed through, this one was not empty. The air flickered with blue sparks and flashes of light. It was not until Gazrak snarled and bit and whipped his long tail painfully about to drive her and the others out of the chamber that Little Fur realized she and the rest of them had fallen into a fascinated stupor.
“The sparks of light are glamours designed by the Troll King to catch intruders,” the rat said irritably. “You must follow my orders, for I, Gazrak, am immune, like all those born within Underth.”
They entered the next chamber warily, and found themselves in a heavy yellowish mist that made them all want to lie down and sleep. Again, Gazrak tormented them until they had passed safely out of the chamber and onto the correct path. Once outside the chambers, they felt the Troll King’s magic fade quickly. They continued in this way, negotiating chambers and their illusions and hiding from trolls. Little Fur asked where the paths they did not take might lead, but Gazrak only muttered that they led to diggings and other trollish places.
The final chamber was more elaborate and less eroded than the others they had passed through. Little Fur gazed at the intricate carvings covering the walls, feeling that the tiny pictures were a language that she might understand if she had enough time to study them.
“What is it?” Sorrow asked.
Little Fur turned to see Gazrak poised at one of the doors leading from the chamber, chewing his paws and sniffing. For the first time, the rat seemed uncertain.
Sorrow probed further when Gazrak made no response. “Do ye smell danger?”
“Something smells different,” the rat said at last. He went to each of the doors leading from the chamber, including the one they had come through. He sniffed at one and then another, seeming ever more dissatisfied. At last, he stopped at one door.
“Are ye sure it is this way?” the fox asked, coming to stand beside him.
“This is the last chamber before the caverns of Underth,” the rat muttered. “When Gazrak last came through it, there was only one path.” Again he began to step through the opening and again the fox stopped him.
“Give me your tail before ye go through.”
The rat looked affronted, but when the fox’s stare did not waver, he held out the frayed end of his long tail. Sorrow took it solemnly between his teeth, and Gazrak stepped out with a sneer. The rat gave a shrill scream as the path fell away under him. It had been a bridge of powdery sand. As with the glamours, once the trick had been revealed, it was easy to see that all but one of the roads leading out of the chamber would lead an unwary traveler to his or her death.
The only safe path lay farthest to the right, and it was Sorrow who led the way onto it. Gazrak was deeply shaken. When he took the lead again, he crept ahead, trembling with terror. Fortunately, they had not far to go before Little Fur noticed a greenish glow ahead.
“The light comes from the great subterranean caverns where we will find the troll city of Underth,” Gazrak explained.
Little Fur gasped in wonder at the vastness of the cavern visible from the end of the tunnel. If she had not known they were deep under the earth, she would have thought they had entered an open valley with a clouded night sky arching above, hiding the moon and stars. Greenish light glowed from behind a great range of high, jagged hills running in a wide curve from one side of the enormous cavern to the other. A path led from where they stood at the tunnel entrance, down the steeply sloping side of the cavern to the foot of the hills.
“We must not stand here where we can be seen,” Sorrow said.
Gazrak darted sideways along the slanting wall of the cavern, his progress sending avalanches of black rock rattling down the slope. The rest of them toiled after him on the uneven, treacherous ground. They headed for some low, tumbled hillocks of rock and rubble that had fallen from the cavern walls.
Picking her way along, Little Fur saw that the high hills, like the mounds of black rock they were walking through, were enormous piles of sharp rock fragments. By the time
the animals had reached the very beginning of the curving arm of high hills, all of them were black-streaked from slipping and stumbling. But Little Fur was sure-footed, thanks to her troll blood.
Gazrak permitted them a rest once they had gotten into the hills. They all sank down gratefully, too weary to care how hard or dirty the surface was. Ginger murmured that it was night in the overworld. Little Fur did not doubt it. Her own instincts were less attuned to the world they had left behind than to this black underworld of stone and shadow.
They had not rested long before Shikra rose, saying, “A journey soon begun is sooner ended.”
Little Fur could smell that Gazrak did not like the she-ferret taking the lead, but the rest of them rose and set off again. There was nothing green or growing on the hills, but as with the earlier paths, earth magic ran slowly through and about the black stones. It was not the nearness of Underth that slowed the flow of earth magic, but rather a natural sluggishness due to passing through dense stone and earth undisturbed by the burrows of small beasts or the roots of plants and trees.
The only movement in all that stony blackness was the occasional shift of stones, their own ghostly shadows running over the rocks before them and, a few times, a plume of steam from a tiny crack. Little Fur’s troll blood told her the steam welled from deeper still in the earth, where rock was soft and hot. Perhaps there, she thought with a thrill of wonder, the earth spirit dwelt in a land of burning rivers of molten stone.
They had walked for hours when the fox suggested another stop. He smelled of weariness now, and Little Fur was about to add her plea to his, but Gazrak insisted they keep going. “Underth will be visible soon. Then we will see who has the courage to venture there,” he said sourly.