CHAPTER 4

The Feeding of Beasts

It was dark in the tunnel but the troll part of Little Fur felt safe and her eyes adjusted quickly. Wet green algae coated the inside of the pipe, so that even if the dirt underfoot ran out, she would be able to keep touch with the flow of earth magic. As she walked, she bent to tweak leaves from a plant she had not seen before. But her thoughts were not on herbs so much as the road passing overhead.

“Why do humans make black roads?” she murmured.

“To summon road beasts,” Sly said, looking back over her shoulder. “They keep them as pets. I myself have seen humans bathing their shells with water.”

“The giant beast that roared past us was a human pet?” Little Fur could not believe it.

“Perhaps not that one,” Sly admitted. “No doubt there are road beasts that will not be tamed, just as there are cats who will not be tamed.”

“Truly, humans are strange,” Little Fur mused, still not sure whether to believe the cat.

When they emerged from the tunnel, the moon’s eye had opened and it peered narrowly down at them. Crow said they must go back along this side of the black road in order to reach the beaked house.

Ginger appeared and took his place at Little Fur’s side as she set off with a heavy heart, and Sly roamed ahead, as she seemed to prefer. But she returned almost at once, hissing that she could smell humans.

“Can we go another way?” Little Fur asked.

“No other way,” Crow said.

They went on until Little Fur could smell humans, too, and she trembled at the thought that she was to see them at last.

The wooden barrier turned suddenly and ran around a square, flat field upon which stood a human dwelling spilling light out into the night from all sides. Little Fur gagged at the smell.

“That smell comes from the brew humans feed to road beasts,” Sly said. “See? There is a road beast waiting to be fed under the wings of the place.”

She was right. A black road ran in a loop from the main road around the building. One of the great, ugly road monsters stood on it, next to the bright house. It was so silent that it must have fallen asleep. It did not look dangerous now, but Little Fur wondered what there was in such a thing for humans to love. It did not smell of kindness or softness or sweetness. It did not smell like it needed anything or loved anything. Indeed, it did not smell alive at all.

Crow flapped down to the grass beside her. “Not standing here! Humans will seeing you!” he cawed. “Going along barrier to broken place. Going very fastly.”

But before Little Fur could move, the sleeping road beast suddenly roared to terrifying, deafening life and its dreadful eyes shot out beams of blinding whiteness that fell on all of them. Crow gave a squawk of fright and took to the air and the cats covered themselves in cat shadow.

Little Fur could not move. She felt as if the eyes of the road beast had a power that bound her, just as a snake holds its victims with the magic of its deadly gaze.

“Fly!” screeched Crow from overhead. When she did not move, he swooped down and raked her head with a claw. The pain woke Little Fur from her trance and she turned to run. The road monster shrieked in rage. Little Fur fell to her knees and waited for it to rush at her and kill her. But nothing happened except that its roar grew louder. She opened her eyes and was amazed to see that instead of coming at her, the road beast was swerving away toward the black road!

It occurred to her that perhaps the road beasts could not leave the black roads.

She would have told this astonishing thought to Sly, but three humans ran out of the shining house. Little Fur stared at the sight of them, for all three were as pale as new mushrooms, and so big!

“They see you!” Sly hissed.

Little Fur realized it was true, and terror filled her. She sped along the barrier, her ears turned back to track the thud of the humans’ feet. Sly disappeared through a gap in the fence and Little Fur followed, but there was a dry tangle of grass clogging the gap and she tripped and sprawled onto her hands and knees on the stone-studded ground.

“Get up!” Ginger rasped from his shadows.

Little Fur was too frightened to move. There was a long silence and then a big, round human head rose above the barrier.

She froze, for animals always said that humans you when you stayed very had trouble seeing you when you stayed very still. One of the humans spoke and she caught the sweet scent of curiosity in its words. Another of the humans answered and its words were saturated with the hot, biting stink of cruelty. The head above the fence vanished and the voices faded.

Little Fur sat up. Her head hurt where Crow had scratched it, and her hands and knees burned where she had grazed them, but she had no time to treat her wounds. She wanted to get as far away from the beast feeding place as she could.

Sly and Ginger emerged from cat shadow close by. “Let’s go,” Sly said.

Little Fur obeyed, knowing there was nothing else to do but go on.

They crossed a stony field and climbed through a little ditch which brought them to a green paddock where earth magic flowed strongly. The grass had been well cropped by a flock of white animals and seeing them made some of the fright leak out of Little Fur. Four-legged and white-furred, the animals had delicate horns and cloven hooves. Little Fur would have liked to speak with them, but Crow was overhead screeching at her to hurry.

On the other side of the field was a small stand of pear trees. They had been planted in the human fashion, in neat, unnatural rows, and the field smelled of humans, but their scent was half smothered by the smell of pear nectar. Little Fur went to the nearest tree and put her face against its lichen-dappled bark. She soon learned that it had been planted by a human who came often to harvest its fruit. A tiny, drab bird nesting on one of its branches told Little Fur that the harvesting human came in daylight. The only humans that came at night were greeps who would sometimes stumble to the foot of a tree and fall down to sleep, reeking of their strange appetites.

Little Fur shuddered and was about to turn away when a thought came to her. She touched the tree again and sent a picture of humans burning trees into its dreams, and the sense of her own quest to save the Old Ones. A great shiver of sadness went through it and two pears dropped fatly to the ground.

Little Fur felt sick because even this tree, deeply asleep as it was, knew of the tree burners.

“It wants you to take its seeds,” the bird told her, hopping to a lower branch and fixing its tiny, fierce eyes on her.

Little Fur picked up the fruit, wondering if the tree wanted her to plant its seeds in the wilderness. She laid her hand against the tree one last time, and promised that its seeds would be safe with her. Then she bade the bird farewell and left.

The pears in her arms grew heavy. She ate one as she walked, pushing its dark, sticky seeds into a little pocket at the hem of her tunic. She took some twine from her bag to fasten the other pear to her back. They crossed an overgrown field where there were many bare, dead patches of earth. The flabby coldness of that dead earth filled her with revulsion and pity. Occasionally, she would find a patch that was not quite dead; then she would stop, despite Crow’s objections, and push a seed from her pouch into the ground.

At length they came to another of the barriers so beloved of humans, and Little Fur suddenly remembered that Brownie called them fences. This one was no more than low posts of wood driven into the ground with metal strings stretched between them. The real barrier was a thick, high hedge growing beside it, but she could easily crawl under both.

She was on her hands and knees when she caught the strong smell of humans on the night air.

“Better not to think so much,” Sly advised. “The smell of fear thoughts is strong.”

“You think humans could smell me?” Little Fur asked in horror.

“Humans can’t smell, but trolls can,” Sly answered. “If they smell your fear, they will come to see if what is so frightened is also small and tasty. Better to think of nothing.”

Little Fur did not know how to think of nothing, but perhaps she could think of something that did not make her frightened, like lying on one of the hill meadows in the wilderness, watching the clouds. Before she could try, however, bells began to toll.