CHAPTER 8

An Attack!

“Don’t ssstep on me or I will bite you,” a voice said. Little Fur’s heart gave a great lurch of fright. She had been so intent on the smell of cherries that she had not noticed an eroded hollow in the ground close by the wall. A green snake lay at the base of it, half inside its hole, watching her with bright yellow eyes.

“Greetings, Snake,” she said politely.

The snake lifted its head off the ground, its eyes glowing. But Little Fur was careful not to look directly into its gaze. Snakes were always trying to hypnotize you even if you were too big for them to swallow. Seeing that she would not fall under its sway, the snake laid its head down again and hissed crossly, “Jussst don’t tread on me. I am waiting to shed a ssskin and that wantsss great concentration.”

“I won’t,” Little Fur promised. She found herself lingering because the snake was the first creature she had spoken to since Crow and the cats had left her the night before. It occurred to her that she ought to ask it about the human burying ground, even though snakes did not travel far or lift their heads up much from their own affairs.

“Humansss!” the snake sneered, its tongue flickering between sharp white fangs. “I do not like humansss. What have you to do with them?”

“Nothing,” Little Fur said hastily, wrinkling her nose at the smell of its malice. “It is only that I am looking for a chasm near this burying place.”

“I do not know where humansss bury one another,” the snake told her, settling back down, its eyes growing cloudy.

“I wonder . . . is there any way to get under this wall? A tunnel or a hole?” Little Fur asked, catching the rich scent of cherries again.

The snake’s eyes cleared. “Well,” it said slowly, “there isss a broken place in the wall where you can ssslither through.” It withdrew into its hole as Little Fur stood up.

She followed the wall around until she came to the broken place the snake had mentioned. It looked as if a giant hand had knocked it down a long time ago, for there were mosses and lichens growing all over it. She had no need to worry about where she stepped, for the earth spirit ran all around the stones. On the other side was a yard choked with long grass and bordered by high stone buildings. Their windows were as dark as blind eyes and she could see that the roofs had fallen in and some of the walls had holes in them. The smell of cherries was so strong now that Little Fur felt half drunk with it as she climbed over the crumbling wall.

The cherry tree grew in the deeper darkness between two of the ruined buildings, and she made her way over to it, struggling a little in the thick grass. She was quite close to the tree before she smelled the rotten, rancid sweetness of fermented fruit. It was too strong to be the result of windfall cherries, but she was hungry and did not stop to wonder what else might be causing it.

She reached out to take a great, fat, dark bunch of cherries from a trailing branch when something enormous and dreadful lurched out of the darkness behind it. Little Fur had never seen a greep, but she knew at once that a greep was what had caught hold of her arm. She had a horrifying glimpse of its small, maddened eyes, barely visible in the great, filthy mass of wiry fur covering its head and chin; then it opened its mouth and the smell of its breath made her want to retch. It was a dreadful stew of rotting teeth and fruit and the rank stench of confused rage from the madness that had transformed it from human into greep.

Too late she wished she had remembered that animals always spoke of the rotten-fruit smell of greeps.

The greep loosened its grip slightly as it peered at her, and Little Fur wrenched her arm free. She might have gotten away but, as she turned, she tripped and fell. The greep was on her in an instant, this time closing a huge, hard hand about her ankle.

Little Fur went limp and closed her eyes. Feeling the creature’s breath on her cheeks, she could smell its puzzlement and guessed that it was trying to decide what she was. It grunted and poked at her with its free hand. She made herself even more still, praying that the greep would think she was dead and let her go. But instead it kept hold of her and sat back, muttering to itself and giving out little bursts of crazed laughter.

It was silent awhile and then the greep muttered again to itself. Little Fur smelled troll in the words and remembered that the Troll King had given his potion to creatures like this—maybe even to this very greep! What if it decided to bring her to the Troll King?

Suddenly the greep began to struggle to its feet, and Little Fur realized that in another second it would stand and lift her into the air, severing her from the earth spirit forever. Desperately she struck out with her free foot, catching the greep in the belly. It grunted in pain and let her go. Little Fur scrambled to her feet and darted to the gap in the wall, ignoring the pain in her ankle.

She had almost reached the gap when the greep caught hold of her tunic. She yelped and tried to drag the cloth free but the greep grabbed her ankle again, this time twisting it cruelly. The pain was so great that Little Fur almost fainted.

The greep began to drag her back, but at that moment, a shadowy shape with flaring orange eyes leaped over the wall and landed claws first on the greep’s head.

Ginger!

The greep gave a screech of shock and Little Fur was free. Sobbing with fear and pain, she hauled herself over the mossy stones and on the other side of the tumbled onto the grass on the other side of the gap. Her legs would not hold her, so she dragged herself along the ground to the hollow where the snake had been lying and rolled into it. She listened with a hammering heart to the greep’s roars and Ginger’s savage battle cries. There was the sound of running and of something heavy falling, and suddenly Ginger gave a yowl of pain. Then there was silence.

Little Fur prayed that nothing had happened to him.

The greep clambered over the wall, cursing and moaning and rubbing its head. Little Fur lay very still. At last, the greep shook its fist at the sky and lumbered away in the direction from which Little Fur had come. Fearful of a trick, she did not move until it had gone completely out of sight. When she dared to go back into the yard where the greep had caught her, the smell of cherries was as strong as ever, but the thought of eating made her feel sick. She found Ginger lying by the wall, but her nose told her he was alive even before she felt the warmth of his body.

Ginger stirred at her touch and tried to rise.

“Rest,” Little Fur said worriedly, smelling the cat’s pain.

But he forced himself to get up. “We must go from here before the greep returns,” he panted.

They had to help one another, for Little Fur was unable to put any weight on her hurt ankle and Ginger was dizzy and unsteady. Mindful that the greep would see them if it returned, Little Fur did not complain as they struggled along, angling away from the broken stone wall and back toward the metal rails. But Ginger did not turn to follow the rails as she had expected. He went over them and headed toward the human houses.

“Where are we going?” Little Fur asked, looking uneasily ahead.

“One of those human dwellings is empty. I sniffed it out when I was hunting. We can hide there.”

His words were slurred and the moment they reached the fence separating them from the dwellings, he slumped sideways. Little Fur half fell with him, pain shooting through her leg as she leaned too hard on it. But her ankle was the least of her worries, for Ginger was losing blood. Disentangling herself, Little Fur turned to the fence and searched until she had found a spiderweb. Balling it up, she scraped up some earth, spat into it and worked it all into a sticky wad. She laid it over the gash on his flank and pressed it down hard, closing her eyes, the better to feel Ginger’s spirit. It was strong, but there were torn places in it. Softly, she began to sing them back together, for she knew flesh could not heal properly when the spirit was hurt. She could not have said how long she sat there, singing and pressing, but when she stopped, the moon was looking down on them, waiting to see what would happen next.

Little Fur’s senses told her that the cat was no longer in danger, and she lay down, falling at once into a deep, exhausted sleep.

She dreamed that tree burners were chasing her. They looked like greeps but they had yellow snake’s eyes and breathed a hot madness that was strangely and horribly mingled with a sadness so deep and old that it was sweet and rotten all at once, like fermented cherries. Little Fur tried to run, but she found that her feet had taken root. She stood there, helpless, as they encircled her, the hungry flames in their hands flickering in their eyes.