Crow was one of Little Fur’s best friends, and their spirits were linked. This allowed her to sense that he was even now winging his way to the wilderness. She could feel that he had news, but that was nothing unusual. Crow loved to play messenger, and if the news was not exciting enough, he was happy to exaggerate it. Thinking about Crow turned Little Fur’s mind to the cat Ginger. Her spirit was linked to his as well, but she had not seen him since they had been separated fleeing from Underth.
Little Fur began to examine the swan, grimacing at the sticky mess on his feathers. It smelled like the food that humans fed their road beasts, and she wondered how it had come to be in the pond. Fetching a bowl of water from the spring, she set it on the sand so that Tillet could pour in the frothy mixture she had prepared. The swan gave a hiss as he felt the warmth of the water, and Little Fur bade him be still, for the filth would not come off properly in cold water.
As she worked, her thoughts circled back to Ginger. He had taken the under-road from Underth, which went all the way to a distant city by the sea. The way back overland was much longer, for there were lakes and swamps and human settlements to avoid, as well as a high range of mountains to cross. With Ginger were a rat and two small ferrets, one of which had been injured, so that would have slowed him further. Because of their connection, Little Fur could feel Ginger coming steadily closer each day. By her reckoning, he would arrive just before midwinter night.
Sorrow, the fox, would return then, too, or so he had promised when he’d left the wilderness the previous darkmoon. He had gone to the Sett Owl to ask her advice about a mate, only to be told there was no one for him and that he must learn to be wild.
Be patient, Little Fur told herself.
Little Fur sat back on her heels with weary satisfaction, seeing that the swan’s feathers once again glowed white and clean. “Now you must preen out some oil,” she told him. The swan thanked her and went to sit on a small puddle of meltwater, eyeing the dog mistrustfully. Little Fur was puzzled, for the swan knew that the earth magic that flowed through the wilderness would not allow the dog to attack any of Little Fur’s patients.
Little Fur sniffed and was startled to find the faint but unmistakable scent of human. The black dog had noticed as well. She had not been near a human since her escape from them. Now she stiffened and all the hair along her spine stood up as she rose, smelling of anger. The snake coiled himself more tightly, and the mice squeaked indignantly as they were spilled gently into the soft sand. Only the orphaned owlet clung to the dog’s back with small thorny talons, her yellow eyes wide.
“What is the matter?” Little Fur asked.
The black dog loped past the meltwater pool and under the cluster of icicles at the mouth of the cave, the owl still clinging to her back.
Little Fur followed more slowly. Outside, the black dog was standing in the fresh snow as still as one of the great stones humans carved in their own likenesses. It was close to true darkness now, and there was a sharp blueness to the air.
Tillet bounded lightly outside, too. She stood up on her hind legs, long ears and nose twitching.
“Do you smell something?” Little Fur asked her.
The hare did not answer, but now her whiskers twitched as well.
“Something . . . ,” Gem hooted softly from her perch atop the black dog. “Definitely. Definably.”
Little Fur was about to hush her nonsense when the black dog turned to look at her, eyes glowing ferociously. “I smell human.”
Little Fur stared at her. “A human? But you don’t . . . you can’t mean that there is a human in the wilderness?”
The black dog gave a loud bark, bounded up the steep side of the valley and disappeared behind a line of fir trees cloaked in white.
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Copyright © 2005 by Isobelle Carmody
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Isobelle Carmody, A Fox Called Sorrow
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