A Riddle of Green Page 2

  “I have no power save that of common healing,” Little Fur told the harling gently.

  “Trolls lied to a harling?” So great was the distress of the enormous beast that the earth shuddered and a shower of gravel fell into Little Fur’s hair as another small fissure opened in the earth.

  “Stop!” she cried in alarm. “You are too close to the surface of the world. If you crack open the earth any more, your life will spill out into the air. You must go deeper!”

  “I deserve to die. I am a fool to have let myself be used by trolls who smelled so wrong!” The voice of the harling was like rocks grinding one another to dust.

  “You were mistaken, Lord of the Earth, only mistaken. Do not seek death, for while you live, there is hope.”

  “Hope of what, Healer?” asked the harling. “I will never fly again, and I am the last of my kind.”

  “Perhaps you are wrong about being the last,” Little Fur said.

  “I am alone,” answered the harling. “I have no purpose.”

  “You don’t know that,” Little Fur said.

  “Little Fur!” Nobody barked a warning from above. “They are here! They are outside!”

  It had not occurred to Little Fur that trolls would come from outside. She could spare no more time for the harling, and she sped back up into the stone house.

  Nobody was standing by the door, brush and pelt bristling furiously, but Little Fur could not smell troll. “Greeps,” said the vixen, her eyes glowing like lavender flames. “I will go out and distract them so that you and Lim can escape.”

  Little Fur wanted to refuse, but she knew that she could not move quickly and still make sure her feet were always touching good earth or green and growing things, and Lim was very young. She nodded. At once the vixen slipped out of the round house.

  There was a growling noise and the sound of lumbering movement. Lim trembled violently. Little Fur laid a hand on his pelt. As she listened to the panting and grunts and scuffling, she grew cold. There were not just two or three greeps outside; there was a pack of them!

  Before they reached the door, Little Fur heard Nobody yowl. Then there was a dull thud, followed by silence. She turned to Lim and bade him hide in the fissure. “Wait until the smell of greep goes away, and then return to your clan. Tell the Teta what happened.”

  “I … I am afraid,” Lim whispered, hanging his small head in shame.

  “You would be foolish if you were not,” Little Fur said. “But you must master your fear, for someone must tell what happened here.” She took the lemming’s trembling paw in her hand and waited until he looked up into her eyes. Then she willed courage into him as if it were a healing. There was no more she could do, and Nobody was out there. …

  Please—she sent the thought down into the earth magic churning under her feet as she slipped out the door—please don’t let Nobody have been killed.

  Outside, the sun had opened its eye, but it had yet to lay its golden gaze on the shadowy yard in the cleft between the high houses. Night-blue shadow lay dense on the grass, but Little Fur needed no sunlight to see Nobody lying against the fence, still and strangely small-looking. The smell of greep was too strong for her to tell if life pulsed in Nobody.

  Little Fur dragged her gaze from the vixen and looked at the greeps all about her. As she did, the largest came lumbering toward her, lifting a great club. She could smell the reek of troll on it.

  The other greeps moved to join their leader, but one of them, seeing Little Fur, stopped. It began to moan and shake its matted head, the smell of confusion filling the air. It backed away, muttering to itself and tearing at its hair, its distressed babble showing Little Fur a vision of a human youngling with hair as red as her own. She understood that it had taken her for a human child! Before she could think how to take advantage of this distraction, the big troll-smelling greep swung its club and struck a savage blow that sent the other reeling.

  Hearing the thud, Little Fur knew that the same deadly club had been used on Nobody. She knew that she must get rid of the greeps quickly if the vixen was to survive. In one swift movement, she drew her father’s elf cloak over her head—it would confuse the eyes of the greeps for a short time—and moved swiftly across the grass toward the ivy-covered wall.

  The leader of the greeps guessed what she would do and lurched across to cut her off, squinting as it strove to see her. Little Fur turned and hurried back across the yard toward the gap between the high houses. If she could just get into the narrow passage again, the greeps would not be able to reach her. Then, when sunlight fell into the yard, they would retreat and she could help Nobody.

  When she reached the passage, she saw with dismay that a great slab of something was completely blocking it. It was some dead, human-made material. Little Fur could not climb over it without losing touch with the flow of earth magic.

  She turned to find four of the greeps advancing on her.

  The leader lifted his club again. His mouth was a leering gash of blackened teeth. Little Fur shrank back, but at that same moment there was a shrill squeal and Lim came streaking from the door of the stone house. He ran up the back of the nearest greep and sank his sharp little teeth into its neck. The greep gave a bellowing scream and turned, beating its hands against its head. Its arms were so short that it could not reach the lemming that clung tenaciously to its neck, and none of the other greeps had any idea what had happened. They were gaping at their demented comrade in dull wonder, Little Fur forgotten.

  Little Fur was as shocked by Lim’s attack as they. By the time two of the puzzled greeps had solved their confusion by clubbing their comrade unconscious, their leader was already loping over to stand before the ivy.

  Little Fur froze, knowing she had lost another chance.

  Then, out of the sky plummeted a black streak of screeching fury, talons outstretched—Crow! He raked the filthy cheek of the leader, who howled in rage and flailed his club at the air. The black bird swerved and banked, evading the greep’s reach, then pecked hard at its nest of hair with a wickedly sharp beak.

  Little Fur did not hesitate this time. She sped across the yard, dodging the greeps, and leaped into the ivy. She could not see Lim anywhere. She was halfway up the ivy when one of the greeps grabbed her foot and dragged her to the ground. She rolled over and glimpsed Crow screaming and circling above, but he could not descend because two of the greeps were waving their staves. As the leader of the greeps reached for her, Little Fur cried out to Crow to get help.

  A moment later, a huge hand cuffed her into blackness.

  When Little Fur awoke, pain was clawing at her skull. Groaning, she opened her eyes to a blaze of blinding sunlight, and realized with horror that she must be lying out in the open for any human to see. Ignoring her pain, she struggled to sit up, raising a hand to shade her eyes. At the same time, she felt something stir beside her, and a dry tongue touched her hand.

  “Ginger,” she mumbled. She saw that she was inside the round house and that it was not the gray cat beside her, but Nobody, her white pelt radiant as snow in the bands of sunlight streaming through the window.

  “I feared they had killed you,” Little Fur whispered. She sat up despite the pain in her head and moved closer to the vixen, but Nobody did not rise.

  “I am broken,” she said softly. “You must leave me and go.”

  “I will not leave you,” Little Fur said, touching the vixen gently. She reached inside Nobody, feeling out the pain and the hurt places. Little Fur’s own pain made it hard for her to concentrate, but she saw enough to know that it was bones that were broken, and not the complicated delicate parts.

  “You must go,” Nobody said again.

  Little Fur lifted off her pouches and loosened their drawstrings so she could spread out their contents. She did not have her most potent medicines with her, but she took out the strongest herbs and seeds for suppressing pain and began grinding them into a powder with a little stone pestle. “Why did the greeps put us in here?�
� she wondered aloud, to stop herself from thinking about the pain swelling in her head and creeping down her neck.

  “Perhaps the greeps brought us in here to kill us out of the sight of any humans but the harling stopped them,” said Nobody. “I felt the surging of its power driving them away when I awoke. But it will not be able to stop a horde of trolls.”

  “If the greeps were supposed to kill us, the trolls will not come,” Little Fur said, offering a pinch of the ground powder to the vixen and wishing she still had her water gourd.

  Nobody’s white throat worked as she struggled to swallow the bitter powder, but soon the smell of pain coming from her faded to drowsy relief. Yet she fought sleep to say, “The trolls will come to see that we are truly dead. And even if they do not come, humans will.”

  Little Fur knew she was right, for even humans must have heard the growls of the greeps and the screeching of Crow. Yet she could not just leave Nobody lying here, badly hurt. She glanced toward the crack and only then noticed that the square of sunlight had shifted slightly, and now illuminated a small golden bump of fur.

  “Lim!” she cried, and crawled over to the lemming. She rested her hands lightly upon his fur and closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on sending her mind into the small form. Again, the pain in her own head made it hard for her to see properly, and she could not find any bleeding or broken place. Yet something was weakening the lemming. Little Fur cupped his small head in her hands, and Lim’s eyes squinted open.

  “I disobeyed,” he said. “I have shamed my clan.”

  “You saved my life,” Little Fur told him gently. “Now be still, for I must try to see where you are hurt.”

  “I am not hurt,” said Lim. “I am only tired.”

  “Do not sleep,” Little Fur said, more sharply than she intended, for the warning came to her from her healing instincts as strongly as a command. She said, more softly, “You must stay awake so it is easier for me to look inside you.” She closed her eyes and strove again to find the problem. She found a cut above one ear and a bruise on the back of Lim’s head, but these wounds were not serious enough to weaken the pulse of his life.

  Becoming desperate, Little Fur crawled back to the herbs and seeds she had spread out. Nothing was needed for pain, since Lim felt none. She lifted a wax-stoppered nut gourd. In it was a tiny ball of stuff that would slow all the workings of life in the one who nibbled it. After a moment, she set it down again, because the substance would almost certainly make Lim sleep.

  Nobody watched as Little Fur lifted up another gourd and unstoppered it. A strong, sharp sweetness filled the air, and she hesitated only a moment before crawling back to Lim with the gourd and dribbling a little of the dark liquid between his teeth. “This will strengthen you,” she said.

  “I am so tired,” Lim said softly. But the liquid roused him slightly, and this time Little Fur found something under the cut at his temple. It was not a wound, but some shadowy part of the lemming that did not feel right. Little Fur could not make her senses delicate enough to enter the darkness so that she could understand it, but she was certain it was this that was sapping Lim’s life.

  “Healer, you must leave this place,” Nobody said urgently.

  “Even if I could leave you, I cannot leave Lim,” Little Fur replied.

  “Then take him with you,” the vixen said. “He is small enough for you to carry. Do not trouble yourself about me. The humans will simply put me in a cage, and maybe summon a healer to tend to me.”

  Strange as this sounded, Little Fur knew Nobody was right, for despite their violent destructiveness, humans could sometimes show great tenderness toward beasts. And while she hated the idea of Nobody being caged, at least she would be alive and might be rescued. Little Fur got to her feet and went unsteadily to the door, but it would not budge. She sniffed and only then understood that the door was barred.

  They were trapped!

  CHAPTER 3

  The Severing

  Lim gave a soft moan, and Little Fur went to kneel beside him. She was glad to have something to distract her from their plight. But her spirits plummeted at once, for although the lemming’s eyes were open, they had lost their shining brightness. She leaned over him and called his name, but Lim seemed unable to see her.

  Frightened, Little Fur again put her hands around his head and closed her eyes. She bent all her will on the shadowy place under the bruise, but her mind felt clumsy. She could not make it small enough to get inside and heal whatever was wrong. For the first time in her life, she felt utterly helpless.

  I must concentrate, she told herself fiercely. I must forget the pain in my head, the locked door and the fact that trolls or humans might come at any moment. I must think only of Lim.

  “Teta …,” the lemming moaned softly.

  Little Fur sent her mind deeper into him, seeking his spirit. She felt it struggling against an immense weariness that flowed from the shadowy place. Lim was like a little beast caught in a swift-flowing stream. She tried to pour strength into him, but it seemed to her that the sinister shadow in his mind was growing. I will sing to make his spirit stronger, she told herself, but before she could begin, the lemming’s eyelids fluttered open.

  “I have to sleep,” he murmured. Then his eyes closed and the pulse of his life winked out.

  Little Fur stared down at him, shocked. She looked at her hands and saw that they were trembling. She reached for Lim’s small body, but could not bring herself to touch him and feel the warmth of life fading away.

  It was a long time before she heard Nobody calling her through the roaring confusion in her mind. Lacking the will to stand, she crawled to the vixen. Her eyes fell on the healing pouches. All at once, her carefully chosen selection of seeds and herbs and her little gourds of potions seemed no more than a muddle of leaves and sticks and seeds blown together by the wind.

  “Little Fur, hear me!” Nobody urged. “I can smell a human coming.”

  “The door is locked,” Little Fur said dully.

  “I know,” Nobody said. “But the human will open it. You must hide!”

  “I can’t leave Lim,” she murmured.

  “You cannot help him anymore!” the injured vixen insisted. “Hide yourself or the human will catch you!”

  The urgency in her voice drove Little Fur to obey. She groped her way to the fissure and half tumbled into it. Then she drew the elf cloak over her head and waited to see what the human would do.

  There was a rattling sound; then the door opened and something filled the sunlit opening: a bulky human-shaped darkness with light streaming all around it. It stood in the doorway for a long time. Little Fur could smell that it was trying to see into the shadowy round house with its weak eyes. At length it uttered a grunt of surprise and stooped to enter. Little Fur held her breath as light flooded in, revealing the bodies of Lim and the white fox. The human went first to Lim’s body. It bent down and touched the lemming gently. Then it picked Lim up, muttering words that smelled of pity and puzzlement, stroking the soft fur. Finally it straightened and glanced around.

  Nobody gave a low whine to draw the human’s attention. It began at once to give off the stink of fear. Nobody gave another soft moan, and the human’s fear gave way to the scent of compassion and kindly concern. The human gently laid Lim’s body in a bag it carried over its shoulder and moved cautiously toward the fox. It knelt close beside her and held out its hand, palm down. It gave off a smell of anxiety, but Nobody did not bite. Very slowly and carefully, the human slid its big hands under her. The vixen whined in pain, but still she did not bite. As the human straightened, holding her, Little Fur smelled that Nobody had fainted.

  The human carried Nobody out of the round house, stooping again to pass through the low door. Little Fur climbed out and crept through the door. The dew-spangled grass sparkled in the blaze of sunlight, but Little Fur did not take her eyes away from the human. It had reached the base of one of the high houses, and even as she watched, it passed
through a door and out of sight, carrying Nobody.

  Little Fur took a deep breath and hurried across to the ivy-clad wall. She felt as if a thousand humans were watching her from the high houses. But she did not falter, because she knew that her father’s elf cloak would prevent any human from seeing her and she must get help for Nobody. If only she had not been so quick to send Crow away! And where had he got to? Surely time enough had passed for him to have found Sorrow. She knew Ginger would be harder to find, because he was away from the wilderness seeking the one-eyed cat Sly.

  Little Fur scaled the ivy-covered wall, her hands and feet as clumsy as if she had borrowed them. At last she stood in the cobbled lane on the other side of the wall. She shuddered anew at the memory of how easily Lim had died under her hands. She shook her head and told herself that she must find somewhere to hide until night. The trouble was that her mind seemed not to be working properly. She kept seeing Lim attacking the greep, or Nobody being carried away into a high house by the human. She felt overwhelmed by a despair so strong that it numbed her.

  “There is something wrong with me,” Little Fur muttered.

  Then a dreadful thought came to her.

  Heart thundering, Little Fur turned and thrust her hands into the tangle of ivy hanging from the stone wall. Earth magic was flowing through it—she had felt it before the greep had seized her—but now she could feel nothing. She had a vision of the greep picking her up roughly at the behest of the harling and carrying her to the stone house, unwittingly severing her from the flow of earth magic. Maybe the greeps had been ordered to sever her from the flow of magic. The Troll King might have guessed that this would be the cruelest blow.