The Legend Begins Read Free Page A

“You will be captured and put in a cage.”
    â€œYou just jealous because it not being your idea that she seeking advice of Sett Owl,” Crow crowed.
    Brownie glared at him. “Birdbrain! It will be your fault if humans or greeps get her, and what about bad trolls?”
    â€œI will flying ahead to warning her of dangerfulness,” Crow boasted.
    Brownie snorted. “Little Fur, have you thought about what will happen if you are seen?”
    Little Fur softly patted his nose. “Don’t be angry with me for doing what I must.”
    The stiffness went out of Brownie. “I am frightened for you,” he said humbly. “I wish this were over.”

    â€œSo do I,” Little Fur said. She threw a fine gray spiderweb cloak about her and gave him a final hug. Then she turned to the two cats who had agreed to help guide her. Both were street cats that she had healed more than once, several times from battles with one another. Ginger was gray-furred, tough and silent, with orange eyes. Sly was lean and mean, with one narrow green eye and a broken tail tip. Crow had fetched them when Little Fur suggested it might be good to have scouts on the ground as well as one on the wing.
    â€œLet’s go,” Sly hissed.
    â€œWhat about the Old Ones?” Brownie called out to Little Fur as Crow took to his wings. “Have you told them what you are doing?”
    â€œThey will know,” Little Fur said, and she set off in the direction that Crow had taken, flanked by the two cats.

    Little Fur stared in dismay at the black road stretched before them, thinking that it was like a river of cat shadow which, if crossed, would permit no return. Yet they must cross it, for the beaked house lay on the other side.
    â€œCan’t crossing here,” Crow said. He was perched on the high, thin wooden barrier separating the black road from the grassy common they had crossed. “Must going on grass path until reaching tunnel under road.”
    Little Fur stepped gingerly through the gap in the wooden barrier onto the sparse grass path that ran by the black road. Earth magic flowed through it, but so sluggishly that after a few steps, Little Fur decided she must try to help it.
    She dropped to her knees and opened her seed pouch. Choosing three seeds of a hardy, long-rooted ground creeper that would like the dry, sandy earth better than grass, she pushed them into the dirt, covered them and dribbled some water from her bottle over them. If the seeds germinated, the creeper would spread swiftly along the verge, and eventually the wind would carry its seeds to the other side of the road. And where green things grew well, they would summon the earth spirit more strongly.
    Suddenly Ginger hissed, “Quick! Road monster coming!”
    There was nowhere to hide, so Little Fur flung herself down on her face and pulled her cloak over her head. For a long moment, there was nothing but the dusty smell of the weary earth under her cheek. Then the ground began to tremble and she heard the unmistakable snarling growl of a road beast. She had heard them in the wilderness, but this was so much louder.

    When she could bear it no longer, she peeped out and saw it coming along the black road at a tremendous speed: an enormous, flat-sided beast like no creature she had ever seen. It moved on great black wheels and its eyes were bulbs of glaring white. Without warning, it gave a screaming cry. Little Fur pressed her face to the dirt and felt all the hair prickle up on her neck as it passed, sucking the air after it and lifting the dry earth into a gritty whirlwind in its wake. When she dared to look after it, the road monster’s red back-eyes were staring at her. But it did not turn or stop.

    It took Little Fur a long while to be able to stand. Ginger sat on his haunches watching her and she wondered that he could be so calm.
    â€œLet’s going,” Crow cawed, wheeling above.
    Little Fur nodded, but