The Legend Begins Read Online Free Page A

house. Little Fur stared at the sight of them, for all three were as pale as new mushrooms, and so big!
    â€œThey 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.
    â€œGet 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.

    â€œIt 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