The Legend Begins Read Online Free Page B

more than low posts of wood driven into the ground with metal strings stretched between them. The real barrier was a thick, high hedge growing beside it, but she could easily crawl under both.
    She was on her hands and knees when she caught the strong smell of humans on the night air.
    â€œBetter not to think so much,” Sly advised. “The smell of fear thoughts is strong.”
    â€œYou think humans could smell me?” Little Fur asked in horror.
    â€œHumans can’t smell, but trolls can,” Sly answered. “If they smell your fear, they will come to see if what is so frightened is also small and tasty. Better to think of nothing.”
    Little Fur did not know how to think of nothing, but perhaps she could think of something that did not make her frightened, like lying on one of the hill meadows in the wilderness, watching the clouds. Before she could try, however, bells began to toll.

CHAPTER 5
    Still Magic
    Little Fur gazed through a barrier of metal spikes at the enormous, misshapen stone dwelling which Crow assured her was the beaked house. It was the queerest building she had ever seen. Set in the middle of a stone-paved yard, it was tall in some places and low in others, wide in parts and narrow in other parts. There were sections where the walls went suddenly in or out or had been made to bulge into round shapes. It was tall, but not as tall as the high houses, and rather than being flat-topped as they were, it had a peaked roof. One part of the roof rose steeply from the rest, like a bird’s beak, which had given the house its name. There were even two small sticks fixed at the tip as if a great bird were carrying twigs to its nest. This ought to have made it look silly, but somehow the beaked house had a grave, still air that made Little Fur feel grave and still, too.
    â€œWhat do humans do here?” she wondered.
    â€œThey sing,” Sly said.
    â€œHumans
sing
?” Little Fur was astonished.
    â€œHumans singing very badly,” Crow cawed, hopping neatly from the top of one spike to another. “Not like Crow.”
    â€œAre there any humans here now?” Little Fur asked quickly, knowing how very loud and bad Crow’s singing was. “I mean, I suppose one of them must have rung the bells.”
    Instead of answering, Crow fixed Little Fur with a stern look. “Cats cannot going with us now. Sett Owl not liking cats.”
    â€œI like owls,” Sly said. She sat on her haunches and began to lick one paw daintily.

    â€œWill you wait here for me with Ginger, please, Sly?” Little Fur pleaded. “The Sett Owl might refuse to speak with me if you come. And, Crow, it might be better if you don’t come in either.”
    Crow gave an affronted croak. “Well, then. If Crow not being wanted . . .”
    â€œOh, Crow, please don’t be difficult.” Little Fur reached up to touch his feathers.

    She found a gate in the spiked barrier. A chain of heavy metal loops held it shut but she could slip through the gap. Little Fur stepped gingerly onto the cobblestones and was relieved to feel earth magic flowing under and between them.
    She crossed the yard to the beaked house and began searching for niches and ledges where an owl might roost. There were patches of a pale unknown moss growing over the wall and she stopped to take a little piece for her pouch. When her fingers accidentally brushed the wall, she gasped in shock, for she had felt the tingling touch of magic,
only it was not earth magic
.
    Heart pounding, she reached out again and put her finger on the bare stone. Again she felt it. A strange, still magic potent enough to make the hair stiffen on her neck. It felt how earth magic might feel if it were to build up in a great pool behind a dam. But Little Fur had no feeling that this power would ever overflow. It was as if the beaked house were a bottomless vessel.

    The wind suddenly gusted to life, making her cloak and hair billow