Puffin Books Australia

CHAPTER 1: A Herd of Dreams

Winter brings to the land a mighty silence. Many beasts and birds fall deeply asleep under its spell and the air turns thick with dreams.

Those who are wakeful can sense the chaotic power of these long, strange dreams. But only creatures from the last age of the world know what to do with them. As midwinter night approaches, they journey to one of the secret places where magic remains strong, and enact an ancient ceremony to summon the dreams and weave them into a potent gift for the earth spirit.

Only two kinds of creatures do not attend the great midwinter weaving: trolls, who loathe the earth spirit with a deadly passion; and elves, for none survive in this age where magic is grown so thin.

Yet elf blood is not quite gone from the world, for there is one creature in whom it flows; a small elf troll named Little Fur.

Strangest of all the beings of the last age she may be, for her father was an elf and her mother a troll. How she came about Little Fur did not know, for she had no memory of her parents. She had lived her whole long life in a patch of wilderness that had once lain at the heart of an immense forest of singing trees. Seven only remained of these ancient sentinels, but they were saturated with the power of their fallen brethren. Though they sang no more, they protected the wilderness and all who dwelt there, from the vast, dark, human city that surrounded it.

Such was the power of the seven that no human had entered the wilderness since the last singing tree was felled. The trees turned away the minds of those humans who approached the wilderness, so that even those who lived within sight of the great trees, built walls and blocked up windows on the forest side of their dwellings, and never thought of it.

From the first true snowfall, Little Fur had begun preparations for the great weaving, for the wilderness was one of the places of power to which the things of the last age would come, and they must be fed and given shelter, each according to its nature. The beasts and birds that lived in the wilderness always offered to help, but Little Fur needed all her tact and judgement to deal with them. The squirrels became so mad with excitement that they were incapable of even their usual scatter-brained usefulness, and although most of the birds were willing, they forgot any instruction almost the moment it had been given. But the rabbits were steady as long as boldness was not required, and the weasles and stoats were clever and nimble. Several stalwart older burrowers worked hard preparing different sorts of burrows and nests for the visitors.

As midwinter approached, Little Fur began to allow herself to feel excited instead of anxious about the gathering. This was the one time of the year when she would see others like herself, born in the last age of the world. Because they were older, they would have tales to tell and songs to sing about the age when magic ruled and wizards and elves wove wonders from it. She would hear news and gossip from the rest of the land; the great plains and forests and mountains that lay beyond the human city.

In turn, Little Fur would be questioned about the doings of humans. She was considered an authority because of the number of times she had ventured into their city to plant seeds to strengthen the flow of earth magic.

Most of the visitors knew Little Fur as a healer, and some would bring important gifts: the spores of special mushrooms or the seeds of rare berries, which could not be found in the city or the wilderness. Little Fur always tried to prepare small gifts to give in return.

With so much to do, Little Fur was grateful that so many beasts and birds slept or flew south for the winter. Lucky, too, that those creatures still awake were less likely to be hurt by road beasts, which seemed to dread the snow. If they came out at all after heavy snow, they crept along the black roads as if they were barely awake. Some came only when their human masters had chained them. Most of the creatures Little Fur met believed it was the power of winter that made the road beasts sleepy and reluctant, but others argued that the snow covering the black roads allowed the earth magic to flow, which confused them.

But there was still healing work for Little Fur. One afternoon she found a rabbit whose paw had been crushed by a falling branch.

She carried the doe back to the cave where she made and stored her potions and herbs and did much of her winter healing. Delicately she aligned the broken bones, and then Tillet splinted and bandaged the paw. The large, taciturn hare was her most competent and steadfast helper and she worked gently but firmly, ignoring the frightened whimper of the rabbit.

'You have been brave,' Little Fur said very softly, and the rabbit went limp with pride and amazement.

Tillet sent Little Fur a sardonic look but made no comment.

Little Fur stroked the rabbit while she looked around the cave. The walls were pocked on all sides with niches of varying sizes that had been dug by two obliging moles. Many of them were filled with packets of herbs and powders all carefully made up and marked with runes to explain their use. Other niches were heaped with stones that contained certain minerals necessary to healing, or tubers or seeds waiting to be sliced or crushed or ground. One large niche contained an abandoned beehive whose honey had been drained into a gourd, and the wax scraped out for use in salves and ointments. It was now being used as a nest by a large family of fieldmice. There was an ermine recovering in the niche beside it and higher up were nests occupied by birds with injured wings who could not fly away for winter.

These would remain in the cave until spring, and a few had surrendered to the enchantment of winter sleep, just to see how it felt.

The cave was warmer at the back, because a trickle of hot spring water welled from a split rock and pooled in a natural stone bowl, where it shimmered with a strange blue light. Beside it slept a large blind tabby cat with three kittens. A fourth swaggered in a circle beneath a cluster of bats suspended from a root. Dangling beside them was a fat braid of garlic, strings of wild onions, and bunches of herbs. Towards the front of the cave, there were clusters of dried leaves and berries of many different kinds suspended from thongs of plaited reed, and along a special shelf was a row of small nut gourds containing Little Fur's more dangerous potions.

There was a great clump of spider web waiting to be woven into bandages, not to mention all the healing potions Little Fur had yet to prepare, but all these tasks could wait until after midwinter night. The one thing she ought to do was to make herself a cloak. The last, sewn from a bit of human cloth, had fallen apart. She did not need it so much against the cold, for Little Fur did not feel the cold as humans and some beasts do, but for the pockets she would sew into it.

She sighed, remembering the grey cloak her elven father had left her. It could make its wearer hard to detect, and no matter what she carried in its pockets, it had remained light as thistledown. But a human had taken it on her first journey to the city, so there was no use pining for it. All she had of her parents now was the green stone that belonged to her mother, which she wore on a thong about her neck. She had thought it merely a pretty bauble, until she learned that such stones were worn only by the troll king and those of his family.

Her desire to learn more of trolls was another reason that she looked forward to the coming midwinter ceremony. The doings of trolls were eagerly discussed and one of the creatures attending the ceremony might have made a study of their ancient history. A perilous journey she had made to the troll city of Underth the previous autumn had awakened both her troll blood and a powerful curiosity. Before that, she had felt smothered without the sky arching overhead, but the newly wakened troll part of her loved the way earth magic flowed with slow strength deep underground where soil and rock had not been quickened by the roots of living things. Little Fur thought it strange that her troll blood did not war with her elf blood, but it was as if they had agreed that whichever served her best would take charge.

'Finished,' Tillet said. Little Fur composed her mind and began to sing a song to the rabbit's spirit. The violence done to it by fear and pain must be mended before the wounded paw could heal properly.

Tillet hopped to a rock shelf to quell two squirrels who were supposed to be grinding nuts. Instead they had eaten half and were pelting one another with the rest. At one look from the hare, they remembered themselves and scurriec away to get more nuts from their own stores. Tillet turned her attentic to some leaves that had to be crushed for a bone-setting potion. Once the rabbit was asleep, Little Fur placed her gently into one of the low niches. An enormous black dog, sprawled asleep against the wall beside the niche, looked less savage than she might because a tiny owl was perched on her back. As Little Fur straightened, the owl opened its round yellow eyes and hooted a forlorn enquiry.

'Crow will come soon, Gem,' Little Fur murmured, aware that the orphaned owl regarded Crow as her brother, much to his disgust.

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 some news to impart, too, which was not unusual. Crow loved to play messenger, and if his news was not exciting enough, he was happy to exaggerate to make it more thrilling.

Little Fur's mind turned to Ginger. Her spirit had been linked to his at the same time as it had been linked to Crow's, but she had not seen the big grey cat since they had been separated fleeing from Underth.

Little Fur began to examine a swan, grimacing at the sticky mess on its feathers. It smelled like the food that humans fed their road beasts. Fetching a bowl of hot water from the spring, she came back and set it on the sand so that Tillet could pour in a frothy mixture she kept ready. The swan gave a hiss as it felt the warmth of the water but Little Fur bade him be still, for the oily mess 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, as well as a range of high mountains to cross. As well, Ginger travelled with a rat and two small ferrets, one of which had been injured, slowing him even further. Little Fur had schooled herself to be patient. The link between them was strained, but it would be worse for Ginger because he must endure the separation alone, while she and Crow could draw strength from one another. Yet each day the pain lessened, which meant Ginger was coming steadily nearer. By her reckoning he would arrive just before midwinter night.

Sorrow would return then, too, or so the fox had promised when he left the wilderness the previous darkmoon. He had gone to the Sett Owl to ask her advice about a mate, only to be told that there was no one for him, and that he must learn to be wild. Little Fur hoped with all her heart that he had found what he sought. She almost wished it aloud for him, but remembered in time to hold her tongue, for who knew what the tangle of dreams in the air would do with such a wish.

She sat back on her heels with weary satisfaction, seeing that the swan's feathers now glowed white and clean. 'Now you must preen out some oil,' she told him. The swan thanked her and went to sit in a puddle of melt water just inside the entrance to the cave, eyeing the sleeping dog mistrustfully. Little Fur was puzzled, because the earth magic that flowed through the wilderness would not allow the dog to attack any of her patients, even if she wanted to.

On impulse, Little Fur sniffed and was startled to find that the dog gave off the faint but unmistakeable sour odour of human. This was odd, for the dog had not been near a human since her escape from them. Perhaps she was dreaming of her time behind the metal web, serving her human masters as a killer guard dog. It was hard to believe that this dog, now sleeping so peacefully, had once threatened to kill her. But since entering the wilderness, the black dog had discovered peace, even though she had never learned the secret magic she had thought that little Fur commanded.

Suddenly the black dog stiffened and stood up. The orphaned owlet clung to her back with small thorny claws, its yellow eyes wide.

'What is wrong?' Little Fur asked.

The black dog only loped past the melt-water 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, for being part troll, she must never lose touch with the earth or water, or with green or growing things, lest she be severed from the flow of earth magic forever. Outside, the black dog was standing in the fresh snow as utterly still as one of the great stones humans sometimes carved into their own likenesses. It was dusk now, and the air was a sharp blue.

Tillet bounded outside too, and stood up on her hind legs, long nose twitching.

'Do you smell something?' Little Fur asked her.

'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 a human in the wilderness.'