Read Online The Legend Begins by Isobelle Carmody - Free Book Online

their sense of smell, because after living with them, animals and birds also seemed to lose their proper nose for things.
    There were a lot of square, dark openings in the walls of the buildings and Little Fur tried not to feel that humans were peering malevolently from them.
    â€œHumans not living here,” Crow said. “They coming here only to making a muchness of noise and bad smells.” Little Fur grew alarmed at this, but Crow added, “Not coming when moon watching.”
    â€œFewer humans equal more greeps and trolls,” Ginger muttered.

    Occasionally the long, smooth walls of the buildings gave way to small stone houses that smelled very old. Little Fur guessed that a lot of these stone dwellings had been pushed down to make way for the new square buildings. Humans seemed to be always knocking down things they had made to build new things.
    Crow flapped down to a narrow lane running between two of the big houses and instructed them to go that way, but Little Fur stopped, suddenly profoundly uneasy.
    â€œWhat is it?” Ginger asked in his rumbling voice.

    â€œI don’t know,” Little Fur admitted. Her nose could detect nothing in the lane, yet her instincts clamored that danger lay in this direction.
    â€œMust going thisaway or must going back and back,” Crow said firmly.
    Little Fur did not know what to say. Everything in her resisted entering the lane but she could not say why. After another long, fruitless bout of sniffing, she decided that some forgotten memory must be prompting her fears. She took a deep breath and entered the lane. Halfway along it, she began to smell a horrible, sharp odor that grew stronger as they walked.
    Sly had stopped by a square opening at the base of the wall of one of the big houses, and Little Fur realized this was the source of the hideous smell.
    â€œTroll hole,” Sly murmured.
    Little Fur stared into the opening. The darkness filling it seemed as dense and sticky as syrup. Yet she could not detect the unmistakable hot reek of troll.
    â€œTroll not being here,” Crow remarked scornfully, strutting to the opening and poking his beak in. “Faugh! Some horrible human doing is down here.”
    â€œHumans have used it, but it’s an old troll hole,” Sly said. “It leads to Underth, but trolls don’t bother with it because they have better and quicker ways to get there now.”
    Little Fur would have liked to ask Sly how she knew such things, but Ginger had stiffened and the fur on his neck was standing up in a thick ruff.

    â€œGreep,” he breathed.
    â€œIf greep coming, we must going.” Crow flapped into the air and glided down the lane.
    â€œI am not afraid,” Sly sneered. “I will scratch its eyes out.” She sounded as if she would quite like a greep to come along, and when Little Fur and Ginger hurried after Crow, she lingered by the opening to the troll hole grooming her fur!
    When Sly caught up with them a little time after, her long tail curled around Little Fur’s neck in a dangerous sort of caress.

    The lane brought them out of the big houses and back to the small stone dwellings. These were older than the others, for some of the roofs had fallen in and many of the openings and doors in them were closed up with wooden planks. Before Little Fur could ask why humans had abandoned them, she smelled smoke in the air. It was just a hint, but it made her think of the tree burners, and a wave of fear for the Old Ones crashed over her. Little Fur mastered her panic and told herself that no matter what the Sett Owl said, the Old Ones were powerful and had great resources. Perhaps at the last, the earth spirit itself would rise up through them and stop the tree burners, though that would not help the pear trees or the little sapling by the black road, nor all of the other millions of trees growing throughout the city.
    Little Fur sighed, her heart sore and heavy in her chest.