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Thinking of the Old Ones was like pressing on a hurt place. The pull to go back to the wilderness was suddenly as strong as if she were connected to it by a real vine that was being tugged hard. As if conjured by her longing, she saw a tree growing ahead close by a stone wall. Little Fur’s skin prickled because she could feel how the earth spirit surged toward it, yet as she came nearer, she saw that all of the branches on one side of the tree were black and withered.

CHAPTER 11
    The Dogness of Dogs
    At one time the tree must have been healthy, for its massive, snaking roots had pushed the cobbles awry. Moss and small plants continued to grow thickly in the cracks, which proved that the tree had not been poisoned, as Little Fur had feared. She laid her hands on its much-scarred trunk only to find that its heartwood was rotten. There was nothing she could do, but she went deeper, striving to find a reason for the disturbance of the earth magic that she sensed surrounding the tree.
    To her astonishment, she found
herself
in the tree’s dream, sitting in the dense shade of the Old Ones, sorting seeds! The tree must have taken her image from the flow, and of course that was the answer to why the flow was agitated. The tree was responding to her appearance!
    Sly began hissing like a snake. Little Fur turned to see her gazing malevolently along the street where the wall gave way to a queer fence of thin metal strands woven into a great web. This stretched as far along the street as they could see, and on the other side of it was a nasty-smelling huddle of wooden dwellings.
    â€œWhat is the matter with her?” she whispered to Ginger.
    â€œDog,” he said.
    Little Fur’s heart began to race. She had never seen a dog, but almost as many animals and birds had been hurt by dogs as by humans and trolls. Each one of them described the fearsome beasts quite differently, so that Little Fur knew they must have shape-changing blood in them.

    The worst thing of all about dogs was their complete devotion to their human masters. It was even said that dogs would kill at a human’s command.
    Sly padded over to the tree and said softly, “The dog has smelled us but it does not know that
we
have smelled
it
.” Her green eye glittered with triumph.
    â€œWill it come after us if we turn back?” Little Fur asked. They could climb the tree to escape the dog’s brutal teeth, but then they would be trapped there until its master came.
    Before either cat could answer, the dog began to howl. Little Fur clapped her hands over her ears at the sound, which seemed to tear the night. Crow fluttered onto one of the dead branches and peered down at her. “Why stopping? Not goodly!”
    â€œDog ahead,” Sly murmured. “Big dog.”
    Crow cawed his derision. “Dog being trapped behind metal web and chained to small house.”
    So they went on up the street. Little Fur’s legs trembled because the horrible noises the dog was making were actually screams of rage, and
she could understand them
.
    â€œI smell you!” the dog snarled. “Come close and I will tear and bite you. My fangs will crack your bones! I will pull you to pieces and eat you up! I will eat the moon! I will crack it like an egg. I will slurp up the light in it and all will be darkness!”

    â€œDo not be afraid,” Sly commanded. “That dog is all bark and no bite. It wants to frighten us. That is what the humans trained it to do.”
    â€œThe humans want it to frighten us?” Little Fur asked, but Sly sprang back to the web and began winding back and forth before it, crooning.
    â€œI smell you, Cat,” the dog growled, and Little Fur saw it loom as a huge, dark shape behind the web of metal. “I have killed a million cats,” it whispered. “I have sucked them out of their fur. I will tear and bite you. My teeth will—”
    Sly gave a long, chilling warble that made Little