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

Fur’s hair stand on end. “Cur. Slave and idiot who cannot hunt but must be fed dead meat by human hands.”
    Little Fur saw the dog clearly then. It was as tall as she was, with a chest broader than Brownie’s and a coat so short it was like a skin clamped about the hot-smelling muscles of its body. Its head was wedge-shaped and massive, with a gaping maw that hung open to allow its red tongue to loll out between gleaming teeth. White-frothed drool hung from its bottom lip and there was a red shine in its eyes.
    â€œJump into my yard, Cat, and I will show you what I am,” the dog invited.
    Sly swayed close enough that the dog could have licked her face, had it not been for the fence. She showed no fear. Indeed, her smell was cruel and amused. “What could a tame beast like you do to a wild thing such as I? Tell me that, Pet?” she taunted.
    This last word seemed to madden the dog. It threw itself violently against the web, which creaked and bulged out toward the cat but did not give way. Instead, there was a white flash of light and a loud clap as the dog was thrown yelping and howling into the dust of its yard.
    Little Fur cried out once in fright at the flare of light, but the dog went on whimpering for some time. When at last it rose, it staggered as if it had been hit on the head. It came slowly right up to the fence, and Little Fur gagged, not at the singed smell it gave off, but at the rich, dreadful reek of its hatred. “I will know the scent of you again, Cat, and the scent of the thing from the last age that stands behind you. And next time, there will be no fence. . . .”
    Sly gave a sniff and continued on down the lane, her tail high and haughty. Little Fur followed on shaking legs, as much appalled by the cat’s deliberate cruelty as by the dog’s hatred.
    â€œWhat happened back there?” she asked to stop herself thinking of what might have happened if the dog had gotten through the web to them. “What made that light and the burning smell?”
    â€œThe web burned the dog!” Sly’s eye flashed with sneering triumph. “Humans spin sky-fire into the metal web.”
    â€œI . . . I didn’t realize they could do that.”
    â€œThey can do anything they can imagine,” Sly said carelessly. “The dog knows that the fence bites and burns but it is easy to make dogs forget because it is easy to make them angry. Things that are angry are always stupid.”
    â€œWhy did you make it jump at you?” Little Fur asked. “You have made it your enemy by doing what you did. It won’t forget you and it will try to hurt you if it smells your scent again.”
    Sly only gave her a cool look. “I am not afraid of a dog,” she jeered.
    But I am,
Little Fur thought, for the dog had sworn to remember
her
scent as well.

    They followed the metal web, and the cluster of huts behind it gave way to a vast, bleak plain scraped bare of all green and growing things. There was nothing on it except a few glimmering puddles that smelled like the road-beast feeding place. Little Fur was so aghast that she almost failed to notice that the cobbles had ended. The street had become one of the black roads and it stretched away into the distance. There was a track of stubbled grass between the black road and the web, but it was dangerously close to the web full of sky-fire.
    â€œI don’t think I can go along that,” Little Fur said, remembering the terrible singed smell of the dog.
    â€œNot following fence. Must crossing wasteland.” Crow had landed by a gate in the web.
    â€œWhat about the sky-fire?” Little Fur asked nervously.
    â€œNo sky-fire in gateway,” Crow said, and to prove it, he flew to the top of the gate.
    â€œWhat is this place?” Little Fur asked, staring through the fence at the bleak plain.
    â€œOnce here being grass and trees and empty stone dwellings. Good roosting for many birds. Then