Teb tried to rest, but he was nervous with apprehension and thought he could still hear hooves. He made a meal of bread and cheese, and sat watching the slits above. The cave grew brighter and warmer as the sun dropped past noon and shone in. Once he heard men just beyond the cave entrance, heard the shuffle of boots and voices muttering. Twice he heard the jackals come to the hole, snuffling and growling. The fox guards sat steady, watching the hole, knowing the jackals couldn’t get through. These jackals were not like the jackals of the far north, who resembled small wolves. It was no wonder the foxes found their low-bellied, hump-shouldered presence repugnant. Compared with those of the delicate foxes, their broad flat heads and mouths like steel traps were crude and disgusting. Teb held his knife ready, almost wishing he could attack one of them, and was still holding it when Pixen woke. The fox leader stared at it and grinned.
“That steel blade, together with a fox’s ripping teeth, ought to do those belly-draggers in.” He yawned and shook himself. “But your scent and ours are all over the caves, Tebriel. I don’t think the creatures have sense enough to know which is freshest, even when they come so near.”
They set out in early afternoon, Teb and Pixen and the seven strong young foxes, to follow the winding passages inside Nison-Serth south to the fox warren. At first the passages were stone; then they turned to earth. Teb went on his belly and began to feel like a mole. But he was not afraid now, with the foxes to help if he got stuck, and by dusk they were in the warrens. They stood in a central gallery with caves opening off in all directions.
“The warren is new,” Pixen said, “compared to Nison-Serth. Only a few generations have used it. We had no need of dens in the old days, when men and animals shared Tirror equally, for then we were wanderers, and we made the sanctuaries like Nison-Serth and Mund-Ardref and Gardel-Cloor our bases. But now, with the dark raiders on the land, we have taken to staying where we have shelter to hide and raise our cubs. It is not a carefree life, but safer.
“Once, when the first warren caves were opened and dug out deeper and larger, there were humans often in Nison-Serth. When the first wars began to enslave, humans helped us to dig and clear the caves of fallen stone. The children would crawl into the smaller caves, to dig there—so many children. . . .
“But come, Tebriel, my den is just here, and Renata will be waiting.”
Pixen led Teb on through a small ragged opening, then down seven turnings. The low twisting passage grew lighter; then there was brightness ahead. They came into a brightly lighted cave with high ceilings and slits along the top letting in the rays of the sun. Teb could see ferns through the holes and knew the hilltop was there. At the back of the den a waterfall splashed down, frothing over the pale walls, into a deep pool stained green by the ferns that grew around it. And all around the den, the pale, nearly white walls were carved with the pictures of foxes, and of owls and all the speaking animals, as well as deer and rabbits and mice, and with strange signs that Teb could not make out.
He thought at first that humans must have done the carving, but then he began to see that each line was made of three parallel lines such as might be made by claws.
“The stone is soft,” Pixen said, watching him. “Limestone. Five generations of my family have carved their dreams into these walls.”
“They are beautiful.” But they were more than beautiful; they were powerful carvings that lifted Teb and made him think of strange half dreams and grasp at thoughts that eluded him, filled him with desires that he could not sort out. He wanted to look and look, but then a high whimpering sound startled him.
Opposite the pool against the far wall was a large niche where four fox cubs were waking on a pile of rabbit skins. Renata sat beside them, watching Teb with bright, curious eyes.
Renata was smaller than Pixen, and so pale a silver she was almost white, so her eyes looked huge and black in her thin little face. Her chest and throat were snow white, like her four feet, and her ears were rimmed with a line of dark gray. Dark gray marked the tip of her silvery tail. She rose and came to Teb and stood up on her hind legs to greet him, touched his hand with her paw. He put out his arm so she could rest her paws there, and she stood looking up into his eyes, sniffing his scent delicately, quietly studying his face.
“You are Tebriel. You have grown so tall. The first time I saw you, you were only a baby in the arms of your mother. . . . I am so sorry about your mother, and your father, Tebriel.
“But come, you must be tired. All that crawling and hunching. Will you rest?”
“No, but I’d like to wash,” Teb said, looking with longing at the pool.
The two foxes left him, and he stripped down and jumped in, shocking himself with the cold. But in a few minutes he was tingling warm. He scrubbed and splashed and was so enjoying himself he didn’t see the cubs until they were all around the pool, patting and slapping at the water, yipping and laughing at him. Then the bravest one dove in and had a fine swim, and by the time Pixen and Renata returned, Teb had dried himself and the cubs on the soft rabbit skin Renata had left him. The cubs were asleep again in a tangle near the pool, underneath the ferns. Renata licked them lightly, then touched Teb’s hand with her nose.
“Would you like to see the rest of the den?”
She led him behind the sleeping alcove and through a small arch, and they were in a dim corridor with six small caves opening from it. “Two are escape entrances,” she said. “They lead to other clusters of dens and out a secret way.”
There were two storage dens for food. In one, little carcasses of rabbits and mice and squirrels, none of them speaking animals, had been laid to dry, and there were mounds of hazelnuts. In the other were stores of blueberries and bayberries and sweet nettle leaves, and heaps of dried mushrooms and wild apples and plums. Beyond these rooms was a room for curing hides, and then a latrine room, with a pit that could be covered with earth, and another dug. When they returned to the central cave, the cubs were awake and playing again. They raced at Teb and circled him, yapping sharply, nipping at his legs and toes. He knelt and gathered them in, furry and squirming, and in their delight they toppled him so he lay sprawled with them on top.
Renata drove them off, scolding, and they sat in a row, obedient to her but with sly little grins on their faces. “Go play in the common,” she said at last, shaking her head at them. And then they were gone, flicking their tails. “Now come, Tebriel, we will make a meal, and then we will take you on through the warrens, to the secret portal.”
She lowered her glance and nosed the chain on his leg. “There is no way we can help you with that. It must be terrible to have a chain on your leg.”
“It’s better than two chains, the way they did it in my cell. If—when I get to Bleven, to the cottage of Merlther Brish, I expect he can get it off.”
There were apples and plums and hazelnuts for supper, blueberries and nettle leaves, and a dried pheasant. Teb added his bread and cheese and the rest of the mutton, and the foxes enjoyed the new foods as much as Teb enjoyed the fresh fruits, which he had seen little of in the palace.
“Will Merlther Brish take good care of you, Tebriel?” Renata’s ears were back, as if she would challenge poor Merlther to do just that. “Will he feed you well, and . . . will he love you?”
“I expect he will feed me well. And hide me. I don’t know about the love, though,” Teb said, embarrassed. “I think I would settle for just being safe from Sivich for a while.”
Renata laid her head against Teb’s arm. “It is ugly not to be loved. Your mother loved you very much, as did your father.” Then she looked up at him. “And what of Camery? Where is your sister, Camery?”
“She is in the tower, and captive,” Teb said, and before he knew it he was telling her about the talk in the hall, all about the sighting of the dragon, though, of course, Pixen had heard it all before, and how Sivich meant to use him as bait to trap the dragon and meant to use Camery to breed children. “Because of the mark,” he said. “Only I don’t understand about the mark. I don’t understand why it is important.”