‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Tell me what it is?’
‘Keep calm,’ he replied. ‘We have to get out – go away – as quickly as we can. There are men abroad – men with guns. They’re all through the town, and out in the countryside too. They’re shooting anything that moves, especially foxes.’
Her heart felt leaden and heavy in her breast.
Foxes – why foxes? Why us?’
‘It was A-konkon, damn his soul to oblivion,’ said Camio with great feeling.
‘A-konkon? But what could he have possibly done to bring the humans down on us like this?’
‘We must get out – get you to a safe place, where the cubs …’
‘What did he do?’
‘He committed ranz-san, in the main square – tore his own stomach out and died in front of a dozen people. They didn’t understand – they’re humans – how could they understand? He did it as a protest, against the decadent life we were leading here, as he called it. Said it was time to re-establish old values. A protest!’
‘But what was it they thought? Why are they up in arms against us?’
‘They’re frightened. As soon as A-lon told me what had happened I guessed. The humans are scared out of their wits – they’re terrified – and when humans get like that, they’ll destroy everything and anything. They’re frightened for their young – and you know how we will do anything to protect our cubs.’
‘You still haven’t told me – I still don’t understand.’
‘The Shadow-with-a-thousand-names. The White Mask of Terror. Now do you understand? They think A-konkon died the death of the Foaming Mouth.’ There were the sounds of shots outside, and humans barking into the night. Feet were running heavily through the streets. There was fear behind those sounds – not just ordinary fear – an insane terror of a disease which was transmitted by the bite of a dog, or fox, or human. ‘They’re killing dogs out there, as well as foxes. Dogs, cats, everything.’
‘But …’ she faltered, reaching deep down into her mind for the Unremembered Fear, deep down into the black well where it had been laid long ago by her ancestors, and finding something there which was ugly and devastatingly cruel. ‘But – we haven’t had such a thing here for – for seasons out of time.’
‘Well, I’ve seen it – in the old country. It’s not here. They only think it is – but that’s enough. They’ll kill and kill until there’s nothing left to shoot. Or until reason returns to them once again. We can’t wait. We have to go. At least they’re not using dogs to hunt us down – they daren’t. The dogs might get bitten and then they would have to shoot their pets. Come on – we must go.’
She followed him to the entrance to the earth. For once she did not complain when he failed to observe the rituals.
Chapter Sixteen
The fox-spirits from the Firstdark, who know all things, said there had not been so many men abroad with death on their minds since the infamous days of Herod and the mass murder of human babes. There were shadows moving across the land and the night was full of thunder and fire. There were desperate retreats across snowy wastes, screams pregnant with fear, miraculous escapes, and loud reports followed by intense silence. All the animals along the broad sweep of the coast caught the smell of terror and either froze or ran. Blood fell on the snow like warm, red rain, and the land choked on its own fear.
And the fox-spirits knew that as much dread was in the pursuer as in the pursued, and that the hunters believed they were the hunted, and that the world moved in circles and spirals of madness. The stark, leafless trees were inadequate hiding places for those who had no knowledge at all of why this fear had erupted to suddenly, and there were holes in the banks of the rivers and creeks where small mammals quaked and wondered if the end of the world had come to the living, and some being frail, died of sheer fright without leaving their homes.
For Camio and O-ha, the flight from the face began with a hazardous journey through the streets. In the town it was Camio who took the lead. Each corner was a potential death trap. There were men everywhere, in cars and on foot. The rust-coloured foxes moved against a backdrop of redbrick walls, and slipped down dark alleys, over the fences of gardens, across low rooftops. The hunters did not think to protect their own back yards, having once checked them, they believed them empty. Whether Camio was aware of this or not, his instinct took him along creosoted wickerwork panels, against which it was difficult to see a red-grey coat, especially if it was moving quickly, in darkness. The snow held their spoor, however, and they had to be away from the town before the morning light.
Whenever the smell of man was strong, or the sound of his boots crunched on snow, they found a hiding place: sometimes it was waste bins, or sheds, or a stack of red clay plant pots, or under a car – anywhere, especially if the hidey-hole was small. Camio knew that humans often have a strange idea of a fox’s size, thinking it to be as large as a medium-sized dog, whereas it is only a little larger than a cat, and can squeeze into spaces which look too narrow to take a man’s fist. Once, a pair of legs passed them only inches away from their noses.
They found a manhole cover off a sewer, in the part of the town where building was in progress, and travelled along the pipes beneath. Even under the ground they could hear the reports of the guns, and boots thumping the snow-covered concrete above. There were other animals in the sewer pipes, quaking with fear, frozen to the spot. Camio ignored these creatures, most smaller mammals.
At one point, O-ha said, ‘Why don’t we stop here?’
‘Because we’ll have to go out for food sometime,’ he answered, ‘and they’ll be waiting for us. You’ll see. They won’t stop tomorrow, or the next day. This thing will go on for a least a week or two. Even then – even if they somehow find out that A-konkon committed ritual suicide – humans seem to have remarkable powers of discovery, given time – even if that happens, there will always be doubt in those who are told. This needs a lot of time to drain from people’s memories. We have to go somewhere and let that time pass.’
Once they reached the point where they had to abandon the sewers, they made a mad dash across a building site. A shotgun opened up on them, but the user was inexperienced and did not allow for the kick. The lead pellets went high, shattering some ceramic pipes that were stacked and ready for installation in the new houses. Pieces of pottery rained down on the two foxes, but this only served to spur them on. The man who had fired at them howled to his companions, and then raced after the two foxes. At the same time, he was trying to reload his weapon. O-ha turned on the human when he got too close and even in the poor light she could see his face turn pale, as he skidded to a halt. There was more fumbling with the breech of the gun and cartridges fell from trembling fingers into the snow. As the man bent to pick them up, the foxes continued their flight into the darkness.
They reached the edge of town, but the roads were full of vehicles, few of them moving. There were watchfires ringing the face and gun-carrying silhouettes moves across them, walking along the highways. Camio quickly realised these figures were here to keep foxes out, rather than stop them getting away, but they would shoot anyway, if they saw something slinking through their lines.
There had been another time when foxes were killed out of fear rather than for sport, and the fox-spirits of the Firstdark remembered this era, the seasons when Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-finder General, swept across the land ordering hangings and drownings where he wished to exercise his evil power. Foxes died in those bad times, along with cats and dogs, all taken for familiars of people accused of witchcraft. They were crucified and hanged, in the manner of men, rather than shot. The fox-spirits recalled these seasons of darkness and likened them to this night.
It was O-ha’s turn to find a path through the forest of men. She used her nose, while running parallel to the line, and finally came across some humans whose attention was on the bottle they had, rather than the night. The group was huddled around a fire in an oil drum and barked loudly, war
ming their hands. She and Camio crept past, low to the ground, their belly hairs touching the snow, on the side of the fire where the men were shoulder to shoulder and blocking the light from the white ground. She was sure they could hear the faint swish of fur against the snow, for it was as loud in her ears as dry rushes brushing against tree bark.
When the two foxes were almost out of the light of the fire, one of the men turned and stared in their direction. He growled to his companions. One of them shone a powerful light out on to the snow, the beam sweeping the ground just in front of the noses of the two runaways. The light-bearer stood up and began walking towards them, but another of the men coughed something and he stopped. After a few moments he went back to the fire and took a drink from the bottle that was being passed around. O-ha and Camio waited for a few moments before continuing their perilous journey.
Once they were through the lines it was ploughed fields, the furrows rigid beneath the snow and difficult to negotiate when walking cross ways to them. When they reached a ditch, they lay in the bottom for some time, gathering their strength again.
‘I’m not sure this is the right way,’ she said to Camio. ‘I’ve never been this far from home before.’
‘It doesn’t matter for the moment,’ he replied. ‘We’re out of the town at least. Just think of the creatures in Trinity Wood – that’s the first place the humans will have gone – and it’s ringed by the town.’
‘Oh – Gar,’ she said.
‘Gar – the “perfect pair” – and others …’
When morning came they were aware that they were being tracked, and set off again at a fast pace over the fields. They tried all the tricks: climbing trees and running along a branch, to jump off at the end, hoping to break the line of spoor; travelling along ice in ditches; balancing on the edges of fences. Still they could not shake off their pursuers. The men behind them were determined to get them, and it seemed that nothing would deter them. A farmhouse was circumnavigated with caution. Finally, they came to railway track.
‘Quick, they’re not far behind,’ said Camio. ‘Up on the track.’
O-ha followed him, wondering what he had in mind. She mimicked his actions, though she had never seen a railway line before. He ran along the steel rail for quite a distance, before dropping between the tracks and flattening himself against the gravel. O-ha copied him, lying close to his body.
Shortly afterwards, the barks of men could be heard, and she was aware of some confusion amongst them. They had lost the trail at the point where the two foxes had climbed the embankment and were searching for the point where the spoor began again.
There was a loud report, which almost had O-ha bolting, followed by a strong smell of cordite. One of the men had fired his gun, hoping to flush the foxes from their hide-out. It had almost worked. Then the rails began vibrating and humming, and O-ha was almost beside herself with fright.
‘Stay here,’ whispered Camio. ‘Don’t move a muscle. You’ll be all right, I promise. I know what I’m talking about. The train is coming – it’ll pass over us. We won’t be hurt. Stay, stay …’ his voice was calm and gentle, with only a trace of apprehension behind it.
The vibrating increased to a rumble. A machine was hurtling down on them at tremendous speed and O-ha was convinced they were going to die. She could not understand why Camio did not bolt, at the last moment, but she trusted his judgement, waiting, waiting for a move from him before she went herself.
The noise was excruciating, hurting her ears. They were entombed in living steel, that screamed around them. The ground beneath her body jumped and the stones rattled and jostled each other around her head. She thought it would last forever: the sensation of being crushed, without the pressure on her body. Then, it was over just as suddenly as it had begun, and all she was left with was a ringing in her ears and a heart that had gone on, with the train, to travel the lands at speeds she could not even imagine.
They lay there together, for a long time, and finally she whispered, ‘Camio?’
There was no answer for a moment, and she began to wonder whether they were dead after all, when he said, ‘A little while longer.’
Ransheen whistled over their bodies, lifting their fur, and when she was sure there was no scent of man, no sound of man, she lifted her head.
‘I think we’d better be getting on. They’ve left. We must move sometime.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Camio. Then, ‘Now, that was some experience, wasn’t it? The train I mean?’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘You talk as if you’ve never done it before.’
He flicked his head.
‘I haven’t – not quite. I almost did it once, but my courage failed me at the last moment. Nearly got killed. A city fox taught me that there was no problem, provided you keep your head down and remain quite still. I was worried for you. I prayed you wouldn’t panic – you were very brave – extremely brave … that was your first time?’
‘I’ve never been near a railway in my life. So,’ she said, not without a trace of condescension, ‘you actually jumped clear the first time you did it?’
‘I’m afraid so. It’s a horrible experience.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I quite like it.’ Then she added, generously, ‘I expect it was because you were with me. I had company that knew what was happening.’
‘I had company too, my first time, and I still panicked and ran. I don’t think I have your courage.’
He was so magnanimous in his praise, they she felt guilty for lying to him.
She confessed, ‘I was scared.’
‘I expect you were – you’d be very foolish not to be – but the important thing is, you didn’t let that fear rule your head. Come on, let’s get out of here. Those hunters might be back. Which is the best way to go?’
‘I think if we head towards the sun, following the tracks, we should reach the marshes of the estuary. Perhaps we can hide out there until all this has been forgotten?’
So, the pair of them began walking, keeping their noses to the wind and their ears tuned for the sound of men. By midday they had reached a point where the ridge dropped down gently towards the creeks and saltflats of the estuary, and they left the railway. Several trains had passed them by, while they had been walking, and O-ha marvelled that she had ever allowed one of them to hurtle over her prone body.
When they reached the flats of the wetlands, the tide was out, leaving only thin slivers of water running between the banks of the river and its inlets. Here were several square miles of marsh samphire, bladderwrack and seablite, with long strips of mauve sea lavender whose flowers die in autumn but retain their colour long beyond that season. Here, just below the water, was eel-grass, the only flowering subsea plant, and cruising through this, grey mullet. Here were hidden godwits, knots and oystercatcher birds who never eat oysters. Here the sharp sound of the wading birds mingled with the deep rhonking of the Brent geese. Here was mud a-plenty, embedded with shellfish and perforated by ragworms and lugworms. Here were gulls of several varieties, that robbed as well as scavenged or found their own food, and graceful, dagger-faced herons that went out on lonely patrols at dawn looking for silver meals in shallow pools. These were the wastelands, the wetlands, the saltings, the marshes, where wrecks of rotting vessels appeared to be climbing from the sludge like grey-green corpses rising from their graves on the day of salvation.
The pair of foxes travelled along, hidden by the dykes that protected the land around the creeks. There were dozens of new smells out here, tangy and sharp, that took time to assess, classify and store in their olfactory memories for future reference. They found a place to cross to an ancient wreck on an island of sea poa grass. The hulk was cold and damp, but there was a space in what used to be the cabin which seemed to remain clear of the water when the tide was in. This they decided to make their home for the winter months, which they knew would be hard and difficult to survive, but better than facing the Unremembered
Fear now implanted in the minds of humankind.
The first time O-ha went out hunting she found a group of seagulls that refused to fly away when she caught one of their kind. It was a time when she had the urge to kill, wantonly, the way she and A-ho had done in that hen house so long ago. The red mist clouded her brain for an instant, and the unnatural situation of having prey that remained in her presence in large numbers, almost turned her head. But her experience of the last few days had somehow penetrated beyond that drive to kill for the sake of killing. Something akin to sympathy for the birds entered her emotions – a feeling which was strange to her, since her emotional mechanism was geared to survival, and survival meant obtaining food when and where it was available. She repressed the urge to run amuck, and took only the quarry she had first caught. It was not something she spoke to Camio about, because she could not even explain it to herself. She just knew that out there in the river mists, in the heron-grey dawn, something unusual had happened to her. She had found something far more important than a tangible enemy.
When the tides came in, most of the boat was all but covered, leaving only a small space in the cabin for the two foxes to huddle together and await the retreat of the water. They suffered a great deal. The shellfish – the mussels and cockles which they cracked open with their strong jaws to get at the molluscs inside – did something to their constitutions which left them sore. The cold was far more bitter than in the town or wood they had left. Ransheen had nothing to stop Her out on the flatlands and came across the marshes like a well-honed scythe, ready to cut down anything taller than a blade of grass. The alluvium of the estuary was always wet and stuck to their paws, freezing solid in the spaces between their pads, so that they had to spend much time digging it out with their teeth. There were dens of hibernating adders in holes in the grasses on top the dykes, which if disturbed would have bitten, resulting in death. Sometimes single snakes lay sleeping on the snow on cold, sunny days, reluctant to move, and the foxes trod warily around them.
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