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And suddenly, without warning, that great head turned like an opening door and the black Mare bit into the flesh ofmuscle froed fro war her flank with round harder into ainst her body I expected nothing but death
When I caainst the rock wall, drenched in ht in a rainstorh she had sunk her teeth ininto me She had done no more than she had always done—chewed a hole in flesh And the edges of her hole longed for her, after she was gone Her absence filled the chamber like a voice
In her place was aor terrible, sitting on its haunches, eyes sparking in the returned blackness When it saw I had revived, it padded across the earthen floor and stood directly in front of my face; a handsorass and copper filings, and his fur crackled with a baleful kind of rusted light
Tothe blood fro, rough passes with his pink tongue, prickling and horribly painful I bit ainst ony Slowly the scarlet ebbed from the pale But he was not finished with me The little Fox opened his mouth and spoke quite clearly
“Press sooldenseal and dandelion root from your pack into the wound, then use bay leaves to bind the poultice It will help But it is important that you do not stop the blood flow entirely My mother has prepared you, but you will need the blood of your body”
I obeyed numbly When I had finished, the Fox bent to sniff at my shoulder and check my work I watched hiripped his bristling throat inhands and his snapping snout trying to reach h my own sharp teeth
“Now, tellon here, Fox, or I shall have you skinned and in my pack with the bay and the dandelion faster than a lion can s a mouse”
The Fox snorted and sputtered like a petulant child, and after so I would not let his neck out of nity:
“You, little girl, are not supposed to touch me, you are not supposed to assault me or ask me questions It is not done But you touched the Mare, and that too is forbidden I can only hope the pain of her bite was extreme That she endured your hands on her! Filthy! They are so dirty, you are so dirty and dark, and you touched her, you touched me!”
I let hi backwards from his furious form as he rubbed his nose and his throat and washed his fur with desperate strokes of a pink tongue I smiled hat I assuined to be a casual air “Fox, I think I have been good, and suffered quite enough to knohat is happening to me in this place”
The Fox hooted in derision, a strange noise co from his delicate russet snout
“Oh, you think you have been good, do you? You think you have suffered? You know nothing at all, stupid as a goat” He drew himself up on his haunches “I am the Servant of the Black Mare That was my mother you fondled, wicked child She who invented words, and yet does not speak; she who brings dreams and visions, yet does not sleep; she s the stor of rain or wind I speak for her; I am her own This was not your test, human child; that lies beyond Pain is no test In my mind you have already failed; you dared touch her who carries the Moon in her Belly, who foaled the Stars in the Beginning of the World But she allowed your unclean hands on her, and still blessed you with her sacred Teeth, so therein you which was born in her”
The Fox pawed the earth fretfully, i me with his eyes “Why did you do it? Why did you have to stroke her as though she were your mount, your little pet? Oh mother mine, would you have ridden her? Even… even I have never been permitted to touch her, in all my years of service, never once… Terrible child, why could you not have kept your hands to yourself?”
The Fox trotted towards ain In a crimson flash he cruelly raked his claws acrossthe flesh like a ripe plum I could have sworn there were tears in his little black eyes, catching in his golden fur and whiskers
“There,” he snarled, “that is for your trespass; that is side the Mare; I have drunk her milk and hunted with her! I chewed the tiny Grass-Stars in their hundreds and thousands by her side! And I will not heal that one for you!”