The Pale Fox

The stoneforest was quiet. The mantracks were empty. Even man seemed to be staying inside his mandens, warm and full of food. He smiled, they did not have to hunt.

He moved along mantrack after mantrack sniffing the air all the time. The scents of the stoneforest were shrouded in cold. Hidden. Lost. He could barely smell the undertracks. His paws were freezing as he sloshed through grey slush. Down a narrow shadowtrack he saw a thin rat but the cold had even taken away his stealth. His laboured, near frozen breaths startled the rat and it was gone.

He could not fail his mate, not now.

He climbed higher into the stoneforest. Mancarriers moved slowly, sliding along the mantracks. He saw a man slip on the ice. The man shouted words to the air and stood, rubbing his head. The man walked on unsteadily down the slick mantrack.

Notail was hungry. Morning was approaching but still the darkness lay heavy.

He turned down a narrow shadowtrack and saw a hollow manden. It was black with ash. Fire had been there. Some of its top had collapsed. He moved slowly inside. He caught the scent of bird and there on the ash covered ground it was. An ended pigeon, young and hardly nibbled at by rats. As fresh and as unsullied as if he had killed it himself. It was the cold that had ended it. He had seen the cold end many animals. This pigeon was small, just a squab, far too small to be any good to his cubs but it was truefood and he would not leave it. It will give me enough strength to go on hunting, he told himself.

He crunched hard into the bones of the bird. His nose was wet with blood. He licked the blood from it, it tasted good. Still slightly warm even. He pushed his tongue deep inside the bird’s shattered ribcage and nibbled at its heart. Slithers of liver and lung slid down his throat. He devoured every morsel and soon there was only the ball of a head left, ended black eyes looking up at him. He took that in one bite, crunched it, felt bone and liquid and flesh and brain merge, and swallowed.

“Dark, dark, dark,” came a voice.

He looked up, blood smearing the fur about his mouth. Watching him were more pigeons. The place was full of them. So many alive black eyes looking down at him. He wondered if they had known the bird.

“Dark, dark, dark,” came the voice again. He could not tell which bird spoke to him.

“Leave me be, pigeons,” he called back up. “I know it’s dark, dark and cold.”

The pigeons stared down at him. A hundred cold eyes watching.

“Fool, fool, fool,” came the voice and one of the pigeons hopped down from its stone hole to the ash floor.

It came very close to him. Its head bobbed up and down. It puffed its chest up and then scratched at the blackened floor.

The pigeons above echoed his scratching and the harsh sound rebounded from the stones.

“What do you want?” Notail shouted and he snapped quickly at the bird. Maybe I could kill it and a few of the others too, he thought, that would make a good meal.

The pigeon hopped back.

“You, fox,” it said. “All you foxes. We are sorry for you.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” echoed the pigeons.

Notail snapped again but the pigeon only hopped back some more.

“Why should you be sorry for me?” he said, “I should be the one feeling sorry for you. You are just pigeons, I could eat any of you if I wanted to.”

The pigeon shook its head.

“Dark, dark, dark,” it said. “You do not know yet. The tale has not reached your ears. Big fox ears, deaf ears, you have not heard.”

“Have not heard, have not heard, have not heard,” sang the pigeons.

“Not heard what?” Notail asked. He wanted to pounce on the bird, break its neck with one bite and shut it up but something held him back. Dark, dark, dark. He remembered the crows calling.

“Bad foxes,” said the bird. “One of your kind has hurt a chick of man, maybe it was you, maybe you have tasted other blood tonight. The chick was hurt very bad, made to end. Now man is angry. He wants all foxes ended. He wants rid of you. He has sent his dogs out to hunt you, hunt all of you, all of you, all of you.”

“Dark, dark, dark,” sang the birds again. “All of you, all of you, all of you.”

Notail licked his blood wet mouth. He remembered the opening, the cub of man’s soft breaths. He remembered turning away. He shook his head. No, surely no other fox would be so foolish. A cold breeze swept into the ruined manden. Maybe, he thought, this winter might make a fox desperate. But, no. The night was quiet and heavy. He had seen no dogs. He had caught no strange scents. The pigeons were wrong, he knew that, no winter could make a fox so foolish. He looked to the scraps of feather remaining from his meal. I ate their friend, he thought, they want me to feel their fear.

“Be quiet,” he said and turning away he went out into the night.

Never listen to a bird’s nonsense. That should have been one of his father’s rules.

Morning was close. The stoneforest would be abuzz with the awakening of man soon and still his cubs would be hungry.

He imagined coming back to his den. Their whimpering again. His mate’s eyes. His cubs’ whines of hunger. He could not face that.

Down and up and up and down he went. He would not be seen by man. He was fast. He was sleek. He was a flicker and he was gone. When he came near the place of firechanged chicken he smiled. Man was nowhere. The place was unlit and empty but he could smell the faintest lingering scent of chicken. Last night he had found nothing but rotting carcasses. Tonight he would find a firechanged chicken. He knew he would. He had to.

“Thank you, father,” he said. He knew his father had not shown him the place of firechanged chickens to make a scavenger of him but he knew too his father would accept his choice.

“Better to live a clever scavenger than to die a hungry fool,” his father had often said towards his end.

He would be clever. He would save his mate and cubs.

He padded down the shadowtrack and leapt a high stone edge into the place of firechanged chickens. He sniffed the air. The scent of chicken was still faint. He pushed his nose into rotting manfood. He pawed at the mess of so much wasted and ruined food. There were chicken legs and wings that held a bad scent. There were slimy slithers of greenfood and hard bits of a manfood he did not know. He wanted more. He wanted something to fill his cubs’ bellies so they could sleep until the snows melted.

He tore at the mess and then there it was. Cold but not full of the stench of old manfood. As near to truefood as he could get. A whole firechanged chicken. He lifted it with his mouth. It was heavy. He could taste it. Its sweet juices ran along his gums. He wanted to bite down right there and devour it all but he resisted. It was not for him. It was for them.

He ran from the place of firechanged chickens. Soon he would be home and he could rest well watching his mate and cubs tuck in to the food he had brought them. They would block up the den and forget the world. They would sleep against each other and let the snows pass. Soon spring would return and all the stoneforest would be alive with truefood once again. They would go on.

As he ran a howl sounded in the distance. He hardly heard it. It might have been merely the cry of a waking mancarrier or the morning call of a gull. He did not care.

Another howl answered the first and then the night was filled with the howling of dogs.

He clamped his jaws down hard onto the chicken and ran.