Free Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named) by Clare Bell Page A

away. Soon he had excavated a deep treeling refuge in the red clay beneath the tree. He lowered the animal gently into the hole, arranged branches and needles over it, then piled dirt on the covering before the creature could claw its way out. He stamped the soil down and waited to see if the creature would unbury itself. When he saw no sign that it was escaping, he turned to the task of digging himself a temporary den and forgot about the treeling.
    In the morning, he slept late, enjoying his solitude. Here there were no tail-waving females or yowling males. No one of the clan was there to press him with their needs or fears. He heard only the quiet trickle of the brook and felt the pine-scented breeze teasing his whiskers. Until he remembered the treeling.
    Thakur jumped up and ran to the little fir, only to find that he had packed the dirt down harder than he’d thought. It took determined digging to reopen the burrow. When at last he broke through, he almost dug the treeling up along with the dirt. The little creature made no attempt to escape, for it was nearly suffocated.
    He pawed some clay from the brindled pelt. The treeling closed its eyes and made no protest. At first he felt relieved and then alarmed. Its passivity was probably due to hunger, he thought, and he decided he’d better feed it. But what would it eat? Well, if treelings lived in trees, they probably ate leaves, he concluded, and went off to find some.
    He brought one type of leaf after another, without success. The treeling would eat none of them. At last, by accident he brought a branch that had several beetles on it. When he placed his offering outside the treeling’s hole, it poked its head out, spied a bug, snatched it up and crammed the morsel into its mouth. It continued to pick insects off the branch until all of them were gone. It looked up at Thakur with inquisitive eyes, cocked its head slightly and said “Aree?”
    Later that morning found Thakur in a nearby stretch of grassland, hunting grasshoppers. He had been quite adept at this when he was a cub, although now he found lack of practice had robbed him of some skill. Finally he managed to catch one in his mouth and carry it back to the treeling, feeling the struggling insect kicking his tongue. He spat it out in front of the treeling’s burrow. A small arm emerged, caught the insect by the leg and dragged it inside. Thakur could hear more crunching sounds.
    After the grasshopper hunt, Thakur stretched out for a nap in the autumn sun. He was almost asleep when he felt something climb up his back and nestle in the fur on his flank. Startled, he shook the treeling off and nosed it back into the burrow. He returned to his nap.
    When he woke, he found that the treeling had climbed up on him again and was clinging to his pelt. He craned his head back, seized the creature by the scruff and pulled, but it had woven fingers and toes into his fur. Realizing that he would pull the treeling apart before he got it off, he sighed and let it stay.
    After a while, he found he enjoyed having the treeling on his back. It murmured contentedly as he jogged along and made small wordless comments whenever anything happened. At first Thakur was afraid he might lose his new companion and he chose his way carefully, avoiding low branches, lest his passenger be swept off or scramble into the trees beyond his reach. He made wide detours and looked over his shoulder at every step to assure himself that the creature was still there. The treeling stared back at him, the expression on its short-muzzled face saying, “I’m still here. What are you so worried about?”
    Soon Thakur ceased worrying about losing the animal. It seemed to like riding on him and sleeping in his fur at night. During the following days, he roamed far from the grove, carrying the treeling with him and feeding it on beetles and the big grasshoppers that lived in the nearby meadowlands.
    He doubted that this was the food the creature had been