Arthur followed Al all through the great wide woods towards the setting sun. He had a dim idea that the world was a much larger place than he ever suspected. Already he had traveled more than any throcken of the great woods had before, even his mighty dinh. Thoughts of his dinh and his old ka-tet were painful, but with a child’s – or an animal’s – acceptance, the pain was fading quickly, replaced by sincere love for Al and his new ka-tet.
The bumbler stayed close to his new family. There were wolf-smells here too, and they made Arthur’s fur bristle. He looked around fearfully, but the smells were very old. But this larger world was full of other dangers and smells that Arthur had only vague knowledge of. There was a cave full of old death-smells. There was a odor of people, and a sickly musk like what clung to the wolf. He hadn’t know that people could get body-sick and mind-sick like that so that too many legs or eyes grew or so that the ones that did did not grow right. But none of the sick-people were left in the cave, only bodies. Arthur barked a warning shout at the corpses, but scurried on quickly. Even a bumbler knows that sometimes the dead rise.
The little throcken sifted all of this out from the smell-marks of the blue-faced people, more individual scents than he could believe. He remembered the long ant-line of people as they marched towards the hill where he met Al. He could tell they came this way because of how the smells grew slowly more dim. Maybe Al and his friends were trying to go back to their nest to kill the rest?
The nest was one of the on top of the ground burrows that people lived in, but the sides were rounded all the way to the ground and it smelled very strange. Arthur didn’t want to go inside, but he supposed that if Al went in, that he would too. But as it turned out they didn’t have to. Something appeared there in the clearing outside the strange burrow. Arthur sensed it’s presence in a collage of scents; the warm fur-scent of his mother, the familiar scents of his tet, spring clover, fresh muffin balls… His curling tail bobbed like a spring in joy.
Then the world changed. Light came and took all the trees away and Arthur found himself on smooth, hard ground. There were people all around and so much noise that he laid his ears flat and ducked his head down. But when he looked down, the ground was shiny like the surface of a stream and he saw a throcken-face looking back up at him, gold-ringed eyes wide in fear. He scuttled closer to Al, almost getting his small feet stepped on, and stepping right on top of Al’s large feet himself.
The smells were overwhelming, but Arthur couldn’t place any of them. They were none of the smells of forest or stream or glade or field. But Al’s smell was happy and there was no fear in the air. In fact, he sensed some burden easing in Al, like he had been pulling a very heavy weight in his mouth and at last he could set it down. Except this weight was in his head and he had to pull it with his head. Arthur realized that Al was hurt. He hadn’t known before, because the hurt-sense had been a part of him when Arthur first found him. But now he could sense the hurt going away. Not all away, but getting better. Arthur gave a happy little bark that was lost in all the noise of the strange new place.
Arthur left the arrival place and the throcken realized that he was inside of a people-burrow. It was so large! Many bumblers could live here and have all the room they could ever need. Delah. Except there was no food smells here. He worried, but there was another scent, one tht he had never smelled before, but which he felt as being familiar. The scent came from a green place, the only plants he could see or smell, and in the middle there was a red flower…
Arthur wanted to go to it and maybe lie in the little patch of grass. But Arthur was leaving. It was okay, somehow the scent of the flower was on Al, too. More sensed than smelled. Arthur couldn’t explain it, but bumblers feel little need to explain things. The smell was in Al’s head, and it made him better. Arthur loved that smell.
And of course, there was food! Arthur knew that Al would never let him be hungry. The smell was new and delightful and smelled strangely hot. The food inside was gooey and warm with bits of greasy meat…oh!
Al’s burrow was incredibly large and strange. It had holes in the sides, except there was something over them so you couldn’t go through them, which was good because the holes we high up. Higher than the tallest tree. But Al was happy here and he never let Arthur fall and he always brought strange, wonderful new food.
The throcken didn’t like going outside in this new world – he could sense that it was not the same one he left. Outside he was surrounded by a forest of towering people-burrows. There were trees, but only a few here and there and underneath the choking smoke-smell of the air, they smelled weak and sick. But he was brave enough to follow Al back to his own little burrow where the walls were closer and it wasn’t so high off the ground.
But Arthur knew a little of ka. Not a human’s understanding of course, but an instinct for it that so few people did. Al’s life was not one of only food and hours of playing with shiny twigs and flat white leaves in his burrow. His ka was greater, and Arthur had given himself over to Al’s ka so he could be with him.
The night that Al and his friends had a very big food gathering and they let Arthur play with the brightly colored leaves that had surprises inside that made them happy…that night they went out into the cold and the snow. And there in a field of wet stone and old metal the little throcken’s fur bristled. He hunched his back and stretched out his neck, smelling hard for danger. The evil moved and it made the junk leap up and strike.
The bumbler, just the runt of his tet wanted to turn and run away, to follow his own smell back to someplace safe. But Al wasn’t running. He stood his ground, feet planted in the snow, his hands making something out of bits of branch. He pointed it at the metal thing and it threw a stick at it with a quivering twang! Arthur barked excitedly, leaping around his feet. He was fighting it!
Arthur was afraid and excited all at once. His round body bounced in the snow, hardly feeling the cold through his thick pelt. Al’s smell was the same, scared, but also focused, intent. He used his special branch to throw stick after stick at it. Arthur knew that if he had been at the den with when sick-wolf had attacked, that he would have killed it with his sticks. The metal monster threw big metal sticks high into the air, but Al didn’t run. Arthur wanted to…the metal stick was as big as a whole tree, stripped bare of branches. It tumbled end over end in the air, its shadow falling over them.
Al looked up at it, his fuzzy face grimly determined and he stood his ground. Arthur trembled, looking up at the metal tree falling on them. Then he darted between Al’s feet and planted his rump in the snow. Either Al would save them both, or they would die together.
The air whistled over the tumbling metal, and Arthur’s bravery gave out. He pushed his head against Al’s leg and closed his large gold-black eyes. In the darkness he could hear the rattling pops and the grunts and cries of fighting and the creaks and crunch of angry metal. The sounds ended with a final ground-shaking boom and a hot wind. When Arthur looked the field of snow and wet stone was as bright as day, a burning fire lighting the battlefield. He smelled blood and pain, but also satisfaction. Arthur looked up at Al, who was still alive and rolled over in happiness.
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