Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

Liam O’Shea took his hand off his son’s shoulder and stood unaided. With another flick of his wrist, he ordered the boy back into the castle. Connor retreated a few steps, but no more.

“I ordered no such thing,” the king said.

The fox arched its back and shook itself again. Traps, iron and heavy, clattered to the paving stones.

“I ordered no such thing,” the king repeated.

The fox stared into his face. The king, like his eldest son, did not flinch.

“Pity,” the great beast said. “If it had been you, I’d have my tail before sunrise. You know what you’ve done, don’t you? I think you do.”

The fox pressed his face close and the king wavered on his feet. It wasn’t bravery that kept him from retreating, or stupidity either. Aaron realized that if the man took a step, he was going to fall. That was all it was.

“We will fight you,” the king said.

The fox ignored him. “Now I’ve got to hunt you all, every one. I can’t be sure of my vengeance until every man in your city is dead—except for you, I suppose. Do you have any conception of how long that takes? It was thirty-nine yearsto my fourth tail and that was a piddling little village. When will you humans learn the value of a lie, O’Shea? So much can be saved. My time. Your city.” The beast heaved a sigh that sent every fire shuddering. His words sat in the night air, their meaning growing as men exchanged looks.

Next to Aaron, Lochlann swallowed thickly and raised his voice. “I did it. I was the one who…”

The fox’s head swung towards the wall. “Finish that sentence, redcoat. Please.”

As hard as Lochlann tried, he couldn’t seem to force those last words out of his mouth. Under the fox’s black gaze, the young lieutenant was still.

“I ordered it,” Prince Orin spoke into the silence. “You’re arrogant, fox. Prideful. Spiteful. It was only a matter of time until you turned on us. If not in father’s reign, then in mine. You will never have the respect for me that you do for him. I see it in you, every time we speak.”

The fox threw back his head and laughed, a long yipping howl into the night air. “That! I can believe that. Well said, Prince.”

When it lowered its muzzle again, it was no longer laughing. “Well said, indeed. Anything else you’d care to say?”

Some men go pale in the face of their death. Some stutter or run. Orin was the type whose face darkened with anger. The fox advanced, luxuriating in each step. The king was trying to say something, but his breath seemed to have failed him. Lochlann was readying his sword, as were the guards on the ramparts. Chereau was edging closer, to where she could get in a proper hit.

Aaron tilted his head.

Orin wasn’t going to die. The crown prince’s Death, with all his bored yawns, was nowhere in sight. All the Deaths had gone.

The bell on the royal tower tolled six times, in rapid succession.

Six, six, Late Wake’s tricks.

The griffin landed softly, her owlish wings almost silent in the night air. She was a northern griffin. Her body was like a snow leopard’s, if snow leopards were big enough to hunt horses. Her wings wrapped around the prince, a wall of barred white and black.

“Lady,” the fox began, “so good of you to come.”

Her screech required no interpretation.

“Be reasonable, now. This young man has confessed to trying to kill—”

Aaron was not alone in clapping his hands over his ears.

The following exchange was hard to understand, even for someone versed in the enclave tongue. It was one thing to hear a human whistling it. To hear it from the beaks that first spoke it was another matter entirely. Another volume level entirely. Aaron tried to follow, but it was difficult when his eardrums were trying to curl up and die.

John Baker was having no such difficulties. John was, in fact, carefully fitting a new bolt into his crossbow. Most of the guards and militiamen were tense, with hands on weapons. But then, most of them had their eyes on the fox or the animals still on the ramparts. Aaron snuck a glance to the lieutenant—the man’s knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword, but his attention was wholly devoted to his prince.

Aaron carefully slid a few steps over, as inconspicuously as he could.

“I think she’s on our side,” he spoke lowly.

The enclave boy never took his eyes off his target. “Do you know how they make their cloaks?”

“Skin them, I hear.”

“Alive. Did you hear that part?”

He hadn’t. But still. “The griffin’s already dead. You’re not.”

The boy lowered his crossbow to his side, slowly.

“Just stop screeching,” the fox whined. It had backed off a pace and sat down, its ears folded against its head, its tails lashing across the ground.

The griffin gave a soft sound, a little assenting prek. The accent was too different from what he was used to hearing, but the satisfaction in her tone was unmistakable. She unfolded her wings, revealing a very red-faced prince still attempting to stand with dignity despite a white feather caught in his hair. She tucked her wings neatly against her sides. Then she reached one heavy paw up to her collarbone, dug her black talons in, and tore.

It was like unclasping a cloak. One moment the griffin stood large. The next its fur and feathers, its legs and tail, were all falling away in a loose skin. A slender woman stood in its place. She wore leather armor over a white shirt, and a rapier and dagger sheathed opposite. The griffin’s pelt trailed over her shoulders and swung at her ankles, impossibly short for what it had been moments ago. Some parts of it had disappeared entirely—the wings, the legs. The griffin’s head was no more than a hood for her to push back. Her blonde hair spilled out, covering its empty eye holes in a soft golden shroud.

“Shall we continue our discussion inside?” the Lady suggested. “Of course, it may be more comfortable if you were smaller.”

The fox bared its teeth. “And if someone shoots me?”

“Then they answer to me.” The woman’s smile was small; just a twitching at the corners of her lips. It reminded Aaron of his Death’s.

The large beast heaved a sigh and collapsed into blue flames that guttered against the paving stones. In moments, nothing stood in the courtyard below except the king and the younger prince.

There was no fox down there. There never had been.

“Don’t stab me, Lieutenant,” Chereau edged away from them all. “We both know I’m not the one who took your officer out. All I did was not leave an opportunity to lie.”

It took longer than it should have for Aaron to understand. By then a black fox was standing where the guardswoman had been, four white-tipped tails fanned behind it, its forepaws shoved into the arms of a red coat rather too large for it. It leapt lightly to the top of the battlements, trying to keep as many of the guards in its sight as possible.

“My people leave in safety,” it said, in a voice most definitely not Chereau’s.

“Of course,” the Lady agreed. “I assume they’ll wish to go immediately. Our guardsmen would be pleased to escort them to the city gates.”

Around them, the last of the blue flames faded. A familiar yellow light returned to the lanterns on the battlements. Many of the animals simply vanished. Some, like the mountain lion next to him, proved to be very real under it all. The fox gave no signal Aaron could see, but the creatures began backing off, edging towards the nearest stairs or simply making the leap down.

Now would be a good time to—

Lochlann wrapped a hand around his arm. “Going somewhere?”

“Apparently not,” Aaron said.

“Lady,” the lieutenant called. “When you’re done, there’s a minor matter for you to attend to. It can wait until morning.”

The woman’s gaze shifted to them. To him. Aaron saw a flash of recognition in her eyes, quickly hidden. “It will be my pleasure, Lieutenant Varghese.”

* * *

They found Chereau behind the woodpile, where Aaron had left her. She was struggling her way back to consciousness. Lochlann tucked one of her arms over his shoulders and stared at Aaron until he did the same.

“Little fey? Why are you…?” she started the thought, but lost it somewhere.

They made for the front doors of the castle. There, Lochlann had them wait politely as the royal party showed their guest inside.

“How much of my city is really on fire, fox?” the king asked, his arm resting on the Lady’s as he walked.

“Only a tiny bit,” the fox’s grin was smaller in this form, but no less wide. “My people may have kicked over a lantern or three on our way in. Purely on accident, I’m sure.”

Chereau focused on its voice, squinting hard. “Is that fox wearing my coat?”

Aaron saw no need to correct the conclusions she was drawing.

Neither, it seemed, did the good lieutenant.