Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

Fires sprang ahead of it, a row of azure will-o-wisps tall as men, lining its path like an honor guard. It was taller than the gates, but did not duck low to pass through them—rather the gates bulged, and were taller. And then they weren’t, the next moment. The fox wound its way through the streets at a leisurely pace, its black eyes never wavering from the castle.

“Aim for the legs,” the lieutenant of archers was saying. “It can hide itself in another shape, but it walks the ground, same as us.”

Its tails were spread in a proud fan behind it, flickering and crackling as if made of flames.

There were normal foxes aplenty in Last of the Isles, and now and then a story would come of a two tails playing tricks at a smaller town—marrying a person, or selling wares that were nothing more than piles of autumn leaves. The oldest stories, the ones that had followed mankind across the archipelago, spoke of a nine tails that reigned on the continent with a kirin at her side. Just stories, until their four tails had settled in the forest below the plateau and forbidden men from entering.

“O’Shea,” it called, its jaws cracking open. It did not move its mouth to form the words as a man would, but simply bared its teeth to the night air. “I’ve a talk to have with you. Come out, One King.”

Drops of blue fire dripped from its sides as it walked, stretching and congealing until they touched earth. There they sputtered and grew. Changed, and stood. Hollow-eyed wolves and bony stags, mountain lions with split tails. Some grew tall and twisted, spreading flickering branches into the sky. The forest grew where the fox walked, and his people grew in it.

The wind sputtered and changed, whipping their flames higher. It blew now towards the castle. With it came the shouts, the screams.

“They’re headed down the shelter stairs,” John said. “But they can’t, can they? Illusions can’t pass your magic, that’s what my father—”

“John,” the scribe said, an arrow notched on her longbow. “It’s Letforget ‘cause it’s Letforget. Enclave men wouldn’t understand.”

“You can’t just let a weapon like that go to rust—”

His lieutenant cuffed him in the ear. The boy shut up.

“Archers ready. Anything on the ground, shoot. Don’t waste your arrows on the rest.”

Lochlann shared a nod with his fellow lieutenant. “Swordsmen ready. Strike anything that comes up here. If it doesn’t die, it’s no threat.”

Easy for him to say. Aaron turned the carving knife over in his pocket, very much missing his old dagger.

The fox was on the main street now, little more than a block away. It took its time, walking slowly, its forest of flame growing and branching above it.

“On my mark,” the lieutenant of archers called.

“Hold,” a new voice said, and whispers rippled out from him. Aaron stiffened.

The crown prince joined them on the ramparts. He looked much the same as Aaron remembered. Tall, with rust red hair in a thick braid. The lines around his eyes added ten years to him.

His Death was not in accompaniment. Nor was Markus’, for that matter.

Aaron reminded himself to start breathing again.

“Your Highness,” the lieutenant of archers deferred, and the prince centered himself on the wall, just above the main gates.

“Hold,” the prince repeated, so low Aaron almost did not hear. “But please be ready to begin shooting.”

The fox closed the last block, the last feet, the last inches. It pressed its face flat up against the prince, its head fully as tall as the man was and a bit besides.

Orin refused to give ground. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, as black eyes larger than his head stared at him and teeth larger than his arms left indents on his coat.

For a moment, no one moved. The crown prince let out a slow breath, his face unreadable.

“Four Tails. What an unexpected pleasure. Please, make yourself at home.”

Aaron nearly choked. He doubted he was the only one.

The fox’s jaws gaped into a wider grin. “The adults need to have a talk, little boy. Run along and fetch your father, won’t you?”

“The king is indisposed. I speak for him.”

The fox tilted its head until its dark nose was pressed into the prince’s chest. “Alas, child,” the beast sighed, its breath hot on the night air, “I do not speak to you.”

“If you would come inside,” the prince offered, “we could discuss—”

The fox nudged him. Just a light tap, almost playful. The prince rocked on his heels. “Your father. Now.”

Orin set his shoulders. “I—”

“And now,” the fox interrupted, hooking a clawed foot over the battlements, “you’ve lost my interest.”

“Shoot,” the prince ordered, at the same moment the fox hauled its upper body onto the ramparts. The prince and any men too close were shoved back. It grinned down at them all. Then it shook itself, scattering drops of cobalt flame into their midst.

One landed near Aaron’s foot. He backed away quick as he could, bumping into the lieutenant. Lochlann stomped it down to embers. Given Aaron’s lack of shoes, and given fire, he felt justified in meeting the man’s scowl with a defiant stare of his own.

“If you could attempt to be useful—” Lochlann said, as behind him the dying embers flared and formed into a wolf.

Aaron’s knife was sinking into the soft underside of its jaw before either the wolf or the lieutenant had time to react. The beast shuddered and snapped, freeing itself in a frenzy, blood spilling from its lips. It bought Lochlann time to ready a finishing blow. The beast fell, its flames guttering until only gray fur was left.

“That one was real,” Aaron panted.

The lieutenant’s reaction wasn’t what he expected. “That’s what you had in your pocket. That.”

“Yes.” Aaron answered, stiff shouldered. “You’re welcome.”

“You were bluffing me with—what even is that? A butter knife?”

“Carving knife,” Aaron snapped.

“You had a proper dagger, didn’t you?”

“I did, until someone arrested me—”

“How do you plan to fight with—”

Then more flames were rising around them and he really didn’t have much of a choice but to figure it out. Even a butter knife would have been better than nothing.

Not all of the beasts were real. Some made no sound when they were stabbed; some their blades passed through entirely, making it dangerous for those they fought near. Many were real enough under the illusions, though not always the same shape or size. A cougar, dead, reverted to a stoat. A black bear to a hare. Aaron kept his back near to Lochlann’s. A purely practical move.

The fox went up and over the wall, stepping down into the castle courtyard. The prince shouted after him and the archers turned their aim, but no one had yet found the beast’s real body.

Deaths were beginning to gather around them. Human-shaped Deaths and others—deer and bobcat and mouse. The wolf’s Death sniffed at its charge, touched it nose to nose. Then it disappeared, as suddenly as it had arrived. Aaron tried to ignore them, tried to step around them without seeming to, in the same way everyone else was doing. But he couldn’t stop his gaze from darting to them, searching.

Not a single one bore the shape of a fox.

The four tails ran its claws down the castle doors. Its blue flames were met by sparks, red and gold, and it recoiled onto its haunches as if bitten. “Well, now,” it growled. “Someone’s been remembering.”

Behind him Chereau grunted and fell to her knees. He didn’t see what hit her at first, but the lieutenant did—he slashed down, cutting a martin away from her throat.

“Just an illusion,” Lochlann said, when the creature rebounded from the hit with a hiss.

“Felt real enough,” the woman took her hand off her neck and looked at it. There was no blood on her palm, if that was what she was looking for.

The fox threw back its head, teeth glinting white. “O’Shea! O’Shea, you old hound, come out here!”

He did.

The castle doors opened slowly. First the left, then the right, pushed open by a boy about John Baker’s age. It took Aaron a moment to recognize the younger prince, Connor. Drawing attention like that was precisely the foolishness he’d expect from a blood noble, though it was more jarring in the younger prince than it had been in the older.

The fox sat with patient dignity, its tails curling and twisting behind it as the boy ran back inside. A moment passed, while the fight on the wall slowed to a tense lull. Men and beasts waited on the outcome of what happened below. Aaron put his back to hard stone and caught his breath. The young prince returned with a man leaning on his shoulder for support.

Liam O’Shea was not an elderly king. He was in his fifties, no more. But already gray had overtaken his temples, and there was a thinness to his frame that his red cloak could not hide.

“One King,” the fox greeted him. “You look well.”

“Fox,” the Wasting King returned, his hand heavy on his son’s shoulder. “If you would stop throwing a tantrum on my walls, perhaps we could have a drink together.”

The fox gave no signal Aaron could see, but the flame-wreathed animals began lowering their hackles, sheathing claws and teeth. The crown prince grabbed the sword arm of the man nearest him, jerking the redcoat’s attack to a halt. “Weapons down, all of you!”

In the sudden calm, Aaron edged around a porcupine and joined a mountain lion in looking down on the courtyard below. It had its paws up on the parapet, cold flames slowly licking up its sides. It looked at him coolly for a moment. When he showed his empty hands, it dismissed him as only a cat could. After a moment, Lochlann and Chereau joined him. A little farther down, John Baker had the same idea.

“Show yourself, fox.” the king’s tone was final.

For a moment the large form in front of him wavered, as if it really would disappear. It steadied itself with a leap to its feet and a snap of its jaws in front of the man’s face. “I think not, O’Shea.”

“What do you fear, Four Tails? We’ve a pact.”

The fox’s lips curled back in its widest grin yet, showing more teeth than any mouth had a right to hold. “Did you give the dragons warning before you broke your pact with them, or did you let the blood of their children speak for you? If it’s war you want, I’m as happy to oblige as they.”

The king’s grip tightened on his son’s shoulder. “State yourself plain.”

“Plain? Fine. There was a hunter in my forest, O’Shea.”

“We’ll deal with the poachers. We always do.”

Its tails simmered behind it. “It was not pheasants they aimed for.”

On the ramparts, a growl started from the animals. The mountain lion curled its lips back, a dark rumbling in its throat.

“Why are you here, fox?” the king repeated.

“For my fifth tail, One King.”

Vengeance grew a fox’s tails. Nothing more, nothing less.