“What? A little birdy?” One bored swipe of the oystragon’s tail knocked me backwards.
I crashed into the wall of water, which really was as hard as a wall, and plummeted towards the seafloor. A black-and-white form swooped beneath me to catch me. Stripey! But I was too busy gasping for breath to thank him.
You alive back there? he asked, soaring up and out of the oystragon’s range.
When I could breathe again, I pushed myself back onto my claws. Searing pain ripped through my side, as if someone had plunged a dagger into me. It was the same side that I’d injured when I’d fallen out of the air during Den’s dance. I screamed.
Rosie! What’s the matter?
Ohhhh, I think he broke a rib, I panted.
Hang on. I’ll get you to shore.
No! I spread my wings and flapped them, testing if I could fly. Pain ripped through my side again. Gods curse it all, I’d been a demon for a thousand years. Something as trifling as a cracked rib would never have stopped me then. Where was that spirit strength and stamina when I needed it most?
Gritting my beak, I flapped my wings again. This time I steeled myself for the pain, so it didn’t catch me off guard. It was bearable. In short, jerky bursts, I took to the air.
I’m – fine. Let’s go.
Stripey rolled one dark eye at me. If you say so.
The pain was like a veil over the world, or a sea of honey that I had to push through. It took nearly all of my concentration to block it out, and still it distracted me, clogged my thoughts.
Lodia’s head was in the oystragon’s mouth. His jaws were closing, muffling her screams. In a second, they were going to snap shut, and his teeth would pierce her neck and sever her blood vessels and windpipe and spine and it would all be over!
No! She’s mine! I roared again. Don’t you dare kill her!
What was his weak spot? He had to have a weak spot. The grooves between the plates on his underbelly, but no way could I make it all the way under him and wedge my beak in fast enough. Also, my beak was so short that it would feel more like a pebble in your slipper than a fatal sword thrust.
His throat? No, same problem. What I wouldn’t give for a spear! Those spears carried by the shrimp guards in Black Sand Creek would be perfect for my size! I’d even stashed away two of them, back when I was a turtle. I remembered exactly where they were. I could picture the crevice I’d tucked them in. But they were on the far side of Serica and useless to me now.
The oystragon’s tail swatted at something behind him. He grunted as if he were being harassed by a fly, but he did pull Lodia’s head out of his mouth. Her hair was matted to her scalp with his saliva, and her eyes were squinched tight. Blood beaded like a pearl choker around her neck where his teeth had punctured her skin.
“You have the oddest defenders, human girl,” he growled.
Lodia’s eyes cracked open. “Pip! Stripey!” I thought the next words out of her mouth would be, “Save me!” but instead, she croaked, “Go back! Too dangerous!”
Eyelids slid over and back up the oystragon’s bulbous eyes. I guessed she’d surprised him too. He held her out at arm’s length and examined her.
In a rush of wings, Stripey swooped around the oystragon’s horns and lunged at his eyes.
His eyes! Of course!
I launched myself at them too, but the oystragon was too fast. His tail swept around and sent Stripey sailing through the air. Clawed fingers closed around me and squeezed. Thin sparrow ribs crunched. I screamed as the pain exploded through my body, consuming my soul.
Fighting to stay conscious, I heard Lodia pleading, “Don’t kill her! Please!” and Stripey shouting, Rosie! Rosie!
Little by little, I pushed back the pain, far enough to register the blur of black and white feathers attacking the oystragon’s head, and Lodia’s unbroken arm beating at the oystragon’s chest.
Floridiana, I whispered, before I remembered that the mage was in no condition to help us. Dusty. Den. Help. Help. Please.
Who else was there? The pain nearly closed over my mind, but I cleared space to think. Bobo was busy fighting off the oystragon’s guards. So were Steelfang, One Ear, the rest of the wolves.
The foxling. What was she doing?
Sphae–ra, I rasped, knowing she could hear me with her spirit senses. Sphae–ra. Help – us.
Useless fox. Was she lounging and enjoying the show?
In – in the name – of Lady Piri, help us.
There. That should motivate her to get off her scrawny tails and do something.
----------------------------------------
Sphaera was enjoying the show immensely, so much that she’d even forgotten about all the salt and humidity that were slowly but surely destroying her silks and coarsening her fur.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Lady Piri’s people really were something! That silly bamboo viper was just as vicious a fighter as Steelfang when she set her mind to it, even if she lacked his experience and allowed the cuttlefish to get their arms on her too often. The human mage showed distinct promise in her creativity, even if she were outmatched magically. The baby horse spirit had the foolhardy courage of the young, who hadn’t learned yet that it took a hundred long mortal years to awaken but mere seconds to die if you let your guard down. And the mini dragon who tagged after the mage like a lovesick poet – even he displayed some real power when he remembered he was a dragon king.
And, of course, Lady Piri’s representative and her bird friend, or whatever he was – they were in a class all of their own, mortal animals fighting as if they were spirits, seeming to forget they were but mortal creatures!
She should have expected no less from vassals whom Lady Piri had handpicked to assist her in reunifying the empire. If these were the vassals whom Lady Piri was willing to send away, then how much more awesome were the ones who stood at her side? The ones too powerful to risk taking her eyes off?
Sphaera watched the sparrow and the crane attack the oystragon, shivers of excitement tingling her spine. She couldn’t wait to achieve so much that she would be summoned to an audience to prove her loyalty to Lady Piri!
Then a broken whisper tickled her ears. Sphaera, whispered Lady Piri’s representative. Sphaera, help us.
Sphaera went rigid. This was it! This was her moment! She’d save Lady Piri’s people and save the day, and Lady Piri’s representative would bear word of her heroic deeds back to the great nine-tailed lady herself!
The voice came again: In the name of Lady Piri, help us.
Sphaera leaped to her feet. “Rosefinches! To me!”
She took off down the furrow that Lady Piri’s mage had opened through the ocean.
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“Let them go!” bellowed a voice somewhere overhead, but it wasn’t the foxling’s. It was deeper and came from a much longer throat. Den. He’d gotten here at last.
“Den!” cried Lodia from the oystragon’s other hand. “Den! He’s killing Pip!”
The oystragon yanked her off the ground by her broken arm, and her warning turned into a drawn-out scream.
Let – her – go, I rasped. Let her – GO.
A long, dark form blocked out the sun, and I heard the crash of scaly body colliding with scaly body.
“Let them go!” roared Den. “Stripey, fall back!”
Both of them have broken bones! Stripey called, his voice retreating from the fight.
“I can tell!”
A screech of claws against scales. The world jerked crazily as the oystragon ran for the water, clutching me in one hand and dragging Lodia with the other. She screamed and screamed until we plunged into the cold water, and then mercifully, the sound cut off.
“Stop fighting me, and we can get this over faster,” the oystragon snarled, at her or at Den, I couldn’t tell. The words made no sense, until I forced my eyes to focus on the moving blurs and realized that she’d grabbed a rock and was jabbing at the oystragon’s snout.
For some reason, he wasn’t relaxing his grip on me, so he didn’t have a free hand to knock away the rock.
Den barreled into his side, pulled back, and crashed into him again. The oystragon whipped his head around and snapped at him. The water muffled Den’s roar. He crashed into the oystragon a third time, and we popped back into open air.
Ah. Den had been forcing the oystragon into one of the furrows so Lodia and I could breathe. Not that I could really breathe anymore. The oystragon had done something terrible to my chest. I couldn’t draw a full breath, and something rattled and wheezed every time I tried. This body wasn’t going to last much longer, but I couldn’t leave my friends now. Not like this!
Think. What could I do? What could I say? What did I know about the oystragon?
The world jounced as he and Den fought, scattering my thoughts. I pieced them back together.
Lodia.
“Pip!”
Did he – tell you – why?
She understood my meaning at once. “Yes! He says I offended a goddess! I don’t know how I offended a goddess!”
A goddess. Aurelia. This was her revenge.
Not – you, I got out. Me. My fault.
“You? But how? Why? What happened?”
Not – important.
What was important was how to get the oystragon to back off. I forced myself to focus on him, assess his injuries. Green blood ran down his scales, making odd patterns alongside the bright red splatters from Lodia. Was that green blood his or Den’s? I couldn’t tell. Den was moving so fast that he was a blur. And where was that useless foxling anyway?
You. Oystragon.
“I am Captain White Lip of the guard force of the Dragon King of the Western Sea!”
Captain. You don’t know – which god she serves – do you?
Lodia whispered (pointlessly, since his hearing was better than mine by far), “I think he doesn’t know.”
It’s the Kitchen God. Director of Reincarnation. Bad to – offend him. In case.
No answer, but the oystragon must have hesitated, because Den landed a blow that nearly knocked him off his back feet.
The goddess is the Star of – Reflected Glory, isn’t she?
Wait, that wasn’t right. What was Aurelia’s new title again?
Brightness, I corrected myself. The Star of Reflected Brightness. She was married to the Assistant Director of Reincarnation when they lived on Earth. You don’t – want to – get in the middle of their fight. Believe me.
“Wait,” said the oystragon, but not to me. To Den. “Wait. Truce. Sparrow. How do you know any of this? Who are you? What are you? What liege do you serve?”
“The greatest liege of all!” rang out a clear, high voice. It had never sounded so musical to my ears. “Captain White Lip! I am Sphaera Algarum, Empress of all Serica. Unhand them at once!”
The oystragon, however, made no motion to let either of us go. “There is no empress of Serica. I don’t know whom you serve or what you’re playing at, but I am here on direct orders from the Dragon King of the Western Sea.”
“And I am here on direct orders from the greatest fox of all! The Empire will rise again. Decide now whether you will rise along with it or be crushed underfoot like the oyster you are!”
Even through the pain, I cringed at her clichéd lines. And, tardily, at her revelation that Piri was directing her. None of the gods, even the ones who benefited from my actions, were going to like that. And I was about to die and land right in Heaven’s clutches too. Oh, curses.
Damage control. I had to do damage control. But it all hurt so much.
Lodia uttered another hoarse cry. The oystragon had jolted her broken arm.
Whatever you think – of foxes and empires – that girl serves the Director of – Reincarnation, I gasped. Kill her, and you doom yourself and your loved ones. Let her go.
A shadow blocked out the sky as he bent his head over us. “Very well. The girl lives.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lodia stagger back and nearly fall before Stripey and the rosefinches caught her. “But I can’t return to my liege emptyhanded. You serve that meddling, dangerous, self-proclaimed-empress fox.”
I knew what was coming, and I didn’t try to fight it. This body was broken beyond repair anyway. I turned my head far enough to meet Stripey’s eyes.
I’ll find you, I vowed. No matter where or what I am, I’ll find you.
And then the oystragon’s fingers closed with a crunch, and everything went black.