The Fox's Quest Read online

“Shut up,” Tall Boy said, drawing a foot back for a kick.

  Sanae bared her teeth, willing them to look razor sharp, and lunged at Tall Boy with a snarl. Leave him alone!

  Incredibly, her teeth closed on fabric. She yanked, causing Tall Boy to tumble to the ground with a fearful screech. If she’d wanted, she could have sunk her teeth in his throat. Instead, she raised a paw to inflict shallow but stinging slashes in the soft flesh of his cheek.

  Next time you pick on someone weaker than you, I’ll tear your throat out. Understood, pup?

  The bully scrambled backward into the dirt, lurched upright, and ran away gibbering. Satisfied, Sanae stepped behind Short Boy to ensure passers-by peering in the alley wouldn’t see her.

  The remaining boys were staring.

  To Medium Boy she snarled, You! If you don’t want me to tell the monks to deny you entry, you’re going to listen to every word I say. Sohei are protectors, not bullies. This is the last time you pick on anyone. Yes?

  “Yes, Ms. Fox!”

  Pleased, she flicked her many tails before turning to inspect Short Boy’s ankle. Hmmm. I assume you broke it and it started to heal wrong before you saw a healer. Why didn’t they break it again to fix it?

  “The healer said the bones are weak. She worried it might never heal properly if we did. And Mother needed me to work. It would have taken forever to heal again.”

  Sanae poked and prodded at the ankle, making a humming noise that didn’t require the use of a throat. She knew the theory of how white spirits stimulated wounds to close and bones to mend, but also knew already healed wounds couldn’t be healed over. If she tried to heal this, she’d be reinforcing the bad fusion.

  “Can… can you heal it, Ms. Fox?” Short Boy watched her worshipfully, likely recalling every story he’d ever heard about good spirits and miraculous healing. Half the stories told about white spirits involved raising the dead back to life, which proved you just couldn’t trust stories.

  What could she say? Never tried, don’t know how?

  It’d have to be broken anew, she said.

  “Break it then. I promise I won’t cry.”

  Sanae stared at his determined little face. He was, what, seven years of age at best? She wasn’t in the business of breaking children’s bones!

  “I can help!” Medium Boy, who was barely older but far more muscular, shuffled close. “My grandmother fixes people sometimes. I’ve helped her set broken bones.”

  Healing couldn’t be that difficult. The other spirits she’d met had more clouds than wits in their heads and they could figure it out. How could a smart girl like her not be able to do it?

  Let us try, she said, hoping she sounded wise instead of unsure.

  Medium Boy came close and seized Short Boy’s leg. “You need to bite down on wood or cloth or you might bite your tongue,” he said with the authority of a child who repeats what he’d heard adults say.

  A search of the alley turned up wooden twigs, the sturdiest of which was put in Short Boy’s mouth. Then, without much concern for the patient, Medium Boy grabbed the leg with one hand, the foot with the other, and twisted hard.

  Promise or not, the patient howled and kicked.

  “Don’t do that!” Medium Boy scolded. “Hold still. There, see? This is how it’s supposed to be!”

  Short Boy quivered, his face worryingly pale.

  The ankle looked properly aligned to Sanae’s eye so she hurried to the step of frantically trying to get the healing done. Healing, healing… Just grab the energy around and focus it, right?

  She let herself fade halfway to better direct her attention to energy that wasn’t part of herself. There were always currents of spiritual energy, like meandering little streams. She took hold of the closest one and pulled, diverting its energy where she wanted it, around the boy’s ankle.

  Short Boy sucked in a breath. “Ah, cold!”

  Hold steady.

  She pulled more and more, using the stream to create an artificial lake around the boy’s ankle. To her eyes the energy was swirling lazily, seemingly doing nothing, but the boy’s reaction said otherwise.

  “Cold, cold, cold!” He held still aside from a few shivers. Gradually, the tension of pain vanished from his face. “It doesn’t hurt anymore!”

  A moment longer, to be certain… Now, this should do.

  When Medium Boy released the poor ankle, it looked straight to Sanae’s eye. “Come on, test it!” Offering a hand, Medium Boy hauled the patient to his feet.

  Short Boy hobbled around, not used to his feet working together. There was a weakness in the ankle that would never go away, but the improvement was nonetheless vast.

  “It’s fixed! I can be a demon killer now!”

  “Maybe you can,” Medium Boy said brightly. “Then we’d be sohei together.”

  Because the level of worship in their eyes had grown decidedly uncomfortable, Sanae excused herself swiftly after tossing out what she hoped was a good piece of advice.

  If you have trouble when you go to the temple, ask for Master Toshishiro.

  She popped away feeling well near all-powerful. She could travel huge distances in a moment and detect evil swords from afar! She could attack bad guys and heal victims!

  If she could have eaten dessert, too, she would have called herself a god.

  Prancing, she sought her brother’s location to tell him what she’d learned. When she found his spark and popped in, she found herself in the baths. Akakiba was sitting on a bench scrubbing his body with coarse soap, and Yuki was busy doing the same to his dragon. They were sitting with their backs to each other, not talking.

  After emptying buckets of cold water over their heads to wash away the soap, they settled into the steaming bath—but nowhere near each other. Drac didn’t get in the steaming water but rather settled on the edge.

  There was something wrong with Akakiba and Yuki’s relationship. It seemed to be getting worse instead of better, too. Was it an effect of growing out of the master-pupil pattern? A reflection of the changes Yuki was undergoing as a consequence of the mind bond with the dragon? Something else entirely?

  She could have pried, would have liked to, but it seemed a bad idea to stir the pot at this time. She needed them to work together to recover the next sword because she couldn’t assist directly.

  Where’s everybody else? Don’t monks bathe?

  Akakiba started at her voice and looked acutely uncomfortable. Not looking at her—what was that about?—he said, “Nobody wants to bathe with the Mad Fox. I don’t care.”

  “Sanae, women shouldn’t come on the men’s side,” Yuki said, sinking deeper in the water as if to protect his modesty.

  Please. You know I could change my gender at will before. Now it doesn’t even matter.

  “You were born female, weren’t you?”

  Yes, and?

  Akakiba grunted without opening his eyes. “Yuki is of the opinion that since I was born female so very long ago, that makes me a woman. Somehow I don’t think women would be pleased to see this—” He gestured to his strong, scarred, masculine body. “—bathing on their side.” There weren’t any women’s baths in a place populated by monks, but Sanae understood he meant it in a general manner.

  “That’s not at all what I said,” Yuki snapped. “Stop misunderstanding on purpose, Akakiba! I simply wondered why you never use your original looks.”

  “Haven’t seen those since I was twelve,” Akakiba snapped back. “I had no breasts at that time either.”

  “I apologize for asking!” Climbing out, Yuki dripped his way to the dressing area.

  Was this the issue poisoning their relationships? Yuki was upset over Akakiba’s birth gender? Why it upset him, Sanae couldn’t quite grasp. Yuki’s obvious crush on Akakiba had begun back w
hen he’d thought his teacher a normal human male. Had Akakiba been a cross-dresser instead of a shape-shifter, then perhaps shock would have been understandable. But since he was as male of body as he was of mind, where was the problem?

  Humans were so very strange.

  Oh, perhaps that wasn’t a fair thought. Her parents had given Akakiba a hard time too, although not quite for the same reasons; they’d been fixated on marriage and children rather than on gender identity. Nobody had spoken to her about it, but she’d overheard bits and pieces of the family fights that had led Akakiba to storm out of their lives.

  At first it had been like when cousins and uncles—and the occasional aunt—went hunting for a season or two. But cousins and uncles came back and Akakiba didn’t. Not for a long time.

  A splash interrupted Sanae’s musings. Akakiba had slumped deeper into the steaming bath water, the tension drained from his body. Maybe he was also thinking about the consequences of those family fights…

  Akakiba wouldn’t storm off again, Sanae was certain of it. Family could wait for years, but rejected lovers—or would-be lovers—moved on. Akakiba wouldn’t risk that—would he?

  What to do, what to do. Considering her brother’s weird attitude about her, she probably wouldn’t be successful at whacking him upside the head with logic until traces of it seeped into his thick skull.

  She’d wait, then, and hope the boys could solve their problem on their own. If it didn’t happen, logic-whacking would still be an option. In the meantime, they had creepy swords to find.

  Chapter Ten

  Mamoru

  Early in the afternoon, Mamoru noticed the trees were sick. There were black lumps on the trunks and few leaves left on the branches.

  “It’s either infestation or an illness. It’s been spreading for a couple years,” one of the fake mercenaries said with a dismissive hand wave. “It’ll sort itself out eventually.”

  As they rode, the trees progressed from merely looking sick to being dead and grey.

  “Wasn’t so bad last time I passed here,” the fake mercenary said. “It’s true I don’t usually take this way down…”

  “This is strange,” another said, his eyes scanning the area back and forth, back and forth. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  They weren’t on a road at the moment. They were painstakingly going down the side of the mountain through wild forest, following a trail so rarely used Mamoru couldn’t tell if they were on it or if they’d lost it.

  The usual way down from their clan house was through the south road, a real road and not an invisible trail like this one. Their party had opted to go over the mountain and descend on the north side for two reasons: to save time by not having to go around the mountain at its base, and to avoid allowing anyone to locate their departure point. They wanted to be seen on the road going to Kyoto, but they didn’t want to be tracked back to their home region.

  The trees might have been dead and gray but they yet stood upright. Kicking a trunk in passing, Mamoru’s demon found out it was hard as a live one instead of frail and rotten. Where were the bugs whose job it was to break down dead things to feed the ground?

  “You don’t suppose demons cursed the land?” one man ventured.

  “Don’t be silly,” Usagi scoffed. “Demons can’t cast curses. If they could, humans would have been cursed dead by now.”

  Mamoru knew she was right because the demon sharing his brain was as fretful as all the humans put together. Their shared body’s skin wanted to crawl off. He mentally snuggled against the demon’s mind, trying to hide behind it. He had the peculiar feeling monsters might appear out of nowhere to try and devour them.

  I thought demons were the worst things in the world, the demon whined after picking up Mamoru’s disturbing mental image. What would eat us?

  I don’t know. He valiantly tried to inject reason into the situation. We’re being silly. Trees do die from sickness sometimes.

  Not like this though. This looked and felt wrong, wrong, wrong. There were no bugs! No birds! No nothing!

  Easily picking up on these thoughts, too, the demon nudged their horse closer to Usagi’s.

  I don’t like this physical fear response, the demon said. My heart beats wildly and my head feels light and my throat feels constricted. It’s unpleasant.

  Welcome to fleshy life.

  Usagi’s lips were pressed flat against one another, the sole overt sign of unease. Her silence was however revelatory; she too must be listening in vain for those sounds of life one expected to hear in a forest. Perhaps she too thought about monsters and listened for them…

  The demon growled, giving Mamoru the mental equivalent of a slap. Stop that! No more monsters! You’re driving us both crazy!

  Mamoru pushed back halfheartedly. She does look scared. Say something.

  Mamoru’s resident demon did so, speaking softly. “Usagi? Are you well?”

  “If I’m well? In this graveyard? You have to ask?”

  “We could go back, if you want.”

  Usagi gave a short, bitter laugh. “Do you know what they tell women shinobi? They tell us when a woman shows fear, men can use it as an excuse to retreat from a situation they also fear. But when a woman shows courage, no man wants to look less courageous than her.” Her expression turned fierce. “I won’t be your excuse to retreat like cowards.”

  Mamoru understood then why it was the fake mercenaries were watching Usagi almost as much as they were watching these eerie woods. They must be hoping she’d beg them to turn back. As long as the single woman in the party held it together, pride wouldn’t allow them to do any less.

  The demon didn’t care why Usagi was putting on a brave face; he admired her courage regardless.

  Mamoru mentally threw up his hands. I don’t know what you see in her.

  In answer, the demon melded their minds until it wasn’t possible to tell which thought belonged to whom. In this state, memories of Usagi as the queen of brats or as a merciless bully faded under flames of longing for her soft lips, under boundless admiration for her strong character, under the erotic desires she aroused with the slightest gaze.

  This is not me! Mamoru threw himself back, afraid to be lost forever in this melding. You have it bad, bad, bad!

  He caught sight of Usagi’s face, of her upturned nose and creamy skin, and shuddered with leftover passion. Mere men couldn’t love that strongly; they’d go insane.

  The rest of the afternoon passed easier, for he merely had to gaze at Usagi to lift his mood. It helped.

  Daylight had barely begun to fade when Usagi drew her mount to a halt. “We’ll camp here,” she said firmly, making eye contact with every man in turn. “It’s the flattest spot we’re likely to find in a while.”

  The men cast anxious looks about. They were still in the dead area, for their progress had been torturously slow on the way down. The abundant vegetation on the ground—dead, shriveled vegetation—made it difficult to spot any hole in which a horse might break a leg.

  Uneasy looks went round, but no word of protest rose, and they did as Usagi said.

  They might normally have forgone building a fire since the autumn weather was tolerable, but nobody even suggested it. The fire they built was large, to cast as much light as possible.

  When night fell, they huddled around the fire and listened to its crackles, trying to forget their dead and silent surroundings. The demon didn’t even complain about the plain travel rations. It was good they hadn’t brought alcohol because there was no doubt they would have tried to drink their way back into self-confidence and courage.

  There should have been biting bugs harassing them, there should have been scurrying noises as the night life went about its business, there should have been scents of life and decay. It was the absence of these things that w
as so deeply disturbing to human minds. To the demon’s, too. Perhaps even the horses’, for they also huddled together where they were picketed.

  The distant, dim howl of a wolf caused shoulders to relax. The sound reminded them life remained elsewhere and they hadn’t accidentally stumbled in the land of the dead to be preyed upon by unknown entities.

  Your thoughts aren’t helping, the demon said.

  Sorry. The darkness stimulates my imagination.

  I wish I didn’t know what imagination is. It’s not helping either.

  Ask Usagi to sing.

  “You’d like me to sing?” Usagi said when asked. “Very well. Gather round.” She seemed grateful to be given something to do, glad for a distraction.

  Her voice was pure and gentle when she wished it to be. It was so now, as it sang of loves lost and found, of happy-ever-afters and cruel partings. It was a wise choice, as love was a subject unlikely to reinforce irrational fears.

  Her voice lulled them to sleep. Mamoru had the vague impression they’d forgotten something, but it probably wasn’t important…

  They woke to cries of “fire, fire!”

  A dead forest was a dry forest and dry wood burned hard and fast.

  The flames devouring the nearby trees proved the point.

  A voice barked, “On the horses, now!”

  The panicked animals were difficult to control and required the men to work together to get Usagi and her flowing garments on top of hers.

  “Follow me!” Usagi screamed. She pointed her horse away from the flames and gave it its head.

  Six mounted horses and two packhorses thundered away, riders and beasts desperate to outrun the raging fire. Smoke stung their eyes, burned their lungs. The heat at their back and sides urged them to keep going, faster, faster.

  Mamoru caught sight of Usagi now and then, saw how she had a sleeve-covered hand pressed over her mouth and nose, the other tangled in the reins. Her eyes were closed.