Chapter One hundred eighty-seven (Patreon)

“We came a good bit further west than we should’ve,” Raff said, drawing an X next to the long, winding line he claimed was meant to represent the river. “We’re close to the Grimgar Wilds now, and we won’t want to be here when night falls.”

He kept casting glances toward the huge, dark cave into which the river vanished, and urging them to start back the way they’d come. Lianhua, of course, was fascinated by Kaz’s explanation of what had happened, and he could tell she was barely managing to restrain her curiosity. Chi Yincang had nothing to offer, as usual, though his right eyebrow rose ever so slightly when Lianhua ‘jokingly’ suggested they go introduce themselves to Heishe.

Kyla had plopped herself down on the rock where the great serpent had left Kaz and Li, and was busy tying the long green stalks of one of the common flowers into a rope. It looked like it would fall apart if she put even the slightest weight on it, so Kaz wasn’t sure why she was doing it, but it kept her and her fuergar busy, since Mei was scampering about, bringing more flowers each time Kyla started to run out.

“I suppose we could run back to the bridge,” Raff muttered, staring at his sketch. “But then we’d all be too tired to keep watch tonight.”

“I won’t,” Chi Yincang uttered, not even bothering to look at Raff. Oddly, he seemed fixated on the broad stretch of trees beyond the cave mouth. “And we should run.”

“You can’t keep watch alone-” Lianhua started to protest, but Chi Yincang held up a hand, tilting his head toward the shadowy trees.

Something stepped out. At first, Kaz thought it might be another kobold, since it was covered in fur and standing on two legs, but then he realized that the top of its head was almost level with the trees. Glancing around, he thought most of the trees nearby were fifteen or twenty feet tall, which didn’t seem to be particularly large as trees went. If the trees the creature was standing near were even fifteen feet high, however, Kaz didn’t want to meet a thing that could match them.

The creature just stood there, and though it was too far away to make out any features, Kaz could feel the weight of its gaze. The fur on the back of his neck rose, and he realized that the soft growling he heard was coming from his own chest.

“Yup,” Raff said, two long steps carrying him over to Kyla and Mei. He scooped the pup up in one hand and the rodent in the other, making both of them squeak. Kyla dropped her flowers, and started to chastise the human male, who just pointed toward the looming figure. Kyla was instantly silenced, and wiggled in his arms, climbing him much as Li liked to climb Kaz.

Lianhua turned to Kaz. “Can you make it? I can carry you, I think.”

Kaz shook his head, and Li lifted from his shoulder, flying in a slow circle that carefully didn’t take her any closer to the trees. “I can make it,” he told Lianhua, and it was true. His body felt lighter and stronger than it ever had before, and he didn’t even feel any particular need to push extra ki into his legs as they all began to move.

They quickly settled into a fast, easy lope, slowed only a little by the tall grass and patches of soft, muddy earth. Raff took the lead, with Lianhua behind him, and Chi Yincang bringing up the rear. They all cast glances behind them as the trees began to fade into indistinct shadow, and though the figure remained stark for longer than Kaz thought it should, it didn’t seem to make any effort to actually follow them.

Li ranged ahead, sometimes shrinking to little more than a glimmering golden dot in the distance, and Kaz moved from beside Lianhua to slightly ahead of Raff, depending on how far away the dragon was. It made him uncomfortable when Li got so far away from him, but he refused to call her back. She had spent too much time confined, and she deserved to be able to fly as she wished.

When the cave, trees, and shadowy creature all finally disappeared behind them, Kaz found himself once again beside Raff. “What was that?” he asked, taking pleasure in the simple fact that he was able to speak clearly, and not panting for breath in spite of the high speed at which they were traveling.

“Don’t know, don’t want to know,” Raff said grimly, then sighed. “Might have been a Tree Giant, mighta been a Dog-Man. A few other things I can think of offhand, none of ‘em anything we want to mess with.”

‘Tree Giant’ seemed self-explanatory, but ‘Dog-Man’ caught Kaz’s interest. “Is a Dog-Man like a kobold? Lianhua says we look like dogs.”

The tall man snorted, adjusting his grip on Kyla’s legs so the pup could shift her spot on his shoulder. “You look like dogs the way a fuergar looks like a mouse. Kinda cute, if you ignore the fact that it probably wants to rip your throat out. Which I don’t recommend.”

“So what is a Dog-Man?” Kyla asked, snuggling her own fuergar close.

Raff chuckled. “A myth, likely. I do think it might’ve come from someone seeing a particularly large kobold, though. Kids, especially, tend to exaggerate the size of scary things.”

There was no sign that they were anywhere close to their goal yet, so Kaz said, “Is a myth like a howl? Can you tell us?”

“Guess so,” Raff said. “It’s not much of a tale, though, just somethin’ to convince kids not to go runnin’ around in the woods after dark. The story goes that a monster lurks in the forests of Holiander, especially those near the eastern mountains. Its top half looks like a wolf, but with human hands, and the bottom like a man, but with wolf feet. Lot like a kobold, really, except this thing is supposed to be huge. Tall as the trees, just like we saw, but thin as a shadow, and absolutely silent, right up until it eats you alive.”

Kaz felt his gut churn, not at the story itself, but at the implications. The simplest was that such a thing might really exist, but there was a hidden message as well. Things that looked like kobolds were frightening, and even small children knew the howls. What chance did he have, then, of being accepted as a person, and not a monster, looking as he did?

Kyla gave a derisive yip. “That’s not a proper story,” she complained. “Nothing happens in it.”

Raff glanced up at her, grinning. “True enough. I could tell you some ‘proper’ stories about the Dog-Man that’d scare your fur off, but I think that’s enough for now.”

The pup leaned over, resting her chin on top of Raff’s curly hair with a look of abject boredom. Since she was being carried, she didn’t even have to watch where they were going, and she couldn’t play with Mei, who was snoozing, tucked between Kyla’s side and Raff’s neck.

“If it doesn’t have to be a scary story, I can tell you one,” Lianhua said. She sounded slightly out of breath, and Kaz had to keep away from her in order to stay out of range of her cultivation. Raff seemed to be fine so far, but Kaz was keeping an eye on him. If he started cultivating as well, and it affected Kaz’s little cousin, he would have to find a reason that he needed to carry Kyla instead, and he had no idea what that reason would be.

Pink ears perked with interest, and Kyla looked toward Lianhua. “I suppose a boring story is better than no story at all,” she said, but her tail was wagging gently.

Lianhua’s eyes were on that tail, too, and she exchanged an amused glance with Kaz. “All right, then,” she said. “This is a story my grandmother told me when I was a little girl. It was my favorite bedtime story, and she would change it a little every time, so I never knew exactly how it would go.”

She cleared her throat. “Long, long ago, when the world was young, and none of the mortal races had yet been created, the Celestial Lord declared a race. He had created a beautiful palace in the next realm, and the twelve creatures who could reach it first would be allowed to live with him there. Now, at this time, passing between the realms was a simple thing, and who would turn down the opportunity to live in an elegant and luxurious palace with the Lord of All?”

She looked at them expectantly, and Kaz realized this wasn’t a rhetorical question. “A niu?” he ventured. “They seem happy as long as they have something to eat.”

She laughed. “That’s true. Perhaps the niu were among those who didn’t compete, though a similar creature, the ox, did. Sometimes, Grandmother would tell me that Cat was sleeping in a beam of sunlight, and told her friend, Rat, that she would be along when she woke. Other times, Rat simply didn’t tell Cat, and that’s why Cat wasn’t in the race. Worst of all, though, were the times that Cat and Rat, who used to be friends, raced against each other, and Rat tricked Cat into losing, which is why cats and rats hate one another today.”

“Oh,” Kyla said, obviously interested. “If kobolds are like dogs, and fuergar are like rats, do dogs and rats like each other?”

Lianhua hesitated, looking toward Raff, who shrugged, as if to say, “You started it.”

“That’s not really covered in this story,” Lianhua said carefully. “In any case, many animals didn’t hear about the race in time, while others were simply too slow to join in, so they didn’t even try. More still ran out of ki and were forced to stop and cultivate, and were ultimately left behind.”

“So who won?” Kyla demanded.

Lianhua smiled. “Eventually, all of the animals came to a great river, so wide that they could barely see the other side. Many of them were terrible swimmers, but they refused to give up, and so the remaining creatures leapt in, swimming for all they were worth. The ox was the best swimmer remaining, and the rat was small enough that he could ride on the ox’s back. The ox was a kind, generous beast, and he knew the little rat would never make it in time, so the two crossed together.

“But as soon as the shore drew near, the rat leaped from the ox’s head, using all the ki he had cultivated as the ox worked hard to bring them across, and he was first to reach the emperor’s palace. The ox was close behind, not even truly angry, because he understood the rat’s nature, and it didn’t matter to him what order they arrived in.”

Kyla patted Mei’s head, then looked down at Raff consideringly. Kaz could practically see her making the comparison between the human carrying her and the ox, which was supposed to be something like the niu. Raff was no ox, but given his easy-going personality and tendency to go along with whatever the other humans wanted, he could see how the puppy might get that idea.

“The tiger came behind the ox, and after that came the rabbit, who had ridden a log across the river, since he, like the rat, was too small to swim on his own. Behind the rabbit was the dragon, which surprised everyone, because of course dragons have more ki than any other creature, and they can fly, so Dragon should simply have flown ahead while the others swam.”

At this, Kaz felt a sense of approval, and looked up to see that Li was flying overhead. She had been listening through his ears since Raff started his short story, but apparently Lianhua’s story had caught her interest enough that she wanted to hear for herself.

Either Lianhua didn’t notice, or she didn’t choose to comment, because she said, “The dragon said that it had stopped a few times to help some other creatures who had run dangerously low on ki while they were crossing, and then used its water ki to create a current to move Rabbit’s log straight across, so she didn’t simply float away down the river.”

For a moment, Li seemed to dismiss the very idea that the dragon in the story might have helped others, even though that resulted in the dragon not winning the race. Then he saw her head tilt, looking down at him, and she remained silent, though he could feel it as she grew sober and thoughtful.

“Soon after, the horse climbed from the water, but the snake had hidden in his mane, and now she slithered forward, startling him. No one knows if the snake scared the horse on purpose, but she came in sixth, while Horse was seventh.

“The monkey, the rooster, and the sheep arrived together. They knew that they were too weak individually to get across the wide river, so they worked together. They found a raft, and each one took a turn rowing while the other two cultivated, and when the first grew tired, they would switch. Sheep was the fastest, so once they reached shore, she was a bit ahead, then monkey, and finally rooster.”

Lianhua cast Kaz a teasing look as she said, “The dog was eleventh. It needed a bath after reaching the muddy shore, so it actually went back into the river and washed off, only emerging again when it found a spot that wasn’t muddy.”

Kyla barked a laugh. “Ha! I would have beat Kaz, then. I like the mud.”

The human female smiled. “So you would. It seemed that no more animals were going to make it, so the Celestial Lord began to close the gates to his palace when he heard a great ‘oink’!” She made a bizarre snorting sound that made Kyla laugh so hard she nearly fell from Raff’s shoulder.

“It was the pig. He had actually stopped to eat on the far side of the river, then sat and cultivated in the sunshine.” Lianhua lowered her voice. “Or so he said. Many people believe he simply fell asleep, and when he woke, he began to swim, having no idea that eleven other animals had already made it.”

Kyla tried to make the snorting noise, but only managed a choking growl, which sent her into another fit of giggles and woke Mei, who stared up accusingly.

“The pig was the twelfth and last to arrive, and so the Divine Lord kept his promise. He made each of the animals Divine creatures, and allowed them to live with him in his palace. At least, he did until mortals appeared and began to try to reach the second realm, but that is another story,” Lianhua finished.

“What?” Kyla cried. “Tell it!”

Raff slowed and came to a halt, pointing toward a bridge made of wood. It was old and poorly maintained, if it had been maintained at all in recent years. Several pieces had broken away, including one whole side, which left only a narrow, precarious ledge.

“Sorry, pup,” Raff said, “We need to cross here, and we’re far enough behind after Blue went and played with his new friend that we’ll have to set up camp soon. There’s not another good place to stop for several hours, and we don’t want to be in the trees when dark falls. There are worse things than the Dog-Man out, and the moon is waning.”

He lifted Kyla from his shoulder, dislodging Mei in the process, and set the puppy’s paws gently on the ground. Mei jumped down as he bent over, and soon the two were running toward the battered bridge, having already forgotten Lianhua’s story.

Kaz, too, was interested in finding out why the animals weren’t allowed to remain in the palace. He also had several questions about the story itself, such as, “What is a monkey?” and “What is a sheep?” The others were all moving on, however, and Lianhua was breathing hard as she slowed to a walk, so Kaz fell in behind her, feeling his own heart beating more quickly than usual.