"Why're we listenin' to birds?" grumbled a wolf demon. "When we left the Wilds, nobody said nothin' about listenin' to birds."
A peacock hissed and darted his neck forward, aiming to peck the wolf's eyes out.
"Shut up, cur!" bellowed a yak. "Nobody said nothin' about listenin' to your yappin' neither!"
The foxling had arranged for the chieftains of all the major clans to show up in a large field at the same time so she could introduce them to the representative of the great Flos Piri – and so far, they were proving to be as fractious as you'd expect from a bunch of demons.
Pallus, the manul whom I'd met when Bobo and I were touring this traveling circus, fluffed up his tail. "If we're done here, I have some hunting to do."
"We haven't even started, you mangy cat!" squawked a vulture.
At that, all the fur on Pallus' body stuck out, and he gave a yowl that rattled the earth. "Shut your beak, you disgusting carrion-eater!"
Ah, the sounds of my childhood. Put two demons together, and they'd find some pretext to fight. You couldn't separate fangs from jugular long enough to point them at a common foe. Not unless you had a proper ruler who could control them, that was.
It remained to be seen whether the foxling was that ruler.
Draped across a lounge that her rosefinch handmaidens had set up, she was watching the chieftains squabble with a sparkle in her eyes and a smile on her (reasonably well-shaped) lips. I was beginning to wonder whether I needed to remind her why we were all here when she lifted one finger.
"Silence!" roared a leopard. "The fox has something to say!"
Sphaera gave a delicate wince, as if to distance herself from such a crude ally. She stayed firmly draped on her lounge, even though her middle tails had to be going numb under her back. "Friends. Dear, dear friends. Just today, I received news of the greatest import, and of course I had to share it with you all."
"News of the greatest import?" asked the yak.
"Are we importing gold and jade and spoils from the North?" demanded the vulture.
"She means she has important news, bird-brain," snapped Pallus. "Now shut up so the rest of us can listen."
"You shut up, you hairless cat!"
While the two bickered, the leopard stalked over to the two of them and opened his mouth in a roar that blew them back head over tail. "Both of you shut up when she's talking!"
Chastened, rubbing various parts of themselves, the two demons slunk away to opposite sides of the gathering.
The foxling sighed, her eyes filled with sorrow. "Friends, it pains me that we must put on such a disgraceful display for the representative of the greatest demon who ever lived. Let us not shame ourselves before the eyes and ears of Flos Piri."
She might as well have lightning-bolted the gathering. All of the demons froze, jaws and beaks agape, fur and feathers standing on end.
"Flos Piri?" a voice whispered.
With this pitiful mortal sparrow hearing, I couldn't determine if it were in terror or awe. Probably both.
That gazelle I'd seen in the foxling's tent earlier gasped, "She's back?" and then cringed and hung his head when the foxling's gaze landed on him.
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
