Shortstacs in Another World 08

Chapter 8: Freeing the Foxes

Part 1: Hina

Hina was in trouble and had been since the day her god died. For over twenty generations since they had left the land of Asahi and settled in Tani Valley, Inari-sama* had watched over the kitsune** and kept them safe from the world outside the valley.

* Sama is an honorific that indicates deep respect for superiors, such as lords and gods

** Fox folk

"I am no god," Inari-sama was fond of saying, "I'm just old." Strictly speaking, she was right. If a kitsune lives to be one hundred years old, their body is renewed and they grow a second tail. It is said less than one hundred kitsune live this long. If they live a hundred years more, their body is renewed and they gain another tail. And so it goes until they reach their ultimate age of 900 years and nine tails. A kitsune may take a lifetime to master a single skill. A kyūbi no kitsune, or nine-tailed kitsune, may as well be a god in terms of wisdom, skill, and power to those with a single tail. Their records said that there were gods in Asahi, but they had abandoned the kitsune, so they left Asahi and settled in Tani Valley. Since then, their guardian had been Inari-sama, and they worshiped her.

As one of the few kitsune with the spirit-sight, Hina was allowed to attend the death-bed of Inari-sama as a witness. To the great surprise of the priests, Inari-sama had called the ten year-old Hina to her side and took her paw in hers.

"Hina-chan*, listen well my words," she said, looking at her with sightless eyes. "The future is but shadows, but I see shapes. Death and destruction come to Tani Valley. It can not be stopped. But you can save this people, Hina-chan."

* Chan is an honorific of endearment

"How, Inari-sama?" Hina said. "I'm just one girl. I am not a goddess."

Inari-sama wheezed a laugh. "I am no goddess, either. Gods don't die. You must seek a true goddess. Her champion will come. He will help you."

"Goddess? What goddess?"

"And when you find her champion, return to this land and free my children."

"Inari-sama, what Goddess? What champion? What are their names?"

But Inari-sama said no more. Her paw fell limply to her side. Hina saw her spirit rise. She witnessed the ceremony that returned Inari-sama's spirit to the land where it would feed the earth.

Over the next few years, regional leaders, rich merchants, and master swordsmen took advantage of the power vacuum left by Inari-sama's death and fought for territorial rule. Their once united people divided into a scattered mess of small fiefs vying for dominance.

In the first year after her death, the humans found their valley. Shortly after, the raids started. The divided territories were unable to put up a united front. The kitsune samurai, while skilled, were too reduced in numbers after years of civil war and strife to pose a challenge to the human soldiers nearly twice their height and over five times their weight. In ten years, all the kitsune of Tani Valley had been killed or captured and carried away into unknown human lands to be sold as slaves and pets.

Hina was in the last fortress to be captured. Now she sat in the cage of a slave wagon, her only comfort to be found in hugging her fluffy tail. Hugging her tail was a juvenile habit, but she was beyond shame right now.

The spirits of kitsune slain by humans floated in the air behind her wagon. "I'm sorry," she whispered to them, "I can't do anything for you." She was ashamed that she had failed her people and her goddess's command. At the same time, she wondered how she was ever supposed to save her people by herself. She wondered if any of her people had escaped slavery. If so, she hoped her sister was with them and not slain or enslaved.

Who was the true goddess that Inari-sama had mentioned? Hina wished she knew the names of some gods so she could pray to them, but the names of gods other than Inari-sama were neither known nor taught in Tani Valley. The humans who captured them worshiped Myatrad, a god of light, but Hina did not want to pray to him. Firstly because his believers had destroyed her valley, and second because Inari-sama had told her to find a goddess.

The slavers, a human man named Matath and his wives, had been very pleased with Hina. Besides her thick coat and fluffy tail, she was exceptionally curvy for a kitsune. She sometimes wondered if the magic Inari-sama had taught her to make the ground more fertile and abundant had affected her breasts and hips as well. Matath said her curves would fetch him a higher price for her. She didn't know why; kitsune men desired slim and sleek wives. Unfortunately, her duties at the temple had not left her much time for maintaining her figure.

In the cage of the slave wagon with Hina were three other kitsune, as well as a pair of sisters who looked like more compact humans. They called themselves "halflings," and said that their people were often kidnapped for slavery as well.

One day, Hina saw one of the halfling sisters kneeling in the wagon, her head bowed, her lips moving. It was the shape of the girl's spirit that intrigued her. Her soul looked like it was opening up like a doorway or a cup.

"What are you doing?" Hina asked.

"Praying," said the halfling.

Hina had heard of prayer. It was how one spoke to a god one could not see. "Which god are you praying to?" she asked.

"Shorsena," said the halfling. "She is the goddess of fertility for us small folk."

"Small folk?"

"You know, halflings and gnomes and such. Anyone smaller than a human." She gave Hina an appraising look. "She might even take your folk."

Hina cocked her head. "How will a fertility goddess save us?"

"Well," said the halfling, looking around to make sure none of the slavers were listening, "mostly folk pray to her for romance and births and such. But it's said that if one of the small folk is beyond hope, they can pray to her and she will take them out of this world. But you have to be willing to leave it all behind." She leaned her head against the side of the cage and closed her eyes. "Doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I'm not despairing enough. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll have lost all my hope and then she'll take me away from here." Indeed, the girl's soul looked like it contained more hope than Hina felt.

"Shorsena," Hina felt the name in her mouth. She doubted that the first goddess she heard of would be the one Inari-sama said would help her. But she was a goddess, and the halfling said that she could help any folk smaller than a human. And Hina felt out of hope.

Hina had never prayed before. When a kitsune needed help from Inari-sama, they petitioned at the temple. She began by standing up to straighten and dust off her kimono. She thought she should appear presentable before a goddess. She didn't think she could kneel like the halfling did. Halflings, like humans, had strange legs. Rather than walking on toes and paw pads, they walked on their heels. So instead she assumed the dogeza, a position of supreme supplication where the rear is settled over the feet, hands and elbows are on the ground, and the head is lowered in deference. Even beneath her kimono and bound in a sarashi*, her breasts still reached the floor before her elbows did.

* Chest wrapping

"Shorsena-sama," she mouthed, "this unworthy one rudely implores you for your divine and wondrous aid. Inari-sama has told me to seek the aid of a true goddess and her champion. If you are the true goddess, I pledge my meager and paltry service to you and your brave champion in exchange for saving my people. We are surely small and insignificant to your great and all-seeing eye, but still I ask for your wondrous aid."

She sat back against the bars of the cage and hugged her tail. She was quite proud of her tail. It was the only part of her that caught any attention from kitsune men. She was normal height for a kitsune, about three shaku* tall, but her tail was just over two shaku long, and extremely fluffy.

* One shaku is about 30 cm, or one foot.

Not long after she sat back, her ears, as sensitive as a fox's, picked up the sound of shouts at the front of the caravan.

"You!" shouted a strong, feminine voice. "Why are you still alive!?"

"Oh shit!" said Matath, "it's that dwarf bi-oof!"

"Take them out!" shouted the feminine voice again. "No mercy!"

Everyone in their wagon, which was third from the front, stood up to see what was happening. They were just in time to see Matath get thrown off the wagon and a dwarf in full armor wielding a war hammer and shield leap after him and land on his back. The dwarf's soul showed patience, determination, and duty. Some of the hired guards rushed the dwarf and those that were not thrown back by the dwarf's shield had their limbs broken by the dwarf's hammer.

A green blur rushed ahead of the dwarf, and where it passed, guards fell to the ground, clutching at their heels. As it passed Hina's wagon, it paused just long enough for her to make out the ears and green skin of a goblin, it's soul full of curiosity and mischief. It looked at the prisoners through smoked glass goggles and gave them a toothy grin before running off.

As the dwarf passed Hina's wagon, she saw behind it a gnome with bright red hair wielding a crossbow. Her soul was full of math and calculations. Everyone she shot with her weapon fell to the ground, convulsing, and the distinctive smell of urine told Hina's sensitive nose that they had wet themselves.

"Back up, fuckers!" shouted the gnome. "We've got a dwarf and we're not afraid to use her!"

An orc at the back of the line took this at a challenge and rushed at the dwarf, scattering her allies at the same time.

"FOR SHORSENA!" the dwarf shouted. Her hammer glowed white as it impacted the side of the orc's jaw, and Hina saw one of the orc's tusks shatter as the brute fell to the ground.

"Shorsena," the dwarf had said. This less than a minute after Hina had prayed to the goddess. She thought it was more likely that Shorsena-sama had answered the prayers of the halflings, but Hina would accept a rescue, no matter who prayed for it.

Even the trees appeared to be working against the guards. The music of some kind of flute or pipe floated over the battlefield and coordinated with branches of the trees surrounding the road striking the slavers.

Most curious was what appeared to be the largest slime Hina had ever seen. Somehow it had a soul both old and young. It slid through the battlefield, shrugging off blunt force blows from the guards and shooting liquid into their faces, after which which the hapless guards would fall to the ground screaming and clutching their eyes.

Fighters were mundane. Magic could explain the trees. How had they trained a slime?

It was over in a moment. The motley group of fighters had overwhelmed a group of slavers and guards three times their number.

And they were all small folk.

As the dwarf passed by, dragging the unconscious orc, Hina asked her "excuse me, are you the champion of Shorsena-sama?"

The dwarf chuckled. "No, I'm just her paladin. You'll want to see my husband. He is her apostle."

If such a mighty dwarf would not call herself Shorsena's champion, her husband must be powerful indeed.

A few minutes later, a male human dressed in the bright and motley clothes of a bard approached the wagon and unlocked the door.

"Right this way, ladies," he said, doffing his cap and bowing.

The halflings immediately walked out the door, but the other kitsune cowered at the opposite end. Hina saw the fear filling their souls and knew why they were afraid. The first humans any of them had ever seen were the ones that invaded their homeland and captured their people. Memories of village after village raided and plundered by humans flooded her mind. To them, this man was a dangerous symbol of their suffering.

But Hina had honed her spirit sight under Inari-Sama herself. "Do not look at the body," the kitsune leader had taught her, "look at the spirit. The body deceives. The spirit cannot lie."

The human's soul was full of music, like that of a bard. It was also full of love for the world around him, even the kitsune in the cage. He beheld the world with a serenity Hina had only seen in old monks. Most surprisingly, his soul was open like the halfling's when she prayed. But where her soul looked like a cup, his looked like a vast lake, as though he was praying all the time. Or more like his life was a prayer. Hina had never met an envoy of a god, but she imagined their soul would look like this man's.

She approached the human.

"Kannushi*, no!" one of the kitsune cried out to her.

* Priest or priestess

Hina turned to her and smiled. "I think I have found what I have been looking for." She turned back to the human. "Are you the apostle of Shorsena-sama?"

His eyes searched her face. "I am."

"I thought so," she said. Then she fell to a dogeza. "Apostle-sama, I need your help. My people have all been captured by humans and taken away to slavery or worse. When Inari-sama, the protector of our people died, she told me to seek a true goddess and her champion. My people have never worshiped Shorsena, but I will spread her word to them if they can be saved. I have nothing to offer except for my service. Please help us apostle-sama!"

"Please, stand up," said the apostle.

She did, and saw noticed that a gem on his necklace had started glowing. She was sure she would have noticed it glowing before; it glowed with a spiritual light. A red string seemed to stretch from his soul to the gem, and from the gem to Hina's soul.

He glanced down at the gem then back up to her. "What is your name?"

She bowed to him. "I am Hina, Apostle-sama."

He swept a bow to her. "And my name is Allan. I am very pleased to meet you, Hina-san." He gestured out of the door. "Will you and your friends come with us? We have a humble meal prepared, and blankets. You can tell us more about your people and the help they need."

Hina beckoned to the other kitsune in the cage, but they shook their heads.

"He's a human," one of them said, "we can't trust him!"

"I trust him," Hina said. "Will you trust in me?"

Reluctantly, they followed her out of the cage. They followed Allan-sama to the front of the caravan. A faun, who's soul was full of music and a love of nature, directed the freed prisoners into a stone hut on one side of the road that didn't seem big enough for all the people filing in. Hina could smell something delicious cooking within. Hina told the other kitsune to get some food and she would catch up with them later. Her stomach growled, but something else caught her attention.

A series of red threads, the same as those that stretched between Allan-sama, the gem, and Hina, also connected Allan-sama's heart to those of the dwarf, goblin, gnome, slime (which was now in the shape of a short woman), and the faun. Hina wondered what it meant. The dwarf had called Allan-sama her husband; were these other women also his wives? And what did the red thread mean for Hina?

The dwarf, goblin, gnome, and slime were standing guard over the slavers, who had been tied up on the other side of the road. Some of them moaned because of their injuries. The slavers' souls all had oily taints.

As Allan followed the freed slaves into the house, Hina realized that he had addressed her as "Hina-san." She had not met anyone outside Tani Valley who knew their honorifics.

Hina approached the dwarf and bowed. "Thank you for rescuing us," she said.

The dwarf touched her gauntleted hand to the side of her helmet. Hina saw a glimpse of blue eyes. "If you thank anyone," said the dwarf, "thank Shorsena for putting us in your path. Goddess's blessings be upon you. Now, if you go into that house over there, my sister Holmaera can get you a blanket and a warm meal."

"Forgive me, but Allan-sama, the apostle, he is your husband?"

The dwarf smiled at Hina and Hina saw the love in her heart. "Aye. The year we've been together has been the best of my life.

One year? Hina was even more surprised. In that time she would expect to see only infatuation in her soul, but this dwarf truly loved Allan-sama. When he returned, dragging a large ax, the dwarf, goblin, slime, and gnome all turned to look at him as he walked up, and all of their souls showed love towards him. What's more, his soul showed love for each of them, in turn. Now Hina understood why a goddess of small folk would choose a human to be her apostle.

He arrived and handed the ax to the dwarf, staggering under its weight. "Floret said you wanted this," he grunted.

The dwarf took it in one hand and rested it on her shoulder. "Yes," she replied.

Allan-sama clapped the dust from his hands and looked over the prisoners. "Well, if it isn't our old friend, Mr ... Matath, wasn't it? I must say, I'm surprised to see you this side of the dirt. It was the magistrate right? Couple of coins to grease the palm? Well, you both looked greasy to me. And there're a lot more women here than before. New wives? You have been doing well for yourself, haven't you?"

A bound elf woman spat. "Please, as if we'd marry him. We all know how greasy he is."

"Bacon is greasy and bacon is delicious!" insisted Matath's orc wife.

"She's got you there," said Allan-sama to the elf. "Now, I think Stolna has something to say." He backed up, conceding the floor to the dwarf. He glanced over at Hina and gave her a sad smile. He did not ask her to leave, so she stayed.

Hina hoped that wasn't her heart fluttering.

The dwarf, who's name was apparently Stolna, stepped forward with the ax. "As the justice of the Kingdom of Calendem has failed, and the Kingdom of Georbama is corrupt, it falls upon me, as a witness of Shorsena, to dispense justice on her behalf. I find all of you guilty of repeatedly enslaving Shorsena's beloved, and sentence you to death."

If any of the slavers didn't take the small folk seriously because of her stature, despite being defeated by a small team of them, they took them seriously now. They all shouted protests and outrage, demanding a fair trial.

"A trial?" the dwarf asked, incredulously. "Very well. Let us speak to a witness." She turned to Hina. "You, fox. Do you swear before Shorsena to tell the truth here?"

Startled, Hina took a second to answer. "Um, yes?"

"Were you in one of those cages?"

"I was, yes."

"Do you recognize these people bound before you?"

"I do."

"Are there any you do not recognize?"

Hina looked at all of their faces. "No."

"Were they all complicit in the enslavement of the people we took from those cages?"

"Yes."

"Were there any who showed mercy, or appeared to doubt their cause?"

"No."

"Thank you." The dwarf turned to the slavers. "We pulled thirty-one prisoners from those cages. Can any of you name a single one who will speak on your behalf?"

The slavers looked at each other, but none of them spoke.

"Then my judgment stands," declared the dwarf. She hoisted her ax in both hands. "Cherry, I'll need them kneeling forward, if you will."

"Okay, Stolna!" said the slime-woman cheerfully. She extended herself longer and thinner until she wrapped like cables around Matath, then constricted until he knelt forward. His speech varied between curses, pleading, threats, and finally, weeping.

As Stolna raised her ax for the execution stroke, Allan-sama spoke. "Hold a moment, Stolna." He knelt before the weeping slaver. "Let me look into his eyes, Cherry." Hina sensed a change in his spirit. Before, he spoke like a bard. Now, he spoke like the envoy of a goddess.

The slime's bonds loosed and Matath was able to look at the apostle, who had a newly somber look on his face.

"Stolna is within her rights as a paladin of Shorsena to execute you for enslaving her people," the Allan-sama said. "That is Shorsena's Justice. However, Shorsena is a goddess of fertility and life, not war and death. Even this necessary killing does not please her. So she offers you a chance. If you will agree to atone to her and her people for your crimes, she will grant you her Mercy as well as her Justice." He turned to all the slavers. "I leave it to each of you to choose. Will you accept her Justice and die here, or will you accept her Mercy with her Justice and atone to her and her people?"