Fox and Phoenix (Lóng City 1)

The innkeeper shouted. Two bear-like men thundered from the back rooms. Before I could figure out what was going on, they’d hefted me and Yún into the air. I had one glimpse of a steaming pile of griffin crap on the floor, then they’d wafted me through the common room and tossed me out the door.

I landed in a mud puddle with a splat.

A second later, Yún landed next to me.

“And don’t ever come back,” the innkeeper shrieked.

He said more, but a burst of thunder drowned out his voice. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door just as he slammed it shut. “Let us in!” I demanded. “Hospitality rules! You can’t just—”

The door swung open. Two heavy backpacks hit me in the chest, knocking me back into the puddle. “Extraordinary circumstances!” the innkeeper shouted. “Your magic is bad for my magic!”

Yún slithered to her feet. She grabbed for my hand. I swatted her away and wiped the mud from my eyes, cursing the rain, the innkeeper. Most especially I cursed the innkeeper. All my rainproof gear was inside my packs, leaving me soaked and coated with mud. Yún herself didn’t look much better. Clumps of mud stuck to her hair, and the water streamed from her clothes. Ha-ha! I thought, obscurely pleased.

She made another grab for my arm. That’s when I saw she was laughing. Whoops and squeaks of laughter. “Stop that!” I growled.

“I’m sorry, it’s just too—”

Yún whooped again and bent over.

I tried again. “We can spend the night in this toad’s stables,” I said. “He can’t stop us. He’s lying about magic. I don’t have any—”

“It’s the”—Yún gulped down a breath—“the griffin, Kai.” Her voice still shook with suppressed laughter. “And don’t bother with the stables. He keeps a couple of guards on watch. Besides, it’s stuffed full with mules and cargo from that merchant’s caravan.”

“How do you know?”

“How else? I went into his stables first.”

She whistled. A pack pony thudded toward us from the direction of the stables. Yún captured its reins. She hoisted our packs onto its back and fastened them onto the frame, alongside several other packs and bundles. The pony gave a rattling sigh, as if to complain, but when Yún rubbed its neck, it leaned against her. I felt a twinge of jealousy.

“We can make the next shelter if we hurry,” Yún said. “Where’s your griffin?”

“He’s not my—”

A horrible screech made my bones shiver. The griffin reappeared from nowhere and landed on top of the packs, still screeching. The pony swung its head around and snorted at the noisy creature, but it didn’t shut up until Yún laid a hand over its head and murmured something that made the air tingle with magic. The pony shook its head, as though disgusted by the griffin’s behavior.

Yún handed me the pony’s reins. “Come on. We need to set up camp before dark.”

“Where? Yún, it’s dark and wet and—”

“—and there’s a way shelter two li from here, according to the map.”

The two li felt more like ten before she called a halt. It wasn’t much of a campsite, I realized with a sinking stomach. A wide shoulder of dirt and rocks stuck out from the mountainside. Another, bigger hump, crowned with lots more rocks, loomed over the first one. Someone had built two crude walls out of logs to make a square, and roofed them with branches. Several pine trees huddled close to the entrance, looking as tired as I felt.

The griffin sailed into the shelter. Yún led the pony inside and started to unload the packs. “At least we have plenty of water,” she said.

“Very funny,” I said. Then I remembered how her clothes had been as dry and clean as the merchant’s. Now they were wet and filthy like mine. “What happened to your magic, Smart One?”

“Oh.” She actually looked embarrassed. “I can only do that for a short while.”

“You were showing off.”

Her teeth made a white flicker in the gray light. “A little. Come on. We can build a fire and cook something hot. You’ll feel better.”

I mumbled something about how I’d feel better if someone hadn’t brought a certain griffin, but Yún ignored me. She ordered me to finish unloading the pony while she laid sticks and tinder from the shelter’s wood supply into a neat pyramid. The wood was damp, but between a few magic drying spells and a lot of patience, Yún coaxed a fire to start. Soon we had changed out of our wet clothes and into ones that were merely damp, and the pony was happily eating warm mash.

One of the gear bags had a neat folding iron cooking grate. Yún set pots of water on the grate, then measured out rice into one and tea into a second one. She even had a packet of dried beef for the griffin, which the horrible beast flung itself upon with screeches of joy. Yún was like a street trickster pulling a gajillion things out of his hat. I nearly expected to see her pull out a monkey next.

For a while we didn’t say anything. We were both too busy guzzling hot tea in between mouthfuls of rice. My toes and fingers stopped feeling numb, and my damp clothes steamed from the fire. My brain stopped churning around all the bad luck thoughts of the past few days, and I felt more hopeful.