Page 111 of The Cinders
‘I’m not dead,’ he rasped.
The creature wasn’t trying to eat him.This was no hellhound, because this wasn’t hell.
The fox’s back brushed at the sagging floorboards above, slinking in behind Lim, and nudging its head between his shoulder blades.The beast growled.And nudged him again.
‘Alright.’Lim dragged himself onto his knees, pausing to catch his breath.
A harrowing groan melded with the torturous grind of timbers.The fox barked.That same sharpness of sound from earlier.
Lim staggered closer to the opening, hoping to use a casket to leverage himself to his feet, but he’d never been so weak.His arms trembled, strengthless as grass jelly.He leaned against a crate, trying to summon the strength to push himself to standing.
The fox went onto its front knees and lowered its head beneath his outstretched arm.A firm push upwards had Lim lifting.
With a startled cry, Lim clutched at the silk-soft fur as the animal straightened its legs.He bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes as dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.His feet were numb, his legs nearly as useless as his arms.
Something brushed his hip, slipping over his stomach, and rounding the other hip.He was encircled, and did not have a drop of energy left to fight it.Even his eyelids refused to lift to see what was being done.
Lim’s body lifted, the wrapping at his waist firming against him.He whimpered as he was dragged up against the animal’s side, his toes barely touching the ground.The fox growled, and Lim found strength enough to open one eye.They stood beneath the open length of the trapdoor, and he’d been lifted high enough that he could drape his arm over the animal’s shoulders.
And swing his leg over the fox’s back.
Lim’s mind grabbed at the thought; holding it like a prize.
He dug his shaking fingers into the soft fur and summoned a shred of strength from his all-consuming weakness.Lim groaned through a parched throat, willing his leg to do as he bid; he’d never ask a thing from it ever again.
The pressure around his waist aided him, pushing him across the animal’s back, his leg dragging over its haunches, dropping on the far side like a sack of grain.
Lim now lay upon the fox’s broad back, but too far forward, his face pressed into the scruff of the animal’s neck.But he could barely lift his head, let alone seat himself properly.The pressure at his waist took care of that, tugging him back so the fox’s shoulder bones pressed into his chest rather than his belly.Whatever encircled him now removed itself and went instead to run the length of his back.Pinning him in place.
The fox leapt.Rising towards the blazing, crackling madness of the inferno.
Lim’s head jerked back, drawing a weak cry from him, his hands clutching at the thick fur with feverish terror.If not for the pressure at his back, he’d certainly have tumbled straight back down into his overheated grave.
They soared upwards through the opening, rising above the flooring in one tremendous leap.Straight into the very depths of chaos.
The fire roared with the fury of a hundred dragons.
The fox landed upon the fragile remnants of the floorboards.Lim whimpered, adjusting himself against the animal; long years spent upon a horse’s back led him to lift his knees higher, his arms tighter around the animal’s neck.He dared to look up only once.
Flames towered over them, weaving and lashing and ferocious in their appetites.Chen’s roof gaped open, all but destroyed; black smoke blotting out the stars and the fireworks whose crescendo could not match the holocaust beneath it.
He buried his head in the fox’s fur, his hands searching for more to hold; finding more scars within the softness.Exhaustion had his body shaking, and he feared he’d not have the strength to cling to the animal much longer.
The creature pushed on.Beneath Lim’s body, the creature’s muscles shifted.The fox’s pace was breathtaking, its lithe turns performed with silken smoothness as it negotiated the maelstrom.There was an undeniable elegance in its race; this wasn’t the panicked motion of a mindless animal.They moved as though in the strangest of dances.
A step left, a sweeping turn right, a rise to surmount an obstacle ahead.
Lim clung tight, turning his head in towards his shoulder to protect his eyes from the debilitating heat.He glimpsed what held him so securely against the animal’s back; the thickness of its tail, the bushy coal-black length covering him so entirely the bristles were there at his shoulder; tickling his cheek as he turned his head.Lim’s delirium led him to think of Xian’s jet black hair.
Of how the animal’s graceful movement compared to the beauty of the prince’s dance.
Barely had those thoughts bloomed, and Lim was struck.
A blow to the back of his head plunged him into darkness, ending all thought of his huli jing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LIM’S EYESsnapped open.A cool breeze teased his bare chest; his ru torn open.No heat.No roar of flames.No timber screamed against its demise.