The Furred Reich

by Len Gilbert

  “Don’t you think we should fall back more?” Kasha replied.

  “Uh, Kasha. We go west any further and it’s Shattered Paw Tribe territory.”

  “Exactly,” Kasha nodded.

  “That’s exactly why we should do it. That way if the Grimeskins want us they’ll have to go into Shattered Paw territory.”

  “Yeah but… Shattered Paw will kill us too.”

  “And who do you fear more?” Kasha asked. “Besides. If we’re quiet, we can sneak around unnoticed. We can use Shattered Paw as an object. A third party.”

  “That’s crazy, Kasha. So crazy it might work.”

  Reince motioned for them to get up, and the three of marched further into the grass.

  Meerkats

  “…Did you just come from that airship?”

  By the time Hans gave up chasing the Messerschmitt and turned back to the town, the inhabitants had all gathered and were staring at him. A crowd of a few dozen ‘prairie dogs,’ all of them dressed in flowing white, stood and stared. The man who had just asked Hans the question was carrying a staff and wore a hat that looked like the onion domes which topped so many Russian churches.

  “Yeah. I’m, um… Lost, and I have to get back to the airship.”

  “Right now? But it is being the hottest time of the day! You’ll get hurt if you are going out now!” The elder’s considerably younger wife chimed in.

  “Especially if you are going that way,” the elder ‘prairie dog’ retorted.

  “Oh.”

  “Why not be staying here until nightfall?”

  “Well, I would. But I just got kicked out of my room.”

  “I mean be staying with us!” he said.

  Hand looked around at the faces of the crowd gathered before him. They looked pretty nice, and they certainly knew this land better than he did.

  “Um, alright. Thank you!”

  Hans followed the crowd of ‘prairie dogs’ along the stone-lain road and back toward the huddle of white boxes. One of the excited boys came running up to Hans and tried to grab at the Mauser.

  “Ah, careful” Hans said, covering the the gun with his arm. “This could be very dangerous.”

  “WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM?” the boy shouted.

  “A place far, far away. Where the humans live.”

  The crowd stopped at the elder’s home and all of them turned to Hans.

  “Please,” the elder said, “until you are being fully rested, we want you to stay and having our good hospitality!”

  The elder shooed the others away, and led Hans inside his comfortable home, where pillows lined the walls. They gave Hans a place to rest, and soon he was surrounded by flat breads, lamb meat, and inquisitive kids.

  “Wow! So what is the war like?!” One of the boys shouted.

  That was question sure to darken Hans’ mood.

  “Well, it’s terrible. Like a monster that consumes helpless men. You watch your friends get killed and die in your arms.”

  The kids’ faces stared blankly at him. How could he make them understand? Perhaps an example of his own experience would paint the right picture.

  “Like my friend Ernst. He was driving a supply truck and got hit by one of the enemy’s ‘airships.’ The bottom half of his face was blown off. I took the truck, and tried driving him to the nearest hospital but…”

  The kids just kept staring blankly at Hans. They weren’t getting it. And now this whole thing was annoying and angering him. It was hardly a way to remember Ernst, who died in the passenger seat of that truck, gripping Hans’ arm as tight as he could. The kids just weren’t capable of understanding.

  Hans was about to do what he swore he never would: Turn war experience into a consumable story. What else was there to do in this situation?

  What was the war like?

  “Oh it’s so scary! We fight the bad Bolsheviks and there are so many of them!”

  “How many?!” One of the boys suddenly lit up.

  “Very many! Sometimes there are waves of men as far as the eye can see!”

  “Woah! And do they ever win?”

  “Oh, yes, if you’re not careful. Once my comrades and I dug a hole and shot at them. There were so many Bolsheviks that we ran out of bullets to kill them with!” He motioned to the wreath of machine gun cartridges around his neck.

  “Did you get away?”

  “Oh, yeah, we all got away!”

  That wasn’t true, but everyone liked a story where the good guys win.

  “And when we ran out of this stuff, I had to throw THIS.”

  Hans reached to his waist and pulled out the stick grenade strapped under his belt.

  “It makes a big explosion when you throw it. BOOOOM!”

  Hans gestured with his arms. Even the little girls were awestruck. But the girls asked about different things: Comrades, pets and girlfriends. They giggled when Hans said he had none of the latter.

  Later the adults brought out wine. That afternoon Hans got drunk and slept well past night time. His drunkenness didn’t matter, because the entire town seemed to take ownership of him. They insisted he stay that night, which he did, and then stayed the next day, too.

  By the time he left, Hans had a full stomach and another great sleep. The villagers waved him off and gave him a sack full of food to carry for his journey. He stuffed the sack into his helmet. Hans knew there was only one thing to do: Find the pilot of that Messerschmitt, whoever he was. That meant giving up his trek to The Velt. It also meant marching in a new direction: North.

  To Safety

  For a short-legged cat, Asril adjusted well to caravan life. That wasn’t such a surprise. Asril was accustomed to transient existence long before the green-skinned beasts drew near, but that past was something she really wanted to keep a secret. Aboard the caravan she was surrounded by thirteen others who were looking out for her, and there was a shred security in that, one that she hadn’t known for awhile.

  She had come to know most of the traveling party by now. Besides Tanjung there were the boys Meru, Bagya and Martaka. Clara had two kittens. Then there were two other girls her age: Tari was the prettiest of them, and she stood almost a head taller than herself and the other girl, Ani, who seemed quite nice to Asril, and often shared dried beef stick with her.

  In the days before, Asril watched out a little square window as benevolent springtime sunshine turned to muggy heat, and hilly rice fields gave way to tropical foliage and fruit trees. But the horse-drawn convoy pressed on. Breaks were brief and far between. When the rain came, it pounded down on top of the closed caravan. Ani got sick a few days in, and Asril was assigned to look over her.

  She had learned a little travel etiquette over the last week, too: It was up to the entire traveling party how fast the caravan should move, when it should stop and how it should defend itself. But in this case the conductor simply took off out of Miao. A few days passed before he even once pulled over. The passengers all got out to discuss. This gave Asril a chance to look at everyone aboard.

  As she stepped out, she saw that the conductor was another one of those white tigers that were a majority everywhere as they continued north and west. Many other races and species were aboard too: Tigers with black and orange stripes, cats of various markings and fur colors, and equines, who were even taller than the tigers. There were also quite a few orange canines aboard. Asril heard them called “foxings” or something like that. Of the foxings, there was one with multiple tails. Asril thought he was cute and smart-looking. But now was no time to be gawking, so she stayed firmly with her group, and with Tanjung, who stood in front of her.

  “We are in clear danger,” the conductor called out into the otherwise peaceful tropical morning. “To escape to safety behind the mountains, speed is the key. I intend to stop only once a day, for one hour. You’ll have to eat, buy supplies, and even bathe during that time. If we can do this, I believe we can reach Preena Pass in just two weeks. Our journey won’t be a comfortable one, but it is
one way I can guarantee your safety. Does anyone have any objections?”

  Aside from crying babies the crowd was silent. All of them were going to the same place for the same reason. All of them understood the urgency. And that was that, it seemed.

  The next few days gave Asril some sense of inner peace. There wasn’t much food available, but it was enough to get by. Within the group, everyone soon knew what everyone else was doing. What was the use in stealing when everyone is looking out for one another? Or maybe it was that she’d be caught so easily if she tried to steal.

  “What will you do when we get through?”

  Tanjung’s voice woke Asril up as she was curled up on the floor. She stirred and sat up, knees hugging her chest.

  “I don’t know. Whatever there is…” She yawned out. “What about you?”

  “I’m sick of running. I wanted to fight but my family sent me out against my will. Once we get behind the mountains I’m gonna help keep the monsters on the other side.”

  Tanjung sighed as he looked at the ground. “It’s kinda embarrassing. I wanted to fight but my parents said I was too young. I understand how a girl like you would be sent away, but—”

  “My… family didn’t send me out when the monsters came. I got disowned a year ago.”

  Her secret blurted itself out with surprising ease.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I steal stuff.” She looked away from him.

  “…Oh.”

  “Well, I don’t believe in pity. Things happen and you have to play that hand you’ve got.”

  “I’m glad. I hate getting furres’ pity,” she managed a smile.

  “Just don’t tell Clara, alright?”

  Tanjung nodded. “I won’t.”

  Days rolled by and the altitude grew. The underbrush and canopy thinned away and the air once again lost its mugginess. A wall of pointed rock greeted them in the distance. It was their destination. Even the green beasts would have a tough time getting over those rocks, much less passing through the sweltering jungles. After almost a month of running, Asril was finally safe.

  According the the drivers, Preena was the first town on the other side and it was there that everyone’s new life would start. Asril decided that she would stay with Tanjung and, hopefully stay in one of the groups for awhile. The convoy rolled on to its last stop, a fort planted on a narrow, winding dirt intersection in a gauntlet of mountains.

  “The lord of this land has closed the border to all but natives of this land and to our own kind.”

  Two staunch, orange-and-black tigers said to the convoy’s conductors, both of the latter were tigers of the wrong stripe to enter.

  “No, no, no. We have a passport here, and permission for this convoy to enter. The passengers are refugees.” The driver furnished the edict.

  “We’ve done this a few times in the past weeks, you know…”

  “The pass is now closed. Turn around or else.”

  The patchwork throng of fleers stood around bewildered. It took only minutes for the news to spread. Asril and the group then stepped out into the thin air. She didn’t see much before it happened, and only knew that the conductors refused to turn back and demanded the complication be sorted out. Babies were wailing all around.

  Asril didn’t see how the violence started, but the angry shouts and sharp screams of adult males drowned out the children’s crying. Many in the desperate crowd were now charging the front and getting mercilessly cut down by whoever was guarding it.

  Asril had developed a kind of sixth sense for the outcome of violent fights. The street-smart thief grabbed hold of Tanjung’s arm and pulled.

  “Come on! We gotta run if we wanna live!”

  Hans Solo

  “Hey. Human. Get up.”

  Hans’ head was still pounding. How did he get here? He remembered being placed in a cart by the meerkats the other day while he was hung over, but remembered little else.

  Crumpled up over a sack of grain, Hans looked up at the source of the voice; a sleek, black, canine-looking “furry.” In his own world, Hans knew only of dogs and wolves. This one was neither. The wagon had come to a stop, and the faint smell of silty dry soil was the only hint of a location.

  Hans rolled onto his feet, trying to ignore his upset stomach as the canine looked him over.

  “Your master has a strange sense of fashion…” He mused at Hans, then stepped out onto burnt orange sand.

  “Excuse me. Uh. Have you… seen a black airship in the sky?”

  The black canine turned around to face the sleepy German. “No. But I heard that it flew low over Deltia.”

  “Is this place Deltia?”

  The canine looked at Hans as if he had been dropped out of the sky.

  “…No, human. This is Urkan. Deltia is to the north of here along the river.” The furre then turned around and walked off without another word, leaving Hans to fend for himself, gear and all. Hans groaned and picked up his items, then stepped out onto the sand.

  “Engh.”

  The sun hit his eyes like a searchlight. He winced and covered his brow as he shuffled slowly into the crowd, able to take only baby steps.

  Urkan felt like a bazaar. Stone-lain streets criss-crossed into the distance and bustled with carts both horse drawn and hand pushed. Chatter and whinnying of horses surrounded him on every side. Hans scanned the inhabitants. They too were canine, but didn’t much look like the man from the wagon. Instead, the natives of Urkan looked more like a mix between the canine’s species and a type of hyena. The women were not very attractive; nothing like Amalija, that was for sure.

  The sudden heat and light made his head swim and his stomach want throw up again. Still hungover, he dawdled over to the nearest Bazaar, and turned down a narrow alleyway where brick and sand apartments faced off. Hans dropped his gear by a door and sat down, head leaning against the wall. Just as he closed his eyes a young canine opened the door and looked at Hans. He turned to the animal with eyes half shut and raised a hand, waving to him, then turned away. Once the boy went back inside Hans closed his eyes.

  His growling stomach woke him up. He looked out of that narrow alley. The scorching daylight was fast approaching. He reached for his mess tin, which he found had no food, but it did jingle. Inside were some shiny, minted coins stacked from bottom to top. He smiled. The meerkats of Oasis must have really liked him. Hans got up to his feet, feeling a little better, and followed his nose to a nearby alley to buy some skewered meat from a stand. If he had to guess, it was lamb. Not too bad.

  “Hey um, have you seen a black airship fly by lately?”

  “Black airship?” the vendor scowled. “What you talkin’ about?”

  The furry indeed had no idea what Hans was talking about. He returned to where the convoy had dropped him off, in search of another one that continued northward, but after thirty minutes of waiting he noticed the only caravans here were coming from and going to the place he had come from. Confused and with no idea where to start, Hans made his way to the nearby river. A medley of boats streamed along the river as the soldier stood watching them. Perhaps flotillas were the preferred method of travel here.

  With a little help, Hans finally found the dockyards. He asked around and found a northbound raft manned by another of the black canine species. The same race as the man Hans had talked to earlier. In exchange for free transport, Hans offered to help row the craft northward. They agreed and soon took off. It was a strange relief to be on the move again.

  “Where are you from, Human?”

  The question came from the man rowing ahead of him. Hans could only see the canine’s sinewed back.

  “I’m from Mannheim.”

  “Never heard of that place!”

  “It’s very far away. What about yourself?”

  “Deltia. We’ll be there in a few days. Looking for work there?”

  “Actually I’m looking for The Black Airship.”

  The canine turned around as if to look
Hans over.

  “You mean The Black Ship? You know, it flew over our city, exploded a purple light over us and then went screaming off over the ocean and to heaven itself.”

  It bombed the town? Who would do that?

  “Which way was it going?”

  “North. It flew right over us toward the ocean.”

  Suddenly Hans felt relieved he had his camouflage on, lest the canine notice on him the same swastika that graced the tail of the fighter plane.

  In fact, the relative calm of this world had violated the despair which settled over Hans on the Eastern Front, but this quest for ‘The Black Ship’ somehow eased things.

  The river and the land around him was opening up with life. On each side were orange brick buildings of all kinds. Ferries crossed “furries” from one side to the other. Tall reeds popped up all along both embankments, and behind them was a gentle wall of green topped by palm trees.

  That night he slept in the center of the boat while someone else took over for him. He laid down and stared up at the black canopy of stars, which twinkled like those in his own world. Now was a good time to think about Amalija and Kairah.

  “You know, I’ve seen a few humans show up in our town recently.”

  His new friend snapped Hans out of his daydream of Amalija. But were there really other humans here?

  “Uh, where are the Humans coming from?”

  “No idea. Somewhere over in the North Continent of course. Maybe north of the Cottonwine Lands. Something’s going on over there that’s bringing them here.”

  The North Continent? Maybe that was where the plane flew off to. The canine said it was headed north, after all.

  “Hmm. The North Continent… How do I get there?”

  “There’s one ship channel in Deltia. It can take you to three ports over there, but I’d be careful. Your kind must be fleeing to here for a reason.”

  “Thanks. Uh, hey. What about The Cottonwine Lands? Do you know where they are?”

  “All I know is it’s really far away. North and east of the lapines. Besides that, just far away. I’ve never been on the other side.”