Free The Furred Reich by Len Gilbert

lets go before the orange tigers come looking for us.”
    “HEY! WAIT UP!”
    An unfamiliar voice called to them. Asril turned around and saw a ‘Foxing’ running up them. He looked familiar. And he had three tails! It was the smart-looking one that Asril had been watching the other day. Asril blushed when she caught glimpse of him.
    “Hey! Hey! Is your party going west? If so, take me with you.”
    “Yeah, we are,” Tanjung looked at the newcomer with narrowed eyes.
    “Uh, I suppose you can travel with us,” he said, “but don’t try anything.”
    The fox caught his breath and nodded.
    “Thanks. We should get going as soon as possible, shouldn’t we?”
    The canine filed behind the four of them as they hastily walked down the road to Dalaam.
    The path ahead descended deeply away from Preena. Asril was thankful for that; the further away from the border guards they were, the better. She had a sinking feeling that the border men would be out looking for them.
    “What’s your name, foxboy?” Tanjung turned back to the fox, sizing up the other male in the group.
    “I’m Hex.” The fox reached into his tanned side pouch and unfurled a well-pressed map.
    “We’re here,” Hex’s orange paw pressed against a mountainous part of the map. Asril stretched up to see that they had come a good ways west of Miamar.
    “…And Dalaam is here.”
    On Hex’s map the distance didn’t look so great.
    “I’ve been to Dalaam before,” Hex continued, “you’ll know it when you see the golden monkey nestled between two mountains.”
    “Is it safe?”
    Hex shrugged. “Nothing seems safe since the monsters broke from their desert prison.”
    Tanjung looked down. “I already know all that.”
    The group trekked on in tense silence. Ani groaned from the back. Tari propped her up as the party hiked further north and west.
    “Hey. Tanjung. I don’t think Ani is feeling good enough for this…” Tari’s usually-melodic voice called out from the back. Already the sun had sunk beneath the solid crag.
    Hex craned back and looked at Tari. “Alright. But let’s camp a ways from the road in case the tigers go out looking. C’mon.”
    It seemed Hex had the same fear that Asril did.
    “No.” Tanjung interjected again. “I’ll take over from here. Follow me.”
    Tanjung at least listened to Hex’s advice. Asril breathed a sigh of relief as the party veered off the road for the night. Once they selected an opening in the woods, Hex unrolled a blue tarp.
    “What’s that?” Asril queried.
    “A tent that I brought from home. It houses three.”
    Tari set Ani down in the tent and tended to her. The other three sat in the open moonlight. Asril folded her legs together and turned to Hex.
    “So, um. Where are you headed Hex?”
    “The edge of the world.” Hex stared off past the treeline.
    “That’s where my brother is supposed to be. I’m going to find him. He was orphaned before the monsters came to our country.”
    “…Your country?”
    “Yeah. You might know it as the Peninsula of Kitsunes.”
    “A Kitsune? Sorry I don’t know much about anything far from Miamar.”
    The golden fox smiled and took out this map once again. It seemed Hex had an explanation for everything. Asril looked on, with Tanjung standing behind them with his arms folded.
    “See that dagger-looking peninsula? Way north of Miamar?”
    “You mean… The monsters have taken all the land between there and here?!”
    “Yes. And then some… Anyways, my brother is here.” Hex pointed to the clear other end of the map, past the mountain range, a desert and a long sea, to a tip of rock facing some limitless ocean. Why would Hex’s brother, or anyone else, go so far away?
    “Ahem. But don’t you think the Ahuranis will stop the monsters?” Tanjung suddenly called out. “Nobody has ever toppled Ahuran.”
    “I don’t know. Ahuran is certainly the strongest nation left on the continent. Though I heard an interesting rumor: The Deltians have