The royal government had let the west deteriorate even more than I'd imagined. While the Household Guards played waiter and pacified the mob by feeding them whatever the palace chefs could throw together, we got a crash course on the situation.
"The demons farm humans for food," explained the grizzled old general who'd been assigned to bring us (well, Katu) up to speed.
"Farms! For humans?!" cried Bobo. "That's too horrible!"
Accustomed to stoic, soldierly types, the general blinked at her, then opted to continue as if he hadn't heard her. "We've liberated humans from farms here, here, and here." He pointed on a map to a few spots abutting the foothills of the Jade Mountains.
Leaning in so close that the front of his robes brushed the parchment, Katu examined the map. "Those are all in territory that was lost during the old king's time, aren't they?"
He got a sour glare back. Yep, this general was old enough to have been personally involved in that territory's loss.
"Where's the demon army now?" Lodia asked, so quietly that the old human didn't hear her.
I nudged Bobo, who obligingly moved her jaws along as I repeated the question.
"Here." The general's stubby forefinger landed square on the map close to the capital.
Katu measured the distance between the two points with his fingers and compared it to the distance between Lychee Grove and Goldhill. "That's...they're maybe – a week out?" His voice lifted incredulously near the end.
"They're only a week from the capital?" exclaimed Floridiana, and Dusty whinnied his alarm.
"Less. More like a few days."
At the general's answer, everyone rocked back.
"Three days?! What happened to the Queen's army?" Katu demanded. "Don't tell me it was slaughtered?"
"Slaughtered, devoured, deserted, surrendered." The general ticked off the options.
"That's jussst too sssad...."
"Are you telling me that you lost the entire army? Goldhill has no defense?" Katu's hands flexed, as if he were on the verge of grabbing the general's tunic and shaking the man.
"Isn't that what you lot are for?" (I noted that the general did not deny either of Katu's accusations.)
All around the map table, there was a moment of silence. Bobo was stunned by the magnitude of the disaster that had happened and the one that was to come. Lodia twisted her fingers into her skirts. Dusty cast terrified glances at Floridiana, while the ex-traveling mage, survivor that she was, quivered from the instinct to grab her horse and cart and flee the carnage zone.
As for me, where others saw tragedy, I saw opportunity.
Perched on Bobo's coils, I proclaimed, Fear not, friends. This is for the bessst.
Insultingly incredulous stares met those words.
You sssee, the more ssstupefyingly powerful the demons, the more ssseemingly asssured their victory, the more convinsssing it will be when we – I mean, the Kitchen God – vanquissshes them.
My plan was simple, and overwhelmingly elegant in its simplicity. Counter to what Jullia and her advisors expected, we wouldn't meet the demon army in a pitched battle to prevent it from reaching the capital. We'd let it march, trot, slither, and flap its way right up to the capital. We'd let it surround the capital. And then, at the crucial moment, when all hope seemed lost, when all inhabitants seemed doomed to gruesome deaths or even more gruesome, short lives as livestock for demons – that was the moment we would strike.
Or rather, the moment that the Divine Intercessor would intercede and save everyone's lives. Cue the obligatory festival of thanksgiving (which, conveniently, we'd already organized) and the lavish offerings.
All that was left to do was lay a bit of groundwork.
According to the butterfly spirits, whom I sent to scout, the demon horde was so vast that it raised a dust storm beneath its feet and darkened the sky with its wings. Humans in its path were bundling up belongings and tossing them and their children into carts. Gopher spirits who didn't want to get pressganged were pushing along wheelbarrows of their most precious possessions. Fish spirits hid deep in their lakes. Birds and bees strained their wings to carry their nests and hives out of harm's way.
"The army is like a swarm of locusts, High Priest," the butterfly spirits reported to Katu, their nominal boss. "Wherever they pass, they eat the humans, trample the rice paddies, and force the spirits to join them or die."
Lodia squeaked, and Bobo drooped in sorrow, but that was about what I expected. I mean, what else would you do if you were a demon army? Not eat the tasty humans in front of you? It would be like putting a platter of white sugar rice cakes in front of Anthea and expecting her to not gobble them up. You could expect it, but the expectation itself would be an act of lunacy.
When was the lassst time they ssstopped to ressst? I asked through Bobo.
Spirits might not require as much sleep as humans, but they did still need it.
"Which part of the army?" a butterfly double-checked.
I beg your pardon?
"Different parts of the army stop to rest at different times. That's why it's so spread out."
Ha! That confirmed it: The demon army wasn't a monolith. Well, of course it wouldn't be. Unify that many demons under one leader, when the definition of a demon was a spirit who rejected the arbitrary rules and regulations of "polite" society?
Impossible.
No one could do it.
And with that, I had them.
I started from a group of wild cat demons who had settled down by a brook. Some of the extremely furry, grey cats were crouched by the water, sticking their paws in to scoop out fish. A litter of kittens who resembled puffballs play-fought nearby, hissing and batting at one another with their paws. Other adults, presumably the high-ranking ones, flopped on their backs and sunned their bellies.
Bobo slithered up with hardly a rustle, but the cats' rounded ears twitched. They bunched up to confront us, pushing the kittens behind them. Low growls rumbled from their throats and vibrated the earth. If we were in the mountains, they could trigger a landslide against us. As it was, Bobo rocked a little before she regained her balance. Riding on her head, I flapped my wings once.
"Hi! Whatcha doing?" she asked the demons cheerfully.
The largest cat didn't rise from his crouch. His striped tail swished behind him dangerously. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"I'm Bobo! I'm a bamboo viper. I'm from the Claymouth Barony in Eassst Ssserica."
The demon's tail swished faster. "You haven't answered my question. What are you doing here?"
I'm sssightssseeing! I took over from Bobo. I'm a traveling ventriloquissst. My friend and I thought it would be fun to sssee more of Ssserica. Ssso what's going on here anyway? Is everybody moving here?
"You're sightseeing, or you got chased out of this 'Claymouth' by the baron?"
Ha. A demon would know all about getting run out of town. Usually for eating the townsfolk.
Well.... Look dejected, I mouthed at Bobo, and she drooped all the way to the ground. There may have been a misssunderssstanding....
"Of course there was." The demon didn't sound any friendlier, but his tail swished less fast, and the vibrations in the ground died away.
How about you? What brings you here?
At last, the cat sat up, tucking his tail tidily around his broad, furry paws. Following his lead, the other adult cats sat up too, furling their striped tails all in the same direction.
"My name is Pallus, king of the Horse River manuls."
I made a mental note that this type of wild cat was called a "manul." I'd heard of the Horse River, a long river that started not too far south of where I'd awakened, but I'd never met a manul before.
"Niccce to meet you!" Bobo chirped.
I repeated my question, Ssso what brings you all the way into Sssouth Ssserica?
"We have come to claim land for ourselves from these fat, soft, lazy lowlanders."
"Lazy?" Bobo protested before I could stop her. "But they're not lazy! They work very hard. I've ssseen them."
A growl rumbled from Pallus' throat, and the ground quaked again. "Do you question my word?"
Oh no, no, of courssse not, great king! I would never quessstion the word of ssso mighty a manul ssspirit!
"Hmph. See that you remember that." The ground stilled once more, and Pallus twisted his head to lick his side.
Ssso you're here to make a new home for yourssselves? There's lots of rice paddies around here. Are you going to ssstart rice farming? I asked on purpose. (I already knew what the answer had to be – because whoever heard of a cat tending a rice paddy?)
"Rice farming?" Pallus recoiled in disgust. "Of course not. What do you take us for, deer or squirrels? We're here for the game."
And by "game," you mean the miccce and rabbits and birds and fish?
Pallus lifted a front paw, examined it, and gave it an exploratory lick. "Mmm, those too."
Puzzled, Bobo widened her already-bulbous eyes. "What other kind of game is there?"
"The humans, silly snake!" called one of the kittens from between two adults' furry sides.
You eat humans already? At your age? That had to be terrible for their karma totals!
"Prince Pouff, hush!" scolded an adult, but the kitten clambered onto her back and slid down her shoulder to land on his oversized paws.
"Nuh-uh, but I will," he informed us. Then, copying Pallus, he lifted the same forepaw and began to wash it.
Have any of you eaten humans before? I asked, looking at each of the adult manuls.
From the way all of them developed the need to groom various body parts, I guessed the answer was no. I hadn't thought that many humans would venture deep into the western branch of the Jade Mountains. And if this tribe of manuls was so poor that they wanted to migrate into the lowlands for a better life, then they couldn't be among the clans who controlled the gold and silver mines and jade ore and traded those to humans.
(Although...it was true that demons typically didn't eat trading partners. So far as I understood it, that was considered bad business practice.)
Humans as food are overrated. They're not actually that tasssty, I told the manuls. They have to do manual labor, ssso they're tough and ssstringy.
"Tough and ssstringy?" cried Bobo, forgetting our act. "How do you know that?!"
I tipped my head to a side and regarded her. Do you really want to know the anssswer?
"No. Uh-uh. Uh-uh." Her response was immediate.
"You mean they lied to us?" Pallus demanded. All the manuls started to growl, and the earth started to creak and groan. A small crack split the ground, right between them and us.
Keeping an eye on it, in case it grew big enough to engulf Bobo and me, I bobbed my head. Mighty manul king, I don't know who told you humans tassste good, but they're not as good as – all of a sudden, an image of Lord Magnissimus popped into my head, and I ran with it – sssay, have you had pig before? Sssausssage? Dumplings? Barbecue pork? Braisssed pork belly? Roassst sssuckling pig?
It was beneath Pallus' dignity to admit that he hadn't sampled any of those dishes before, so he let the kitten, Prince Pouff, ask for him, "Nuh-uh! What's that? Are those all game animals?"
You haven't?! Oh my, are you in for a treat! Thossse are all dissshes you can make from the sssame animal. The pig. People raissse them on farms, and they're desssigned to be delicious. You gotta try pig!
Pallus growled again, and the crack split wider. "So you're saying they lied to us. They brought us all the way here for a lie."
Who brought you here? What did they tell you?
"The black-necked cranes." He spat the words. "Probably wanted us to stop stealing their eggs."
Are they here too? What exactly did they tell you?
"They told us they heard there was a land of plenty, warm and full of food, and all we had to do was take it from the lazy creatures who inhabit it."
"They keep making us walk more and more," Prince Pouff piped up. "They won't let us stop walking."
Who's they? Who's in charge of this expedition?
"The snow leopards of the Western Mount."
Aha! A lead!
Maybe we can go and talk to them for you, sssee what's going on, I offered. Where can we find them?
Pallus settled back down onto his belly, his tail sweeping lazily from right to left, left to right. "Last I saw, they were up ahead that way."
I nodded at Bobo. On to meet the snow leopards!
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!