Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“…he led most of the vampires away with him,” Babak finished. Yaroslav turned pale.

“I’ll come to his rescue!” he decided. “Why the hell did I listen to him?”

“Don’t lose your mind! You still won’t be able to get there on time, no matter what happens there,” Babak replied. “It’s too late.”

Yaroslav closed his eyes.

The fox twitched from fear and woke up. She dreamed about a huge crow that was towering up to the skies, whistling in a disgusting manner and belching streams of fire. It was terribly scary, but the remains of the cheese dispersed all the nightmares and inspired the radiant memories of yesterday’s operation that she had carried out so successfully together with a couple of the unsuspecting sparrows. Something strange started happening with them recently. They fell down the ground out of blue, then they began to fly around like crazy. Because of them, the trap she’d been preparing had to be abandoned. And now it was absolutely impossible to find acorns or even an oak there. It was such a good trap, though. Just gather a bunch of acorns and someone would approach to start munching on them until they choked from greed.

“What beast has graced our forest with her presence!” the fox heard, jumping in shock. A wolf. Scratched beyond belief. Grinning. That was suspicious.

“Any problems?” she asked.

“A crow whispered to me that you brought some chickens to her.”

“She’s lying. I didn’t bring anything, I took it from her, and it was not chickens but some cheese. What’s it to you?”

“I’m here for revenge. I don’t care about the crow, but I want two chickens lying in front of me tomorrow for breakfast. If you don’t bring them, you’ll become lunch yourself.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No, fox, I’m not. Decide for yourself. Either you bring me breakfast, or you become breakfast. There’s not much meat on you, but I like to chew on the bones. And if you run away, I’ll find you and give you to people so that they would make some hats out of you. Any questions?”

The wolf let out an angry snarl goodbye and ran away. The fox was bursting with fury. If she could flush, she would have gone a dark cherry shade a long time ago. The remains of the cheese lodged in her throat. The crow that was hiding in the branches of a tree burst into hysterical laughter, and just from these cackling sounds, the fox was ready to spin like a whirlwind from the rage engulfing her.

After catching her breath, the fox shouted, “Got you, red! It’s as easy as plucking chickens!”

The fox gritted her teeth but failed to say anything intelligible. Her jaw was cramped up with fury. Who could expect such cunning from a crow? Who would have thought that she’d send this voracious wolf-avenger!

“Don’t go around stealing cheese,” the crow added.

The crow laughed, jumped into the air, and made a circle of disrespect around the fox. The fox threw the rest of the cheese around herself in an enraged frenzy. How greedy the crow was, not even wanting to give her a slice! “You can choke on it! But I’m warning you, it’s been bitten!”

Grimacing, the fox ran away.

‘If not for the dumb sparrows, I would be eating those boars now, not making troubles with the wolf!’ She was incredibly angry, and the horrifying plans of bloody revenge against the whole bird family were twirling in her head. She’d cut down the oak, feed them some poisoned millet, not let them sleep, and soak them in a week-long rainfall!

The skull of a sparrow fell from the tree that the enraged fox was passing by. She paused and slowly raised her head, intending to erase the impudent creature with her gaze. But suddenly, she realized who was throwing those skulls around and felt a completely unjustified surge of strength. On a branch, a familiar ball of feathers was perched wearily. The skull had clearly rubbed his neck raw. From the far side of the forest, a growing murmur of birds was coming. The sparrow dived into the hollow like a bullet, and a moment later, there was a desperate flapping of the wings. A whole flock of sparrows descended upon the tree. Feverishly looking around, they noticed a single sparrow flying in the distance, so they soared and rushed after him, confident that this was their mysterious joker.

The fox remembered where the Sparrow was now living, so she picked up the skull and ran away. Fortunately, nobody was interested in her discovery. She didn’t know for sure how and why to use it, but she still had time to figure it out. The right thoughts would come, she was sure of it. For example, she could blackmail the sparrow, making him carry out her wishes, or she could promise the pack that under certain conditions, she would tell them where the one they needed to find was. And it would be just perfect to use both options at the same time.

‘It seems,’ the fox thought, “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, after all.’

A weak and ghostly light, but still.

The fox raised her head to let out a victorious cry and choked. Directly above her, a huge light-colored walnut of an unprecedented size hung. Weird. Too many things had moved to the upper floors of the forest. And then the fox realized that the plan of salvation from the wolf was ready. Everything was just within her reach. Hanging above her head. The only thing she had to do was use the means at hand properly. Then she could reap the fruits of her righteous labors.

Barely holding the giggling back, the fox crept up to a non-too-attentive sparrow and whispered, “Hey!”

The response to this whisper was so powerful, as if a bird had been shot from a cannon. Flinching and fluffing his feathers so that he would look twice as big, the sparrow suddenly returned to his previous size and then dropped dead. Puzzled, the fox stared at the corpse. A huge beetle landed on her muzzle, sitting insolently on her nose, and began to calmly clean its wings. The fox shook her head, the beetle flew up, buzzed all over her and slowly went away. Cursing like the crow had done once, the fox ran past Baba Yaga’s hut. It wasn’t as scary as it was at night. But something strange was happening here. Different pieces of iron were sticking out everywhere, the bushes were burned, numerous footprints were near the hut, as if there’d been dancing the whole night. What could that mean?

Nothing good came to mind. Only nonsense. For example, that a hungry Yaga was trying to make a steak out the hut’s chicken legs but failed every time. Why else would there be so many footprints? The ground was so trampled that it was astonishing.

But these traces did not belong to Yaga as the size wasn’t the same! It was probably the hunters who had been trying to make a steak out of the hut’s feet. They kept missing because the hut was galloping across the meadow while Yaga was chasing the hunters. Foolish, of course, but very relatable. There had to be a huge bunch of hunters! Why?… Oh, who cared!

The fox ran up to the oak where a flock of sparrows usually gathered and found that the hogs had eaten the acorns she’d collected. Oddly enough, the bodies of the sparrows who’d become victims of an unknown epidemic were not present. The hogs didn’t eat sparrows, therefore…

‘I can see why he was being chased by a whole pack now!’ the fox guessed. ‘ Nice prank.’

But how inconvenient! Had it not been for the story with the crow and the cheese, there would be no need to run and save her soft red fur now. The pack had already returned, and judging by their disgruntled chirping, the search for the impudent brat had not been successful.

‘Luck is on my side!’ the fox thought happily.