I felt a powerful sucking sensation against the shield, as if it were being pulled away from me, but I was stronger than that. With a wrench of brute strength, I got control of it again. I crouched, and with the shield held protectively over my head I barged past the prisoners. I knocked them out of the way, hopefully without damaging them too much.
Anger from the corrupted Kitsune washed over me again, but this time it was tinged with fear. All of a sudden, our positions had changed. It no longer had its human shields to hold between itself and me. Like the snapping of a tight cord, I almost felt it abandon its control over them as it drew all of its power back into itself.
I stole a rapid glance over my shoulder. The three civilians lay in a heap before the black wall which filled the doorway still. I snapped my head back around to face my enemy.
It still bore some resemblance to a fox, but everything about it was wrong. Instead of fur, it was covered in a bald, lumpy, pitted hide that shifted color between black, brown, and gray and wriggled as if it were infested with some kind of burrowing worm. Its legs were unnaturally bowed outward, and the feet had a mass of claws as big as my fingers. Its face was horrible, with a short, blunt snout and an oversized mouth full of a mass of blunt teeth. The eyes blazed wildly at me, but deep within them I caught a glimpse of something else; a tortured, helpless, noble soul. The soul of the Kitsune which had been bound by the evil.
The sight of that filled me with a sudden rage. As the creature reared up and prepared to charge me with tooth and claw, I barrelled into it at full force. It stood nearly as tall as my hip, and I slammed into it with my shield, sending it flying back against the wall. The whole shrine shook with the impact.
I leaped back, but instead of falling to the ground stunned, the creature grew larger. It sprang at me, claws extended and mouth wide, screeching like a woman. I bashed it with my shield, feeling the huge claws rake down the iron. It caught the edge of my shield in its mutated teeth, scrabbling for grip with its claws. Black tentacles exploded from its back, reaching around like great arms and engulfing my shield and my left arm.
Instead of trying to dislodge it with my axe, I twisted my body so that my shield and the creature were under me. Then I slammed the shield to the floor with my whole weight behind it, trying to crush the creature. It slid out just in time, scuttling away from me and toward the civilians and the black wall which still filled the entrance.
There was a crashing sound, and a section of the wall of the shrine furthest from the black-walled entrance suddenly caved in. Bright sunlight flooded the dark space. Cara stood in the gap, a humble woodsman’s splitting axe in her hands. She leaped through the gap, dropping the axe and reaching for her knives.
With speed like a striking snake, black tentacles lashed out from the Kitsune, smashing into Cara and sending her flying back through the gap. It clattered across the floor toward the gap in the wall, roaring with fury, but I leaped forward to intercept it. I dropped my shield and summoned my two-handed axe, swinging it at the Kitsune and smashing the head of the axe into the floor just behind the creature. The floorboards shattered, leaving a gaping hole in the floor.
The Kitsune turned to me and opened its hideous mouth wide to charge again. I braced for a blast of tentacles. Instead, like a spray of rain, a cloud of flying insects rushed out with the creature’s roar. They were as big as cockroaches, and they swarmed toward me. As they landed on my armor, they made a heavy clanking noise, like stones hitting metal.
The Kitsune retreated a few steps, eyeing me malevolently. For a moment, I paused in my attack. I was aware of a low buzzing noise that vibrated through my steel breastplate and through my helmet. The low, thrumming vibration ran right through my armor and into my skull. I glanced down at my armor and realized with horror that I was covered in the insects, and that each one had a long, saw-toothed proboscis that was drilling into my armor at hundreds of different points. At this rate, it would not take long for the insects to reach my flesh.
With a cry of disgust, I swept a flight of them from my breastplate, only to have them lift in a cloud and slam immediately back into place. The Kitsune opened its mouth wide with laughter and grew larger as its confidence grew.
“Now you will be food for the Festering,” the gloating voice hissed.
“Not yet,” I growled, lifting my axe. I circled the Kitsune, and it moved with me. I moved further into the shrine, toward the civilians, as if I was moving to shield them.
The creature’s whole attention was fixed on me. It had forgotten Cara, but I had not. Through the gap in the back wall, I could see that she had righted herself and taken up an archer’s crouch on the grass a little way off and was aiming an arrow straight through the gap. As the Kitsune turned to keep me in sight, it unwittingly placed its back to her through the gap in the wall.
“Now, Cara!” I roared.
Too late, the Kitsune realized its mistake. Cara’s arrow flew straight and true through the gap, drawing a thick trail of blue mist behind it. It slammed into the Kitsune’s
