“The Kitsune has been bound to me now,” I explained gently. “I drove the evil influence away, and in return, the fox-spirit’s power has passed to me.”
“Bound... to you?” the old man cried, outraged. “To you? But that means it will not come back to the shrine? Impossible!”
I spread my hands in a gesture of supplication to the old fellow. “I’m afraid it’s true. I guess that means you’re out of a job?”
“It’s heresy even to suggest such a thing!” the old man scolded. “Look, look, I will prove it to you. Watch!”
He turned on his heel and marched away toward the perimeter of the mowed grassy area. The little red rope-fence marked the boundary of the area under his care. He glared defiantly in my direction, and then stepped over the boundary.
“It cannot be!” he gasped. He took a few more steps away from the rope fence, then looked back toward me. The defiance was gone from his face, and instead he looked angry and betrayed. He leveled one bony finger in my direction and shouted back to me from the perimeter. “You have broken the Kitsune shrine! You’ll live to regret this, whoever you are! Just you wait! You’ll see! I won’t forget this insult!”
With that, he spun on his heel and marched off, head held high, anger in every line of his stance.
“There’s just no pleasing some people,” I said with a shrug.
I turned and made my way back across the grassy sward toward Cara and the folk we’d rescued from the Kitsune. The Persona that had been granted to me by the Kitsune hovered at the edge of my awareness. I was eager to test it out.
The three civilians—the two oldsters in purple and the middle-aged man in yellow—looked as if they might be coming around as I approached. I drew a breath to call out to Cara, who was leaning over them, but just as I was about to ask if they were all right, there came a sound from away off to my left. It was the sound of a twig snapping, off in the direction of a large clump of bushes near the edge of the cliff.
Whirling, I heard another sound—a whispering chatter of high-pitched laughter from the direction of a dense clump of trees which loomed over the edge of the shrine.
“What is that sound?” I heard Cara saying breathlessly. She stood quickly, her hand on her bow again, ready to fight. She put her back to the civilians, who were stirring but not yet fully awake. They could not defend themselves, and we needed to be ready to protect them from attack.
I scanned the whole area, turning my head trying to look everywhere at once, but I saw nothing. Then, as suddenly as lightning can break from a stormy sky, the dell around the shrine was filled with running figures.
They came from the bushes, from under the floor of the shrine, from the cover of the trees nearby. They came from every direction, small, squat figures with short, thick legs and broad, swarthy bodies. Their faces were flat, and seemed curiously deformed to my eyes. There was a suggestion of feathers about their hair, and they had long noses, unnaturally long, and protruding, oversized teeth. They were dressed in furs and leathers, and they were all armed, some with long knives, some with vicious-looking hammers, and several with short recurve bows similar to Cara’s but of less quality and with less finish.
They were like some hellborn amalgamation between bird and man. There was no question that the Festering had afflicted them.
A moment ago, I had been pleased with my progress, having defeated the Kitsune and freed the captives. The next, I was outnumbered and completely surrounded in the little dell, and my back was to the cliffs.
A glance in Cara’s direction showed me the man in yellow sitting up on the ground, looking around himself blearily. He pointed in horror at the creatures that surrounded us.
“Tengu!” he cried. “The Tengu have come! They are merciless!”
“Merciless?” I muttered, “Well, so am I.”
It was time to try my new Persona. The Ironside armor was heavy and hot for a battle like this, and I had a feeling that whatever powers came with the Kitsune Persona might be better suited to moving quickly in the humid heat of Yamato.
“They have killed the master!” screamed one of the Tengu in a high, wavering voice. The others all broke into wild jabbering battle cries, menacing us with their weapons.
I reached for the Kitsune Persona, and it enveloped me. I was expecting a familiar sensation of warmth, but instead of heat, there was a cool sensation, like plunging through water on a hot day. I looked down at myself. Where before I had been dressed in heavy white battle armor, I found myself now wearing a suit of black robes, fitted tightly around my hips and chest. A band of black fabric was wrapped around my head, covering most of my face except for my eyes. I looked at my hands; black gloves of skintight fine leather. My feet were covered in high, supple leather boots, laced off at the shins to just below my knee.
“Weapons?” I asked out loud as I glanced down at my belt to see what this Persona had armed me with. There was a long belt of black leather, and the Persona gave me full knowledge of everything that was contained in it. It was heavy with many different kinds of weapons; small knives that could fit in between a man's knuckles to make a punch into a deadly blow, or that could be driven in between the vertebrae for a covert assassination. There were potions and powders, blinding poisons and deadly plant extracts that could be slipped into food. In one pocket there was
