The Fox's Mask

by Anna Frost

  Yuki touched his sleeve, speaking quietly. “Potential death later is preferable to certain death now.”

  Translation: we can still escape.

  “Perhaps.” Akakiba dropped his sword to the ground and fervently hoped he hadn’t doomed them both to a long, painful death.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jien

  IF THERE WAS ANYTHING WORSE than leaving your friends behind to an almost certain death, Jien didn’t know what it was. Akakiba had saved his life once, and it hurt not to be able to return the favor. He would have tried, regardless of the odds, but the mission took priority. Someone had to make it back to report.

  Pursuit was half-hearted, for he was closer to the river than the cultists dared venture. Arrows flitted by, but the trees and their numerous low branches protected him.

  He galloped downriver, keen to increase the distance between himself and the cultists and hoping it was the right direction to meet up with Aito. How far had he drifted during his flight?

  The forest parted to show what passed for a road, a dirt trail snaking through the high grass. In the river, rocks piled up on one another formed a narrow but solid-looking way across. Was this the upstream bridge Aito had mentioned? If so, he was going the wrong way.

  He beat a hasty retreat before any potential bridge sentry could spot him and come after him too. It was time to put the river, and the great dragon’s teeth, between him and the enemy but not by taking the obvious, exposed way across. He studied the flow of water, wishing he could tell whether there were murderous currents at work underneath the surface.

  Placing his hands palm to palm, he whispered the ritual prayer. “Great dragon of this river, I apologize for disturbing your peace. Please allow me to cross, and do me no harm.”

  Some people, generally those who had never seen a great dragon, thought the prayer was ignorant superstition since dragons didn’t attack humans unprovoked. Jien believed in caution and respect, especially since he’d seen the big teeth living in the river.

  He made the crossing, practicing a form of swimming that he’d have described as “underwater flailing.” The spear strapped to his back didn’t make it any easier. After reaching the other side as a soggy mess, he crawled under the cover of the thickest bushes. He meant to rest, dry, and watch for pursuit. If the cultists dared cross, it would be at the bridge.

  When pursuit failed to materialize, Jien relaxed tense muscles and breathed more freely. The sound of a voice, coming shortly after, filled him anew with energy. He grasped his spear, eyes wide open and muscles ready to spring. The voice, however, was coming from the wrong direction, heading toward the village rather than away from it.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  The speaker was a female facing two men who both possessed the dirty aura of the demon-touched. One of them spat at her. “Be quiet, that damn river dragon will hear.”

  The other man, who looked as though he hadn’t taken a bath in several months, spoke no more kindly. “Walk faster if you don’t want help.”

  The men fell back on either side of the woman and continued on the path. Her stance was slumped and her pace laborious. Jien crept close and considered taking action. There were no other enemies in view, no one who could stop him from rescuing this poor woman from a terrible fate.

  He charged, spear aimed chest-level. Upon noticing him, the first man drew a sword. The second cowered behind the woman.

  A vicious jab to the stomach sent the first man to the ground screaming and holding his open belly. The other shoved the woman at Jien. He dodged the woman. If he’d caught her, the possessed man might have seized the chance to shove his sword through her body to injure them both. Jien lunged, his spear piercing the possessed man’s throat, preventing him from screaming his pain. Wild, terrified eyes regarded him a moment before dimming forever.

  He silenced the first man’s cries by breaking his neck and bent to inspect the woman, who had folded to the ground without a sound. A thin trail of blood ran down her forehead, leaking from a minor wound to the scalp. He knelt and shook her gently; she moaned without waking. He couldn’t risk delaying so he lifted her on his wet back and hurried away.

  “This woman-carrying had better not become a habit…”

  When Jien finally emerged near grazing horses, he whispered a fervent prayer of thanks to the world in general. There was a pain in his side and a weakness in his knees that made every step a nightmare. His body was so warm from the sustained effort that his damp clothes brought him relief rather than misery.

  Aito appeared from his hiding place and took the unconscious woman from him. “What happened?”

  He waved a hand, trying to convey he couldn’t speak right then, and collapsed in the long grass. When he could breathe again, he said, “The others got captured, but I have the information we need. As for this woman…on my way back I saw her being escorted to the village by demon-tainted men. I thought there was no sense in allowing them another victim.” He sat up wearily. “You were right. This one’s a bad cult. I heard them talking about whether it would be feasible to attack another village to gather ‘enough bodies’! We can’t have them rampaging through the countryside!”

  “We’ll ride as fast as we can.”

  He fidgeted, looked back. “Can’t you go alone? If I go back, maybe I can—”

  “They’re alerted now, and their demons will be coming out soon.” Aito indicated the lowering sun. “You wouldn’t get close enough to be useful. If the fox can get away, he can do it without you.”

  Aito’s words were logical and sensible, but he didn’t want to be sensible! He reluctantly mounted up, settling the unconscious woman in front of him. Perhaps she would be able to give them further information when she woke.

  The big stallion named Kaze was paying them no attention, grazing along the river. “Best leave him,” Jien said firmly before Aito could say otherwise. “If they do get away, they’ll need a ride. If they don’t…he’ll find his way back. It’s not like anyone would be able to steal him.”

  The Fox clan didn’t possess as many horses as other samurai clans, but the ones they owned were specially-trained. He’d heard tales told in the clan house, tales of horses that would kneel to help a wounded rider mount up or rear at the enemy to protect a fallen man. Kaze wouldn’t let a stranger touch him.

  “I’m concerned our little cultists might go into hiding while we’re not watching,” Jien tried, his conscience gnawing at him. “Maybe I should stay and keep an eye on them.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “But—”

  Aito’s gaze was strangely compelling. “Trust your own.”

  Jien interpreted his colleague’s words as meaning “I’m not allowed to tell you the truth, so just trust me that it’ll be fine.” Sometimes it felt like his fellow sohei were trying to mimic the foxes by accumulating and cultivating secrets. Finding no other excuse to justify his desire to stay behind, he bowed his head in surrender.

  As they thundered away into a disgustingly beautiful sunset of reds and pinks, he tried not to think about his friends’ fate.

  Chapter Twelve

  Akakiba

  THEY WERE NEITHER QUESTIONED nor searched for hidden weapons—pity they had none. They were merely tied up and thrown into the wooden pen that had been the object of their curiosity.

  Akakiba’s dislocated shoulder was jolted by the fall, making him hiss in pain even as he hauled himself to a sitting position. From outside, the pen might look like an enclosure for a prized horse or cow, but from the inside the story was quite different. There was a handful of bloodied hair, a great many different sandal imprints in the mud, a few forgotten copper coins and, most telling, traces of blood on the walls. Akakiba tested his bonds, but the cultists knew how to tie up a prisoner so well that there was no chance of escape. For a human, that was. Fox paws would slip through, but he didn’t dare transform with the two guards constantly checking on them. Nobody appeared to have noticed what he t
ruly was, and he wished to keep it that way for as long as possible.

  Not to mention that shifting fox might startle his apprentice.

  Yuki’s voice reached his ears as a barely audible murmur. “If you can’t fight them, join them.”

  Akakiba gave the tiniest negative grunt. The cultists would never believe such a sudden change of heart. A pair of muscled men entered the pen. One held a rusty knife in his meaty hand. Yuki hobbled near, ready to follow him into anything. Yet here he stood, plan-less and sweating. Then again, pretending to join them might not be such a bad idea…

  He stepped forward, forcing the cultists to deal with him first. They took away the rope that bound his hands but not the one that bound his feet, preventing him from taking normal steps.

  “Your arm,” the cultist with the knife said.

  Akakiba lifted his uninjured arm and didn’t flinch as the cold metal parted his flesh. It wasn’t a large or deep cut. It didn’t have to be.

  Please let the demon be too eager for a body to take the time to study me…

  The cultists dragged him away. Yuki didn’t interfere, likely thinking his teacher had a plan in motion. Akakiba wished his plan didn’t sound so idiotic.

  Their destination was the nearest hut. Men were gathered there, talking. Among them was a wispy shape that radiated darkness but not strongly. This was no demon lord, but a weakened spirit, one more of those slowly fading away.

  The sun was on its way downward, illuminating the sky in reds and pinks, but still far from disappearing. Why would an already weakened demon waste its remaining strength by manifesting in sunlight?

  “Here’s the next one,” one man said. He was the oldest man in sight yet he was hardly past his prime. Looking at the wispy shape, he added, “You’re lucky he’s so young. Mine’s half dead already.”

  A thinner man spoke. “It’ll last you some years. We can get younger ones later. We’re not about to run out of humans.”

  These men were possessed, that was evident from their words. Akakiba studied them, wondering at the easy way they stood in their stolen bodies. The classical sign of a possessed person was abnormal behavior: incomprehensible speech, awkward body movement, or sudden aggressiveness. These men, however, seemed perfectly normal. Even their auras were—

  Sudden realization stole his breath. Their auras were no different than the other villagers’!

  “Mass possession,” he whispered in shock. This was why the village stank of demon so strongly. There weren’t a few possessed humans here, there were many. Dozens of them, if not hundreds.

  They spoke of spending years in a body, but how could that be? A demon’s powers shredded a human from inside. They were too strong, too full of energy, too—Wait. Demons weren’t strong anymore, were they? They were weaker than they’d ever been, just like all other magical creatures. Good spirits vanished, foxes lost their ability to breed, and demons…hid in human bodies?

  Akakiba looked around wildly, seeing possessed men and women everywhere. Demons were creating an army, just when foxes were losing theirs.

  “Look at that, a smart one! Figured it out, did you?” The cultist’s laugh was strange, as though it came from someone who laughed for the first time and wasn’t sure how it should sound.

  They shoved him into the one-room, dirt-floor hut. Turning, he saw the wispy shape coming at him. Irrational terror sent him bouncing around the room as he fought the instinct to shift and flee. No shifting in panic. Absolutely no shifting in panic!

  He hit walls. He smashed against blocked windows. He tried to beat down the door, all the while knowing there was no escape. One couldn’t very well fight what was essentially fog.

  The demon was soon on him, on his arm, on the wound. It squeezed through the parted flesh, and it burned, it burned, it burned. Shoving his arm into a fire might hurt less. He could have fought it, rejected it. But that was not the plan. That would not save Yuki from this very fate.

  Screaming was a permissible outlet, a safe one, so he screamed in response to the fire invading him, burrowing inside him like a creature meaning to devour him from the inside. The pain spread and dimmed as it went.

  The demon presence, which he felt like fire in his veins, suddenly began…panicking? It had infiltrated his entire body, but it could not control him. He was no mere human to be possessed and used like a doll. The demon was trapped. Had such a thing ever been done before? There were stories of foolish demons that tried to possess fox samurai, but they always ended with the warrior ejecting the disgusting thing from his body and slaying it. Who in their right mind would allow the demon inside and attempt to keep it there? Nobody who had a better choice—which he didn’t.

  There was a rap on the door. “Are you done?”

  “Come and untie me,” he answered, using all his self-discipline to keep his tone flat and calm. The older man came to take the ropes away and look him over. “Take it easy,” he said, mockery gone from his tone and replaced with friendly concern. “It can be hard to get used to these bodies. Is that arm broken?”

  He’d forgotten about his shoulder, so much stronger was the pain within. He pretended to be clueless. “Ah, yes. I think. I can’t move it.”

  The cultist investigated the injury with gentle fingers. “Not broken. I can fix it.” The old man grabbed his shoulder with one hand, his collarbone with the other, and pushed hard. The bone returned to its rightful place with a sickening pop. “That should do it. Don’t strain it for a while.”

  “That’s better,” he said, fighting to keep his face free of expression, pained or otherwise. These men were possessed by demons so weak that they couldn’t recognize a fox staring them in the face! “How did you know what to do?”

  The old man tapped the side of his head. “In time you’ll learn to interpret what you find in here. Now, I see you’ve done this before. You’ve got speech and body movements down perfectly. Do you feel at ease?”

  “Not yet. But it’ll come.” He casually took the knife from the possessed man and used it to cut a strip from his clothes to wrap around his bleeding forearm. “Let’s go and get the other one.”

  Another dark wisp floated nearby, waiting for its turn.

  The two strong men followed him back to the pen. They didn’t take the knife back. Counting the single guard who had remained at the pen, it meant three against one. He could do it. Kill them, take Yuki, and run like the wind.

  Inside his body, the demon fought to escape. He held it down. Releasing the creature would alert the others. He tried not to wonder whether the excruciating pain meant his body was being damaged. There was a peculiar throbbing in his head as if that damn demon was trying to drill holes in his vulnerable brain.

  He motioned at the guard. “Open.”

  “Up and about already?” The guard unhooked the pen’s latch. “My body was rolling on the ground for a long time before I got it under control.”

  “I’m good at this,” he said, striding in.

  Yuki’s eyes, upon seeing him, narrowed in suspicion. The demon’s presence must have disturbed his aura. It would be awkward if Yuki ever became sensitive enough to realize that even his natural aura was different from a normal person’s. But why worry about it now? They might not live long enough for it to become a problem.

  Knowing himself watched, he stretched his lips coldly and hoped Yuki could tell he was playacting. “Your turn, kid.”

  The two strong men positioned themselves on either side of Yuki, ready to restrain him if he resisted.

  He sliced the rope off. “Give me your arm.” He’d pretend to be about to cut flesh, but instead he’d strike the man on the right, then the one on the left. Speed and precision were key for their quick and silent death. He raised the knife, readied himself for a burst of speed and—

  Something scaly rose from Yuki’s hair and spat acid in his face; he flinched at the unexpected pain. In the space of a few heartbeats, Yuki stuck a knife in the right man’s throat and elbowed the left man in th
e face with such strength that something snapped, and he collapsed.

  “Yuki, wait—” He was still trying to wipe the acid off with his sleeve when his own apprentice snatched the knife from his grip and kicked him in the face.

  He fell to the ground. The pain from the kick was inconsequential by itself, but it added to his internal agony and made it unbearable. He bit his lower lip to keep from screaming and blood flooded his mouth, warm and coppery. Holding the demon was like trying to keep hold of a slick fish: the more he squeezed, the more it felt like it was about to shoot out of his grasp.

  Stay in control! Focus!

  By the time he’d struggled to unsteady feet, Yuki had killed the guard and was fleeing at full speed. “Yuki! Wait! Idiot!” He looked around, sighting their swords abandoned by the pen’s door. Shoving them in his belt, he ran.

  Cries of alarm were already rising. “Get the human,” Akakiba gasped at the possessed he passed. “He’s escaping!”

  Warm liquid slid down his cheeks from his eyes. When it reached his lips, he tasted more blood. The pounding in his head felt about to turn lethal. Should he let go? If he did, the demon would tell the others he was a fox and, knowing themselves discovered, they might attempt to hide elsewhere. If he held on long enough, he’d be able to release and kill the demon somewhere out of sight.

  Lost in his private world of pain and hazy thoughts, he didn’t notice the horse until it nearly trampled him.

  “I’ll catch him,” the rider said as he passed. It was strange to see a possessed man riding a plow horse: animals feared demons. Evidently they could be fooled too.

  Akakiba stopped and turned. There was a second rider coming. This one was mounted on a thick-legged horse better suited to pulling carts than carrying people. The moment the horse was at his level, he leapt.