Chapter 89: The Fox’s Final Gambit
Kiri joined the females heading towards the lake to wash. Tera waddled along with them, her growing belly leading the way, and Kiri watched her with a hatred so intense it felt like acid in her throat.
Everything Kiri wanted—Xavi’s attention, the clan’s respect, carrying his cub—this shiftless creature had stolen simply by existing.
At the lake, the females spread out along the bank. The males settled at a distance, also washing themselves.
Kiri washed, disgruntled that morning as the hunting party had left earlier to look for meat. There was still time for her to go after them.
Soon enough, when she noticed that everyone was distracted, she slinked off. Kiri then turned into her fox form as she got out of the lake and vanished into the undergrowth.
Nobody saw her leave. The males were still talking, and the females were still washing, mostly distracted by the screeching cubs. Even Tera, who had been keeping watch earlier, had her back turned as a cub pestered her.
Kiri ran in the direction the males had gone, their scent still faint in the air.
Her heart pounded with the intoxicating rush of freedom.
She was so sick of being watched, so sick of performing, and so sick of the constant, crushing weight of a lie she couldn’t sustain.
She ran faster, her fox form slicing through the undergrowth, her mind churning with fury.
This was all that shiftless creature’s fault. Before Tera arrived, Kiri had been secure. She had Xavi’s attention, and she had time. Now she had nothing.
The fox kept running until her chest ached.
Then she stopped. The evening sky shocked her. She didn’t know how long she had been running, and the forest looked different here.
The trunks were massive and gnarled. The canopy above was so thick that the light barely penetrated, and it cast everything in a deep, greenish gloom. The air was heavier, and there was a smell that made the fur along Kiri’s spine rise.
It was a sour, rotten sweetness. Like fruit left to decay in stagnant water, mixed with something metallic and wrong.
Kiri’s ears flattened against her skull.
That smell...
She had been so consumed by her anger that she hadn’t been paying attention to where she was running.
She had gone too far. Much too far.
Kiri’s body went rigid when she saw the corrupted monster sleeping through the bushes in front of her.
The peace and safety of the settlement had made her careless. She had forgotten, in the warm comfort of shelters and cooking fires and petty schemes, that this world was not safe.
The corrupted monster was not as large as the one that had raided her former clan, but it looked just as disgusting. Its body was a grotesque mass of scales, muscles and jutting bones. Its thick hide was mottled green and grey, and each exhale sent a plume of foul air rippling through the vegetation. The plants in the direction of its breath blackened and withered.
Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run, but her training held. Being a fox, speed and agility were her advantage. She could still escape without waking it up. But some corrupted monsters were faster than foxes, and no one could tell the specific trait certain monsters had.
Kiri began to back away, one silent paw at a time, her eyes never leaving the sleeping creature.
She was almost clear of the undergrowth when a voice shattered the silence.
"KIRI!"
The call echoed through the trees. It was distant but clear, and Kiri’s blood froze in her veins.
That was Tera’s voice.
The corrupted monster’s eyes opened.
The yellow, filmy gaze locked onto Kiri.
She stopped breathing.
A low, shrill hum came from the monster’s throat.
Kiri bolted.
Her fox form launched backwards through the undergrowth with the explosive speed of pure terror. Branches whipped at her face, roots clawed at her paws, but she didn’t slow down.
Behind her, the sound of something massive rising from the ground shook the earth.
Kiri ran, and her mind, even in its state of blind panic, was already working.
The monster was awake. It was moving, and it was gunning after her. But since she had heard Tera’s voice just now, that meant the shiftless female was nearby, wasn’t she?
Kiri heard several voices call out for her, making her realise that the clan members had come this far looking for her.
A dark thought surfaced.
On second thought, maybe it was a good thing the monster had noticed her first and was coming after her rather than following the voices.
Kiri could lead the monster straight to Tera instead.
She could easily slink out of the way and into hiding while the female was in its line of sight. Tera was pregnant, slow, and completely defenceless.
Kiri could then alert the beast men in the area to kill it while it was occupied with eating the shiftless female.
Such a wonderful opportunity had fallen right into place.
The monster would kill Tera. The clan would kill the monster. And Kiri would emerge from the chaos with the perfect alibi of a terrified, pregnant female who had been caught in the wrong place.
There would be no more shiftless fox stealing her future, no more kind smiles hiding sharp edges, and most importantly, Xavi would be hers again.
She would console him for his loss and gain his care!
The thought horrified and exhilarated her in equal measure.
She darted in another direction, following Tera’s voice.
She burst through a line of bushes and saw them.
Tera was ahead, and Kiri’s stride faltered when she realised that the shiftless female was not alone.
She was with two cubs.
Why had the female come with cubs?!
Kiri had not planned for cubs.
But it was too late to change course or even change her mind, and Kiri was too terrified to just stop. The ground behind her was already trembling with the heavy, uneven footfalls of something enormous crashing through the trees.
Kiri locked eyes with Tera for a single, frozen moment.
She saw the confusion on the shiftless female’s face shift to alarm.
Then Kiri swerved sideways and vanished into the undergrowth, her russet fur dissolving into the shadows like smoke.
The corrupted monster exploded out of the treeline behind her and headed straight for Tera and the cubs.