Capítulo 453: Containing the Beast
The small, quick creature dashed out of the hole straight at the elven prince. A mess of white fur wrapped around Alvar's arm with its seven tails.
Crying out, Alvar dropped his sword and shook off the fox-like animal. "My finger!" he cried, his hand bleeding from small teeth marks.
"A kitsune?" Zan furrowed his brow. "What is it doing out here?"
The white fox landed gracefully in the ground with a swoosh of its tails, baring its sharp teeth threateningly. Then it leapt again at the two males blocking the entrance to where she had been hiding.
Nurlan lifted his sword, but the fox whipped at his hands with her strong tails, batting the weapon from his hand. The strike was so unexpected that the burly man was knocked to the ground from the force.
"Feisty little thing!" Brinn said approvingly. "Come on! Give him your best shot, General!" she coaxed.
Alvar grabbed the fox by its scruff and pulled it off the burly human. "Not nice!" he said in ancient tongue.
The fox slapped him across the face with her tails, which made the he-elf drop her. Then she wrapped the vine-like whips around his left ankle and pulled, sending the elven prince to the ground just like the general before him.
The white little menace ran off into the forest making a cawing sound at them as she fled.
"I thought kitsune were peaceful," Aurora looked questioningly at Zan. He had once told her of his encounter with one on the ice barrier.
"They are protective. Maybe she has kits nearby and we disturbed her." Brinn shrugged.
Zan watched the fox scamper away, "She wouldn't leave if that were the case. Or at least she would try to make us chase her…"
"Zan is correct," Aurora claimed from the entrance of the hole. "It's empty."
The Empress tried to make sense of what had happened. Obviously, the kitsune must have been the second additional scent that Alvar detected. 'One mystery solved, but why was it out here and not on the barrier?'
Placing her hand on the dirt overhang, the woman prepared to climb into the dugout and see if there was anything she was missing.
Aurora paused as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on edge. Whether from her uncanny intuition or the Fate's chain, the Empress knew something was off.
She looked up just in time to see a white blur of motion through the trees behind the mound. The streak was rushing back in the direction from which they had just come.
"The Abominable!" The fiery-haired woman screamed as she pointed.
The group shifted their attention from the kitsune to where the Empress indicated. Sure enough, a large lumbering creature was moving away at a fast pace.
Brinn, Alvar and Zan took off after it as fast as their legs could carry them. Aurora decided an alternative route.
"Reyan!" She called to the fairy. He opened a portal that landed her on the other side of the creature instantly.
Fear filled the woman as the white behemoth was now running straight for her. His teeth were jagged and glistening. His eyes were beady, round and blacker than pitch with only emptiness in them.
Although the monster had been on two legs earlier, now he was running on all fours. Long razored claws scarred the dirt as he ran. His thick white fur rippled, mirroring the mighty muscles underneath.
Spotting the woman, the Abominable snarled. His small eyes became void of reason and filled with a lust for destruction. Shifting his aim slightly, the monster lowered its head and began to charge directly for her.
The Empress drew her bow, aiming carefully. "Stop!" she ordered, unsure if the creature could understand...not that she thought he would listen.
The order only seemed to anger the monster further. The white menace growled and reared to one side to avoid a low lying branch. Aurora gritted her teeth trying to wait for the perfect moment between strides to strike.
While she waited, the creature came ever nearer. Finally, the arrow whizzed from her hands and lodged itself in the monster's shoulder. It was not a fatal hit, but debilitating for his run. Or so Aurora thought.
After lodging in the creature's shoulder, the arrow bounced up and down like a metronome before the shaft snapped off, leaving the head behind in the Abominable's shoulder. The creature, however, did not seem to even register the hit.
The bloodlust in his system was simply too great.
"Not good." The fiery-haired woman was now too close for another shot to be effective. She let one fly anyway, but the monster batted it away before it could land.
There was no way to outrun the creature. For a moment the Empress was paralyzed with fear.
"Your Majesty!" Nurlan tackled Aurora to one side as the beast lunged at her.
Turning on its hind legs, the monster readied for another strike. But, a portal appeared beneath his feet and transported him a small distance from the humans. Above him, a smug fairy was looking down with his arms crossed.
"Don't mess with my friend!" Reyan ignored the pain using magic on the creature had caused as he stuck out his tongue at the crazed giant.
Enraged, the behemoth lifted onto his hind legs and clawed at the winged curmudgeon. Reyan barely had time to evade him. The bottom of his tunic tore from the creature's claws.
With a huff, Reyan sent sharp shards of long thin ice, a perk of being a winter fairy, down at the abominable. Aurora had never seen a fairy actively fight--they had only assisted the elves in Cafer's War-- and the sight of it was terrifying.
"Don't kill him!" the Empress reminded them!
Reyan rolled his eyes. "I know!"
Fifteen beautiful large columns of ice dug into the dirt in a circle around the Abominable. The creature raged against them, breaking one with his massive claw. It was quickly replaced with a matching tower.
Brinn, with Alvar's help, used wind magic to press the top of the icy columns into a cone and hold them there. At last, the creature was contained within a reinforced, icy cage. It was a solution, but not a permanent one. Eventually the ice would melt and the elves' magic would give way.
"You're up, Empress!" the elven princess coaxed her. "We could use some of that human ingenuity just now."
Aurora looked at Zan and Nurlan for ideas on a long term solution to contain the beast, but they seemed stumped as well.
"I have never wished so much to have my cloak, Your Majesty," the Guardian lamented.
"Empress Aurora!" the doctor came huffing toward them.
He had not wanted to use Reyan's portals like the Empress and General, so he had stayed behind to watch the battle from afar. Now he had caught up to them with a little ball of fur in his hands.
"She came back!" Phileas held up the kitsune.
Instead of the slightly rabid creature that had attacked them before, the fox now was calm as a house cat. The doctor stroked the little animal's soft fur.
"It's adorable, but it doesn't help our problem," Brinn gritted her teeth. A constant stream of wind this size was not something she did normally. It was draining.
Roaring unintelligibly at the doctor, the Abominable scraped his nails against the ice prison in a spray of snow.
Calmly, the kitsune leapt out of Phileas's hands and walked slowly toward the raging monster. The doctor was quick to scoop her back up again. "No, little lady! That is not safe!" he cooed at her. She wriggled against him in protest, but did not bite him. The fox seemed exhausted also.
Aurora shifted her gaze toward the Abominable. Ever since the doctor had arrived, the monster had his gaze trained solely on the physician. But what if it wasn't the physician at all that held his attention?
'The kitsune was trying to distract us to protect something. What if...' "Let the kitsune go," she told Phileas.
"But the monster will kill her if she gets too close!" the doctor objected, clutching the little fox tighter.
"Trust me," the Empress answered. Aurora hoped that she was right.
Putting down the kitsune, the doctor watched anxiously as the small white creature padded her way toward the icy cage. Passing though the wind barrier without flinching, she squeezed between two of the icy columns, ran up the Abominable's arm, and placed herself around his neck like a fluffy scarf.
Almost instantly, the monster stopped his raging and collapsed in a heap. His tirade was finished.
"The little fox was protecting...the monster?" Zan was amazed.
"It would seem so. I don't know why or how, but that little critter likes the Abominable enough to risk her life for him." Aurora brought her hand to her cheek. When she pulled it away, a red stain covered her fingers.
"Is it your blood?" Phileas was quickly at her side.
"I don't think so. Nurlan pushed me out of the way before I could be hit by the monster." Aurora's heart stopped.
It wasn't her blood. It was Nurlan's. Nurlan had been hit.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder