Dakkoul
He told his legs to move forward and they did, plunging into the ice-cold water that soaked through to his skin as the She-Fox came to the edge of the clearing and raised her snout in a lingering howl. Four large foxes bounded up behind her, joining in her eerie song, that abruptly finished as she advanced.
"He's mine," he heard her snarl as his heart thundered. It was too late for Flaming now. He had not been forceful enough in ordering him away. Now one of the five would get him, for sure. The stream couldn't save them. Nothing could.
"Help us, Christ," Flaming screamed.
The She-Fox halted to give a yowl that sounded remarkably like a laugh. "He can't save you. No one can." She whined, and pawed the ground, "I thirst for your blood, Hattavah."
"You can have me, my Queen, I won't fight you. Only let the boy go."
"My friends are hungry, Hattavah. I'll not deny them a snack" and she jumped at him, paws first, her sharp long claws aiming for his face. He moved with as much haste as he could muster, backwards. The She-Fox hit the stream instead, skidding on the smooth rocks beneath her paws before springing back up, shaking her wet fur with her jaws open showing her pointed teeth.
In front of him now, somehow, stood Flaming. "Stop it, Fox-witch," Flaming commanded. "In the name of the Christ, all of you, come no further."
All of the large white foxes gathered by the edge of stream, but they stayed there, still and watching.
"Not you perhaps, but the Hattavah is mine, by blood right," the She-Fox snarled. "He came to me willingly and pledged to serve me always. Is this not true, Hattavah?" She came and nuzzled him, so that the hair all over his body pricked up. He tensed himself, for one final last struggle. He'd fight as long as he could, so that Phil-Aemon could escape. She finished sniffing and raised her head.
"No longer," Dakkoul got out weakly, "I am of you no longer. I choose Jagur's god, the Christ, instead."
The She-Fox let out a scream of rage, raising her forepaws upwards him and he rammed her as hard as he could, with every bit of strength he had left. With his weight pushing against her, she scrabbled to keep her place on the rocks and slipped and fell, leaping up with wet fur, snarling, jumping towards him, but miscalculating somehow, so that she missed and fell instead. In desperation he ran towards her, thrusting her snout down into the icy water. She thrashed against him. At first it took all he had to hold her, but her movements grew weaker and weaker. She was drowning, he thought triumphantly, when he felt a voice say, "Do not kill".
A rushing came in his chest, a pounding in his ears, and he found his hands releasing her in obedience. She flung out from beneath him, running to stand panting underneath an old oak tree. He only had a short time before she came for him. Why would the voice - God? - tell him to let her go. It made no sense.
The She-Fox lifted her head and jumped in his direction, when three other foxes sprang from behind the thicket of starberries and attacked her. He watched stunned as they ripped into her until she stopped twitching. The air above her shimmered as her form shrunk down to that of a fine-boned old lady, grey hair bunched behind her. He took a second look. It was not the Queen-Priestess. The other foxes then turned their dripping snouts in his direction. This was it then.
Something strange and unfamiliar possessed him. A calm. An unearthly calm as the lead fox, smaller than the others, with a ringed snout padded towards him, stopping before the stream. With a quick shudder it transformed back to human form. The Prince stood before him.
"Forget how to kill, Hattavah?" the Prince sneered. "Why did you draw back your fist? I'd hoped you'd do me at least one favor. Or were you too weak to hold her."
"The Christ told me not to," he said, stammering as he hastily bowed.
"The Christ? Since when do you follow him?"
"Since on the platform," Dakkoul replied, caught suddenly by the wonder of it all. "When you commanded your justice. I prayed and nothing has been the same since. The Christ is real."
"Just as the Fox is real," the Prince countered. "If the gods were not real, who would serve them? There's no benefit in a god who can not confer power."
"It's different though," said Dakkoul not arrogantly but as one trying to express what he dimly felt. "The Fox wanted me always to hurt people, to hurt myself. This new God feels different, like he cares about me. I don't feel dead inside anymore."
The Prince looked at him, as if considering his words, but then he said, "It is breeding time, and she refuses to come to my bed. I blame you Hattavah. She misses your scent beside her."
"No," he said, too astounded at the accusation to say anything else.
"It must be your fault," the Prince persisted. "The Queen-Priestess agrees. Never has there been a vixen, Fox-chosen, Fox-blessed, who refuses to join with her mate, who holds back from the Great-Fox."
Joy pierced his heart at those words, but he said, "I'm not the reason. Keilah does not want to give herself to any god. She wants to live her own life, the way she pleases. If she refuses to mate with you, it is because she waits for the joining. It will happen soon enough."
"Waits for the joining?" the Prince spat back. "Why? She is marked as mine."
"Village values. She looks like a Wayvolkan lady, but she does not think as one."
"You and her in that House all that time, her heart hooked to yours, and you never mated? I don't believe you."
"It's true. She never once requested my presence, never looked for me, never asked for my company". In spite of himself, his voice cracked at the words.
The Prince's shoulders eased downwards. "She said the same, but I did not believe her. It matters not. The Queen-Priestess has given her verdict, and I am her humble servant."
The chill from the stream and from the look in the Prince's eyes raced up his spine. Dakkoul tried to hold onto the calm he'd felt before but it was slipping away. "I've sworn fealty to you. I can't fight you."
The Prince did not meet his eyes. "Out of the stream, Hattavah." The other foxes behind him, threw their heads back and howled.
Dakkoul stepped back on the opposing bank, buying himself a little extra time. Should he just accept his death? Was that the right thing to do? He sighed. Probably yes.
"That was not the direction I meant," said the Prince, "Come and kneel before me Hattavah".
He could run but how far would he get in his condition? The foxes behind the Prince pawed at the ground, eager to give chase.
Dakkoul shrugged before wading back before the Prince and kneeling. He did not have to wait long. A cool sharp blade pricked his shoulder then dug in. "I won't die from that."
"No," said the Prince, putting the blade in the other shoulder. "Just drawing out your blood".
Dakkoul knew then how he would die. Hunted and eaten by a Fox.
"Your wrists now Hattavah."
Dakkoul held them out to the Prince who took them and hissed, "What magic is this?"
In surprise, he raised his head, and saw his wrists were now soft and smooth, like his daughter's.
"There were scars here," the Prince breathed. "My mother added to them herself. Where are they? How can they be gone?". He pushed them away from him and stood back. "There's enough blood flowing from your shoulders now for my purposes." A curious mixture of fear and wonder sat on his face. "How Hattavah? I've scars myself I'd like removed."
"Nothing I did," Dakkoul declared. "It must have been the Christ". He ran his hands up and down his wrists, marveling at their smoothness, at how natural and normal they seemed. Yet why would the Christ bother if he was going to die? Did it mean there was a chance he would live?
"Your Christ," said the Prince with a strange look on his face. "He's a weak god. You don't fight better for following him and there's no transformation, but he heals. Is that what he offers?"
"I guess so," Dakkoul said, as a huge smile broke out over his face, a smile that brought with it a laugh, so pure and free it seemed to ripple in the air, filling the glade.
A large fox beside the Prince growled.
Dakkoul hastened to add, "That's not the best part though, Prince, it's what he's done inside me. The darkness is gone."
"Gone?" the Prince said, with a twisted smile. "The darkness is what drives us to conquer, to excel, to win. I need the strength of the violence to rule. Goodbye Hattavah." The Prince abruptly backed off.
"Wait," Dakkoul demanded. "Who comes for me?" and in asking the question, he knew and horror raced through him. "No. Don't do this to her. Kill me yourself if you must, but she'll hate herself if she does this."
"It won't really be her fault," the Prince said, still backing away. "She's only a new vixen. She can't control her fox. That's what will kill you, not her. She can't resist the call of the blood."
Dakkoul tried frantically to stop the blood flowing from his shoulders, ripping his shirt to try to make a rough bandage, but Fox Keilah stood at the glade, her bi-coloured eyes glowing as she sniffed the air, her bluish-grey fur seeming to shine in the fading light. He ran to the stream hoping to have enough time to wash the scent away but her paws crashed him to the ground. Only the tip of his head dipped into the water.
He gripped her neck and pulled her ear to his. "Keilah," he shouted in his anxiety, then he lowered his voice to a croon, "Keilah it's me, Dakkoul, don't kill me".
The fox went still in his hands. "It's Dakkoul," he said again, then the Fox wrenched herself free and pinned him to the ground with her enormous paw. She had grown since the Vixen-Trials, he was sure of it. She now seemed the size of the Priestess herself. An eager tongue licked at his blood, savoring it. What could he do? She now had her blood in him. Nothing came to mind, except the song, that they had once sung together:
"He died that we might live," he got out, shakily, then concentrated on singly as tunefully as possible, trying to remember the melody. Even his ears could tell he was failing. The tongue went to his right shoulder, but when the blood stopped flowing, he knew she would bite for more. It was the way of the Fox.
He sang now with all the rest of his strength, trying as hard as he ever had not to squeak, to match the tune. "You we praise. Creator of all. You we serve. The God of all, and your son. Your only son. You're the God who came for us, the God who bled for us, the God who died for us. You we praise.
The Fox stopped licking.
"It's me, Dakkoul," he pleaded. "You are Keilah. Our hearts are hooked to each other."