The Vixen Trials

A Gut-Wrenching Discovery

Dakkoul

He walked Malek to the gate to get him past the guard. It felt good to give his brother some of the freedom usually denied him. His brother. How had the word rooted so deeply in his heart? Especially when the twitch of Malek's lips when he'd asked for permission and the nervous way he'd scraped his foot had made it clear he wasn't going to some casual drinking party. Dakkoul hadn't even known he had friends in the city. Not friends that were free anyhow. Last time he'd suspected a girl but he'd been wrong.

His eyes followed Malek in his dash around the corner, so intent on speed he didn't notice something had fallen from his hand. He should go and pick that up for him.

"You're not supposed to leave," Poddit the guard stammered at him. Curse those new rules of his master.

"It's his orders. I'm to see where my slave goes." He glared at Poddit until he dropped his gaze. Poddit knew him too well to challenge him.

Dakkoul strode to spot where he'd seen something fall. Just his luck. It had stuck in some foul smelling brown ooze. He plucked it out and wiped it clean with the hem of his tunic. A well-deserved cleaning task for Malek when he slunk back home.

It was a scrap of parchment with a crude symbol of a cow drinking from a cup with nine o'clock written beside it. As Dakkoul stared at it a dim memory stirred. That ramshackle old alehouse called the Happy Cow. Didn't it have a picture like that on its door? The oddest people collected there. Mainly small-time thieves with a sprinkling of more dangerous types. Dakkoul started running towards it, a mixture of intense curiosity and foreboding urging him on.

Half-way there he stopped himself. Why was he going? Malek had the right to friends, didn't he? Only the Happy Cow didn't feel right as a destination for friends to meet. It was more like a place to scheme. That look Malek had before turned his head to go had not seemed right either. Would such relief be triggered by a casual catchup? Something was up, he was sure of it. The only question was what.

His feet started moving of their own accord. Brother or not, it was his job to investigate any potential threats to his master, to Keilah, and aside from that he wanted to understand this. A dozen thoughts started swirling in his head and his brain tried to synthesize them together. He remembered the mysterious tattoo on Malek's back, the way he was so reticent about his family, their weird 'not-a-man' customs and how he'd tried to push Dakkoul back to the Sheredith's lair, siding with Keilah whom he seemed to hate at times. How he clearly hated the Fox, yet he could transform his paws.

The crowd in front of him thickened and an old woman bumped into him then brought her lantern up into his face, the hint of a necklace of bones beneath her tunic. His gaze latched on to it and he remembered the proud warriors that surrounded the Sheradith and then he knew. It was like a wrenching thump to the stomach but he knew. Malek was Enderaii although strangely without the proper ear cuts.

The anger that followed sucked all his breath away. Malek must be the spy. He pushed the old woman aside and in his fury stumbled forward bumping into the worst possible person, the one he most wanted to avoid - his father.