The Vixen Trials

A False Chance

Dakkoul

He must have slept in his cell, because he was shaken awake and dragged outside the gate behind the Prince's palace. Keilah was there too, the Prince's arm around her shoulders.

The Prince spoke to her. "He lives, as you see."

A wan smile snaked across Keilah's face. The Prince let go of her and strode over to where the Hattavah tried to stand on his wobbly legs. "Go, make your way through the Forest of the Great Den, where the She-Fox roams and decides the fate of all who enters. If she allows you to pass through, you will arrive in Enderaii land. Get there and you are safe from my teeth. Come back into Wayvolkan territory and you die. Do you understand?"

​He tried to nod because it seemed expected but his head seemed to just drift from side to side.

​"He can't walk," Keilah protested. "I want to send one of my slaves with him. Pipsqueak."

​The Prince looked about to protest, but then he saw Pipsqueak and chuckled. "He's just a boy."

​The face of Pipsqueak loomed over his own, and he felt a tug at his arm. "Get up Hattavah. I'll help you."

​Leaning more on Pipsqueak than he'd ever thought possible, he staggered to his feet.

​"Go Hattavah and Pipsqueak," Keilah said, looking every bit the Queen with her circlet and her white fur dress and her arm caressing the Prince's shoulder. "And don't come back. Ever."

​Dakkoul tried to say everything that swelled in his heart, aware that he would never see her again, but all he could manage was, "My heart is hooked to yours too."

​For a second he though he saw joy in her eyes, but Prince's arm tightened on her arm and she turned to him instead. The Prince pushed her head towards his and began claiming her mouth with an authority he could not question.

Instead Dakkoul turned, with Pipsqueak helping him, and entered the cool dark green of the woods, until the trees enfolded them, and Pipsqueak lowered him down against a towering oak tree. "I need a break. Even if you don't. Lady Keilah said to say your daughter is back safe with her aunt and Tarryn is her nursemaid."
​
"That's good," Dakkoul said. Nothing else mattered. "You must leave me Pipsqueak. Go back to your village. Go back to your family. You heard Keilah, you are not to go back to her. You are free."

​"I'll help you to safety first," said Pipsqueak, with resolution.

​"This is the Forest of the Great Den, I stink of my blood and can hardly walk," Dakkoul said softly. "She'll come for me. The Prince knows it. He'll send for her. I don't want you to die too. I want you to live, and have the life I didn't get to have. Marry, have kids, three cows and a duck. I always wanted a speckled brown duck."

​"You think the She-Fox will really hunt you?" 

​"Of course. The Queen-Priestess desires my blood and here I am in her forest, all ready as her next meal."

​Pipsqueak kicked at an exposed tree root at his feet. "I'm not a boy, for all they say, but a man. I won't run from her and leave you alone. Keilah gave me some bandages. Let me at least stop the bleeding where I can."

​Pipsqueak worked with his usual matter-of-fact efficiency, whistling as he worked until Dakkoul said, "On the platform, when I thought I was going to die, I prayed to Jagur's God, your God."

​"Did you?" Pipsqueak applied something that stung to Dakkoul's wrists.

​"And I felt him," Dakkoul said. "He's real. The Fox is real too, but dark. Jagur's God is different. Do you think I'm crazy? That I've just been hit in the head way too many times?"