Of Gods & Champions: Book I: Fate

XVI. The Fox In The Forest

ARGAS AND I RODE INTO A LARGE FOREST THAT BLOCKS the sun from our view, and casts large shadows onto our path. I pull the reins to slow our progress, and we fall back to a sort of leisurely pace.

It's been two days since my battle with the eagles, and unfortunately I was injured, a gash all down the side of my left arm. I dressed it and wrapped it with in the bandages I have with me, but too long without rest makes it ache terribly.

I grimace and grip my arm, before gritting my teeth and urging Argas on faster. I need to stop, and rebandage my wound, but not until I've covered more land first. I need to reach my next target within the next few days.

I don't know what I'll be facing this time. Those demonic eagles seemed easily enough taken care of, but one could have ripped off my arm, or worse, had things gone differently. If only that last one had stayed alive long enough to tell me where Wild was- my job would be so much easier.

I shudder as the image of the eagle sinking it's own razor sharp talon into it's heart creeps into my mind's eye. It is startling, the devotion that it had to Wild, that it would rather hasten it's death than remain alive and betray his master. I lift my shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. I suppose it's kind of sweet, if you can look at it from a different angle.

With a hiss, I yank the reins sharply to stop Argas, and I fall forward, grasping my arm. My dark tresses spill out of the tidy band and tangle with Argas's coarse, warm fur.

"Okay," I say, sliding off of his back, my hair falling into my eyes. "Maybe it's time we take a little rest."

Untying the bags on Argas's back and piling them over near a practically frozen bush, I lay down a thick pelt over the snow next to them. Argas pads over and curls up on the pelt, jaws on his paws.

I lift my rifle off my back and I lay it aside, along with my sword, and then I tighten my cloak and sit down next to Argas, leaning against him as I scoop up a handful of snow and press it to the outside of my bandages.

I sigh as the cold seeps through and the pains numbs wonderfully. I close my eyes and feel Argas's warm back move up and down as he breaths.

And that's when I hear a crackle, and a rustle as if someone is thrashing their way through the bushes, heading right in my direction.

I immediately reach for my rifle, seized with fear, but a figure bursts from the bushes before I can reach it and I have no choice but to draw the dagger from my boot and hurl it at it. The stranger dodges, and rushes at me, and air whooshes all around my head as I'm lifted into the air, and pressed against a tree trunk.

I open my squinched up eyes to find myself looking into the most hauntingly grey eyes I've ever seen. They stare back, unblinkingly.

"I'm pretty sure most humans would agree that it's bad manners to try to kill someone you don't know," says the owner of the grey eyes, and the voice is distinguishably male.

"Then why are you still holding me like this?" I say, finding that my tongue still works.

Grey Eyes laughs. "Well, I'm not human."

He gently steps back and releases me, and I drop to the ground, and glance up at him only to realize in shock that he's a fox. An actual, six foot tall, grey and blue fox. He stands on his hind legs, and has the general shape of a upright human, yet all of his features are that of a fox. The ears and head, snout and eyes, paws and a tail sticking out of a hole in the back of his simple brown pants. He's shirtless, however, and I can his muscles and abs under his rippling grey-blue fur.