“What a fierce one you are. Are you hungry?” I asked. It scooted forward, revealing more of its little body and beautiful white fur. In answer to my question, it sunk its teeth into the tip of my finger, gnawing as ferociously as it could. “Where’s your mama?” I let it nibble while I looked around the clearing at the base of the ravine for clues.
The feisty pup kept chewing on my finger until I retracted it. I stood up, feeling uneasy. A mama wouldn’t leave her pup on its own like this. The kit moved to the edge of its den, following me without quite leaving its home. Its squeaking yips punctuated the quiet.
“Is it by itself?” Oliver asked from overhead.
“As far as I can tell,” I called back. “It’s just a little thing.”
“That’s too bad,” he sighed. “It shouldn’t have to suffer in this godforsaken place.”
I agreed. Beside a tall patch of winding roots, blood dotted the bark, growing thicker the farther from the den I walked. Finally, I found the carnage.
The mother had been torn to pieces by something bigger and meaner. Next to the mother’s broken body lay another foxling, this one with rich red fur that almost absorbed the dried blood coating its hide. A few feet away was the mangled remains of a larger fox.
Gutted.
Drenched in blood.
“Dragon’s blood,” I whispered. The pup had lost its entire family.
I looked back at its green eyes watching me from the edge of that root and felt my chest split open with pity.
“The mother and father are dead,” I called up to Oliver. “And a sibling.”
“Then he’s lucky to be alive. Although he won’t stay like that for long.”
A pang pierced my chest.
“Tessana, we should go while we have the light. We need to find our way out of this hell.”
He was right about that too.
I leaned down and scooped the pup up. “He is apparently a she.”
I dropped the baby girl into my satchel and began the climb to the top of the ravine while she yelped and clawed at the leather. My mud-caked boots slid on the slippery leaves, kicking up dirt and twigs. When at last I surfaced and faced Oliver, he looked pristine compared to me.
Since it had been an equal amount of time since either of us had bathed, I could rightfully complain that it was unfair.
He pulled a twig from the savage strands of my hair. “How will you take care of her? She won’t survive with us, either. At least if you left her, you wouldn’t have to watch her suffer.”
Her.
I lifted my chin and knew I would find a way. “She lost her family, Oliver. She has no one.” Reaching back into my pouch, I pulled her free. Terror made her little claws seize my hand and she clung to me as if her life depended upon it.
I held her up for Oliver to inspect. “She’s terrified. We can’t abandon her.”
He leaned in and his voice dropped low. “Look at those green eyes. She is something special.”
“Isn’t she?”
He laughed as she started to nibble on his outstretched finger. “We need to find her something to eat. The poor thing’s starved. But I can’t tell you where in this bloody nightmare we’ll find milk for the little beastie.”
“Shiksa,” I whispered. He lifted a questioning brow. “That’s her name. Shiksa.”
“That’s a pagan word.” The admonishment rang clear in his voice.
“It means ‘little warrior.’ My mother used to call my brothers and me that whenever we fought.”
“Your mother was pagan?” Oliver stood straight and took a step back as if I would infect him with the memory of my mother’s religion.
“No,” I answered. “She wasn’t pagan. But she knew the language. She didn’t despise it as most do today. She saw value in the tradition.”
“It’s dangerous to use a pagan word, Tessana.”
I waved him off. “And who but you will hear me speak to a foxling?”
He had no response.
I tucked Shiksa back into my pouch where she whined and mewled. “We’ll find you something to eat soon, little warrior,” I whispered to her. To Oliver, I said, “Let’s be off, before we lose the light.”
Oliver glared, but led us back in the direction we’d come from.
We couldn’t find a single one of our markers. Oliver pulled the inaccurate map from his bag, but it was impossible to tell which direction we needed to go. Had we run toward the north from the south? Or had we started south and run west?
We wandered around for the better part of the morning. Shiksa whined and howled until we found mushabooms to feed her. The pillowy root was soft enough for her to tear apart with those tiny teeth. We only found three of them, and she wasn’t quite satisfied when she finished, but she quieted down, licking her chops with her pink tongue.
If only we had been that lucky. By the time the sun reached its highest point over the canopy of leaves, my stomach growled angrily and my legs dragged over the roots.
“Is there anything left to eat?” I panted as we turned in yet another circle. We thought the road was west, but walking that direction had not proven productive.
“No,” Oliver groaned. “Well, a little. But we better save it for this evening.”
“We should have found the road by now.” I ran fingers through my matted hair, braiding the wild strands into submission.
“This isn’t a forest,” Oliver added. “But an impossible labyrinth into Denamon.”
I would have rolled my eyes if I’d had enough energy. “Just a little further,” I encouraged. “We’ll find it eventually. Something is this direction. It can’t be all trees until the end of the world.”
