"I offer you all my blood"

Dakkoul

It was odd to eat without Malek hovering around. From his isolated table, Dakkoul watched the dining room hum with merriment. In the far corners of the room the soldiers banged their tables and shouted as they played Strike.

In front of him a crowd of slaves cheered Pipsqueak as he sang a ridiculous song about a rat in love with a widow and his offerings of rubbish to woo her.

Dakkoul's appetite soured. Why was Lord Rustavan keeping Malek so long? Unpleasant possibilities flicked through his mind until he picked up his untouched slab of cheese bread and stood up. It was time to find out.

He tapped on the Lord Rustavan's door in the rhythm that demanded Coleus.

Coleus inched the door open then crept out, swinging the door mostly shut behind him. "What do you want?" he muttered through swollen lips, his scar even uglier now the skin around it glowed red.

"Malek." Dakkoul held the bread up to his nose and sniffed it.

Coleus's eyes riveted to the food. "Gone. A long time ago."

Dakkoul frowned. Where could Malek be? Some romance perhaps? But he'd always been annoyingly dogged about fulfilling his duties before. He put the bread to his lips.

Coleus's mouth opened and his tongue ran back and forth across the bottom of his teeth. "I'll tell you anything you want just give me that."

"Where is he?"

Desperation tinged Coleus's voice as he leaned forward. "He beat me up on Lord Rustavan's orders, then they dined together. He hardly ate anything. Looked sick or something. That's all I know, I swear it."

Dakkoul put a corner of the bread in his mouth.

"There's something else you might want to know." The words rushed from Coleus. "Malek never says anything to get you in trouble."

"Really?"

A spot of drool appeared at the corner of Coleus's mouth as he recounted every conversation he could ever remember between Lord Rustavan and Malek.

The darkness inside Dakkoul lifted. Malek hadn't lied. He could be trusted. He was worthy of their father. Noble even. He recalled how a desperate, panting Malek had shielded Pipsqueak from the enormous She-Fox who sprang at them in the Fox Dance, her ferocious teeth just missing his arm and the clever blur of movement that somehow got Malek underneath her belly. Despite having no weapon, although he must have had one concealed somehow, he had been able to wound the She-Fox so badly she'd collapsed. Pipsqueak and two of the other slaves had lived, unheard of for a Fox-dance, and Malek had won the title of Fox-dancer. He was a son of whom their father would be proud. His father deserved a son like him.

Dakkoul tossed Coleus the bread and turned away so that he only heard the sound of rapid eating behind him as he left. Now to find Malek.

After searching everywhere else, he headed lamp in hand for the graying woods. No romantic sounds could be heard. Perhaps he was lying injured somewhere after a fight with a soldier.

Dakkoul got further and further from the house even as he doubted Malek could have wandered so far. It seemed more likely the soldiers had hidden him in the barracks for a joke. He was about to turn back when an eerie scream ripped through dusk then abruptly stopped.

He ran in the scream's direction and saw a figure pinned down by snap-leaves, writhing on the inner side of the outer wall. Dakkoul set down his lamp and unsheathed his sword, conscious of a cold satisfaction. He'd caught another runaway. That would prove his faithfulness to Lord Rustavan. Maybe he'd even get Tallie back.

The body was so swathed in the dark green sticky leaves he could not recognize them, but already their movements were slowing. Runaways who tried the wall usually did so for the quick death that defied the Fox. The Priestess couldn't use poisoned blood.

Dakkouk darted in and hacked at the tendrils holding the body then dashed out when the vine tried to snare him. He struck again and again freeing the legs and then the arms in a dangerous dance until the body slid to the ground. The vine rose in the air with all the anger of an offended cat's tail and lashed out at him. With a deft twist to the side, he escaped and got to the unmoving, anonymous figure. All that was visible was one tattered, hole-ridden boot. Malek wore boots like that.

With a pounding heart Dakkoul yanked the body from the wall until they were far enough away for him to try to rip back the leaf covering the face. It would not shift. His trembling hands instead found the hereditary bump at the back of the head. It was Malek, his breathing so faint he could scarcely hear it.

Dakkoul shook him and ordered him to speak but he remained silent. What to do? What could he do? The horrible truth roiled his stomach. Nothing. Except take him to Lord Rustavan.

"I'm sorry brother," he said as he began carrying him away from the wall as gently but as quickly as he could. "This is the only way." Only the healers of their house knew how to treat snap-leaf. Malek would need their antidote for the poison if he had any chance at all of living. Yet an overwhelming sense of wrongness filled his chest, even as he dragged Malek around a huge tree root toward the house. He would be ordered to torture Malek and he'd have to do it. Even the thought made him want to cut his wrists. Tarryn would tell him to pray but the She-Fox wouldn't stoop to answer a sleck like him not until he was transformed in the afterlife.

A prayer swelled out of him anyway. "Help me save him."

A warm, strange presence came over him and settled in his heart, something other and good. He wanted to shrink from it but for the sake of Malek he spoke, "Please. I'll do anything you want."

A sudden fear caught him. What if his blood was required now? He hastened to add a condition: "Let Malek live. I'll send him to my father, get Tallie to safety and then you can have me." He sank to his knees. "My life for his. I offer you all my blood." A wind freshened his cheeks. The clearing seemed to get lighter. The presence wrapped around him in something like a hug before vanishing.

Dakkoul leaned over Malek's face eagerly but it was still corpse-like. A cry of despair ripped from his lips. No god or presence or anything cared to do deals with such as him. That was for better people like Tarryn. With no other plan he kept dragging Malek towards the house.

"Hattavah."

Dakkoul jerked around. Jalen stood holding a flaming torch a few feet away, his face older and sterner in the shadows cast from his flaming torch.

"What do you want?" Dakkoul growled.

Jalen came closer and Dakkoul held Malek tighter although the heavy weight of him was causing his arms to ache.

"Lady Keilah has a message for you."

Any other time, he would have been pleasurably surprised, but now with Malek dying all he felt was impatience. "Yes?"

"She wants you to know she's going to rent you from Lord Rustavan and demand to see you in your room."

His head jerked up. "My room?"

"She feels like that will be more private."

"She can if she wants." He spat on the ground, conscious of a piercing sense of disappointment. "She's become like every other Wayvolkan Lady then. Tell her I've no wooden bed just a single pallet on the floor."

Jalen cleared his throat. "I don't think she'll care about that. She plans to conduct a Remembering for her mother. She wants you to speak."

The disappointment vanished replaced by regret. Of course Keilah wasn't interested in him as a man with men like Jagur and the Prince around. He gave Jalen a curt nod, dismissing him but Jalen asked, "Dead?"

"Not yet," Dakkoul said tersely, placing Malek on the ground. "You could help me carry him."

"To be punished? I don't want any part of that."

Dakkoul hardened his voice. "You know I have to bring him in. Anyone who runs away has rejected the way of the Fox."

"He'll die," Jalen protested. "I know you don't like him following you around, but do you really want to be the one who kills him?"

The truth cut his heart like a blade. Lord Rustavan would be furious about this betrayal by his current favorite. Dakkoul would be restored as the Hattavah but at the cost of torturing Malek. Lord Rustavan would not be easily appeased. Jalen's prediction of death was the likely outcome. A half-sob leaked from his mouth.

Jalen squinted at him. "Isn't it your job to punish him if you're his master? Why involve Lord Rustavan?"

Dakkoul's breath caught. That was true. He wouldn't get Tallie back but perhaps Malek would live. Cold reason squashed the glimmer of hope. "I have to take him to one of the healers past the eyes of everyone. They'll see the snap-leaves still stuck to him. They'll know he tried to run away and someone will tell. Help me carry him. That's an order."

Jalen sighed, stuck his torch in the ground and lifted up Malek's legs. They started to move together in the direction of the house.

"Let me treat him."

Dakkoul almost dropped Malek. "You?"

"I learned how when Rick got bit. We could put Malek in the hut for visitors; tie red string on the door to keep out intruders."

"And Keilah?"

"I'm off till evening tomorrow."

Hope thrummed through Dakkoul. It could work. If they were careful.

"Alright," he found himself agreeing. Lord Rustavan would be more than furious if he ever found out, but if they succeeded in keeping it secret, maybe just maybe his brother would live.

Now it is time for a lighter chapter. Keilah's point of view is up next. Thank you for reading so far.