It was cold. The winter winds wailed across the ivory landscape, howling the dirge of a lost soul as they tore at the forms of two cloaked travelers struggling against the gale-force currents of frigid air. Both figures stumbled panting into a sheltered copse of pines and evergreens, the natural canopy spreading a blanket of lightly snow-dusted pine needles underpaw. One of the wanderers, the taller of the two, shed its forest green cloak, revealing himself to be a muscular fox with a russet pelt so dark at points it was nearly black. Helping his mate remove her cloak, he smiled slightly as she looked up at him with golden hazel eyes, but the expression darkened faintly as a sound reached his alert ears.
A shrill whimpering wound its way into the frozen air, joined a moment later by the keening wail of a second tiny voice.
"Zhira. Keep them quiet," he snapped, voice brusque. Then his tone softened, concern creeping into his naturally rough voice. "They might still be followin' us."
The vixen nodded wordlessly, glancing down to her breast where two young fox kits were nestled in her strong arms. One, a male, was black as night and the other, a she-pup, white as new-fallen snow.
"Hush, shh. Hush noo." She crooned quietly, hard voice of a seasoned mercenary softened by mother-love. Both their voices held a slight, but discernible, Northern brogue. The kits peered up at her, their cries silenced by the soothing familiarity of their mother's voice, then both curled up against each other and drifted off to sleep. The she-fox smiled, the hard lines of her face softening for an instant. Her kits were miracles: rarest of the rare, throwbacks of her far Northern ancestors and her mate's from across the Western Sea.
"It's time we all settled down, Varial. But I'll keep watch this time. Ye've done enough fer us." The quiet insistence in her tone gave him no choice. He merely nodded and settled quickly into a ball, both kits sleeping soundly in the curve of his warm body. And the vixen kept watch.
Midnight passed the copse without incident, and the blizzard had long since ended, leaving a tense quiet in its place. In the silence of the night, a twig snapped somewhere in the shadows and the vixen sprang to attention, every muscle in her body quivering. The moonlight lit her ginger pelt with an eerie blue sheen as she stood attentively. A quiet whir reached her ears and the vixen's paws twitched, sending her twisting away like a leaf on an autumn breeze.
Thunk!
A dagger landed with a dull thud, up to its hilt in the pine-wood, where the vixen's head had rested a moment before. Wrenching the dagger from the trunk, the fox slipped soundlessly into the dark, creeping like a shadow, the dagger in paw. Sharp eyes caught sight of two hunched figures and the dagger zipped from her paw like lightning, burying itself into the back of a ferret's neck and he slumped to the ground noiselessly. The second beast turned, his coarse vermin accent reaching her ears, "Slipp. Hoy, mud-brain - Wot'd I tell yer bout sleepin' while we're supposed ter be watchin' for them foxes! Git up or Blacktooth'll give yer dirty hide a – " his words caught in his throat. Looking his fallen companion over, he swore, then straightened and blew a bone whistle about his neck that gave out a call like a nightbird. The vixen stood stock still in the shadows. Five other vermin joined him and he nodded and pointed a paw towards the darkness in which she stood. She knew they had found her and cursed mentally, turning and darting away while she had the chance.
Determination sparkled in her eyes as she stole to her mate's side and woke him. He sat up without a sound, assassin to the core, half of the crack killing machine that was he and his mate. The big dog fox was long accustomed to being woken at the blackest of hours for the blackest of work.
"They're here, Varial." No emotion in her voice, simply cold fact. It was their way.
His sky blue eyes flickered to her hazel ones and saw something her beautiful pools he had never seen before. Fear. He stood quickly, all thoughts of sleep shaken from him. A curved scimitar with a hilt of ivory-ornamented black wood sprang to his big paw with the hiss of cold steel as the caped vermin advance on the pair. Beside him, his mate drew a shining dirk, pearls set in its polished oak wood handle. Motherhood had not affected her slim, muscular form.
"The kits come first, Zhira, m'love." He murmured and though she said no word in reply, the fire in her eyes told him she had heard and that she loved him too. The six soldiers surrounded the two foxes and for a moment the tension hung palpably in the chill air, the female hanging back to protect her kits. Then with the scream of steel on steel, they clashed. The dog-fox became a thunderbolt of mahogany fire: dropping the first attacker before he could move to parry and drawing the blade from its newly slain sheath of vermin flesh. He turned, a growl rumbling low in his throat as the remaining five surrounded him. His blade whirled; a wind-milling blur of death, but the numbers proved too much. The dog fox fell, a deadly fighter to the last, fangs locked forever on the throat of a futilely struggling rat.
A cry of pain at the sight of her fallen mate drew the attention of the four vermin to the vixen. Sinking to a fighter's crouch, blade glittering in the moonlight, the vixen's hackles raised in a snarl. There was death in her eyes as she prepared to defend her kits with her life. Four: a ferret, a pine marten, a rat, and a stoat advanced upon her, daggers and knives in paw.
"Come t' me, ye murderers…" she hissed under her breath, cold fury in her voice as they charged. The stoat was the first to die, staring in disbelief at the hilt of the dirk protruding from his gut before the vixen flung him away, bowling over two of his companions with the carcass. The ferret and the rat launched themselves at her and the trio began to brawl fiercely, weapons knocked from paws as they rolled about on the blood-soaked snow. Though the two attackers had her outnumbered, mother love again worked miracles on the wily vixen It made her a chestnut fireball who clawed at them viciously, tore at their flesh with pearl fangs, bruised them with wild blows until she managed, serendipitously to grasp her fallen dagger. A ragged voice cuts the fray, desperate. It was the ferret's.
"Hellsteeth, Red, she's a madbeast! Let 'er 'ave it. Now, damn the Fates, Redscore, now!"
The twang of a bowstring was heard, and the vixen gasped, stumbled, staring speechless for a moment at the black feathered arrow jutting from her chest. Throwing a desperate glance back towards her kits, her face became a mask of raging ferocity.
"Do not…touch them!" she snarled, leaping with an unearthly last reserve strength at the rat, who gave a despairing shriek as her dirk slashed wide his throat, silencing him forever. As she struggled to stand, crimson blood spurting from her breast, there came another twang and a second feathered deaths-head buried itself in her back, then another in her side. Blood staining her chestnut fur dark, she stumbled two paces towards the ferret, then collapsed, blood pouring from her wounds, dirk clenched in her paw, and savagery imprinted upon every line of her dangerously beautiful face as her hazel eyes misted and closed for eternity.
The pine marten stepped gingerly over the body of the slain vixen, pacing forward quickly towards his one remaining compatriot as if wary that the vixen might, even in death, spring at him.
"Cor! That 'un was mad." Stated the bruised and bleeding ferret with a shudder. "Why'd ya wait so long? I coulda died, Red!" he demanded, an indignant tone in his whining voice.
Redscore did not answer, cold gray eyes searching the snow.
"Let's get what we came for, Bloodwort." The marten said shortly, eyes settling on a moving spot of black on the stark white of the winter landscape nearby. "Varial's son."
"Wot was that crazy vix screamin' 'bout? 'Don't touch them.'" Queried Bloodwort. "There's only one. There only ever woz one." He bent to grab the toddling black kit roughly by the scruff of his neck and yelped in pain. "Blighter bit me!" he said, outraged, aiming a kick at the pup.
"Bloodwort!" barked the pine marten and the ferret shrank back. Red approached the kit, bent down and spoke to him. "You want to be a fighter like your father." He said, making it clear that it was not a question. "Then you'll come without a fight." He reached down and hefted the black fox cub by the scruff of his neck and this time the only protests were muted growls. Redscore grunted in satisfaction before tying the wee one's paws and plopping him unceremoniously in a woven basket held by Bloodwort. He bent to unbuckle the black leather sword belt from the slain dog fox and retrieved the magnificent scimitar from the snow, wiping the blood from the blade before wedding it to the scabbard. Then the two caped vermin melted into the silence of the night, carrying the black fox tod with them, while the forgotten white she-kit lay huddled in the snow.