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The wooden staff cut through the air so close to my head that I felt it disturb my russet fur as I twisted out of the way and struck back with my own. My training master, a red fox like myself, saw the counterattack coming and knocked my staff aside with the other end of his. With the same motion he stabbed at my leg with the blunt end, forcing me to jump backwards and away.

We circled each other around the bonfire at the center of our tribe's home, side stepping slowly. All of our tribe was around us, sitting on the ground in a wide ring after having finished the evening meal. Tonight my training would serve as their entertainment. Aside from a few murmured whispers, the only sound over the crackling fire was the beating of a single drum that had set the tempo of our fight thus far.

The fire's light was bolstered by the twin moons and the vast blanket of stars that gleamed in the blackness above. The dancing flames gleamed in Áedh's eyes brightly, revealing his perfect and impassive focus on my every move. He was the oldest warrior I knew, older even than my father, our tribe's chief. I had heard it said once that Áedh had seen over fifty summers, compared to my near twenty.

Despite this, lean muscle rippled under the older fox's fur and he moved with a practiced grace. His russet fur seemed to have faded slightly, and the black fur on his arms and legs was tinged with gray. A great cleft had long ago been taken from one of his ears standing at attention. Slivers of white cut through the red fur over his arms and even his face where he had been injured in battles long before I was even born, and the fur had grown devoid of color over the scars. Like I, he wore only a simple linen loincloth.

I leapt at the older fox, feinting a swing at his left arm that turned into a jab aimed at his knee. He deflected it, but I quickly brought the other end of my quarterstaff careening in for a smashing blow at his head. He was just able to get his head out of the way, his shoulder taking the impact instead with a grunt. He gripped his own quarterstaff by its lower third, swinging it in a wide arc to gain himself space as I rolled out of the way.

More drums had joined in, their beat quickening as the fight grew faster and more intense. My heart pounded in my chest with matching exhilaration as I rolled to my feet and immediately closed the distance with my training master again. He backed up as I made another lunge with my staff, first a sweep at his feet quickly followed by a powerful overhand swing at his head. He snapped up his paws to catch the blow with the middle of his staff, and he grimaced as his arms absorbed the shock.

“Getting too old, Master Áedh?" I quipped at him with a wide grin. At the same time I levered all of my strength down on his staff.

He scowled as his arms quivered under the strain and his staff bowed slightly in the middle. “Age has given me what you haven't, Cáel," he said. He twisted away, letting my staff fall to the side. I immediately used the moment for a swing at his legs but Áedh was already rolling away through the dirt and ash beside the fire, sending embers swirling through the air. I gave him no time to collect himself as he rolled to his feet, setting on him again with more jabs and swings.

The rhythmic banging of sticks and bones added to the drums in a frenetic cacophony that matched my incessant attack. I could see that Áedh was tiring, slowing; perhaps his age was catching up with him. I swung at him with a thrill as my heart pounded. I had never bested my father's second yet, but it seemed that my chance was at hand.

Again Áedh was forced to roll away. He popped back up, gray with dirt and soot, and growling with frustration. He raised his staff for a counterattack but I was already on him before he could strike. I battered him with all the ferocity I could muster, counting on the strength of my youth to wear him down. All the while I was mindful of being lured into any traps, watching for the counterattack that would surely come.

Yet it seemed like it was all Áedh could do to avoid my attacks by dodging and rolling away while I pursued him around the big fire. Even then I managed to land some lighter blows on his arms and legs as the older fox grew fatigued. The members of our tribe leaned in with interest, apparently wondering if they were witnessing the ignominious end to Áedh's fighting days. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been thinking the same thing as I knocked him to the ground for the third time. Murmurs began to flow through the crowd.

Áedh pushed himself back to his feet again grimly, his fur now seeming more gray with dust than red, and heaving for breath. I pursued him with conflicted feelings as he backed up, stepping closer and closer to the crowd circled around. I paused as he stopped with his back to one of our tribe's tall ceramic jugs of drinking water. I hadn't wanted it to go like this. Áedh was the greatest warrior I'd ever known, and had dreamed of besting him in a fair fight one day since I was a cub. Now I felt like I was beating and old man.

“Come on then, Cáel," Áedh said grimly, gripping his quarterstaff and dropping into a ready stance. “I'm not getting any younger."

I leapt at him with a wild slashing swing, determined to batter through whatever final defense my training master might offer. Instead of my quarterstaff finding his, the older fox put on a burst of speed and dodged away again. Instead my staff collided with the neck of the tall jug that had been behind him. With its narrow base and the force of my swing I sent it clattering over, and a huge splash of water crashed onto the bonfire in the center of camp. The flames guttered under the spray, and then more water glugged out in a rush. With the base of the fire flooded, the flames died in a massive spout of steam.

Instantly the camp was plunged into darkness, save for a sparse number of torches that burned towards the perimeter. I was blinking away the smoke and steam that assaulted my eyes when I was suddenly hit hard twice in the shoulder and my opposite leg. With a grunt I leapt back, nearly stumbling in the dark with surprise.

Motion in the darkness caught my eyes, the spinning of a quarterstaff before disappearing again. Áedh was a murky smudge in the shadows advancing towards me, the dirt in his fur concealing him from the remaining dim light.

The drummers started again after their momentary surprise. Their rhythm shifted, slowing yet intensifying. My heart beat faster and my fur even prickled with a tinge of fear as I realized my mistake in discounting my master. I backpedaled instinctively as I and everyone around us suddenly felt the shift in the fight. The murmuring had stopped and the crowd had gone dead silent now other than the beating of the drums and sticks and bones as Áedh advanced on me.

My eyes struggled to adjust and were streaming from the hot steam and smoke still billowing from the fire. The quick thrusts that Áedh made at my chest were practically invisible, and I grunted with pain as the end of his staff connected with my ribs. I shifted my grip to the end of my staff to lengthen my reach and buy my eyes time to adjust to the dim light. But Áedh only beat the staff away and lunged in for more quick blows at my arms and legs.

I regretted my foolishness in expending so much of my energy earlier in the fight as my limbs sagged from the exertion. Áedh had been husbanding his strength, even if he had less of it in his age than my youth. I was panting for breath, and I didn't have the speed I needed to avoid Áedh's staff in the dark.

I yelped as an enormous blow connected with my paw, almost with enough force to break it, forcing my staff from my hand. Somewhere in the dark Áedh grabbed the other end and pulled violently. Still gripping with my other paw and caught by surprise I was spun around and thrown off balance. Suddenly the older fox's lean body smashed into mine from behind as the world spun, and I was knocked forward.

I grunted as the air was knocked from my lungs from the impact of smashing face down into the dirt with Áedh on top of me. With alarm I realized he had gotten his staff over my head and pressed to my throat. He sat on my back, pinning me to the dirt, and it was impossible for my arms to reach him. With a knee to the back of my head, Master Áedh could have ended my life by pulling up on his staff, throttling me to death.

Our tribe burst into applause and cheering around us as torches were lit, illuminating my humiliating position under Master Áedh. From where I lay I saw my father's profile flicker from the shadows as his attendants lit torches on either side of his wicker throne adorned with gold ornaments. Cian was not looking my way but was instead murmuring to his wife with a prurient smile.

My “adoptive mother" was sitting in a smaller wicker chair beside Cian with her ears slightly lowered and a coy flush upon her muzzle. She was a silver fox, with black and gray fur contrasted by white that ran from her muzzle down her chest and belly, interrupted by fine green cotton and silk clothing. A “gift" from another chieftain, she was even younger than I, only recently having come into her womanhood.

The smile on my father's snout fell away as he turned towards me, to be replaced by the stony mask he always wore when his eyes fell on me. He clapped politely and the green and tartan wools he wore shifted over his orange fur as he stood. “Very well done, Master Áedh. A wonderful show," he said, projecting his voice over the tribe. I had to suppress an angry snarl as I realized he hadn't been watching the fight at all. Likely all his attention had been consumed by the girl half his age that he now claimed as his wife.

Cian spoke a few more words, his eyes implacably avoiding mine as he finished, “And Étaín and I bid you goodnight," he said, indicating his wife with a smile to her. He extended a paw to her which she daintily accepted and stood. As my father led Étaín away to our wattle and daub roundhouse, his arm draped around her, the gathering began to break up and the tribe began to retreat to their homes for the night.

Áedh released me from his hold and stood. My lungs sucked in a grateful breath as his weight finally receded from my back. I rolled over to find the older fox standing over me, offering his paw to help me up. Behind him my eyes caught my father ushering Étaín through the curtain covering the doorway into our roundhouse. While he did, his paw slipped down her side to grip her rump and push her inside.

I batted away Áedh's paw, finally letting my frustrated snarl loose as I grabbed my staff from the dirt and got to my feet. “Cáel…" I heard him behind me, but I did not offer him so much as a glance back over my shoulder as I stamped in the opposite direction from my father's roundhouse.

I marched through the throng of my fellow foxes, winding my way between roundhouses without thought of where I was going until I reached the perimeter of our home camp. I paced just beyond the edge of the flickering light of the torches that ringed our camp, my fur bristling with anger. I had no desire to return to the roundhouse and pretend not to hear my father rutting his new young wife behind the curtains across the room.

I turned to pace back along the edge of the flickering light when I saw motion further along the ring of torches. I could just make out Áedh leaving camp and walking into the treeline. He was headed in the direction of the nearby river that formed the final and ultimate barrier between our tribe's lands and the agrarian herbivore peoples to the west, beyond the great stretches of Hercynia.

With a bitter lump in my throat I realized that Áedh had gotten no more respect for his skill from my father than I had, despite being the more deserving. Yet I had brushed him off much like Cian had, if not worse. I abandoned my angry pacing and followed Áedh through the trees, leaving my staff against the side of roundhouse. The twin moons' light, though nearing their full strength, struggled to penetrate to the forest floor through the dense canopy. I struggled to keep Áedh in my sight. I looked back over my shoulder to the glow of the camp, nestled in a large clearing as it was, and marked its position as reference to help guide me to the spot I thought Áedh would be headed to.

I emerged from the treeline to find the moons casting a pale but clear light over the sandy bank of the river. The silver and yellow lights of the moons above glimmered from the river, its running water adding to the quiet sound of leaves rustling in the wind. I found Áedh only a hundred feet or so upstream, crouched by the water and washing the dirt from his fur.

He said nothing, nor did he look up as I quietly padded across the sand towards him. Undoubtedly he had known I was following him. He had removed his linen loincloth and was washing it in the cold water. He made no effort to conceal his nakedness as I crouched beside him and began scrubbing the dirt from my fur with the cold refreshing water as well. I remained quiet too, worried that perhaps Áedh was angry with me for rebuffing him, or even failing in the duel.

Áedh finished and set the linens aside and stared across the river and into the dark shapes of the trees beyond while letting the wind ruffle and dry his fur. Just as I felt the silence begin to grow heavy and expectant, the older fox finally spoke, “You fought very well tonight, Cáel. What you said is true, I am getting old…" he said, finally turning his gaze on me. A small smile attempted to hide the mix of emotions from his muzzle, but the sparkle in his eyes gave away the pride he felt. There was a sadness in those gray eyes too however, as if pining for days that had passed long before I had ever been born.

“You are my equal in skill, and greater in strength and speed than I," Áedh continued, his paw coming to rest on my shoulder. “All you lack is experience, and the wisdom that comes with it. Those will come with time."

I felt my heart swell in my chest at the praise, threatening to burst it with the emotions already warring inside. I was forced to look away for a moment, glancing up at the moons as I mastered myself. “Thank you Master Áedh. I only wish my father would say as much," I said bitterly. I turned back to meet the gaze of the fox who I felt more my father than Cian ever had.

Áedh didn't respond immediately as a sad grimace crossed his muzzle. “Your father, like his when he made me Second, has always had the… wisdom to leave matters of war in my claws," he said, choosing his words carefully. Áedh had always been scrupulous to never reproach his Chief, especially in my presence, and to my increasing annoyance as I grew older. “I hope you will take my recognition as coming from him," he finished with a pat to my shoulder.

Again my heart swelled with admiration and appreciation as I peered in Master Áedh's steely eyes. I could not help myself as I turned and with a single motion lowered my ears and pressed my lips to his. For a brief moment I felt his familiar hesitation as I pressed closer to him, but as the warmth of my fur brushed his, I felt his honor's instinctual objection crumbling before my affection. His sinewy arms encircled me and collected me to his chest, and a single little lick to his lips was all the invitation he needed before his tongue followed, invading my muzzle. Our eyes drifted shut as we sat back on the sand.

I relished the truth that I was Master Áedh's only weakness.

His tongue drove between my fangs in pursuit of mine, and I felt a predatory growl reverberate from his chest. A complimentary needy whimper escaped mine, and Áedh's paw brushed over my cheek and my pinned back ears as if to shush me with quiet paternal reassurance. Yet his growling did not cease until his tongue finally found mine, eliciting a sigh of relief from both of us. Our tongues wrestled within my muzzle in a passionate reprise of our duel around the fire.

I wrapped my arms around him and let my fingers burrow into his fur while his did the same. I shivered with excitement as I felt his claws tease over my skin. I drank in his familiar scent, now tinged with undeniable growing arousal. My sheath swelled with the thought of his doing the same, and in moments my erection was rendering my loincloth nearly useless as it tented the fabric.

Áedh's own desire had the benefit of even less concealment, and I took full advantage. I slid my paw down his chest, my fingers exploring his wiry pectorals and abdomen until my claws combed through the thicker patch of fur just above his sheath. Hard and hot flesh brushed against the back of my paw as I traced my claws down the length of his sheath and then under the dangling sac beneath. I lifted my paw, hefting my mentor's balls in my paw before stroking back up over his sheath. I wrapped my fingers around Áedh's full vulpine erection in a firm grip, my paw pads brushing over the sensitive red flesh as I began stroking up and down. A blissful sigh washed over my muzzle and I felt his shaft throb in my paw.

Áedh's tongue abruptly withdrew from my muzzle and he separated us with a tender paw to my chest. “We cannot keep doing this, Cáel. Should anyone find out… your honor… your father…" the older fox struggled for words as his sense of virtue battled with the sensations my that my paw sent shooting up his spine.

“Fuck my father," I spat in a hushed whisper. A mischievous grin crossed my muzzle then, and I added in a low coy voice to Áedh, “Better yet, fuck me."

“Cáel…" he began again, but before he could say more I pressed my paw down to the base of his cock while my head darted for his lap. I guided his hard flesh between my lips, sealing them to the hot skin as I plunged down and took Áedh into my mouth. I pressed my tongue flat against his flesh, tasting him as I sucked tight. I folded my ears back as I listened to my name turn into a moan as it left my mentor's lips.

I began bobbing my head up and down the older fox's cock, closing my eyes as I luxuriated in the familiar and comforting hardness in my mouth. With my own shaft now almost painfully erect I pushed my loincloth aside and took myself in my paw. I stroked myself with a firm grip and steady practiced pace in time with my muzzle, honed from quiet nights in my bed recalling moments such as these while hidden from my father by nothing more than a linen curtain.

After only a couple minutes I tasted salty pre on my tongue and felt it on my paw pads. Áedh was gasping in pleasure while I began to sink into that hypnotic up and down rhythm. I lost myself in feeling his hard cock pass between my lips and fill my muzzle again and again. One of his paws brushed through my hair and tenderly caressed my folded ears while the other held me close to him while stroking up and down my side. Áedh had never dared speak the words aloud, even in our most passionate moments, but I could feel his adoration in that touch. The hard grip of a warrior mentor turned to the soft touch of a lover. I returned it wordlessly with my ceaseless licking at the most sensitive part of him, a quiet chirr from my chest joining the sucking sounds my muzzle made as it enveloped his flesh again and again.

The older fox gently pushed my head away. I looked up at him, thinking with disappointment that he was going to refuse me. Instead I found him scooting over to a nearby fallen tree to rest his back against. He smiled and invited me closer with a pat to his thigh and a crooked finger. I grinned and crawled to him, exaggerating the sway of my hips, my fluffy tail held high. I crawled into his lap and gently settled my rump down on his cock and we both chirred as I felt his hot hardness nestle between my cheeks, and mine furrowed into his white belly fur.

I found his eyes shining with starlight up at mine and our lips met and our tongues twisted and danced together once more. Our paws gripped and explored each other with passion as our breath mixed as steam in the cooling spring night air. His fingers dig furrows through the fur up my back while I gripped his shoulders. His hips pressed up into mine, and in turn I arched my back, pressing his shaft between my cheeks to grind over my entrance. I felt him shiver and groan under me, a gasp escaping me as my own needy cock brushed through his fur.

Our lips hard parted for only a moment when Áedh instead invaded my muzzle with a couple of fingers. He grinned up at me as my face flushed and I pinned my ears back, and dutifully sucked and licked the invading digits. Once sufficiently wet, he withdrew his fingers from my mouth and in a moment I felt them under my tail and I lifted it out of the way while he rubbed around my hole. I shivered at the touch and then groaned as they probed through my ring and into my body. For a moment I instinctively clutched myself around the delightful invaders pressing rhythmically up my asshole before forcing myself to relax.

My tongue lolled out as I my mentor loosened me up, until I could wait no longer. “Fuck me, Áedh," I murmured in a husky breath to him while pressing my muzzle to his. Gone was my impish demeanor, now replaced with raw need.

The older fox grunted his assent and gripped my cheeks and spread them wide. Whether he could see my face flushing in the moonlight or not, he grinned up at me as I reached between my legs to guide his tip to my hole. I lowered myself onto his spear and we both grunted with pleasure as he popped through my ring and into my body.

As his hard length slid up my ass Áedh laid his head back against the log. I thought he was staring up at the stars and taking in the pleasure of my tight body around his cock, until I heard him murmur something that could have been, “Forgive me, Cian," so quietly that I could barely hear over the thudding of my heart.

I folded my ears back and pressed my muzzle to Áedh's gently, bringing his attention back to me. He smiled and cupped my cheek in a paw, his other gripping my hip. He surprised me again by thrusting up into me, and I cursed quietly as the rest of his cock slid home inside me.

“You okay?" Áedh asked in a whisper.

My face flushed and I answered by pressing my lips to my training master's once more. It was only in moments like these that he would ever ask if I could handle what he was giving me.

I lifted myself off him, steadying myself by gripping his shoulders as he relaxed until only his tip was still within me. Already my body felt empty without him, and it ached to have that space inside me filled again. I lowered myself while Áedh drove his hips up, until our hips met and again his maleness was sheathed deep inside me.

We had sex in much the same way as we fought – we moved as one, with carefully channeled intensity. I rode him, and his hips met mine each time with a quiet thump muffled by our fur. His paws came to rest on my hips, carefully guiding me as he did in training. He watched me, his intense steel eyes glimmered with starlight as he peered up at me, until they traveled down my body to watch my hard cock bounce against his muscled abdomen.

This far from the village, and with the river to mask the sound, I let my quiet moans of pleasure escape my lips for Áedh's ears. I recalled the times where my master had been forced to wrap a paw around my muzzle to keep me quiet while he had taken me in his roundhouse, just steps away from my father. I let my moans take on an effeminate edge as I basked in the pleasure of his cock pounding up my ass with slow powerful thrusts. I practically whined as his hard flesh slid through my ring again and again.

Áedh was panting and staring at my bouncing cock, though his eyes seemed unfocused and lost in his own pleasure. I grinned to myself, happy that I could do that to him. I gave his nose a lick, bringing him back to awareness. He glanced up at me and a small smile cracked his muzzle. One of his paws slid between my legs, fingertips finding the swelling knot at the base of my cock that matched the one I felt pressing at my hole each time our hips met. He squeezed, forcing a groan from my lips and my body shuddered, my rhythm thrown off for a moment. Áedh compensated with an extra forceful thrust under my tail, chuckling as he did.

My ears splayed as he began to stroke up and down my shaft with a tight paw. My paw fell from his shoulder to find his other still on my hip, and our fingers interlaced tightly. I peered in his eyes, my tongue lolling out slightly, as we rode towards climax together. Our breathing grew heavy, and our grunts and quiet groans filled my ears.

Áedh was close. I could feel him almost vibrating under me the way he did on the edge of orgasm. My own cock was throbbing in his paw, my seed surging towards my tip. With a final grunt Áedh gritted his teeth and thrust his hips up powerfully and I bore down on him. His knot pressed at my ring, both of us grinding desperately, until it finally popped inside me. A moan escaped us both, and our eyes met, clouded by insane pleasure in that heartbeat before release.

I clutched myself around that intense fullness and my prostate glowed with fire against Áedh's knot. My jaw hung open dumbly as my ass spasmed around his cock, and an enormous spurt of cum shot from my own. It hit Áedh square in his face and spattered his fur forcefully. His muzzle twisted with growled pleasure, unflinching eyes glancing down to watch me spurt more white seed onto his muzzle and chest before looking up at me again.

Áedh never relented on stroking my spurting maleness. Our paws gripped each other's so hard I thought they might break. He ground his hips up against mine as he unloaded up my ass. My body clutched and milked his cock as I came, urging him not to hold back a drop from me. My ears flattened against my skull as I felt the blossoming warmth inside me, another male breeding me.

Our eyes locked together, never leaving each other's as we rode through our pounding release together. Even as my cum spurted across Áedh's face and gleamed wetly from his fur, his steel eyes pierced mine while he growled out his pleasure under and inside me.

The seconds stretched to an eternity as we spent and traded our seed. My heart pounded in my ears as the last of my white cum shot onto Áedh's chest. Aftershocks of pleasure wracked me, making me tremble in his lap. Slowly my sight slid back into focus, and I traced every vivid white line of my seed over Áedh's face and heaving chest. At some point his stroking had stopped, and now he released my cock as we caught our breath. His arm wrapped around me, and wordlessly I collapsed gently into his embrace.

Áedh clutched me to his chest as my lips found his. In post-orgasm bliss his sinewy strength seemed to flag, replaced by gentle caresses as his fingers ran furrows through my fur. I tasted my seed on his lips as our tongues met and danced lazily. Our breath washed over each other, the air thick with the scent of male sex and satisfaction. I clutched my body around his slowly shrinking knot, and I chirred with happiness at being connected with him in such an intimate way. My cheeks flushed as I felt his seed escaping around his length and dripping down the back side of my sac and onto his fur.

When our lips parted I tucked my muzzle under his, and he held me close to his chest. We stayed like that for a long time while I listened to his beating heart under my ear. Sleep threatened after the exhaustion of our fight and sex, and Áedh seemed to be dozing off too. I looked up at him, stirred by the warmth I felt in my chest when I saw his face.

“Áedh," I murmured softly, bumping my muzzle against his.

His eyes cracked open and resumed his stroking over my back, which had stopped as he had drifted towards sleep. A quiet, “Hm?" came from him.

I felt foolish, but I had to speak the truth. “I think I lo…"

A piercing scream rent the calm night air, cutting off my words. Our eyes flashed open wide and our ears swiveled before our heads turned. It was a vixen's scream, from the direction of the village.

“No…" Áedh breathed.

More screams pierced the air and Áedh and I scrambled to our feet. There was no time to scrub each other's scent out of our fur, and we took off through the trees. We tied our loincloths back on while dodging between the dark trunks and jumping over fallen logs. Our vulpine paws guided us quickly and quietly back home, but not quick enough.

I saw the flames through the trees long before Áedh and I burst back into the clearing that our home sat nestled within. Several roundhouses were already consumed in fire, tongues of flame trying the lick the stars over thirty feet in the air, casting a hateful glow on the trees all around us. Their dry wattle and daub construction were the perfect tinder for the dark furred panthers carrying torches from house to house, darting like shadows away from foxes desperately trying to fight off the attackers.

Caught in their sleep by surprise, many of Áedh's braves had already fallen dead, run through with spears and pierced by arrows. One dying fox scrabbled with bloody paws at a sword pinning him to the dirt through his gut, abandoned by the attacker and leaving his victim to stain the soil red with blood. The fox choked and sputtered through lips running with his own blood, until his body spasmed convulsively and his dark paws fell to the ground.

I stared at the black iron sword, shock and fury quivering through my muscles. I could not believe that what had been our cordial neighbors had turned to such bloodthirsty violence. Even if they had been moved by threats of destruction.

Panther warriors struck in groups, overwhelming our braves in the doorways of their own homes. Fathers and sons were cut down and left in piles of tangled bloody limbs. Panthers stepped over the corpses to plunder the homes, teeth gleaming in lascivious grins under the light of the fires. Even as my fellow braves fought back to back against the encircling attackers, the vixens screamed from within the roundhouses. There was crashing and crude grunting as panthers pinned women to walls and tables and began their rape before the battle was even won.

With a snarl I scooped up a spear from beside a fallen fox brave and hurled it with all of my strength. I had seen a panther warrior chase a vixen from her home and had tackled her. He laughed as his claws cut her loincloth free and pushed his own aside to reveal his erection. The spear caught him in the chest as he loomed over her, punching straight through him and out his back. He looked up at me in shock before toppling over, leaving the vixen free to run away screaming.

“Cáel, we must get to your father!" Áedh yelled to me over the din of fighting and screaming. I whirled to catch a spear he tossed me, retrieved from the ground. The fury in his eyes burned as hot as the flames around us, and were reflected in my own. We nodded to each other and pushed for the village center.

Together we dispatched several panthers, burying our spear points between their ribs or slashing their throats with the sharp bronze tips. Blood gleamed on the dark metal and dripped down the haft, staining my paws. We were a blur through the convulsing mass of foxes and panthers in the glow of the fire, cutting down panthers in our way, and moving around groups too big for us to fight.

Ahead I saw my father's roundhouse, the thatch roof already going up in flames. My pounding heart stopped in my chest as I noticed a ring of several panthers standing around the entrance, facing outward. Among these I made out their chief, Jasur, peering around at the surrounding mayhem nervously.

A trio of figures emerged from the doorway, embers chasing them as my home began to burn from the inside. By their shorter height and stockier build, two of them I judged them wolverines, clad in heavy furs and leathers. The third proved to be the panther chief's son, Ravshan, who shoved a bound vixen along in front of him; my father's new wife, Étaín. She was completely naked of clothing and semen gleamed wetly from her face, my father's or these invaders' I did not know.

Áedh and I froze in our tracks, just yards away from the ring of panthers guarding the house. Rage shaking my limbs as I took in the scene. My muscles coiled taught, preparing to strike.

“Hear me, foxes!" the other wolverine bellowed. A hateful tooth-filled grin spread across his muzzle as his one good eye fell upon Áedh and I, his other milky with blindness. “I am Ariovistus! Your chief is dead by my hand! Lay down your weapons, and I will allow you to join me!" he roared, his voice thick with the mountain-born accent.

My heart jumped into my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it down. “Liar!" I challenged, stepping toward him with a snarl and raising my spear. I was surprised when I felt Áedh's paw grip my shoulder, restraining me, but I dared not take my eyes off our enemies.

Ariovistus only grinned wider, and only too late did I see what swung from his paw. The world seemed to go quiet, the sounds of the fighting dying away. Time slowed down, like a nightmare, as Ariovistus raised his arm and my heart pounded in my chest. There, swinging by his hair and dripping blood on the wolverine's leathers and our tribe's soil, was my father's severed head. I was unable to contain the flinch that shook my body when I saw my father's features horribly distorted with shock and dead glassy eyes that stared at me with accusation.

Only narrowly did I manage to halt the bile that surged up from my stomach by looking away and at Áedh. The older fox stood solidly, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. His grip on my shoulder tightened as foxes all around us began to scream in horrified fear at the sight.

“Surrender and accept me as your chief, and you may all live. Together we can cast out the poison that the city-dwellers send among us," Ariovistus bellowed again over the panicked screaming, dissipating it somewhat. “Fight… and die. Your women and children will be enslaved and I will scatter your tribe to the wind." There were several long heartbeats of silence as every fox in the village stared in our direction. I feared that I would hear the thump of our weapons dropping into the dust.

Áedh's paw dropped to my wrist and gripped it while he hefted his spear over his head with the other. “To me!" he yelled. A ragged cheer from our braves broke the silence and the fighting resumed. Ariovistus snarled in fury as Áedh pulled me away. My ears folded back when Étaín cried for help behind us as the other wolverine shoved her away.

“To me!" Áedh called again and again as he led me away, back through the village. My vision was a blur of fire and fighting as I ran. My feet moved without thought, following Áedh blindly. I didn't know where we were going. My world had turned upside down. Piercing through the blur, like a sword cutting through reality, were the shriek and cries of the crows descending on the bodies from the blackness above.

Suddenly the village was behind us, increasingly a raging inferno belching angry flames and smoke into the night sky. The treeline rushed up before us and I saw flashes of russet fur in the dark beside us, dashing for the trees. My nightmare-like reverie shattered when I heard the rushing waters of the river ahead. The fighting and screaming behind us had abated, replaced by the battle-crazed cheering of panther warriors in the distance. With the spell broken, the bile surged up my throat again. Áedh finally released me as I stumbled and was sick.

When I finally wiped the bile from my muzzle and got my trembling legs under me I found myself in the center of perhaps a couple dozen foxes. Áedh was conferring hurriedly with several braves, “...wait here for any others who might escape. The rest of us will take the women and children south…"

I peered around at the sad remnants of our tribe. Most were vixens who had fled into the trees for their lives, some clutching crying cubs in their arms, trying to quiet them. Few men had escaped, instead fighting and giving their lives in the hope that their wives and daughters might get away. Everyone's fur was stained gray and red with ash and blood. Most of the men nursed injuries of some kind; everyone suffered bloody cuts, and one brave had an arrow plunged straight through his shoulder. Another gritted his teeth in silent agony while a vixen tearfully bandaged a bloody stump where a paw had been with rags torn from her own clothing. I laid eyes on a pregnant vixen, dirty with soot and her husband's blood, shaking and sobbing quietly into a friend's arms.

I felt my soul crumple into itself as I peered around at the damage I had caused. My father's dead eyes swam before me, accusing me of my failure. If I hadn't acted like a child, if I had stood guard, if I hadn't distracted Áedh, none of this would have happened. If I had been everything my father wanted, expected, I could have stopped this.

The world wobbled again as I heard what sounded like hundreds, maybe thousands, of crows descending upon our dead village. Each caw blended and amplified the other until it was a howling shriek of death. It was the trumpeting of doom by the gods, and I had brought it down upon us.

“Cáel…" Áedh turned as he noticed me swaying on my feet behind him. He came to me, paw gripping my shoulder. “I… I think we should head south. Chief Camulus and his wolves will give us sanctuary. Ariovistus will be coming for him next, we have to warn him, and help him, if we want any hope of rescuing our people." Áedh seemed to hesitate, as if asking me for permission.

I blinked at him, not understanding. I looked at the foxes around us, watching us with fearful eyes and their ears cupped towards us, waiting expectantly. The horrible weight of responsibility unexpectedly and suddenly crushed down upon my shoulders. With my father and chief dead, that left me…

“I can't do this, Áedh…" I whispered to my mentor.

With his back turned to the remainder of our tribe, I was the only one that saw his iron facade of strength and certainty slip. The pain and fear I saw on Áedh's muzzle in that moment scared me more than anything I had seen that night. “You have to," he whispered back, his paw gripping my shoulder tighter.

“I… You go. Take them to the wolves," I began, voice wavering as I spoke louder. My mind worked, and a plan, no, not an excuse, fell into place. “I… I'll get help. My father knew the lord across the river, among the plant eaters. He'll help us…"

Áedh peered into my eyes for a long moment, his gaze the heaviest of all those around me. He saw the guilt in my eyes, and I saw it reflected in his. All watched us with eyes dreadfully full of shock, pain, and fear. And with expectation. Expectation I couldn't live up to. I had already failed them worse than anyone ever could.

Áedh's paw found mine and gripped it. “Don't go, please…" It was the closest the older fox had ever dared to disobedience, and those pleading words shook me to my core. “Your tribe needs you…"

I gave Áedh's paw one last squeeze before letting go. I pulled away from him and backed up a step from the crowd of staring foxes. “I'm sorry," I said.

“I need you," Áedh's voice was a quivering whisper.

I turned and ran.