Chapter 6 Mercy
Mercy
i
Blacktail returned to himself slowly. His consciousness floated up into his body like a bloated corpse rising from the bottom of a cold lake.
He was moving now. He thought he had been moving for some while, loping out of the stunted foothills and scraps of wilderness.
Moving, yes, but he had also dreamed as he moved—dreamed or something like it.
He remembered only snatches—the desert at night, a voice crying out, saying, “O lord, receive me…”
Who calls out to the lord? But as he came back into himself, the voice and the memory fell away, as dreams do.
Blacktail stopped. The wind here was thick with poison stinks, foul as any he had ever smelled.
Rot. Smoke. Poison. The night on both sides of his trail was dotted with the unnatural lights of men.
His eyes narrowed and his ears cocked forward slightly in a look that all the prey beasts of the world would have recognized immediately.
He rose the last little way back into himself—it took an effort—and opened up to the world around him.
His paws tingled at their unfamiliar stillness.
Deep in the woods to his right he saw a pair of squirrels, bright eyes peering at him from what they likely thought of as sufficient cover.
On his left flank stood an ancient oak, poisoned and dead but still standing, bark dangling from its haunch.
Bare branches capped with the first buds of spring brushed close at his shanks.
He blinked and shook out his mane, then looked around. Where am I? These lands weren’t the mountains anymore, not even close. They barely qualified as foothills. Too, it was warmer than he remembered. Winter, it seemed, was nearly over. How did that happen?
The question slipped away, unanswered.
This is the dominion of men, Blacktail realized. Any wilds that remain are behind me now. He tried again to recall how he had come to be here. It was a blur. He remembered meeting Lord Fang, remembered the good warmth of sleeping in a pack, but then…what? Did something happen? Did I do something?
He couldn’t remember…but it didn’t seem to matter. He began to move again, bouncing down this scant memory of a hunting trail, gravity doing as much of the work as his legs. This path will carry you to the nexus of the scents, he thought. This path will carry you to the places of men.
The thought stirred an echo of fear in his mind, but it was dim and distant, hardly worth notice. He thought the days of such considerations were very nearly behind him.
He was wrong.
ii
A few breaths later the hill bottomed out. In the distance he saw the glow from a house. Such light was still strange to him. While watching it, he nearly tripped over a dog, squatted on its haunches in the center of the path. Blacktail skidded to a stop a tail’s breadth away.
The dog made no effort to move from his path.
He was some sort of terrier, small and brown, with one drooping ear. A cloud of the deepest dread surrounded him…but he looked up to Blacktail with unblinking brown eyes. “Good evening, Lord Hunter,” he said, his tone scrupulously polite. “Welcome.”
Blacktail responded in kind. “Good evening to you. With whom have I the honor of speaking?”
“I am Milo,” the dog said. He rose up to present himself for scenting. Blacktail gave him a once-over. He wore no collar, but Blacktail smelled the memory of one on his neck. Too, the hands of some two-legs had been on him, and quite recently.
Blacktail’s eyes narrowed, and he did not offer to let himself be scented. “Are you the pack lord?” he asked.
The terrier hesitated. “I suppose so, yes.”
“There is no ‘suppose’ in such matters,” Blacktail said. “Were you pack lord you would know it.”
“In that case I suppose not. Nonetheless, I am to speak for the beasts of these lands.”
“Oh? Which beasts?” Blacktail asked. By the smell, there were quite a few. They were close by, but hidden. Hidden-ish, anyway. Here he saw a tail poking out from behind a tree, there a pair of eyes flashing in a stand of bush. “Show yourselves.”
Even to his own ears, Blacktail’s tone was flat and commanding in ways it had never been before. Even so, they did not come forth immediately. It was only when Milo looked over his shoulder and gave a curt yap that they began to emerge.
Blacktail thought Milo was right not to call himself lord, or perhaps he was just embarrassed.
He had never seen such a slothful pack. Here stood a Great Dane—an enormous dog, not much smaller than Blacktail himself—but she was dull-eyed and bound in a collar.
Next to her stood a beagle that was perhaps the fattest animal that Blacktail had ever seen.
The beagle stared up at Blacktail with open—what?
Loathing? Rage? His lip trembled. The fur was high on his neck.
For some reason, Blacktail saw, the little dog’s tail was gone. Only a short stump remained.
Behind them stood a surprising array of lesser beasts—a rabbit, three cats, a pair of sheep, and a goat.
Two guinea pigs cowered under a bush. A parakeet perched on a branch overhead.
He scented other dogs as well, farther back.
The ones he could see studied him with flat, unsmiling eyes.
They’re lying in wait for me, Blacktail realized with a measure of surprise.
“Have I offended you somehow, Lord Milo?” Blacktail asked softly. He pronounced the word Lord with insultingly exaggerated courtesy. “You or your pack? It is not my intention to invade your lands.”
“Whether or not I and mine are offended is of little consequence,” Milo said.
Blacktail swished his tail. “I know that,” he said. “I wondered if you did.” The insult hung in the night air. Blacktail let the moment drag out, waiting to see what the little dog would do.
Milo made no reaction except to wag his tail a few times, as if at some inconsequential joke.
The Great Dane forced a stupid, slobbery grin.
The other beasts in the clearing feigned interest in sticks and leaves, pretending not to hear.
Only the beagle reacted. He growled low in his chest, a surprisingly deep rumble from such a small beast.
Blacktail stepped around Milo—another grave insult—and padded up to the beagle.
He sniffed the fat little dog carefully from nose to tail, though there was not really any need.
The collar around his neck told Blacktail all he needed to know.
The beagle trembled as he sniffed. Blacktail thought at first that he was afraid.
Only when the dog snapped at him did he realize that it was rage, not fear, that caused him to shake.
Blacktail took a step back to spare the little dog the embarrassment of a thrashing. “How have I offended you, little fellow?” he asked. “Surely one so fat as you cannot object to me hunting on your lands.”
The beagle’s lip curled up. His teeth were very white and surprisingly sharp. Blacktail grunted. Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought. This little fellow is too dumb to lie.
But before the beagle could answer, the Great Dane stuck her long muzzle between him and Blacktail.
“Forgive my pack brother,” she said smoothly.
“He suffers from an impractical burden of machismo for a beast of his size. You have given no offense. You are welcome to pass through our lands, or not, as you please. Hunt if you like, drink from our streams. You are our guest.”
But all that was a lie. Her scent boiled with fury.
Blacktail swiveled his head to regard the strange pack. He could not reconcile the sense of their words with the scents of their emotions…but he thought them of little consequence. The Forest God still sleeps. These fools will be of little help in finding Him, I think.
“Well,” he said. “That’s fine, then. If no one objects, I’ll just be on my way. It’s late. I’m tired, and I’m hungry. Perhaps we shall meet again someday.” He turned away from them and took a single step closer to the light of the two-legs den.
“YOU STAY AWAY FR—” the beagle began, his voice astonishingly strong in the still night air. Milo and the Great Dane bit into the beagle at the same instant. The little fellow’s voice broke off with a yelp of pain.
Blacktail stopped. He looked back over his shoulder.
The beagle lay on his side, a little wounded.
His legs thrashed helplessly in the air.
The Great Dane stood on his throat, pinning him with one massive forepaw.
Milo flashed a look of pure rage at the beagle.
Blacktail thought it was the first genuine emotion he had seen from him.
Milo and the Great Dane exchanged a look. Milo stood up and placed himself between Blacktail and the other two. The Great Dane remained poised above the beagle, her teeth hovering a bare inch from the little dog’s neck.
“Ignore them, lord,” Milo said. “The beagle has some foolish ideas about who may and may not hunt on our lands. That’s all. Of course we welcome you.”
“Hmm. That’s good of you,” Blacktail said. “Very well, then. Tell me. If I were to hunt these lands, where should I start?”
“Ah. Yes. I would say that you would, ah, do well to stay away from the pond. Do you smell it?”
Blacktail gave a curt wag.
“Of course you do. The pond, you see, is unclean. The waters taste of feces, and white bubbles float on the surface. In the daylight the waves shine with all manner of strange colors. It is rare to see someone drink from it twice. But the stream that feeds it is clean enough. I, ah, I hunt there often.”
The stink of Milo’s lie was such that any beast in half a longrun could not fail to smell it.
A thick cloud drifted across the face of the moon, temporarily darkening the clearing. The glint that flashed in Blacktail’s eyes was not a reflection from some light in the sky. “Why do you say such things?” he asked quietly. “To what possible gain?”
“I do my duty as I see it, lord,” Milo replied. “If I must answer for that, then I will.”