Chapter 6 Mercy #4
“If she’s to have any chance at all, we’ll need to stick to the plan,” said Sarge.
“Try not to think so much, Holiness. Battle is always like this. You have done what you can. What matters now is that we shelter her from this thing…as best we are able, anyway. Just as she once gave shelter to us. As Larkspur says, this is a matter of faith.” He looked at Milo.
“It’s not only our lives, or even hers. Hell is a real thing. Tonight our souls are at stake.”
A different cat’s voice came from inside House. “And if we fail…?”
Sarge turned, glaring. He might have answered, but Blacktail had heard enough. He pushed through the bush in front of him, making no effort to be silent. The dry branches popped as he moved, the sound like a thunderclap in the stillness of the clearing.
“He’s here!” The beagle’s bark rang out from the open doorway of House. “He’s here, he’s here, he’s here!”
v
Blacktail slipped from the underbrush, fur high, and faced them. Despite his size, Sarge was lean, muscular. The fur of his back was up. When he faced Blacktail, his eyes did not waver. They glared at each other across the clearing.
“Who is this that violates the empire of Mercy?” Sarge growled. “Go, stranger. You are not welcome here.”
“I am called Blacktail, as I believe you are aware. If you know that much, you also know I don’t take orders from slave dogs.”
“I am no slave,” said Sarge. “Once, yes. But no longer. I defend Mercy by choice.”
“And do you choose to die as well?” asked Blacktail. “I have no quarrel with you. My business is with your”—he spat the word out—“owner.”
Milo and the Great Dane padded over to stand beside their champion. Behind them, Larkspur trotted back and took a position on the windowsill inside House.
“Go away, Blacktail,” said Milo. “We are not part of your pack.”
“That’s clear enough,” Blacktail said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a priest?”
The Great Dane’s eyes grew wide. She cast a nervous glance at Milo. Milo himself had little reaction. “I didn’t think that you would be interested in hearing about that sort of thing.”
Inside House, the beagle yapped again. “You stay away from my mommy!” Everyone ignored him.
“Oh,” Blacktail said, “but that’s where you’re wrong. I have an abiding interest in theology. Do you know why I am here?”
“We know,” Milo said quietly.
“Perhaps not. I come to educate you.”
“Will this lesson take the form of murdering Mercy?”
“You know that it must,” Blacktail answered.
“Then kill me first,” Milo said. “I’ll admit it. I am not a hunter like yourself. But I’m not a fool, either. I have lived long and seen much. The way of Mercy is the best thing I have ever known. Does that count for nothing?”
“Is this how you all feel?” Blacktail asked.
They wagged their tails in agreement.
“Very well,” Blacktail said. “Those who seek to teach must first learn. Tell me of your Mercy. Where was she when the two-legs murdered my puppies?”
“She was here, lord, caring for those fortunate enough to be within the reach of her paws.” Milo looked at him with soft, compassionate eyes. “I wish that you could have been here as well. Once you might have been a fine husband, a gentle father. Now, I think, all good things are dead inside you.”
Blacktail had no visible reaction to this, though the words stung. “Is that the end of your lesson?”
“Actually, I have a question as well. May I?”
“Speak.”
“What is the essence of the hunt?”
The question took Blacktail by surprise.
The answer was intuitive—so deeply intuitive that it took him a moment to find words for it.
“The essence of the hunt is faith,” he said finally.
“The hunter must have faith in himself, that his skills will be sufficient. The hunted must have faith that he can find in himself the skill to evade. It is the will of the Forest God that the stronger faith prevail.”
“Yes,” Milo agreed. “Just so. But consider: Is faith not also the essence of a pack? Faith in oneself, that you may be found worthy? Faith in one’s clan, that they will not forsake you?
What we do here is not so different from what you know.
There may be more than one path to the Far Hill, Blacktail. ”
Blacktail snarled, yellow fangs flashing in the moonlight.
“Hear me well, for I will speak on this matter only once,” he said.
“The hunt is the Forest God’s design. The truth of it lies in all beasts—even those too weak to find it in themselves.
Over the long ages the bloodlines of those who embrace it will be refined.
At the end of creation, those that remain will be strong enough to look upon the face of God and…
” Blacktail’s voice faltered. “Then…he will not be alone anymore.” Blacktail looked across the clearing, meeting the eyes of each of them in turn.
“What you do here is an abomination. You will be damned for it.”
For a long moment no one spoke. Behind Milo, the Great Dane retreated to the lighted mouth of House. There she took up her station between Blacktail and her mistress.
It was Sarge who broke the silence. “Weak,” he said. “Weak. Do I seem weak to you?”
“Perhaps not,” Blacktail admitted.
“And yet, still I choose to be here. This is a good place. For us the hunt has ended.”
Blacktail growled. At the sound of it, several of the pack wet themselves. But no one ran.
“The hunt will never be ended,” Blacktail roared. “You are blasphemers and you are fools and you sicken me. This two-legs you would die for cares no more for you than you care for a pile of dung.”
“You are wrong,” Sarge said. He spoke softly, but with great certainty. “I know their ways. Once I fought alongside them, very far from here, in a place that was always hot. Do you know of the metal birds? Like Car, but men can fly them, even above the clouds?”
The eye of Blacktail’s mind drew back to the morning after Renren’s murder.
There he saw metal birds following Slipper’s tracks in the snow, spewing smoke, hovering.
He heard the cracks when gunshots rained down on Slipper from clean blue sky.
He did not flinch at the memory…but it was a near thing.
All he said was “I do. I have seen them.”
“My war pack flew in those, a great bird. We flew long and long. Eventually we came to an ocean of sand. There I saw great herds of men, more than you can imagine. They killed each other in ways I cannot think. I befriended some two-legs. Others I killed—many of them. More, perhaps, than even yourself. It is true that most of them think us little more than stones. But not Mercy. She—”
Blacktail cut him off with a bark. “Is it your flesh or your fur that she seeks?” He took a step closer, then another. The fur of his neck was high.
Sarge bared his teeth and stood his ground.
“Would it matter if I told you that Mercy herself is of the hunt?” Milo asked.
Blacktail stopped in his stride. He turned to the priest. “I am listening.”
Milo looked over his shoulder and called out to the beagle. The little dog trotted out of House and stood next to his priest.
“Tell him,” Milo said.
“Holiness, must I? I…I do not like to think about it.”
“Tell him,” Milo barked again. “Do it now. It’s the best chance she has.”
The beagle looked at his priest and wagged his tail in acquiescence. “Mercy had a mate once,” he began softly. “Her mate—he did not love us.”
“Where is this one now?” Blacktail asked. The stink of two-legs was all over this place, but only one. “Did your pack kill him?”
“No, lord. Not us.”
Blacktail considered this. “I see. Go on.”
“The night that I came here, it was very cold,” he said. He spoke slowly, staring into the middle distance. “It was just after the winter—not snowing, but wet and very cold. I had not eaten in a long time. Days. I could smell the food through the woods. It—”
“Meat?” Blacktail asked.
“No,” said the beagle. The question puzzled him. Blacktail realized then that the little dog was not very bright. “Not meat. No one here eats meat.”
“What then?”
The beagle looked to his priest, unsure if he should answer.
Milo wagged his tail. “The food-rocks,” he said.
“Each night she leaves them out. Some for us, some for the cats. For the birds, there are seeds. For the squirrels and opossum, there are nuts and dry corn. Perhaps it is not what you are used to, but no one here is hungry. I—” With an effort, Milo restrained his urge to continue talking.
He turned to look at the beagle. “Continue your story,” he said gently. “I will not interrupt again.”
“I was starving, I think,” the beagle said.
“I could still walk, but that was about all.
My first mommy threw me out—banished me.
I thought she would come back, but…she never did.
First I waited. Then I wandered through the woods for many days.
Alone, hungry, covered with ticks. Then I stumbled on this place.
The lights, you know? I saw them through the woods.
I could smell the food. I was afraid, but the smell…
if you are hungry for long enough there is no such thing as choice. So I came.
“I had eaten all that there was when the mouth of House opened. The man who was Mercy’s mate came out.
He looked at me for a long time. I put my forepaws on him.
To thank him, you see? I thought he was the one who had left the food.
But that was not, it wasn’t…” The beagle looked up at Milo, his brown eyes soft and miserable.
“Go on,” said Milo. “You’re doing fine.”
“Perhaps I am not wise,” the beagle whispered. “Everyone says so. But how could I have known? One does not expect the giver of food to be cruel.”
“It wasn’t Mercy’s mate who fed us,” said Milo.
“He didn’t want us here at all. For a long time his fury had grown.
We could all smell it, but what could we do?
Just the sight of us made him worse. And when he saw the penitent beagle, well…
we knew that Mercy would take him in. We all knew it. Her mate…he knew it, too.”