Chapter 6 Mercy #5
“Do you know of the cuchillos, the metal tooths that the two-legs carry?” the beagle asked. “Tooths not of their body, but strong and sharp?”
“I know them well,” Blacktail said.
“Yes, of course you do. Mercy’s mate had one.
I smelled it, of course, but I felt no threat.
I was still trying to thank him, you see.
He took the tooth out and clutched it in his forepaw.
He knelt down to me and stroked me. I was in an ecstasy.
I thought, you see, I thought that I was saved. Then he—he, ah—”
“What?”
The beagle did not answer, but only sat shaking in fear. Milo licked his cheek and whispered something, and after a moment the little dog recovered himself enough to continue. “Then he cut off my tail.”
“What?”
“It…it didn’t hurt as much as you might think.
Not at first. I thought I had sat on a sharp rock.
I was slobbering all over him, and—and then he held it up, held up my tail, and I scented it, and I thought, I couldn’t understand, I thought perhaps I had wagged it off, and—and then while I was still wondering… he, ah, he started on—on—on—”
“Then he started on your ear,” Milo said quietly. He took the beagle’s enormous, floppy ear in his jaws and lifted it gently. It was cut about halfway through. The long scar shone white in the moonlight. “Do you see?”
Blacktail did see. “What did you do, then?”
“What did I do then?” the beagle repeated.
He laughed a little. His laugh was a dry, terrible thing.
“I screamed, of course. I screamed like I have never screamed before. I tried to bite him, but I was still very weak, and he had some sort of covering on his hands. Like skins. I couldn’t get through them. ”
“Was he trying to kill you?”
“Who knows? He wasn’t trying to be friends, that’s for sure.”
“What happened, then? Did your pack rise up? Did they defend you?”
“Not the pack,” the beagle said quietly. He looked at his priest. “You tell the rest.”
“It was not us who rose up,” Milo said. “Whatever faith we have now was asleep then. Perhaps if Sarge had been here, then we might have tried something, but”—he shrugged—“we didn’t. It never occurred to us. It never occurred to me.”
“What, then?”
“Don’t you know?” Milo asked. Part of his tone was honest curiosity, but part of it, Blacktail realized with amazement, was contempt. Searching his memory, he could not think of another time anyone had spoken to him in such a way. Well…maybe Apple.
Milo looked Blacktail in the eye. “It was her. It was Mercy. She was the one who saved the beagle, just as she saved us all.”
“The next thing I knew I was covered in brains,” the beagle said. “I don’t know how she did it. Magic, I expect. She’s not so big, for a two-legs.”
“It had to have been magic,” Milo agreed. “Mercy’s mate was twice her size. Perhaps even more than that.”
“The two-legs have magic to make the weakest of them a killer,” Blacktail said. “It is not the same as what hunters do.”
“Maybe not,” the beagle said. “But it served me well enough.”
“Hmm,” Blacktail said. He was quiet for a long time, thinking.
When he spoke again, his tone was gentler.
“I do not doubt your sincerity, little fellow. It is your wisdom that I struggle with. Tell me, has it occurred to you that this kindness you speak of may be no more than an afterthought? A diversion? The whims of those in power often appear as more than they really are, when viewed by the powerless. I do not come here out of cruelty. I seek only to awaken you from your long dream.”
“It’s no dream, lord,” Milo said, still meeting Blacktail’s eye.
“Her kindness has no bottom. What you propose is—forgive me, Lord Hunter, but I must say it—it is a sin. We know what the world is like, what it has become. I am not a fool. I cannot stop you from hunting her. Perhaps none of us can. But we will die in the attempt.”
Blacktail sighed. He didn’t especially want to do this, but…heresy is heresy. “Very well, then.” His head shot out, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. He seized Milo in his jaws and threw him against the trunk of a broad oak. Milo struck chest-first. More than one of his ribs cracked.
The beagle turned and scampered back into House. “Mommy!” he shrieked. “Mommy, mommy!”
vi
Some say that the best way to take the measure of another’s heart is to love them, but Blacktail knew that the greatest truths are learned only in battle.
As he and Sarge circled and studied each other, Blacktail was forced to admit that the dog was a gifted hunter.
He did not boast or cower or bark out little challenges.
He only circled and watched. He is good, this one, Blacktail thought with the tiniest flicker of fear.
And on the heels of that: That such a beast has been taken in by Mercy is an insult to the Forest God.
Blacktail waded in.
Most fights in the wild are over quickly, but the two of them were well matched.
Blacktail was larger, but Sarge was quicker.
Blacktail had fought and killed all manner of beasts, but Sarge had spent his youth killing men; he had learned their tricks, defied their magics, and somehow survived.
Not all of a fight is strength and speed.
When Sarge was close enough to strike, Blacktail snapped out toward his throat.
It was a very bold move, an attack suitable for deer or puppies.
Blacktail thought it might be outside the dog’s experience—if so, the fight would be over quickly.
That was a mistake that nearly cost him his life.
As Blacktail extended his neck to strike, Sarge ducked low and snapped at Blacktail’s forepaw.
Blacktail danced away quick enough to save his paw, but in doing so he overbalanced—not much, but enough.
Sarge shot in underneath him, snapping at Blacktail’s belly.
In so doing, Sarge exposed his neck, but Blacktail had not been expecting this.
He missed his chance to strike. For the first time since his puppyhood battle with the lynx, Blacktail felt another beast tearing into his belly.
The pain was immense.
His instinct was to jump away from the pain and teeth, jump as he had when he bounded the wall of Renren’s garden so long ago.
Sarge’s hind claws dug into his throat and jaws, destroying rational thought.
In another bite, perhaps two, Sarge’s jaws would be in his guts…
jump, yes. But in the last moment Blacktail sensed Sarge’s ploy.
He is not digging into me, but only biting down. He wants me to spring up—yes, jump, and in jumping rip my own guts out on his jaws.
Blacktail did not jump. Instead he clamped down on his agony, forcing it far back into a distant corner of himself, and let the strength go out of his legs. In so doing he fell on Sarge, partially smothering him and, more important, spoiling the aim of his hind paws.
Sarge’s leg reflexively shot up toward the place where Blacktail’s jaw had been. Blacktail rolled to his side. The motion produced an agonizing tug in his guts, and a sick sensation of stretching flesh—this is what my prey feel before they die—but it also put his jaws in line with Sarge’s hind leg.
Blacktail bit down on the muscle of the leg, feeling his teeth sink through fur, feeling them catch deep in the flesh. In one smooth, fluid motion he twisted Sarge’s hip out of its socket. Then he ripped the leg from his body. Somewhere an artery gave way. Hot blood sprayed out, coating his muzzle.
Though Sarge was surely dying, he redoubled his efforts to disembowel Blacktail. But with Blacktail’s body pressing his head into the earth, he could no longer rear back far enough to do serious damage. His scrabbling first grew more frantic, then slowed. Finally it stopped altogether.
A number of the pack had taken advantage of Blacktail’s preoccupation and attempted to aid their champion.
As Blacktail rose, he realized that there were quite a few lesser beasts dangling from his back by their jaws or claws.
He shook his fur out as he might after fording a river.
Half of his would-be killers fell away. He twisted his head back over his shoulders and dispatched the rest with a few quick snaps of his jaw.
Standing now, Blacktail swiveled his head to regard the remains of Mercy’s pack. A few still stood, but most were bleeding and broken. He expected them to run then, with their priest lying broken below the tree and their champion dead.
None did.
“Take him,” said the Great Dane. “All of us together now.” Her voice was utterly devoid of hope. The few who still could rushed him.
Blacktail, confused and a little dazed from his own pain, fought the lesser beasts by rote. Some he killed outright; some he wounded mortally. Others he merely hurt. Before long the clearing was covered with broken and bleeding bodies. In the center of this, Blacktail stood alone.
He sucked in a great lungful of the night, let it out slowly. He padded toward the mouth of House…and the witch that waited for him there.
vii
“You have slain Sarge,” said Larkspur.
“Are you surprised?”
“Surprised? No. Disappointed, perhaps. Your strength was never in question, but I hoped for more in the way of wisdom. This world was better when that dog lived. I had thought you might see that.”
Blacktail was silent for a moment. “Did he know what is said of me?”
“He knew.”
“And yet he fought anyway.” It was not a question.
“Sarge would have fought the Puppy of Darkness himself if he thought it would serve Mercy. He was magnificent.”
“What now? Will you make a spell?”
The cat purred and licked her paws. “I already have. You were listening earlier, weren’t you? When I spoke to Milo of time and mothers?”
“I was.”
“I thought so. Tell me, Blacktail. What do you know of magic?”
“Only what I am told by cats,” he said. “It doesn’t interest me.”