Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Ayla
Sleeping beside Kanik had been nice. Feeling his arms and tail around me had been even better. The best part, though, had been when Holly climbed on the bed and wanted to get between us. Kanik had told her no, but then had her lie on his other side.
I didn't know why I liked that, but something about it felt nice. I actually liked that he wanted to touch me. Not tolerated, not needed to, but wanted to simply touch me in a way that felt like it meant something.
As I prepared to show the Reapers Holly's trick to disarm the Moles, my mind kept jumping back to the heat of his body against mine.
Yes, I was distracted, and I didn't need to be.
Today, I had to focus, because the last thing I needed was to have a group of men who knew dogs better than me think I was an idiot.
Rymar had found a gun. Apparently, the militia members from Lorsa had collected the ones they could find in the last fight.
Even better, they'd all been secured properly, but two of them were broken.
One was missing the trigger. The other had been bent.
It would never be safe to shoot again, so I claimed those to train the dogs.
The bullets were out. The safety was on anyway. Both hung by the straps over my chest, and Holly was watching me intently as more and more dog handlers made their way into the small clearing Lansin had picked for my demonstration. Much too soon, it was time.
"Okay," Lansin said, speaking to the Reapers.
"For those of you who don't know her, this is Ayla, the Phoenix.
She was a Mole. Now, she's a Dragon, and trust me, she is as much as Dragon as Zasen.
I've seen her in combat. It's how she got that dog beside her.
She's not only a natural with the animals, but ruthless against the men who made her life hell until she escaped. "
"I got it, I got it," a man grumbled.
"All I'm saying, Stinn, is that she deserves a chance." Then Lansin dipped his head my way. "All you, Ayla."
"Thank you," I said, stepping into the middle of these people and their dogs.
"We all know Moles have guns," I told them.
"We have bows, and that means it's not an even fight.
When I first got here, I'd hoped we could take enough guns from them to even the odds, but they don't work without bullets.
What I didn't know back then was that we have something even better: dogs. "
I reached down to ruffle Holly's ears. She looked up at me adoringly, which made me smile. In the crowd, someone chuckled.
"Yep, she's a dog person."
"Told ya," Lansin said.
"So," I said, trying to ignore the way their comments made me feel self-conscious, "I don't know if all dogs like to fetch as much as Holly, but that's how we realized she could do this." I waved Rymar over. "Can you play the Mole for me so I can demonstrate?"
"Oh, this is going to hurt," he grumbled, but it was with a smile.
I passed him one of the guns. He held it wrong, but it was close enough for what I needed. Slowly, Rymar made his way further and further out - and Holly watched him the entire time. So did the dog handlers around me. When I felt he was in a good place for everyone to see, I gave the command.
"Holly, disarm!"
She took off, racing around the outside of the circle the Reapers had unconsciously made.
Rymar's head whipped around, trying to find her, but there were too many people and too many dogs for him to have a chance.
I knew where she was, though. So when Holly slipped between a pair of men and jumped, hitting Rymar from the side, I got to see it all.
Her feet shoved him back hard. Her teeth caught the shoulder strap. When she landed on the ground again, she took off, dragging Rymar one pace before the strap slipped over his head and left him in the dirt.
"Good girl!" I praised, taking the gun when she brought it to me.
"Yes, you're a good dog, aren't you?" Then I stood and lifted the gun.
"It's less about getting it back and more about them not having it.
I've been working on teaching her to drop it, but in the middle of a fight, she can't always hear me. "
"What happens if you try to hold on to it?" Stinn, the angry man from last night, asked.
From behind me, Xav huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, that's not going to happen."
"How can you be sure?" Stinn demanded.
So I offered the gun to him. "Would you like to try?"
"I'm not touching that thing!"
"I will," Xav said. "Demon, go to Ayla. Guard."
His dog hurried over, then sat beside me. When Xav took the gun, he told me I had control of him, and to use him instead of Holly this time. I nodded, seeing where he was going with this. Then, like Rymar had, he began to move away from me.
"I need you someplace they can see you," I called after him.
"Getting there," Xav promised.
The Reapers began to murmur, clearly trying to decide if they like this idea or not. I didn't care. I would teach them how to do it, but if they didn't want to listen, then that wasn't my fault. I couldn't make them pick the right thing. I could only offer to share what I knew.
Soon enough, Xav appeared on the far side of the circle. The moment I saw him, I gave the command. "Demon, disarm!"
Xav's dog took off. Holly lurched, proving she wanted to follow, but her rump only got an inch off the ground before she sat back down.
But Demon was a little bigger than Holly, so when he hit Xav, they both flew backwards.
Xav's back slammed into the ground, Demon locked his teeth on the gun and growled, dragging Xav across the dirt as they struggled over who'd get the weapon in the end.
And Xav didn't stand a chance. The dog turned, heaved, and was moving so fast Xav simply couldn't get his feet under him. Holding on to the gun made it easier for him to be dragged, and the moment he let go with one hand to stop the motion, Demon had the gun, rushing to bring it back.
"Good boy!" I called, bending over to pet him when he made it back. "Yeah, you're a good dog, aren't you? Good boy!"
"Trying to spoil my dog?" Xav asked, as he climbed to his feet. "And yeah, that was the best I had. If I hold on to it, he drags me to the enemy. If I let go, I'm disarmed. And without a gun, a Mole is harmless."
"I prefer dead," I told them.
"So how do we train this trick of yours?" Stinn asked.
"First," I said, "we taught the dogs the weapon. That's what they need to bring back. I used fetch as the starting point."
Bending down, I held out the gun, pointed at it, and showed the Reapers how I'd done this.
Immediately, they all started talking, clearly having ideas of their own.
Questions were asked and answered, but it seemed Xav's demonstration had been exactly what they'd needed.
A larger man, a bigger dog, and someone who had never lived in the compound was enough to convince them this would work.
Over the next two hours, I helped a few of them figure out how to get their dog to correlate the weapon itself with the command. Then Rymar had to act as a Mole, wandering around with a gun so they could convince their dogs to take it from him instead of their own person.
Bit by bit, we were making progress, and I had a feeling that if these dogs could all learn how to attack Moles, disarm them, and make chaos in the fights, we would start winning drastically enough the Moles might stop coming back. The question was how much would count as "enough."
Then one man caught my attention. His dog refused to listen to him. When he tried to show her the gun, she was more interested in what the dogs around her were doing. Seeing him getting frustrated, I made my way over.
"Can I help?" I asked. "You've probably been training longer than me - "
"I haven't," he broke in. "No, Pepper just doesn't care."
"She doesn't understand," I countered. "Can I try?"
He waved at the dog. "Be my guest."
"Pepper?" I asked, crouching down to her level.
At first, the dog ignored me. She was a cute little thing, smaller than Holly, but not by much. Her coat was black, but she had tan toes and lips. There were also some cute little dots over her eyes and brown triangles on her chest.
"What's her color called?" I asked, since I'd been trying to learn all the proper names.
"Black and tan," he told me. "I mean, she's really more black and rust, but the pattern just gets called black and tan."
I nodded, but the whole time, I never took my eyes off her. Combined with Holly beside me, Pepper finally began to get a little curious. She leaned in to sniff, and I offered her my hands.
"Hey, Pepper," I said. "Who's a good girl?"
And those words? It was like something came to life in the dog. She began to wag excitedly and rushed in to get attention. Naturally, I praised her. Then, I told her to sit, making her behave the same way I would with Holly.
"Did Lansin train her?" I asked.
"No!" her owner said with a laugh. "No, my partner did." And then he looked over to where the others were working, almost as if he'd been distracted the way the dog was.
But I could help with this. So, offering as much praise and attention as I could, I held out the gun and pointed at it. Over and over, I told her to "disarm," and when she even looked at it, I praised her. Then I had both her and Holly do it.
Each time Holly nosed the weapon, she got praise.
Pepper kept watching, almost like she was confused - and then tried it herself.
Maybe I looked silly doing it, but I made a big production out of how good she was, and petted her more than I had yet.
I actually petted her so much Holly shoved in to get a little attention of her own.
And from there, it was easy. Pepper began to tie touching the gun to attention, and that was all it took to convince her to go after it, to carry it, and bit by bit, to consider fetching it. Each time she started to lose focus, I would throw a stick for her, and let her run off some of her energy.
"I think that's a good start," I told him.
"Yeah," her owner agreed. "And I'm sure there are more who need your help. Thank you, Phoenix."
That felt good. The praise? The name recognition? It made me stand a little taller when I went to find the next person who needed help. But this? It was working. Bit by bit, these Reapers were convincing their dogs to take the weapons straight from someone's hands.
Not all of them were good at it. In truth, most didn't want to take the gun, just touch it, but that was a start.
Holly was young and dumb, Lansin had told me, but it seemed that had worked to our advantage.
Sometimes, being excited was all it took to try something we'd always been told we shouldn't.
Thinking about that, I looked over just in time to see yet another dog slam Rymar to the ground to take the gun he'd been holding. I was pretty sure he hated it, but he was doing this because I'd asked. Because I hadn't realized he might not want to.
Most of all, because he respected me enough to set his pride aside - and that was proof of how good of a man he really was.