The Knight's Dog

Part II.

DERN HAD HOPED to have a fat pheasant or quail for dinner, but he’d seen only a few quail the whole day and was too lousy a throw with a stone to get close to hitting them. Maybe if he had a proper bow, but his father would have none of it, said it was a waste of money, that he wouldn’t know what to do with it if he got one. Someone knows how to use one. Shot up that man and his horse.

Without fresh meat, Dern was left to eat the remainder of the hardbread and moldy cheese he and his father had stolen from the last inn they stayed at. His father would be having a hot meal at the Stonetown inn tonight—probably venison stew, or baked pork and carrots—thanks to the coin they took from some old peddler they found frozen to death on the road. Dern normally went into town with his father, but they’d spoken harshly with one another this morning and his father was angry. He’d said he would return on the morrow.

The food was foul, but Dern was starving. By the time he finished choking down the paltry meal, night was upon him and the temperature dropping. He nestled himself between his pine mats and fed more wood onto the fire. Before long he was asleep, and sleeping soundly until the cries of wolves—definitely wolves this time—awoke him. He jumped to his feet, axe in hand, and surveyed the trees around him. The wolves were off a ways still; he could hear them in the distance. The fire had burned low, so Dern threw on several more pieces of wood and blew onto the flames until the fire was roaring again. By then, the howls were closer and the warrior’s hound began barking from the road. They’ll surround it and kill it, then eat the man and his horse too. There was nothing for it, Dern decided, stoking the fire. He’d tried to help.

Before long the howling stopped and Dern could hear only barking. They’re all there. Circling. Ready to attack. There was a sudden yelp that was cut short, followed by more barking and the horse whinnying. The wolves were snarling. Had the dog gotten one? Was that a human cry Dern heard? The horse squealed and Dern could take it no longer. He tore open his pack and grabbed a torch. His father had been saving it to sneak through the sewers of Gullstown, but Dern didn’t care; he shoved the pitch-covered head into the fire until it was aflame, then rushed through the woods.

He shouted wildly and swung the torch over his head as he approached the road. The wolves startled and scattered, and he burst from the trees unmolested. The dog stood snarling in the road, steam billowing from his nostrils, a wolf lying next to him with its throat torn out. The horse had fallen next to the warrior; it was trying to stand up, but its back legs weren’t working.

The wolves closed in again quickly and Dern froze in panic for a moment—Gods, what am I doing?—but the dog snarled and the blood-rush suddenly hit Dern. He dropped his axe and pitched a rock at the closest wolf.

“Get! Yah! Get out of here!”

His second throw hit its mark and the wolf yelped. Another wolf drifted in too close and the dog pounced. The wolf tried turning tail, but the dog hamstrung it. Another wolf tried darting in, but Dern was there with his torch, screaming. Garamund had taught him about wolves. He knew he had to keep them at bay, on the defensive. Once the leader attacked, they’d all attack, and there were too many. The dog seemed to know this too. He’d already ripped the throat open of the wolf he’d hamstrung and was pacing back and forth, lunging and barking at any of the other wolves that got too close.

There were at least a half dozen more wolves that Dern could see. They were scared of his torch, but not enough so to abandon their prize. He needed a bigger fire. He whipped the torch around him in a circle to survey the landscape. The closest trees were all pines, and on the opposite side of the road was a field of grass, already covered in hoarfrost. He scanned out farther and spotted a fallen branch partially buried alongside the road. It looked old and rotten, but it’d burn he knew. And it was big.

He grabbed his axe from the ground and lopped off several branches of a pine sapling along the side of the road, all the while swinging his torch over his head and yelling. With the branches in hand, he back-stepped to the fallen rider and piled them on the ground. He then moved to the buried branch, some fifty feet from the knight. Two of the wolves tailed him; the rest stayed surrounding the dog. Dern pulled the huge branch free of the dirt with a grunt and dragged it back to throw on top of the pine branches. He knew the green pine branches themselves wouldn’t burn, but hoped the needles would burn hot enough to light the old log. He held his torch to the pine boughs and the needles hissed as they ignited, but then the dog snarled and Dern had to rush away to chase off a big gray wolf.

It looked to be the leader, so Dern grabbed another rock and pelted it in the side. It didn’t yelp, though, only snarled. The dog stepped forward to meet it, but Dern yelled at it to get back. The other wolves had instantly grouped around the old gray. They’d all pounce when he did. Dern threw another rock, this time hitting old gray square in the face, and it retreated a few steps.

Dern stepped back towards the rider and saw that the old log had begun to smoke. He held his torch beneath the smoldering section and blew profusely. Within a few moments he had it going. He swung his axe to lop off the burning section. It cracked away easily, so he chopped the rest of the log into manageable pieces and soon had a healthy fire going.

“To me, dog,” Dern cried out, and to his surprise the dog actually came to him, though only close enough to pace back and forth in front of the fire. The fire seemed to keep the wolves at bay, but Dern heaved more rocks at the eyes glowing amongst the trees because the blood-rush was still in him and he had to do something. When he was certain the wolves were keeping their distance and his breathing finally calmed, he turned his attention to the fallen rider. He had a hard time loosening the strap of the great helm with his frozen fingers, but eventually succeeded at getting the thing off. To his dismay, the man beneath the helmet was cold and dead.

Seeing nothing for it, Dern pulled the man’s fur cloak free and bundled up before throwing another piece of wood on the fire. The dead branch was big, but it was pine and burned fast so Dern knew he had to use the wood sparingly. He resolved himself to staying awake through the night, but the wolves slowly retreated from the road into the surrounding trees, and in the silence of the cold night, the blood-rush ebbed just as quickly as it had surged into him, leaving him weary and shaking, and he soon collapsed into slumber.