Chapter 8 – Bonded by the Night...
The fog continued to thicken and the cold's teeth lengthened. Gareth's long, dark beard tingled as the new Stonebrook king walked through the village the following morning on way to his beloved training field. He had slept little during the night. Closing his eyes had proved too difficult following the combat against the foul assembly of swinging limbs and chattering teeth. The sight of that monster had lingered on the backs of his eyelids and tipped his rest towards nightmare.
Gareth found his exhaustion difficult to ignore as each of his steps through the morning's new accumulation of gray, sickly snow felt heavy. Tired as he was, the keen edge of Gareth's senses did not dull, and the new king was surprised by the change in mood he observed as he progressed through the village. Children waved at him from open windows that had previously been barred and shut during the fog's onset. Wives acknowledged him with short curtsies as they again hustled through the streets with baskets laden with breads and cheeses. Gareth's stomach rumbled as he smelled that the baker had reopened his doors, and following his hunger, was happy when the butcher spared a bone for the Asguard.
Gareth's spirit rose as he noticed the village men nod him greetings. No longer did those men glare at him and one another, no longer did they bury their stares upon the toes of their boots, nor did their fingers sway towards the dagger grips and ax handles belted around their waists. Only yesterday, Gareth could taste the tension in the fog, and it had made him fear that the village would soon turn upon itself. But much to his surprise, Gareth discovered that much of that tension had vanished.
The village had changed during the night. The fog still lingered, but something had broken the choke of fear. Having that night faced a monster within the keep, Gareth had not expected to find a village returning to commerce and camaraderie. He needed to do better to gauge his people's mettle if he ever hoped to sit more comfortably upon the keep's stone throne.
Gareth found that the excitement carried to the dog field. The field already filled with teams of dogs and handlers practicing basic routines and commands. Gareth smiled at Eldrich and watched from the fence as the dogs trotted in enthusiasm. Only one cold night had passed, and already, the difference in those pairings was startling.
A new level of balance had been achieved between the dogs and their handlers. Gareth heard more confidence in Thorn's commands as the huntsman guided his dog across the training field, Claw obediently following each twist his handler stepped along their path. Gareth watched as Jorn moved patiently alongside Scowl, smiling to see the soldier take the time to kneel next to that war dog and pet the animal each time Scowl obeyed his instructions.
Handlers did not move through that training field in fear. Gareth hardly believed it, but the same dogs who yesterday doubted the character and skill of their handlers that morning gave their trust to the hands holding the other end of the leash.
Gareth's gray eyes glowed when Eldrich walked to him, a rare thing from a line of kings rumored to have been born from stone.
“How did you do it?” Gareth aked.
Eldrich shook his head. “I can't take credit for the improvement.”
“I didn't think the war dogs and their handlers could go so far in only one night.”
“It's some kind of magic.” Elrich replied.
Wren's vermillion robe caught Gareth's attention. She had spent only two days with Loki. Already, Loki had defended her against terrible danger. Already, the two of them moved across the training field with a precision that challenged even Gareth and Asguard.
“Wish I knew where that magic came from,” Gareth spoke.
Eldrich peered at his king. “I think that magic comes from the fog.”
“How could this come from the fog?”
“You need to listen to something, Gareth.”
Eldrich waved Thorn and Claw to the fence. Gareth smiled at how the men moved together with their dogs.
“You look like you've had Claw since that war dog was only a pup,” Gareth greeted Thorn.
“I wish I had. My family owes everything to Claw after last night.”
Gareth raised an eyebrow, and Eldrich nodded at the huntsman to start the telling.
“The cold was terrible last night,” Thorn started. “Mine is not the only huntsman family to seek shelter from the fog within the village. We abandoned our home from fear of what shuffles through that mist beyond the village. My family now shares a crowded home with the families of three other huntsmen. We listen to the wind seep through our walls. We have done all we can to plug any crack or hole, but the fog still seeps into our shared home.
“The cold is the worst. We can do nothing to fight against it. We offer whatever fuel we can scavenge to our small fire, but the flames, no matter how they dance, refuse to offer us warmth. My heart aches to consider how my daughters shiver in their bed.”
Thorn knelt to Claw and rubbed the dog's ear.
“Claw came into our home last night and gave us all new comfort. My girls smiled the moment he walked through our door. I couldn't remember the last time I saw them smile. They had to only let Claw lick their hands once, and that dog befriended them. He ran with them. I swear he danced with them. That dog even gave me, their own father, a suspicious look when I raised my voice only a little when I had to corral my daughters to go to bed. At night, he curled next to them, and gave my girls something to think about other than the cold. Though he didn't listen too much to me yesterday, I thought that Claw would have done anything for those girls.
“It remained terribly cold no matter that Claw gave us such warmth. It's been hard to conserve fuel with the chill. I hated to have to do so, but the chill forced me outside in the middle of the night, no matter all the rumors I've heard in the street, and all the noises I've heard on my roof during the night. I was more desperate than brave when I left my home and stepped into the cold, dark fog to search for some branch, or twig, for anything, I might be able to feed to my the fire.
“I tell you I was terrified each time I knelt in the fog to feel at whatever my boot might have kicked as I wondered the streets. I knew that such cold drove men to do horrible things, and I expected a knife in my back at any moment. I couldn't find anything, but I had to keep searching no matter my bad fortune. I was too tired of the cold to go back to that home.”
Thorn paused and took a breath.
“I thought my luck was changing when I felt something strike my boot. I bent down and grabbed at what I thought was a branch. I clutched at it so quickly that I pulled it out of the fog before I had time to wonder why the thing squirmed in my grip. My mind froze when I brought that thing to my eyes. I held a writhing, twisting arm in my hands. Soft, white flesh slid along the bone as I grabbed at it. The severed limb's hand fought to turn towards me, wrestled against my grip to inch its bony fingers towards my throat. I shuddered. I felt things grab at my boots underneath that fog.
“That was when all the dogs started barking. All of those war dogs you told us to take into the village went crazy with howling. I don't know yet if one dog's bark sounds different from another, but I jut knew when I heard Claw's bark and growl over that din. I threw that writhing, severed arm into the fog as far as I could and bolted back to my home. That fog shrouded terror, and I had to get back to my girls. Villagers began screaming. I felt hands trying to trip my ankles. But I kept running. Thank the Maker I never stumbled in that cold.
“I ducked as I ran towards my home's open door as Claw flew past my head. I turned to see him snapping his jaws in the fog. Each time his head pulled back, he held another bone hand, or decaying arm between his teeth, shaking and pounding the crawling things against the ground until they stopped squirming.
“I ran into my home to protect my girls. Claw followed me, and the girls screamed to see what Claw gripped in his teeth. Arms crawled through our doorway like strange snakes, their fingers gripping them forward over the ground. Claw's teeth ripped at each limb that crossed the threshold
. The hands moved too slowly to defend themselves against Claw's speed. Claw never wavered. My blood froze at the horror. My wife swooned. But Claw never hesitated in his attack.”
Claw proudly barked at Gareth.
“Watching Claw's defense stirred something thick in my blood. I realized that those severed arms moved at a snail's pace. I willed myself to clutch another limb and realized they were not so strong. I beat the limb against my wall until whatever black magic gave it life vanished. Then I threw into the fire and the flames jumped with new heat. I realized that the fuel I needed came to me. Next to Claw, I fought against the fog's dark magic. Those limbs tried to overwhelm us, but Claw and I were too quick and confident, too strong to be pulled down by anything lurking beneath the fog. Crawling, dismembered arms are terrifying things, but they are not very strong, nor do they make very effective weapons. My blood was roused. I think Claw considered it all a great game.”
Gareth thought of the creature he had battled that night. It was not hard for him to imagine the gore of such a scene. Yet Thorn stood before him with confidence. The fog did not frighten. Last night, the fog had inspired.
“Claw and I fought the arms back, and again outside, I saw people stepping out of their homes. Your war dogs were everywhere. They sniffed beneath the mist and gathered all the undead limbs, and as had Claw, pounded and shook out their life before their handlers threw those dead limbs into piles. We shouted and cried as we put flame to those pyres. We had been terrified for so long of what was to come with such cold, unnatural fog. Thanks to the dogs, we learned we could fight those monsters, and we celebrated no matter the cold.”
Thorn scratched at Claw's belly when the dog, suspecting that his praises were being told to the dog king, rolled upon his back. The story thrilled Gareth. Yet he tempered his excitement. For the fog still lingered, and Gareth believed it would bring danger for as long as it hovered so thickly above the ground. But the first wave of the minions sent by Markus had failed, and the night's defense bonded handler with dog together more quickly than Gareth could have hoped.
“Old Ebon would be proud,” Gareth spoke. “You mentioned Jorn also had a story?”
Eldrich nodded. “One no less fantastic.”
Jorn jogged to Eldrich and Gareth as a very different handler than the one he had been the previous morning. Scowl trotted next to his side. Jorn did not curse at Scowl. He did not pull Scowl's leash.
Gareth's gray eyes peered at Jorn and Scowl. “The two of you are much changed.”
“But we are the same team,” Jorn stood at rigid attention, and Scowl emulated his master's pose by sitting still and straight at his master's side.
“Did the two of you also face monsters in the fog?”
“We fought the very fog itself.” Jorn answered.
Scowl stretched upon the ground before his handler told of the monsters they had faced in the fog.
“I would never admit such to anyone other than a Stonebrook king,” Jorn started, “but soldiers are, in truth, rarely more brave, or more cowardly, than the village baker, tailor or farmer. As those men put their faith in the cleaver, the needle and the plow, we put our faith in the sword and the shield. These are the tools we have dedicated ourselves to know, and, as for anyone else who has invested so much to master a set of tools, it is not easy for soldiers to learn how to use new implements.
“So I must tell my king that I resented his command that I take a dirty, mongrel dog to the barracks,” Jorn's face blushed as if he had committed treason. “The barracks is a home to brothers who have endured much together. We do not open the door to our home to strangers. Scowl had much against him when I dragged him through the door. Scowl was both a stranger and a new implement of war our new king ordered us to learn. When Harold had been king, we had been preached on the religion of steel, our faith demanded that we keep our armor polished. And then came Scowl, whose fur was matted, who tracked mud and slobbered upon our barrack's floor.
“We did not pet Scowl. None of us offered him a warm place at the foot of our cots. We did not give him any of our table scraps. We considered tying him to a post outside in the fog, but none of us wanted to return in the morning to our new gray-eyed king, with a beard as black as his dogs, to tell him one of his treasured war dogs had been lost in the cold because of our negligence.”
Jorn knelt to scratch Scowl's head. The dog's tongue dangled onto his paws.
“We left Scowl alone to find his own place in our cold barracks. We thought it was easy to mock a creature who could not defend itself with language, and so we taunted Scowl for taking a spot close to the cold door. We called the dog a weakling as he whined. We thought the dog cried to return to his pup brothers. Shame to us for such mockery. All of us remember a time we we wanted to cry in those barracks the first nights we found ourselves far from family and home. Shame to us for showing Scowl cruelty when the dog, on his first night within the barracks, showed as much courage as any of us had shown during so many years marching behind Harold's banner.
“We laughed and shivered until we fell asleep. I cursed one last time at Scowl to force the dog to quiet before I too escaped the cold in my dreams.”
Jorn paused and shook his head.
“None of us were happy when Scowl woke us in the middle of the night. Scowl stood facing the door, spit flying from his jaws as he howled and barked. We threw whatever we could reach from our cots at the dog. But Scowl kept howling. He ignored anything that struck him.
“I was ready to throttle the dog when my feet hit the cold stone floor. I bent to do so when Scowl turned upon me and stopped me in my tracks with eyes brimming with fire.
“The door flung open the second I hesitated. Cold wind rushed past my face as fog spilled into our barracks. The fog swirled and danced through the room. It clutched at those curled in blankets. It filled our barracks with a biting chill that pained our faces. Scowl went mad in his barking and howling. He nipped at the fog, and his teeth chattered as they snapped on emptiness.
“I pushed against the door as fog continued to roll into the barracks, but I could not overpower the outside wind that fought against me. Several of my brothers threw their weight behind mine, but still, we could not shut our door to the mist that flooded our barracks.
“Scowl turned towards the center of our chamber a second before the force of wind we fought against at the threshold vanished and sent us crashing against the door for our opposition's sudden disappearance. My comrades shouted in surprise, and I heard the chime of drawn steel, the clatter of shields, as my brothers grabbed at their weapons. Scowl growled next to me. I turned to see only fog, and I wondered what possessed the war dog to put himself between me and the mist, what my brothers had seen that sent them flying to their weapons.”
Scowl smiled as Jorn continued in his story.
“I had done nothing to deserve it,” and Gareth heard a crack in Jorn's voice, “but Scowl gave me his protection. You train such incredible animals.”
Gareth nodded. “Their loyalty has never failed me.”
“I pray to the Maker that my courage stands as true to you as does your pack's,” Jorn answered. “The fog shifted as I watched. Twirling and spinning, motes of mist gathered together until the shape of six intruders, with armor made of fog, with blades of ice, with only burning, green eyes to mark their faces, stood before us.
“We were on the shapes in a heartbeat. We delivered blows with our axes and swords that would have sundered the defenses of our most formidable enemies. Armies once wilted before the whistle of our weapons rushing upon them. But the burning, green eyes of those fog intruders twinkled as our steel found no bone to scrape, nor found any flesh to rend.
“The fog shifted and the figures again dispersed into motes of mist, twirling again throughout the barracks, hovering to regather about the room, reassembling into the same six ghosts whose burning eyes taunted us and mocked our vain attacks.
“Those ghosts shimmered as our arms turned heavy,” Jorn co
ntinued. “The wind shifted once more, and the intruders again vanished into twirling particles of mist. My comrade grunted as a club of fog fractured his arm. Another brother yelped as a blade of ice sliced the back of his leg. The fog had taken substance and attacked us. Our eyes widened as we suddenly found the intruders at our backs. Our attacks could deliver no pain to the fog, but the weapons the fog turned against us delivered very real hurts.
“We went wild with rage. We panted for breath and attacked clumsily in the fog. Still, those green eyes twinkled and burned. The mist toyed with us. It rushed here and then there, always reshaping and re-shifting into those intruder forms. We repeatedly groaned as the fog bled and bruised us. We did as we had been trained. We fought with the weapons we knew, no matter that they failed to do harm to those ghosts tormenting us in the mist.”
Scowl licked his paws as Jorn took a breath before continuing.
“But we had Scowl, and Scowl also did as he was trained. Scowl turned quiet while we fought. I stole glances towards him during our desperate fight, and I cursed the dog for appearing so still, so calm, while we waved our blades through the fog. I know now what he was doing. He was watching how the mist moved and reformed. He watched how the fog gathered into substance that delivered the blows against us. He smelled and heard what we failed to see. Scowl only waited for his moment. Like us, Scowl employed his training and senses to know when it was best to strike.
“We were bleeding and dizzy when Scowl barked once and darted into the fog. Scowl's teeth found what our weapons could not. His jaws locked upon one of the six ghosts, and we watched, amazed, as Scowl shook and tugged until that intruder he clutched fell to the ground.
“The intruder of fog wrenched a mangled hand out of Scowl's mouth. But it was too late for that lich to hide from the blows we delivered upon it as Scowl jumped aside. The fog again owned substance, and we knew that all those shades through which until that moment our blades had passed had only been reflections of that enemy who screeched beneath our falling blades. Scowled recognized the creature lurking in that fog. Scowl smelled the enemy cloaked in the mist.
“We sliced and struck until we tore that trespasser into shards of strange, unnatural bone and flesh. We stopped only when the fog retreated from our barracks. Our fire again turned hot and warmed us with its touch. We bled and throbbed, but thanks to Scowl, we had survived a battle with dark magics none of us had ever imagined could stalk in the night.”
Jorn laughed. “Scowl had his pick of our cots after that. All of us hugged him. We laughed as Scowl licked our faces. We roasted precious venison just for Scowl. We promised to never taunt another dog, and all of my brothers vowed to learn the ways of the dog just as we learned the ways of the sword.”
Jorn's eyes gazed into the gray orbs of his king, and Gareth knew he had won the trust of his kingdom's soldiers. “All of us who rode behind your father's banner promise to march behind yours. Be it with lance or with dog, we promise to wield whatever weapon you provide us to fight against the fog that chills our kingdom.”
Gareth wanted to cry in joy.
Jorn expected no return pledge from Gareth. Stonebrook kings did not celebrate when receiving allegiance from their soldiers. Stonebrook kings did not celebrate the morning's dawn. Such things were constants, and loyalty to a Stonebrook, was a certainty like winter or spring.
Nonetheless, Gareth's spirits rose as Jorn returned with Scowl into the field to continue their training. Gareth counted many new heads that morning at the training field. He knew that none of his kennel's dogs would go without a handler. He knew each of his dogs would find a home, and he knew, after what had just transpired in the night, that each of his dogs would fight to the end to defend the pack that now included village and keep, sons and daughters.
Wren's vermillion robes floated to him. Loki was again at her side.
“Savor the day as you can, Gareth.” Wren sighed.
Gareth considered his sister. She was both so strong and sad.
“Are you not impressed with the dogs?”
“I am most impressed,” Wren answered, “but I am not the only one sure to be surprised by the courage of your animals. Markus will also be most impressed. He has slowly thickened the fog. Until last night, he operated according to his schedule, and he has calculated all of his moves. He had to plan it all to maximize what he could take from our fear.
“And in one night, Gareth, you deny him the fear he strove so hard to grow,” Wren continued. “The sense of courage that sprouts from this field and now sits on the Stonebrook throne will not please him.”
Gareth understood. “Markus will toy with us no longer.”
Wren thought Gareth would make a fine king if he could first survive the mist.
“He will attack us quickly now,” Gareth continued. “He will soon throw all the dark arts he knows against us rather than wait for more courage to grow in us. He will waste no more time, knowing that we have found a way to prepare ourselves against him.”
“One power must soon be weighed against the other,” Wren spoke.
Gareth looked into the gray sky. “Then I pray that the Maker likes dogs.”
* * * * *