Page 93 of Blacktail

It’s breathing.

Then the world exploded. The fire blasted outward to a distance perhaps four times its original diameter, swallowing the two-legs and their fallen pack lord. The flame itself did not quite reach Chester, but the heat was intense beyond belief. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. The water on the surface of his eyes turned to steam. A breath or two later his fur started to smoke.

But the sight he saw held him, mesmerized, bound him as surely as the hunger and despair had bound him to the rock. The heat and the pain and the terror were nothing, for Chester was a small creature in the presence of gods.

I’ll be ablaze in a moment, he thought deliriously. All this time without eating a roast and I’m about to become one.

It was that thought—tasty beef, fresh out of the hot-box and still steaming—that got Chester moving. Whether it was the fear of burning or a desire for meals uneaten, he was never, in later times, quite able to recall. He forced himself to close one eye, then the other. He turned blindly until he felt the heat on his ass instead of his muzzle. He opened one eye. With the fire behind him he saw a clear path back down the hill, out, out and away from here. In that direction things seemed more…real. Substantial. He sprinted as fast as he could, Blacktail forgotten, his hunger forgotten, his wound forgotten, everything forgotten except the need to escape.

He ran until the cool air embraced him, thought of turning to look again, and then ran on, stopping only when he reached the stream. He thought the single glimpse he had caught was enough to last him a lifetime. As he lay quaking and cowering under the rock by the stream, he thought that he had not escaped the burning after all—it seemed that the sight he had seen was cut into the back of his eyes forever.

Blacktail and the angel battled within the flame. Blacktail’s jaws had stretched wide enough to swallow the moon, but the angel ground him underfoot, his burning metal fang held high. Far, far below them lay all of creation, tiny and insignificant.

Perhaps he slept, perhaps the terror broke his mind for a time, or perhaps it was something else. Chester knew no more that night.

vii

He woke to the sound of the creek bubbling a little ways away. For a while he remembered nothing. He believed he was back on his rock. He thought, Up and at ’em, boy, you’ve a long day of starving ahead of you. But then he realized that he wasn’t especially hungry, and that he lay on sand rather than rock, and that the brook was too close. It all came back to him then.

Chester screamed.

“Be still, Chester,” Blacktail said. “You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all.”

Chester spun at the sound of his voice. Blacktail’s muzzle and side were caked with dried blood. Parts of his fur were burned away. There was a great wound torn into the side of his chest. When he took a step, Chester saw he now favored his right front paw as well as his left rear.

“My lord, what—what…you—”

“You had a dream,” Blacktail growled. “Perhaps it’s best that we don’t speak of it. Don’t you think?”

“Yes. Best.” Chester groveled on his belly. He backed away until his ass bumped into the cliff wall. “Yes.”

Blacktail went to the stream and took a long, long drink. Chester saw that he had wounds everywhere, burns large and small, gashes that still dripped blood.

When his thirst was slaked, he looked back at Chester. “I must be leaving now,” he said. “Time is short, and I have a meeting to keep. Do you think you can carry a hunt on your own?”

“My lord…I don’t know. My wound…”

“Look again,” Blacktail said. “Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as we thought. I cleaned it as you slept. It seems better to me now.”

Chester looked down at his side and saw that the hole in his side was better. Much better, in fact. The bone was no longer visible through the hole. The stink of infection had gone. It could not have healed so much, he thought. Not in a single night. But all he said was “Yes, lord. Much better.”

Blacktail wagged his tail and bounded up to the top of the gully, still spry despite his wounds. “There’s a bit of meat left, a little ways upstream. You should eat it. There is something about it, I think…something that will help you heal. Anyway the flavor of it is very pleasant.”

“Thank you, lord,” Chester said, his stomach rumbling at the thought. “But if the meat can do what you say…perhaps you should take it for yourself?”

Blacktail wagged his tail. “You’ve a generous heart, for a starveling,” he said. “You’re a good pack mate. But no, I’ve eaten my fill. Anyway, I heal quickly, always have. What’s there will keep you for a day or two. After that, I think you can make your own way in the world.”

“Yes. I think I can.”

Blacktail turned to go. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Last night I heard a female calling to me from just over the mountain. You see that one, there, just south of the sun? She’s in much the same hell as you were, though not quite so deep. Not yet, anyway.”

Chester thought on this for a moment. “Calling to you…as I once called?”

o lord, receive me in my penitence

Blacktail held his gaze for a long moment, then wagged his tail. “Yes. The same. Can you help her? I’d do it myself, but I think I’ve little time left. She might make a mate for you, Chester. In time you might even start a pack.”

“My lord, I will try.”