Kennel, Kingdom and Crown

by Brian S. Wheeler

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  Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.

  The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.

  Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.

  Kennel, Kingdom and Crown

  Brian S. Wheeler

  Flatland Fiction thanks you for your purchase of this ebook. This ebook remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoy this ebook, Flatland Fiction encourages you to send us a review at letters@flatlandfiction.com. Unless otherwise instructed, Flatland Fiction reserves the right to post such reviews online.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler

  Kennel, Kingdom and Crown

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – A Prince Among Dogs

  Chapter 2 – Strangers in the Fog

  Chapter 3 – The Touch of Golden Eyes

  Chapter 4 – The Carnage of Little Hands

  Chapter 5 – Armies of the Dog

  Chapter 6 – The Dog King

  Chapter 7 – Snapping Teeth Shuffling in the Fog

  Chapter 8 – Bonded by the Night

  Chapter 9 - A Bridge Between Cradle and Grave

  Chapter 10 – Led by the Dog

  Chapter 11 – Faced With Old Mentors

  Chapter 12 – Burning the Bridge

  Chapter 13 – Sunlight Return

  Help Spread the Story

  About the Writer

  Other Stories

  Chapter 1 – A Prince Among Dogs...

  “You are an oak!” Gareth's beard bristled as he growled at his thin and young apprentice. “Stand still and hold Loki's leash steady so that I can work the dog!”

  Loki cooperated little in the foggy morning's cold. Loki represented one of Gareth's finest bloodlines. Though he sported the slender nose and long maw, the dog was too large for a wolf, and Loki moved too nimbly to be compared to the larger war mastiffs bred for the armies of other kingdoms. Loki's jet black fur and gray eyes marked him as one of the Stonebrook king's mighty dogs, a creature in which centuries of careful breeding had masterly combined the feral and the tame to create a dog that knew no peer upon the battlefield. Such dogs feared no opponent's armor. Nor did such war dogs bite contrary to their masters' will.

  Gareth devoted himself to advancing such a line of dogs. No kingdom possessed dogs that could match those sired by the old Stonebrook kings.

  Gareth's gray eyes locked with Loki's. The war dog pulled against Eldrich's grip upon the leash, fighting to gain inches closer to Gareth, who challenged his courage.

  “Stand still!” Gareth barked. “I'll not lose another finger on my strong hand because you can't keep hold of that leash!”

  “I'm trying!”

  Gareth broke his gaze into Loki's eyes, thus releasing much of the tension he placed on both war dog and handler. Eldrich rarely complained about whatever demands Gareth put upon him in the training of the war dogs: the constant cleaning of the kennels, the laying of scent trails in the coldest and darkest moments of morning, the supervision of often dangerous breeding sessions, the taking of bites while running across the dog field while covered in leather padding.

  Gareth nodded to his apprentice. “Take a breath. Rediscover your focus.”

  Sweat beaded on Eldrich's forehead. “The dogs are not themselves. Loki has never been so difficult to manage. He's the last dog I want to see lose his discipline.”

  “All the more reason why we must train each morning no matter the fog and cold.”

  Gareth spoke calmly. He was aware of Eldrich's fears. Though late into the morning, the gray fog continued to linger throughout the village, hovering like a oily smoke that refused to dissipate. Snow fell in clumps of gray, a sickly color that made all in the village miss the winter's white.

  “We train the dogs each morning so that they may find their balance, Eldrich. No matter the environment, no matter their unease, our dogs must know balance.”

  “Do you think Markus's hand summons the fog like country men claim in the taverns?”

  Gareth leveled his gray eyes upon his apprentice. Gareth and his dogs shared such a terrible stare. Gareth's lips twitched, and he almost exposed his teeth.

  “What difference would it make one way or another?” asked Gareth. “I do not know how to recognize when magic, and not simple wet and cold, is to blame for the ugly fog that hovers above the mud. Do you? Would you prefer to spend your days with astrologers and hags to learn how to read magic? Would you rather squint at ancient scrolls in dark and dusty rooms while you go blind and fat?”

  “Of course not,” Eldrich's voice cracked. He loved the Stonebrook war dogs more than anything, and he would do whatever Gareth requested to master the training and breeding involved in developing dogs as loyal, lethal and fine as those of the Stonebrooks.

  Gareth's voice did not crack. “And what if that fog is, like the drunks and gossips in the tavern claim, the spinning of Markus's magic? How would you combat such a power? Would you shiver in whatever mud hovel you regarded as home before I accepted you into my kennels?”

  Eldrich's eyes almost teared. “I would not cower in the mud.”

  Gareth peered deeply into his apprentice. Eldrich possessed much potential. The training of men was no easier, no more forgiving, than the training of dogs.

  “Good. I thought those scars you have claimed upon my training field testified to courage. Only tell me, brave Eldrich of the mud, how would you hope to fight that fog if Markus's hand, truly, summoned it?”

  “I don't know how to fight such magic any more than anyone else.” Eldrich stammered.

  Gareth barked. “I asked how you would fight it, whether or not you knew how.”

  Eldrich paused.

  “You are not helpless,” Gareth pointed the thumb and two fingers remaining on his strong right hand at his apprentice. “I have not spent so much time teaching you the way of the dog so that you can cloak yourself within the comfort of ignorance. You well know how you would fight such magic if you were forced to stand against it.”

  Eldrich's shoulders straightened.

  “I would fight such accursed power with the dog.” Eldrich growled.

  “And don't you forget it!” Gareth snapped. “All the more reason why we must train. Our dogs must know balance. They must ha
ve the wild courage and the disciplined mind. We cannot comfort them, or ourselves, with excuses as long as the fog lingers, bringing with it the fear of Markus, whether or not his hand has called the gray.”

  “I understand,” Eldrich gripped the leash and he set his feet to become sturdy like an oak.

  Gareth again locked his gray eyes with those of the black war dog who strained against his collar. Gareth wore a thick, leather bracer upon his left arm. The village tanner made it to Gareth's careful specifications. The leather was thick enough so that a dog's biting tooth could not penetrate the sleeve and tear his skin. Yet the leather was also soft enough so as not to harm a young war dog's teeth. Gareth preferred his leather sleeve to be as soft as possible. He did not flinch to feel a dog's grip bruise his arm. Gareth liked how a soft leather sleeve allowed him to feel the shape of a war dog's bite. A soft sleeve let Gareth judge how well a dog targeted its strike, and how steadily and forcefully that grip held.

  Eldrich stood steady as Loki pulled at the leash, the dog's excitement stoked as Gareth tempted the dog with the sleeve, tossing it one side to another of the dog, each toss barely beyond the reach of the dog's bite. Gareth slipped his arm into the sleeve and danced about the dog, gauging the dog's focus.

  Gareth stood still when he thought Loki showed that combination of wild fury and disciplined control the dog trainer hoped to encourage.

  Loki barked.

  Gareth stepped closer.

  Sensing that he now commanded Gareth's movement, Loki barked again.

  Gareth stepped closer.

  Loki barked a third time.

  Gareth inched closer.

  Loki's barks fell into a repeated string. The war dog spoke with confident rhythm.

  “Now, Eldrich!”

  Gareth sprinted away from Loki as Eldrich dropped the leash. Loki covered the ground separating him from the master trainer in a heartbeat. Gareth twisted slightly a moment before Loki struck and exposed the leather sleeve upon his left arm. Loki struck the bracer's center and gripped to the arm as Gareth continued to shuffle forward. Gareth turned one direction and another. He shook his arm backwards and forwards. He fought against Loki's bite, but no matter his efforts, the war dog's grip remained steady and firm. Loki was a strong dog, and it took the years of Gareth's practice to prevent his weight from being pulled to the ground as the dog fought to take the sleeve. Suddenly, Gareth stood still as Loki's grip remained firm.

  “Out, Loki!” Eldrich shouted from the other end of the field. “Out!”

  Loki's bite instantly released from Gareth's leather sleeve. The dog sat directly in front of Gareth and again locked its gray eyes with those of the trainer. Without another command, Loki once more barked in that rhythmic cadence he had sounded a moment before Gareth had sprinted away from the dog and begun the chase.

  Loki pleased Gareth. It was not easy for a war dog with Loki's drive to display such discipline in the release of the bite. It was not easy for Loki to restrain himself from taking another jump at the sleeve. Loki's bark held Gareth in place. Had Gareth been the enemy, Loki would have him cornered. Any attempt at escape would suffer attack. But Loki refrained from another bite at the leather sleeve the war dog so badly desired.

  “Good, Loki!” Gareth laughed.

  Gareth raised the leather bracer in a flash and presented it for another bite. Loki's teeth clamped upon it instantly. Gareth slipped his arm out of the sleeve and awarded Loki, who ran in circles with the leather bracer in his jaw. The dog shook the bracer and trotted around Gareth, proudly displaying the prize held in his maw. It was now Loki who challenged the trainer with the sleeve, daring the trainer to make a move for it, as if anticipating Gareth to jump forward and bite at the bracer with human teeth.

  Gareth knelt upon the ground. Loki trotted to Gareth's side and sat beside the man who possessed the pack's gray eyes. Loki's breathing calmed into satisfied pants as Gareth stroked the black war dog's neck.

  Eldrich smiled as he reached Loki and Gareth. Eldrich thought Gareth and his war dogs looked more alike with each passing season. Gareth's black, frayed beard grew long and reminded the apprentice of many a war dog's mane. Gareth's scarred and swollen hands reminded Eldrich of paws. And the gray eyes. Both Gareth and the pack possessed such stone gray eyes that one could not be faulted for thinking a magic bound the royal Stonebrooks and their war dogs through blood.

  “Do you want me to have Loki release the sleeve?”

  Gareth shook his head. “Not this morning. You're right about the dogs being so unsettled lately. Perhaps the rumors hold more truth than I am willing to admit, and perhaps the dogs smell something sinister in the air. Let Loki take the sleeve off of the field. I want him to feel confident. We'll need confident, secure dogs if a sinister magic truly summons the fog.”

  A barking din erupted from the kennels built just beyond the field's short, wooden fencing. Loki's fur bristled at the noise, and the war dog turned to face whatever motivated such a commotion by approaching the field.

  Cloaks of vermillion floated towards the field in the center of four soldiers dressed in plate and armed with lance.

  “Pick up your tongue, Eldrich.” Gareth chuckled at his apprentice as they watched the group near their training field. “You've suffered bites on this field far worse than anything that group is going to give you today. You've learned a lot about dogs during your time with me, boy, and so you have also learned a great deal about the politics that turn inside the keep”

  Gareth recognized his young sister Wren's vermillion robes from the distance. Those of the village shared in the mud. The group that arrived at his field did not partake of that fellowship with the grime. The soldiers surrounding Wren wore expensive armor: breastplates, gauntlets, grieves and helms. A sheathed hand-and-a-half sword rested on each soldiers' hip, and they all gripped long pole-arms topped by wicked blades. Eldrich gripped Loki's collar tightly as the group arrived at the fence, for Loki's training made the dog distrustful of any type of armor. Loki snarled at the sight of the weapons, his training telling him to regard the reflection of sharp blades as danger.

  The front pair of guards stepped aside and the vermillion robes floated to the field's gate. Wolfe pelts adorned the woman's vermillion robes, framing a sly, luring face filled with strands of jet black hair, with lips that promised both mirth and sneer. Most powerful upon the woman's alluring and young face was the pair of stone gray eyes that announced her royal, Stonebrook blood. She tread so lightly upon the mud that the hems of her robes betrayed no trace of muck. Her steps and form were so graceful that not even the toes of her dark boots appeared splotched with grime.

  Eldrich's knees knocked. His face flushed in the cold wind.

  Loki threw the woman a warning bark as she opened the gate.

  The woman's gray eyes darted to the dog.

  “Your dog is either very foolish or brave to growl at me,” Wren's gray eyes penetrated Eldrich, sparkling as they recognized the unease her stare inspired.

  Gareth chuckled. “Loki thinks well of you, Wren. That's as kind as any greeting he's ever offered a stranger.”

  “How many years has it been now since you have retreated to your dog field?”

  Gareth leveled his stare upon Wren. “It has been many.”

  “And have you learned anything to make the Stonebrook ghosts proud?”

  Gareth nodded. “I do as much to make those ghosts proud as anyone else in the keep.”

  Wren scoffed. “You're insolent to think playing with dogs is anything like administrating the keep. Father spoiled you. He should never have given you that first flea-ridden dog. He should never have allowed you to spend so much time with that old dog trainer when you were just a boy.”

  The memory of Ebon, his old teacher, the first to show him the proper way to correct a dog, not too harsh nor too soft, made Gareth smile. Ebon had not known Gareth was one of King Harold's sons when he allowed the stubborn boy to feed the kennels each morning at the crack of dawn to e
arn the right to walk next to the war dogs in Ebon's field. Ebon had believed he only gave another of the village's poor waifs a purpose more positive than cutting pockets. Gareth smiled to remember Ebon's surprise when King Harold, unescorted and unarmed, accompanied Gareth to judge if his young son walked the Stonebrook war dogs with as much courage and skill as the youth claimed.

  “I have heard, Wren, that to question even a dead Stonebrook king is to flirt with treason,” Gareth laughed. “Father knew what he was doing when he left me in Ebon's charge. You would do better to remember that the dogs did not abandon him in the end.”

  Wren snorted. “All the same, those dogs failed to save him.”

  Anger sparked in Gareth's gray eyes. “And they paid for it with their lives. But what would those sheltered in the stone keep understand of such sacrifice?”

  “You'd be surprised how much the keep has learned of loss, brother.”

  Gareth held his tongue. Learning the craft of training wars dogs taught one to be a keen observer. Tales of the Stonebrook keep no longer made rival kings shiver. Wren's presence at the field testified to how far the Stonebrook throne had fallen. Gareth had many other sisters, all of whom had been married off before their thirteenth birthdays to secure allegiances and gain loyalties. Court politics, like the development of dogs, depended on strategic and selective breeding. Wren was the last of King Harold's daughters, born to Harold's final wife, a woman three years younger than Wren's oldest half sister. Wren was still in the crib when King Harold met his death.

  Gareth sighed to realize his family's decline during the years following Harold's death. Wren neared her twentieth year, and she remained unwed. Wren's maidenhood could not be blamed on any deficiency of beauty. Only, the Stonebrook armies were no longer considered so strong. King's Harold's final obsession had emptied the keep's coffers. The Stonebrook line was splintered. And now, a greasy, thick fog spread across their kingdom, pulling a sickly snow to the ground that carried fear as well as cold.

  Those Stonebrook rivals, who would once offer their green and blue-eyed sons to that line of gray-eyed kings, smelled decay festering upon the dynasty and did not desire to wed the last of King Harold's daughters.

  “I've not come to your field to discuss your dogs,” Wren brushed a lock of jet black hair away from her eyes and raised her chin. “I've come to bring you to the keep.”

  “Is the throne so desperate to summon Harold's dog son?”

  Wren shook her head.

  “Things have turned so desperate that we must request your presence with humility.”

  Gareth's heart stopped. “Take Loki back to the kennels, Eldrich. Bring Asguard to me.”

  Eldrich wasted no time to ask Gareth why worry, like a fog, clouded over his teacher's eyes. Gareth trained Eldrich as surely as he had trained any dog, and his apprentice's loyalty ran deep.

  Wren waited until Eldrich left the field before speaking further.

  “Luke is dead.”

  The fingers remaining to Gareth's right hand twitched. “How?”

  Wren's eyes scanned the field. “You must learn that within the keep. I fear words carry too far on this sick fog.”

  Gareth's throat tightened. “I am only a dog trainer.”

  “You are wrong, brother.” Wren's eyes flashed. “You are the last of Harold's sons.”

  “I am not the last,” Gareth whispered, and the fog twirled around his words.

  Wren slowly shook her head. “I don't believe you would think such a terrible thing. You are truly the last. And you are now a Stonebrook king.”

  Eldrich returned to the field stumbling behind a massive, black war dog. Only Gareth commanded the mighty Asguard, whose claws dug into the ground to pull closer to his master. Eldrich released the dog, and Asguard sprinted to Gareth's side, whimpering in concern as his master stood still as an oak, Gareth's thoughts heavy considering the news the woman cloaked in vermillion carried to his training field.

  “You will have to work the dogs alone tomorrow morning, Eldrich.”

  Eldrich nodded.

  “I will return when I know more.” Gareth squeezed his apprentice's shoulder, and Asguard stretched to encouragingly lick the young man's fingers. “The training of our dogs has never been so important. I suspect we may soon need to depend upon their courage.”

  Gareth stepped through his training field's gate with Asguard at his side. The armored soldiers took a step back to give wide room to the gray-eyed Stonebrook king and war dog. They had been trained to place their faith in iron and steel. They knew little of war dogs and were not so confident their armor would obstruct the bite of a dog as formidable as Asguard.

  Wren hesitated before starting back towards the keep.

  “Don't you have a sword? Or an knife?” Wren revealed a dagger hilt hidden within her vermillion robe's sleeve. “Don't you have some weapon to arm yourself with before walking through the streets?”

  Gareth laughed.

  “Have you not noticed my right hand is missing two fingers? Two fingers and a thumb don't provide much strength for a sword hand. Blades are not for me. But I am armed. I have Asguard's bite.”

  * * * * *