Chapter 6 – The Dog King...
“Good boy, Claw!” Thorn Edgeton whistled and slapped his leg to encourage the dog Eldrich had partnered him with to come to his side. The black war dog yawned before hiking his leg to urinate upon the training field to communicate his obstinacy. “You're a good dog. Here, boy. Here.”
Eldrich stomped through the gray snow, the thick fog failing to hide the ire that glinted in his eyes.
“Don't you dare let that dog piss on the training field!” Eldrich stole the leash from Thorn's hands, and with a quick, short jerk that snapped the leash, reminded the dog that the handler was master. “Here Claw! Here!”
Eldrich demanded the dog's focus, and the dog followed Eldrich's order without hesitation. Eldrich took long, confident strides as he walked the dog, taking sudden turns that forced Claw to pay attention in order to stay close to his handler and avoid another snap of the leash. With the dog's concentration returned, Eldrich quickly pat the dog's neck to affirm the mighty war dog.
Thorn watched with admiration, shaking his head as Eldrich and Claw returned to the hunstman.
“I still hardly believe you can do it,” Thorn whistled. “Perhaps I'm not cut out for it.”
Eldrich handed the leash back to Thorn. “I've told you time and again this morning that you're not here to pander to that animal. Claw is a war dog, Thorn. He is not a pony you take to home to your daughter. You show Claw disrespect by treating him like a dandy. Do more to demand his obedience. Use the leash as I have taught you. You are a fool to think you might harm one of these war dogs by snapping the leash.”
“But I...”
“Just do it, Thorn,” Eldrich moaned. “Believe in yourself that you can lead that dog.”
Eldrich shook his head as he watched Thorn march Claw a few steps further into the field, noticing how Claw looked back at him, unconcerned of repercussion coming from Thorn. Eldrich knew Claw felt he ruled that man at the other end of the leash, and Eldrich did not look forward to dumping cold water on all the spots that dog would urinate upon that morning. Thorn was too timid for those war dogs, and Claw took all the advantage he could of that handler on the other end of the line.
“Blaspheme this dog and the Maker!”
Eldrich counted a breath before turning towards that shouted curse. Just as Thorn Edgeton had all morning been too timid with the war dog Claw, Jorn Skander, that soldier who reported to Eldrich that the new king had placed him beneath a dog trainer's command, treated his war dog too harshly. It did not take Eldrich long to recognize that Jorn was not a patient man. Jorn pulled the black war dog named Scowl from one corner of the training field to the next. Eldrich thought it testament to Scowl's discipline that the dog had not yet claimed a bite of Jorn's flesh. Eldrich hurried to Jorn and took the leash to let Jorn regain his calm before he taunted Scowl any further.
“You must not let yourself become upset,” Eldrich again reminded Jorn.
Jorn's face was red in the morning cold. “He's not followed me on any of the turns!”
Eldrich knelt and stroked Scowl's neck. “You haven't given him a chance to do so, Jorn. Let the dog get accustomed to you. How can he know what you expect if you give no indication to him that he does anything right? You must act as a team. You just don't pull a war dog all over the field.”
“I never asked to hold a leash,” Jorn growled.
Eldrich's eyes burned. “No. But your king did!”
Gareth watched Eldrich and smiled. Only months ago, Eldrich would have withered in the gaze of a soldier the size of Jorn Skander. But among the mighty war dogs, Eldrich had learned how to make a stand, and when making a stand was required. Gareth had seldom felt as proud as Eldrich as he did watching the youth hold firm against Jorn, and Gareth believed that Jorn, Scowl and Eldrich would be better for it.
“We're going to have to be patient, Eldrich.” Gareth gripped his apprentice's shoulder as Eldrich walked to the short fence to consult with the newest Stonebrook king.
Eldrich shook his head. “What else can we do? It's an ugly start all the same.”
Eldrich and Gareth cringed as they watched men who had been trained with armored horse and lance struggle to communicate with the war dogs Eldrich assigned them. Man and dog moved clumsily through the field. The masters did not yet understand the complexity of the simplest command, and the dogs remained unsure if those handling their leashes deserved their trust.
Some men trembled as their dogs pulled them through the field. Other dogs growled and stood their ground as their handlers cursed and jerked at their leashes. A delicate balance defined the relationship between between a war dog and his handler. A dog needed to understand his handler did not flinch when issuing a command. A black war dog with the gray eyes did not obey timid requests. A dog demanded a confident master.
Nor would a dog excel beneath a master who did not respect the creature. Handlers quick to temper, who intimidated their dogs into submission, found their animals obeyed only sluggishly, without enthusiasm, without the energy, that made the Stonebrook gray-eyed war dogs so formidable on the battlefield. One who fought his dog into submission might not always suffer the bite of a confident war dog wrestled into the corner, but such handlers routinely watched their dogs abandon them at that moment of battle when they needed their animals the most.
And more than anything else, time was required to encourage that delicate balance between war dog and handler.
“I hope no one gets hurt,” Eldrich shook his head as he watched one of the war dogs bite at his leash to gain more authority over a timid handler. “The fog has rattled the dogs no less than the villagers. They hardly stop barking in their kennels during the night. Some of the war dogs have started digging beneath their kennels. They sense something approaching in that mist.”
Gareth sighed. “I can't fault the dogs for it.”
Eldrich nodded. “Nor I. But it makes them all the more difficult to control.”
Gareth prayed to the Maker they would find the time for the dogs and handlers to take to one another. But the fog continued to thicken. The temperature still dropped.
“You think I need to reassign some of the dogs to different handlers?”
Gareth shook his head. “Doing so would only erase this morning's achievements.”
“You see any kind of progress?”
“Wren and Loki appear to have bonded more quickly than I would have hoped.”
Eldrich smiled as he turned his attention to Wren's vermillion robes moving across the training field. Dark and powerful Loki trotted close to her side. The dog's gray eyes intently watched Wren's expression for cues informing the dog of his handler's expectations. Wren's hands remained within her cloak's warm folds. She held no leash, nor was one attached to Loki's collar. Still, Loki matched each of her turns. Wren often came to abrupt stops in her walk as Elrich had shown her, and each time Loki instantly sat next to her. The dog resumed his trotting the moment Wren stepped forward. In that short span during a cold morning, Wren and Loki found that balance between dog and master. Wren was the smallest of handlers, but Wren gave her commands with confidence. She smiled and stroked Loki's ear each time the dog did as she requested. That reward was enough for Loki. Gareth and Eldrich, who both knew how aggressively Loki could growl, realized that the dog would not hesitate to protect Wren from anything that might shamble out of the mist.
“I envy her,” Eldrich smiled. “I've never seen Loki so focused upon his handler. I pity anyone who shows Wren threat when that dog is at her side.”
“And that is all we need, Eldrich,” Gareth nodded. “We only need to convince our dogs. We have trained them well enough so that they should not require master handlers. We only need to convince them that we are worthy of their protection.”
“No small thing,” Eldrich replied.
Gareth hopped over the fence and strode through the fog towards the training field's center. The dogs immediately ignored their handlers' new commands and instead turned
towards the man their pack had always regarded as their king. Even Loki glanced away from fair Wren to ready himself for any instruction that Gareth might send him.
Gareth chuckled as he recognized the loyalty of his dogs. Would he ever earn such respect from men?
“You've all done well this morning,” Gareth's voice easily carried across the field. His was a Stonebrook voice, and his words were born to crackle in cold and to thunder through snow. “But you have not yet earned the loyalty of these fine dogs. None of us know what weapon best fights the fog, and so we cannot afford to discount the worth of any. We need the loyalty of these animals.
“So you will all take these dogs with you as you leave my training field. You will take your dogs with you back to the barracks and back to your homes. I have kept these dogs for too long on the confines of this field. They have spent too many nights sleeping in their kennels. It is time the dogs learned about all those things you will ask them to defend. Let these dogs sit next to your fires. Feed them scraps from your tables. Let your children pet them, and let these dogs feel the warmth at the foot of your bed.
“Trust me when I tell you that, no matter what the fog might unwrap before us, a war dog's loyalty and courage will never waver once you have earned their friendship. I need you to trust these dogs as much as any of you have ever trusted armor plate and sword.”
Applause did not answer Gareth's command. Confused, those in the field turned away so that their king did not see their fear.
Yet the men did as their new king demanded, and none of the dogs bit at any of the hands that coerced them towards the village. Gareth watched them leave, and he hoped it a good omen that might stoke his hope into something greater than an ember. Gareth knew how to earn the trust of dogs. Gareth prayed to the Maker that he would learn how to earn the trust of men before they might become suffocated in the fog's fear.
Wren walked to Gareth, her vermillion robes nearly floating above the field's gray snow. Gareth recognized his sister's will, and he chided himself for underestimating what she offered to the keep and her family's stone throne. Loki taught Gareth better. Loki, one of the mightiest of Gareth's war dogs, followed only the wishes of the strong.
“The crown has greeted you very cruelly, brother.”
Gareth's gray eyes betrayed no emotion.
“The stone throne has summoned you from your training field to the keep. You have discovered that your father's horses have deserted us, making a waste of all the gold King Harold spent on armor and lance. You have found that the fog breaches keep walls that for generations have held out any threat. You have looked upon a brother slain by a sweet daughter's madness. Worse, a twisted brother has forced you to commit the blasphemy of burning our prior king's corpse so that his bones are not allowed to shuffle at the behest of a necromancer's will.
“And now, Gareth, the stone throne forces you to give away your dogs. Gold and silver never enchanted you. Yet so soon the stone throne forces you to sacrifice those dogs, the only treasure you ever cared to touch.”
Gareth surprised Wren with his smile.
“I have been selfish,” Gareth responded. “The stone throne forces me to earn its trust, Wren. I abandoned my family for the pack. I ignored the growing fog until it thickened so fearfully. The throne will not allow me the easy comfort of this field, not when danger threatens village and keep. I did my dogs a disservice. They need to bond with their people. They need to feel more warmth. You wonder if I have been forced to sacrifice too much when I feel new hope.”
Wren smiled as her eyebrow raised. “I think you will be a strange king.”
Eldrich joined them. “He will be a dog king.”
Gareth liked the sound of that.
* * * * *
Kennel, Kingdom and Crown Page 9
