The Heart of Dog

by Doranna Durgin

  "She isn't acting right," Tallon had said. "I think the incident with Jehn broke her."

  "That wasn't her fault." Eldon's voice had carried frustration through the cabin walls. "The old man went too far over the border when she was on trail, and fell right into one of the spellrunner scare-spell traps. If only his heart had withstood the shock, he'd be in retirement right now."

  She'd found Jehn just as the silver-chased horn fell from his limp hand to the mossy ground, and it'd taken three Linemen to haul her away from his body when her howls finally guided them to the spot.

  "I didn't say it was her fault." Tallon's response to Eldon had been sharp enough to come clearly to Shiba's ears. "I said I think it broke her. And I'm not about to chance losing another dog."

  Shiba grumbled at the memory, and now she gave an extra jerk against the leash. Shiba, broken? Ready to farm out as someone's pet? Critter-crap!

  And ah, yes, and there was some now.

  Shiba wrinkled her nose at the scent, but she recalled the magic-critter from the day before and let her nose do her thinking. Crittersmell, it told her, predictably enough. Crittersmell...magicsmell! She barked, and looked over her shoulder at Tallon.

  "Uh-uh," he said. "You'll do this one in harness."

  Magicsmell!! she told him, a more demanding bark.

  "Good girl. Find it, Shiba!"

  Why...he meant it! Leashed!

  All right, then. Just see if he could keep up with her.

  Nose to the ground, she hauled him into the woods, and immediately hit trail so strongly she just couldn't help the bellow that escaped her. Ohhh, yes, magicsmell! Forgetting her resentment, Shiba racing along the mixed scents of critter and magic, hauling Tallon with her.

  The nasty creature couldn't be too far ahead, not far, not far...here!

  Treed! And in a silly little bush barely taller than Tallon. Treed, treed! Shiba bounced into the air, joyfully inhaling the magic and happy to be bawling in another critter's pointy little face.

  A jerk brought her down to earth, startled. Tallon's firm hand on the harness kept her there. "Another [critter]," he said, his voice strangely flat. "Shiba, Jehn would be ashamed of you."

  Magicsmell! she barked at him. If only humans had something better than that puny little thing they somehow called a nose!

  With jerky movements, he retrieved the magic detector from its belt pouch, aiming it at the critter. "Nothing. I didn't think so."

  The disappointment in his voice made her fold up upon herself. Treed?

  Jehn hadn't detected magic when she'd chased the critter-enhanced spellrunners, either. She was a linehound, his linehound, and no detector would ever be as sensitive.

  Tallon, now...Tallon was stroking her head in a sad way. "It's all right, Shiba. We'll just start you over from the beginning, if we have to. That's a girl, it's all—"

  The cowardly critter could stand no more. It sailed over Tallon's head, emitting a little warsqueak on the way. Shiba answered it with a belling cry—magicsmell! Slave to her nose, she flung herself after it, jerking Tallon off his feet and onto his face. The weight meant nothing to her; she dug her feet in and dragged him. And then the leash flopped loose behind her, and in her freedom she thought nothing of Tallon and everything of the magicsmell.

  It was her job, after all.

  5.

  She was barking treed when he caught up with her, the critter cowering not far overhead.

  "Shiba!" he bellowed, timing to catch her between barks. There was anger in that voice. Definite anger.

  Suddenly, Shiba remembered the feel of dragging him over roots, the sound as he broke low-lying brush with his face, the ripping noise of good stout broadcloth as he hit the greenbriar she'd slicked right through...

  Just as suddenly, she realized she was high off the ground, balanced on three different branches with one front foot clawing to find purchase in the bark...

  Of the tree...

  She was in.

  High. In.

  Tallon looked up at her, and now she saw astonishment mixed in with the anger on his face. She could see the way his hair was thinning on top, too. She barked encouragingly at him.

  He fisted his hands on his hips and said, "Shiba, come down from that tree."

  Come down? She didn't remember getting up here—how was she supposed to get down? Her front foot slipped again; bits of bark rained down on Tallon's head. Come down? Not a chance. Never.

  Tallon looked at her, looked at the critter, looked at her, swore...and started to climb. That was more like it! Shiba wagged her tail. They'd get the magicsmell together!

  But when Tallon came to a stop between Shiba and the critter, it was to reach for Shiba's harness. Ohhh, no. He wouldn't—he couldn't—

  He tugged. Shiba's four legs turned to twenty, all clawing for purchase amidst the convoluted branches of the low-slung maple. One man's insistent arm was nothing against ninety pounds of determined hound.

  Tallon muttered another curse, his gaze swiveling to the critter. Beady-eyed, it stared back, all four stubby little legs wrapped around its branch, its tail hanging down like something already dead, a naked scaly appendage no farther from Tallon than he was from Shiba.

  In one quick, decisive movement, Tallon grabbed that tail, ripped the animal off the branch, and flung it at the ground. Magicsmell on the move! Shiba's nose-brain kicked in and she launched herself into the air, no more thinking about the long drop than she did about Tallon's precarious position—

  Whump! They collided and fell together in a collection of flailing limbs.

  Tallon hit first, curling up to take it in a roll; Shiba bounced off his chest and careened in the opposite direction, ending up on her back with legs askew.

  She scrambled to her feet and located Tallon. He'd ended up on his back, too, looking as disorganized as Shiba felt.

  Shiba shook herself off, shedding leaves and twigs. She went to encourage Tallon to do the same, peering down into his open eyes from much the same vantage point she'd had the day before.

  He scowled back at her. His eyes grew less dazed and more angry.

  Uh-oh.

  And then...then...Shiba smelled the smell. The magicsmell.

  Enthusiastically, she sniffed the air around Tallon, and the juncture of his body against the ground. Oh yes, oh joy, definitely, the magicsmell was here—

  She couldn't help herself. She bawled the discovery to Tallon, whiskers brushing his face. His eyes squinted against the noise; his nose wrinkled against her breath.

  But he kept his mouth closed.

  6.

  Tallon's shirt flapped in the breeze, shifting along the porch railing. Showing stark against the light wet cloth was a bloody, greasy stain in the approximate shape of flattened critter.

  It hadn't washed out very well.

  Shiba skulked at the edge of the woods, a limp, flattened critter at her feet. She hesitated, knowing the words Tallon would use to greet her. He'd been angry enough before he'd fallen out of the tree. Now that she'd twice torn herself from his grasp to retrieve the critter he kept throwing away, there was no limit to what he might do.

  Gingerly picking up the greasy blot of dead critter, Shiba slunk into the clearing. He came out to meet her at the top of the porch steps, his expression dark. Shiba all but crawled the last distance between them, gingerly placing the critter at his feet. Quietly, almost inaudibly, she whuffed—a doggy whisper. Magicsmell.

  The anger melted from his face. "Poor Shiba," he murmured. He stroked the top of her head and down the length of her ears. Shiba pushed her head into his hand with some relief. Finally, he was smelling the sense of her actions! "You've worked hard today," he told her. "Come in and get some supper."

  Hers was not to question food. She followed him willingly, watched while he picked out some of the best bits from his meal, and gratefully shoved her nose into the bowl when he put it down.

  While she ate, he threw the critter away.

  And then he chained
her.

  7.

  Shiba started the night locked in the cabin, but that hadn't lasted long. Fed up with her whining, Tallon chained her in the moonlit clearing. Nose to the sky, Shiba howled.

  Halfway through the night, she stopped howling and broke the chain instead.

  She greeted Tallon on the porch in the morning with the stiffened critter between her front paws.

  He gravely thanked her, shut her in the cabin, and threw the critter away. Shiba spent the day with her head on her paws; Tallon walked the border alone, using only his wits, the stupid walking stick, and his detector.

  When he returned, tired and cranky, Shiba blasted through the open door and into the woods.

  Tallon had taken some care to secrete the critter away from the cabin, but it had taken on a distinct deadcrittersmell and wasn't at all hard to find. Shiba grasped the tip of its tail and dragged it home, leaving behind great patches of its fur.

  Tallon sat on the front porch, his head in his hands. He looked too weary to hide the critter again; this time, maybe he'd take the time to look it over, to find whatever gave it magicsmell.

  However, when she proudly presented him with her flat stiffened decaying bald critter, taking a closer look at it seemed to be the last thing on his mind.

  The next day, he buried the ragged little corpse. That made finding it a little harder, but in the end Shiba thought the encrusting dirt coat was a distinct improvement over the critter's splotchy baldness. Tallon, she thought, gently laying the prize in his lap, would surely agree.

  Tallon didn't.

  Dramatic over-reaction, she sniffed to herself, quietly curling up in the far end of the cabin to sulk herself to sleep—a task more easily accomplished once Tallon stopped making so much noise. Sooner or later, he'd understand. Shiba was a linehound, and the boon and bane of a linehound was its perseverance. She would retrieve the critter corpse again and again, until Tallon finally got the message, and she would do it until she was presenting him with nothing more than greasy bones.

  Some called it being stubborn, but then, they didn't know any better.

  8.

  He'd fixed the chain—it was much shorter now—and wrapped the end around a porch railing post. But he'd unwittingly chosen the post that she'd long ago marked with her milk teeth. Left behind for the day, she quite happily applied her strong adult jaws to wood.

  Until she smelled the magic. She stopped spitting splinters to check the air, licking her nose to hike it to full power. Ohh, yes, magicsmell, coming from a distance but still thick with strength. She barked sharply, announcing her discovery to no one at all, and sat tall on tight alert. Magicsmell, and strong enough that even Tallon's silly little detector would find it.

  The sight of Jehn's body flashed into her mind. Jehn had gone over the border to follow magic scent without her, and had died for it.

  "Ahhrrr-ahhhr-arrhhwoooooo!" Shiba bark-howled, demanding immediate freedom. The startled birds at the edge of the clearing flittered away into the woods, and nothing else paid her any attention at all. "Ahhrrrr-arrrhhwooooo!!"

  Nothing. No one swooped into the clearing to release her rightthisminute. No one even told her to shut up. All her patient chewing forgotten, Shiba lunged against the pull of the chain, again and again and—

  The chain gave. Shiba rolled head over heels in the dust of the clearing; behind her came a great clattering noise. When she found right-side-up again, she discovered herself free.

  Free, that is, except for the post and several sections of railing attached to the end of the chain but no longer to the porch.

  Paying it little heed, Shiba charged off into the trees, following the magicsmell and leaving splintered wood and mangled brush in her wake. At first she gave call, but found herself working too hard to manage it. As fast as the railing shed bits of itself, the post and chain gathered greenbriars and branches and clumps of moss—and one big poison ivy vine, roots and all. That particular acquisition slowed her briefly, but not for long. She was well over the border, and by now had tallonsmell and crittersmell and strangehumansmells in her nose and brain.

  She knew, when she topped the little rise, that she'd find him.

  She still wasn't prepared for it.

  Tallon sat against a tree, scowling. Not far away but definitely out of reach leaned his stupid walking stick. Several men stood around him, gesturing with angry emphasis; a little donkey-drawn cart stood off to the side, loaded with critter cages and reeking of magic.

  She was here in time!

  Tallon was alive!

  The magicsmell was hers to tree!

  Shiba threw herself into a headlong rush down the hill, baying wild challenge. The post, railing and debris conglomerate gathered life of its own, bounding wildly along until it was beside—and then ahead of—her.

  Tallon's face went from surprise to a fierce smile, and he hollered, "Atta girl, Shiba!"

  The spellrunners looked up, incredulous, an entire circle full of open mouths and astonished eyes.

  By the time they thought to run, it was too late. Shiba blasted through them, the juggernaut railing at her side, taking down two men with her momentum alone. The chain tangled the ankle of a third and her teeth sunk firmly into the arm of the unfortunate who grabbed her. No strange man was going to get between her and the magicsmell, oh, no!

  With two mighty bounds and a leap of prodigious proportions, Shiba landed atop the critter cages. A terrified chorus of warsqueaks heralded her arrival, and she responded with a mighty bellow. Treed! TreedtreedTREED!!

  The offended donkey commenced to batter the cart with his heels—Shiba did a balancing jig as the whole contraption jerked and wavered, and then abruptly dissolved out from beneath her.

  She found herself sitting on the wreckage with critters squirting out in all directions. One quick snatch nabbed her a squirming mouthful, and she sat proudly in the midst of her chaos with stubby little critter legs frantically paddling the air on either side of her flews.

  Now...where was her lineman?

  Tallon, it seemed, had used the confusion to snatch up that stupid walking stick and turn it into a whirling weapon unlike anything Shiba had ever seen.

  The spellrunners—at least, the three who'd been able to untangle from post and rail and chain and branches and roots and vines—had pulled long knives, but none of them got anywhere near Tallon.

  Stick whirling, he struck them down.

  Her new lineman could take care of himself!

  Tallon stood panting, leaning on the stick, ignoring the fallen men as he stared at Shiba. Suddenly he grinned, and just as suddenly Shiba found she again adored his furry voice. "My new linehound isn't so crazy after all. Good, Shiba!"

  Good, Tallon!

  She'd have told him so outright, but it wasn't polite to bark when your mouthful was squirming.

  9.

  Eldon sat on the porch with Tallon, looking out through the wide gap of missing railing. Shiba started the evening there—unharnessed, unchained—but the discussion soon reminded her of the job left unfinished, and she trotted away.

  Tallon and Eldon were done talking about interesting things, anyway—the way the spellrunners were using critters to carry amulets and curses across the border, using simple geases to drive the creatures to their destinations—and had moved on to intense discussion about a new lineman down the border who was actually a linewoman.

  Hmph. Shiba had never seen a human man or woman whose legs could cover ground like her own. Just look how quickly she accomplished this little task!

  She re-entered the cabin clearing not long after she left it, moving in a loose, purposeful trot. She ignored the porch steps and leapt up through the railing gap, a jump that placed her precisely in front of Tallon.

  Just where she wanted to be.

  She opened her jaws and dropped her burden into Tallon's hands.

  It hardly stunk like critter anymore, really—just the nice clean smell of decay.

  "Yahhhhh!" Tall
on flung his hands up. The critter went flying and landed on the other side of Eldon with a hollow thunking sound, losing bits of itself in the process.

  The tail landed separately.

  Eldon had that helpless look of someone trying very hard not to laugh. Shiba's tongue lolled out; she laughed for him. And then Eldon did what she'd wanted Tallon to do all along.

  He picked up the stiff flat balding dirty decaying critter for a closer look.

  "Ah," he said, pointing at the encrusted little leather tube around the critter's ankle. "Here's something that doesn't belong."

  "It's got one of the new amulets," Tallon said, groaning. He hid his head in his hands. "I give up, Shiba. I'll never doubt you again."

  Shiba opened her mouth wide in her best bitch-smile.

  Tallon, it seemed, was trained.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Return to Table of Contents

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  The Right Bitch

  The Right Bitch series, #2

  by Doranna Durgin

  1.

  Sabre whooped with enthusiasm, barreling through the thick wood undergrowth, his nose full of magicsmell, his ears full of Taliya's distant encouragement—and his brain too hot on trail to think. So hot he almost missed the answering trail cry to the south—a slightly clearer voice than his own and closing in fast.

  It made no sense; he didn't care. Not with his quarry so close, his sweaty, unwashed humansmell strong with forbidden magic.

  But suddenly the trail doubled in both humansmell and magicsmell, and then Sabre understood after all. Two spellrunners, joining forces, both being trailed.

  Sabre called out, wild and strong. Confident.

  The second dog sounded again, nearly in his ear—and charged onto his trail, cutting him off. He got a glimpse of flying black ears, smelled the blood of bramble-torn skin, and then saw nothing but dog butt, right in his face.

  Bitch-butt.

  Shiba, he realized instantly, checking his speed so he wouldn't plow right into her. Shiba, whom his linewoman mentioned far too often, and with far too much attention to the discriminating nature of her nose. And when would everyone forget about that vaunted critter episode?