Puppy Love: Sagecraft I

by J. C. Hendee

  Kyne saw dark spots flaking in the pup’s pale fur. Those spots were maybe a dried red-brown something. After all the scares of the night, she began to shake, but not from fear.

  “They… they beat him!” she whispered too loudly.

  The pup whirled around. His peaked ears flattened as his jowls pulled back in a snarl. Those jaws of teeth spread in a growl, and he lunged.

  Neither Kyne, Marten, nor Grim had a chance to react.

  The pup hit the tarp that they held up.

  Kyne, being in the middle, slammed back into the stable doors. She lost her feet and slid down as she heard Grim shriek. And the tarp flopped over the top of her. Something thrashed on top of the tarp and stepped hard on her more than once. She heard the pup tearing at the tarp itself, and all she could do was curl up beneath the heavy canvas and hang onto it.

  “Hey, you little monster! Come here!”

  The weight of paws vanished from atop the tarp.

  Kyne was too scared to move, even at the sound of running feet and paws in the stable. Footfalls took off in more than one direction, harried by claws in the dirt. One pair of those fast steps then raised hammering creaks from old wood. The other pair stopped altogether, though she now heard claws scraping on wood in another direction. And the snarls and clack of teeth would not stop.

  She slowly pushed up the stable doors enough to raise only her eyes above the tarp’s edge. Breathing too fast at all the fearful noise, she spotted the wolf cub first.

  He paced back and forth along the short wall of one stall, rumbling and hacking dryly. There atop the wall, and clinging to its taller front post, was Marten. He never blinked as he watched the pup’s every move.

  Kyne glanced quickly about but saw no sign of Grim anywhere. A sudden movement pulled her gaze back.

  The pup leaped up.

  His claws barely touched the stall’s wall top as he snapped his jaws. Marten nearly scrambled up the post to the loft’s floorboards overhead. With another scrape of claws on wood, the pup slid back down the wall. Even with Marten’s eyes wide and round, he still clenched his jaw and exposed his own teeth at the pup.

  Kyne didn’t know what to do. If she moved, the pup might turn on her, yet Marten was trapped and Grim was missing.

  The pup suddenly spun around, and Kyne almost squeaked in panic.

  All he did was go rigid in staring at the stall’s rear wall—the stable’s wall—as his ears stiffened upright. He still rumbled lowly, and his head turned bit by bit, as if he watched something moving beyond the wall. Then his noise finally lessened.

  Kyne watched the pup’s head turn as his eyes tracked something, and then he was completely silent. He kept turning toward the stable’s front, and he started sniffing rapidly.

  His ears flattened again with a quiver of jowls.

  Kyne heard shuffling footsteps outside the stable. She quickly looked to Marten still clinging high up the stall post. His mouth was half parted as he too stared where the pup looked.

  The pup’s sky-blue eyes swung toward Kyne, and she almost missed Marten silently mouthing the lantern.

  Kyne’s panic sharpened even more.

  The lantern’s light might be noticed through any crack in the walls or the seam between the bay doors—right behind her. There was the pup looking at her, his jowls quivering, but they were all about to be caught.

  Kyne made a crawling lunge to the right for the lantern.

  In one snarl, the pup rushed her.

  Footsteps outside stopped, and so did the pup. His ears rose again as he looked to the stable doors.

  Kyne quickly snatched the lantern, nearly burning her hand on hot tin as she shut it. The whole stable went pitch black.

  · · · · ·

  “Oh, you troublesome little mongrels!”

  Kyne numbed all over in the dark upon hearing Master Boulg right outside the stable doors; the old stable owner might enter in an instant. What she didn’t hear was even worse—not a sound within the stable, including from the pup.

  The chain on the stable doors rattled.

  Kyne’s stomach clenched so hard that her dinner rose in her throat. She heard grumbling outside the stable doors, and then…

  “Where are you this time, little street mutts?”

  A heavy sigh was followed by footsteps shuffling along the stable’s front. They passed all the way to the stable’s far side and around the other corner.

  Kyne followed that sound as it passed along the same lean-to woodshed that she, Marten, and Grim had climbed not long ago. Scuffing steps finally faded away, and she thought she heard a door close somewhere beyond the stable’s rear. Still, she sat there in the dark, half holding her breath in the tense silence.

  “Light!” Marten whispered.

  Kyne reached along the dirt floor until her fingers touched the lantern’s base. Listening for the pup and prepared to run… somewhere… she hunched up on her knees before opening the lantern’s shutter. She squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and…

  The pup was gone.

  Kyne scrambled up, looking everywhere as she flattened against the stable doors. The only one she saw was Marten. He dropped cautiously off the stall’s wall, looked at her, and mouthed where? She shook her head, and he sidestepped toward her in watching the whole stable.

  “We should find Grim and get out of here,” he whispered. “This has gone too far!”

  Kyne grabbed his wrist, squeezed hard, and he looked down at her.

  “You’ve… what…” he stuttered. “What’s wrong with you? We’re done, you hear me?”

  He was right. Nothing had turned out the way she thought it would, at least with what little she had thought about. The pup—no, the wolf cub—was savage and vicious. Certainly he had good reasons for that, but there was nothing in him like Shade—nothing at all.

  She had been wrong… about his eyes.

  “What if someone comes in here?” she whispered. “They will, sooner or later. We cannot let him attack anyone.”

  “And what can we do about it?”

  “I… I do not know but… something. First we find Grim.”

  Marten heaved an exhausted sigh as he picked up the lantern, and in every step, they watched every shadow. Only three steps, that was.

  “Psst!”

  The lantern rattled in Marten’s grip as Kyne jump back a whole step.

  “Up here!” someone whispered.

  They both looked up, but Kyne saw nothing but the rafter of the loft floor above. Inching along, they peered into every shadowy corner, until the lantern’s light finally caught on the opening above the ladder.

  How portly Grim had gotten way up there so quickly was a question for later.

  “Get down here and help us,” Kyne whispered.

  Grim’s eyes turned so round they no longer looked too small in his pudgy face. He shook his head violently, pointed at her, and hooked his thumb up and over his shoulder, calling her to come up.

  “No,” she returned. “We have to find the… the wolf cub and settle this… somehow.”

  Grim slapped both hands over his face.

  “Get down here!” Marten insisted.

  Grim shot them both an ugly pout before he swung one foot down onto the ladder’s top rung. Marten and Kyne waited and waited as Grim stalled again and again in looking fearfully about after every downward step. When his boots finally hit the dirt floor, he bolted off the other way.

  Kyne was too stunned at first.

  About to go after him, he dropped by his cloak and flung it open, scattering the tools. Grim rose up with his father’s wooden mallet gripped in both hands.

  “Put that back!” Kyne whispered.

  “No!”

  “Leave him alone,” Marten told her. “If he had two of those, I’d grab the other. Or would you prefer I get that big knife instead?”

  “Yeah,” Grim whispered. “And if that… that little…gnasher makes a move for me, I’ll whack him.”

  Kyne bit dow
n against arguing further.

  All three of them clumped together as they crept through the stable toward its rear. The hardest part was making sudden quicksteps past stall half-walls to either side, so the lantern’s light quickly filled those dark spaces. Getting around the stored wagon was another problem. They had to pick one side and chose the left, simply because it was closest. But before they went onward, another hushed argument erupted.

  Who had to drop down on hands and knees to check between the wagon’s wheels… in case the wolf cub had ducked under there?

  Kyne ended up doing this, not that she liked it anymore than the boys. Still, there was no sign of the cub—until she rose on her knees and looked ahead.

  Two faint glimmers showed in the near darkness at the stable’s rear, as if eyes low to the floor watched from around the last stall wall on the left.

  Kyne snatched Marten’s pant leg. In startling him, he almost kicked her.

  “Don’t do that!” he warned. “I see him already.”

  At Marten’s voice, a rumble rose out of the dark ahead.

  “Oh, dinêy!” Marten squealed and took off… before Kyne let go of his pant leg.

  Jerked off her knees, she flopped face down in the dirt as Marten rushed for the nearest stall on the left. By the time she pushed up, Grim had ducked in behind Marten.

  “Get in here,” Marten hissed at her.

  Kyne looked toward the stable’s rear.

  With the lantern behind the stall’s wall with Marten, those sparks ahead in the dark were gone—but so was the growl. She looked away once and saw Marten hunkered near the end of the stall’s wall. Wide-eyed Grim was right behind him, the mallet raised overhead in both hands.

  Kyne took several shaky breaths before looking down the stable and whispering, “Idiots… if he comes at us, you two will be trapped in there.”

  She didn’t look over to see their reaction.

  “Give me the lantern,” she ordered, blindly reaching out, for she was not going to be caught unaware if the wolf cub came at her. She waited until Marten finally crept out. Before the lantern’s handle settled in her hand, its light again exposed those sparks of eyes in the same place.

  “Wait here,” she whispered.

  Someone snatched the shoulder of her canvas pullover.

  “Now who’s the idiot,” Grim whispered.

  A sharp growl filled the stable.

  “Quiet,” she whispered, slapping away his grip, but it took another moment to swallow down her fear.

  Kyne stayed on all fours—or threes—as she inched down the stable floor with the lantern. Several times she froze at a warning growl. When that faded, she continued more slowly, until…

  Lantern light barely exposed a furred face around those sparks of eyes. His head rested upon his dirty paws with black claws that were scarred and cracked. Only the front of his muzzle, his bright eyes, and one ear showed around the wall’s outward edge. Then his jowls twitched as he watched her, and she noticed something more.

  Aside from his mangy, filthy state, a white crust lined his muzzle. She knew that meant he had not drunk anything in too long, and she half-turned her head.

  “Find water… and something to put it in,” she said softly.

  The wolf cub’s eyes shifted away once, perhaps at Marten or Grim’s movements. It was too long before slow footsteps approached behind her, and the cub’s jowls pulled back, exposing small fangs. When he looked beyond her, another of those grating hisses issued between his teeth.

  Kyne held back one hand, not daring to take her eyes off of the wolf.

  “Put it down” she whispered, “and back away slowly.”

  She waited until the footsteps stopped again. Leaving the lantern where it sat, she scooted slowly backward until one of her boots hit something.

  Kyne reached back and felt a round, flat object of thin metal much bigger than her little hand. She grabbed it and pulled it around in front of herself. It was a shallow tin plate. She risked a quick glance back and, upon spotting a tan glazed jug, she grabbed it as well. In looking toward the stable’s rear, she waited a moment longer.

  This time the wolf cub was quiet, even when she set the plate near the lantern and pulled the jug’s cork. She carefully started to pour a little water.

  The cub lunged backward out of sight with a vicious snarl.

  Kyne almost dropped the jug in fright.

  The little wolf charged out of the dark and clacked his jaws at her.

  Kyne did drop the jug with a scream and threw herself backward. The jug rolled off with its water glugging out on the floor. Before she righted herself, there was Marten and Grim standing over her.

  Marten grabbed her arm, hauling her up, as Grim took another step forward with the mallet raised.

  “Had enough yet?” Marten asked. “Now, come on.”

  Kyne pulled back against his grip.

  The cub rumbled as he eyed all three of them, especially Grim, but he didn’t charge again. Instead, he snapped the tin plate’s edge in his teeth and viciously slung it aside.

  What little water the plate held spattered everywhere and then it rattled off the stable’s back wall. The wolf cub stood there with hackles raised and teeth bared, and then he backed into the shadows still growling.

  Kyne stood shaking in fright.

  After everything that had been done to him, why would he not drink? If he kept this up, he might die of thirst. That made no sense, even for an animal. Then she wondered why he hadn’t simply ignored the plate instead of slinging it aside.

  “Do you get it now?” Marten whispered. “He doesn’t want anything to do with us… with you!”

  Kyne refused to accept this. For all that had happened, something had to be done. Something else had happened to cub to make him…

  And she remembered one phrase she heard last night.

  That make it quiet… it drink.

  After the wolf-catcher had said that, and shoved in a bowl of water, she never heard the cub drink. She also never thought to look for that bowl when they freed and caught him. Marten had tossed in the chunk of meat covered in sleeping herbs, but the little wolf had somehow kicked that back out.

  Kyne watched those two sparks of eyes in the stall surrounded by the pale silhouette of his form. She began to ache, as she understood.

  How long—how many times—had he been drugged, until he refused to touch water or perhaps even food from anyone?

  “Kyne?” Marten whispered in warning.

  “Shush! I am thinking.”

  She had learned from Wynn that Shade understood words in a couple of languages, and more than single ones or a few at time. In fact, short commands were something Shade would not tolerate; she just ignored them… or worse.

  A wild wolf, as an adult let alone a pup, would never understand words. So what could she do to prove this water was safe?

  Kyne looked at the narrow-necked jug, hoping not all of its water was lost. She took a step in pulling away from Marten.

  “No you don’t!” And he pulled back.

  Her frustration got the better of her. She whirled and swatted at his arm, probably hurting her hand more than him by the way he glowered.

  “Stay here and be quiet,” she warned, and then to Grim, “You, too.”

  Kyne dropped to her knees and crawled past the lantern.

  The wolf cub’s eyes fixed only on her.

  As she righted the jug, she heard water slosh inside of it, and she went on, picking up and setting down the jug as she inched toward the stable’s rear wall. The cub’s growl began to grow, and when she touched the overturned tin plate…

  His snarl sharpened, his teeth clacked, and Kyne froze.

  Now what?

  She looked to the jug under her other hand.

  Kyne slowly lifted its narrow mouth to her lips, all the while keeping her eyes on him in the shadows. Watching him watch her, she took a short sip and then a longer one, even letting a little water trickle down her chin.
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br />   He grew quiet in staring, and she slowly turned over the tin plate.

  When she started to pour water in it, he growled again. She almost lost hope, not knowing what to do if the plate upset him the most. Then she thought of him drinking.

  No… the way he would drink.

  Kyne bent down, put her mouth to the plate’s water, and slurped. The pup went silent, and so she slurped again. She straightened up and waited.

  He was still quiet, and so she poured more water and slurped a third time. Finally, she inched the plate out, halfway toward him, and scooted back three times that distance to wait.

  It was a while before he rose up on all fours, but he still didn’t take a step. She scooted back again and he took a step or two. She repeated this with him until she was all the way back to the lantern and he finally stood over the plate, fully exposed in the lantern’s light.

  The wolf cub’s bright blue eyes never left hers, even as he lowered his muzzle and began lapping the water.

  Kyne almost sighed in relief but stopped for fear of startling him. She looked back at Marten and Grim; both were staring at the wolf cub, and at least Grim had lowered the mallet.

  “Did you bring any more meat?” she whispered and then added, “without sleeping powders on it?”

  Marten didn’t answer, and his expression went blank.

  Kyne had no time to figure that out and looked to Grim.

  “What about you?”

  Grim blinked twice before his stare shifted to her. “What about me?”

  “You always have some snack in your pockets.”

  Grim’s bottom lip pushed up over the top one, but he began digging in his pants pockets.

  “Kyne?”

  Startled, her gaze shifted to Marten again. His whole expression had tightened in anger. His eyes were on the wolf cub, but then he turned that glower on her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Marten hissed.

  Kyne was lost as to what set him off this time.

  “I can see those eyes!” he added.

  Grim froze, a crumbling biscuit in one pudgy hand, as he looked back and forth between Kyne and Marten.

  Kyne glanced at the cub’s eyes and swallowed hard. “It is not what you—”

  “You little liar!” Marten snapped. “This isn’t about some little wolf. This more of your nonsense about—”