Swift to Chase

by Laird Barron

  In the concrete floor is a concealed trap that leads to a vault where Dad stores much more interesting things. Here are his favorite toys — the blades and guns and armor of warfare. He keeps them in fine repair, each instrument polished and whetted in anticipation of grim eventualities. We do not enter the vault this day, although he glances at it with a far-eyed expression I know well. His scent causes me to sniff for hidden danger, yet I sense no enemies lurking. The odor I whiff from his pores is tinted with the same metal as his thrashing nightmares.

  Today he does not wish to slaughter a barbarian regiment. He only wishes to drive a pleasure chariot. Before the barbarian troubles he amassed a fortune driving similar vehicles in races at the Hippodrome. Dangerous business, that. Perhaps more dangerous than being a war hero and a politician. He still likes to drive. So we go. I get stuffed into the copilot slot, webbed in and protected by a canine helm Artificer Trang devised before he took the long stroll into Night. Artificer Trang had looked and smelled so much better than Lyth. I mourn the dead man as the helm snicks into place.

  It is a warm, listless day. From the state-sponsored radiocast — last week’s news. An opera by Laconte. String music. Long static-filled pauses. Nothing about the garrison bombing in New Portugal. Nothing about the Coliseum riot. Marcello sends him a terse message: General, your presence is not required. The dissidents are quelled. Dad does not enjoy this news. His jaw bunches, his hands clench. The people are increasingly restless. The stability of the Empire is paramount. More and more, she is anything but stable. Even a dog can see this.

  A narrow road cuts through the white cliffs. It is neglected; the pavement is cracked. There are craters and switchbacks, and hairpin turns. Sometimes the road drops to sea level where rocks lie scattered like ready teeth. We flit past them, the sleek chariot whirring and trembling as it slices right to left with the precision of a stitching machine.

  It is not the rocks or the turns that undo him. A stag wandering from its field is the mechanism of our destruction. It appears in the road, a hoary brute with thick horns lowered. A gray wall. Why does Dad swerve? I do not know. The chariot would cut the beast down without issue. Nor is it fear that rules him — he has crushed many a foe’s glider beneath his own, shorn valiant pilots from their cockpits with a scything sweep of his wing and exulted in the flames and the blood.

  Yet, he turns aside. His iron hands are betrayed by a signal, an errant signal that I, with my superior senses, almost apprehend in its passage. I smell guilt and awe. The chariot turns as it is commanded to turn and falls among the sharp rocks. The sky and the ocean grapple, trading positions. I recall that the white stag is Dad’s personal standard, the standard of his noble lineage. I should make something of this, yet don’t. Not in this moment. Terror masters me as we crash and burn.

  Somewhere, dead Aniochles chuckles. Difficult to hear him above the clatter of many shields thrown down at once, my despairing howl…

  6.

  You are a destroyer, Rex.

  It is true, what this ghost voice says. This accusing voice that shivers from wrapping fog. I am now and have ever been a destroyer of men. It is my little niche. Some dogs fetch, some dogs preen. I crunch bones in my teeth and tear down the works of our enemies. Such work is noble. Some things must be torn down that more important virtues may thrive. I am needed as a wrecking bar is needed. There is no shame.

  Protector of tyrants! The phantom hisses. Like master, like dog! Lapdog, sycophant!

  The fog lifts and I see my beloved mentor, the Kennel Master Callys, alive in his armor. One of the few men I have ever feared. He is a brick furnace surrounded by soft-mouthed puppies in white tunics. He reeks of blood. The pups shine, eager for his instruction.

  Callys teaches us there is nothing complicated about killing a dog or a man. The mechanics are quite straightforward. Some men die easily, other men die hard. Dogs? Dogs are only as good as the hand on the leash. There is no mystery. To reflect upon the destruction of another man is the difficult portion. Instinct has taught us to bow in deference to the sacred pact that has existed since the era of cave dwellers.

  First, we must never regard the enemy as men — they are objectives given flesh. Next, Callys advises us to wipe their faces from our minds. We must never look back. This applies to humans and dogs alike. It is the deepest secret to success in the Legion. Then he fits me with my first war collar and sends me with my pack-mates to dim Pash to do the Emperor’s work.

  He is correct, my grizzled Callys. Men are easy to kill.

  Common folk tell superstitious tales about the barbarians of Pash. The woodsmen are savages who fight with the vigor of ten centurions. They lay horrible traps and eat the flesh of our poor fighting boys. I find that the barbarian squeal and shit in their death throes much the same as my pack brothers and the hastati who accompany us. It is almost a disappointment.

  You are a hound of hell. Your master, your “father,” is a traitorous mutt. He is the real cur.

  I am positive the barbarians who looked into my grinning face thought me a terror. The Legion is a juggernaut built to destroy the Empire’s foes. Nothing else. In the dim jungle my purpose is the juggernaut’s terrible purpose, my Dad’s purpose. If that makes me a fiend, then yes, I am a fiend. Gladly.

  The fog lowers and bells clang, first at distance, now close and all around. War bells, no mistake. My pulse explodes, but the angry bells soon fade. My vision shifts as the fog boils, closing, then receding. The old Emperor awaits my master and I upon the Capitol steps. He is a regal man; a king’s king as his title indicates. He loves my master as a son, better than his own sons. My master, my human father, loves him right back. The old Emperor is called tyrant in some quarters. He does not trust in the greatness of Prime. His edicts are harsh. He expects every citizen to weigh his wealth and strength against the welfare of the Empire. The Empire is besieged from without and from within and the old Emperor believes a storm shall someday blow down the towers his ancestors have raised. Yes, the Empire has many enemies. The old Emperor has more. Woe unto him. He hugs Dad to his breast. Dad looks away in shame the way I hang my head after ruining the carpet.

  What have you and your master done, hell hound?

  I know Dad has come to resent this new, young Emperor. He regrets elevating lofty Trajan, he is disgusted at the debaucheries at court. He broods over the malaise abroad. A storm upon the horizon. The stag regards him with contempt and he turns my chariot toward the ocean.

  What has my father done? I do not know. My poor overworked positronic brain is a crude marvel. It can only take me so far.

  7.

  A spiked collar makes an excellent close-quarters weapon. Drive in with the spikes, rip out with the fangs! It is among Callys’ favorite exhortations.

  The enemy soldier, a barbarian mastiff smeared in red ochre, does both of these things to me. There is a skirmish to end all skirmishes. Chaos and fire. Men squirming in separate pieces; chattering reports of spindles and malspheres. Dogs whining their last. The mastiff whips me with his claws; his spikes tear my neck; his cracked fangs slash the flesh of my belly. I roll away and wheel. My spurting blood forms a circle in the dirt. I charge him through the sudden mud. He sinks his teeth deep into my shoulder and braces for the killing twist. It is too late for him though. My jaws snap shut upon his neck, my diamond-sharp jaws, and there is no escape from them…Then Dad is there with his gladius blazing a nova and he cuts the mastiff in two. Dad is slathered in crimson. His left arm dangles, shattered. His body is full of holes. He laughs.

  So I tell you, this small accident by the water is of no consequence.

  Reports are we walked away from the wreckage of the chariot. I do not remember anything except darkness and the distant roar of my ancestors on the plain. I remember gauze curtains, leeches hovering in their robes. Mom weeps. She has seen Dad in the yard, gore from toe to crown, clothes rent from his body. Raving of battles long past. He carried me, a bloodied lump of torn fur and exposed bone. Mom
thinks me dead while I dream of chasing the horses across endless fields toward the purple sea. The leeches also think me a goner; my injuries are so grave. Ah, they don’t know the trouble I’ve seen. I descend from the supreme canine bloodline. I am augmented with weaponry. I am built to endure.

  Only I know that I have seen much worse. I do not say this when I open my eyes and see her nearby, mopping Dad’s brow. My vocalizer seems to have been damaged in the crackup. I whine and sleep again.

  8.

  Dad is a famous man; our accident is reported during numerous newscasts. Sabotage? The broadcasters are titillated. Flowers arrive from all corners of the empire. The Praetorian Guard establishes a cordon around the hospital. Citizens camp in the fields, hoping for a glimpse. It worries me to consider that some of them do not come bearing gifts or fond wishes. Yes, Dad is a famous man, but also a hated one if you ask the right people.

  The days roll into weeks.

  Faithful Mom keeps vigil, only leaving for the brief visits by Marcello, Iades, and Dad’s other confidants. Marcello brings whiskey and cigarettes. The leeches wisely ignore these transactions.

  The news from the Capital isn’t good. Three more riots in Prime. Food shortages are raising eyebrows among the Senate. However, the senators do not seem concerned that we have lost a garrison near the Pash border. A few centurions more or less, eh fellows? These days the state radio does not cover foreign events at all. Football scores, celebrity gossip, music. The masses are surely drugged as our fine Emperor.

  I dream of the wreck. I dream of hunting. In the hunting dreams, the stag emerges from cover. He pauses to regard me, his mortal enemy. My tribe has stalked his kind since time immemorial. That my human father bears the stag as his heraldry seems a paradox, and one I am too weary to sort.

  The stag’s antlers catch the light and gleam like a crown of blades. His eyes are familiar. He tosses his shaggy head and ambles out onto the plain. The dream is a jumble of life and fantasy — I am injured from the chariot crash, and bleeding heavily, yet I follow my prey. Stubbornness is a virtue among dogs. The stag recedes to a blot and vanishes. I track his prints in the dirt. I snuffle his musk among the blades of the grass. I wander through a copse of trees and piss against one. The stag has escaped. Behind me, the plain is golden gulf edged in darkness.

  I begin to retrace my steps back to the house. At first, this isn’t difficult since I’ve left a trail of blood gleaming to light the way. A flake of snow loops around and catches on my tongue. Then a few more, and then many more until a blizzard erases the world and me with it. I awaken, filled with a terrible yearning that I do not understand.

  Months burn.

  We grow strong, Dad and I, although the leeches suggest Dad’s proud visage shall not remind anyone of Adonis. A mild joke assayed by the chief surgeon who is too old to fear execution. Dad was never what you might consider handsome. Now he is a trifle worse. Beauty lines, the legionnaires call such scars. Something has changed in my master. His smell has altered. He smells of sadness and of determination and regret. I know trouble is on the way. He smells of fire and anger and the desperate foolishness of youth.

  Mom comforts us. We walk in the hospital garden. She is splendorous in her fear. Her black hair, her carmine lips! Her eyes blaze with mysteries. I am entranced. She and Dad talk of small things and though they are only small things I cannot imagine how I have always overlooked her cleverness. I am sent to guard the front door. They mate there in the garden, beneath an olive tree. I hope he doesn’t kill himself in the doing.

  Mom has wanted a son. I wonder if now she shall receive her desire. Dad has muttered of it some nights when he’d drunk overmuch and fallen prey to sentiment.

  After Mom departs with her handmaidens and bodyguards, Dad mutters to me, “May it please the gods my latest heroics grant her a child as I have failed her as a husband these long years.”

  In the morning she will find his sick bed empty. She will search while the servants lament. We will not be discovered.

  9.

  An enclave nestles high in the mountains that shield the Empire from western aggressors. The name of the enclave is unimportant. What is important is that for ages the progeny of various paranoid emperors have been sequestered here among bald monks and bearded goats. Few have heard of this enclave. Fewer know where it stands.

  Dad is one of the latter and he lands his glider in a copse of paper birch. The walk is brief — we do not wish to run far if running becomes necessary. Because the air is chill he wraps a cloak about himself. Because he does not care to be recognized he wears a hood. In one hand he carries a lens — it has a nose for human chemicals. In the other hand he carries a rod. I alter my coat to blend with the terrain and lurk near his flank. I am on high alert.

  It is late afternoon. The bark and leaves of the trees are changing colors. We pick our way through mossy boulders and across tiny streams. Soon, we spy the ancient stone of a battlement. Left seems a good direction, so we circle that way and mount a low rise screened by more birch and a few pines. A squatty monk in a brown cassock reclines among fallen leaves. Doubtless a lethal guardian. His job appears most boring. Dad whistles to me the whistle of a gyrfalcon. I greet the monk in Praetorian fashion and move on, licking my chops. At the summit there is a rocky clearing with a fine view of distant reaches. The world below is twilight damp.

  The sensor blinks and purrs in Dad’s hand.

  Ahead, a pair of children play at rough and tumble. The children cease their sport and observe our approach with sharp interest. Doubtless, they have been taught to fear strangers. The monks are not fools and know what the Emperor expects of them. Fear, however, is a difficult thing to teach. It is better learned from bitter experience and at unpleasant cost.

  Dad is hardly fearsome with those bent shoulders, the exaggerated limp. As for me, I’m huge enough to scare anybody with sense, but I grin a friendly grin and wag my tail. Good dog! Dad lowers the hood and bares an avuncular smile. His scars do not alarm, they attract a natural curiosity, and the boys are his. One strokes my fur, surely wistful for the pets he left in his household. I’m the only domesticated animal around for leagues.

  The boys dress simply, yet comport themselves as befits princelings. Neither has met his father, Emperor Trajan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are proud little bastards, with hints of requisite cruelty in the crinkle of their eyes. Their teeth are white as young carnivores. I have seen their like in my puppyhood kennels. Brutes in training.

  Beyond them, the rearward quarter of the knoll has eroded like a cavity in a molar. Blue light fills the ravine and hides its foot. “A bad place to make sport,” Dad says. “The monks would not approve.” The boys laugh at his timidity. The elder quips that life in the palace has far deeper pitfalls.

  Dad gazes out over the darkening land where the lights of Prime should soon be. And then, casually, he asks which of them shall be master when his illustrious father relinquishes the throne.

  They are close enough in age that there is room for doubt, and thus each makes his answer. He nods sagely. And if master of Prime, how would they govern her territories? Again each makes his answer and as they answer I watch their faces and think my own thoughts. They can’t smell the iron igniting in Dad’s sweat. They cannot smell his smell that is incipient destruction. I hear the creak of his fingers tightening on the weapon at his belt.

  Oh, I am certain of what he sees.

  In a while he sends the younger boy down to the monastery — the supper bell rings faintly. He keeps the elder at his side — Dad claims he is feeble and will require the lad’s muscle. But first, Dad asks him if he knows his brother well. Indeed, the boy does. Does he suppose his brother would truly break the Praetorian Guard? The boy is contemptuous — of course his weakling brother would do such a stupid thing! The younger son lacks the sense to recognize how the powerful must be warded from the madness of their subjects.

  Ah, yet don’t ceaseless favors to the Praetorian Guard weaken the L
egion and therefore the citizens? These are difficult times, are they not?

  The boy sneers. If the flock must be sheared to clothe the shepherd, so be it. Dad smiles at his conviction and asks if he has ever seen proud Prime. No? Then come now and look across the chasm where night draws down. Stand here and look and see her lights as they spark and catch…

  The boy does this. They stand there, Dad’s iron hand loosely upon the boy’s fragile shoulder. I whine softly, my tail swishing back and forth in the tough grass. Darkness falls. It is far to the bottom of the ravine.

  10.

  Dad gets cute and tries to ditch me. He’s all sly with the tossing of a treat into the bushes as he makes for the glider. I’m faster and beat him to the vehicle. He grows exasperated. This may be a suicide mission. My growl tells him, no shit, General. I figured that for myself after we murdered that royal brat.

  He commands me to lope home to Mom and guard her. The distance is vast. My mighty dog heart and cyborg parts will see me through. I plant my haunches in the copilot seat and snap at his hand when he attempts to drag me out. Eventually he relents, swearing vilely at my disobedience while smiling a secret smile.

  “All right, stupid dog. Let’s get you metal, at least.” I consent to an ancient war harness. The harness is another accessory forged by the old master artificer, Trang, who was peerless in matters of defense. He designed it for the Max Series canines. Such brutes! Such killers! Perhaps less adaptable and handsome than myself, you had to give them credit for ferocity. Scoured with sand and blasted with sonics, I still whiff the taint of gore and death sweat embedded in the harness mesh. My eyes roll back, white, then forward, black. I’m not a lapdog anymore. I am, as the dead philosopher said, a destroyer of worlds. Small worlds, but worlds.

  Dad’s glider was once a racing machine. It shreds the wind. We beat Rosy Dawn to the Capital. There are a thousand doors into the palace and all one thousand are guarded by his gold-armored Praetorians. We enter by the thousand and first.