by Kevin Brooks
So thats what I did.
I lay down in front of him and rolled over onto my back, exposing my stomach and throat to him, at the same time turning my head to one side to avoid direct eye contact. And then I just lay there, perfectly still, and let him examine me – sniffing me all over, touching his snout to my skin, pawing curiously at the cloth wrapped around my thigh. At one point, he leaned over me and put his head so close to my face that I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin, and I almost flinched as a drool of warm spit dripped onto my cheek, but I forced myself to stay still. He growled then, a low and terrifying sound that came from deep within him, and for a moment or 2 I feared the worst. But after about 5 seconds – which felt like 5 years – I felt his head move away from me. I waited, not moving a muscle, until I heard him padding away, his steps almost silent despite his massive size, and then I finally let out the breath Ide been holding for the last few minutes.
When I cautiously raised my head and looked around, I saw the big male casually urinating against a nearby tree. The other 7 dogs were just milling around together, trying to appear equally casual – scratching, sniffing the ground, stretching and yawning – but I knew it was all just a show. Dogs dont like change – it makes them uneasy – and whichever way their leaders decision had gone, the pack had known that things were about to change. If the gray male had rejected or attacked me, my mothers relationship with him – and consequently the rest of them – would never have been the same. And if he accepted me – which he seemed to have done – thered be someone new for them to deal with. And just at the moment they were dealing with the newness of me by pretending they couldnt care less.
I got to my feet and gazed over at my mother. She was sitting on her own, away from the others, looking as quiet and composed as she always did, as if shede never doubted for a moment that everything would be fine.
I smiled at her.
She blinked.
In that moment, there was nothing I wanted more than to go over and just be with her. And as I imagined how that would be – remembering how she used to curl up around me to keep me warm as I slept – it suddenly struck me that there was nothing to stop me from being with her for the rest of her life. I could just leave with her right now, lope off into the Deathlands with her and the rest of the pack---just go, forget about everything else – Gun Sur, Pilgrim, the Dau, the detonators---
But then an image of Chola Se came to me again, and this time I saw her cowering on a filthy bed, trembling with fear and rage, her battered face streaked with bloodstained tears---
I couldnt forget her.
I carried on looking at my mother for a few moments longer, then I turned round and went over to meet the other dogs.
I cant explain how I let the dogs know what I wanted to do, and how – if they agreed – they could help me. I wasnt conscious of how I did it. But I didnt have to be. I was dog now, and for the most part dogs dont communicate consciously. It just happens, without us necessarily knowing that its happening or how weare doing it. Its not as precise or detailed as human communication, but it doesnt have to be, because our world, the dog world, isnt as complex as the human world. And as long as it works, thats all that matters.
And it does work.
After being with my mothers pack for about 20 minutes, they all had a basic grasp of where I wanted to go, and how I wanted them to help me. My reasons were of no interest to them at all. Once the big male had given it some thought, and decided – without explanation – that he and his pack would go along with me, thats all there was to it. We spent a few minutes readying ourselves for the journey – circling around, getting our bearings, emptying our bowels and bladders – and then we just left, trotting off at a steady pace, out of the woodland and across the wide-open stretch of glassrock.
We headed west at first, starting off at a parallel track to the cliffs before gradually angling away from them to begin crossing the open glassrock in a slightly more northwesterly direction. The pack kept closer together than they normally would – with the big gray male always at the front – and as long as I stayed on the left side of the pack, the tight formation provided me with plenty of cover against any watching Dau. I wasnt totally hidden from view, but the way I was running – crouched over, my upper body almost horizontal to the ground, my head held low – meant that most of the other dogs were bigger than me, and those that werent were roughly equal in size and height, so hopefully I wouldnt stand out.
It wasnt unnatural for me to run in this style. Ide spent the first year or so of my life with the dogs crawling and walking – and later running – on all 4s. I didnt know there was any other way. And although I could move much faster in this manner than any human child ever could, I soon learned that no matter how fast I could run on all 4s, I could never keep up with the other dogs. I was still no match for them when I eventually realized I could stand upright and run on 2 legs, but at least the difference in speed wasnt quite so massive anymore. I dont know why I adopted this crouched over running posture, but all the other dogchilds run – and walk – this way too. Perhaps we started doing it for the same reason I was doing it now – to help us blend in with the other dogs – but whatever the reason, it became so natural to us that even after wede been rehumanized none of us ever lost our crouch.
As I carried on running with my mothers pack across the seemingly endless glassrock desert, I began to feel at one with everything – the closeness of the other dogs, the hypnotic rhythm of our movement, the cold night air freshening the skin of my naked body. It felt how it was meant to feel, as if this was where I was meant to be – running with the Deathland dogs. The darkness all around us was so dense and black that at times it was impossible to separate the land from the sky, and with the mesmerizing repetitiveness of our running – the same steady speed, the same terrain, the same direction – it was easy to imagine that there was no ground or sky, just a vast black nothingness, and we were making our way through it like ghosts being drawn into unknown worlds.
Eventually though, the barren flatness of the glassrock plains started giving way to the steepening terrain of the foothills, and as we headed into the rocky landscape, the towering heights of the great Black Mountains began to appear in the distance. At first they were nothing more than barely visible walls of grayness looming up into the blackness of the sky, but gradually – second by second, yard by yard – they edged their way out of the darkness and began to reveal their awesome form. Immense, soaring mountains, great jagged masses of rock, standing there with the brutal solemnity of giant stone kings whode ruled over this land since the beginning of time.
The mountains seemed quite close at first, but the nearer we got to them, the clearer it became that they were still a good mile or so away. But we were in the foothills now, in among the ridges and hollows, the ancient trails, the blackened stumps of longdead trees---
We were no longer out in the open.
No longer visible.
It was time to change direction.
We turned to our right, heading east---towards the Dau encampment.
As the pack thinned out – no longer needing to hide me from view – I dropped back to run alongside my mother.
I was concerned for her. She was a lot older than the rest of the dogs, a lot weaker and frailer than them, and I wasnt sure if she still had the strength and stamina necessary to keep up with them. But after trotting alongside her for a few minutes, I knew I had nothing to worry about. She wasnt as graceful a runner as she used to be, and she didnt have the elegant power she once did, but she was still perfectly capable of outrunning me.
I guessed we were about half a mile to the west of the Dau encampment now. We could follow the safety of the foothills for perhaps another 5 or 6 hundred yards, and then wede be coming to the most risky part of the journey – crossing the last 2 or 3 hundred yards of open ground to reach the more rugged terrain surrounding the camp perimeter. If the pack hadnt already been noticed, it definitely would be t
hen. It was also the point at which the dogs would leave me and Ide carry on into the Dau camp alone.
In the 2 or 3 minutes it took us to reach the crossing point, I tried not to dwell on the possibility that this might be the last time I ever saw my mother. Once the dogs had gone, and shede gone with them---once Ide done what I had to do in the Dau camp and had gone back to being human again---
I didnt want to think about that.
I just wanted to make the most of now – running side by side with my mother, together in our silence, our hearts alive with the simple joy of running---
Ide missed it all so much.
And now---
The pack was slowing to a halt behind the big male.
In front of him was a raised plateau of bare rock, about 6 feet high, and beyond it – about 200 yards ahead of us – I could see flamelights flickering in the darkness. And in the faint glow of the torchlights I could see the outlines of several vague but unmistakable shapes – buildings, watchtowers, the fort. The lights were mostly concentrated around the center of the camp, so I couldnt actually see the perimeter or any guards, but in my minds eye I knew exactly where they were. I could also picture the low covering of scrubland around the perimeter---
And that was all I could allow myself to think about now.
Not my mother anymore. Even as she nudged me forward, guiding me into my place in the pack as the dogs began closing up again, ready to hide me from view---I couldnt think about her anymore.
My place in the pack was at the back now, with the rest of the dogs ahead of me, shielding me as best they could from the watching eyes that would soon be directly ahead of us. My mother moved past me – brushing lightly against me as she went – adding her size to my mobile shield, and now we were ready to go.
The gray male raised his head and sniffed the air, and then – as one – we moved, stepping out from behind the plateau and loping off across the open glassrock towards the flickering lights.
There was no doubt we were being watched now. I could feel it, and I knew the rest of the pack could feel it too. What we didnt know was how many Dau were watching us. It could be just a single guard, cautiously monitoring our approach, waiting to see how close we came before alerting anyone else, or there could be scores of them watching us, maybe even more---there could be hundreds of hidden eyes in the darkness watching our every step.
The dogs were on edge now.
Crossing open ground half a mile away from the Dau camp was one thing, but this was something else altogether. This was a brazen encroachment into enemy territory, and the dogs knew they didnt belong here. They werent afraid, but they were far from comfortable. And the closer we got, the more vulnerable they felt.
About halfway across the open ground, the glassrock began merging into a landscape of dust and ash. For the first 15 yards it was just as empty and flat as the glassrock, but then it began to change. Sparse vegetation began to appear – 1 or 2 groundhugging shrubs – and the ground itself started to become more uneven. It was still too open to provide any meaningful cover, but when I risked raising my head very slightly and glancing up ahead, I caught a glimpse of some denser cover about 20 feet to our right – a few clumps of rock perhaps, or maybe some bushes. Whatever they were, they looked big enough to hide behind. And that was all I needed.
The big male had obviously seen them too, and as he began leading the pack towards them I could sense the dogs communal anxiety beginning to ease a little. Their job was almost done now. Just a few more feet, a few more seconds, and then they could turn around and start heading back to where they belonged.
It was at that point that the shot rang out, and in an instant everything changed.
It was a rifleshot, a sharp crack that sliced through the night like a whipcrack, and even as its echo was still swirling in the air, the dogs were off and running. It seemed at first to be a chaotic reaction of pure panic, the dogs running wildly with no thought at all – some of them bounding off to the left, others to the right, while the gray male and his mate were inexplicably running towards the camp – and just for a moment I was struck with a sense of deep disappointment. My old pack wouldnt have panicked at the sound of a gunshot, running off in all directions like terrified rabbits---but in the very same moment, I felt a sudden hard shove from behind, and almost immediately I realized my mistake. The pack werent panicking, they were reacting in almost instantaneous unison to protect me – the big male and his mate leading me to cover, while the others flew off in all directions to acts as decoys and provide a distraction. And now my mother was shoving me from behind again, urging me to follow the gray male and his mate.
I set off as fast as I could, keeping so low that I was virtually scrambling on all 4s, and just as the 2 dogs ahead of me reached the cover – which I could see now was several thick clumps of claw bushes – I threw myself forward and dived after them. I hit the ground hard and half bounced, half rolled into the bushes, coming to rest on my side, with my face pressed up against a tangle of thorns. I could feel the barbs cutting into my skin, the blood trickling down my face, but I didnt move an inch. The dogs in the Dau camp had started barking now, and until I knew what they were barking at – and what was happening all around me – the best thing to do was keep perfectly still, keep out of sight, and let the dogs carry on barking. I could have stopped them if Ide wanted to, but if they werent barking specifically at me, there was no point in stopping them. In fact, if they were only barking at the Deathland dogs, it was better to let them carry on.
So I just lay there, as still as a dead man, and waited. One of the Dau guards had obviously seen something, but the question was whether hede just seen the dogs and fired at them to scare them away, or if hede seen me.
I lay there and listened.
Apart from the still-yapping dogs, I couldnt hear any other noises coming from the Dau camp – no shouting, no running boots, no sirens or alarms of any kind. That didnt necessarily mean that I hadnt been seen, but I felt reasonably sure that if Ide been seen as a human thered be a lot more noise coming from the camp.
I carried on waiting.
The Dau dogs were beginning to quiet down now.
They didnt know I was here.
And if the dogs didnt know, the Dau didnt know.
I waited a while longer, just to make sure, then I carefully began disentangling myself from the claw bushes. Once Ide got myself free, I started looking around for my mother and the rest of the pack, but there was no sign of them anywhere. Theyd gone, all of them, just melted away into the night as if theyd never been here.
I was alone again, and for a moment it felt as if something had been torn out of me, and in its place was a gaping hole deep in my flesh that was so cold and dark and achingly empty that I just wanted to lie down and die.
But then, from somewhere inside me, I heard my mothers voice.
Are you my son?
Yes, I muttered.
Are you dog?
Yes.
Are you a survivor?
Yes.
Then be what you are.
It took me almost an hour to get from the claw bushes to the area of cleared ground that ringed the camp perimeter. I had to inch my way through the darkness, most of the time crawling flat on my belly, crisscrossing the ground to get to whatever sparse cover I could find – low ridges and gullies, tree stumps, clumps of tall grass. Finally, when I came to a shallow basin in the ground shielded behind by a tangle of ancient tree roots – probably the dried-up remains of a small pool – I realized that was it. Ide run out of cover. All that was left between here and the camp was a broad stretch of wide-open ground – no bushes, no shrubs, no tree stumps, no rocks---just a flattened strip of hard black dirt.
There were no lights around the perimeter itself, but there was enough peripheral light coming from the torches inside the camp to let me see what I needed to see. The perimeter was marked by a low bank of packed earth – which, as far as we knew, was only there as a reference po
int for the Fighters, so they knew where to stand guard on perimeter duty. There were no fences, no trenches, no walls. A Dau Fighter was standing guard beside a tree just the other side of the bank. He looked fairly relaxed, and not especially vigilant, which suggested that the minor commotion caused by the sighting of the dogs had already been forgotten. He wasnt even carrying his rifle – it was leaning against the tree beside him – and he was paying more attention to what was going on inside the camp than outside it. Faint sounds of revelry were drifting in the air from somewhere inside the camp – music of some kind, singing, laughing, the occasional cheer – and I guessed the guard was wishing he was part of it rather than stuck out here on his own in the cold.
The view along the perimeter to his right was partially blocked by several small buildings, so I couldnt see any more sentries that way, but I could just make out the figure of another perimeter guard about 100 yards in the opposite direction. I wouldnt have been able to see him if it wasnt for the lights of the camp behind him, and I doubted his nightvision was good enough to see me from where he was, even if I was out in the open. I couldnt bank on it though.
The basin I was in was about 2 feet deep, and the protective wall of roots added another foot or so of cover. It wasnt much, but if I hunkered down low there was enough room to do what I had to do in comparative comfort and safety.
I did what I had to do.
First of all, I untied the knot that held the strip of cloth wrapped around my thigh and began unwinding it. Ide bound my sling around my thigh beneath the strip of cloth, and once Ide uncovered that and the handle of my knife, I stopped unwrapping the cloth, then untied my sling and gave it a good stretch to straighten out any kinks.
Its a magnificent weapon – just under 3 feet in length, with a leather cradle and cords of braided flax – and Ive always been grateful to Starry for giving it to me. Hede inherited it from his father, and hede begun teaching me how to use it almost as soon as Ide been rehumanized. Ide taken to it so naturally that within a few months I was more accomplished with it than Starry, and one day, at the end of another long session of target practice, hede told me that the sling was mine to keep. Ide tried to refuse, but he wouldnt hear of it.
