The Houndstone Lie

The pack for the pack.

—Canid pack motto

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. I still have memories – fragments, really – of playing topside when I was a new pup. Now only hunting packs go up, and they seldom return whole. Paw says he dreads when it’s his turn, but he gets drool-y and wild eyed on his hunt-day mornings. As for Maw, well – Paw says she never pretended not to like her hunt days. He says she liked them too much.

It will be my turn before long. We train in the tunnels all day, from four moons’ lifespan until fourteen moons, when we enter Trials. For me, that’s this moon.

*

Paw stands over me. Is he proud, worried, both? Our burrow is set a little away from the other dogs’ sleeping places – we aren’t mutts, so we don’t pile in with the mixed dogs, but Maw ruined her family’s bloodline when she fell in love with Paw, who’s a lurcher, so we don’t sleep among her breedtribe, either.

I sniff some rabbit and mushroom in his chin beard and he blinks at me, places his injured paw on my head. “Are you afraid, Willow girl?”

Am I? Since my eleventh moon, I have been the fastest pup – I’ve won every race since then. Last moon, I started scraping the ceiling in the high jump runnel. The Pupping Proctor had to dig it out so it’s higher. I may not be the biggest dog, but Maw was a deerhound, so I’m large, and I have never been pinned in the Puppy Pile omnimatch.

“Trials are serious. There are real risks, real dangers. I wouldn’t blame you if you were afraid.”

With a sigh, I finally gain my feet. I stand taller than Paw, surpassed him at twelve moons. “What are they really like?”

“The trials? Oh… you mean the dragons.” Paw falls silent, and I know what he’s thinking about. He and Maw went out together the day she stopped running. I whimper and nudge him, he nudges back. “They are… unpredictable. The sky is clear one minute, then you focus too much on the hunt, and suddenly they are upon you, a shadow-flicker blocking the sun for the span of a heartbeat before…”

“Fwhoop.”

“Fwhoop.” Bonking my head with his, he says, “You’re a clever girl, Willow. Don’t let the thrill of the chase, the smell of the pumping blood in your target overtake you too much. It used to be you could lose yourself in the hunt. But part of the Trial is showing you can master your urges – not the other way around.”

“But they’ll call off the Trial if a dragon is spotted, won’t they?”

Paw sits, lifts his hurt foot off the dirt for relief. “Yes. But will you hear them when they call it?”

He licks his paw as I leave him.

*

It’s the pack for the pack—the pack protects its own. I draw comfort from these truths, padding along the residential corridor, one of four major paths that wind and branch and connect our refuge.

Bash already waits for me when I reach the main corridor. He’s a good boy—total mutt, looks patched together from three or four other dogs—and a good friend, a relentless grappler who can’t be pinned, either. Running up to him I put my paws on his back, but he barely spares me a glance. When I bite the scruff at the back of his neck, he sidewinders away from me.

“Let’s go, Willow. I don’t want to be late.” Bash starts a slow trot.

“You’re nervous.”

“I’m not,” says Bash, whipping his head back, his teeth showing. He sighs and faces forward.

“You’ll do great. Anyway, our squad will always look out for each other, no matter what happens in Trials.”

“You don’t get it.” Bash stops, his silky coat rippling in the weak light. “We get placed. Only the best get to pick their hunting squads. They place us based on how well we do.” His head sinks. “Bella’s maw was whispering to mine when they thought we were asleep. ‘The quality of your hunting team is the number one predictor of your survival.’ That’s what she said. Shepherds, hounds, mastiffs – it’s always the noble bloodlines that come out on top. For everyone else, survival rates are mediocre. At best. Bella’s worried too, being on the smaller side.”

“That’s catshit. Who are the top dogs in our class? For the last four moons running, it’s been us. You, me, Sage, and Bella. And not one of us a pure breed. Why would it be any different after Trials? You’ll see: we will be together. Pack for the pack, but our squad for our squad.”

Something between a sigh and a whimper slips out of him. Bash slips forward again, falling into his trot.

Roots and mushrooms, old fruit and dry chicken. We feed, and though Bash avoids my eye, Bella and Sage goof around like normal. But there is a definite cloud over all the pups in the feeding hall. At the other side of the chamber, I spot the hounds. Greyhounds, wolfhounds, bloodhounds – they wear fine cloak-blankets with their families’ paw-crests stained into the fabric. They are all somber, though Rami the wolfhound bares a partial grin at one of his cousin’s whispers. Their squad eyes our squad, noses high, gazes roving over us—all except Rami, who doesn’t favor us with so much as a glance.

They think they are our betters, even though Sage shames them in agility and puzzles, and both Bash and I have pinned every one of them save Rami.

Four elders emerge noiselessly into the hall. One by one, the pups notice them, turn, and sit, and soon a solemn silence blankets the space. The two den-fathers begin “Lupine Lament,” a burrow-defense anthem, and as the two den-mothers join their guttural undulating, my heart begins to pound. Their growl-wail grows, muzzles sway, and teeth flash under their hoods. When the four of them reach the high part, not a pup stays silent, all of us falling into the lilting howl that concludes the tune. When silence falls again, I am awake in a way I don’t think I have ever been before. My claws pierce the dirt, I pant, saliva froths about my mouth.

“Many of you have self-organized into groups. That is fine,” says a den-mother I recognize as an old friend of my maw’s who would often observe pupping play. “You will compete as a team, but have no doubt: you are being assessed individually as well.”

One of the den-fathers adds, “Hold nothing back today. You will be topside – most of you for the first time. Know that we are watching, and will try to control certain elements for your Trials, but you will be exposed. Things can go wrong.”

“Bring your best selves to the Trials, and you will rise – and those that rise will survive, and thrive. Do your part for yourselves, for your families, for the pack.”

The den-mother adds, “Good luck, and the All-Dog favor you today. The pack for the pack.”

In a chorus with the other pups, I chant back, “The pack for the pack.” My tail wags.

“This way, pups.” The elders lead us from the hall. The hounds and terriers and mastiffs pass their family cloaks to parents and relatives standing by, and soon we are all fur-bare. Mix-breeds are not allowed down in the hall with us, but Paw lifts his injured leg from an upper walkway, letting the paw flop in a greeting we used to use with my maw. The elders part, two leading onward and two stopping to scan the pups as they pass. Soon they start directing the smaller pups along a different route. Even some noble pups are pulled from our ranks in this way.

“What happens to them?” I ask Sage.

“Maybe they have their own Trials.”

Bash’s face suddenly falls, his ears drooping as, behind us, Bella is plucked from the file.

“Wait,” I say to the elders, “she stays with us. She’s our squad.”

“Too small,” replies a huge shepherd den-mother through her shag.

“She pins pups twice her size,” says Bash. “We need her.”

The elders block our path, baring their teeth.

“What happened to ‘the pack for the pack?’” I say.

“Keep moving.” They give off a bodyscent I have never smelled before, and it terrifies me. Bash and I do not back down. Bella releases fear-scent, but makes her eyes brave. “It’s ok, you two. Maw said something like this might happen – you two go and win for me.”

“Something like what? Something like what?” But Bella pins her ears and hangs her head, and she trudges off after a similar mid-sized terrier. When she thinks I can’t see, her eyes widen and flit over the ground.

Bash and I step back from the elders and exchange a glance. The elders command us to move along and we obey, both emitting fear-scent as we shuffle along. The elders’ blood-curdling rage-scent still bounces about in my nostrils, but it is Bella’s flat ears and her searching eyes that causes my tail to sag.

Marching in a narrow file for several minutes, the procession grows more silent, fewer of the pups cracking jokes and asking questions. We reach a wide, open cave mouth, and I see real light for the first time since those lingering memory fragments. As one, our cohort presses toward the mouth of the cave, drawn by the brilliant light and overwhelming odors coming from behind. Then, also as one, a line of elders I did not notice lets out a terrible bark, some of them stomping the ground so hard that I feel the impact underpaw. The pups stop moving.

In the middle of the line of elders stands a huge mastiff, a cane corso den-mother I have never seen before. She wears armor, spiked aong the shoulders and spine and enclosing her ribs with metal bracing. She speaks, her voice low, reverberating off the walls of the cave.

“Until now, we have kept you safe, allowed you to live an easy life with food and shelter and friends. But the pack depends on our participation, our contribution—and as cusping dogs, your days as pups end today. We survive by hunting our food, gathering supplies and other edibles – and by avoiding the dragons that soar above our very heads at this moment.”

Her rumble echoes for a moment in the tense silence that follows. A breeze tousles my fur-curls lightly. Wind whistles deep in one of our tunnels.

“Where did the dragons come from?” someone asks.

An elder replies, “Now is not the time for questions. Listen up – your lives depend on it.”

The corso den-mother steps forward. “We don’t know what brought the dragons to the valley.”

“Catshit,” mutters the bloodhound behind me. I glance back to see him shaking his head. “It’s a lie,” he says, before Rami the wolfhound nudges him silent.

“Today is about finding out who you are. Can you serve the pack? Can you secure prey to share, knowing that at any moment you may be plucked into the sky by a servant of the Feathered-Serpent?” She lets a moment pass before saying, “Teams of four, step forward.”

Bash, Sage, and I step forward before remembering that we are without Bella. As we retreat, Rami pushes past with his hounds, proud as uptight poodles. Another team of four – three shepherds and the lone mastiff pup – pads forward, as do a team of mutts. Sage leans in. “Let’s pick our fourth before someone else picks for us.” Bash and I nod in agreement and we scan the remaining batch, all of us settling on Cap within an instant.

Lanky and strong, Cap’s labrador roots are obvious in his play, and I think we all sense that those roots give him an edge when it comes to hunting. But, speaking what is on all our minds, Sage says, “Easily distracted though.”

Cap looks back at us when he sees us watching him and tilts his head.

“I watched him lift that mastiff pup off the ground in the puppy pile,” says Bash. The three of us nod at him, then he pounces the ground. He’s in.

*

Hearts wild, blood roils, chests swell,

Feet fleet, noses seek, coats sleek.

Pack protect, dog serve.

Pack protect, dog serve.

Hunter hunt, a willful chase, life pursuing,

Hunted flee, a fearful flight, life fleeting.

We: one with them; they: one with us,

Creature-bonding, circle-repeating,

Mother-Father divine, All-Dog divine.

—Canid chant, author unknown

*

There is almost no explanation. Aside from telling us that we are entering “real-life hunting conditions with real-world consequences,” the elders simply wave us forward toward several furrows leading in separate directions through a field of tall grass. Our group is alone within moments after taking our assigned pathway.

“How in the All-Dog’s fleas are we supposed to know how to hunt?” asks Bash.

“We’ve trained for this,” I try.

“Not without Bella.” Bash looks over his shoulder, past me, back toward home.

“We are gonna find out where they took her, Bash. Don’t worry – it’s the pack for the pack. They aren’t going to let anything happen to her.” A low growl is his only reply. “For now we must seek, find, and… and – bring home as much food as possible,” I add, glancing behind me at Sage for confirmation. She lifts her head in agreement.

Behind her, the Labrador shuffles along, a look of resignation on his face as he shadows Sage’s steps. Who is he?

A few moons back, Cap showed up alone, led into our feeding hall by one of the den-fathers during the evening chow. No parents, no pure retriever in our pack to take him in or get his back during puppy play. Cap goes hard anyway, barreling over bigger pups and earning snarls from other squads, eventually forcing him to back off. Too pure for the mutts, no others of his kind, Cap is always alone.

Bash speaks again and I face forward. “Do you think we’re safe in this grass?”

This time I let Sage answer: “I don’t think we’re safe anywhere outside the tunnels.”

We follow along the paw-path. I see Bash look up at the sky repeatedly and my head involuntarily shifts up, too. “None of us have ever even seen a dragon.”

“I have.”

And as one, Bash, Sage, and I stop and turn to face Cap.

*

Unfeeling eyes. In silence we continue along the paw-path, all of us regretting, at least a little, asking Cap to tell us what he saw. Worm-like body movements. We squirmed when he described their mid-flight contortions, how unnaturally they coiled and folded back on themselves. Septic scent. The foulest stomach-curdling odors came from one, he said, that flew so close overhead that Cap “saw the articulation of its belly scales as it went… went for them.”

None of us is stupid enough to ask Went for whom?

A heavy silence falls over us the rest of the way through the tall grass. Soon we reach a clearing, a wide open area with a creek running through, with low brush, wild grass, and vast mud flats hemming in the area on one side. In an instant, all our noses perk up, as a raft of scents slaps us all in our snouts. Cap steps forward.

“Rabbit, mole, mallard.” He closes his eyes. “Deer.”

Deer. The rarest quarry a pack can score, with enough meat for more than a dozen dogs – “but at incredible risk,” says my paw. I don’t remember the last time we had it.

Another scent, distant but distinct washes over us, raising each of our hackles. We look at one another, the three of us settling our gazes on Cap. He doesn’t meet our eyes, but gives a solemn nod to confirm.

Sage breaks the heavy spell descending on us. “It’s a test. We have to bring back enough to share with the pack. If we don’t—” she doesn’t finish.

“We will,” I say.

“We need Bella,” says Bash.

Sage turns to Cap. “You. Loner dog. You understand this is a test, right? We are all getting judged. We’re going to have to work together.”

He walks over to her, but points his ears down and lowers his head below hers until she sits. Carefully he looks up. “Believe it or not, this isn’t my first hunt.”

“Well. You’re full of surprises, Cap,” I say, swishing my tail. “Then I guess you and Sage can come up with our plan.”

*

Deep in me there is a trembling. I don’t know when it started, and I don’t know if it is from the alluring scent of river-birds, or from the terrible pale sky overhead, where I know my death can come from. Though there are clouds above, the air is still and windless. I wait in this narrow dale between the brush lining the riverbank and a patch of dry, broken earth.

Something about the dry earth frightens me – I don’t want to set paw there. For now, the wild grass beneath me is cool and comfortable. I glance once more at the overcast sky. Cap says that without clouds, our hunt would be easier, but that the clouds may buy us time, and could save us. He gave us our plan – Bash and I are on either side of the creek, Sage waits behind me and above, on a small elevation, her only job to herd me back toward the creek if I “lose control during the hunt.” I don’t like how exposed she is.

A sudden breeze, an intensifying scent, the sudden rustle of brush – Cap has found something, and my haunches twitch. I sink to my belly as I wait, and then I cannot believe my eyes. Two big, beautiful ducks emerge, trying to take to the wing, and hare follows them, darting over the wild grass. None of them sees me yet. One duck follows a trajectory that will lead it within hind-leg-standing height. I slither forward, gather my hind legs. It sees me, banks hard to my right. I spring up, take two loping steps, launch myself after it. The duck banked too late – its wing flaps grow frantic. My jaws clamp over the slick feathers and slender bones of its wing joint. Together we turn in the air – I, trembling with the thrill, he, palpitating, his heartbeat pulsing in his wing where the first drops of blood squish over my gums. My own heart races as I extend my hind legs and bring us down smoothly.

Something else pricks my ears up, pulls on my nose. I spot the rabbit bounding along the riverbank. Its haunches flex and tense, its tail bounces like a puffy little ball – I am after it before I even realize that I am running. My balance is off. The mallard, still squirming in my clamped jaw, is pulling me off my center. Cap emerges from the brush up ahead, and though I have to slow to a trot, I shake the duck to try to break his neck and fling him to Cap.

My first kill. Am I sorry for the duck? Yes, a little… Strange.

Thank you, duck.

Then I am off again. The rabbit has a solid start on me but hasn’t detected my pursuit and runs in a straight line. I close the gap. The scent-trail in its wake fills me with a blood-thirst unlike any I have ever experienced.. I reach farther with every step, my heart beating like thunder. The creature has sensed that I am after it. It banks hard to the right and I must follow a wide arc to pursue it, losing precious noselengths. Over the grass we fly. Distantly I hear my name. Ahead, the earth hardens, cracked in places, and I sense the hare listing away from it, seeking the safety of the river brush. I fall back to allow her to think that I am flagging. Again my name floats on the air. As I thought she would, the rabbit begins to arc back toward the riverbank – but I have already started my turn.

Pinning my ears back, I break once more into a full gallop. The hare’s line will intersect mine. She senses this and tries to bank once more toward the bad earth, but this costs her time and I lurch forward, clasping my front teeth over her paw, flinging her ear-over-ear into the grass. Within three steps, I pounce on her, clamping my jaws over her neck. Her legs still pump with manic energy, but it is finished.

I have never held my head higher as I turn to re-join my squad. Sage repeats my name – Willow, Willow – running at me with fear in her eyes. “Look—”

Following her gaze upward, I see what she says. As if the Feathered Serpent itself were painting shadows on the clouds, dark swirls streak the silken gray tapestry overhead.

“Come on.” We retreat to the creek and join Cap and Bash in the low brush. Bash has caught a pheasant, and Cap digs a hole where he deposits my kills and Bash’s.

“Already three kills,” says Bash.

“Don’t get cocky. All that matters is how much we bring back at the end,” says Sage, still peering at the sky through the brush. “If we come back, that is.”

We fall silent as I help Cap bury our kills.

“Is it safe to keep hunting?” asks Bash.

Though he speaks to Sage, Cap answers. “It was never safe. Let’s move upstream, follow the creek a bit. There’s more prey there.”

“And how do we avoid becoming the prey?” Bash asks.

“It’s alright,” I say. “The elders are watching.” The others say nothing “It’s the pack for the pack – they won’t just let us die in Trials.” Sage and Bash glance at each other.

Cap stares at me hard. “You can’t break away like that.” I look at him in defiance. Who does he think—

“He’s right,” Sage says. I was calling your name, but you may as well have been in a trance. You can’t break away like that.”

We pick our way through the brush, my tail sagging as I bring up the rear. 30 dog-lengths or so along, Bash and I take up positions on opposite sides of the creek, Sage overseeing and watching the sky – same plan as before. Taking up a position on the crest of the long slope, Sage stands out too much. My mood darkens. Cap catches a pheasant before rustling anything else and we reset another 20 dog-lengths up-creek.

Here the hillside is steeper, and Sage stands out even more, a black and brown flop against a bright, silver sky. I can’t stop looking at her, at the sky, back at her. Cap rustles. A pair of raccoons emerge, then hook back into the brush to harass him. They must’ve been stalking a pair of rabbits, who now bolt out of the brush toward me. Every drop of blood in me catches fire, and for a moment I am torn, wanting to chase them both.

But I know better – I choose one and sink to the earth in wait. At the right moment, I spring up after it and the contest begins. I close the gap with each heartbeat, but the creature senses me and banks hard to the left, parallel with the stream. As I turn, I see Sage running along the hill crest, in tandem with me. And that is when I know something is wrong.

A flicker on the fringe of my vision. Something high-up, vague, dark, fast. But I am on this hare, its tail bouncing and drawing me after it, a fast, furry ball that I have no choice but to chase.

—But I do have a choice. My Paw stands over me. His injured paw smells of dried blood. Don’t let the thrill of the chase overtake you.

Breaking my stride, I cast my gaze uphill. Sage slows too, cocking her head at me, and at once, high above her, something massive moves and twists. Yelping, I turn and charge uphill at Sage. She senses something wrong and her scruff stands straight up as she turns to face the sky. Silver and silk cleave apart and a writhing figure, black and all sharp angles, twists and dives, seeming far away one moment and then the next, flapping just above my bosom-friend. Sage tucks her tail and curls into a ball. I scream at her to run but she cowers. I scream again, my voice reaching her this time, and she springs up, bounding downhill toward me.

The sky splits more, and black unfurls overhead as if night itself were pouring down from the sky. When I reach her, a set of gnarled and yellowed talons extend from the black mass, reaching, reaching for Sage. She smells of pure fear. A face appears in the air above. Unfeeling eyes, a pair of black stones that give nothing and seek to take away everything. Wormlike movements in the way its scaly skin folds over and on itself. Septic scent fills my nose, pushing everything out, even the blood on my teeth, even Sage’s terror. In the split second that I see its face, pale light glints off its teeth and a stream of saliva, milky and viscous, hangs suspended from its leathery lower lip.

The talons begin to close. Sage is not fast enough – perhaps no dog is – and I am going to lose her. After watching Bella shunted away, I can’t lose Sage. Her piercing yelp fills my ears. I launch myself into the air, reaching a paw out to the monster’s face and aiming my jaws at its feet. I slash the dragon’s eye but my leg scrapes against its teeth and my flesh tears open. Managing to clamp my jaws over it scaly foot, pain shoots at once through several of my teeth as something pops in my mouth. The impact with the dragon’s body sends me twisting sideways through the air, and in a moment I collide with the hillside. After rolling halfway down it, I sploot my legs out behind me and slide to a halt, searching frantically for Sage. But she is nowhere, and the night-winged dragon retreats into the woolen sky.

*