What’s a good boy got to do to get noticed these days?
I pick the fish back up, trot over, and drop it right on Faelyn’s naked back.
My boy screams and flails, sending the fish flopping down his backside. It falls in the grass where it bounces up and down while Faelyn flails some more, fighting to his feet. “What the… Brick! Bad dog!”
Bad dog? What did I do? I was only trying to share. I lower my head and tuck my tail anyway. The air smells confusing, like pheromones, and fish, and anger, and shame. I try to make up for it by licking his hand, but he pulls away, yanking his pants back up.
“Just leave us alone for five damn minutes, would you?”
I’m sorry. I just thought we could have fun like the old days.
“Those days are over,” my boy snapped at me. “I’m not a kid anymore, Brick! I don’t need you, or anyone else, to look out for me! And I don’t need your stupid fish! Gods, I must look like a lunatic. I shouldn’t even be talking to you!”
But—
“It’s dangerous, Brick! Magic is dangerous and if I get caught…” He stops when Will puts a hand on his shoulder. My boy sighs and hangs his head before gesturing widely. “Just go. Take your fish and leave us alone.”
I look down at the fish, which has gone still in the grass, eyes and scales shining as it dries. Whatever interest I had in it before is gone. I leave it and slink away, head and tail tucked. It isn’t the first time my boy has yelled at me, but it stings worse than usual for some reason.
I drag myself around the lake and out of sight, flopping into the shade of some bushes. I’m far enough away I don’t have to hear them, and they don’t have to see me. There’s a big beetle scurrying in the dirt, trying to bury itself. I try to focus on that, but it’s impossible. My insides hurt, but I’m not hungry anymore, so it can’t be that. It’s like hunger in my chest, and it hurts.
Why don’t my boys want me around anymore? I know that I’m old, and that they’ve grown. They’ve gotten busier, true, but life is still life. There should be good days and bad, time for games and fun when the work is done. But they don’t want to play with me.
I’ve become a burden, just something else for my boy to worry about and take care of. Maybe I should run into the woods. I could chase rabbits as much as I wanted, and no one would be around to yell at me. I could run and jump and swim all day if I wanted to.
But then my boy would be alone at night. Alone in the dark.
Just leave us alone for five damn minutes!
That seems to be what he wants. Sometimes, people say things they don’t mean, though. Tom taught me that. He calls it sarcasm, but I don’t think Faelyn is being sarcastic. No, he really does want me to go away.
Let him have what he wants. I rise and spend a minute pawing at the beetle, just enough to flip him on his back. Then I start off to the woods. After a few steps, I stop and look back, just to make sure he’s not following me, or waving the other half of that sandwich I know he has. No, he’s curled up in the grass with Will. He doesn’t need me anymore.
The forest is quiet, the shadows deep and cool. There are a lot of new smells like pine needles and owl pellets, but no rabbits. I come to a fallen tree with moss and strange mushrooms growing on it. It’s too big to climb over. If my boy were with me, I wouldn’t have that problem. He’d climb over first and then pull me with him. Instead, I have to go around, and it seems to take forever.
Just as I clear the other side, I hear the distant nicker of a horse. Not Toffee. Her voice isn’t quite like that. This is a stranger I’ve never smelled before. Maybe it’s Will’s horse? But what’s it doing all the way out here? I trot closer, leaning against a tree on the edge of the forest.
“Let him go!” Faelyn’s demand cuts through the air.
Peering out from my hiding place, I see him standing in the middle of a circle of men and horses. One of them, a man dressed in black, has Will, a knife to his throat. My boy has drawn his bow and nocked an arrow, but there are men behind him. Even if he fires, he can’t take them all.
The man in black laughs. “You fire that arrow, and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Come along peacefully, little princeling, and I won’t open your lover boy from ear to ear. Well, not yet anyway.”
A wave of chuckles floats around the circle.
“You move one muscle, and you’ll die where you stand!” Faelyn shouts, bow trembling. “I’ll kill you where you!”
“You and what army, boy?” The man in black gestures around with the knife. “You’re all alone out here. No guard. No one to protect you.”
“I’m not alone! There’s a whole unit of guards in the forest there. They’ll be back any moment.”
I quirk my head to the side. That’s a lie. No guards came with us. Faelyn made sure of that. The only thing in the forest is…me? Surely, he doesn’t mean me, though. I’m only one old war hound.
The man in black and his friends look around nervously. If only it were true. A whole unit of guards might scare them away, and my boy would be safe.
And then I get an idea. If my boy can lie to protect someone he loves, maybe I can do the same thing.
I slide back out of sight, puff out my chest and turn my snout to the sky before letting out an undulating howl.
“What in the nine hells is that?”
“It’s nothing. Keep your wits about you.”
“Sounds like a demon!”
I snarl and scratch at the dirt, before running through some thick bushes to make them rustle. There’s a small tree that I put my paws up on to shake it. The trunk snaps under my weight and the branches go down.
“Have you ever met my father?” Faelyn says, his tone warning. “He’s the biggest elf you’ve ever seen. Seven feet tall with eyes like burning coals.”
I find another tree and run up it, making it bow and bend. The wood snaps and cracks like thunder.
“At the Battle of Brucia, he killed a hundred men, three at once with a single swing of his sword,” Faelyn continues.
“That’s crap. He’s just another elf,” spits the man in black.
“He’s king of the elves,” replies a nervous man.
I peek through the leaves and see the man in black threatening one of his own with the knife now.
“And what does the king of elves have?” says the man in black. “Gold, stupid, and lots of it. He’ll pay through the nose to get his boy back. You want to be rich? Or a coward?”
I claw my way through some more brush, making it shake loudly. Several pheasants flee and take to the air. I howl again, this time lower and louder.
“That’s no demon, Viktor. That’s a Molossus war hound!”
“Shut up!” roars the man in black. “It’s one stupid dog! Are you really going to piss yourself over one mutt?”
“Wherever the hound is, his master’s sure to be close by,” Faelyn warns, stepping closer. “My father commands a whole kennel of hungry hounds. You know they eat your face first. And then your balls. They like the soft bits best of all.”
I rake at the tree bark with my claws, snarling and growling, trying to sound as mean as I can. Then, with heavy steps, I stomp to the edge of the forest, sitting in a deep shadow where my black fur blends in and only my eyes peer out. I flash my teeth and bark menacingly, letting the drool go everywhere.