Steel dogs
By Ray Aldridge
AANDRED WAITED IN the egress lock, jammed in with the horse and the dogs. In that small place, the air was dense with the stinks of machine oil and ozone and hydraulic fluid. The dogs were excited, and their bodies clashed together, metal against metal, making a thunderous din. “Calm down, puppies,” Aandred said, making his harsh voice soothing. “Droam's a little slower than usual tonight, I know, I know, but soon, soon…” The dogs quieted, waiting with only an occasional wriggle of eagerness, a muffled whimper.
Aandred flipped open the panel set into his forearm, studied the telltales there. All burned a steady green, except for an occasional amber flicker on the one that monitored Umber's olfactory transducer. Not bad enough to make Umber stay behind, he thought. Umber was a sweet puppy, not contentious; she would stay with the pack even if her nose failed her completely.
Droam spoke, using the direct mode. “Ready, Huntsman?” Aandred hated the sound of the castle's voice in his head; it was an intrusion, a reminder that he was Droam's property. Tonight the voice was a shade less unctuous than usual. Aandred imagined a quiver of apprehension in its smooth tones. Good, he thought. Suffer, monster. Be afraid. But all he said was, “Yes.”
Aandred mounted his horse, a hulk beautifully fashioned of black steel. He latched himself into the saddle, snapping down the levers, locking the armored cables into their channels. The dogs surged with excitement, and the horse shied. Aandred reached out, crashed his fist against the back of its head. Sparks flew, but the horse quieted. “Idiot,” Aandred muttered. The horse was the revenant of a supposedly noble animal, but if he rode it every night for another seven hundred years, he would still dislike it. And it would never love him; unlike the dogs, it was either too stupid or too aloof to form such attachments.
Over the sally gate's lintel, the ready light went to amber, then to green. The gate slammed open. The Hunt boiled out into the starlight, the dogs belling, clattering against each other. The sound was deafening for a moment, until the dogs began to string out along the grassy track that led down into the Green Places. Aandred glanced back at Droam; the castle loomed huge and gray against the stars, its thousand twisted towers like spines on an angry hedgehog's back. For a moment, Aandred’s vision grew dim, such was the force of his hatred. He shuddered, wrenched himself straight in the saddle, and gave his attention to the Hunt.
Aandred did not love the horse, but he still loved to ride. His death and revenancy seven hundred years before had narrowed the range of his pleasures, and time had worn away much of what was left, but this was still good. To pound along in the wake of a dozen dogs under the black sky, the cool wind of his passage blowing back the metallic strands of his hair and billowing his great cape, the ground whipping past, the eager sounds of the pack filling his ears… it was still good. He might have laughed, but his laughter was a mad roar, suitable to the Master of the Hunt. It no longer pleased him.
Droam's voice filled his head again. “Down to the windward beach, Aandred. That's where the troll saw them come ashore.”
Aandred touched the pommel of his saddle, and Crimson, the pack leader, veered off onto the trail that led down to the sea. The trail traversed a crumbling bluff, frequently disappearing in washouts. The Hunt leaped the gaps with reckless abandon. Aandred delighted in the risk. Should the horse fail to keep its footing, sharp rocks waited in the surf below; the fall was great enough to burst open even Aandred's metal body. He shouted with pleasure, but then he thought of the dogs, and his pleasure evaporated, replaced by concern. He touched the pommel again, and Crimson slowed, ran more carefully. “Good dog,” Aandred whispered.
When they reached the hard sand at the foot of the cliff, he let the dogs stretch again, and they sent up a fierce baying. The Hunt thundered north on the narrow beach; the red moon rose over the Sea of Islands.
Aandred had almost forgotten his purpose, when Droam spoke again. “Listen — here are your instructions, Aandred,” the castle said. “Kill them all, except for one. Keep one alive, for me to question.”
Aandred frowned. “What weapons will they have?” he asked, thinking of the dogs. He wondered why it had not occurred to him to ask before. I've been dead too long, he thought.
“Nothing for you to be concerned about. No energy weapons, no high explosives. They won't have had time to dig traps, rig deadfalls. A simple job; see that you make no mistakes.”
Aandred ground his chromed teeth together. Droam's arrogance still enraged him, even after all the years. It was a remarkable phenomenon, when he thought how pale most of the other emotions had grown for him. Still, he did Droam's bidding, he muted the belling of the pack, and adjusted the horse so that it ran on muffling cushions of air. The night went silent.
When they reached the place where the prey had come from the sea, the dogs swirled around the base of the cliff like a steel wave. They quickly found the cave where the boat was hidden, and dragged the craft out into the starlight, snapping and tearing. In moments, it was a tangle of splinters. Aandred was a little sorry. In his time as a man, he had been pleasurably acquainted with boats, and this one had seemed a well-made, graceful one.
The dogs caught the scent, raced down the beach to a place where a small waterfall spilled through the branches of a dead juniper. Here the cliff was divided by a gully that reached back into the headland. The dogs swarmed up the narrow defile; with a great bound, the horse carried Aandred after them.
The darkness in the gully was dense, and Aandred lowered his visual range into the infrared. The dogs became churning red swirls in the blackness; their exhaust louvers glowed brightly. He considered his instructions. When they came upon the prey, he must act instantly, or Droam wouldn't get its prisoner. The dogs were enthusiastic; they often broke teeth on the armored flanks of the revenant stags that were their customary prey. Flesh and bone were so soft, in comparison.
They reached the top of the gully and broke out onto an open heath. A quarter mile away loomed the edge of the Dimlorn Woods.
Aandred slowed the dogs again, fed a little more power to the horse. When he had drawn even with Crimson, he glanced aside at the pack leader. Crimson rolled a puzzled eye at him, seemed to be asking a silent question.
“Sorry, puppy,” Aandred whispered. “Just this once.”
Aandred reached the edge of the trees fifty meters ahead of the dogs. He charged along the dim path, and seconds later reached the clearing where the prey was camped. He burst through the briars that hedged the open space, and half a dozen of the Bonepickers turned at the sound. They'd sheltered under a low-hanging black willow, except for the one who stood guard in the middle of the clearing. That one, a tall, thin man, leveled a crossbow at Aandred and fired.
The bolt hit his cheek and sang away into the trees. Aandred roared with pain; the bolt had left no more than a shiny nick in the metal, but the metal was thickly impregnated with pseudonerve endings. He felt as if his cheek had been torn open; he twitched the reins and rode the man down.
When Aandred had passed, the guard was a bloody tatter, tumbling in his wake.
The others still moved slowly: three of them crawling for the conceal-meat of the trees, two of them still sitting stupidly under the willow. Only one had gained her feet, a woman dressed in ragged fringes. Instead of fleeing, she started forward, swinging some sort of club at Aandred. Because she was most convenient, he veered in her direction. The club glanced harmlessly from the shoulder of the horse, and in the next instant, Aandred scooped her up and rode crashing into the black willow. The two slowest Pickers died then, as the horse pranced and stamped, disengaging itself from the tree.