Chapter 2: The Caravan

SpearGuy called out to the caravan as he led me back. The bowfolk on the roof of that one wagon relaxed and lowered their weapons. More intriguingly, doors opened in each of the wagons, including the wagons that were on their sides, and people emerged. A swordsman and the hammerman jogged off at SpearGuy's command; the horses for the second wagon had broken their legs when they ran away from the wolves and off the track. The two men put them out of their misery quickly and then rejoined us.

In the meantime, the whole passel of humans gathered around me, hesitant at first but overcoming it when I plopped my backside down on the freezing cold ground and gave them all a good tongue-lolling pant. It's easy to look happy and a little goofy while you're panting, and that goes a long way towards making humans more comfortable. Which it did, thankfully, because otherwise I'd have been freezing my tooshy off for nothing. (Humans have no idea what trials we canines go through to keep them happy and reassured!) It did take them a little longer than I would have preferred for the humans to get over their initial concern but, in fairness, I was now almost five feet high at the shoulder so even sitting down I was around eye level with most of them.

It was a small group. Seventeen humans—ten men, seven women including the one with the bow. All grownups, no smols. A pity.

Just for a moment, Cassie's scent drifted through my mind and her absence hit me harder than the wolves had. I struggled to keep the happy/goofy look on my face and not to whine. I shook it off after a few seconds, pushing the memory to the back of my mind by checking the surroundings to make sure that nothing was threatening these humans with their humanly-awful senses and utterly useless noses.

The caravan was in bad shape; six wagons, five of them unable to move. The first one was twisted sideways across the road with dead horses that had been dragged halfway off the road before the people dragging them abandoned the job to come gape at me. The second wagon had its front wheels off the road; its two broken-legged horses were mercifully no longer shrieking. The third wagon was upright in the road with terrified but apparently unhurt horses. The fourth wagon was completely off the road and tipped over; the horses were upright and seemingly unhurt, but if they kept thrashing like that they would end up hurting themselves. The fifth wagon was sideways on the road and the horses had somehow broken their harnesses and galloped off into the night. The sixth and rearmost wagon was on its side with, again, two dead horses.

The humans' eyes followed mine and they got quieter, their fear-scent growing stronger. I was having none of that; I picked the man standing closest to me and leaned in to give him an overexaggerated snuffling, then sneezed on him and shook my head hard enough to make my ears flap. Yup, the humans were laughing now. Win! Athos is good boy!

The humans were chattering to each other (obviously about me since what else could be more important?) when three more people climbed out of the third wagon. They were not human.

Two of them were smols and the third was very clearly their mother. (Or possibly father, since there weren't any distinctive body bits like the ones that separated Mom and Dad. Still, I decided to go with 'mother' because she fussed over the smols the same way my mom had fussed over me—always with one eye out no matter what was happening, letting me wander around but humphing at me to come back if I went too far, or too close to a human she didn't like.) The mother was bizarrely proportioned: Over seven feet tall, three legs at the bottom that rapidly narrowed into a flattened oval body. She was three feet wide at the widest but only perhaps an inch thick. Grey fur exploded out of her in all directions, making her edges look fuzzy and suggesting that she was actually thinner than she looked and most of the visible width was actually just her fur. Her children were similar, albeit much smaller. The larger one was perhaps three feet tall, overtopping his/her/its sibling by a few inches, but the shorter one was wider. Both of them had fur that was a pale yellow instead of their mother's gray.

No sooner had the three of them emerged from their wagon than the two smols hurled themselves at me, slipping between my legs and plastering themselves against my tummy. I yelped and flinched, then froze when I realized I might hurt them if I moved too fast; they weren't humans but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I slowly relaxed when I realized they were just giving me a pair of full-body hugs. It was startling, but actually quite nice; their fur was soft, very warm, and it flowed like waves. In fact, it tickled a little.

Their mother raced after them, clearly on the verge of panic. She and her children moved very strangely; they turned sideways so that the thin edge was facing the direction they wanted to go, and then they...glided was the only word I could think of. Their three stubby little legs didn't move at all but they were definitely touching the ground. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they were doing it.

Mom got to me and hesitated, shifting uncertainly back and forth as her fur flickered and flowed. Little points of light came and went across her body, ranging across the spectrum from deep yellow to deep blue. There was a soft sussurance coming from her; I cocked my head and raised an ear up to hear better. It almost seemed to be words but I couldn't make them out.

"Mobble wobble, Marza," the spearman said reassuringly, laying a hand gently on the not-human woman's front. Mom would have been offended by that touch, I noted; it was right about where a human woman kept her nipples. (I'd actually been very worried the first time I saw Mom changing clothes. Her chest was all swollen up like maybe she was sick! Turned out that no, it was fine, humans are just weird and kinda gross. Also, important note: They don't appreciate being licked there, even if you're just worried that they're sick.)

"Flibble glob bloggle mog," said SpearGuy. "Lissi flub Faffi fleb."

"Lissi! Faffi!" the strange woman called. Her voice was very faint and when she spoke there were storms of motion throughout her fur, as well as lots of flickering lights in different colors.

Hmmmmm. That sure sounded like a worried mom telling her toddlers to get away from the big scary dog because mom is too dopey to realize that I wouldn't bite a kid even though it was being annoying by less 'patting' and more 'thumping' my head. Maybe 'Lissi' and 'Faffi' were their names. In which case, SpearGuy's sentence had probably been 'Lissi and Faffi are safe.' I mentally reviewed what SpearGuy had said, taking note of which words I now (thought) I knew.

Okay, enough linguistic note-taking! There were smols being difficult!

I spraddled my legs a little wider so I could curl over and look at my tummy. Yup, there they were, plastered against the least-furred part of my underside. Honestly, the warmth was nice. On the other paw, you should come when your mom calls. (Unless she's telling you not to get the frisbee, in which case being deaf is sometimes okay. Still, there were no frisbees around here, much to my sadness.)

I chuffed reprovingly at (what I presumed to be) Lissi and Faffi, but they thoroughly ignored me, curling closer instead. I gave them a tentative lick but it just made them shiver, emit a bunch of light, and cuddle closer. I looked up and offered their mother an embarrassed head-tilt.

The lightstorm playing across their mother's body intensified; reluctantly, the kids peeled themselves off of me and went to press themselves up against her. They both went licked-side in, I noticed. Smart kids, wanting to share the love.

"Glubble glob, Marza?" said the spearman, smiling and stepping closer so he could pat my shoulder. "Lissi and Faffi glorble glarb. Snarble wobble."

There was that word 'Marza' again; maybe it was her name? And, based on his tone and gestures, the last bit had probably been something along the lines of "He's friendly!" At least, I hoped it was. I wasn't sure why everyone here kept playing this annoying 'talk in nonsense' game but at least they seemed to be consistent about the words. I could already tell it was going to be frustrating until I learned to understand their babble, but it smelled like I could eventually figure it out.

A hint of wolf scent drifted to me on the wind, almost involuntarily drawing me fully upright and my eyes back to the woods. I reviewed the treeline carefully but there was no sign of the nasty tail-chompers. Still, I sent a faint growl drifting in their direction before turning back to the humans.

I doubt they had smelled what I had smelled—humans are pretty much completely nose-blind, the poor things—but they seemed to have gotten the message that something was not right. They were tense, unconsciously huddling closer together amid much nervous chatter.

"Flebbleplotz!" snapped SpearGuy. (Probably something like 'Be quiet!', right? I made another mental note.) "Gobble gobble blargle! Blah blah blah blah..."

He kept talking, but I tuned out so that I could lick my wounds. They were pretty bad; deep gashes from the wolves' claws and painful stabbing/tearing from their jaws. That wolf that I crushed by rolling over it had torn a big chunk out of me, and it meant stabbing pain with every step. Plus, I was still oozing copper-scented blood from...well, basically everywhere. I'd never been in a fight like this before—in fact, the only really serious fight I'd been in was that one time when Mr Pooperkins and I got into it down at the dog park. (His people called him 'Zeus' but I knew that he was really more of a Mr Pooperkins type.) Mr Pooperkins was a big German Shepherd, maybe four or five, and he thought he was all that with his exotically-accented ear positions and his big floofy tail that Bitsy seemed to find so very intriguing. He came strutting in like he owned the park, went straight to one of my marks and overpeed it. I mean, I could hardly let that go, right? No one could blame me for giving him one tiny, eensy weensy little full-speed shoulderbarge. It was an accident, honest! Besides, it was his fault for not looking where I was going.

Anyway, after I completely accidentally sent Mr Pooperkins flipping tail over toenails he showed what a bad dog he was by launching an utterly unprovoked assault on my person. I don't think any reasonable person could fault me for knocking his stupid face around and maybe trying to nibble very gently on the back of his neck, just to make a point. Besides, he jumped back fast enough that I barely even drew blood! I certainly didn't manage to bite deeply into his stupid ugly coat with its stupid long fluffy fur—my lie-flat fur was much nicer, no matter what Bitsy and Muppy thought, so there! (Hmmm...my new, post-Supreme-Exemplar coat was much fluffier. Interesting! What do you think now, girls?)

Anyway, things had gotten a little depressing after the fi...the discussion between me and Mr Pooperkins. Mom is a wonderful and loving human who is generous with bacon and usually pretends not to notice when Cassie slips me veggies and bits of bread at the table. Given that fact, I think Mom must have been kidnapped and switched with an impostor. The real Mom would never have dragged me off that stupid ugly Mr Pooperkins, yelled that I was a bad dog, smacked my butt right there in public, and dragged me out of the park.

(I should note that, after our little discussion of appropriate marking etiquette, Mr Pooperkins never overpeed my marks again, and when we were both in the park he kept that stupid ugly floofy tail down between his legs where it belonged. On balance, it was worth the swat on the bum that impostor-Mom gave me. Being called a bad dog and having Mom angry at me for the rest of the day...it was probably worth that. I think.)

"Clardleblah?" asked a woman's voice, just as a hand touched my right-front fetlock. One of the wolves had clawed me up on that foot, so I flinched at the touch and spun around to see who was touching me.

She was older than Mom, with a scattering of wrinkles and a little sag in her skin, but I think Dad would still have gotten that slightly-warmer scent he gets when some women walk by. Weirdly, whenever Mom's around he pretends to be all casual about it and definitely does not look at the woman in question, but I can tell! Anyway, this one looked friendly and concerned. Also, her eyes were bright blue like Dad's. (I pushed away the memory of lounging in his lap on the couch as he petted me and watched the noisybox. I pushed it away fast enough that it only felt like a stab in the heart instead of a ripped-open chasm.)

"Clardleblah, bleh glug glorb?" she asked again, looking concerned.

I whined, soft and low, and licked at my injured paw. She made a sympathetic noise and patted me on the shoulder before jogging off to her wagon. A minute later she was back with several jars and a lot of cloth.

"Gargle blargle!" snapped one of the men from the crowd, reaching out to grab her before she got back to me. He pointed at the jars and cloth angrily. "Fleb blug blag zorp!"

"Bleg!" she snapped back, twisting out of his grip. "Snarble warble flobble friendly flip!" She gestured at me and stamped her foot. "Tobble bobble swiggle sworp! Bleg! Bleg fubb!"

That is probably not a nice word, I thought to myself, grinning. I like her.

She stomped over to me and unlatched one of the jars of paste, dipped a finger in, and very gently spread some blue paste across the claw marks on my foot. The pain vanished, replaced by a pleasing warmth; I moaned happily and flopped down with my paws stretched out front and back so she could get at everything more easily.

Other people were pressing close now, taking up jars of the ointment and carefully searching through my blood-matted fur to find the ouchies. It pulled unpleasantly at the fur; I grumbled a little but didn't move. Instead I lay my head down on my front legs and closed my eyes.

I whined and flinched as someone accidentally jabbed a finger into an open claw mark on my right side, but I carefully didn't react beyond that. My body was tense and I struggled to relax; being tense was only going to make things worse.

Something touched my snoot; I opened my eyes and picked my head up in surprise. The taller of the two little yellow not-humans, was petting me. Based on her mother's soft gasp, this was probably Lissi. (It...she? He? I'd arbitrarily go with 'she', since Lissi sounded like a girl's name.) She didn't let go when I picked my head up, so she ended up dangling off my nose with me looking cross-eyed at her in surprise. Stacatto pulses of light kept coming out of her, but I had no idea if that was more like "Wheeeee!" or "Ack!" or "Mom! Save me from the scary monster that's about to fling me into the sky because I petted its snoot!"...or even if it meant anything at all. I lowered my head down again so that she could have her feet on the ground; the pulses got faster for a moment, then calmed down as the yellow smol went back to petting me.

To the extent that I could tell anything about her reactions, she seemed fascinated with the way the hairs on my snoot lay. She was leaned in close enough that her fur tangled with mine; she was warm, and each of her hairs was stroking my skin. It felt...very weird. Nice, but weird. A much more intimate petting than I'd ever had before. Her mom was agitated, gliding back and forth a few inches at a time and twisting her body while ripples of faint light played over her fur. Not wanting to alarm her, I lay my head back down on my legs and gave a quietly happy chuff.

Someone back around my left flank gasped; all four of my other attendants hurried to see what was happening. I curled around so that I could see too, brushing one of them aside as I did.

The spot on my left flank that had been torn free when I rolled over my attacker was looking bad. It was a my-giant-paw-sized gouge with jagged, tooth-marked edges, and there was blood oozing out of it at a steady pace. What had probably drawn everyone's attention, and had certainly drawn mine, were the little crackles of blue light dancing around inside the wound.

The humans seemed very excited about this; they were jabbering back and forth and thrusting their fingers towards it. The rest of the crowd was gathering around to appreciate my magnificence. (I chose to go with 'magnificence' instead of 'imminent death'.)

SpearGuy let them have their excitement for a minute before once more proving himself the pack leader by barking orders and having them obeyed. Everyone moved back except SpearGuy and PasteLady. Marza herded her brood back into their wagon and then returned to stand with me. The bowfolk climbed back into their sentry position atop Marza's wagon, and the rest of the crowd started moving around, trying to get the caravan put together again. The hammerman and two of the swordsmen went to the head of the line and started trying to drag one of the dead horses off the road. They weren't having a lot of success; they were clearly exhausted, it was getting darker as the moon began to set, and the road was made of potholes and dirt.

With a groan, I started to heave myself to my feet so I could go help.

"Zop!" shouted PasteLady from where she was standing at my right shoulder. I glanced over only to be met with Stern Face, a finger jabbed at the ground, and a firm "Zwiddle blobble!"

I blinked, then lay down like a good dog and closed my eyes.

PasteLady touched me with something metal; I picked my head up and looked over, suspicious that I was about to get a pokey. I'd had all my vaccinations! No more pokeys!

"Warble, warble," she said, holding up her left hand in a reassuring gesture that totally failed to distract me from the knife in her right hand. "Lubrow zwordblee quird. Warble, warble, zepo."

The humans had killed those horses to shut them up; I had thus far been quiet like a good dog, but were they going to kill me anyway, just because I had a few ouchies?

"Warble, warble," she said, lowering the knife and turning to face me. "Yurla thura, erw? Blardle blardle blardle. Bleh friendly." She glanced over at Marza. "Marza, glibble blogablog."

Marza stepped in close and bent over so she could press herself against my head, right behind the ears, and pet me with her fur. It was very clearly a distraction, but it was awfully nice.

I eyed PasteLady suspiciously, but didn't move. She waited a moment to make sure I was okay, then turned back and started to shave the fur off around my big ouchy.

{Ahem,} I grumbled. {I am uncomfortable with this procedure.}

"Warble, warble," she said, not looking at me as she continued delicately scraping off my lovely fur that was the only thing keeping me somewhat warm in this miserable frozen ice cube of a place that was utterly and completely unlike the nice summery-warm park I'd been playing in with Cassie and Dad.

Sadness welled up inside me at the thought and I whimpered before I could keep it in. PasteLady flinched back, clearly thinking that she'd hurt me. I gave her a reassuring slurp to apologize for worrying her; it necessitated pulling my head out from under Marza's very soothing petting, so I immediately got back to that. Obviously Marza needed the comfort of good-boy cuddles right now, so the least I could do was make it easy for her to pet me.

PasteLady gacked and wiped her face off with the crook of her elbow, then tried to glare at me. The involuntary smile on her face allowed the glare to bounce effortlessly off my shield of smugness. That's right! You're laughing! I win!

She hrmphed at me and went back to leaving me vulnerable to the cold.

It took her several minutes to get the area completely defurred, but finally she stepped back, wiped her knife off on a piece of cloth, and slipped the blade into a sheath on her belt. "Marza, wurlop?" she said, gesturing to my ouchy.

Marza stopped petting my head (hrmph!) and shifted around to my side. She bent in close, pressing the upper third of her body against my ouchy. Her fur stroked across my skin and poked into the ouchy; I yelped in pain and skooched away fast, but she followed along and refused to let go.

"Warble, warble!" said PasteLady, patting the air reassuringly. "Warble, oplopbop! Blagle magle muggle bleh friendly, thwop thwop thwop!"

I forced myself to calm down and stay still. My sides were heaving like a bellows as I panted in fear and pain, but Marza ignored it. After a few more seconds she straightened up and glided away.

Her upper third was covered in my fur and blood, and I think those were a few little pieces of skin.

She turned aside and bent over, allowing all my various bits to fall off her not-really-facial fur. When she straightened up she was clean again.

I turned so that I could see the ouchy. It was completely clean, not a single hair or speck of dirt in the wound anywhere. I looked back at Marza in surprise.

PasteLady moved in again, stepping past Marza so she could get to me and fill the ouchy with a generous helping of her blue paste. This was the fourth jar of it, the rest lying empty on the ground, and there was only one left after this. She packed the wound with it, using it the same way that Dad used spackle to fix the wall that time Cassie accidentally knocked a piece out of it with her toy wagon. She spread it around the edges too, then used that knife of hers to cut some pieces off the roll of cloth she was carrying so that she could bandage it all up. Apparently the paste was sticky enough to keep the cloth in place.

{Ahem,} I chuffed. {Where's my biscuit? The vet always gives me a biscuit.} I thought about that for a moment, then shook my head and made the appropriate chops- and nose-licks to say {Actually, never mind the biscuit. I want bacon.}

Marza, being a dopey human who could not understand clearly-stated licking, shrugged and settled for stroking my snoot. It was nice, but it was not bacon.

My grumblement didn't last too long; the paste was starting to work, soothing away the pain and replacing it with a lovely warmth. The rest of my wounds had already been attended to, so with this one settled I wasn't hurting (much) anymore. I was stiff, and sore, and cold, and thoroughly exhausted, and I suddenly noticed that I was ravenously hungry and there probably wasn't even any kibble in this stupid place, much less yummy bits of the meatloaf that Cassie would have slipped me from dinner tonight.

The sadness hit me again; I wanted to howl, to snarl, to bite at whatever had taken me from my family, but I hurt too much for that. I couldn't do more than curl into a ball and keen my misery.

Marza and PasteLady pressed themselves up against me, petting frantically and whispering reassurance. Marza's voice was very faint and her words were even more weird and stupid and nonsense then everyone else's weird and stupid and nonsense words that they insisted on using instead of talking to me properly, but she was weird and not-human so maybe it didn't count. Marza refused to stop talking nonsense, but she was obviously concerned for me.

I keened my lungs empty, barely managed to shudder in another breath, and keened again.

I wasn't trying to disturb anyone, but apparently a thousand-pound Rotty-mutt sobbing his heart out on your metaphorical doorstep attracts attention. SpearGuy came running over. I was curled up too tight to see him, but I could smell his alarm and the blood on his spear, and I could hear his footfalls on the crunchy frozen dirt of the road.

"Zoola, gobble gobble glibble glee?!" he demanded.

"Gleb snort!" said PasteLady. "Flarble worble moggle tlup, fleg flog flup floo. Zeg blaggle."

"Zoola..." SpearGuy paused, then sighed and let it go. "Gleeble globble." He patted me awkwardly on an un-ouchied bit of my shoulder, then turned and went back to helping the others drag horses off the road.

With a snarl, I pushed myself upright and stomped after him, not caring that I'd knocked Marza and PasteLady over and not paying any attention to PasteLady's commands which totally weren't 'Sit' or 'Stay' or 'Come here' no matter what the tone sounded like and besides she wasn't my real Mom. Enough being sad! I wasn't going to lie around being sad, I was going to go be useful. I couldn't bite whatever had dragged me away from my loved ones, but I could bite that stupid stinking idiot horse!

SpearGuy and his two friends had hooked ropes around the neck of the carcass and were using those to pull it. I grumpily shouldered the puny humans out of the way and sank my fangs into the stupid horse's stupid pale yellow neck. I checked to make sure I had a good grip, then planted my feet and started backing up.

The horse was a draft animal, bred for size and strength. It weighed easily twice what I did and was much bigger. It took some effort to get it moving, and I could feel the big ouchy on my flank open up again. The pain was infuriating; I growled and pulled harder, dragging the thing along.

We were to the edge of the road, with me backing down the embankment, when the horse's left front hoof got caught in a pothole, almost like the stupid carcass was deliberately going out of its way to make my life difficult. I roared in fury and bit down hard, shaking my head and throwing the full force of my body behind it. The chunk of neck I was gripping tore free and sent me flying.

I tumbled into a tree, bonked my nose, jabbed my bandaged tail-stump into the ground, my big ouchy felt like it was on fire, and all the little ouchies were complaining. I was hurting and alone and my family were gone and this place was cold and I just wanted to go home!

I sat up and let myself have a good five-second howl of pain and loss. Then I got myself back together and went to drag the stupid dead horse off the stupid dirty road. PasteLady could fix the ouchies again later, but there were a lot of dead horses that needed to be moved if the humans were going to be able to travel again.