All of our heads turned toward the dark recess in the side of the ledge. Roots from the trees above threaded over and under the wall, grasping at the entrance of the hole. Vines and fallen branches seemed to warn against entry, like a natural “keep out!” sign. Nevertheless, this threshold was clearly used to being trampled and pushed aside by the residents of the den or warren — the creatures to whom the glittering eyes beyond belong.

No doubt disturbed by the freezing spell of the strange magic book, it came into the light, ivy creepers and loose twigs dragging against its hide.

Out in Airy Zone, I had on occasion encountered a variety of creatures beyond the normal critters that frequented the neighborhood. If I were able to get Lisa to let me out early enough in the morning, I sometimes found deer grazing in the tended front yards, stealing flower petals from bushes and tomatoes from gardens. A couple of times, I saw coyotes — never very close, and always in pairs. We diligent howlers spread the word of such sightings.

But I can safely say I had never witnessed anything like this. My instinct was to call it a boar. It was stout and relatively low to the ground. It had six beefy legs, and long hooves that seemed to provide it traction. One thing I have never seen in all my days in Airy Zone is this combination of tusks, horns, and sharp teeth, which bared at us, even as it swept its head left and right. What really cooked my noodle was its tail. As it emerged, I guess I expected some kind of horse or pig tail, but it was massively bushy, and it whipped and rippled like a squirrel’s tail.

What kind of forest produced beasts of this nature? Its eyes did not stop glittering when it came out of the darkness of its warren. Indeed, it seemed to draw in light into its glassy pupils, chew it up, and spit it back out at us.

Instinct took over, and I was snarling before I realized. It spared a glance for me, but turned its light-devouring eyes back toward Zideo. it clearly blamed him for the phenomenon with the book. And no wonder — the half dozen pairs of eyes, glittering with curious fear in the darkness behind it were small and huddled all together. I can hardly blame a creature for defending its young. But I could not tolerate the threat that this wolf boar squirrel monstrosity posed to the number one best dude. (Commander Zideo.)

I suppose we animals are a funny bunch. There really are no half measures in the animal kingdom. This creature had easily 200 pounds on me. And do you think that estimation kept me from defending him who I loved so much? No, I’m afraid not.

I released the floodgates. Losing my cool altogether, I began making such a vicious, brutal ruckus that the beast had no choice but to pay me its attention. It was not my most civilized moment, and I was very glad that there were no humans there to record it on their glowing pocket rectangles. I heard an snarl rumbling around in the boar things chest as it prepared to answer me. A deep thunder roiled within the beast, but by the time it reached its mouth, it came out as birdsong. A meek, squeaky, twitter of a sound. It shook its monstrous squirrel tail in raw fury at my challenge. And me, a dog. It was implicit that I of all creatures should know better. Such flagrant impudence was not suffered lightly by even normal, sensible creatures without extraneous fangs and horns.

Well, by this point, I did not know what to make of this thing. The beast pawed a gash into the wet dirt with its long hooves and charged. She shook her tusked snout, she snapped with her jaws, and she even tried to butt us with her horns. This beast could not make up her mind. We leaped out of the way, and the next few seconds became a tense, muddy scramble to stay out of her dangerous reach. Every moment was elongated tenfold as I closely read the swing of her tusks as she rocketed past me. Missing us, she slid in the mud, her girth snapping a fallen and desiccated log in half.

Helmgarth got out the little shiny triangle. That’s when I really knew he had well and truly lost his mind. Or else, he was one of those humans who was so out of touch with nature, that he faced it underprepared and under-equipped. I will say, though, he gained a couple of dog points from me for bearing his teeth when danger arose. The dude was rushing to defend Zideo just as I was, with fewer odds in his favor.

The beast scrambled to her feet, hooves sliding on the wet ground. Commander Zideo ran back towards the slick embankment that had gotten us all here, and tried in vain to clamber back up the site. All he did was get more muddy.

I knew there would be no escaping this time. So I slipped and slid in front of Zideo, keeping myself between the beast and him. I was surprised to be pushed aside, and had to scramble to get my feet back under me. Furious, I snapped at the hands pushing me, but found they were Zideo’s.

He stood in front of me and Helmgarth. He thought he was protecting us.

In case you needed another reason to like the most stout-hearted, honorable human to have ever lived. He took a wide stance with his muddy Jordan-shoes planted in the muck. Boy, was I embarrassed that I had snapped at him. But he hardly noticed–his eyes were on the beast. It hunched its shoulders and prepared to charge again. It balked, and Zideo’s Jordan-shoes splashed up new ruts in the ground as he slid sideways. Helmgarth was now pushing him aside.

It was a noble gesture, but impractical. Just as there is a clear pecking order in nature, there is also a chain of responsibility for who protects whom. We just looked silly right now. Still, though, props to Smokey Leather-sweat. That absolutely earned him another Dog Point, and dogs never forget your score.

Ultimately, we were going to be crushed anyway. With our backs against the rugged incline and nowhere to maneuver, the thing was just going to trample/devour/gore us to death, no matter who was effecting the most protective disposition.

The beast tweeted furiously. It clenched its teeth and its eyes, it tensed all six of its legs, quivered with tension. Something was wrong with it, wrong with what I was looking at, and then I was looking at something else entirely.

A duck with huge eyes, grasping a spear, shouted a war-quack at us and charged. Light flashed, red this time, and there was an explosion of splintering wood, flying dirt, and twirling feathers. The ankle-deep water sizzled and rushed to fill in the hot crater left behind.

“Halt!” came a muffled voice from above. A man or woman stood dressed head in peculiar dark clothing that partly reminded me of the guard-humans who sometimes showed up at the dog park when there was a commotion. His–let’s say “his”--voice was dampened by the mask helmet and hardly carried at all. Beside him, the not-quite-human thing with the big clamper hands stood, a river of steam pouring out of the open aperture of the weapon inside the clamper hand.

At the time, I did not know what to call that. It seemed to be some kind of autonomous device at the time, reminding me of that awful vacuum cleaner that Lisa lets roam around the house before other humans come over. That thing? Is the worst. It’s super noisy, the kind of noise that’s–well, there’s a dog word for it, but not a human English one. I will translate it roughly as “un-not-bark-at-able.” I challenge anyone to suffer the roving vacuum device invading his territory, making precious smell clues disappear, and choking on chew toys and rug corners. It cannot not be barked at.

The robot–which is what I decided to name it, as that was what Lisa sometimes called her vacuum cleaner–lowered its weapon aperture and pointed it at Zideo. I growled, again without choosing to consciously. I looked for a way to intercept it, but if they were going to zap us with their machine fire, or whatever (we’re way out of my area of expertise as you can see), there was no avoiding it. They had us.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The first man with the sad-face mask pointed down at us. “Hands behind your heads! The dog, too!”

“Bud,” said Zideo. He looked at me, he looked at Helmgarth, then back up to the trooper. “What?”

“In the name of the Empire of Sorrow! You are under arrest!” He gesticulated lazily. He clearly wanted us to do something, but his own mental state prevented him from enforcing… whatever it was. When we failed to comply, he released a long sigh. “Empty your pockets! Get on your knees!”

“Are you guys…” began Commander Zideo. “Listen, Chief,” he addressed the man again. “I am not getting any of that.”

Eventually, we were rounded up by the troopers and escorted back the way we came. I did not like the look of these troopers. The way they worked together reminded me of a disciplined pack of dogs, used to hunting and operating together. But which one of them was in charge?

Certainly not the robot. I got a closer look at the deadly machine after I had been leashed, and was near it as the group retraced their path back to the edge of the forest. At first, I wondered if it could have been a man wearing layers of armor or clothing, but the limbs were too thin and wiry, and there were gaps between the cords and the skeletal metal where light shone all the way through. I assumed it was autonomous, and certainly it obeyed orders like an automaton. However, there were details about it that did not seem to add up: For one, there was a compartment on the front that seemed to serve no purpose. It had a dark, nearly opaque glass covering, behind which something moved–perhaps the source of its power? But there was one other thing about that was bothering me: it had a scent.

Not an oily, metallic, electronic smell. Those things were present, yes–but beneath the off-gassing plastics and the tang of industrial lubricant, there was something else. Something with fur, and a fast heartbeat. It made my fur stand up on end, filling me with the urge to chase and pounce.

We returned to the big fat stingray thing. As we approached, its pinwheel rotors began to spin like heavy fans that flattened the grass and made me want to lay down on the ground from the pressure. I can only imagine it was worse for the erect-standing bipeds. They ducked their heads, and the troopers motioned us inside the gaping maw.

The inside reminded me of a travel crate. Lisa usually let me get in the back of her car, but when I was a pup, I had to be transported inside of a secure crate. I hated it. It was not designed with the comfort of a dog in mind, let’s put it that way. It wasn’t much to look at, and it seemed to permit light in the sides reluctantly. I bounced against the hard wiry sides whenever Lisa hit the brakes.

This wasn’t too different. My leash was fastened to a wall, near a small viewport. Helmgarth and Zideo sat across from me, manacled and footacled. I could not suppress my anxiety at the greatest human being of all time having surrendered himself to someone else’s power, and I, unable to change the situation, did not know their plans for him. The troopers stood in the center, hanging onto fabric loops that descended from the ceiling–presumably this was all the protection they were permitted in favor of the ability to land quickly and disembark during a combat scenario. Their dramatic masks frowned at me, but they took little actual notice.

The rotors spun and we lifted into the air. I steadied myself and noticed with some petty sense of vengeance that I had tracked mud into the interior of their transport. I was not sorry. The ramp retracted like a tongue drawn back inside teeth, and the big stingray mouth clamped shut. It was a loud trip, but not long. Even over the racket of the rotors buzzsawing the air and the squealing of the metal frame, I could make out the voices of Helmgarth and Zideo speaking under their breath to one another.

Apparently the troopers’ helmets and masks made it difficult not just to speak but to hear as well. That, or just a classic case of the superiority of canine sensory organs.

“This is intolerable,” whispered Helmgarth. “We cannot allow ourselves to be taken by the Boss Council.”

“The what now?” asked Commander Zideo. He always knew exactly what to say.

“There is much to tell m’lord,” said Helmgarth. “But it must not be said here.”

Zideo looked at me with concern in his eyes. “What about him?” he asked.

Helmgarth shook his head. “Sentients are imprisoned and questioned. Creatures… they have a new use for creatures.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Zideo. But, as is so often the case, he interrupted himself with more questions. “Where are they taking us?”

The whole room tilted, dipping my side of the transport as it banked. I fell over, and my face squished against the glass viewport. We were far past the forest now, and on a hill at the edge of the world sat what looked to me like a whole neighborhood being hastily constructed by ants. The “ants” were Sorrow Troopers and others. The center was a big, unfinished tower with a ballista. (Yes, I know what a ballista is. Dogs watch the History Channel sometimes when you’re out to work.) About twice the structure’s mass in temporary construction planking and ladders clung to it like hanging moss, and its builders streamed up and down these channels with full buckets and loads of building materials. A big, shirtless overseer paced the top floor between the huge ballista and a collection of barrels.

The outer facilities were shaped like a vice gripping the central tower. A hastily constructed palisade surrounded the full layout, with a line of sharpened timber broken only by the front gates, which were thrown back. A knot of the ant-sized troopers and builders was lodged in the open gates, choking the influx of foot traffic.

“To Fort Weepus,” said Helmgarth, perfectly seriously. He nodded toward the window I was trying to peel myself off of.

Zideo, laughing, said, “What’s Fort Weepus?”

The metallic whine of the rotors screeched. We stopped flying through the air. A shudder ran through the frame of the transport, as though the back half wanted to collide with the front half. The troopers hanging by their loops lurched forward as one, then hung with their feet barely touching the slanting floor. The sudden cessation of our forward motion made me concerned that we would drop in the air like a stone.

I became unable to move. There was a noisy flutter of dry pages, and the book returned to Zideo, flipping through its pages to a specific page. As before, I was made aware of its words as my human read them. Not in his voice—or any voice—rather, I simply understood them as they were transmitted, as though my mind was listening in on his silent reading.

* Entry: Fort Weepus

* Faction: The Boss Council

* Description: A forward operating base for the Boss Council’s armies in the Outer Screenwilds. In the shadow of Shard Platformia, Fort Weepus is a convenient staging area for Shard forces making the journey to the Screenwilds, from which the Boss Council will doubtless launch an invasion.

A commotion grew within the hull full of time-frozen men. It was, at first, so muffled by the masks and headwear that it sounded like nothing more than the shuffling of people mildly annoyed. I gradually realized that it was the troopers shouting.

“Knock that off!” one quietly shouted.

“You’ll pay for this!” declared another. And so on. Their helplessness amused me, but I had little time to enjoy it. Zideo closed the book and dismissed it to wherever it went when it was not in use. Time seeped back into us and our surroundings like spilled water seeping into dry ground. The tinny threats of the masked troopers continued, and the robot that smelled like prey watched stoically. Soon the big buzzing stingray straightened out, and we were making our final descent. Treetops came within view, lit by torches and the fires of soldiers’ camps.

The troopers directed us out of the transport’s belly, coughed up out of its mouth and down the ramp, compelled by the robot’s clamp-weapon aperture which was pointed at us the entire time. While this task was undertaken as a matter of routine, in a practiced and “just business” kind of way, I nevertheless took great offense to the weapon being pointed at us at all. The logical truth was that, although it was aimed at us to achieve a further goal, I did not at the time grasp what restrained the robot’s hand, what kept it from firing. I thus felt that at any moment, our enemies could—with the slightest command—blink my life out of existence, or that of the ugly smokey leather man, and could reduce the actual numero uno most amazingly incredible human in all of history to a smoking crater. That raised inside me a very human kind of anger, not the reactive annoyance of the wild, but a deep grudge inside my heart, the kind that humans are always telling one another they should forgive. Not knowing their names, I committed the smells of each of the troopers to my memory, as easy for a dog to recall as having it written down on a piece of paper. They went onto The List, and the only way off of The List… well, let’s put it this way: If you ever think to yourself, “Should I get on Cormac’s list?” the answer you come up with should be “No.”