The fur between Lucky’s shoulder blades slowly rose as the feeling that something was looming over him intensified. He dropped his body lower, making himself a smaller target. “What good is [Dangersense] if it just tells me something is coming? There’s no indication where it’s coming from or what it is.” He grumbled, mostly to himself.
“It doesn’t give you any hints?” Axel asked as he stepped up next to Lucky. With his tail hanging low and hind end ducked down just a little, the mastiff looked just as uncertain as Lucky.
“No. None.” Lucky heaved a heavy sigh.
“Maybe try to think of it like a scent or a sound. Find the source.” Axel suggested.
Lucky’s head tilted to the left. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He admitted. He took small steps in every direction, focusing his attention on that strange sensation deep in his core. Axel stayed by his side, the big dog’s attention focused on their surroundings as Lucky turned his focus inward. He only grunted in response to Lucky’s statement.
Lucky ended up walking in a slow, halting spiral starting from his original spot and moving slowly around to the left. Always left. At first it was hard to tell whether the sensation was getting stronger because of his movements or because the danger was getting ever closer. It seemed to take an eternity, dozens of steps in an ever widening spiral, before the sensation changed suddenly.
**DA-DAH!! You have gained +1 [Dangersense]!!**
Even as the voice rang in his head, Lucky felt that looming sense of oncoming danger change. Suddenly it felt as though a fishing hook had become lodged in his core and something was reeling him in toward the pasture. Is it reeling me toward the danger or away? Lucky wondered. Do I want it to lead me toward danger or away? Is it wrong to want it to take me away from it? There’s been so much already.
He trotted toward the pasture fence, Axel close at his side. The cattle continued to yell, with the young ones bawling for their mothers. The calves were standing in a cluster near where Lobo’s Man had left them at the pasture gate, gathered together flank to flank, bawling and shaking. Lucky walked close to the fence and studied the animals, the pull had lessened the closer he got to the fence.
“Whatever is coming, it’s in this area.” He said, softly. His ears dropped to rest tightly against his head. “It’s big too.”
“Big?” Axel asked.
“The feeling is so intense, Axel. Like something has sunk its teeth into my heart and is biting down.” Lucky said.
Axel whined softly. “I’m sorry.” He said. “Wish I could help.”
A deep, rumbling growl, rolled through Lucky. “I wish there was something we could do to fix any of this.”
The big mastiff only grunted in response.
“The End.” Lucky’s voice was strangely sharp. “Three days to prepare for this.” His gaze roved over the dooryard and all the screaming cattle. “How can anyone prepare for this?”
Axel snorted. “Can’t prepare for nothing. Leastways I never could. Everytime you think you got it figured out, rules change. Mountain lion, bear.” He blew a breath through his nose. “No use preparing. Never know what’s gonna happen.”
“What’s the point of all of this?” Lucky asked. “Why are we here? What are we even fighting?”
The big mastiff’s sigh was faint, barely a breath. “Everything.” He said.
Lucky snorted. “Just about.” He glanced at Axel for a moment and then shook out his long fur. “Anything standing out to you?”
The dark eyed mastiff scanned the herd of screaming bovines. “Something isn’t right with those.”
“They’re being really weird.” Lucky said. “At least, I think they are. I don’t really know though. I haven’t been around cows much, especially since the System came.”
“Me either. I’m a City dog. If I can be honest, I’m not sure I like all these wide open spaces.”
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“What do you mean?” Lucky asked, his copper brows drawing together over his bright eyes.
The brindle mastiff’s dark face tipped downward, his earthy eyes slipping well away from Lucky’s and his ears laying back flat against the sides of his broad skull. He lifted one broad forepaw, toes curling down and then placed it slowly against the ground, his toes spreading wide as they sunk into the soft grass beneath them. “There isn’t anything solid about any of this.” He spoke only after a long, drawn-out silence as he obviously searched for the words. “As harsh as streets can be beneath your paws, it’s a harshness I know well. As dangerous as a dark alley can be or a dimly lit room filled with noise and reeking of drink, it’s a danger I am familiar with.” He was quiet again for a moment, his dark eyes focused on the yelling cattle again. Finally he turned those dark eyes back on Lucky, his gaze searching. “Do you understand?”
It was Lucky that broke eye contact this time, his pale eyes sliding away and back to the cattle. There was something deep in Axel’s expression that pulled at him almost as strongly as it pushed him away. Shaking out his long fur, bits of shed hanging in the air around them, Lucky considered the question. “I think I can understand. There’s something to be said for knowing your territory.”
“There is.” Axel agreed. He then snorted out a breath. “Though everything has changed since that Hot Wind.”
“The Winds of Change.” Lucky said dryly.
Axel snorted again. “Terrible.”
“But funny.” Lucky said with a panting grin.
“If you say so.” Axel countered. “Looks like he’s about done with the calves.”
“Hmmm.” Lucky made a sound in the back of his throat as he watched the calves clustered together, flanks touching, bodies shaking. None of them made any effort to get any closer to the cattle. As for the cattle, none of them had moved. Not a single one. The jaws around his heart squeezed tighter, bearing down and dragging a whimper from Lucky’s throat. Axel’s body stiffened, every hard muscle tensing beneath his short brindled coat. A low growl, rumbled deep in the big dog’s chest and Lucky wasn’t far behind. The fur along the ridge of both dogs’ spines raised, puffing out and threatening.
“Do you feel it?” Lucky growled. “It’s coming!”
Axel’s growl deepened, the bass rumble almost as tangible as it was audible. His head thrust forward, in line with his shoulders, his spine a straight line to the tip of his still, stiff tail. Black lips peeled back from long, dangerous looking teeth, as the growl became a threatening snarl. The farmyard had gone still. The tableaux broken only by the sounds of the two dogs growling and the incessant lowing of the cattle. The calves had gone silent, legs trembling, big dark eyes rolling in their heads clearly showing the whites.
Lobo’s Man had just set the last calf into the pasture and stood by the fence, his forearms resting on the top rail, the rifle strapped across his back. As the rumbling growls swept forth, Lobo’s Man’s head came up, face jerking toward the two dogs, one brow raised in clear question.
It was then that the strange tension broke. There was a shimmer in the air, the same you could sometimes see over hot, dark pavement in the middle of a summer day when the sun glares down upon the world with something that almost feels like malice. It started with a singular smell that smashed down upon the dogs like a tidal wave. The wind had changed, sweeping toward the dogs and over into the dooryard behind. It was the sweet, tempting scent of decay, the kind of smell that Lucky would have cheerfully rolled himself in. Undercut by the scent of violence, that hot but stale smell of spilled blood soaking into warm earth, the tidal wave of scent threatened to drown them.
The calves, still bawling for their mothers, broke. Long, awkward legs tangled as they turned almost as one to rush the fence Lobo’s Man stood behind. The first few were swept along by the current of the rest, smashing into and then stumbling through the twin cross pieces of the fence. The sharp crack of wood pushed too far echoed out. A sharp, insect-shell scent broke through the overpoweringly sweet scent of decay.
The calves were scrambling, tumbling through between the fence’s crossbars sprawling onto the trampled grass on the other side. Lobo’s Man seemed torn between helping the calves and getting his rifle in his grip. The air, shimmering in iridescence, held on for the space of one deep breath before it burst like the tremulous shell of a soap bubble.
Where before had stretched the somewhat idyllic pasture filled with strangely yelling cattle, now there was a scene none of them had expected. Even the sensitive nosed coyotes had had no idea what truly lay within the pasture. Instead of tallish green grasses rolling smoothly over uneven terrain, there was chaos. The grasses were tattered, large clumps pulled up and resting dirt side up, the terrain had been torn up, long gouges marred the pasture. In places, the green grasses were drenched in dark, dried splashes of something. The trees that had shaded the pasture had become anchor points for a dull gray web so large that it killed the growl in Lucky’s throat. Trapped in those webs, wrapped in gray silk, were large bundles that could only be the cattle that had once filled the pasture. Hundreds of them.
Moving over the webs with a grace that filled Lucky with dread, were spiders. Dozens of them. Bigger than the bundles of cattle they had made, bigger than a car, nearly as big as Man’s boxy van. Lucky shuddered. Axel growled louder.
“Spiders.” Lobo’s Man’s voice was unsteady as he spat the word as though it carried a bad taste. “Of course it’s spiders.” He added after a moment. “Put out the call, Lucky, get as many fighters as you can over here. There’s way too many of them and they’re too darn close to our territory.”
It didn’t take a moment for Lucky to comply, he threw back his head and sent a piercing howl up into the air, calling for reinforcements. The sound seemed to draw the attention of the webspinners and a few of them turned toward Lucky’s position near the pasture fence. The big, multicolored dog, poured more energy into the howl, reaching for all of his distant allies.
**DA-DAH!! You have acquired the combat skill [Rallying Call] at rank 1!!**