Reven
awoke in agony. His left shoulder flared with pain. He reached up and felt for
the source of his discomfort and could feel slick blood that covered his chest
and arm. He could feel he had a hole in his shoulder at the join and that the
blood was sticky. He could see nothing but the dull outline of the gate, the
darkness beyond it was not as all-encompassing as that of the darkness of the
room he now found himself in. He was lying on straw, he could feel that much.
The room stank and the air was heavy with moisture. He tried pushing himself up
and pained surged through his damaged joint. His head ached from the blow that
he received when he fell, not that he could remember much of the fall. A sound
behind him snapped his head round. Suddenly he was acutely aware that he wasn’t
alone. Whatever is was it moved towards him, the sound of its movements gave
the impression of something huge and he could hear the thing start to sniff the
air. Reven tried to pull himself away from the sound as fear gripped him
sending an icy chill racing through his veins. The sound grew closer until the
he could feel the heat of the things breath in his face, it pinned him to the
ground using one of its feet; Reven felt claws dig in as he was forced flat.
The thing sniffed again, it was like having bellows blown in his face. Reven thought
that his life was over when a peculiar thing happened. Instead of feeling teeth
sinking into his flesh to rip him to pieces he felt a rough fleshy tongue run
across the wound on his shoulder. The animal continued to lick his wound and
finished off by running its huge tongue up Reven’s cheek a few times for good measure.
Confusion warred with fear in Reven’s mind until a sound from above brought
both his head and the beasts round to focus on the gateway. He could hear
shouting from above and see the glow of torchlight fill the curved hall beyond
the gateway. The beast that towered over Reven moved toward the gate furtively.
Against the light he could now make out the true epic proportions of the animal
and immediately knew where he was and what he was sharing the room with. These
were not stables but kennels. The animal that had just shown him such
tenderness was in fact a born and bred killer; a war hound, a creature related
to and similar in appearance in many ways to normal dogs. Similar in all but its
size. They were as big as cart horses with teeth the size of daggers, and
adorned with thick slabs of muscle. Bred to be taken to war as either mounts
for noblemen or for use as an alternative to cavalry, they were fearsome opponents
and rightly feared by the sane. The beast stalked closer to the gate as the
light and sound from above grew. The war hound placed itself in darkness next
to the gateway and waited. Reven moved away from the light now spilling into the
room noting that the pain in his shoulder had eased greatly. Finding his feet he
moved to the opposite side of the gate to that of the hound.
“Hold
up lads, somebodies down here”, a gruff voice came from just beyond the gate
and was followed by a flaming torch that spiralled in through the gateway and
landed in the middle of the room, immediately setting some of the hay ablaze. “Get
out of there you wretches, come and face justice”, the man’s voice sounded even
nearer than before. A head appeared through the gateway, “Come out, come out,
wherever you a…..” a snap from the hound’s jaws took the man’s head off in one
clean bite before he could finish his sentence. The headless body fell to the
floor spouting a crimson fountain as it did so. Reven was transfixed, he had
never seen anything so horrifying yet so completely irresistible in his short life.
The war hound bolted through the open gate and barrelled into more men that
were coming down the hallway. Reven was frozen to the spot. The beast charged
through the men and up around the corner and an ear shattering sound of
splintering wood told him that it had made good its escape. The men picked themselves
and raced after the hound. The flames from the torch that had been cast into
the room were creeping across the floor, spitting and dancing as they went.
Reven knew he had to move. He looked down at the corpse of the headless man at
his feet and noticed a pouch at his belt. He untied the bindings holding it in
place and attached it to his own belt. He also unsheathed the dagger at the man’s
side and slid it into his boot. The site of the neck that was still oozing a
trickle of blood onto the floor made him feel queasy. He looked around the room
again and was surprised to see movement in the corner. He glanced at the ever
glowing flames in the middle of the room then made his way to the corner where
the movement had caught his eye. He was greeted with a site that filled him
with sadness. A group of small bodies littered the corner. The war hound that
had briefly shared this room had obviously recently become a mother. For some
reason she hadn’t been able to keep them alive. As he looked closer he saw that
they lay huddled together, all motionless except for one. Reven knelt down and pulled
the pup from under the bodies of its siblings. It wasn’t an easy feat as the
pup was almost the same size as he was. As smoke started billowing across the room
Reven dragged the heavy pup across to the gateway. It moved feebly in response
to his actions and its breathing was laboured. Again he turned his attention
the decapitated corpse and started to relieve the dead man of his jacket. He
sat the hound against the wall and pushed him back so he sat upright. Reven slipped
the jacket down the hounds back until it came to the top of its hind legs. He
then sat in front of the pup and tied the bottom of the jacket around his
waist. The jacket was made for a man so could easily fit a boy and what was for
all intents and purposes a large dog in it without too much of a struggle.
Reven tied the arms of the jacket around his neck and lent forward taking the pups
weight on his back. He got to his feet and unsteadily made his way up the
sloping hallway. He made his way out of the huge hole that had been made in the
side of the kennel by the mother hounds escape. Smoke was rising freely from
the building now and looking around he could see that it wasn’t the only
building in this part of the city that had been put to the torch. He could see
no sign of the larger war hound or its pursuers. He decided to start moving to
the edge of the city hoping to try and find some way of escaping the madness.
It was
late and Reven had no idea how long he had lain unconscious in the War Hounds
kennel. He also noticed as he walked that he felt no pain from his shoulder and
upon inspection was amazed to see that the wound had scabbed over already. The
burden of the pup also didn’t seem to bother him as much as it should have
done. He marched on into the cloying darkness, away from the fires and toward
what he hoped would be freedom from this city of death.
He
scavenged what he could as he travelled. It looked like looters and already
been busy in this part of the city, taking advantage of the insanity that
gripped the frighten city after the arrival of the besiegers. He managed to
gather up some bits of stale bread and a filthy leg of some animal from a
butchers. It had been trampled all over and obviously in their haste the
looters hadn’t considered it worthy loot. He recovered a lantern from a house
that had the door busted in and turned the flame low so as to save its light.
As he neared the city wall he looked back to see if he could make out the keep.
He couldn’t, all he saw was a pall of smoke that had a slight orange glow to
it, lit by the fires that raged through the homes and businesses that once made
up the mighty city of Rosholt.
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