Doglands (26 page)

Skyver tried to stand up off the ground but fell back down.

Furgul coiled to launch himself at Tattoo.

“He’s mine,” said Dervla.

Dervla hurtled forward into the smoke. Tattoo spit obscenities and raised his baton to beat her down. He expected her to cower, as she’d cowered so many times before. But Dervla’s days of cowering were over. As the baton whistled at her head, Dervla sprang and was on him, rearing high, fully as tall as he was. Her eyes drilled holes of fear into whatever it was that passed for Tattoo’s soul. Her breath scorched his
face with its fury. Tattoo emitted a high-pitched scream as she toppled him flat on his back and showed him her fangs. Tattoo gibbered with terror and pain as his face disappeared inside her maw. His body thrashed beneath her, his arms trying to fend her off, but without success. Dervla’s fangs burrowed deeper. The muffled screaming stopped. Tattoo no longer moved.

Dervla stood over his corpse. Her shoulders heaved as she panted for breath. Then she turned to Furgul. He saw her eyes. Dervla would never let a man make her frightened again.

“Furgul.”

Brennus’s voice was but a husk of the warm, throaty growl that Furgul had come to love. He stood over the buckshot-ravaged giant and licked his face.

“Brennus,” said Furgul. “Oh, Brennus.”

Brennus heaved for breath. Red foam spilled from his lips.

“Make me an oath,” whispered Brennus.

“Anything,” said Furgul.

“Seek the Dog Lore. Show us how to find our way home.”

“I swear it, Brennus,” said Furgul. “I swear it to you.”

Brennus smiled, his own blood staining his great, broken fangs.

“You’ll find me on the winds,” he said.

Brennus coughed and shuddered. He fought for one last breath.

“Now go get Keeva.”

Furgul looked at the dust trail that had whipped up in the wake of Dedbone’s truck. It was far out of range. Not even a cheetah could catch Dedbone now.

“The Doglines,” whispered Brennus. “Run the Doglines.”

The mighty heart of Brennus stopped beating.

“Brennus!” cried Furgul. “Brennus!”

Furgul felt as if the earth itself would no longer wish to turn. Grief welled up inside him and paralyzed his limbs, blinded his eyes, fogged his mind.

“Furgul! The Doglines!” barked Dervla. Her voice was harsh. “What did he mean?”

Furgul looked at her. Dervla’s strength somehow gave Furgul back his own.

He knew what Brennus meant.

He turned and started to run.

But he didn’t try to follow Dedbone’s truck.

Furgul’s injured shoulder sent knives through his leg with every stride.

He stumbled across the junkyard through the dazed ranks of greyhounds. He hurdled the ravaged corpses of the Bulls. As he broached the parched grassland, he glanced back at the smoking battlefield.

Down the main road into Dedbone’s Hole a column of vehicles approached. In the lead he recognized Jodi’s truck. Behind her came a convoy of cars and vans, most of them painted yellow with flashing blue lights. Jodi must have discovered Dedbone’s human name at the track. She was
bringing the cruelty-prevention people, just as she had promised. Dervla and the others would be safe. But Furgul didn’t turn back. By the time he persuaded Jodi to pursue Dedbone, Keeva would be dead.

Furgul was the pale dog running.

He had to run.

He had to run like he’d never run before.

Just as he thought he would falter from the pain, he found the Dogline.

And along that Dogline Furgul ran to save Keeva.

A
s Furgul ran the Dogline across the valley—toward the jagged rock jaws of Argal’s Mountain—he felt the nature of time and space change inside him.

He didn’t feel that he was running any faster than his best—his pace was no quicker, his stride no longer—yet he was covering more distance, much more quickly, than should have been possible. It was almost as if the ground itself was moving under his paws to increase his speed.

Just as mysterious, the crippling pain in his shoulder faded away. He was aching from head to claw from the blows he’d taken, and most of them still hurt just as much as before. But the shoulder—the one injury that would have stopped him—now felt fine. It was as if the Dogline would give him only what he most needed, but no more.

Over to his right, beyond the meadowlands, he could see Dedbone’s truck winding around the road that led to the mountain. Though Furgul didn’t know how, or why, he knew that the Dogline would help him reach the road in time to intercept the truck. Furgul looked up as rags of cloud raced across the wide blue sky above. As the wind on which the clouds were borne got stronger, the clouds became grim and gray. It was as if the clouds meant to follow him to Argal’s Mountain.

Furgul swept through the forest. He couldn’t see the truck anymore. He couldn’t even see the mountain. The undergrowth was dense with bracken. Yet he wove through the trees without taking a single false step. He broke from the woods into the open. He got nearer and nearer to the road—and to the dangerous leap he would have to take into the rear of Dedbone’s truck.

The truck was now bumping its way around a sweeping curve. Billows of rust-red dust smoked up from its wheels. Furgul’s own path was straight as an arrow. As truck and dog converged, Furgul saw Dedbone through the shattered edges of the windshield. He was hunched over the steering wheel, using his teeth to wrap an oil-stained rag around his injured hand.

The slaver didn’t see Furgul.

Furgul shortened his stride to prepare for the jump. The truck rumbled right in front of him. As he coiled his hind legs to spring, his paws sank into a bright green bed of moss. He
drew on every ounce of strength in his haunches. The moss seemed to draw power from the Dogline and acted like a trampoline. Furgul soared through the air. His hind claws scraped the edge of the tailgate as he landed. He managed to slow down before he crashed into the cardboard box behind the cab.

As he panted and recovered his balance, he realized that the bright green bed of moss was the exact same spot where Brid had landed, when she made her escape when they were pups. Had Brid followed the Dogline? There was no time to wonder. He sniffed the box and detected Keeva’s scent.

“Mam! Are you okay?”

“Furgul?”

Keeva’s voice was muffled by the box. Furgul ripped into the cardboard with his jaws. It was tough and stiff and sealed with thick gray tape, but his teeth were now longer and sharper than those of a pup. In seconds he’d torn a gaping hole. He paused to look inside. Keeva’s eyes met his. She still wore the racing muzzle from the track, and Furgul understood why she herself hadn’t escaped—she couldn’t bite the cardboard. And she’d been trapped in there all night without food or water.

“Come on, Mam. Let’s get you out of there.”

He took a mouthful of cardboard and tore a great strip right down the box. Keeva wriggled her way out. Furgul chewed through the strap behind her ears, and she shook the muzzle off. He felt the truck slow down as it began the final ascent toward the mountain and the cave of death.

“Jump out of the truck, Mam.”

Keeva looked at him, full of a mother’s love and a mother’s fears.

“Go and find Dervla,” said Furgul. “You’ll be safe with her.”

“Dedbone’s an expert dog fighter,” she said. “Forget him, come away with me.”

“The humans will never punish Dedbone. And he’s hurt too many dogs.”

“Please,” pleaded Keeva.

“You’re free, Mam. I’m going to make sure it stays that way.” Beyond the roof of the cab, in the side of the mountain, Furgul could see the black hole of the cave. “Go, Mam,” he barked. “Go now.”

Keeva licked his face. Then she gave him once again the most precious gift he’d ever owned. She said, “Be brave.”

Keeva jumped. He watched her long blue body land and swerve about with perfect grace. He saw the dread in her face. Then he turned away.

The truck slowed down and stopped outside the cave.

Furgul looked up the mountainside. The clouds that had scudded across the valley in his wake now collided above the double peak. The wind merged them into a huge black nimbus that blocked out the rays of the sun. The cloud cast a giant shadow over Furgul. Furgul stole up onto the roof of the truck. He waited for Dedbone.

The door of the truck swung open. Dedbone levered
himself out. His greasy head and thick neck and dense, hunched shoulders rose before Furgul’s paws. He offered no good target for Furgul’s teeth. Furgul held back. As Dedbone turned to the back of the truck, he froze as he saw Furgul on the roof.

Dedbone glanced at the torn and empty box. He nodded to himself, as if he might have expected it. Then he stared off down the valley toward the compound. Furgul followed his gaze and looked too.

Black smoke spiraled into the sky above Dedbone’s Hole. The flames of the burning house were yellow and orange. Dedbone’s empire of cruelty lay in ruins.

“It’s over, Dedbone,” growled Furgul. “The dogs are free.”

Dedbone turned to look at Furgul. Their eyes met.

Dedbone had enslaved and exploited dogs all his life. They had no greater enemy. Yet in spite of that—perhaps because of it—Dedbone must have known his greyhounds better than any dog lover ever knows his pet. Somewhere in his twisted heart, Dedbone too must have loved his dogs. He had steeped himself in their speed, their grace, their resilience, their trust, their loyalty. Dogs had been his life. And Dedbone had squandered that life by betraying every single dog he’d ever owned.

Dedbone said,
“A free dog never dies. He only moves on.”

Furgul’s mind reeled. He understood every word. Dedbone had spoken in dog tongue. Perfect dog tongue. No weapon that the slaver might have wielded could have stunned him so much.

“You’re a Dog Talker?” asked Furgul.

“I don’t talk to dumb animals,” said Dedbone. “I kick them. I breed them. I use them. I kill them. Then I dump them in the garbage where they belong.”

His smile was full of malice.

“But if you’re asking, do I understand your stupid, yelping, slavering, slobbering gibberish? Of course I do. Because I’m better than you. Because I’m a human being. And you’re just a dog.”

Furgul felt sick.

He remembered the paddock at the racetrack, where he’d told Keeva what Argal had told him about free dogs. Dedbone had just repeated Argal’s words exactly. He must have listened in on every word they’d said. And he must have been listening in for years, eavesdropping and spying on the dogs at the Hole, at the track, in the streets—everywhere. Even Tic and Tac hadn’t known.

All the evil that Dedbone had done seemed even more depraved than before. He wasn’t just a greedy slaver. He was a snoop. He’d heard the dogs speak—of their suffering, their fears, their hunger, their broken dreams—of their love for their pups and their mates. And he’d used his stolen knowledge of their private thoughts and feelings to make the chains of slavery tighter still.

“Now it’s time for
you
to move on,” said Dedbone. “The chasm is waiting.”

“I’ve already been there,” Furgul snarled.

Dedbone grinned. “Yeah? How many free dogs did you find?”

Furgul stared at him. The faces of Eena and Nessa flashed in his mind.

“Of all the dogs I threw in that pit, not a single one was free,” said Dedbone. “There’s no moving on for them. They’ll never join the winds. They’re in a cage that will last forever.”

The thought that the dogs would never be free filled Furgul with anger and sorrow. Worst of all, Dedbone was right. They would never roam with the winds. Again he saw the faces of Eena and Nessa. Every muscle in his body clenched with rage.

“Well?” said Dedbone. “What are you waiting for, lurcher?”

Dedbone tipped his head back. He jabbed a thick finger at his own throat.

“Get it while it’s hot.”

Furgul dived from the roof. The growl that escaped from his chest was so savage that his own ears quailed at the sound. As his paws clawed Dedbone’s shoulders, he opened his jaws to go for the veins in Dedbone’s thick, red neck.

It was just what Dedbone wanted.

He jammed the meaty edge of his injured hand between Furgul’s jaws. His powerful arm snared Furgul’s back and crushed him against the hard bulge of his belly. Dedbone squeezed with immense strength, and Furgul’s ribs and spine crackled. The air was forced out of his lungs. His neck was bent back.

Furgul thrashed and flailed, but Dedbone was too strong. He tried to twist his head away, to strike again at the throat, but Dedbone rammed the edge of his palm even deeper into Furgul’s mouth. Furgul sank his fangs in, but the oily rag protected Dedbone’s hand. Furgul bit down until he felt the bones crunch, and Dedbone’s face flinched with pain. But Dedbone was tough, and he was crafty. As long as he kept the hand between Furgul’s jaws, it acted like a muzzle. Furgul couldn’t use a lethal bite. Dedbone had blunted his teeth.

“You fell for it, you stupid mutt,” rasped Dedbone. “But you were right about one thing. It’s over.”

Dedbone carried Furgul into the cave. A familiar and evil stench flooded Furgul’s nostrils. Because the cloud above the mountain had blocked out the sun, the inside of the cave was dark. The farther Dedbone carried him into the cave, the darker it got. The only advantage Furgul had was that his eyes could see better in the dark than Dedbone’s.
Remember, there are teeth everywhere
. Furgul couldn’t move his head very much, but as best he could, he scanned the cave for teeth.

Beyond Dedbone’s shoulder, in the shadows up ahead, he saw a sharp spur of rock that stuck out from the far wall of the cave. As they passed it, Furgul wrenched his hind legs from under Dedbone’s belly. He twisted his hips and flexed his spine until his hind paws touched the near wall, just opposite the spur. Then he shoved with all the strength in his massive thighs.

Dedbone, caught off guard, stumbled across the cave. The
spur of rock spiked into his cheek below his eye. Dedbone bellowed with pain and he staggered. Furgul broke free of his arms.