Chapter Three
Fatal Friends
"Dis! Come and take a look at this!"
Despite how late the hour was, two black and gray dogs found themselves miles away from home. The one who had spoken and now nosed a set of large prints in the snow, was a large female with icey blue eyes. Her companion, the one she named Dis, was also a female who stood almost as tall as her.
Her appearance was only subtly different. She looked down at the set of prints with bright golden eyes instead of blue, and her coat was definitely more partial to the vivid gray. Her face wasn't as thin either.
"Blitz, can we please just go back?"
She turned her muzzle away from the prints in disinterest. They were too big to be what they were searching for.
"It's late, my paws are sore, and I'm tired."
They had covered miles through the snow and trees and endured relentless cold blasts of wind in almost complete darkness, except for the moonlight that bathed them, making their coats gleam.
Blitz turned her head back to Dis, a frustrated growl rumbling in her throat, her sharp white teeth showing.
"If the day ever comes when I'm the one who's missing, I hope you don't give up so quickly on finding me."
She turned to follow the direction the tracks marked. Dis may not have noticed, but her keen nose had found it. At last, she had found it. It was a very weak scent, but it was there all the same, maybe a day or so old.
Dis snorted at this, but continued to follow beside Blitz.
"Come on, give me a break! He's only been gone one day. Why do you even think he's missing?" Clearly, her concerns were not the same as Blitz's.
Blitz was beginning to grow tired of the other dogs complaints. She growled again in response, which quieted Dis for awhile. They kept going, following the path Blitz's nose led them on in almost complete silence except for the sound of running and dripping water that grew louder and louder the closer they got.
When they came upon the river, the scent turned and followed it up stream curiously. Blitz found this extremely odd. She had expected it to turn downstream which would have taken them to a more familiar place, one of their old haunts in fact. Why it went in the opposite direction was just another question bursting in her head.
It led them farther and farther out around two bends in the river until at one point, it abruptly disappeared.
She finally stood up and shook her head, the weariness she felt appearing on her face for a moment.
Dis clicked her tongue at Blitz and stood by her, but didn't say anything. Her desire to continue this fools search had faded away a long time ago. No matter how much her paws protested, she wouldn't abandon Blitz though. That didn't stop her from making it obvious how much she didn't care to continue this.
She bit Blitz's fur and tugged her back from the water. "Don't be thick, Blitz."
"He didn't come back last night. For someone like him, that's unusual." Blitz finally spoke, meeting her eyes just long enough to see the impatience in her friend's expression.
Dis turned away, rolling her eyes, and pressed her nose to the ground, feigning interest in finding the scent her nose had never picked up.
"Maybe. . . it's still only one day. Are you that worried about him?" Her tone sounded sarcastic, but it changed at her question.
Blitz didn't miss it. Her cheeks rose into a smirk, peering amusedly at Dis.
"Dis. . . is that jealousy I'm hearing?"
Dis snorted scornfully. "Really now, Blitz. I just told you not to be thick. Then you go and ask something stupid like that."
She put a paw on Blitz's shoulder and pushed her away. "Maybe I need to rethink this whole friendship thing with you. I can't have it known I'm friends with a duffer like you."
Blitz was grateful for the distraction from the worry eating away at her. Her playful grin turned to a cheerful smile without her consent. She and Dis had known each other since they were pups and had gone through everything in life together. Even with how annoyed she was with her complaining, there wasn't another dog out there she'd rather have at her side.
"A duffer, am I? Well I never knew how much of a baby you are. Whining this whole time about your paws hurting." Blitz held up her own sore paws and put on an exaggerated pouting face. "You sound just like a pup!"
The words might have been insulting if it weren't for the giggle in her voice which Dis immediately joined in on.
"You got a lot of nerve calling me a pup, you know that right?" All anger in her voice completely discredited by her own laughter. She gave Blitz a very unbelievable glare and lowered her body ready to pounce.
Blitz spun around, swatting Dis in the face with her tail. She gave up the effort of looking mad at her friend, turning her thin body and flicking her paw a few times, daring her to try it.
Blitz may have had keener senses than Dis, but Dis had all the strength and speed Blitz did not. Blitz was barely ready for it when Dis lunged. Throwing her body at the dog in front of her. Blitz tried to dodge, but was too slow. Much too slow.
Dis's paws collided with her and they both fell back. Rolling, flipping, and sliding, they laughed all the way down until the both splashed right into the river.
The freezing water immediately soaked through their fur. Both of them immediately abandoned their fight and swam back to dry land. In their confusion, they ended up on the opposite bank of the river.
As soon as they had both shaken the water from their bodies, there was an immediate change in Blitz. She lowered her head back to the ground, her nose shuffling through all the smells she picked up until it honed in on the same scent again.
"Why would he cross the river?"
Dis was the one asking now. Her tone had changed as well. Not only could she smell it now, but they were both unsettled by the presence of another smell. This trail was much much more fresh. Barely more than a few hours they guessed, but the smell of blood was mingled with it horribly now.
"He's hurt!" Blitz cried, her playful mood completely forgotten.
Dis was the same way, despite how nonchalant she had been about the search only minutes ago.
"Blitz. . ." she said, pointing her paw to a small wet puddle of blood beside a fresh set of prints, exactly the size they were looking for. Quite a lot of her pride had been hurt badly, giving in to concern for the time.
The sight of it terrified Blitz and she set off at once. No longer having to follow the scent, but the trail of blood that had been left in it's wake. Drops of it had trailed over roots, branches, bushes, puddled up in small terrible scarlet pools under tree trunks, and even smeared across the grass.
Blitz followed it, increasingly more and more alarmed by it all.
Dis had actually noticed something this time that Blitz had overlooked. Right when they had picked up the scent, Dis had started to follow it upstream as well. What was more strange than the fact that it had crossed the river, was that it also went downstream.
In her mind she tried to work it all out, but when she saw the blood, a heavy sense of foreboding hit her in the chest and the questions gave in to concern.
Blitz found a clump of reddish brown fur in the bark of a tree, blood also surrounding it, like he had fallen against the tree for support. This was only one among many they found as they went.
The sense of an ill omen pressing over them more and more. What disturbed the two dogs most was the sheer amount of blood.
"He's hurt badly. . ." Blitz's voice cracked, stopping at another set of paw prints. These were smeared with red and pink now. It also looked like one of his paws was dragging.
They were still following the river, but the tracks swayed this way and that, once there was a large imprint in the snow of its body, a long red line spread across it.
"He stumbled and fell here." Dis said, looking up from the tracks. "He can't be far from here."
The track actually went on for much longer than either of them would have believed. They noticed that the tracks continued in a pattern that repeated itself. For several paces it moved in a straight line, each paw print clear, then they became harder to make out when his paws dragged through the snow, leaving it in mounds instead of tracks. They swayed back and forth, like he was fighting to not lose his balance. An effort he failed at each time.
Images flashed in Blitz's mind each time they saw where he fell. She could almost picture the dog struggling to stay on his paws and collapsing each time.
It startled her when she felt Dis bite her fur and tug. "Blitz. . ."
It stopped her, and right away she saw why Dis had. They had finally reached the end of the tracks.
Lying beside the river, she spotted a motionless lump. Against the blank white canvas of snow that surrounded them, his dark grey coat distinguished by the reddish-brown splotches was unmistakable. The fear that Blitz had been fighting off only by focusing on following the trail, rather than what was at the end of it, had clamped firmly down on her, rooting her to the spot.
Dis nudged her with her muzzle then. "Come on." Without waiting for Blitz to respond, she padded over to the fallen dog. Her eyes searched him for any sign of life, fully expecting the worst. She was deeply relieved when she got close enough to hear his breathing. He appeared to have lain down to drink from the river and dozed off. He looked oddly peaceful with his face rested between his paws. One paw was its usual gray, but the other was a much darker shade, wet with blood that went all the way up his arm and shoulder. It looked like the blood had been it's heaviest at his neck, but the terrible wound went from his jaw, just below his ears and went all the way up his face, stopping right behind his eye.
Dis cringed and looked away, horrified. Her stomach turned and for a second she thought she was going to be sick. She turned back to Blitz who still stood frozen in place,
"Blitz, he's alive!"
/\/\/\/\/\/\
After Dart had dismissed Storm and Gabriel from their meeting, neither one of them hesitated to leave. Not even stopping to consider what Dart had in store for poor Nikki.
They didn't speak at all as they went, slowly treading the same miles back home. Storm lead the way and Gabriel followed behind. It seemed that Storm was not comfortable at all around Gabriel, he kept glancing back over his shoulder and then picking up his pace whenever he saw they were close. It would have amused Gabriel, but he was in a lot of pain. He was freezing, but half of his face still blazed horribly.
He kept his head down and stared at his paws,doing his best to hide his discomfort.
Once they reached the river, they split up. While they were still miles from home, they had been told not to be seen together by Dart. The river was the point where they met and where they were to separate. Storm looked very grateful for it. He ran off without even looking at Gabriel.
He stopped and stood there for a minute and watched Storm go. For such a slow pace, he was feeling very out of breath.
He allowed himself to lean against one of the tall trees looming over him. As tired as he felt, he almost could have fallen asleep right there. But just before the fatigue took him away, he forced himself to get moving again.
In next to no time, he had to stop and steady himself against another tree. He only lingered long enough to steady himself, unsure if he could fight off the exhaustion he felt a second time.
His thoughts disappeared into a blurred mess that made sense to no one but himself.
Why is everything getting so cold?
It had been cold before, but he could hardly keep himself from shivering now.
I'm so tired. . . I can barely lift my paws anymore. . .
His whole body began to feel like a heavy burden, his legs could hardly support the weight anymore. They shook like mad with each step.
I'm so thirsty. . . maybe I should stop just for a quick drink. . .
It was a sorely tempting idea, but he didn't trust himself to get back up if he fell.
Just when he felt his legs would surely give out under him, everything went blurry. He blinked, and everything returned to focus, then blurred again.
The world suddenly turned on its side then. Before he could put together any kind of thought about this, he felt his body collide with the frozen ground.
He was barely aware of what was happening around him anymore. It hadn't even dawned on him just how much he had bled out. All he knew was the intensity of his pain had disappeared to barely more than a dull throb, and he didn't feel so cold anymore. His body though. . . never had it been so hard for him to move. He felt a funny disconnect from it actually. It made him laugh.
Laughing made him feel good, so he kept on.
A few thoughts came to his mind that made him laugh even more. He saw Dart slap Nikki, he saw two similar looking female dogs chasing each other, he saw the one with blue eyes and softer features tackle him and they went rolling and laughing, he saw himself knock a dog down into the dirt and snow, he saw Storm attacking the dog again and again while he held the dog down. He felt the satisfying crack of the dog's ribs breaking one by one under his paws. He heard his and Storm's laughter and even faintly heard the dog's cries.
"Not Slyth." Was all he managed to say before finding to all so hilarious he started laughing even harder.
At some point during all this, he managed to push himself to his paws. As he walked and stumbled on, he kept breaking into fresh bouts of laughter. It was simply too funny to him, they hadn't just killed a dog, they had killed the wrong dog.
"What rotten luck!" The absurdity of two dogs looking so similar that something like that had happened cracked him up.
The only reason he stopped laughing at this was because his brain had just made a connection between those last few thoughts. The two female dogs he had just seen.
"They're my friends. . ."
A vision of either of them being attacked the way they had attacked that dog played out in his mind and it immediately silenced him.
"No" he growled after another minute of stumbling through the snow.
"I won't let it happen to them. . ."
He imagined seeing Dart on top of them, his paw held up to strike them both down. Anger bubbled up in Gabriel and he pounced on the large shepherd. In a haze of teeth and blood and claws, he closed his jaws around Darts throat and bit through it like it was nothing.
A surge of excitement went through his bones at the fantasy. Yes, if Dart or anyone else came near his friends, the bloodlust would be upon him and he would slay them all.
Something came up and hit him again then. He felt the snow around his body hugging him and filling his vision. It took him a few seconds to realize he had fallen again. This time, he knew he wouldn't be getting back up.
Something had carried him the last quarter mile or so, but now it felt like it was holding him firmly down to the ground.
Just like I did to him. . .
As exhausted as he felt, he had never known thirst like he felt then. He couldn't have stood up again, but he had just enough strength left in him to pull his body a couple feet to the riverbed.
He lowered his head to the water, but before he took a drink, he saw something in the water that made him gasp.
A dog peered back up at him. Half of its face looked normal, deadly tired, but still normal. The other half its face was covered in dark, matted fur, one of its eyes was swollen shut, and it looked like someone had tried to claw away the flesh. Even as he watched, several more drops of blood dripped out of his fur and hit the water, distorting the dog's features.
He realized then that it was his reflection he was looking at. He stared, somewhere between horror and amazement.
'Thanks, Dart.' He grumbled, then pressed his nose to the water and began to lap up the cold water. It felt like ice going down and filling his empty belly, but he couldn't stop himself from drinking until his stomach bulged.
The water cleared his thoughts enough to know what falling asleep here would mean, but he also accepted that outcome on some level. He wasn't sure he liked the dog he was looking at in the water.
Ugly. . .
He dipped one of his paws into the water. Intentionally distorting the reflection so he didn't have to see it anymore. He thought he saw something else when he did though, but it was a thought he barely registered. His head lowered to the ground and his eye dropped shut. Sleep was on him immediately.
The last thing he thought he saw in the waters wavy surface was a wolf. A big, grey, blood-stained wolf, looking at him with one half open light green eye.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Blitz approached slowly. Relieved to hear he was alive, but still afraid of what might happen. The closer she got to him, the worse he looked. His face was so mangled, it hardly looked like him anymore. He looked so terrible that despite the fact that he was alive now, she was truly uncertain how much longer he would be.
"He can't have been here long" Dis pointed out, stepping back from the dog to let Blitz get a closer look.
". . . Gabe?" She spoke so gently it sounded like she was afraid speaking too loudly would break him. She lowered her head and pressed her muzzle to his, withdrawing it almost immediately with a sharp breath. He felt as cold as ice.
"He's freezing!" She shivered as if only just noticing how cold she was herself. Like that brief touch had been enough to drain every bit of warmth out of her.
Worry and fear for their poor friend gripped them both by the heart. They looked at each other and could see that the same question was on both of their minds.
What happened to him?
Looking at the grotesque wound, Dis remembered the prints from earlier she had thought nothing of. The one she knew were too big to belong to a dog. But what did they belong to then? Gabriel had clearly found out, and he was very unfortunate because of it.
Blitz pressed her muzzle to Gabriel's again.
"Gabe. . . wake up."
He didn't.
Her frown deepened and she tried again. "Gabe, you have to wake up."
Again, nothing.
On the verge of tears and desperate, she tried again, shaking him with a paw now.
"Gabe, please wake up!"
Still, nothing.
She might have cried then if it hadn't been for Dis. She padded up to her and put a paw on her shoulder.
"Blitz. . ."
It was enough for Blitz, she closed her eyes and dropped her head. Nothing would come from panicking, so she took a few breaths and tried to think.
"We can't leave him here, Dis. We gotta get him somewhere warm."
Dis peered around them, but there was nothing around them that would offer much for shelter. Just a lot of trees and snow.
"Well, have you got any ideas? I think we're too far from home to get him there, and there's nothing here. Crossing the river again isn't an option either. . ." Her voice trailed off when she looked back at Blitz.
Blitz was staring at her like she was some kind of spectacle. The kind you want to look away from, but cannot.
"What?"
"Nothing" Blitz said, shaking her head and looking back down at Gabriel.
She noticed then something peculiar about the dog that she hadn't ever seen before. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, the way the moonlight reflected off the glassy surface of the river and onto his face. There was something wild about the injured side of his face. Still Gabriel, but also not. Half of his face was the sweet dog she had known almost as long as Dis, the other looked like some kind of beast she would have been afraid of.
Guilt filled her at this thought. He was her friend, not some kind of cruel animal, and he needed her help. She couldn't waste anymore time thinking about what to do.
She knew what to do. Dis had just given her the idea. She was right about them being too far away to get him home, but there was another place. Somewhere they hadn't visited in ages.
"Dis, I need your help moving him. . . It's not far from here."
Blitz bent down and started to bite down on part of Gabriel's neck fur. The dog was much too heavy for her to pull on her own, but Dis was much stronger. With her help they should be able to move his body somewhere safe.
Before she could move him however, Gabriel stirred. He grunted and one of his paws twitched and his tail beat against the snow.
This startled them both. Despite his condition, he had looked rather calm, now it looked like a nightmare was upon him.
"Gabe?" Blitz pressed her muzzle to his again and put a paw on him.
For a second, she saw her friends tormented expression, hard lines of pain and anguish etched into his face. Then his body jerked and his eye popped open. Blitz could see every bit of the fear he felt then. It only lasted a second, then she began to feel it herself.
She didn't know why, but then it dawned on her in a flash of realization. She was looking at Gabriel, but it wasn't Gabriel looking at her. She shivered, feeling her blood turn as cold as the snow around them.
Gabriel stood up suddenly then. Staring Blitz down, not even seeing her or Dis behind her. His body was awake, but it was clear that his mind was somewhere else. Neither Blitz or Dis could tell what exactly he was seeing. He was glaring at Blitz, but it looked like he was looking at something much farther away.
His lips pulled back and bared his teeth viciously. His nose wrinkled into a snarl and without pausing, he pounced. Right onto Blitz, knocking her down and pressing his paws to her chest.
Blitz whimpered and struggled against him, trying to free herself and swallow the fear she felt. But it was no good. His weight was too much for her, it was suffocating her.
As soon as Gabriel landed on Blitz, Dis tackled Gabriel in a blur of black and grey. She knocked the big dog off Blitz and they both rolled.
When they stopped, Dis had landed on top of him. She jumped away from him immediately and ran back to Blitz.
"What do you think you're doing!" Dis growled, looking thoroughly shocked by him.
Whatever had come over Gabriel just then, it was fading fast from him. He had been able to stand up, but now it was a struggle for him to not collapse again. He blinked, and his eye changed completely.
It was still the same shade of light green, but there was no more fear or anger in it anymore. He looked confused and tired now. His eye darted back and forth between Blitz and Dis.
"What. . . what. . . where. . ." He stammered breathlessly.
Blitz climbed back up on her paws behind Dis, staring wide-eyed at Gabriel. Uncertainty gnawed at her as she watched him sway on the spot, legs trembling and his ears laying flat. She had just watched him change again and was now unsure who this dog really was. The Gabriel she knew would have never done what he just did. Yet, this was Gabriel. She knew that, there was no mistaking it. But something really bad had happened to him and it looked like he was hurt in more ways than just physical.
"Gabe?" she asked, her voice shaking as much as his legs
Her voice made all the difference to Gabriel in his half-conscious state.
He felt lost. Things were too blurry for him to make out who these two were and his body was far too weak to put up any kind of fight. His mind could hardly connect anything around him to anything that made sense.
Quite literally lost in the dark, everything changed when he heard Blitz's voice.
The chaotic thoughts that threatened to tear apart his sanity all came to an abrupt stop. The image of his two friends was the only thing that came to mind.
Dis swam in and out of focus, but Blitz's soft features and stunning blue eyes stood out above everything else. A heat sparked in him under her gaze. He wanted to go to her.
"Blitz. . . I . . . I . . ."
He tried to speak, but the words completely failed him. Though his throat was too dry to speak more than a few small words, he felt no thirst to drink.
Some small measure of his strength had returned to him. It took a lot of effort, but he managed one step without collapsing, and then another.
The whole world around him stopped when Blitz approached him. Though he had memorized her face many times over, it never had the same glowing beauty in his mind. The weight of it took his breath away every time their eyes met.
Blitz and Dis were bursting with questions, even though he didn't look like he could have managed to answer even one of them. The questions could come later. Right now, they had to do something to get him out of the cold.
Dis followed Blitz's lead and went to him.
Their timing couldn't have been any better. As soon as they reached him, one of his legs bent under him and Dis put her shoulder under him just in time to catch him and stop his fall. When she did, she realized the truth in Blitz's words. He really was freezing. She was cold too, but even to her Gabriel felt dead with cold.
He was also dead weight on her until he put his own paw back under him. As strong as she was, Gabriel was a lot heavier than he looked. She grunted from the effort and helped push him back up.
"Blitz, I've got him. You just lead the way."
Gabriel made no complaints against it. This was the way it always went for their little trio. It was a sort of unspoken agreement between them that Blitz was their leader. She had an unnatural way of always knowing which way to go.
Blitz nodded her head in agreement. She was strong in many ways, but if Gabriel fell on her, there was little she could do to prevent it.
"Like I said, it's not far. . . Come on, let's go."
They set off. Gabriel slowed them, but they were moving much faster than if they had had to drag his body. Every time he stumbled Dis was there to catch him. It took a lot out of her each time she had to bear his weight, but she didn't let him fall once.
There was some mad focus in her to make it up to him for having so little concern for him earlier.
Each time appeared to take a lot out of Gabriel as well. What little strength he had was quickly dwindling away.
Blitz led them along the same path they had followed to Gabriel, going exactly where she suspected he had been headed to before whatever happened to him.
There wasn't much out here to interest a bunch of dogs. Just snow, trees, rocks, and more snow. A long time ago, when they were barely older than pups, they had discovered something though. It was a place they had frequented almost daily until they grew older.
They moved in silence under the dark sky lit brilliantly by starlight, listening to the sound of the river beside them until they reached the point where the river bent and turned, and they did not.
Their pace was slowed even more then by the steep hill they had to climb. Gabriel and Dis managed it, but only just.
Once they mounted the top of the hill, they looked completely spent. Dis was completely winded and Gabriel had nothing left.
She wasn't there just to catch him when he fell anymore. He now had to lean against her just to stay upright. Dis didn't say anything, but her legs were burning from the strain.
True to her word though, they had not had to go far. It didn't look like much from the outside, but Blitz and Dis had always been extremely inquisitive and that was how they found this in the first place.
Some time ago, for some reason or another, several of the trees had either been knocked down or simply fell on their own. About a dozen or so criss-crossed over and under each other, leaning this way and that. Their branches were a tangled mess knitting them together. Snow had covered most of it all like a perfectly white sheet.
Amongst all of them, two had fallen against the same tree that stubbornly refused to let go of its grip on the earth. It was a big tree, both tall and thick. Completely unlike the smaller ones it held up. Entirely hidden beneath the web of branches was the den most of their friendship had been forged in.
It looked just as Blitz remembered it. Not much had changed since the last time they had been here and she was relieved to see that it was still there. A familiar sense of wonder filled her.
Struggling with Gabriel's weight, Dis understood what it must be like for that tree now. It felt like he was getting heavier and heavier and she wasn't sure how much longer her legs could take it.
"Come on, just a little bit farther" she grunted both to herself and to the semi-conscious dog.
Blitz let Dis and Gabriel enter first before crawling in herself. It wasn't much, but it was just what they needed. Somewhere they could take shelter in, warm up, and dry off. Without the wind, it almost felt warm in here.
The space was much smaller than she remembered, but it was just enough for the three of them.
Gabriel pressed his body against the very back of the den, shivering from the cold that filled him. He felt Dis's body next to his and he shuddered when he felt Blitz press her body against him. Her touch made his skin tingle.
In spite of everything that had happened, he smiled when Blitz pressed her muzzle against his. He was asleep before he knew it.
Dis fell asleep right after him, completely exhausted from carrying Gabriel.
Blitz's mind was swimming with too many questions though. She looked over her injured friend and wondered.
What was he doing out here anyway? Why hadn't he come home last night? Who or what did that to him?
She thought back to the previous week when he had done the same thing. There had actually been several times where he disappeared and didn't show back up until the next morning.
Not wanting to seem nosy, she had never asked him about it.
Now though. . .
Eventually her own fatigue got the best of her. She rested her head against Gabriel and drifted off.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, im having alot of fun weaving together this tale. I've got alot planned for this. This is still just the beginning.
Let me know what you think! Reading new reviews is one of the best parts of my day, truely.
I gotta get started on Chapter Four now. See you again in about two weeks!