Bryn sat hidden in some bushes, waiting for Argar to return from his sniffing expedition. It was taking a long time and at first, he was crouching not wanting to sit naked on the ground. But after a while his legs grew tired and he had cleared a spot from sticks and sat down.

  He hoped the puppy didn’t get distracted. He knew that the dog hated the gorgepaws with a passion that was only matched by his hunger, but that didn’t mean that a squirrel wouldn’t distract him from his task.

  “Coming back. No gorgepaws between here and the small camp in the forest. But they were here.” Argar spoke in his mind. They had tried and found out that they can do that at about fifty paces.

  “I can smell that. And I see the tracks.”

  “Not only that. You should see for yourself.”

  “Anyone else around?”

  “No. Well, a pair of squirrels. They might laugh at your furless body, but other than them, no one.”

  “Very funny.”

  Argar showed up from behind a beech and wagged his tail.

  “Come on.”

  Bryn walked out of the bushes, and they walked deeper in the woods.

  About a five hundred paces later the smell of death hit Bryn’s nostrils.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “The gorgepaws are not big. Out in the darkness, beyond the ring of firelight, they are tiny. Smaller than my current size.”

  Bryn looked at Argar. The dog was about the size of a sheepdog. It seemed he had grown again in the past days.

  “Then how do they get so big?”

  “They grow when they devour things. They get bigger faster when they devour people.” Argar stopped at the edge of a pit and looked down.

  “The stench is unbearable.” Bryn stood by him.

  The pit was full of clothes and pieces of armor. All covered in slime that was the source of the smell.

  “When a gorgepaw devours a human it grows, but it only needs the flesh and bones of the human, not anything worn. They get thrown out later. This is what is in the pit.”

  “This is what was scaring the horses,” said Bryn. “They were smelling this”

  “Possibly. Horses are smart. But the strange thing here is something…Hey, what’s that” Argar darted by the edge of the pit and into the bushes on the other side deeper in the forest.

  “Argar. Where are you going?” Bryn tried to call the dog. No answer came.

  The man sighed. Then he imagined climbing down in the pit to get some clothes. His stomach turned and he moved back from the edge.

  “I’d rather stay naked.” He murmured and started walking after the dog.

  From the distance a human cried in pain. Bryn quickened his pace, while trying to avoid the sharp sticks and branches as much as he could. He got enough scratches on the way downhill. He reached a small clearing. A man lay on the ground, his hand outstretched to keep a growling Argar away. The man was dressed in much repaired clothes and shoes with very worn soles. He was in his forties with a bushy beard and unkempt hair. A couple of bags had fallen behind his back.

  “Argar! Back! - shouted Bryn.

  “He was prowling the forest towards us.” protested the dog in his mind.

  “Back I said.” - again called Bryn.

  “Fine. He smells almost as bad as the pit anyway” the dog sneezed and moved back.

  “T-th-thank you.” - stuttered the man as he tried to turn towards the direction from which Bryn’s voice came.

  Bryn smiled. He knew that the fast-growing pup had a very impressive bite and could be very intimidating when snarling.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Bryn asked while trying to stay in the shadows of the trees. He was still naked after all.

  “I heard there was a battle this morning. I was going to see if I could…”

  “A looter.”

  “They no longer need the things I take.” The man stood up with an effort. His left leg didn’t support his weight as it should.

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  “Well…” Bryn sighed and made a decision.

  He strode in the clearing. The man’s eyes grew wide as he saw the naked man walking towards him. He tried to walk back but his foot was blocked by a bag and he almost fell. Bryn stopped in front of the man and looked at him from head to toe. The two were roughly the same height, but the looter was a lot thinner. Argar was right about the smell.

  “I need your clothes, your shoes and y…”

  “I have spares.” The man bent down lightning fast and took a bag from the ground.

  “Here” He pulled a bundle from it and thrust it towards Bryn. “Go away!”

  Argar growled menacingly.

  “And keep your mutt away from me.”

  Bryn smiled, showing his teeth.

  “Thank you. Argar, stay!”

  “As if I want to get near him again.” the dog replied.

  Without another word the man grabbed his bags and ran from the clearing.

  Bryn looked at the clothes. They were much nicer than what the looter was wearing.

  “Why would he wear those rags, when he had much better-looking clothes.”

  “And smelling” added Argar who sniffed the pants

  “Probably to hide his actual status if he encountered any soldiers. His reaction to being threatened was to bribe me. He is used to this.”

  “He smells like that on purpose?” Argar sounded incredulous. “You humans are weird.”

  Bryn put on the brown linen pants. They were a bit short. The shirt fit better. They were not made for the same man. There were no shoes.

  “At least I won’t get scratched.” Laughed Bryn.

  “Grow some fur and you won’t need these. I know you can” Argar said while scratching his left ear with a rear paw.

  “Shut up. We still don’t know what happened. Now we must get to the company.”

  Argar looked at him. His ears drooped and he whined.

  “I don’t think they want to see you.”

  “What do you mean?” Bryn was stunned.

  “While you were laying on the battlefield and I was guarding you. Some of the men from the company came and took the dead and wounded. No one came closer than ten paces to us and they always kept watching you.

  I tried to greet them, but they shooed me away. They said that you were cursed and that I was a sign of your curse. That you were a monster that would kill them all.”

  Bryn’s couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If a human was telling the story Bryn would have accused, him of lying. But Argar didn’t know what a lie was.

  “I must go and speak to them. They will understand. The Mirror would understand.”

  “I don’t know. I am not good at understanding humans. I’ve never been this close to humans for this long.”

  “Then if we don’t go towards the company, where should we go?”

  “The nearest den of Rhae?”

  “Right. I think there is a temple somewhere in the south of the county of Vethren.”

  “Vethren. Wasn’t that our enemy.”

  “Not anymore. If we are not a part of Sevar’s company.” Bryn felt a jab of grief when he mentioned the captain’s name. “We are no longer in service of duke Namkar. So, their dispute over the three river villages no longer concerns us.”

  “Right. Villages. Did they make good food at least.” The dog wagged his tail.

  “I have never been there. But since they were on the river, they probably ate fish.”

  “Oooh. Fish. I have never tasted any.”

  Bryn patted the pup’s head and then remembered something.

  “Didn’t you say there was a small camp?”

  “Right. There’s an abandoned camp further in the woods.”

  “We should check it out.”

  “I didn’t smell anything from it but a dead fire.”

  “Show me.”

  The pair entered the forest. They stopped for a while so Bryn can sharpen a broken branch using some rocks. It was neither strong nor sharp enough, but it would do.

  ***

  Argar walked a few paces before Bryn. The human’s two feet made him slower and without shoes he had to move even slower to avoid a rock, a ruined tree or a steeper slope, so the black dog had to constantly remind himself to keep pace.

  The ground was covered with fallen leaves, and a thousand tiny smells tingled his curiosity. He tried to ignore them and the stench of the gorgepaws that had passed through here in the morning.

  He stopped and looked back at the human. Bryn was using his sharpened stick as support. Maybe he would like to throw it for Argar to bring back. Bryn had said that this was a weapon. So probably not this one. Argar found a much shorter stick which was a lot better for throwing and brought it to Bryn.

  “What?” said the human.

  “Throw it.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I was serious the whole morning. And you are slow on two feet.”

  “No. There might still be enemies close. There were soldiers on the battlefield.”

  “No one would dare enter in this forest. Throw the stick.”

  “No. We are going to the camp.”

  “It is this way. Throw towards it.” The dog pointed with his head.

  “Alright.” The man took the stick and threw it trying not to hit any tree.

  Argar darted after the stick, mud and leaves flying from under his paws.

  He couldn’t catch the stick before it hit the ground, but still he felt proud when he brought it back to Bryn. A feeling he had never experienced before. He had done his duty because that was what he was created for, but ever since he woke up this time and met Bryn, he had been experiencing things differently.

  He presented the stick to Bryn.

  “Again.”

  Bryn threw it again. Argar chased.

  And then again.

  And again.

  The last throw of the stick left it lying beside a dead fire.

  Argar stopped at the edge of the small camp.

  When he reached the camp before he didn’t spare more than a sniff, just to be sure there was no one around.

  “Here.” He told Bryn and started sniffing around.

  There had been a human here. His tent had been placed on the ground underneath a beech. It was gone now. But there was something about this human that smelled strange. It was as if the man had been outside. Not in the open, but outside of the Ring of firelight. In the darkness. It was a part of the scent that all creatures that prowled there had. Even Argar and his kind. Argar continues sniffing. He remembered the smell of the man.

  Bryn had arrived and was also looking at the camp.

  “There was a single man here.” Argar told him.” A man that smells like…you should try to smell him.”

  The man shook his head.

  “I can smell the dead fire. The gorgepaws that passed by here. But nothing other than is out of place.”

  Argar continued sniffing. Out of the camp and further south. Suddenly the gorgepaw smell disappeared. He made a circle, returned to the camp and followed the scent to the same dead end.

  He looked around.

  The place he was standing on was about thirty paces from the camp. It was a wide stone slab. It was sticking out of the slope, that was going down towards the river. Argar reached the end of the slab and looked down. There was an opening beneath it. The slab itself was supported by two big cut stones to form the entrance of a tunnel leading underground.

  “Bryn. You must see this.” Argar called.