DogForge by Casey Calouette Read Free Book Online

can.”
    “An accident? Send her off!”
    “Shut up!” Samus growled. “There are things here you don’t understand.”
    “It’s your pack! You can end lives, I’ve seen you do it!”
    “If you rule as a wolf, you die as a wolf. We’re dogs, Samson, not animals.” Samus’s voice was steady, as if reading scripture. “Grat protects her.”
    “But she’s not his blood.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “He’s big but he’s slow, take him—”
    Samson never finished his sentence. Denali heard the snarl and the scuffle. She risked a peek over a heap of crushed ceramic with flat ears.
    Samus stood with both his front paws pinning Samson to the ground. His jaw was locked firmly onto the skull of his son. Samson failed once, twice, and whimpered. The smell of piss floated in the air. After a long silent time he released Samson and stepped back. Samson didn’t stand back up.
    “Grat is many things, but remember, he is a memory of an old time.”
    Samson was silent.
    “He was once to be something great,” Samus said.
    Denali felt the wind stir. It was a confused wind, a wind that came from one side and then the next. A morning wind. She needed to go, and knew it—but Grat, once something great? She had to hear more.
    “We bury Sabot tomorrow. Then you keep your distance, do nothing.”
    “But I can help! I made her swear—”
    “So you said. The truth would have worked better.” Samus turned and raised his snout up. “I could explain a pup running from a bot, but your lies made my work more difficult.”
    “I can take her.”
    “So you can run away again? You, my son, ran.”
    The words hung and swayed in the silence.
    “You run again and I’ll tear your throat out!” Samus growled. “You have one chance to prove yourself in the trial, do that and you’ll have your own pack.”
    “Kill her?” Samson asked.
    “If she makes it to the trial.”
    “How can you stop her?”
    “Tribute. Grat owes me for a son. Blood or metal. He won’t give her up, so we’ll take the metal.” Samus stuck his nose up once more. He drew in a long breath of air and held it. “And she’ll only have a few days to get enough metal.”
    “She’ll never make it,” Samson said.
    “We’ll see.”
    Denali dropped her head and scrunched back bit by bit. She heard a growl, a rough sound like rock on grit. She knew she couldn’t run, not yet, not here. They were too close, and the edge was too far. Her eyes scanned quickly through the rubble and then she saw the exit.
    Instead of edging back, she scooted to the side. She came to a gap and waited, she peeked her head up. Samson and Samus were both gone. Her heart thrummed faster. She was being hunted, she could feel it.
    There was a gap, a space between the rubble before the main path to the crumbling structure. Denali peered at the gap. If she went to one side or the other she’d be in the open. A crumbling sound hissed through the rubble behind her. She sprang out as gently as she could.
    The gap was tight. Her fur snagged on an outcropping of wire. Denali stifled a yelp and kept moving. Quiet, all she wanted was a silent exit. The curved wall of structure grew closer.
    A growl sounded behind her. A deep growl that announced imminent violence.
    She could almost feel the teeth on her back. Her spine curved and she lowered her stomach to the ground and slinked forward.
    Then she was through. The air felt icy cold. She sprang two leaps and dove head first into a crack in the metal wall. The darkness wrapped her tight and she closed her eyes, not wanting any sparkle of light to escape.
    A hiss and a scratch echoed into the tiny space. She opened her eyes a slit and watched a dark form creep past. A second form came a moment later. Both paced with noses to the ground.
    Denali closed her eyes and waited. If there was one game she always won, it was hide and seek. She knew they might have smelled something, but in her short life she always played the prey, and had learned