Continuing the tale of Unidentified Patient #307, “Healer.” - Parce
The pig city got the first of the sunlight every morning because it took up almost the entire eastern coast of our little continent. When the sun crept up a little higher in the sky, the Megatropolis threw a shadow that covered the whole land. They probably designed it that way.
Rays of pinkish-orange light shone through the bars of a jail cell and woke up the two prisoners inside. They stirred, but didn’t dare get up. Any movement would make both of them scream with pain.
“It is dawn,” Ponder said. “This is your chance to see the sun. If you want to take it, we must stand up now.”
“Can’t,” Mauler said into the concrete floor. “Tired. Weak.”
“I know. But we discussed this. We agreed we would not allow each other to give up. If they break us, the deal we struck will have meant nothing.”
“Try,” Mauler said.
“Carefully, now. Slowly. Do not hurt yourself.”
Mauler, lying on his stomach, gradually started bring his arms together to push off from the floor. He couldn’t move any of his limbs very far. Neither could Ponder. They were stuck together.
The pigs had taken Ponder’s weapons away and sawed Mauler’s claws off. Now Ponder’s four iron hooks were being used to pin the two of them together by their arms, and Ponder’s ropes kept them bound by the legs and necks. Steel chain links welded to the hooks kept them from moving more than a few feet away from the wall of their cell.
They were back-to-back, so Ponder was lying face-up on top of Mauler. Either of them bringing their arms in front of their body would dislocate the other one’s shoulders. Mauler couldn’t properly stand up in his forward hunch without breaking Ponder’s back. Walking was an agonizing chore. Fighting was impossible.
The big hairy beast moved slowly, placing his limbs with care so he wouldn’t snap the joints of the wooden puppet strapped to his back. He avoided looking at the curved iron going all the way through his forearms. He froze at a creaking sound, like a tree limb groaning before it broke.
“I am alright,” Ponder said. “Keep moving.”
Mauler, bless his heart, couldn’t understand why they were doing this to him. But Ponder did, and the cruelty of it burned like a fire in his belly and kept him alive most days. The Chugg Corporation had done this to punish them specifically for combining into Render, the fire-wolf, the avatar of Karkus. The idea, Ponder figured, was that if they tried to combine, the resulting creature would still be chained to the wall.
But Ponder was not going to risk combining into Render here. They were weakened enough as it was, and the massive energy expenditure from maintaining that powerful form might have killed Mauler.
So they had let the pigs do this to them, for what had been a year and a half now. Ponder did not forget. Ponder kept accounts of all that had been done to them and debts would be paid. This thought kept him going. He nourished his soul imagining it was all these pigs hanging from hooks.
Mauler didn’t get to see the sun rise that day. His elbow gave way and he landed on his shoulder and rolled. Ponder was half crushed underneath his weight before he managed to right himself. They didn’t try moving again.
The patch of sunlight crept across the floor. Mauler watched it, moving nothing but his eyes. Ponder stared at the grey ceiling. An hour went by. Two.
A metal clang startled them both. They turned their heads—not too far—and saw half a dozen bulldogs coming into their cell. All the dogs wore collars with Charlie Chugg’s face on the tag; these were directly affiliated with the Megatropolis and were not under Commander Pincher’s control. The first one had charcoal grey hair and his collar was leather instead of iron like the rest.
One of the dogs held a wrench in his teeth. The grey one reached for the rope around the prisoners’ necks. The hair stood up on Mauler’s back.
“Relax,” the grey bulldog said. “The boss wants to see if you’ve learned your lesson. Are you going to play nice?”
“Yes,” said Ponder. “We are ready to cooperate. Right, Mauler?”
The beast sighed. The grey one loosened the rope, and the one with the wrench went to work unbolting the chains from the wall. With a couple of careful pulls, the bulldogs worked Ponder loose.
A few minutes later, the two were separated, but the hooks and chains were still embedded in Mauler’s body, and the ropes kept Ponder leashed between two of the guards by his neck.
“What does your employer want us to do?” Ponder asked.
“You’ll find out when you get there,” said the grey one. “Let’s go.”
My nose was broken. But I wasn’t going to stop. I got back on my feet, which was harder than usual because of the soft sand on the ground. I tried to get my balance, but I never got a chance. Shiver stepped in and kicked me in the ribs so hard that I stumbled again and hit the brick wall behind me.
“Don’t let that happen!” he bellowed at me. “Horns or hooves toward the enemy at all times! Never expose your flank!”
“We don’t have any…” I started to say, but I didn’t bother to finish that sentence. Number one, it didn’t change the point he was making, and two, he’d hit me harder for arguing. Instead, I spit blood into the sand and pushed off the wall to get up.
He didn’t give me any time to prepare. The second I was on my feet, he attacked again.
Not having any horns didn’t seem to hinder him at all. He skipped sideways and jabbed with his forelegs, tagging my face and neck with his hooves. Every now and then he’d follow up a jab with a heavy blow from his forehead.
My sweat from the evening Quarry sun and the multiple blows to my head worked together to blur my vision. The only reason I could see Shiver was because of the contrast of his black wool against the red sand. If he’d had the natural color of the other Quarry sheep, I wouldn’t have been able to see him at all. Not that that made much difference. I was getting pummeled and I wasn’t landing any hits in return. I tried to follow his sideways jumps, to block, counterpunch, anything, but he was too quick and too strong. I withered under the hits and fell on my side.
Shiver planted a hoof on my face. “You move like a tree. You got roots instead of legs, huh? Your feet stuck to the ground? This is going to keep happening until you let go of all that dog crap. I can see that Boxer drilled ‘four feet on the ground’ into your head. You have to forget it.”
I pushed his leg away and stood up. “Why?”
“Dogs have certain natural weapons, right? Teeth and claws. They make for a close-up grappling game. They stay nailed to one spot and bite and wrestle. They can grip their enemy in ways a sheep can never hope to match. You’ve seen it. They grab you and then get you to the floor. What did Boxer always say?”
“The bigger your enemy, the harder he’ll hit the ground.”
“Right. Well, that applies to them, but sheep are built different. Stay light on your feet. Rush in and out. Land a hit and get away from the teeth.”
“OK,” I said. “Stay light.”
“Staying on the move will help you put power behind your hooves and head. And if you get knocked down, it’s not the end of the world. A sheep can defend himself from his back much better than a dog can.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. If a dog or a warthog pins you down, you got four hooves aimed right at all his soft spots. Kick him in the sack and then punch him in the throat. Trust me, he’ll back off.”
“Good to know.”
“Then let’s go again. Remember, keep your feet moving. Don’t try to grip the floor with claws you don’t have. Don’t absorb hits with your body weight. Roll with them.”
We tapped our foreheads together and squared up to spar again. This time I tried to imitate the way Shiver moved, with skipping jumps instead of heavy steps. When he attacked, I moved with it and let the force dissipate. His weight shifted. I had an opening.
I planted my front legs and powered forward to hit him with my head. He slipped out of the way. Then he punished me by shoving me from behind, so my charge turned into a stumble. I hit the wall again, this time with my face.
The next thing I remember is Shiver yanking me to my feet. “You’re alright. Get it together.”
He waited while I called on my healing power. I realigned the bones in my face and closed broken blood vessels.
“You ever see your father fight?” he asked.
I blinked, still in a fog. “One time.”
“Did he ever just up and throw everything into a power charge like that?”
“A couple of times.”
“Against an enemy that was still in the fight?”
I thought back to what I had seen the night my father died—the night he killed a group of cloned warthogs and hounds in our burning living room. “Uh… no. Only when they were stunned. A finishing move, I guess.”
“There you go, dummy. You’ve got to be really, really selective about when you meet force with force. You can’t do that when half your feet are in the air most of the time.”
“I get it. He never really met an attack head-on. He moved with it. He was good at turning the enemy’s momentum against them.”
“Which is what I just did to you. Who do you think I learned that from?”
I nodded. My mind was still on my father.
Shiver wiped his brow. “That’s it for tonight. You going to hang out and watch the HoundBlood?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Didn’t realize that was today.”
“We’ve missed most of it,” Shiver said as we walked around to the front of his house. “I normally don’t even tune in until the quarter finals.”
Inside was much cooler. Shiver got his old TV going while I filled cups of water for us both. We sat on his beaten old cushions while a commercial played.
“So you’re opening that clinic up soon?” he asked.
“Yeah. In a few days.”
“Listen,” he said. “I appreciate you staying away from Dreamer. It can’t be easy. It hasn’t been for her, either. But if this thing works out for you, you know, maybe that can change.”
“We’ll see. That would be nice.” I took a long drink of water to hide my surprise. It was strange hearing something like that from him. But I didn’t get to think on it anymore because the show came on.
The HoundBlood Tournament. Number two hundred forty-four, I think. The Chugg Entertainment company broadcasted this every year, so the whole world could see how the dogs placed and who would be answering to whom.
I hadn’t watched any since my dad took me to that one two years before, where he had refused to fight Mauler. The time had flown by since then.
The tale of the tape came up for the next match. The quarter finals were underway. A long, panning camera shot showed the private viewing boxes above the arena. Pincher was there, the high commander of dogs.
The view cross-faded to a shot of the arena, with the two fighters on opposite sides being coached by their cornermen. No referees or judges were involved in these fights. They would go until there was an unquestionable knockout.
Just outside the ring sat a black dog with pointed ears and frosty blue eyes. He wore a leather collar with a silver medal that marked him as Chief Officer, Pincher’s second-in-command. Boxer’s replacement. He kept his eyes on the ring and didn’t talk to anyone.
Shiver set his cup down and pointed at the screen. “That pup right there. He’s the one to watch. Umber. Have you heard of him?”
I played dumb. “No.”
“He came out of nowhere. They said he was Fowler’s kid. You know the cattle dog who… oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I remember Fowler.” More accurately, I remembered the look on Fowler’s face when my father’s horn stabbed him through the throat the night our home was attacked.
“Anyway, this kid Umber, last year was his first HoundBlood. And as you can see from his collar, he did incredibly well. It’s very rare that a newcomer places that high, but the crowd loves it. He rose all the way through the brackets and now he’s Pincher’s right-hand man. If you get a chance, you should watch last year’s tournament. Nothing could touch him. The other dogs couldn’t get a hold of him, even when they caught him with their teeth. It’s like he’s made of, I don’t know, tar or something. Just slips away.”
“Sounds cool,” I said. “But he couldn’t beat Pincher?”
“No one has tried for a long time. Umber followed Boxer’s example. He beat everyone else and then forfeited against Pincher. Good move, I think. Dogs wouldn’t accept such a young leader right away. In a few years, though, he’ll be ready.”
I shrugged. “Hope he doesn’t hold a grudge. Seeing as my dad killed his.”
“Oh, man. Hadn’t thought about that. Not sure dogs see it that way. Whoever wins, wins. Killing Boxer didn’t really hurt Pincher’s reputation, if you know what I mean.”
“I see.” Our conversation died down after that, other than Shiver’s cheers and commentary about the match. But I wasn’t paying attention anymore. My plans were moving forward, but we still had a long way to go.