Free The Paper Sword by Robert Priest Page B

animal and rode it to the kennel ship, which was anchored to a nearby dock.
    Still one-booted, the examiner boarded the barge and slotted the key into the keyhole of the kennel door. There was a creak and a reek and a long lean snout full of fanged teeth poked through the opening emitting a high-pitched whimpering whine. He gave the nose a good smack. “Back,” he commanded, his voice firm and unquestionable. Instantly the snout withdrew and as he opened the door the first streak of sunlight in three foodless days poured into the inner recesses of the Pathan dog kennel.
    Seeing those long fangs and hearing the racket from within as the other dogs began to howl in hunger, Torgee, watching from his hiding spot in the grass, knew that his plan, a plan to exact some instant retribution on the examiner for what he’d done to Tharfen, would have to wait. Trembling slightly with a mixture of rage and fear, he watched as Smedenage, dispensing a small chunk of codfish, allowed the first dog to emerge. Immediately its long snout sniffed at the examiner, seeking out those red hieroglyphs of blood written by the rose thorns all over his white garment.
    â€œYes, I am bleeding,” the examiner acknowledged with an almost gleeful pride as the animal nudging up the edge of his robe began to lick at his lower shins and calves. The examiner enabled this by pulling his robe up higher, exposing his full leg. Another dog emerged now and it followed suit, licking the examiner’s other leg. “Yes, I have survived a vicious attack. They think they have killed me. But here I am.” As a third dog emerged, the first now abandoned the well-slathered shins of its master and leapt to the dock and the shore and began to nose about in the grass hungrily. “Now, I hope, my boys, that you are ready to eat. Because you will soon have two tender lambs to sink your teeth into.”
    Bred for centuries in the tunnels of the underearth to hunt the mole-kind, the dogs had long, white, almost luminous heads, crystal eyes, and deep, thin-lipped, snarling mouths in which the two sets of curving fangs interlocked at their tips like daggers. Once they fastened themselves to something it was highly unlikely it would ever be free again. Torgee thought of Saheli being caught in the grip of those hideous teeth and he had to take a deep silent breath to contain his fear for her.
    Seven dogs had now exited the kennel, blinking at the sudden light. Each one, after serving time licking at their master’s ravaged thighs and arms, nosed about in the wet grass looking for food. Finding none, they began to whine and release the characteristic bone-like howls that so terrified the tunneling creatures of the underearth.
    â€œOh yes, my boys. They think I’m dead. They think they are out of danger, but you will soon be at their throats, won’t you?”
    Torgee continued watching as the examiner retrieved his second set of footwear, a pair of lambskin moccasins, from the cabin. Evenly shoed now, he gingerly remounted his boar and set off with his dogs for the roadway up to the plateau. As soon as they were out of sight, Torgee quietly and quickly made his way back to the shack.
    Tharfen was still lying on her belly with her mother’s comfrey cream glistening on the red ridges the examiner’s beating had left in her buttocks and the back of her thighs. The intense burning pain enraged her and her mind was full of a lust for vengeance such as she had never known. Every movement cost her, but when Torgee rushed in and told her what he had seen and she thought of those vicious things tearing away at Xemion she forced herself to rise. Torgee tried to convince her that he should go alone to warn them but she could not be dissuaded from joining him.
    â€œYou can warn them on your own,” she said through gritted teeth, “but then you and them will kill him without me. And then I won’t have no vengeance. And I want my