Kennel, Kingdom and Crown

  Chapter 7 – Snapping Teeth Shuffling in the Fog...

  “Do you think you can forgive me, Loki, for ever being so afraid of you and the pack?”

  For the first time in weeks, Wren felt warm in her bed, no matter that the fog thickened and that temperature dropped. Wren did not grasp a dagger's hilt beneath her blankets as she stretched her toes. Her throat did not constrict from fear as she prepared to sleep.

  Loki curled upon the foot of Wren's bed. Wren felt younger, happier, as she smiled to stroke the black war dog's ear. Loki sighed in contentment and rolled upon his back to offer his stomach to Wren's fingers.

  “Don't get too spoiled on my fine blankets,” Wren whispered to the dog whose gray eyes matched her own. “Don't forget that I need you to be a fierce war dog.”

  Loki craned his neck towards Wren in adoration as she closed her eyes.

  But Loki did not sleep.

  He did not dream as his master slumbered. He turned quiet and still. His ears listened for any suspicious noise. His nostrils sniffed at what floated upon the chill air.

  In the middle of the night, when Wren slept most deeply, Loki detected an unnatural scent circulating through the keep's stone walls. It was the scent of the musty earth and of damp decay. Loki instantly recognized the scent as one of danger.

  Loki growled, a low rumble that rippled through the bed and pulled Wren out of her dreams. Loki bounded to the chamber's door. He did not bark. Rather, he whimpered as he clawed at the door. The scent expanded. A dog did not depend upon his sight like a man might, and so the fog that hovered through the keep's cold halls could not shroud the creatures lurking in that cold.

  Though she trembled as her short gasps condensed in the air, Wren sprang out of bed, wincing as the stone floor's chill bit at her feet. In a flash, Wren wound her vermillion robes once more around her shoulders. In another instant, her hands again gripped her dagger.

  Loki twirled at the door. His hair stood on end as Wren, her courage buoyed by the animal, pulled open the doorway and faced the keep's dark halls.

  Loki's growl grew deeper and louder. Wren's heart raced as she took the first step beyond her chamber's threshold to peer down the hallway. The flames burning in the sconces along the walls failed to offer illumination.

  Loki sat upon his haunches, and throwing back his head, unleashed his loudest howl.

  And before Wren had time to consider what command a black war dog required at such a time, Loki sprinted into the dark.