Page 22 of Love, Nemesis
“That can’t be good.”
Pushing himself off the grass, he walked down to his horse. He grabbed the horse’s reins before hopping on, directing the animal toward the trees.
He loosened a short spear tied tight along his saddle.
“Lethe!” a voice said. He turned as two boys from his class cantered around a nearby hill, slowing to a trot to match his horse’s pace. “Did you see that?”
It seemed they might have a real learning experience today on patrol.
“Yeah,” Lethe replied. “You boys keep to the rear. That was a flare.”
“A flare?” asked Dawson, a scrawny brunette with sunburned cheeks,.
“A call for help. We used them during the war.”
“So, it’s someone from the war? Like a war hero?” Perry asked from his other side.
“No one who would make a move like that under the circumstances would have survived the war. It’s probably a foreigner. Is anyone else coming?”
“No. Everyone else is on guard on the other side of the fort.”
“All right, well then, keep up.” He urged his horse into a canter, navigating the familiar trails through the woods and slowing when he neared the target area.
He stopped his horse, lifting a hand to stop the boys a fair distance behind him. He surveyed the surrounding area and then signaled with two curved fingers and a side wave of his thumb. The boys loosened the short spears from their side saddles and moved their horses back into a clearing to their left.
Lethe urged his horse onward.
“Hello!” someone shouted from the treetops, but Lethe kept his eyes glued to the woods. “Is someone there? Hey! Hey—hey, you!”
“Be quiet,” Lethe said.
“There’s a dog here, a gigantic dog! Be careful!”
“I said be quiet,” Lethe replied, glancing up at the tree only long enough to see two arms and legs hugging the trunk.
“I’m Cal, from the State. I was going from town to town, and then this thing attacked my horse on the way in. My horse ran off. I’m hurt.”
“And you thought drawing in the locals to save you was a good idea?” Lethe responded, irritated now.
“It ate my weapon! I didn’t have a choice!” Cal pleaded.
The brush rustled behind Lethe. He twisted on his horse just as a black dog the size of a lion burst from the bushes. He drove the spear into the monster’s throat, using the momentum of the creature to lift it up and over his horse. The thing collapsed and rolled on the other side. Lethe moved with it, ripping the spear free as the beast rolled away.
It hissed and gagged, clawing against the earth.
Lethe whistled through his fingers, and Dawson and Perry rode up behind him.
“You killed it?!” Cal exclaimed from the tree.
Lethe kept his eyes trained on the great dog as he heard the boy climbing down with the rustling and breaking of the bark. The creature twitched and squirmed as it died, eyes, teeth and tongue as black as night, evidence of the State experiments that had helped create it.
Twigs fell around Lethe as Cal struggled down the tree.
“It’s a black breed dog,” Lethe said, taking a deep breath to soothe his body back into a relaxed state. “Leftover from when the State released them into the Mystics. A few escaped out here.” He drew out a hunting knife from his saddlebag before hopping off his horse and kneeling by the beast. He split the belly open, drawing back his sleeves. Reaching inside, he removed something caught in the stomach, forcing all the contents to spill out with a flood of bile.
“The State hasn’t made black breeds for thirty years,” Cal said.
“Thirty years State time, not En Sanctan time.”
