The passage was dark, a brooding darkness, like stumbling on a cloudy night with the moon tucked away. Her claws clicked on the floor and the air felt dead. Her eyes were wide and her head cocked, listening for anything.
A howl echoed from the main chamber. She stopped and listened. Her pack was behind her, and she felt a tug to go to them. She thought of Samson, bared her teeth in the dark, and kept going.
It felt like the floor descended. Her fur brushed against the wall and she jumped to the side. She felt foolish, skittish, and a touch afraid.
A dim grayness came and it felt like the steely time before dawn. The light grew and Denali came to a wide chamber filled with mound after mound of corroded iron balls. The far wall was studded with hatches. Each hatch had a depression in front of it.
“Where’s the statue?” Denali mumbled and looked around.
There was nothing more. She sat down and looked carefully but still nothing came to her. Riddle, riddle, where’s the riddle? Gotta be here, but where? Iron, and a bowl.
More barks echoed down the passage. Denali’s hackles rose and she paced over to the dish. Then to the mound of iron balls. She sniffed the raw rust.
“Pick you up?” she mumbled and bit down on the rust. At first she thought it was stuck, locked into the heap, but then it moved slightly. She released it with a clink and began to worry that this was a test she couldn’t pass.
The barking came closer and Denali glanced around quickly. She nudged one of the balls with her nose and gritted her teeth until finally it popped free. She dug at it with her front paws, nudged it with her nose, and did everything she could to move it towards the nearest hatch.
It rolled and crunched across the room. She pushed it, guided it, and cajoled it. She scooted low to the floor and pushed it into the depression. It rolled lazily and came to a stop. The hatch creaked and opened a sliver.
A breeze of stale air gushed out.
Denali rushed back, her tail wagging, and worked at the next ball. Her paws, already worn and raw, left bloody tracks on the floor. The barking grew closer.
Another ball clinked into place and the sliver grew.
Denali raced back and forth, pushing and straining. Her tongue hung out and she could taste iron and corrosion. The clacking of claws and padding of feet came closer. One more ball clanked in and the door was almost wide enough to push through.
Mjol walked into the room. “Runt,” he grunted.
Denali ignored him and pushed a particularly lumpy iron ball. Two more, just two more.
“Samson is coming,” Mjol said.
Her heart beat quicker and one more ball clanked in. The hatch was now a quarter of the way open.
Mjol walked over to the hatch and sniffed at the air.
“It’s mine,” Denali growled. She kept her eyes on Mjol and shuffled the last orb.
“You can have it,” Mjol said with a yawn. “I don’t mind letting someone else find the nasty bits.”
“Smug,” she mumbled and the last ball clinked into place.
The hatch creaked open a sliver more and Denali padded over to it. It smelled of dust, old grease, and a hint of bone. She wrinkled her nose and took it in again, definitely bone.
A growl set Denali’s hair on edge and she snapped her head around to see Samson standing across the room. Behind him a dozen more dogs emerged from the shadows.
“No one remembers anything here,” Samson growled, and bared his great white teeth. “Time to die!” He leaped forward and charged.
Denali ducked through the hatch. The sharp edges of the hatch dug into her shoulders. She pushed and clawed and finally popped through.
Samson halted at the hatch and snarled at her. A stout muzzled dog named Jagok, who was smaller than most, tried to push his way through. He twisted and turned his body and wormed his way in.
Denali set off into the darkness. She took three steps and the hatch creaked closed.
Jagok yelped and squealed but couldn’t break free. Denali rushed towards him but saw there was nothing to be done. The hatch closed and cut his body in half.
Jagok’s upper torso dropped with a thud and the hatch sealed.
She turned away and felt sick. This was more than a trial, this was life and death. She knew it would be difficult, but this wasn’t what she expected.
She turned away from the corpse and set off down the passage. Her footsteps echoed in the darkness and she strained not to think of Jagok. Thoughts of traps or other devices slowed her pace and she watched every corner carefully.
The bone smell grew stronger and she emerged cautiously into the next chamber.
Rib cages, large and grotesque, hung on the far wall with a patina of red flesh dried tight. Light filtered through the gaps in the ribs, the next passage was just through the chalky white bones.
Denali walked across the room and sniffed at the bones. There was a smell of fresh air through them and a taste of meat. It wasn’t caribou, she didn’t know what it came from.
She bit down and tested the strength. The bone was solid and much harder than it looked. She worked her teeth down each of the ribs and over to the center of the sternum. Time wasn’t on her side and she tugged and chewed at each one.
She gnawed and tugged. A crack sounded and she tugged harder.
A single rib peeled back and snapped like a thunderclap.
Denali’s ears rang from the sound. She leaped up and used her paws for leverage on the next. There was enough room for her nose to get in and she cracked the thick white rib on her back teeth.
It was tough, hard like stone, and ungiving. She bit down so hard her eyes went white and she whined through the pain. Then a second crack like the sound of breaking frost. She pulled at it frantically and snapped it away in a cloud of bone slivers. The taste in her mouth was awful but she ignored it and set on the next rib.
She stopped and listened. A hatch opened far behind. The others were coming. She pulled frantically and gnawed down hard. Her teeth ached and then another rib was gone.
Denali savaged through one rib after another. Her tongue was raw and blood caked on her lips in a slurry of white grit and dirt. She lifted herself up and hopped on her back legs until she was through the ribs and in the center of the cage. Relief washed over her, but she couldn’t help but waiting. The urge to taunt was strong, she was first and wanted them to know it.
Finally Mjol loped in with Sever close behind.
Samson emerged behind the pair and snarled angrily. He glared at Denali and unleashed his rage on the ribcage she’d just gnawed through.
Denali yipped, howled, and then sprinted away. She took a special pleasure in tormenting Samson.
Just as with the last, as soon as she moved far enough away a hatch closed and sealed the ribcage she’d come from. The sounds of Samson disappeared and she was back in the silence.
She sniffed down the next passage and it dawned on her that there was no exit. There was just success. Failure was not an option. It was either survive, or die. She saw no evidence of any dog corpses. She shivered and kept running.
The air chilled and grew damp like the moss next to a dark stream.
The next chamber was low in the ceiling with a wide chasm across. The air was cold and damp. The chasm dropped to darkness, with a sound and small like a river dancing up. Debris was piled on either side of her.
“Oh.” Denali sighed and sat down heavily.
A walkway crossed the chasm. It was as wide as a single dog. Near the middle, it pivoted up until it nearly scraped the ceiling. It was like a log balanced on a rock in the middle of a stream.
Denali walked out slowly and set her paws onto the walkway. It creaked beneath her but didn’t move. She couldn’t help but looking down into the abyss and immediately regretted doing so.
At the pivot point she gingerly stepped on the beam and saw a hinge. A great pin of alloy. Her eyes followed the path upwards and she swallowed hard. It looked slippery.
She walked up, slowly, del
iberately and with an eye on the edges. At the midway point, she stopped and looked down the hinge.
“A weight test.” Disappointment settled into her chest. She glanced at the piles of scrap and knew she couldn’t carry it and still get across.
She stepped higher to the very end of the beam and sniffed at the ceiling. She bounced as if pouncing on a mouse. The beam creaked and dropped a fraction of an inch and then raised up again.
“I’m too small,” she said out loud. Disappointed, she turned and ran back down.
She darted into the piles of scrap and searched frantically for a trick, a weight, something, anything. But it was long beams, crusty bits, and plastic so old that it crumbled like moldy wood. There was nothing to help her.
Mjol rushed out with Sever and the two gawked at the chasm.
Denali darted deeper into the debris and huddled behind a red panel of melted plastic.
“Look at dat hole!” Sever barked.
Mjol stepped close to the edge and sniffed. “She was here.”
Sever sniffed at Mjol’s side and licked his nose. “I think so. Up that,” he said with a nudge of his nose towards the beam.
“You go up,” Mjol said.
Sever cracked a grin and sprinted up the beam. When he was two thirds of the way across, it creaked, groaned, and settled slowly. It clicked in place on the opposite side and he stepped off. The moment his weight was off, the beam rose towards the ceiling and stopped. A slight shower of concrete dusted down into the darkness.
“Look at me!” Sever howled from the other side.
“You better wait,” Mjol growled. He paced at the edge of the beam.
“For what? I’m sick of—”
“—of what?” Samson growled. He stepped out from the shadows with the rest of the pack behind him. They all had a coat of bone dust on them.
Denali watched and waited. Her only chance was to wait until someone else was on the beam and then go at the same time. Fear coursed through her and she pictured herself falling.
“Run across Samson!” Sever barked across the chasm.
Samson sniffed the air. “Was she here?”
“She was,” Mjol said.
“Did she make it across?”
“I think so!” Sever barked back.
Samson growled and spun around.
Denali pushed herself back tight and waited. If she waited too long she’d be behind them all, but if she went now she’d have them on her tail. But, she thought, a little chaos would go a long way.
“Mjol. Go,” Samson said, and urinated on the edge of the hallway. The others followed suit and milled about the growing pool of urine.
Mjol turned and walked onto the beam. He reached the midway point of the beam and it slowly pivoted down.
Denali exploded out from the wreckage in a cloud of broken plastic and raced across the beam. She ignored the snarling and barking behind her and focused on Mjol. “Run!”
Mjol’s feet skidded on the steel. He ran with Denali right on his tail. The beam clicked in place.
Denali leaped off and was across. Mjol hopped off a second later and the beam rose up behind him.
“Stop her! Stop her!” dogs called. The agony of an escaping prey was upon them and they were wild with anger. One after another they raced down the flat beam. There were too many, they clogged the narrow path and dogs tumbled together.
Samson stopped with a bellow and roar. A dog slid off one side as he tried to turn and yelped down into the darkness. A splash sounded a moment later like a raindrop in a distant puddle. The others retreated.
Mjol made a half-hearted feint at Denali with a touch of a grin on his face. Sever made a more serious effort but Denali ducked under his jaw and skipped away into the darkness.
She yelped back with a mischievous tone but knew they wouldn’t be far behind. She couldn’t help but rub it in a bit. The adrenaline was rich in her blood and she panted excitedly. The darkness took her in once more and the path leveled out.
The tunnel stopped and there was two doors. Both open. There was no hatch on either. Denali sniffed at one, then the next, then the first again. Both smelled the same, looked the same, and for all she could tell were the same.
“Which way,” she said as she paced between the two. She sat down and scratched her chin with her rear paw and looked at one, then the other.
“Well, I itched this side, so I’ll try that way first,” she said.
The tunnel passed deeper, took a corner, another corner, and another. Denali stopped and looked back and realized it was all the same. Then she came to a set of three hatches and her ears tingled with worry.
She sniffed at each and dropped herself onto the floor and searched for currents of air. Nothing. The route back teased her, but she set herself forward, determined that there was a trick to it. And worried that she was on the wrong path. Again, she took the left as she had the first time and continued on.
The passage turned back on itself, rounded about and came to an end. There was nothing there and she raced back as quickly as she could.
This time she tried the opposite and ignored the middle route. The passage snaked from side to side, turned back on itself and straightened out. Side passages merged with the one she traveled but she ignored them and sought out the hatches.
Then it was five hatches, arrayed wide on a wall. She sniffed at each, licked for a taste of anything, and glanced over her shoulder.
Five, a voice said in her head. Denali stopped, didn’t even breathe. It was like a whisper between her ears, the shadow of a sound. When she finally did breathe, it was gone and she glanced around nervously.
“Who is it?” she whispered. Fear set in and she spun around in a circle and stared at each hatch.
Five.
She danced away from the hatches. Something spoke to her, and it terrified her. Then she calmed herself and remembered the statue. Someone, somewhere, wanted her to solve this puzzle. Or did they? She remembered Jagok and knew the puzzle would also try to kill. But maybe she’d test it and see.
The passage snaked even more than the rest and Denali felt like she was moving back to where she came when suddenly she was in another room with seven hatches. Again, she sniffed each and again nothing made any of them look any different.
Barks and a howl echoed down a passage and Denali paced frantically from side to side.
Two, the voice said again, between her ears.
Denali danced to the side and shook in the center of the room. The voice was a ghost, she was sure of it, a ghost leading her to her doom. Middle, I haven’t taken the middle. She leaped through the hatch and ignored the voice, still whispering in her brain.
The path snaked and followed long passages. It dropped down for a time and the air was cooler. It was the longest she’d gone without seeing a hatch and she was sure it was the one. The lights dimmed and she ran faster, frantic. She had to know if this was it, and soon, eventually even the rest of the dogs would figure it out.
Deeper she ran, her tongue lolling to the side. And then the passage stopped. She stared at the wall and felt the agony of her choice.
Was she hearing things? Was it real?
Do I trust it?
She barked out, spun, and raced back.
The tunnel walls flew past in a blur of gray. With each turn she expected to see Samson, or Mjol, or one of the others, but none appeared. Finally she could smell her own scent and knew she was close. She leaped through the hatch and slid right into Sever.
Sever pounced down hard onto Denali and barked loudly. He slammed his weight onto her and bit his teeth down onto her neck.
Denali squirmed and flailed but couldn’t escape from Sever’s grasp. He was larger, heavier, stronger. She gasped for breath.
More dogs surged into the room. Sever held his grip but didn’t bite down hard enough to completely close off the air.
“Denali,” Samson growled in her ear.
Mjol paced to the side nervously. “Which one?”
“Let her go,” Samson said to Sever, and bit his jaws down onto Denali. “She’s mine.”
She squirmed and felt the bite of his teeth.
The others watched nervously and there was a giddiness to the room.
“Which way?” Mjol asked again.
“You kill me, you’ll be lost in here,” Denali wheezed.
Sever laughed. “But you were lost.”
“I was trying to throw you off my trail.”
The other dogs murmured and Samson released his grip. “How do you know which way?”
Denali looked at the second door. “I can smell it.”
“Which one?” Samson asked.
“And then you kill me?”
“We’ll let you go.”
“I lead, you follow.”
Samson bared his great canines and growled a bass rumble into Denali’s ear. “I’ll kill you yet.”
Denali said nothing and stood slowly. She walked through the other dogs and held her head high. “This way.”
“If you lead us the wrong way—”
“You’ll kill me?” Denali passed through the hatch.
The pack moved slowly and deliberately through the tunnel. It twisted one way, then the next, and seemed to roll back on itself. The air took on a different feel, the stillness was gone. But still, the passage went on.
“It doesn’t feel right,” Samson grumbled.
Denali ignored him.
“And how would you know?” Mjol countered.
“I’d know!” Samson blurted out.
Sever ran up next to Denali and nudged at her. “I’ll get you next time.”
She glared up at him. “You can’t even catch your own tail.”
Sever growled and showed his ivory white teeth.
“Enough!” Samson snapped back. “If she gets us through, we’ll give her a chance.”
Denali turned and locked her eyes with Samson. Lies. But still, if he left open a bit of doubt for the others, the better for me. When she looked back forward, she saw Mjol watching her and wondered if maybe she did have a friend.
DogForge Page 10