Callisto

A Word most Useful

There was a useful word he'd learned when he was a pup.

Presently, its exact form escaped him, but often he'd heard it hurled at himself - whenever he'd plundered the pantry or raided the staff lockers back in the land down under - and often, this word was accompanied by a tone of rage similar to what those boys were currently expressing behind him.

He was pretty sure they weren't using that word, though. Their speech was rife with their superstitious mumbo-jumbo sprinkled with fear and pixie dust. They were little better than children.

Though that didn't mean he had any less reason to fear them. After all, he was slowing down, and they didn't seem to give one inch.

That's what they said about fanatics, though, right? Tenacious little buggers through and through.

"Bloody tribals," he muttered under his ailing breath. "Of all the batshit crazy fucks I could meet on the surface, why'd it have to be bloody Tribals?"

He swallowed this thought as his feet started to fail him, and his vision began to cloud - dominated only by the sheer height of the Canyon walls that rose above him as far as his beady little eyes could see. He could sense - as only he could - the dangers ahead. There were things way tougher than him in this place. Those dark walls held powerful scents within - the kind of scents he'd learned he'd have to avoid if he had any chance of completing his mission.

Jesus, if that wasn't the biggest joke of all. "Mission?" Give it a rest, you old pampered pooch. You ain't no army dog. You're a sniveling little terrier that can't even outrun two skinny-ass boys with pointy sticks.

Preoccupied thus with self-deprecation, the other, more substantial part of his consciousness suddenly picked out dark caves along the base of the walls. Without overthinking, he dove for a nearby opening in the middle of the blighted Canyon. He had a plan. Not a great one, mind. In fact, it wasn't even particularly good. It could barely even be considered a footnote in the storied annals of Plandome, where the greatest, most legendary plans were laid bare for all of mortal eyes to see.

Still, he had a plan.

He found a corner in the dry dark of the small cave, and when his captors hesitated at the entrance, he tried to silence the low animal growl rising in his chest. Damned doggie instincts were the bane of his life - yet again.

"We go," one of them said.

"No, brother," the other barked. "This one is touched by Okku. He bears the form of the Holy White Wolf."

"Okku would not run from a warrior of the Guthra!" the other yelled, beating his chest with one tattooed fist. "He would not curse us as this one has done even as we have harried him to the Great Canyon."

He was getting tired of this. With a single gulp, he sent his toughest-sounding bark through the cave toward them, letting the echo carry it, amplify it, and knock some fear into their God-addled brains.

"Listen!" he roared. "You boys think I'm some kinda fairy, right? Well, bippity-boppity-back-the-fuck-off!"

They both turned back to the throat of the cave and furrowed their brows in confusion. Then the violent one started up again:

"You see, brother!" he shouted, pointing inside. "Okku would not allow his Avatar to flap a tongue corrupted by such foul curses!"

The other one narrowed his eyes, and for a stomach-churning second, his target thought that he'd been found.

Okay, the hidden creature thought. I'll go for the older one and then the bloodthirsty boy. Nibble at their ankles and then bug out - let them lick their wounds. Strike from the shadows, just like those ninja dudes in the old flicks.

As he began to pace forwards, hugging the left side of the cave, edging closer to the old one's leg from the dark, he thought about how stupid it would be to die with that being his final thought.

"Would you kill a God, brother?" the old one was saying. "Remember well how the Hanakh infidels debased Antakram and stole the effigy of the Holy Wolf from under us. Okku's anger has been felt in the winds, and he has sent this spirit child to test our resolve. We must take him before Quiet-Storm and the Shamans. They shall cleanse the corruption from this child of Okku. We must not falter."

He was holding something in his hand. Twisting it around his fingers. Something that looked like a grenade - but shiny. Like a ruby...

"He means to test us," the old one said again. "To strike at us from the dark. Let us show him that we rise with the sun.

He struck the little stone across his palm. In the next instant, a flower of flame bloomed into violent life - its petals stretching through the entire cave and instantly bathing the environment in bioluminescent crimson.

The stage was set - there they all were: the old one with the fire-stone burning in his hand, his vicious brother licking his lips, and the shaking dog at their feet who instantly started backing away just as soon as he'd stalked towards them like a patient hunter.

Fire, he thought. And for a moment, his memories betrayed him - they took him back to that place where he dared not go. The place he'd run from.

"A waste of a sacred stone," the younger man whispered. "Shall we take him back to the village in one piece or...several?"

He licked his lips like a hyena in heat again. It was not a look that spoke of reverence for whatever they thought the dog was.

The old one-eyed him warily and kept his palm outstretched as he stepped towards the now sniveling creature.

"We shall do what we do with all spirits of the wastes that must be cleansed," he said. "Fetch your tools, brother."

The young hyena grinned. "With pleasure."

And it was only at this moment, curled up at the edge of the cave, that the dog remembered the word especially reserved for him during moments of anger or duress:

Shit.