I glared at Halla. “You did this! It came here because it noticed your hokkat!”
Halla glared back. “You made it worse. You invited it to return!”
I sneered and fetched Halla’s knife, then I turned to follow the dog. Halla caught my arm.
“Wait. The talking dog said it found you. Perhaps you are in danger.” Her eyes softened. “I am here, so let me help you.”
“Horseshit! You didn’t march your ass up to my house after ten years to protect me from a talking dog we’ve never met.”
She growled. “You were easier to convince of things when you were drunk most of the time. Fine. I need your help to rescue children. They are imprisoned by . . . well, by something that possesses dogs.”
“Do it yourself! You’re a big, strong girl. I have to go save a bunch of people who hate me.”
I turned, but her hand stopped my arm as if I were chained to a tree. She said, “I came here for your help. I must have a diversion. Created by someone I trust.”
“Buy a dog. That doesn’t talk!”
“The diversion will not be dangerous.”
“Then buy a little dog!” I stomped her instep, yanked my arm free, and ran down the lane. I heard Halla trying not to curse and doing a piss-poor job.
THREE
Halla and I first met when I was a young man and she was hardly grown. On that occasion, she wept on me and then tried to kill me.
I had hired a boat captain, or at least a rancid piece of tooth cheese that owned a boat, to sail me up the coast. While the man patched his sails, or summoned an air demon, or whatever he did to get his collection of sticks and snot to move across the water, I lounged against a stack of crates on the dock.
An enormous, crying, black-skinned girl ran onto the dock from the road, carrying a dead dog in her arms like it was a baby. While tears ran down her face, she asked me who owned the dog, and I expressed ignorance. She then sagged against me and dripped tears onto the top of my head, which I found disturbing. I had not been raised to engage in such behavior with strange girls.
Before I could do anything about it, the boat captain stepped onto the dock and pointed at the dog carcass. “That’ll teach that goddamn cur to bite me! Throw the shitty bastard back in the ditch and piss on it.”
Halla accused me of protecting that horrible man. At least, I think she did. She was slamming me against the stack of crates over and over, so I suppose she could have been describing how she would kill me if slamming didn’t work, or she might have been admiring my pretty blue eyes. I managed to gasp out an offer to help her kill that awful dog murderer.
We tossed the captain off the dock, and he sank. My promise to help kill him had been a convenient lie, so when he splashed back to the surface, I threw him an empty cask to cling to. Halla and I stole his boat and sailed two miles up the coast before the boat sank just like its captain had.
We traveled together for most of the next eight years.
As I ran up the lane in Bindle, I heard the possessed dog barking ahead of me without letup for two annoying minutes until I reached the town square. It was grandiose to call that bare expanse of black mud and scattered gravel a town square. It was square and existed in a town, but that’s as much as I’ll allow. The next town up the road, Hackpipe, had built themselves a charming town square thirty years before. Bindle’s citizens immediately tore down half a dozen buildings to create a square of their own, twice as big. They bragged about it, even though it was as empty and awful as a dead man’s eyes.
The rain had squeezed down to a drizzle. That was still wet enough to discourage all but about fifty citizens from coming out to judge me. The old hound was running around the space, barking like a mad thing and snapping when somebody got too close.
I ran to the middle of the square, drew my sword, and shouted, “All right, I’m here! To preserve Krak’s ears and mine, shut the hell up!”
“Murderer!” The dog squealed like a happy child and trotted to within ten feet of me. “It’s a fine day to be a gigantic, goddamn hero, don’t you think?”
All the citizens in the square froze when the dog spoke. A couple of them ran off while the rest edged away.
The dog shook its shaggy head. “Now, I’m going to kill every person in this town, but first I’ll award you the chance to talk me out of it.”
Paul, Sam, and Tettler ran toward me out of the gathering crowd. “Bib! Stop this, whatever this is!” Paul yelled. “Take that demon away from here, and don’t come back!”
“Stand away, you insects!” the dog shouted, pointing its nose at Paul. “Back up right now and be quiet. I do not give you leave to speak in my presence.”
Tettler’s mouth fell open. “It’s a goddamn talking dog.”
The beast leaped onto Tettler’s chest, knocking him on his back in the mud. I ran to skewer the creature, but before I arrived, it seized Tettler’s throat in its teeth and tore out a big bite. I thrust, but the dog bounded aside while Tettler gurgled and spouted blood.
“Now, what did I say
