When I wake with the lightening of the sky, I am horrified to smell an overwhelming Set-stench. I feel a weight on my body. It must be Fierce Set. She is not lying on me as Swift and I lay when I finished my sniff^, but her curved back is touching mine. I roll to my feet and stride away. I begin my Rise-grooming with more vigour than I usually do. I hear Fierce Set beginning her Rise-grooming and I leave to provide solo. I no longer need to provide for my pack, we will provide together in future. I just need to… get away for just a moment. I trot further today. If the wind blows from Rise, maybe I can catch a tiny hint of the outpost-cum-HQ, if I really strain. Remembering there is Rise-Pack a day^ away allows me to slow my pace and begin the hunt.
The Rise smells fresh and clean. I roll in some leaves. The smell of their warm, brown^, safeness soothes. I can smell a carcass, not a provided-kill, but the smell of the cycle of animal life continuing. I can smell birds. Crows. One of the animals, infesting World calls itself crow. I have never caught a bird, only the most expert providers offer birds, but my anger at these parasites motivates me. There are a flock of them on the prey, pulling away at the best parts of the carcass. I do not plan. I do not consider how I will approach them. I pounce. I fell one in an eruption of birds. I quickly make it prey and put it in my cache-pouch.
I find some more scrub-rats and return to the provisioning-spot. Both dogs’ eyes raise when I pull out a bird for myself. They probably think I’m trying to boast superior provision skills, particularly since I didn’t include them in the providing. I tear into it, taking the energy it had, owning it as my flesh. It is bitter and difficult to eat but I want this, it is mine to take.
After we have groomed, we tidy the den-spot. Though the big black feathers have been cleared the fluffy ones still dart about and over the edge into the valley. Swift digs a makeshift cache for what they did not finish. I finished the crow. It was really too soon to have eaten at all, but I want us all at full strength for the day ahead. We look down into the valley.
“We will find a way down today and begin to try to understand anything about this barrier. We are not the only scouting-pack. A lot of dogs were notched in the last cycle. We all want to bring back information that helps us purge World of Their enemies. I don’t know ye yet, but we are Pack.” they sit to attention. I am struck by how obedient they both are, if I must have a Set then Fierce Set is a good specimen. “Fierce Set, you have the best tracking scores” I can’t help but doubt the rigour of the Set tracking assessment, “you will take point for the first degree^.”
Fierce Set is quickly picking her way down the steep valley, she is tracking the caprine^ I could smell last night, zig-zagging down. I am last in our tiny Pack as a First Eyes should be. They are both adept at traversing this terrain. Swift is obviously eager to lead soon. She is detouring here and there to get extra smells. She is a fine dog, with large ears and high hindquarters. Her thighs show her strength and speed. She is loyal and Rise, she is as good as a first command as I could wish. My attention returns to Fierce Set, she is slighter and less spotted. She is still a good warrior, alert and deliberate in following this path. For a Set, I could have had a lot worse. I remember waking with her scent all over me and shake my coat.
Eventually the slope becomes all my focus. There are no convenient points to stop and rest, so we keep going. It also is becoming apparent that Swift is getting impatient to take over. Fierce Set’s pace is slowing, and Swift can barely contain her desire to leap ahead. Fierce Set has raised her nose. The track is becoming unclear. I can’t place where the animal went next from here. There is a breeze that wafts up from the valley carrying our answer. There is the smell of death. That fleet-footed ungulate fell from here, it did not get down into the valley on its feet. Fierce Set looks at me.
“The time for tracking is over, I think we need Swift Rise to take point,” Swift does not wait for me to sneeze before she leaps over Fierce Set and starts to clamber about to find a way to get down. Fierce Set sits and looks at me for approval, which I give. She has served hard this Rise and, having taken the middle sniff, will have had no deep-sleep last night. Swift attempts to jump down a slope, she falls and rolls down a steep, thorny patch. Once, she’s on her feet she looks up to us.
“Well, that’s step one” and she continues to look for the next step down to the valley floor. Fierce Set stands and looks at where Swift is now gauging distance to the next potential outcropping. She didn’t see how Swift fell, highest notch travels in First Eyes, but I know I must go first.
“I’ll go first, she jumped to there, where that pale bush is. She then rolled down to where she is now. Can you make that jump?”
“I am pretty sure I can, Notch”
“Good Service, warrior. Watch me and follow as soon as I am on my feet.” I launch myself hard towards the pale bush. I am getting near, I tuck my head. When I hit the bush, I roll over and over, getting faster, tumbling. When I feel grass, I spread myself and my claws as wide as possible to halt my fall. I pause, stand, shake my head and look back up to Fierce Set. As she follows in my pawprints I look back up to where we started. It Rises on me that we won’t be going back to the den-spot, this Set. Well, Soil will give our cache to some animal or plant.
Swift has found the next step, a steep, stony section that we can just about walk and slide down.
We have picked our way down for degrees, only looking as far as the next step. We have reached a point where the valley suddenly opens out and becomes a gentle slope. We stop to groom, rest and we eat some speckle-berries we pull from speckle-bushes between the rocks. The sound of tongues and teeth and chewing becomes the only sound in the valley I can hear.
The thorns and brambles and scree in our fur removed, we travel on. Fierce Set takes point again, though a wood-otter has left a powerful path and it would not take an expert tracker to follow it into the brush.
We travel at a comfortable pace, still recovering from the strain of the descent. The ground is almost level now and the huge walls of the valley hang over us as though we had dug safely into Soil to wait until we are ready. None of us is leading at this point, we are smelling, listening and looking around while following the strong scent of the mustelid. This still feels like World. There is no sign of the intruders and this land is undeveloped by dogs, so I cannot feel the crushing loss of empty dens and provisioning-spots. Suddenly, Swift who has pulled ahead, stops short and yelps.
Fierce Set and I both freeze, ears, noses and eyes alert for danger. I see Swift and Fierce Set’s hackles raise as I feel the prickling in my own spine. I growl low in my throat. We wait, on high alert, for a few moments. We eventually relax when nothing else happens and we start to investigate. As I step away from the spot where Swift stopped, I realise that the wood-otter passed this way. It stopped short where Swift did, it seems to have stayed there a while and then set off in another direction. I return to where Swift and the wood-otter stopped. I step towards the river or try to. I am stopped short too. We’ve found the barrier.
We used the remaining degrees of light to investigate the nature of the barrier. Piss rolls down an invisible surface leaving no scent. It is higher than we can stretch, we didn’t have the energy to dig tonight. It is not apparent to any of our senses, but you cannot pass through it. We all have bruises from our attempts. Tomorrow we will dig. We are all exhausted. We roll on the grass.
We provide together. Earlier, Fierce Set noticed there are abundant fish in the river by the barrier. Of course, even the fish of World are trapped by this interfering barrier. We take advantage of their misfortune and wade in. How often does one get to try fish? The current is barely apparent but even if it were to push any of us off our feet, the barrier would hold us up. Fierce Set is impressive; she could have been a provider. She soon has more fish in her cache-pouch than either Swift or I do. The smell of fish blood is cutting through the water and filling the air. The water is a gory grey. The blood cannot pass through the barrier, even if the river itself does seem to be passing straight through. So, the natural water flows through but anything in the water is somehow not able to pass. Even if we get nothing else out of this scouting trip, we have learned one useful fact about the barrier.
We get out, shake and find a place to feed, sharing all our provision. I find I like fish but I know not every-dog does; I let them both pick what they want from the collection before taking a trout and few frogs for myself. I dig a cache while Swift prepares for first sniff and Fierce Set settles for deep-sleep. I look at her curled form and, although I have already slept next to this Set, I have to persuade myself to lie down.
I wake for middle sniff. Swift quickly lies down. She seems to have no compunction about denning with a Set. As soon as I see her breathing level, I begin to vigorously groom. It feels good, not only to get the Set-stench off me, but also to feel prepared for the sniff and the investigations to come. I can’t have been that uneasy, I don’t remember falling asleep. Tomorrow will be digging and then we will follow the barrier 0.5 day each way to see if there are any points that might offer better access. HQ is only 2 days away if we ignore the formidable climb. I will leave two days to get back to the surface (and only 0.5 day closer to HQ) and then a long day to cover the 1.5 days to HQ to report back.
I think my first command is going well. If these are to be my notch-mates, I am pleased. I shock myself with that thought. I never thought I would be happy with a Set as my notch-mate. They must both learn how I would respond in every situation and then, as we are notched together, they will both serve with me until one of us takes our Walk into the Wilderness. I don’t think I will ever be used to the Set-smell but otherwise Fierce Set is a good dog. She has been very useful thus far to this Pack. Swift is eager and helpful and a dog any Rise would be proud to have as a notch-mate. I am pleased.
My sniff is proving uneventful and frustrating. I think of how the invading creatures are on the other side of this barrier. If I could get through, I would tear throats out and feast in the smell of their fear and blood. I pace along the barrier, now clearly scent-marked by our investigating steps. I feel my hackles raise as I picture them, disrespecting Soil with their waste and greedily and selfishly fighting for the bounty of World. I fling myself against the barrier. I bounce off to the ground. I’m on my feet in an instant, every bruise from the day howling at me. That’s when I see Fierce Set has woken and is ready for her sniff.
She acknowledges nothing. Just takes up a sentry position. I take my place with Swift, settling onto her hindquarters. I put my nose to her fur and breathe the comforting smell of Rise and before.