Susan Krinard - Lord of the Beasts

Snot-Sleeve aimed a wad of spittle at Donal’s chest, which Donal deftly avoided. He glanced past the men to the circling dogs. They heard his request and made themselves very small, waiting for the signal to move. The girl remained utterly still.

“‘e must be crazy,” Fair-Hair muttered, peering into the darkness at Donal’s back. “‘E can’t ‘ave come ‘ere alone.”

“There ain’t no one else,” Rotten-Teeth insisted. “Let me ‘ave ‘im first.”

“Oi got a be’er idea,” Snot-Sleeve said. “‘ooever takes ‘im down gets first crack at the girl.”

“Oi don’t loik this,” Fair-Hair grunted. “Somefin’ ain’t roight….”

Without waiting to hear his friend’s further thoughts on the matter, Rotten-Teeth crouched in a fighter’s stance and advanced on Donal. The stench of his breath was so foul that Donal almost missed the subtle move that telegraphed his intentions. Rotten-Teeth’s hand sliced down at Donal’s arm, and Donal stepped to the side, grasped his attacker’s shoulder and twisted sharply. Rotten-Teeth yelped and fell to one knee.

Fair-Hair and Snot-Sleeve rushed to their companion’s defense, but they had taken only a few steps when the rats spilled from their hiding places. Rotten-Teeth gave a high-pitched whine as half a dozen dark-furred rodents swarmed over his feet. Another fifty rats and a few hundred mice raced in an ever-tightening circle about the other men’s boots, breaking rank only to nip at the humans’ ankles.

Fair-Hair swore and stabbed ineffectually at a bold male who sat on his haunches and mocked the human with a twitch of his whiskers. At the same moment the dogs sprang into action. They darted at the men, seizing sweat-stiffened woollen trousers in their jaws. The hiss of ripping fabric joined the squeaking of the rodents and the villains’ cries of fear and disgust.

The battle was over almost before it began. After failing to reduce the number of rodents by stamping his oversized feet, Fair-Hair chose the better part of valor and stumbled past Donal in a wave of terrified stench. His bare buttocks gleamed through the large hole in his trouser seat. Snot-Sleeve was hot on his heels. Rotten-Teeth came last, frantically dragging his twisted ankle behind him as if he expected to become the rats’ next meal.

A restless silence filled the little space between the walls. Donal gave his thanks to the rodents and sent them scurrying back to their nests. He retrieved his coat and casually shook it out, watching the girl from the corner of his eye. She had scarcely moved since his arrival, and her gaze held the same stark fear with which she had regarded her tormentors.

No, not fear. She had been frightened before, but now those blue eyes held far more complex emotions: suspicion, anger and a glimmer of hope swiftly extinguished. She held out her arms. The dogs wriggled close, licking her face as if she were a pup in need of a good cleaning.

They told Donal all he needed to know. He started cautiously for the girl, holding his hands away from his sides.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She lowered her head between her shoulders and peered at him from beneath her dark brows. “Wot do you want?” she demanded.

Her directness didn’t startle him. A child left alone so young would have been educated in a hard school. She had probably been hurt so often that she regarded pain as a simple fact of life, like hunger and the casual cruelty of strangers.

“I mean you no harm,” he said, settling into a crouch. The dogs grinned at him in apology but remained steadfastly by their charge’s side. “I heard you cry out—”

“Oi never. You ‘eard wrong.”

Donal studied her face more carefully, noting the blue bruise that marked her right eye. “Did those men touch you?” he asked.

She hugged the dogs closer. The spotted, wire-haired male whined anxiously, striving to make her understand. She cocked her head and frowned. “You ain’t no rozzer, is you?”

“I am not a policeman.”

“Did you bring the rats?”

Donal considered the safe answer and immediately discarded it. “Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“Oi know.” She pushed a hank of hair out of her eyes. “Why didn’t you let ’em eat them nickey bludgers?”

Her hatred was so powerful that he felt the fringes of it as if she were more animal than human. “Rodents are naturally secretive creatures,” he said seriously, “and I already asked them to do something very much against their natures. Would you ask your dogs to eat a man?”

She giggled with an edge of hysteria and wrapped her arms around her thin chest. “They ain’t my curs,” she said. “But sometoims they ‘elps me, and Oi ‘elps them.”

“They’re very brave, and so are you.”

She shrugged, and the gesture seemed to break something loose inside her. “Wot’re you going to do now?” she whispered.

Her bleak question reminded Donal that he hadn’t considered anything beyond rescuing the child from her attackers. The smallest of the dogs, a shaggy terrier mix, crept up to Donal and nudged his hand. The animal’s request was unmistakable.

“What is your name?” Donal asked, stroking the terrier’s rough fur.

“That ain’t none o’ yer business.”

“Mine is Donal,” he said. “Donal Fleming. How old are you?”

“Twelve years,” she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. “Wot’s it to yer?”

Donal’s hand stilled on the terrier’s back, and the dog growled in response to his sudden surge of anger. “Where do you live?” he asked, keeping his voice as level as he could. “Do you have anyone to look after you?”

She concealed a wet sniff behind her hand. “Oi don’t needs nowbody.”

“What if the men return?”

Blinking rapidly, the girl scraped her ragged sleeve across her eyes. “Oi won’t let ’em catch me.”

But her efforts at bravado were hardly convincing, and the dogs knew how truly afraid she was. Donal got to his feet.

“You’d better come with me,” he said.

Her eyes widened, gleaming with moisture in the dim moonlight. “Where?”

“To my hotel. I’ll see that you have decent clothing and a good meal. And then …”

And then . What was he to do with a child? His thoughts flew inexplicably to the woman from the Zoological Gardens and skipped away, winging to his farm in Yorkshire. He hadn’t the resources to take the girl in, but there were a number of solid families in the Dales who owed him payment for his care of their animals. Surely one of them could be convinced to give her a decent home.

Relieved that he had found a solution, Donal smiled. “How would you like to come north with me, to the countryside?”

The dogs burst into a dance of joy, their tails beating the air. The girl pushed to her feet and brushed scraps of refuse from her colorless dress. “Away from Lunnon?” she asked in disbelief.

“Far away. Where no one can hurt you again.”

She stared at the ground, chewing her lower lip as she watched the dogs gambol around her rag-bound feet. At last she looked up, brows drawn in a menacing frown. “You won’t try nuffin’?”

His smile faded. “I have no interest in abusing children,” he said. “Your dogs know that you can trust me.”

“Oi told you, they ain’t my—” She broke off with an explosive sigh. “Can Oi takes ’em wiv me?”

Donal briefly considered the obstacles involved. “Perhaps we can sneak them in. I already have a dog there. His name is Sir Reginald.”

The girl snorted. “‘At’s a flash name for a cur.”

“But he isn’t puffed-up in the least. You’ll like him.”

“Well …” She kicked an empty tin and sent it spinning across the alley. “Awroight. Me name’s Ivy.”