I’ve said it before. There was nothing loud about the Argument. But it can be deep, and it can be broad. Beyond the fence and into the wild, the wind, stone, dew and earth conspired. They dreamed of writing their own stories and earning their own names. At this boundary between the wild and the Lady, the name of the Argument is Insurgency, and I found myself beset by a growing unease.

“Now, you best be minding your feet,” Nick warned. “And the sky, and the distance too. Any sign of motion is a reason to be wary, and wild things come from any and every angle.”

Our tempers had cooled, though we had fewer words for one another. “Mhm,” I assured him. All the while, Maynard’s spear bounced against my shoulder, and burdened in my fist. More and further as we went, the vakero revealed to me all the deferred aches I had collected from the morning.

“Those moles have been pests of late, but they’re not nearly the worst we’ve seen.” Nick had drawn out his blade and casually chopped away at shrub and long grass, whenever the overgrowth made it necessary. His gaze was actively vigilant, which for our pace struck me as having had to been exhausting. “Flathead minks are vicious as hell, and besides that they’re ambush diggers. Any careless step, and she pops up and shreds you. Quick as you like, like some kind of weaselly landmine.”

Nick then proceeded to describe further the common evidences which marked the lair of local predators, though the subject could not nearly be distilled in the span of an hour. We crossed then out of the grass and onto the tar gravel avenue which was the last leg of our errand. All these roads were broad in my sentiment and to the needs of pedestrian transit, but I was often enough instructed to recognize that such a width was narrow by the old standards of their make. Alongside it, there were a density of past arsonages. The ashes of their remainder were long settled, and moved me only in that I wondered at how close together homes could be adjacent in the old way.

“Vaudeville stingers are nasty, but they’re people-shy and hole up fairly predictable in tight places. Wolf rats are frightful, but can be overcome by courage and the right pair of boots as long as you don’t catch them swarming. Let’s see,” Nick huffed.

With mild relief he pointed out one last standing building in the distance which was neighbored by two withered maple trees and brick-faced to its second story.

“Sabre-point deer are migratory and seasonal. But I wouldn’t tangle with one for a bucket of pesos. You just give them right of way and call on Mr. S. if you see one.”

My eyes perked up and I reached at Nick’s shoulder to stop him. “Nick,” I said, though I did not catch hold of him.

“What else? Brassy-tooth snakes will ruin your day. Rugby badgers are tough and stubborn to be sure-”

“Nick!” I hissed, and so caught his alertness.

There was an animal in our way.

It was four hands long (which is a foot, plus a third), with four legs and copper fur. A snarl of grass about the road’s shoulder parted as it limped into the open. My heart ached as its leg dragged behind it, with its floppy ears, its large soulful eyes, and its snub snout pitiably whimpering.

“It’s a fucking dog,” Nick snarled.

He was at my defense in an eye-blink, his arm struck out protectively at my front and pressing backwards to herd me into retreat.

“But it’s hurt,” I protested, off-balance and confused. The puppy was the first dog I’d ever seen, and while (even in my sheltered life) I had seen many dangerous creatures, this one did not match its reputation.

Nick pushed me back and harder, then dipped to pluck a loose clump of pavement. In alarm, I tried to stop him, but I was unready and he was unhesitant; then his arm whipped in an arc and pitched that heavy clod as a vicious spinning missile.

I heard the Voice of the Lady, I heard my own cry of shock. But then the dog forgot its limp in that last flashing instant. It leapt up and snarled, so inflicting a sprain on my sympathy, which wrenched back the other way as it was struck meatily in its flank and hurled into a tumble.

“Good survey,” Nick quipped. He pushed me again. “Let’s go.”

So failed the ambush which was laid for us. The five mongrel dogs in motion on either side of us leapt out from their concealment, their encirclement incomplete. They lunged at our front in a fanning arc, lips baring yellow teeth, then veered like the breaking surf.

Nick’s sidearm was already in his hand, though it had cut his belt a notch on the draw. It was his poise to strike which dissuaded that first attack, and then again his stance and form repelled the courage of a second at his right flank. Whether by experience or instinct, in respect or fear, it was clear the dogs understood the sharp of iron.

Instead we danced together. Nick’s blade wove through guards as he guided me back, as the dogs wove round in dizzying attempts to command a vulnerable angle. I was unready for the quick of it; at which they tested him, at which he commanded the engagement through blows he did not take. I was unnerved by the mortal hush of both man and beast, none of which wasted breath for barking.

Our contest was noisy only with my own voice, with scraping feet, and the yelping pup.

All this happened in the span of heartbeats, before I remembered my vakero and my quality. Then with the point of my spear, I made my introduction to a tawny hound. It yelped in surprise to the thrust of my iron, and could only escape my ambit into a clumsy rolling tumble. Though I could not match Nicolas’s angle, for those dozen degrees of arc I resolved to make us impenetrable.

“Slow and back. Close to me, don’t stop,” Nick whispered. “You’re doing well. Nice form.”

Our stalemate gave me the opportunity to notice the variance in our aggressors, a species which had no determined size, color, or shape. Their largest was (by my best estimation) seven stone, pale and snub-mawed. Their smallest was half of that, with matted black fur and tapered muzzle. I could taste the Argument twist towards their point of view, growing heavy, herbaceous, bitter, and shadowed.

“Ugh, they’re purple flavor,” Nick recoiled. As he committed his weapon to his left, an overconfident mutt took its chance and then his boot-heel thumped into its nose for the effort. “Don’t touch them,” he warned me.

As we withdrew, the pack became warier. Their circuit round us widened. It seemed they would or could not take us in the open, but we had a problem. We had reached our footpath home, and would need to leave the road and risk the grass.

“We can’t make it,” I despaired.

Nick gently nudged my vakero to turn my point, and rotated about my back to ward back the biggest of them. “I disagree,” he replied. “And I’m old, which as we discussed, makes me smart.”

My spear tip flashed as I swung the haft low towards their legs. “Then we have to fight them here,” I resolved. My arms burned with exertion, and I grit my teeth against it.

This was my chance.

“What?” Nick scoffed. Then it occurred to him I meant it. “No, we really don’t -”

But I was already mid-strike. A spotted setter was committed to a sharp turn and I extended the whole of myself to stab at its heart. My leg, my lunge, my hips, my arm, and the full span of the vakero: twelve feet were closed in an instant. All the more reason I was so shook to be foiled, as a second dog suddenly seized my spear in its jaw at the cross, and wrenched it aside at the last before the mark.

I think I recall I made a noise: something ungainly. I also remember wondering where this other animal had even come from, and by what ludicrous temerity it had to achieve so heroic a rescue. I did though keep my feet beneath me, and my grasp firm and forward, but I was not otherwise well placed.

I realized my conviction had carried me out from the safety of Hand Nicolas, I realized my back and sides were left vulnerable to a swift predator, but mostly I realized that this gods-damned cur wasn’t letting go of my fucking weapon.

It is occasionally (during reflection on such moments) a wonder that I have survived into the present.

Thankfully and to my great relief, my custodian was greatly offended by my effort to be ended; further that he was chosen and qualified more carefully than I’d known at noon to safekeep me. Lonely Nick learnt me next of both, and set to set things right.

The guitarist of Ghost Perch rolled his shoulder, such that his instrument swung round his hip, a pendulum caught at the frets by the free fingers of his left. I’ve said it before. There was nothing loud about the Argument. But it can be deep, and it can be broad. And as the musician drew on the grace of a god I did not know, I was staggered by just how distant its authority was from Her Lady.

With four digits and a nub, he twisted his hand into an arcane shape and though I could not see how he did it, plucked a chord along the neck. Five dogs were struck by the discordant twang, which carried with it the force of the river of the dead and their Opinions buckled under it. It felt like hell was brought near close enough to touch in that quavering note, and a yawning cold suppressed the peaty stink of their power. Even though I was spared the worst, I felt something important nudge frightfully loose inside of me, and I shudder to imagine how it felt to them.

But grace was straining the Argument too far, and it was Nick’s guitar which yielded. One of its strings snapped with an agonized pwang, lacerating its player’s thumb and the world returned to me.

Burning with hate, the fiercest, largest dog rolled to its feet. It exploded into motion, and hurled itself at Nick with a snarl. But then the man drew deep on Diana instead, and he was not the musician anymore, he was the hunter. The dream of wild roads and strange moons touched us, and then the huntsman blurred to swiftness. His step was wide and sideways, and his billhook drew a cruel and precise line through the air.

It took the beast’s snout off, shorn halfway with a spatter of crimson.

It bayed in agony and rolled off the pavement into the grass, in another direction of its nose. Bewildered, I could not notice Nick’s grip until I was hauled bodily off the road towards the east.

“The fuck were you thinking,” Nick, groaned. His hat was gone and so was mine. He was bleeding, and I was fine.

We fled across the prairie, and I had no more strength left but what it took not to lose Maynard’s lance. Though two of the dogs pursued us, they would not take their gamble against our lives. Finally we reached the western fence at the orange of the eve, and I breathed in relief to be safe.