I

“Troy, no!” The dog barked at the boy running away from him. “The sun is going down soon, we have to get back. The night men will come for us!” The dog, Gobo, by name, yelled after his human companion. Troy was eleven and full of energy, convinced he could never be hurt and crying the moment he was. Humans! Gobo thought with some disdain, They aren’t all that bright.

“We have to see! Seth said it was just up here!” Troy called over his shoulder. Gobo was a good dog, a wonderful dog, he was also small. He could outdistance the eleven-year-old in short bursts and overall had far more endurance, but the monkey-related human could go up the steep hills and rocks far faster than the short-legged dog.

The ‘it’ in question was an old mill, three miles from the settlement where they both lived and in dangerous territory. The dead were all around them. Zombies, skeletal remains and worse. The fey were part of the world too, but were rarely seen in these parts. Still Gobo’s pack had warned him of leprechauns and evil sprites, buzzing around and putting you to sleep with their poisoned arrows, usually right when a zombie was descending upon you.

“Why do you want to see an old mill anyway?” Gobo yelled at the boy’s retreating back.

“Because it’s rad!” Troy yelled back, “C’mon Slo-go!”

Gobo hated that nickname, some dogs didn’t care about such things, he did. It was Troy, his alleged best buddy in the world who had hung it on him and he had yet to figure out a button pressing nick name for Troy. Calling him out did make Gobo move though, he darted up the hill a little sideways and his zigging and zagging among the trees got him to the ridge crest just moments after Troy. Below them was a crashing river, swollen with the mid-summer rains that had plagued the area recently, threatening to ruin the crops diligently tended by the humans.

Between the river and the ridge they were on was a road. An actual, carved out the dirt and stone hill, road.

“I thought Seth was lying.” Troy said, scarcely believing what they were seeing.

“It’s not just a mill.” Gobo said, the village had a mill, so he recognized the building for what it was, or what it used to be. It still had a tin metal roof, mostly intact, and doors, which were closed. Small boulders littered the road, as well as fallen tree limbs. What Gobo was talking about was the cluster of houses on either side of the raging torrent of water. “It’s a small village.”

Both looked at it a moment, watching for movement of the dead or, less likely the fey. Most of the fey either clung to humans or were malicious to them. Ruins, well, very few fey occupied buildings devoid of humanity. Bogo, of the two realized his knowledge of fairies wasn’t complete, he was much more up to speed on the real threats to his life and limb; the undead.

“We should go, Troy. The buildings, there could be dead in them.”

“Okay, yeah, we will. I gotta get something first though. Something to prove to Seth I saw it.”

“What?” asked Bogo, proof of deed was a concept even dogs were familiar with so the question he was asking is what could they bring back to prove they had been here.

“Dunno, let’s get up there and see what we can find.”

“Troy, it’s late, we won’t get back before dark…”

“It’ll only take a minute, then we’ll run al the way back home, promise!” Troy jogged down to the road and moved up the half-mile to the mill, Gobo trailing him, but saying nothing.

Outside the building they both stopped and looked around, the siding was a felt covered in tar with small gray rocks embedded in it, almost like shingles. Due to the slope of the hill, Troy couldn’t see in the windows. He looked at Gobo, who said, “Lift me up.”

“Good boy!”

“You’re a boy!” He allowed Troy to lift him to the dirty window and he peered inside. “Too dark, I don’t see anything moving. Good glass, we should take some glass!”

“If we break it, it won’t be worth anything!” Troy said.

“Let’s go around to the side, with the hill not toward the river.” Troy obediently set Gobo down and the two worked their way around the landward side of the building. The trees and rock falls hadn’t been kind to the edifice, part of the long wall was collapsed and it had taken a window with it. Both worked their way to it and Bogo said, “Three panes are still good! Use your knife and work one out!”

Troy pulled out a small hunting knife and started working at the putty holding the window glass in. It came out easily and he started working on another one.

“Troy, one should be enough, there aren’t any other windows around!”

“Bogo, we could use it! I could put a window in your house, your pa would be so happy! He always says the shudder lets in too much cold air.”

Bogo growled, and turned around a couple of times, looking for movement in the woods around them and sniffing the air for the tell-tale decay of the dead, “Hurry.”

Two panes down and Troy started working on the third, “Why?” Bogo asked.

“We can trade it to mister Seller! We’d get tart-fruits and chew toys!”

Again Bogo’s greed won out over his common dog sense and he twirled again, his neck hair started rising. “Hurry, Troy, something is here.”

“Got it!” The boy said triumphantly, quietly, but triumphantly. Carefully he put the rectangular pieces of glass into his haversack, wrapping the jacket he had brough in case it rained again around them.

“Let’s go, go, go.” Gobo said.

The two made their way back to the road, hurrying although no threat was visible to their ears, eyes or noses. “I feel it too.” Troy said.

“Run!” Gobo said, darting back the way they had come. Troy was faster in this instance, or rather Gobo let him be. The dog’s instinct to protect the human was overriding his common sense. Casting a glance back, Gobo though he saw something in the window of the mill, something big. It may not have been anything, then movement from the corner of the mill where they had just been revealed a slow, wet looking zombie, completely naked, of course, the dead had no modesty.

“Zombie!” Gobo huffed, “Coming from around the corner of the house, don’t stop, Troy.”

“You can’t keep up!” Troy yelled from halfway up the hill.

“I can’t outrun a zombie!” Which was mostly true; it was when a pack of zombies showed up that dogs and humans had problems. Troy stopped at the ridge to way for Gobo, he found and picked up a thing looking stick and was standing ready with it until Gobo made it up to him.

“That’s a very slow zombie.” Troy said.

Gobo turned to look and the zombie was not chasing them. It has lost them, that much was clear. Now it was wandering aimlessly around in front of the mill where the road met the doors.

“We’re safe.” Troy said.

“Still a long way from home.” Gobo told him, “And it’s getting dark.”

They both set off through the woods, Gobo leading the way as fast as he could using his nose as the darkness descended upon them.

II

The gate at home was closed, a wooden palisade, and he had to call up for the guard to let him in.

“Who goes there!?” A gruff voice came from inside.

“It’s me, Troy! And Gobo!”

“How do I know it’s not a wicked ghoul pretending to be a smell human boy?” The voice asked.

“Carl! It’s me! Let me in!”

“Could be a ghoul that ate Troy’s brain and knows everything the boy knew.” Said another voice.

“Ned! I’m not a ghoul!”

“Careful, Ned, that’s just what a treacherous ghoul say!”

“I think it’s him, Carl. He doesn’t seem too smart, coming in late and all.”

“Well, what should we do? We already told the matron he was eaten. It be a shame for him to show up alive and all now.”

“Let me in!” Troy yelled.

“Let me in too!” Bogo barked.

“It’s them, it’s them!” Carl said, opening the gate just enough for an eleven year old and his small dog to squirt through.

“Heaven help us if we stand between a boy and his supper!” Ned said, watching the two run past them into the town.

Cauldron was a small frontier town, one of the ‘walking towns’ where the entire village would get up and move to a new location every three to five years. This allowed the area around the town to recover from human deprivation, hunting and fishing recovered and the fields, always planted with recovery crops would be extremely fertile with the town rotated back in six to ten years from one of the three main locations.  Human society had changed considerable since the devil released the necromancers upon the world. One of the changes was that most children, and puppies to a great extent, were raised communally. Mother’s always knew who their children were, fathers usually did, marriage was for nobles and merchant families, so the morals of the common man were not so rigorous when it came to things like sex and family. This was why Troy lived in a creche of children, he had moved to what the locals affectionately called the ‘Tween’ house, where children were old enough to be useful, but not yet old enough that they were expected to be full time working adults.

This was a sweet spot where children could see what they were good at before committing to a trade. Most were only in the ‘Between’ house for a few short years before settling on a trade and moving in with their teachers to become proficient at it. The ‘tween’ years were universally considered to be a very good time in a human’s life and adults tended to dote on the children while they figured things out.

The matron mother, an old woman of perhaps fifteen was named Francis Saul and she was waiting for Troy when he and Gobo rolled in. Her armes were crossed and she took in Troy and Gobo with a stern look on her face. Both were filthy, full of scratches and their hair and fur, respectively were a mess with burs and leaves. “I see someone had an adventure today. Carl told me you were still out there and you’d turn up eventually. Glad to see he was right. Where were you?”

“I found the mill!” Troy said proudly, “And glass!”

“Really? What mill?”

“Out on the river! It was all broken down! There was a zombie!”

“Really? Where? The guards will want to know, did you tell Carl?”

“Uh, no. We ran here, they thought I was a ghoul and wouldn’t let me in the gate.”

“I seem you made it anyway, did you climb the wall?”

“No, Ned said I was me and let us in.”

“Carl let us in.” Gobo said, “We found glass! My pa can put it in the window, we’ll have a real window!”

“Let’s see it.” Saul said.

Carefully Troy pulled the glass panes out, all were intact. Saul examined each one carefully, nodding in approval. “Very nice, Troy and Gobo, you did well. The zombie doesn’t sound good. Who told you about the mill?”

“Seth!” They both answered.

“You know that boy doesn’t like you?”

“Yeah, but I show him this, he’ll know I was there!”

“Why do you care about what he thinks?”

“I just want to rub his fat face in it!” Troy said and Gobo barked his approval, this was the way the pack handled business, you fought for your place and defended your rank.

“Stay out of it, you!” Saul said to the dog, “And you, you need to stop letting Seth get to you. That mill, where was it? Along the river you said?”

“Yeah.”

“That means it is miles away, that’s a long way, Troy. You’re lucky nothing happened to you.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“No, mother Sheliagh, left food for you in the kitchen, I’ll hang onto the glass, so Seth doesn’t break it when he sees you have it. Tomorrow you can show it to him and we’ll see what you learn from that. Go.” She watched the two slip away, before calling out, “And bathe before you get into bed!”

She sighed and watched a patrol come up the street, straightening up she smiled at the young soldiers who were approaching her, nodding to the one she fancied, “Walder. Good night, sir.”

“Miss Saul.” Walder nodded, “I heard you had a lost boy and dog?”

“They are okay now, small town, word gets around fast. I think I’ll miss it when I ship up to Boston.”

“Still going into the order?”

“I am still going to be trained, yes. I’ll be back in a few years.”

“God willing, the town needs you. I’m going the scouts, I’ve decided.”

“Oh?” Saul thought she hid her disappointment well, her reasons were selfish, she was sweet on Walder and scouts tended to live very short lives, unless they were really good. “This boy, Troy, he went out to an old mill and found glass, brought back three panes.” She showed Walder the pieces of glass, still wrapped in Troy’s jacket. “Could be good scouting material, will you look in on him once in a while, help him see if that is his path?”

“For you? Of course, and don’t worry, Saul, I’ll still be here when you return and I have to call you ‘mother’.”

“You better be!”

“Saul!” the voice of the matron mother, called from inside, “The order won’t accept you if you’re with child.”

Saul blushed furiously, nodded to the soldiers, who were laughing except for Walder, who was also blushing and retreated into the creche.

“By the love of God, Mother!” Saul started to be cut off by the laughing matron.

“Wait four years and see how you feel then. Time enough for children after you’ve taken your vows. I’ve told you before developing your use of miracles is easier, so I’ve been told, if you are a virgin.”

It took Saul a moment, then she said to the retreating matron, “So you’ve been told! Mother Sheliagh!”

III

The next morning Seth was unimpressed by the panes of glass Saul was holding while Troy told him about the mill. The thirteen-year-old sneered and said, “You coulda got those from anywhere!”

Troy was visibly upset and Gobo jumped up on Seth and started bark-yelling in his face. An older dog came and Gobo to heel and Seth stalked off.

“Troy, people like Seth, you will never be good enough to them. My advice is not to even try. Find a better friend. Gobo is a good start.”

Troy went and found Gobo and the two went to the town square and sat on a bench. Troy put his arm around Gobo. “You know you’re my best friend, don’t you?”

“Always.”

“What do we do next?”

“We go back to the mill and get the sign off the front of it. We’ll have to bring a crowbar.”

Troy gave the dog a tight squeeze.