They crouched midst broad tuffets of musty earth. Grassy-topped tur­rets of root and soil carved by flood­wa­ter. No water flowed among them now: Only thick­ly swirling fog and acrid smoke.

Sol­diers crouched there, their black jack­boots and woolen knees sopped through with mud and tram­pled grubs. Men and women in dirt-caked bur­gundy jack­ets, eyes ner­vous and wide neath bat­tered, black helms topped with rust­ed spikes. They held close to the tuffets, ser­vice gun­springs and tas­seled par­ti­zans couched close and ready. They kept smoke-red­dened eyes fixed south, on the deep swirl of vapor; the high, dif­fuse sun above, and the pil­lars of graphite smoke in the dis­tance.

From the grey wash came a pat­ter­ing splash of boot­steps. The sol­diers twitched col­lec­tive­ly, kept steel points and iron­sights search­ing for a prospec­tive charge.

A young scout was all that emerged. Pant­i­ng, hel­met­less, and smeared head to toe in mud. He stag­gered in a wild and stoop­ing run, clutch­ing his side. At the sight of him, his fel­lows mur­mured in inter­est, looked on with antic­i­pa­tion as he stopped, weak­ly salut­ed, addressed the near­est offi­cer.

“Cap­tain, I…” He stag­gered. Two enlist­ed men rush to sup­port him and found his uni­form soiled not just with mud, but with copi­ous red from a broad slice under one arm. He was blanched, blue in the face.

The Cap­tain, in her mud­dy plumed hel­met, star­tled. “Beren,” she lift­ed his head, found his eyes glassy. “Beren. Come on, you must speak. What has befall­en you? Does the cav­al­ry still hunt us? What of the 302nd?”

Beren lolled, looked her in the eye. A drib­ble of red rolled from his lip. “They are com­ing.” 

“Who are com­ing, man? The cav­al­ry? The grenadiers?”

“Cobbe­hun­den.” His head lolled for­ward. A line of red mucous dripped to the wormy soil.

The Cap­tain like­wise lost her col­or, for at that moment, a scream broke through the mist.

Eyes and gun­spring muz­zles turned on a sin­gle tuffet, for around its earth­en side had come a spi­der, large and hairy as a mas­tiff. Eight fur­ry, three-clawed paws knead­ed like an eager cat’s, gouged the rooty soil. Ser­rat­ed mandibles worked in antic­i­pa­tion, drip­ping ven­om. 

A moment of hor­rid silence. The sol­diers stared, match­ing the unmov­ing black clutch­es of eyes.

There was a crack. Some­body loosed a shot and missed. The spi­der twitched and leapt in reac­tion, clear­ing ten meters to set upon a sol­dier, bear­ing her down into the mud. Sick­le-jaws snipped through wool and flesh with soft, slick resis­tance; like shears through ripe fruit.

A crack­ling bar­rage of flechettes crunched through its cara­pace, rip­ping trails of corn­flower-blue ichor through the sour air. It seized and rolled bel­ly-up to twitch, dying, beside its kill. The shots echoed, reced­ed into the fog. Sol­diers’ eyes held, wide and hor­ri­fied, on that inward-curl­ing car­cass; and on the spread­ing stain from their ruined com­rade.

Breath­ing shal­low, they lis­tened, for in the dying ring of shots, there gained a charge. Not hoof­beats, but the pat­ter­ing of uncount­ed seething claws.

“Pre­pare to receive charge!” The Cap­tain lev­eled her pis­tol, shak­ing in her gloved hand. Par­ti­zans and gun muz­zles hasti­ly redi­rect­ed, point­ed to meet too late a rush of spi­ders from the vaporous morass.

A scut­tling flood through the tuffets, leap­ing and scam­per­ing; click­ing and chat­ter­ing like peb­bles dropped down a wash­board. Shots rang out, inter­cept­ed many in-air, then died as a score of snap­ping jaws bore sol­dier after sol­dier to the earth, min­gled mud with spilled gore. The Cap­tain fell soon after the rest, snipped through the eyes, squeez­ing off ran­dom shots in the ner­vous spasms of her dying hand. 

By the time horse­men arrived a half minute behind, all grey den­im and chain coats, the sol­diers in bur­gundy were undone. Each lay, a resect­ed mess, neath a hunched war spi­der, its jaws clamped and suck­ing for fresh­ly run­ning flu­ids. They dis­mount­ed, calm­ly clipped chain leash­es to the war spi­ders’ col­lared waists. When they’d fin­ished feed­ing, the han­dlers clicked their tongues, led the cob­hounds qui­et­ly away. 

“Come on, Basc. Tell me where the mon­ey is.”

Basc, blood­ied and tied to a rick­ety chair, smirked. “Nah,” he said. A bit of gum­my scab stretched at the cor­ner of his lip. “Don’t fan­cy I should.”

His inter­roga­tor cracked her knuck­les, turned a lip. She stood before him on the hay-strewn floor of a shed, neath the shine of a hang­ing lamp, burn­ing low. It cast her broad face with heavy shad­ow, twist­ed that expres­sion into a dis­pleased car­i­ca­ture. 

“Basc,” she drawled. “I’ll give you anoth­er lick, lest you com­ply right soon.” 

“Do it, hag. I know you’d love to get your fat hands on m–.”

She did. A spray of sweat and min­gled red pat­tered the wood­en floor and mildewed straw. The flat thump of the blow knocked Basc’s head askew. He right­ed him­self, gig­gled wet­ly.

“Me boys’ll be here soon, Hele,” he said, jaw slack. “N’ you’ll be sor­ry. They know where to go.”

“Ye? Where are we, then?”

“We’re in the shed behind the Wes­ket. Bar­man rents it to you. Takes pity on account of you not afford­ing prop­er rooms.”

“Hah,” said Hele. “Bloody wrong.” She stomped ‘cross the shed, pushed the door open. Pale moon­light and a dusty scent of dry corn washed into the lit­tle room. Out­side, there was naught but blue-black sky and wav­ing fields. “See? Them’s Fen­ton’s fields.”

“Shit.”

“Ye, you’re in it. Now, tell me where the mon­ey is, ye down dirty cut­ter.”

“Nah.”

She hit him again. In the gut. Basc groaned, bent, spat up bile down his already-stained front. “I’ll show ye to the hounds, Basc. Fen­ton’s not fed’m for a week.”

“Do it. I’m no’ afraid of some mutts.” 

Hele grinned. Broad teeth shone in the moon­light. “You asked for it.” She seized the back of the chair, spun Basc around, dragged him scrap­ing out of the shed and over the clover lawn. Hele puffed, yanked him along through the night air, scraped two fur­rows of soil behind.

Basc wig­gled his feet. “Be mighty iron­ic if your fat heart gave out right now, eh?”

“Stuff it.”

“We’d both be canned,” he pat­tered. “I don’t fan­cy you all grue­some. Big-boned, n’ all. Can ye afford yer salt, Mas­ter ‘Lives-in-a-She–” At that, he yelped. Hele had jerked him along so hard his head cracked ‘gainst the chair back.

“I’ll feed yer bones to the swine, Basc,” smirked the woman.

“Ye, right.”

They drew near a low ken­nel. A squat, long, peak-roofed hut.  The door com­plained as Hele wrenched it open, yanked the chair onto the floor inside, shut it again. It was quite dark with­in and smelt of dirt and spoil­ing meat. 

“Last chance,” said Hele, in the dark.

“I said,” he sneered, voice sticky. “I ain’t afraid of no dogs.”

Hele chuck­led, and a match fizzed, flared. She lit a lantern. The bars of the ken­nel illu­mi­nat­ed, just before Basc’s face. Cast iron bars, rusty, coat­ed in thick, tan­gled webs. Some­thing scratched in the dark, moved just out­side the light. Basc’s expres­sion abrupt­ly turned to pan­ic.

“Oh, shit. Those hounds,” he gab­bled.

“What about those hounds, Basc? They look usu­al to me. N’ hun­gry.”

“Come on, Hele. You won’t.”

“There’s three, in there,” said the woman. She leaned close behind Basc; one hand on his bound shoul­der, the oth­er point­ed towards the dark. There, two dozen beads of bunched eyes shone, swam, like soap bub­bles grouped on black water.

“Come on, it’s not my mon­ey to give. They’ll kill me!”

“Yeh?” Hele scoot­ed his chair against the bars, so the man’s shak­ing knees poked through. Deep in the ken­nel, the eyes crept for­ward, slow, revealed drip­ping, sick­le-like pin­cers gnaw­ing below. They part­ed, emit­ted a high, excit­ed click­ing. Hair rose on Basc’s neck. Hele grinned, point­ed again. “They will.”

One cob­hound crept for­ward, eight legs rip­pling, pro­pelling the leath­ery, hard­ened body for­ward. It stopped. The hair of its limbs twitched. Its pin­cers lift­ed, as if sniff­ing, inch­es from Basc’s knee. He screamed, soft­ly.

“Alright!” Rope creaked as he strained. Sweat rolled down his brow. “I’ll tell.” He gulped, squirm­ing. “I’ll tell. U-under the stile in Broughton’s Dri­ve.”

Hele leaned close. So did the hound; an inch near­er, pin­cers wav­ing. “You sure?” said the woman, threat res­o­nant in her tone.

“As crys­tal.”

“Hmph.” Hele pulled him back. She drew a knife, bent. There was a rip­ping sound.

“The shite are you doing?” said Basc.

“Takin’ a sam­ple.” She held up a thready, stained scrap of shirt. 

“For what?” Basc wrig­gled. Sweat dripped from his nose. “Let me go! I told you where the mon­ey is.”

Hele smiled, took a knife to his ropes, saw­ing. They split, dropped from wrist and ankle. She backed away; knife point­ed at the blood­ied man. “Ge’ up. Ye can go.”

Basc bolt­ed aright, stag­gered away. He backed towards the ken­nel door, insist­ed: “For what?”

“Scent for the hounds, Basc, and insur­ance for me. In case you’re a liar.” She grinned even wider, held up the scrap, chuck­led. “Ye best be going.”

Basc gulped. The ken­nel door banged open as he flew into the blue moon­light, took off flail­ing over the fields. Behind him trailed Hele’s rau­cous laugh­ter

Laugh­ter, min­gled with the click­ing bay of the hounds.

A cob­hound does­n’t like you.

Although you walk it, and feed it, and pet its wiry fur, it is not lov­ing. Though it stands guard, and nev­er bites, and obeys your com­mands, it is not loy­al. Though it is yours, and pro­tects you, and nev­er runs away, it is not your friend. It is not a dog, and it does­n’t like you at all.

A cob­hound likes one thing: Meat. It eats plen­ti­ful­ly, but not often. A pile of butcher’s scraps will do. Skins, and organs, and rot­ten meats. It takes the lot into its cob­webbed ken­nel and nib­bles and slurps away, sat­is­fied. That is one of the few things it can feel: Sat­is­fac­tion. Not plea­sure, but sim­ply the rote ful­fill­ment of a require­ment.

Because you have pro­vid­ed for its sat­is­fac­tion since its pup­py­hood, it has attached itself to you. It does not like you; you are mere­ly a provider. The tasks you ask of it are mere­ly the cus­tom­ary cost of easy meat. So long as you con­tin­ue to pro­vide for it, it will stand beside you. It will accept your home, and your pet­ting, and your com­mands, and it will do so until it shriv­els up and dies of old age.

You will find the cob­hound is not a dog. Rather, it is a cob. * A wolf spi­der made domes­tic.

The wolf spi­der was not hard to domes­ti­cate. By a sim­ple offer­ing of meat, main­tained over gen­er­a­tions, Lit­toran pio­neers quick­ly attained the spi­der’s alliance, rather than its pre­da­tion. Since, they have kept mul­ti­far­i­ous breeds of the beast for hunt­ing, com­pan­ion­ship, and war for over two hun­dred years.

If you wish for a hunt­ing hound, the cob­hound is with­out match- with excep­tions. In killing, it excels. In retriev­ing, it fails com­plete­ly. A cob­hound will not hap­pi­ly fer­ry downed birds to you, because it can­not under­stand the con­cept: To a cob­hound, there is no hunt­ing unless it is per­son­al­ly involved in the killing.

It will, how­ev­er, read­i­ly take a scent and run down any prey imag­in­able. It will do so at great dis­tance, over ter­rain of any dimen­sion­al­i­ty, and it will rarely fail. Unavoid­ably, it will attempt to kill its tar­get; for again, it knows no pur­pose in hunt­ing but killing. Game ani­mals, con­victs, and boun­ty tar­gets alike, no mat­ter how they run, will nigh-unerr­ing­ly find them­selves the unfor­tu­nate recip­i­ent of a sicced cob­hound’s bite.

If you wish for a com­pan­ion, there are sure­ly more per­son­able options. How­ev­er, this does­n’t stop many folks at all, for they keep the crea­tures any­way. Cob­hound fan­cy has pro­duced a range of breeds, var­ied in appear­ance, but not in tem­pera­ment. Orange cobs; brown cobs; cobs with fur black and thick as smoke off an oil fire. Small cobs; large cobs; cobbs with tiny bod­ies and long legs. Some with red eyes, some with green. All inter­est­ing, but none too friend­ly. For in spi­der behav­ior, there are mere­ly to per­mu­ta­tions: Aggres­sive, and docile. The docile ones are loved for pets. The aggres­sive ones are kept for war.

If you dear­ly desire some­one hurt, and hurt very bad­ly at that, you set a cob­hound on them. A broad, scythe-fanged war cob, all thick, leath­ery-hard flesh, tex­tured like the pad of a dog’s paw, and wiry, sharp hairs. It’ll do, and it’ll do very well.

Cobs meant for war and guard duty are vicious indeed, when hun­gry. They are starved a lit­tle, then unleashed to ful­fill their pur­pose. This prac­tice, when used in war, typ­i­cal­ly as an aug­ment to cav­al­ry charges, it a top­ic of some con­cern. Many nation­al bod­ies, stat­ing crimes born of the Lothrheim/Belvirine con­flict, have cried for a ban on cob­hounds used in war. 

They demand a ban on human­i­tar­i­an grounds. Not for the humane nature of how a cob kills, how­ev­er. That is not an issue at all, for a cob­hound trained for war is very adept at killing quick­ly. No.

Rather, they declaim the inhu­man­i­ty of the very con­cept; of giant spi­ders unleashed on human troops and let to feed on human flesh. Of a bat­tle tac­tic not mod­ern, but ancient. The self­same tac­tic used mil­len­nia ago by sor­cer­er-kings of old to rout and scour the coun­try­side with a mon­strous horde.

But yet, you will still see the cob­hound used in war, unleashed ever­more fre­quent­ly as a scut­tling van­guard before cav­al­ry, or as a flush sent down ene­my trench­es. Com­man­ders know the util­i­ty of a crea­ture so com­mit­ted to killing. They know all a cob­hound wants is one thing, and it is very apt at get­ting it from Human­i­ty.

A very sim­ple thing:

Meat.

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