Page 193 of Phoenix's Fire

"Good girl!" I said again, offering her another treat. "Gun?"

Again she nosed it, which made me put the weapon down so I could hug and praise her. While I did that, Kanik came over, picked up the weapon, and returned to where he'd been standing. When he was ready, he nodded.

Without standing, I ordered, "Holly, fetch the gun!" This time I didn't point.

She turned, looked for a moment, then took off. This time, Kanik was holding it the way the hunters did, so she jumped up, grabbing the weapon and bouncing off his chest just like she had with the stick that day.

A grunt flew from Kanik's mouth. He and the dog fell in different directions, but Holly was halfway back to me by the time Kanik's rump landed on the grass. I immediately started cheering my dog on. And when she dropped the gun before me, I hurried to give her the toy.

"That's my girl!" I beamed. "Oh, you're such a good dog!"

Which was when Zasen snagged the weapon, proving he'd been watching us. "She's just fetching," he said. "She can't tell the difference between this and a stick."

"So you hold it," Kanik dared him. "Go ahead, Zasen. Act like you're a hunter."

So Zasen lifted the weapon. He wasn't holding it right, since the end was under his arm instead of tucked against his shoulder, but that didn't matter. I had faith in my dog.

"Gun!" I yelled. "Holly, gun! Fetch gun!"

She dropped her toy and rushed him. I saw as Zasen's eyes went wide, and the man backed up a step before she launched herself into his chest, twisting her body even as she stole the rifle from him and brought it back.

Zasen hadn't fallen on his rump, but she had knocked him down to a knee, and I wanted to gloat about it. "So, if you were a Mole, how would you kill me now?" I asked, hurrying to pet and feed my dog as her reward.

"Okay, she's terrifying like that," he conceded. "But there's one problem I see."

"What?" I asked.

"She came at me straight on. That makes it easy to see her coming and shoot at her."

"Shit, that's a good point," Kanik said.

I passed Holly her toy and thought about it. When we went hunting, we rarely came at anything from the front. Some things would run if spotted. Others would attack. When fighting the Moles, it was basically the same. Dragons used their coloration to their advantage, but Lansin's list of commands for the dogs was mostly used for hunting. Wait.

"Can we do it again?" I asked.

So Kanik came over to get the gun again. I got up and moved to the back of the yard, over by the cliff, but Zasen had a better idea.

"Kanik, come at me," he suggested. "Let's see if Holly can do this when it's not about Ayla."

"Nice," Kanik said, pretending to hold the weapon like a hunter and creeping across the yard the way they did when hunting.

"Holly," I whispered, not wanting to be too loud. "See it." Her attention snapped to where I was pointing and her body went tense. "Come by," I ordered.

She immediately headed left, keeping herself low to the ground. Zasen was now taunting Kanik, moving sideways as if he was trying to sneak into the house. Holly was moving in the opposite direction.

"Push!" I ordered, struggling not to yell. Her hearing was good so I didn't need to.

She immediately began moving behind him, encouraging him to keep going the same way he was. Slowly, stealthily, she was gaining on him. When she was five paces away, I finally gave the command.

"Holly, gun!"

From her crouched little movements, the dog exploded into a full run and leaped at him from both behind and beside him, coming in at a diagonal. Kanik barely had time to flinch before she'd wrenched the gun from his hands.

"Good girl!" I squealed, shaking her toy as she hurried back. "Oh, you're such a good dog, aren't you?"

"We need a better command," Zasen said as he and Kanik made their way over. "Saying gun is - "

We both laughed as my dog looked up excitedly, then dropped her nose down to the gun still laying on the ground.