Who You Are In The Dark

The last rays of twilight were fading, and only a faint line of orange along the horizon remained of the sun.  The stars were just beginning to appear, and the competitors seemed to take this as a cue that it was time to settle in for the night.

            Beyra wished she could do the same; however her duty as the tournament champion was far from over. She had dismissed a number of her aids so that they could find food for themselves nearly three hours ago, but as they now returned she could tell from the lack of bloodscent on them that they had found nothing. Ribs were beginning to show prominently on proctor and competitor alike, and even the champion was hard pressed to ignore the insistent cramps in her empty stomach.

            “It’s no good, ma’am,” the largest of her helpers growled softly. “What little prey remained has been driven into hiding by all the ice outside. I couldn’t get so much as a sniff of anything edible, less you’re desperate enough to eat any of our own who froze last night.”

            The remaining hounds murmured in agreement, and the champion sighed. “I figured. It was already doomed to be a hard winter, and the population troubles have only made things worse.”

            “We can’t keep angry mutts in line with empty stomachs, Beyra,” another whined softly. “What would we do if they got unruly?”

            She snorted. “They’re as hungry as we are, idiot. Not only that, they’re also exhausted from the previous rounds. We can manage eight dogs, even if they try to rebel. You know as well as I that the smooth progress of the tourney is more important than ever.”

            Her aids seemed uneasy still, but there was little choice and they all knew it. The champion spoke again, “Round four will begin in the morning. We-”

            A loud crash resounded through the gymnasium, startling the competitors out of their dozing. The last two of Beyra’s aids who had left to hunt shot into the room, scurrying towards their boss. The St Bernard mix immediately stood and led the proctors out of the room and away from the curious ears of their charges. Once they were out of earshot she growled softly to the panting duo. “That was quite the spectacle you made of yourselves. The hell are you playing at?”

            “M… ma’am,” rasped a small grey mutt covered in scars. “You d-didn’t see wh… what we saw. We went farther afield to find food, but we found something else instead. It seems that some of the other predators in the city have decided to help us with the dog population problem.”

            The champion’s fur bristled. “Go on.”

            “They never come this far into town, but we smelled them.” The grey whimpered. “Wolves. Bears even. They’re still a ways from here, but no telling how long it’ll be before they come this far.”

            Beyra snarled softly. “So they’ve run out of prey in their territories and come sniffing around here.”

            “Ma’am, the tournament is hardly a secret,” a yellow furred aid pointed out. “No doubt they’re aware that there will be hounds here weak from hunger and exhaustion, and injured pretty bad to boot.”

            “What would you have me do?” the champion asked, exasperated. “Call off the tournament, so that the competitors can scurry into hiding? You know as well as I do the mutts around here would never stand for that.”

            “This tourney has already shown a pretty low death-toll,” the largest helper added softly. “Out of nearly fifty mutts who were eliminated in the first two rounds, only eight have been confirmed dead. I’m surprised they haven’t come to us bitching about it already. This violence is only tolerated by the masses because it’s supposed to help the population, but there’s just too many idiots this time around who seem to think that they’re heroes. They keep going on about how wrong the tourney is without actually proposing a better solution to, you know, the problem that makes the damn thing necessary in the first place. And in the meantime their stubborn insistence on mercy is killing us all.”

            “So what do we do then?” the grey dog asked again. Beyra’s amber eyes narrowed, and for a long time she was silent. At length, the champion raised her head and sighed.

            “We have to end this as quickly as possible. If a bunch of guileless, unseasoned puppies with more stars in their eyes than sense in their heads think they’re going to save the day, maybe a taste of the real brutality of the city will wake ‘em up. Round up the mutts and pair them off; let's see if they still think the city can be saved with petty idealism when they've seen what it's like after the sun goes down.”

            “What about the other predators?” the yellow aid demanded.

            “Hopefully the dogs that froze yesterday will be enough to distract them. If not… Well I did say the competitors would be getting a taste of the city’s brutality. Let ‘em give their hero speeches to a starving bear and see where it gets them.”