"Tylock: Black Dog of Caen" by Yuri Mataev

Black Dog of Caen     It was not a happy year for the New Caen City Watch, and particularly for Lieutenant Asciander of the New Caen City Watch, 4th District, a part-elf and hence the name. This was a time of turmoil among the criminal groups, and naturally, the turmoil tended to get messy. There were new gangs in town and no one was willing to hand over a piece of the pie. Dead bodies turned up with such frequency that they threatened to become routine. In this increasingly difficult situation, Asciander was faced by another crime, a crime that would yet be remembered for a long time. It was the famous case of the Black Dog of Caen.
    His first brush with the Black Dog would come during the blizzards that swept through the city in the end of autumn and gave the City Watch its first real break in a long ongoing war against crime. The cold was terrible, never before seen in that part of the land. Birds froze in their nests. Ice formed on the Ani’yun. Not a whisker could be seen of New Caen’s huge feral cat and dog populations, except for the occasional body, frozen stiff. But Watchmen agreed, it was better than finding the bodies of citizens any day.
    It was on one such day, absolutely frigid, that Asciander began the case of the Black Dog of Caen. He was out on patrol with a trio of men, watchmen not daring to venture out in groups of less than four in this weather, when they chanced to go down Bakerspath Alley. It was not on the patrol route, but was a shortcut, quiet and out of the wind, down to North Street. For best or worst they came upon a door, flung wide ajar. The watchmen knew something was wrong instantly. No one would forget to close a door in this weather.
    Their worst fears were justified. The inside was a slaughterhouse. The dead body of an elf greeted them at the door, frozen stiff and lying in a puddle of solid blood. There were more bodies inside. The small house had apparently been shared by two families. Some of the things that had been done caused even the most cold-blooded of the watchmen to pale. In fascinated horror, Asciander had stepped forward to take a closer, terrified look and that was when he tread on a tooth, or more accurately, the fragment of a tooth, knocked out of its owner’s mouth. That was too much for him, and he was sick violently.
    The evidence was inconclusive. Only one of them had had a clue, Sergeant Serol. He had heard a rumor. It was a simple bit of gossip about one of the new major players in New Caen’s criminal world: the Black Dog of Caen did not like elves. No culprit was caught, but the name stuck and stayed.

    The case had been filed away, eventually, as there was no progress on it and they had had enough other work to occupy their time. Serol had figured the crime was another to add to that long list of ‘political’ assassinations. He meant criminal politics, of course.
    The city was just one big bunch of gangs, Asciander thought bitterly sometimes. If you weren’t part of one, you were part of another: guilds, religious groups, racial groups, political factions, criminal organizations, militias, clans, crime families… the list was endless. Even we’re a gang, he would conclude eventually, the City Watch and City Administration. One big gang that took care of its own and had so much power that it could write the rules.
    The case would have been forgotten, like many others that winter, but this was not to be. The Black Dog of Caen had struck again with renewed fury. There were eight victims, all elves again, brutally murdered. They had been living in a tenement house in the middle of the 4th District. The crime had been reported by the landlady, who had hidden, nearly witless with terror in a cupboard on the first floor. She had considered it a lucky chance that the murderers hadn’t found her. Asciander connected the miracle with the fact that she had been the only human in the building.
    The case was dug out of the archive room.
    Only a week later, the Elvish Quarter in the Lower City burned down. Dozens died in the fire itself and hundreds were left homeless and penniless in the middle of the winter. At the time, Asciander never even considered that the accident could be connected to the Black Dog of Caen. However, as the case unfolded, the more plausible the theory seemed.

    Asciander knew what the news was going to be about as soon as he saw the frightened youthful face of Constable Dax. He only half-listened to Dax’s babbling explanation, as he wrapped a cloak around himself and took a sword from the rack at the door.
    The two of them had been on patrol, Dax and Mattwell, down through the Lower City and past the edge of the Pits, when Sergeant Mattwell had spotted a dark shape in the snow. It was an elf’s body thrown out the window of a house at Goodwill Street, just past the corner of the Griffin Road. The watchmen had called a second patrol – and they were no idiots, they had probably given the culprits plenty of room to get away, Asciander noted. At this point Dax’s speech grew completely incoherent. As far as Asciander understood, it was another ‘Black Dog’ case. Four elves, all dead. Like the previous times, they had been beaten and then stabbed. If Dax were anything to judge by, and he was not shaken more easily than the next man, the bodies were not a pretty sight.
    As Lieutenant Asciander hurried through the cold, wintery streets of New Caen, pulling the cloak as tight as he could around his gaunt body, his breath crystallizing in the air, he did not even suspect that this murder was the one that would be the downfall of the Black Dog of Caen.
For there was a witness.
    The elf that the guards had found was still alive, only by the happy chance of an uncleared snowdrift, but nevertheless alive. She had been taken to the nearest watch house, no more than a place to stop out of the rain, but warm and cozy. The elf was feverish and hypothermic, but pretty much unhurt. Unhurt is a relative term, of course, but in this case it meant unhurt as compared to the rest of the elves. She had a few minor cuts and bruises and a dislocated jaw. Mattwell also guessed that some ribs might be broken, but there was nothing they could do about that. She had probably been evicted at an early point in the slaughter.
    Blessfully, she hadn’t witnessed the crime or seen the bodies. It might have driven her over the edge into insanity. All this Mattwell told Asciander when the latter arrived at the scene. The elf was fully aware that whoever else had been in the house were dead. She had wept, once she had drunk a warm cup of something orcish, brewed up by Constable Tikaluju.

    The watchmen guarding the entrance to the house looked grim. More of them had been called in and Mattwell assured there was an equal number in reserve.
    “Here, sir, it’s official orders from Minister Citmin,” Mattwell offered him a sheaf of papers. “This is a top priority case from now on. The elves aren’t happy, so the Administration has to do something before they take the law into their own hands. No knowing what that can lead to.”
    The sergeant had an uncanny ability to hit the nail on the head. Short but well-built, he often pretended to be thick-skinned and not too bright, but his thoughts were lightning quick and he was fast on the uptake. It was revealed and only partly when it was time to act. Asciander wondered why the sergeant had never sought promotion. Mattwell could easily have made it to captain, and even further.
    “Nothing’s been disturbed, I made sure of that,” Mattwell nudged the door open and the darkness behind it yawned ominously. “The door was unlocked… Like every time before.”
    The sergeant handed Asciander a lantern. His face looked slightly pained.
    “Would you mind if I didn’t go in there again, sir?”
    The plea surprised Asciander. He had never known Mattwell to be disturbed by anything. He nodded mutely and stepped through, bracing himself for whatever lay inside.

    It seemed a long time until Asciander saw daylight again. He felt amazingly focused. He suddenly realized that he was perspiring despite the cold.
    “Sir, are you alright?” It was constable Guire peering worriedly at him. Behind the young man, Mattwell’s eyes, sad and penetrating, revealed that he knew perfectly well how Asciander felt. The lieutenant began to speak but was forced to stop and clear his throat. His mouth was dry.
    “The elf girl,” he paused attempting to line his thoughts up. “The witness. I don’t want her to come anywhere near here until the place has been cleaned up.”
    He turned to Mattwell.
    “Did you find anything?”
    The sergeant shook his head gravely.
    “No evidence again. They plan their attacks well. One set of neighbors, trolls, were and the other, a few young men and women were too busy enjoying themselves to notice anything. We have nothing, except what the witness can reveal to us. They messed up there.”
Asciander nodded.
    “You’ll want to see her now, sir? Follow me.”

    Miles away, Tylock, known as the Black Dog of Caen behind his back, was wondering if it had been such a good idea to start this latest step in his personal war against elves: the murder of whole households. In these troubled times, the killing of single elves could pass unnoticed with the City Watch, but dead families could hardly escape the hounds’ vigilance.
    He gingerly brushed his fingers over the stitches on his face and leaned back in his armchair. Tylock wasn’t tall but wide in the shoulders to make up for that. His jet-black hair curled untidily over his head and ears. His eyes were a dreamy brown and all in all, he looked rather attractive. His life might have been quite different if it hadn’t been for… circumstances.
    It was definitely a mistake to have gone to yesterday’s massacre in person. They had broken the door down like every time before, and all had seemed fine. Then that elf bitch had crashed a ceramic vase over his head and damn well near cut him open with a kitchen knife. Of course, he couldn’t have afforded to lose face in front of his men so he dealt with her swiftly. Several crushing blows to her head and body and she had collapsed. He had pushed her out the window for good measure. He was furious, naturally, and had slaughtered the rest of the elves almost single-handedly, with blood flowing into his eyes.
    No… Enough was enough. He would go back to single murders. Tylock felt the line of scars all along his forehead. Ceodae, his surgeon, had sewn him up as best she could. Staring into the flickering fire, his thoughts grew more dark and troubled.
    After a while, the door opened and another man came into the room. He was taller and lighter in complexion. He sat down across from Tylock, a frown on his face, and paused expectantly. The latter looked up.
    “What is it, Vass?” he said irritably.
    Vass sighed.
    “You know that the elf girl survived?” he addressed the matter directly.
    Tylock froze in surprise.
    “The one… She… Who?… The one who tried to brain me?” he stuttered finally.
    “Yes.”
    Tylock’s hands dug into the arms of his chair until they were white. He digested the information silently and then suddenly pulled down at his own hair, his jaw clenched.
    It was over. Simple as that. Over. Over. OVER.
    Tylock hissed, words running half-formed over his tongue, but there was no word so far invented that could adequately express what he was feeling. He quieted eventually and unfolded from the chair, determination in his eyes.
    “We have to run,” he said finally.
    Vass nodded with his usual good humor.
    “I was waiting for you to come to that conclusion. Come, we must hurry. The hounds have already caught Sen. He’ll crack, so we have to move quickly. We’ll go to some city-state out east and lie low for a while. Then when things have calmed down around here we’ll venture back.”

    Events moved too fast for them. Sen cracked sooner than they expected. A few hours later they were cornered in Tylock’s own house and arrested. Tylock wanted to fight to the death, but Vass had stopped him and they surrendered together. Vass’s last words before they were separated were, “Trust me, shut up and stay quiet. You will survive this. And try not to forget me.” Tylock had been confused, but did as he was told.
    The trial was brief. Vass took the blame for planning everything upon himself. He portrayed Tylock as a mere hitman, and even then not responsible for any of the murders. Vass knew perfectly well what he was claiming. He hung.
    Tylock was tried for setting out as a hired killer, participating in an armed crime group, forcing entry and the attempted murder of Leandeia Gileross, the principal witness. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Carted away to the labor camps of the north, he was a crushed man: subdued but angry. He would never forget. But he might, one day, learn.