John woke up to the smell of his own blood.
His eyes opened, or tried to. The left one still refused, sealed shut with dried fluid and swelling. The right gave him a narrow view of wooden rafters overhead, different rafters than the servant dormitory. These were lower, cruder, unpainted.
Pain hit him in waves. His ribs screamed with each breath. His face felt like tenderized meat. Moving his jaw sent lightning through his skull.
Where was he?
He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His body had other plans, mainly staying exactly where it was and crying about it.
Footsteps approached. Heavy boots on stone.
"He's moving." A guard's voice, not the captain but one of the others.
More footsteps. These lighter, more purposeful. John recognized the gait before he saw the person.
The young lord appeared in his limited field of vision. Still wearing the same clothes from the hunt, compression shirt and golden jacket both stiff with dried blood. It covered him from chin to waist, brown and flaking. His hair was matted with it. He looked like he'd bathed in the bear.
But his face had color again. The gaunt hollowness was gone, replaced with his usual aristocratic beauty. The divine power's cost had been paid in full, refunded through violent consumption.
The lord looked down at John with the expression of someone examining a broken tool.
"Too stupid," he said finally. "Too stupid to be useful near civilized people."
John's mouth moved. Sound came out but not words, just a wet gurgle that hurt his split lip.
"You entered my private carriage. You witnessed me in a state of weakness. You lack even the most basic understanding of proper conduct." The lord crouched down, bringing his blood crusted face level with John's. "I can't have you around the manor. You're a liability. An embarrassment."
He stood, brushing imaginary dust from his ruined clothes.
"Take him to the kennels. Let him sleep with the hounds for a while. Maybe they'll teach him about hierarchy."
The guards moved without hesitation. Hands grabbed John under his arms and dragged him upright. His legs couldn't support his weight. They buckled immediately and he would have collapsed if not for the iron grips holding him.
They hauled him through corridors he couldn't focus on, down stairs that each step was its own fresh agony. Servants pressed themselves against walls as they passed, faces carefully blank. No one made eye contact. No one intervened.
Outside. The air hit different, cooler, tinged with the smell of animals and hay and manure. They'd brought him around to the back of the estate, away from the main buildings.
The kennels were a long low structure, stone walls and a thatched roof. John could hear dogs inside, lots of them, their movements and occasional barks creating a constant background noise.
A handler appeared, a older man with scarred forearms and the hunched posture of someone who worked with large animals. He took one look at John's condition and frowned.
"He gonna survive the night?"
"Not our concern," one of the guards said. "Lord's orders. He stays with the dogs."
The handler shrugged. "Your funeral if he dies. But I'm not cleaning up a corpse."
"He won't die. Probably." The guard sounded completely indifferent to which outcome occurred.
They dragged John through the kennel entrance. The smell intensified, that distinctive dog smell multiplied by dozens. The building stretched back farther than he'd expected, lined on both sides with large pens. Hunting dogs, by the look of them, lean and muscular breeds built for chasing down game.
Most of the pens were empty. The dogs were still out, John's pain addled brain supplied. Out hunting or training or whatever dogs did during the day.
They hauled him to a pen near the back. Larger than the others, probably meant for multiple dogs. The floor was covered in straw that looked relatively fresh, which was more consideration than John had expected.
The guards opened the gate and threw him inside.
John hit the straw and stayed down. His body had given up on the concept of voluntary movement.
The gate clanged shut. A lock clicked.
"Water's in the corner if you can reach it. Food comes when the dogs eat. Don't die before morning."
Footsteps retreated. A door slammed.
Silence, except for the ambient sounds of the kennel. Scratching. Distant barking. The rustle of straw from neighboring pens.
John lay there and tried to inventory his injuries. Definitely cracked ribs, at least two, maybe three. His nose was either broken or severely bruised. His left eye socket felt wrong, the bone around it tender in a way that suggested microfractures. His lips were split in multiple places. Various bruises covered approximately all of his torso and limbs.
Nothing immediately fatal. Probably.
He'd survived getting hit by a truck only to get beaten half to death by fantasy world guards for the crime of trying to help. The irony would have been funny if laughing didn't feel like someone was stabbing him repeatedly.
Time passed. Hard to track without being able to see the sun. The light coming through the high windows shifted from afternoon to evening, golden to orange to dim.
His thirst got worse. The mention of water in the corner taunted him. He tried moving toward it once, managed to shift maybe six inches before the pain forced him to stop. The water might as well have been on another continent.
So he just lay there in the straw, breathing shallow to minimize rib movement, and waited for whatever came next.
The sounds started gradually. First one set of paws on gravel outside. Then more, a whole pack returning from wherever they'd been. Excited barking, the handler's voice calling commands, gates opening and closing as dogs were returned to their pens.
Getting closer.
John's pen was near the back, so he had time to listen to each gate clang open and shut, each group of dogs settling in for the evening. The animals were loud, energetic, clearly well fed and well trained but still fundamentally dogs.
Finally, footsteps approached his pen.
The gate swung open.
John turned his head, using his one functional eye to see what was coming.
Four dogs entered. Massive things, easily a hundred pounds each. Some kind of hunting breed, all lean muscle and alert ears. Their coats were clean, brushed, clearly well maintained.
They spotted John immediately.
Four sets of eyes locked onto the bleeding stranger in their sleeping area.
One of them growled, low and questioning.
The gate clanged shut behind them.
The dogs began to wake up fully, shaking off the laziness of the walk back, their attention fixed entirely on John.