Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

War SUCKS.  Winter is no better.  An airman without a plane in enemy territory… worse still!  And he’s found the Enemy!

Today’s story is “Cease Fire” by Nachtfangen, who is a former writer of Science Fantasy and High Fantasy, typically… well, exclusively, with furry subjects and you can find more of his stories on SoFurry.com

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is

“Cease Fire” by Nachtfangen,

who is a former writer of Science Fantasy

and High Fantasy, typically…

well, exclusively,

with furry subjects

and you can find more of his stories

on SoFurry.com

Cease Fire by Nachtfangen

The world was silent but for the moan of the wind

and the susurrus of snow blowing across snow .

Seized by a bitter cold so intense

that it made quiet, crystalline sounds, reminiscent of tin-foil being slowly wrinkled

if that foil had actually been made out of thin glass.

Corporal Voss, spinal gunner of the late Glory’s Folly bomber,

clutched his arms tightly about himself as he waded through the snow.

He was sorely ill prepared against the elements wearing little more than his uniform and flight suit.

He had wrapped his parachute around himself like a cumbersome white blanket

but it did little good against the frigid clutch of mid-winter

in the heights of the Spershyn mountains.

He wondered if he had been the only one to escape the doomed bomber that had disappeared over the crest of the

ridge up which Voss slowly climbed.

The Glory had suffered a few nasty hit during their last sortie deep into the Cherbyn territories

and fallen behind the rest of the wing during the return flight.

Their radio, all radar, and ECM equipment had all been fragged by a flak hit that killed the navigator and radio man,

both of whom Voss had crewed with for three years.

They had been friends.

Then they were gone;

winked out like candle flames.

Without the radar equipment

the Glory had been forced to fly by sight alone,

icy wind roaring through the gaping hole where the communications and navigation consoles had once been.

The remains of the two crewmen were still strapped to their seats,

overlooking the view through that

devastating rent.

It was luck alone that kept the plane from being cut in half by the impact.

Forced to fly at a lower altitude by the damage,

Captain Eldin had threaded cautiously through the mountains,

until one of the engines damaged during the bombing run

failed catastrophically.

With a deafening roar it came apart,

the high speed turbines slicing through housing and wing like tissue.

Voss, in his position as spinal gunner,

had watched the wing tip upward,

flame gouting from the ruins of the engine and fuel cell.

It shook the entire aircraft with teeth rattling force before shearing off

and tumbling away behind them.

Doomed, the Glory’s Folly went into a flat spin,

her remaining turbine screaming as if in mourning for its lost twin.

Without consciously considering what he was doing at the time

Voss had cinched his escape parachute tight,

unlatched the roof hatch of his gun blister,

and climbed out into the shrieking icy fangs of the wind.

Just before he was ripped from the edge of the canopy

he saw flames pouring from the waist and tail gun ports.

After the lurching yank of his deploying chute

he managed to turn in the air,

watching as his stricken aircraft,

with his crew mates and friends still aboard,

carom off the crest of the ridge

and disappear into the valley beyond.

He distantly heard the grinding crash of impact but no explosion

and then naught but the wail of the wind as he spiraled down into a blessedly soft landing

in a deep drift of snow.

There was no getting his bearings after that point.

He had no idea where he was;

if he was on the allied side of the mountains or still in Cherbyn territory.

There were no villages visible in the valley he landed in;

just endless white through which the thin spires of alpine trees thrust like green fangs.

The nearest of those was

still some thousand feet or so below him.

The crest of the ridge

a similar height above, but in either direction

the slope was not steep.

The Glory was beyond that ridge;

and with her his crew;

his battle companions,

the disparate collection of people brought together by a conflict

they had not started nor expected to bring victory to by themselves.

Cogs in a vast machine of war, bent on destroying the Dogs of Cherbyn for reasons

Voss was not cogent of.

Just because they were Dogs, after a fashion, and not humans?

That could not really be the sole reason, but Voss

suspected it was.

They had resources in their Empire

that his own wanted.

They were not human,

thus animals to be exterminated.

Animals, granted, with guns and missiles and brains.

Animals with a tenacious will to survive against the might of the Human empire that inexorably spread itself over more

and more of the planet, subjugating or simply eliminating

any who thwarted them.

But all of that was naught, now.

The Glory was a wreck in the winter-clutched mountains and Voss was alone,

and miserably cold.

If ill luck brought death to his friends

there would still be some degree of shelter.

He doggedly trudged through the hip deep snow,

his feet numb beyond sensation,

his boots soaked through and icy wetness permeating his flight suit.

He shivered uncontrollably as he hugged the awkward bolt of rayon

that had brought him safely to earth around his body,

its lines dragging in the churned furrow of his passage.

Cresting the ridge through the gouge of naked rock left exposed by the doomed plane’s momentary contact,

Voss peered into the valley below.

A channel of ruined trees and polluted snow

led to the corpse of the Glory’s Folly

a couple thousand feet below.

Her remaining wing had sheared off

half way down the slope and from its twisted wreckage flames climbed.

Voss could not see any smoke coming from what remained of the fuselage.

Nothing moved on the mountainside

but for Voss. He slogged his way down the mountain

until he entered the debris field of the crash which had been blasted free of snow and trees

leaving a gouge scoured in the frozen earth beneath

that was easier to navigate but for the bits and pieces of wreckage strewn the length of the furrow.

Some things he recognized;

equipment and gear from the aircraft’s exterior like a mangled landing gear or

exterior access panels ripped free during the crash.

Much of it was utterly unrecognizable,

nothing more than

hideously twisted bits of metal,

insulation, and wiring.

He found the forty millimeter nose cannon

in a twisted mass like a plate of pasta,

testament to the violence of the last

lethal moments of the Glory’s Folly.

He was thirty meters from the fuselage

when a figure emerged from the gaping, twisted hole

of a waist gunner’s post.

He froze in surprise,

at first thinking that he was seeing a survivor escaping the impossible scene before him,

but a moment later surprise became fear,

and then fury, when the white-clad humanoid figure’s silhouette

percolated through his ice-numbed brain.

A Dog; one of the Cherbyns.

It was clad in a light uniform of winter white camouflage

and cradled in its arms was the limp,

savagely charred corpse of a human;

one of the crew. As Voss watched,

stunned mute and immobile,

the beast carried the corpse a short distance

and, with unexpected care,

laid it down alongside five others.

All of them were very clearly deceased.

Few could even be identified as human beyond their general mangled shapes and the shreds of their uniforms.

In the back of his mind that had not been rendered numb by cold

he tallied the row of dead against the crew compliment he had served the last three years with.

Including himself,

the bomber crew numbered eight.

Six lay in the snow, leaving Voss

and one other unaccounted for.

Had someone else managed to abandon the Glory in those precious seconds

where reaction outraced

rational thought?

Or was there another mangled wreckage of flesh and bone still lost within?

When the Cherbyn turned

it spied Voss immediately, and froze in place.

A long rifle was slung at its side but the beast made no move to bring it up.

It merely stopped where it stood

and peered across the thirty meter distance between them.

Voss, however, did react to the presence of the enemy only then.

He hastily clawed at the parachute wrapped around himself,

digging under it for the service pistol all crew carried

just in case they were forced to deplane over enemy territory.

But, with fingers numbed almost to immobility he

could not unfasten the thumb brake

and could only fumble with growing panic,

never taking his eyes from his foe.

With a terrified moan Voss wrestled himself free of the restraining parachute cloth

and yanked fruitlessly at his holster.

Finally the thumb brake snapped free

and he yanked the pistol free.

To then immediately drop it into the churned earth and snow from numb fingers.

He cried out and tried to snatch it up,

the world swimming crazily in his vision

as the sudden rush of blood coursed through ice constricted arteries.

His panic sent the world

into gray, and just as black slammed across his vision

he spied the Dog swiftly closing on him.

- - - Voss awoke in darkness to tingling pain

through his entire body

with his feet and hands burning.

Somewhere a steady moan rose and fell interspersed with an unearthly,

thin keening like a lost animal in the throes of a protracted,

agonizing death. A susurrating hiss skittered and rasped all around.

Both sources of sound seemed close enough to touch

but he could not feel their presence.

The air was almost stiflingly warm

and a solid, immobile heat source was pressed close against his back.

He writhed a bit, trying to discover why his hands were burning

but a firm, unyielding band

pressed across his chest in the dark.

A splitting headache made every motion dizzying as he groped at the thick,

solid band across his chest,

unable to feel it with his fingers.

Frostbite, his fogged brain finally percolated through to his consciousness.

His extremities burned because circulation was returning

to partially frozen flesh that was beginning to thaw.

That realization did nothing to combat the pain

nor still the rising panic of being restrained.

Something shifted behind him,

a heavy weight falling across his legs,

the surface behind him pressed close

as both restraining forces pulled him back.

Something else brushed against his upper arm and he realized at that moment

that his arm was not covered; his flesh was exposed.

But no icy bite nipped at his skin,

only a momentary pressure tracing down to a point

just below his shoulder

at the apex of his muscles.

He was naked, completely.

A prick of pain lanced through his upper arm

and he slapped at it futilely

but his thawing fingers could feel nothing but burning,

tingling pain. A warming lethargy

stole through him a few moments later,

his struggles against the restraints fading,

while his panicked thoughts rattled about in his skull.

He was naked, in the dark;

blind! With something solid, unyielding,

warm yet queerly soft behind him that held him fast!

Fur… why did it feel like fur?

Voss knew nothing more

as a darkness deeper than the unfathomable night

stole over him once more. - - -

When he awoke again his headache was much abated.

His fingers tingled annoyingly but the burn had faded from them,

as it had his toes which now felt as if they were bound.

The warm, solid presence at his back was still there,

but the resistance of the binding across his chest

as much less. Nothing rested across his legs.

There was light; dim and diffuse

but enough to pick out the general shape of his surroundings.

Despite the drastic changes wrought by a disastrous landing

he could easily identify the inside of the Glory.

It had miraculously come to rest mostly right side up

and he realized that he was lying on a heap of scrounged padding from seats and storage racks.

He was in the aft crew bay,

between the raved nav-comm bay and gunnery bay.

At his back the Dog lay,

pressed close against him;

a warm bulk of muscle and fur

holding him frighteningly close.

He could feel fur from shoulders to ass to the back of his legs;

he was naked and so too was the Dog.

For a moment he froze,

then writhed in a panic, trying to wrestle free but finding himself weak as a babe.

Immediately the restraint across his chest;

the Dog’s pale furred arm,

tightened and pulled him back against the beast’s chest.

When he continued to struggle

a weight fell over his legs once more;

one of the Dog’s legs catching and pinning him in place.

The inside of the wrecked plane was cold,

but only just below the level of comfort and not frigid at all.

On a desktop, where he had spent many hours filling out paperwork,

a small camp stove hissed quietly

with invisible methanol flames.

The presence behind him was warm, however,

and despite the fact that it was a fearful enemy

he found it easier to just give in

to the prisoning embrace

than struggle free.

To go where, he realized.

He was naked, save for his feet which had been wrapped with the shredded,

slightly charred and bloodied shreds of someone’s flight jacket.

He was lost somewhere in the mountains between Cherbyn territories

and those held by Man.

He could not remember if the tail section had survived the crash but,

considering the Glory had slid to a stop nose first

he suspected that it had to some degree.

The emergency beacon housed within

would have begun transmitting the moment it struck,

activated by the impact force.

Maybe he had crashed close enough to Human territory for them to mount a rescue.

But in the height of winter,

with the battles between both sides becoming ever more fierce

with neither gaining ground,

he doubted that they would spare the resources.

He slumped, defeated by his weakness

from prying the Dog’s arm away or

kicking its leg -

his leg a distant portion of Voss’ mind informed him -

away. After he was still a moment the strength of that restraining arm relaxed a little,

but it did not withdraw.

Something rumbled approbation behind his head,

a warm waft of air riffling his short hair.

“Fuck you too, you great hairy beast.”

Voss muttered, but stopped resisting the warm presence of the Dog.

He had come to realize that the damn thing had saved him from a very swift death due to exposure.

To what ends, he did not know, but until he got his strength back

he could do nothing about either way.

So he just let out a huff

and relaxed. Eventually, lulled by the slow shifting of the Dog’s chest against his back as it –

he – breathed, and the warmth of contact Voss

slipped into slumber again. - - -

The Dog was still there when he came around again,

feeling at long last more or less hale.

His fingers and toes no longer tingled

and the warm presence at his back was not quite so unsettlingly,

intimately close.

Turning his head slightly to take in his surroundings,

just a little more illuminated than before with diffuse light

leaking past a tarp hung across the forward end of the bay,

he discovered that a large insulating blanket from the bomb bay had been drawn across them both,

with his parachute over that.

The warmth under the double layer was

almost stifling and he shifted away a bit.

The Dog did not move to restrain him.

It merely rolled into its side

and propped itself up on one elbow to watch him.

Trying not to slip out from beneath the expansive covers

Voss shifted about

and turned until he was facing the Dog.

As an airman, flying high above enemy forces,

Voss had only seen photographs or video of the Cherbyn.

They were, as they had ever been called,

very dog-like in the face with a long, thick muzzle

replete with whiskers

and black canid nose.

From beneath its upper lips

two distressingly long fangs descended,

like those of a smilodon cat but not nearly so huge.

The monster’s eyes were the palest blue

with a more intense ring just around the dark pupil.

Its fur was pale

and striated in an almost feline manner.

The markings of the species ran the gamut,

Voss recalled from images and training tapes,

from monochromatic base colors to mixed tones to a

wide variety of patterns

not found on any wild or domestic canid species.

But in all of the images Voss had ever seen

they had never held the introspective,

curious regard this beast did.

They were either wrinkled with rage or slack with torture or battle induced flaccidness.

The gaze that regarded him was neither pinched with rage

or glazed with exhaustion;

it was alert, probing,

curious. Keeping a little less than arms’ length away from his –

what? Rescuer? Captor? –

Voss took a few moments to make those comparisons as he tried to push back

the atavistic fear

that had been hard drilled into him for almost two decades of warfare.

Humans and Cherbyn had been battling over the Dog’s territories since Voss was a child and,

even before the war, relations had never been peaceful.

But, he also remembered,

the Cherbyn had not started the war,

they only resisted the attempts to seize rich mineral territory desired by the Human empire.

Nor had they attempted to expand into Human lands

for almost three centuries,

quite satisfied with the resources they had available to them

and the rich lands they occupied already.

Their numbers had never been so high

that they had to expand or choke.

Hazarding a nod, Voss spoke;

“Voss.” He muttered, his throat dry and his voice raspy.

He coughed and hacked to clear his throat

while the tall, triangular ears of pale fur turned to pin their focus on him.

“Voss.” He repeated.

The Cherbyn rumbled something that came out like a coughing growl from the depths of its thick throat.

It sounded, if one was charitable,

like ‘khofs’. The Dogs lacked the vocal structures of humans,

and their thin lips did not have the musculature to form words from their deep chested growls.

That was why humans had to use complicated computer programs to translate what they said.

Much of the Cherbyn language,

as Voss’ limited education recalled,

was visual as well as verbal.

Their vocal communication had changed dramatically with the invention of two-way communications

that lacked visual components, however,

but that still left many layers that humans could not comprehend without actually seeing them talk.

But then, humans also had visual communication queues as well;

body language and facial expression.

After repeating that strange ‘khofs’

the Cherbyn rumbled something else.

At Voss’ stupid stare it repeated the growl,

a pale furred hand snaking up from beneath the heavy covers

to tap its own nose.

Voss had no hope of even coming close to that deep,

throaty rumble so all he could do

was shake his head and shrug.

To that the Cherbyn simply nodded

and sighed, tall ears pinning back briefly

and its whiskers angling back along its muzzle.

It shrugged as well;

a universal gesture of frustration.

Shifting close,

causing Voss to lean away in alarm,

it rolled up onto hands and knees beneath the weight of the insulating blanket

and crawled out from beneath it.

In the dim light of what Voss could only assume was some hour of daylight

the Dog’s fur was revealed

to be a pale hue that was very nearly white

but mottled with subtle blue-gray rosettes

very much like the markings of a snow leopard that Voss had seen images of.

Its bushy, dog-like tail was surprisingly thick and long,

hanging down just below the back of its knees

despite being held slightly outward from its backside.

And Voss discovered

that his earlier realization had been accurate;

the Dog was male in a canine way.

Long legs were slender and high-heeled like any quadruped

despite its bipedal stance,

with thighs deeper than wide

but still respectably thick to support its upright carriage.

The stomach was narrower than human norms,

but the chest was thicker and deeper

giving him broad,

square shoulders.

The ruff of fur from head to shoulders,

almost like a lion’s mane,

concealed the contours of its neck and the head atop was huge,

compared to domestic canines Humans kept as pets,

but still in proportion to its body. Fully upright

it stood not much taller than Voss

but in overall mass it was probably slightly less.

They were incredibly strong despite that lower mass, however,

as any hardened infantry soldier could attest.

When it came down to hand to hand

Humans had to resort to mob assaults to take one down.

One on one it was most often no contest.

Humans had knives and knuckle blades;

Cherbyn had teeth

and very respectable claws.

In close quarters body armor meant little against a smart predator that would simply strike areas

armor did not protect.

Picking his way over to the desk

the Cherbyn bent over the camp stove to stir the pot that was sitting on it.

That had not been there before, Voss recalled.

Had he slept so soundly that the Dog had been able to wake,

prepare food, and return without waking him?

The realization did not give Voss any confidence in his threat awareness.

Carefully tipping the pot

it poured some of the contents into a canteen cup

and walked back over,

squatting very close to offer it to Voss.

At such proximity, with splayed legs,

Voss’ gaze could not help but take another glance up and down the beast’s front.

Where his back and tail was rosette patterned

white and pale grey

its chest was only half so,

the spots fading from both sides to white at the center,

and his stomach was entirely white.

As was the beast’s all too apparent gender.

Pulling his gaze away to the offered cup

Voss reached out, surprised to find his hands shaking a little

with the bone-deep weakness

that suffused his entire body.

The smell of the steam wafting up from the cup was rich and wild,

redolent of plants and meat.

Tilting it slightly

he peered into the thin,

rich smelling broth.

Green things floated about in the pale dark fluid,

but also smaller dark bits

that looked just as they smelled;

like meat. He recoiled in shock,

eyes going wide when that realization struck him.

Meat! Where the hell would the Dog get meat on the mountains in winter?

His thoughts flashed to those six sorry,

mangled forms arrayed in the snow outside

and his stomach clenched

in horrified nausea.

As if reading his reaction

the Cherbyn chuffed

and shook his head adamantly,

one hand raised and pawing up and down in a calming gesture as he rose and returned to the desk.

He came back a moment later and squatted again,

extending one hand

and opening his fingers.

Upon his palm was an oblong shape of white,

cupped along its length

with the pale pink of flesh showing.

It was a rabbit’s ear,

the base savaged and bloody;

most likely from the bullet that punched the poor creature’s brains out through the hole it created.

“Thanks.” Voss muttered after a few moments,

only slightly mollified,

and the Cherbyn rumbled something with a nod.

“Can you understand me?”

Voss asked as he cautiously sipped at the hot broth.

He had to clutch the cup carefully in both hands,

sitting himself upright and crossing his legs,

just to keep his weak, shaking grasp from failing.

He blew at it and took an experimental sip as he watched the Cherbyn.

The blanket slid down as he sat up,

but he ignored it for the moment as the interior of his wrecked plane

had become comfortably warm

even for his nakedness.

The beast did not seem to mind its lack of clothing so Voss assumed

it did not mind his own exposure.

Much to his surprise it nodded affirmatively!

Rising smoothly it returned to the camp stove to pour more of the pot’s contents into another canteen cup

before turning the dial on the stove down.

“How?” he asked, slowly sipping.

Coming back to squat again,

the Cherbyn held its soup in one hand.

The other it put up to cup over its ear,

bowing its head with eyes slightly closed as if concentrating.

Both ears twitched and swiveled and, after a moment,

he touched his temple with a fingertip

with an expression that, to Voss, gave the impression of deep thoughts.

“Listening…” He hazarded after another sip.

The rich, hot liquid sent refreshing warmth coursing into his breast and belly

and it tasted surprisingly good for having been prepared with,

Voss assumed, purely native materials.

“A listening post?” The Cherbyn’s muzzle drew into a strange looking snarl

that revealed more of its teeth besides those two dangerous looking fangs

and his head bobbed affirmatively.

It also sipped at the soup,

rather than lapping at it as Voss expected.

“There are more of you?”

The Cherbyn looked down,

ears backing, and shook its head sadly.

“What happened?” Raising its free hand the beast pantomimed a downward angle,

waggling his fingers,

as if illustrating a plane in a steep dive.

Voss simply stared as he sipped,

nibbling experimentally at

one of the green things floating in his soup.

Its flavor was sharp,

fresh, and not at all unpleasant in a vegetable way.

It crunched satisfyingly as he chewed,

though it was slightly stringy.

Understanding Voss’ incomprehension

the Dog set his canteen cup down on a nearby box

that had once held a piece of avionics equipment.

It probably still did,

since it survived the impact.

Raising his hand again

the Cherbyn repeated the downward,

fluttering course,

moving his hand over his cup and beyond,

over the edge of the box.

“Avalanche? Your listening post got buried?”

Again an affirmative nod

as the cup was taken up again to be sipped.

“You were out, then, and survived?

But your garrison did not?”

Another nod. Raising both arms

the beast pantomimed

shouldering a rifle and sighting.

“You were out, what,

hunting? Shooting at humans?”

A nod, then a shake of that huge beastial head.

Voss gaped a moment

and then rolled his eyes with a sigh,

shaking his head.

“Then you’re just as trapped out here as I am?!!”

With a long sigh the Cherbyn nodded.

“Where are we, then, do you know?

Human territory, or Cherbyn?”

To the first a negative,

and the second a positive.

“Then why haven’t they mounted a rescue?”

The Cherbyn’s great head tilted

and it gave him a strange look;

exasperation. Raising one hand

he pointed toward the ceiling,

then hugged one arm around himself and shuddered

before raking a single finger across his throat.

“Radio contact lost abruptly,

winter set in hard.

They figure everyone’s dead from bombing or other disaster?”

Nod, and nod again.

Voss nibbled contemplatively

on a small tidbit of meat,

there were scarce few in his soup.

It was mostly vegetables and broth,

though a rich repast it was

after god knows how long unconscious with hypothermia.

“Well then, we’re both fucked.”

The man groused with a sigh, frowning.

Again, insufferably,

the Dog simply nodded

with a sigh of his own.

“No supplies, no comms,

buried in a dead plane

lost in the alpine winter.

Hello there, Enemy Mine.”

Impetuously he thrust out a hand

and the beast stared at it for a moment

before reaching out to grasp it.

“How long ago did your listening post get buried?”

Releasing his hand after a single shake

it held up its spread fingers,

pale claws standing stark from black pads.

He closed his fist

and opened it three times and then just one finger.

“Sixteen… days? Sixteen days?!”

Voss gaped in surprise.

“How the hell did you survive out here two weeks in this mess?”

With a flash of teeth

the Cherbyn rumbled

a rolling sound, favoring him with another frightening animalistic grin;

he was actually laughing.

Crossing one arm over his chest

he rocked back and forth a couple of times,

a motion that Voss immediately understood,

then waved his arm expansively in a half circle.

“Okay, you were born…

here? In these mountains?”

The hand paused, held flat out, and waggled side to side like an unsteady boat.

“Okay, not here exactly, but close enough.

Raised in the mountains, so you know how to survive.”

Voss was surprised when the Cherbyn offered him

a very human thumbs up.

Noticing that he still wore his watch

Voss tilted his wrist to read it.

Only a day and a half had passed since the last time he looked,

a few minutes before the Glory began her death spiral.

It seemed like an eternity ago,

the warmth and shelter of his barracks

a longed for memory.

Thoughts of home,

his parents, and all the friends back there who were not a part of this futile waste of life,

crashed down on him.

No one would ever know what happened.

It would be a miracle if they even tried to recover the plane, and her lost crew,

while the war was still going.

And it had shown

very little indication of slowing down any time soon.

“So… it’s me and you, then.

We survive, yes?” He finished his soup

and set the cup down on the nearby box.

“Until one side or the other comes,

or we hike it out of here,

not enemies.” Reaching out one large,

claw tipped hand the Cherbyn set his grasp gently upon Voss’ shoulder,

the beast’s great,

predatory head nodding.

This was “Cease Fire”

by Nachtfangen, read for you by Khaki,