“Hope, no! Hope, run! No!” - Lesh yelled.

But it was too late. The barking was interrupted by a hit of the steel. Hope cried out in pain as it found her neck. She squealed again as it hit her skinny body. But she was silent on the third strike.

“Hope!” - Lesh yelled.

He ran towards her but a flash of pain send the word spinning around him. The floor came crashing and he tasted dirt in his mouth. A drop of blood slid down his hair and onto the ground. Then someone kicked him in the back, leaving him gasping for air.

“Fucking dog.” - the burly soldier said, limping over the old man.

“H.. H..” - Lesh tried to say.

“Next time keep it on a shorter leash. It might live.” - the soldier said and cleaned Hope’s blood off the blade with his pants.

“I hope you don’t mind if we look at what you’ve got in that wreck?” - the other said with his best immitation of a polite tone, pointing to Lesh’s hut.

The old man’s lungs were still devoid of air and blood trickled down his chin. He crawled to the dog and touched her face covered in the soldier’s blood, his skin still stuck between her teeth. He slid his hands down to the wounds on her body and the air around him became even thicker. Tears left trails of wet dirt on Lesh’s face.

Sounds of crashing came from the hut where the soldiers were looking for shiny things. A glass, a ring or a coin. Anything they could trade in a city once whatever food and ale they had in the camp dried out. They won’t find anything. If Lesh had interest in riches he wouldn’t live here. The only thing of value he had was lying in the dirt next to him.

Years ago Perun told him they would do this one day. The two of them were drunk in a tavern and the lightning-bearer warned Lesh the people would forget their limits. They will try to cease as much power as they can and kill them if they could. Lesh thought his friend was just drunk. But the last few decades showed that Perun’s words were prophetic - the cruelty of the weak is always worse than that of the strong.