The hound had died against the kennel fence in the night. Nobody had seen it go.
The kennel man wanted it out of his yard before the bread. He stood at the gate with his arms folded and his boots wet to the ankle, and he said it twice, because the first time Calen had not looked at him.
“Take it, then,” said Calen. “Before the bell.”
“Ministry’s dog,” said the kennel man. “Not mine.”
“Then it is the Keep’s dog for one morning.”
The kennel man looked at the dead hound, then at the Hask Keep students lined up along the wall, and then at Tobin. He did not look at Calen again. He went back inside and shut the door.
It was the first grey light of Day seventy-seven. The lodging yard smelled of wet straw and old soup. Beyond the wall, the great grey tiers of the Arena were still dark, and the sand behind them had not been raked yet.
Thirteen days to the Trial. Calen had stopped saying the number aloud on Day seventy. He still counted it every morning, without meaning to. Water dripped from the iron trough onto the flat stone at the end of the yard, one drop at a time, and Tobin was already crouched beside the stone, counting.
