"Ah; I thought you would," said Polaris. "Come on." He turned and crossed the hall to his sleeping chamber. The dog padded beside him on silent feet. The last thing the son of the snows heard, after he had called Brooks to take the watch, and closed his eyes to slumber, was the sigh of the huge beast as it stretched itself before his open door.
Worn of body and of nerves, Polaris slumbered deeply. Shamar rose high in the east and lighted the golden spires of his mighty temple in Adlaz town; still the man slept on, and as he slept, he dreamed. Far into the white, mysterious southland his fancies led, to a waste of ice and snow and bitter winds. He drove a team of splendid dogs—his gray brothers they seemed to be in the dream, those tried friends who had given their lives for their master, and of whom Marcus, if he still lived, was the last.
On the sledge which the dogs drew, rode Rose Emer, wrapped in furs, as in truth she once had ridden. There, too—and even in the dream he seemed strangely out of place—was the Maeronican captain. Yes, Oleric the Red trudged through the snows beside the sledge, clad in his golden armor, his teeth chattering in the chill blasts of the wilderness, and bearing in his hand a naked sword.
Danger, unseen, unknown, but frightful, encompassed the wanderers in the snow path. The dogs snarled and tore at their harness. Oleric ran forward, waving his sword, which seemed to drip blood on the white snows, and shouting.
"Up, brother, and call off this beast of yours!" the red captain cried. "For soon must we go before Bel-Ar."
With those words ringing in his ears, Polaris awoke. He sprang from his couch to the middle of the chamber. No dream's part was the shouting of Oleric. He stood in the hall before the chamber door, his lips still parted and a smile on his ruddy face.
And the snarling of a dog—that, too, was real.
Planted squarely in the doorway, hackles bristling, ears erect and fangs bared, was the immense animal with which Polaris had made friends in the night watches. All through the dark hours and the dawning, the beast had guarded the door, suffering none to approach it. He now barred the way to Oleric, and the chamber echoed to his angry challenge.
"By the ten kings!" exclaimed the captain with a laugh. "You do raise up friends wherever you go, my brother. Here is one that dearly would love to make a breakfast off my lean shanks, armored as they are, and all because I would tell you that Shamar has brought to us another day."