The Hounds of the Dawn

"The Hounds of the Dawn" is a Lovecraftian short story by British-born author William Meikle. It was self-published in the chapbook collection Up from the Deep in May 2023 Title: "The Hounds of the Dawn" at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
==Synopsis==
"The Hounds of Dawn" is told in the form of an account written by a Roman slave, an unnamed man likely from Africa or the Middle East, who has committed his story to paper while interred in an Imperial cell.
In the aftermath of the British defeat by the invaders, Caratacus's wife lays a curse on the Roman governor Publius Ostorius Scapula, calling on her "hounds", creatures she dubs the Cwn Annwyn, to torment the man and ultimately kill him.
Over the following nights, more and more of Scapula's guards are found at dawn, brutally and silently murdered in the dark, their corpses all but hollowed out. As the tension rises and his men are killed off one by one, the governor makes the decision to flee to Rome, throwing himself on the Emperor's mercy for abandoning his station, while his servant is jailed.
The story ends with the servant finishing his account, his final lines telling of how he has begun to hear the scratching and snuffling noises which precede the arrival of the Cwn Annwyn…
==Behind the Mythos ==
Although never explicitly named in the story, the creatures summoned by the vengeful British noblewoman bear a strong resemblance to the Hounds of Tindalos, a species of supernatural predator created by Frank Belknap Long for the eponymous short story. Their physical description closely matches common depictions of the Hounds, while their ability to manifest through angles also lends credence to this position. Another point of note is that William Meikle's 2019 Thomas Carnacki short story "A Body in the Library" features a Hound of Tindalos which the protagonist also identifies as a "Cŵn Annwyn", making it even likelier that the entities featured in "The Hounds of the Dawn" are intended to be one and the same.
Caratacus and Scapula were real people, the former a British tribal chieftain defeated in battle by the latter Caratacus at Wikipedia, the appointed governor of Britain Publius Ostorius Scapula at Wikipedia, and subsequently sent to Rome for trial. In the story, one of the conditions Caratacus's wife sets out for calling off the Hounds is that her husband be released; ironically, the real Caratacus was in fact set free after making an impassioned speech to the Senate .
Similarly, the Cŵn Annwn are an aspect of ancient British mythology in the real world, being spectral hounds from the otherworld Annwn, which is reflected in their name. However, the Cŵn Annwn were elements of Welsh mythology Cŵn Annwn at Wikipedia, with the country of Wales being situated on the West Coast of the British Isles; Caratacus and his people, the Catuvellauni, were located around modern-day Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, which is far closer to the eastern coast Catuvellauni at Wikipedia.
==References==
Category:William Meikle works
Category:Mythos-Inspired Works