The Wolf Age (55 page)

Together Morlock and Hlupnafenglu began to run. If it began to rain, the water would wash away the blood trail. And it was going to rain: the air to the east and south was already blurred with falling water, and the cruelly hot morning air was already retreating before the cool moist air of the storm.

They reached the city's southern gate at the same time as the storm front. But at first it wasn't rain that fell, but hail: great chunks of it, some as large as a child's fist, drumming on the roads and the stone walls and the heads of the travelers, particularly Morlock and Hlupnafenglu. They fled into the open gate and stood there, with the guards and some other passersby taking refuge from the storm.

For a long time, they gazed in unanimous silent wonder at the shallow drifts of melting ice forming in the streets. Eventually, Morlock caught Hlupnafenglu's eye, nodded toward one of the gate watchers, and glanced at his own right thumb. Hlupnafenglu looked baffled, then amused. He nodded.

The big red werewolf sidled up to the gate watcher and said, "Seen Luyukioronu Longthumbs today? I heard he was through here."

The watcher looked sharply at him and said, "You a friend of his?"

There was no mistaking the gate watcher's hostility. Morlock met the red werewolf's eye over the watcher's shoulder and reached out one hand insistently, as if demanding payment.

"He owes me money," Hlupnafenglu said, taking the hint. "The half-rat nipple-biter was running a game off of the outlier market, but he couldn't cover the bets. He said he'd pay me the next time he saw me, only he never sees me anymore."

Hlupnafenglu's newfound facility with lying impressed Morlock, not altogether favorably.

"All right," the watcher said. "I get you. Only it's not my problem, is it?"

Morlock jingled the bag of money tied to his belt.

The gate watcher turned around to look at him. The watcher was a semiwolf with white fur over a rather vulpine face, but his eyes were human, and they looked searchingly at Morlock. "It's like that? You're with him?"

"Yes."

"All right. Three pads of copper, I tell you where he went. One more, I won't tell him you guys were asking about him."

Morlock reached into the wallet and extracted six copper coins. He dropped them in the watcher's outstretched and rather hairy palm.

"For you and your partner," Morlock said. "We don't care what you tell Longthumbs."

Soon they were out in the hail again, headed for a day-lair run by a nightwalker called Iolildhio. Hlupnafenglu knew about it, from his extensive criminal career, but he would not be welcome there. They waited in the shelter of an overhanging wall opposite the dark open door of Iolildhio's joint.

Morlock had decided to watch and wait. Assuming the guard was telling the truth and Luyukioronu, at least, had reached the day-lair and was within, he would not stay there all day. He would satisfy his needs (food, smoke, and sex were what the day-lairs normally provided) and leave. If he was not there, it was possible that Ulugarriu would try to contact them or attack them.

He did not discuss this with Hlupnafenglu, who seemed content to follow his lead. The only thing the red werewolf said while they were waiting was, "I can smell the bloom from here."

Morlock could, too, and he didn't have a werewolf's nose. He nodded.

They waited.

The hail turned to sheets of rain. It filled the already swampy street and ran in through the door of the day-lair. Soon, smoke-choking, half-dressed citizens in varying degrees of wolfhood came stumbling out into the street. The day-lair was flooding. Hlupnafenglu met Morlock's eye and stretched his mouth in a long sinister smile. They would see something soon.

Luyukioronu and Yaniunulu came together out of the dark door, peering up at the sky and holding their hands over their heads in a futile attempt to shield themselves from the savage downpour.

Hlupnafenglu started forward, dashing across the muddy street toward their quarry.

Morlock was taken off guard. He had planned to follow one or the other of the two murderers for a while and see what they were up to, who they contacted. This was especially important in the case of Yaniunulu, who had betrayed his trust: it was important to know who had corrupted him. But he had not discussed this with Hlupnafenglu, who obviously preferred a more direct approach. No longer a red shadow, he was a juggernaut charging through a crowd of citizens bemused by the heavy rain and slipping across shining beds of ice.

Morlock dashed after him.

Luyukioronu dropped his eyes from the sky and saw Hlupnafenglu charging toward him, with Morlock trailing behind. He gaped, screamed, and ran.

Yaniunulu stared bemusedly after him, looked around, saw what Luyukioronu had seen, and ran the opposite way down the street.

Morlock caught up with Hlupnafenglu, pounded on his shoulder to get his attention, shouted, "Get the goldtooth!" and turned, skittering on an icelined puddle, to follow Luyukioronu.

The long-thumbed werewolf was already almost out of sight in the torrential rain. Had he plunged into the twisting paths of Dogtown he might easily have left Morlock bewildered, but instead he took a straight route parallel to the city wall, headed for Twinegate.

The rain began to thin out. The clouds were breaking in the east, torn to bits by the winds. Shafts of sunlight illumined the last misty rain. It was already getting warmer again, but Morlock didn't find that unwelcome: he had been battered by the hail, soaked through by the rain. His cloak was heavy with water, but he didn't throw it off: he wanted it to cover the empti ness of his left arm. But the weight was slowing him down; Luyukioronu, though still in sight, was opening up a considerable lead.

Entering the great plaza before Twinegate, Luyukioronu looked over his shoulder to see if he was still being followed. As he did so, his feet hit an icy patch and he rolled in the mud. Morlock drove himself forward; by the time the werewolf had scrambled back to his feet, Morlock was almost on top of him.

He darted into the crowds around the base of the funicular tower. Morlock thought the werewolf was going to circle around it, but instead he charged up one of the stairways, pushing and shoving citizens out of his way.

Morlock followed. He drew his sword as he ran. He disliked shoving people, and he'd found in the past that people were likelier to get out of his way if they saw him approaching with a longsword. So it proved on this occasion, and Morlock again began to gain on Luyukioronu. Eventually, the werewolf heard him approaching and turned, drawing a short sword and a dagger, his dark eyes blazing with panic.

"What do you want from me now?" screamed the werewolf, slashing madly with both blades. "My honor-teeth? You took them before! My money? I spent it all. My female? I spent the money on females; you can hire any of them by the half hour. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?"

Morlock was at a severe disadvantage. Luyukioronu was no master of the sword, but he had two edged weapons and Morlock had to fight one-handed. He had two advantages: he knew how to use his weapon, and it was longer. He retreated a step or two to take advantage of this.

Luyukioronu followed him down, still swinging knife and sword frantically. One of his feet hit an icy patch on the stairs, and he slipped. He reached out his right hand, the hand with the knife, to steady himself on the well of a deep unglazed window set into the wall.

While Luyukioronu was still off balance, Morlock jumped forward and slashed with Tyrfing at the werewolf's right hand. Luyukioronu screamed and, recoiling, dropped the knife and several of his fingers as he retreated back up the stairway.

"Stop!" Morlock said, following him. "Tell me who sent you to kill Hrutnefdhu. If you do, I may let you live."

"I never killed anyone!" Luyukioronu shrieked wildly. "People kill me, they killed me a thousand times, but I never killed. It was a lie what they said about me. An accident. I'm a skilled operator; you should see me."

"I have seen you," Morlock said. "Remember? I gave you twenty copper pads. I sent them by my friend Hrutnefdhu. Remember?"

Luyukioronu seemed to be calming a bit; he considered this question with an inward, remembering gaze. Then he looked up, saw that Morlock had edged closer, and he started away. His back hit the fragile handrail behind him; it gave way beneath his weight.

"No!" shouted Morlock. He did not give a fragmented damn about Luyukioronu's life, but he wanted to know whatever the long-thumbed werewolf could tell him about the murder of Hrutnefdhu. Morlock dropped his sword and let it slither away down the stone stairs, rattling as it went. He leapt forward, reaching out with both hands.

Luyukioronu felt himself beginning to fall, and he reached out with his right hand to grasp at Morlock's left.

But Luyukioronu's mutilated right hand had no fingers, apart from one long thumb, and Morlock's left hand was a patch of mist, the ghostly idea of a hand. Luyukioronu's mutilated hand passed through it; his features convulsed with pain; he fell screaming all the way down the tower until the stones of the plaza ended his fall, his scream, and his life.

"God Avenger!" muttered Morlock (causing Death, who was manifest nearby, to signify hastily against the name of this alien god). He hoped that Hlupnafenglu had caught the treacherous Yaniunulu, or this day was looking bleak indeed.

"Hey!" someone shouted at him. "What are you? Crazy?"

"Maybe," Morlock admitted. He turned to see two armed watchers in city livery coming up the stairs. One had a mace in his hand, the other a drawn sword. The sword was Tyrfing. Morlock remembered he hadn't replenished the talic charge in the sword's crystalline lattice after he had summoned it this morning. If he had, he could have summoned it to himself now.

"Duelling on the anchor stairs is illegal, citizen!" said the watcher in the lead, a citizen with white hair. "Didn't you know that?"

"No."

"Well, it is, and the penalty's a pretty heavy fine. Pretty heavy. You'll find it inconvenient to go to court, and if you can't pay you might even end up in the Vargulleion. You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"No."

"On the other hand, you could just pay us at a bargain rate and save the time, too."

Morlock untied the wallet from his belt and shook it.

"That's the idea," said the watcher approvingly. "Now let's say-ghost bite me, partner, he's a never-wolf."" He pointed at Morlock's human shadow falling in the summer-hot sunlight against the gray stone of the anchor tower.

Morlock didn't deny it, since there was no point, but waited to see what the guards would do.

"I've never heard of anything like this!" the white-haired watcher said to his partner. "A never-wolf running around the city killing citizens, a string of honor-teeth around his neck like he's some kind of chieftain."

"Okhurokratu, you are being the stupidest of city watchers I am ever hearing of," his scar-faced partner remarked bitterly. "We've been seeing this guy before, that time when in the Shadow Market you keeping to try ratwriggling out of the meatcakes."

"I've never been in a meatcake in my life. But I guess I remember what you're talking about: when the young crook tried to pick his pocket."

"He was never him picking his pocket that! The citizen is was saying so!"

"He's not a citizen. He was a never-wolf then and he's a never-wolf now, and if you want meatcakes we can make some out of his liver."

"Stupid, stupid. The citizen is being the one they are calling Khretvarrgliu."

"The-Don't try and slap that turd in my hand. There's no Khretvarrgliu. The Sardhluun made him up to justify that prison break."

Scarface-Morlock remembered the citizen, but not his name-lifted the sword in his hand. "This is being the sword of Khretvarrgliu. My cousin, who is been trying to join with the Sardhluun since forever, he was been always telling me about it. He keeps making it fly through the air to him."

The first guard turned to Morlock. "That true? Can you show me?"

Morlock considered his answer carefully. "If I do, I will have to kill someone with it. There is a curse on the blade." It was a lie, but he owed the City Watchers no truths; they were no blood of his.

"Hm," said white-haired Okhurokratu thoughtfully. "I guess there's been too much fighting on the stairs today as it is. Yoy, partner?"

"Oh, for ghosts' sake," muttered the other watcher, and handed Tyrfing past his partner to Morlock. Morlock gave the bag of money to the surprised and delighted Okhurokratu and received Tyrfing from Scarface, and sheathed it.

"That should cover the fine," said white-hair, weighing the bag in his hand. "I won't say come back again, because I hate the stink of a live neverwolf. But if you come back, remember to bring plenty of this."

"He is being a rat-licker," Scarface said apologetically, "because he can't not be being."

Morlock nodded and walked past them down the long stairway.

It turned out, when he dragged his weary damp carcass back to the outlier settlement, that Hlupnafenglu had failed to catch up with Yaniunulu, and the day became bleak indeed.

The funeral for Hrutnefdhu took place at sunset. They burned the body around sunset (so that it would not end up on some hungry citizen's dinner table in these hard times) and sang songs in Moonspeech to keep the evil ghosts away. Then, when the sun set and they assumed the night shape in the moonlight, they sang songs in Sunspeech to guide Hrutnefdhu's ghost to the place beyond the stars where the good ghosts dwell.

That was how the other werewolves explained it to Morlock afterward, anyway. Then they sat around outside Morlock's cave and reminisced about their dead friend until one by one they went asleep.

Morlock was the last one to drop off. His body was screaming for a drink, and he knew he had a jar or two of wine hidden around the cave. But he sat there in the hot blue moonlight, hating the wine and the thirst for it and the flesh that thirsted, until sleep drew him down into itself.