Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (24 page)

"In case I need it, right?"

Mhumhi still didn't get it, but he let it
slide. The bag wasn't costing him anything, anyway.

"Which way is it up ahead?" he asked. "This
level, or the one below?"

"Below," said Maha, and so Mhumhi went in
front, sniffing carefully for any other signs of life, and led her
down the long, spiraling staircase through the large reservoir
room.

Maha directed him down through another series
of long concrete tunnels shuttling sewage, walking behind him on
the narrow raised platforms. She sounded unsure of herself
occasionally, and dithered at some corners, but for the most part
she was a fairly good guide.

"Not that way!" she said, at one point,
pressing back against the wall when Mhumhi nosed down a dark
branch. "There's lots of dogs down that way. Rats, too, but lots of
dogs."

"It smells a little bit like meat," said
Mhumhi, trying to sort through all the scents that his nose was
picking up. "And offal."

"It's where the pipes from the dispensary go
out, I think," said Maha. "I went down there once or twice. There's
stuff that leaks out sometimes that you can eat. But lots of little
foxes. They get scared when they see me, usually." She broke into a
brief, toothy grin.

"Aren't you afraid they'll go tell the police
on you, though?" asked Mhumhi, and her grin faded.

"Well, let's go this way," he said, backing
up to face the other fork. "And don't worry, I'm with you. I can
fight off anything that comes after you."

Maha looked at him with her eyes shining a
little, and again he wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
Especially for a dog that still limped every third step on his
aching back paw.

They went down the other fork, which sloped
gradually upwards. Mhumhi liked that, though it meant it was
sometimes slippery, especially for Maha on her two feet. It had not
rained for several days, so in most pipes the sewage had slowed
down to a sludgy trickle, a slick scum that Mhumhi did his best to
avoid stepping in. Maha slopped through it, squashing it between
her bare toes.

They came finally to a narrower tunnel
entrance, an offshoot of the main line. It smelled somewhat
cleaner.

"It's just up this way," Maha said, putting
her forearm out over the metal railing on the concrete platform
they were standing on. It looked as if it had not been completed:
it was littered with metal things, round sections of pipe, coils of
wire, flat sheeting. Across from them gaped the tunnel
entrance.

Mhumhi could see a slight problem: the round
opening was set up high, possibly higher than he could jump with
his injury, and he would have to jump from down in the muck to get
at it.

He poked his head under the railing and
assessed: the entrance might have been reachable if he jumped from
the platform without the railing in the way- though it was a fairly
small target, and he was already not at his best. It looked as if
his only choice was to have to get down into the muck.

"What's the matter?" asked Maha, watching him
as he bobbed his head up and down under the railing.

"Nothing," said Mhumhi, withdrawing. "I
didn't want to get my foot dirty, but it looks like I'll have to
step down in there to jump up. Hopefully it won't get into my
wound."

Maha squatted to look at his leg for a
moment, brushing one hand down it, which made him stiffen.

"Don't do that!"

"I'm sorry," said Maha, backing away a bit.
"But we don't have to walk through that part, Mhumhi! I'll show
you, look, I'll make a bridge."

"A bridge?" Mhumhi asked. "How…?"

He was beginning to suspect that he'd have to
learn to stop asking that question where hulkers were concerned.
Maha smiled impishly at him and went to pick something up from the
ground, a long, narrow plank of wood. She slid it forward, making
Mhumhi jump sideways to get away, and out across the gap between
the platform and the tunnel entrance.

"There," she said, puffing her little chest
out. "A bridge!"

Mhumhi looked out across the narrow plank and
felt impressed in spite of himself. It was a clever idea. He tested
it with a paw, putting his full weight onto it. It wobbled
slightly, but if he darted fast it ought to hold his weight.

Maha went behind him and slipped her hind
legs out under the railing to dangle over the side of the platform
in a kind of bizarre sitting position.

"Go across," she said. "Then I can climb up
after you."

Mhumhi disapproved of the bossiness in her
tone, but she'd built him a bridge, so he listened to her. He went
across the plank in a cautious trot that turned into a run as the
thing wobbled and bounced under his feet.

Maha gave a kind of hooting noise and slid
down from the platform. Mhumhi was getting his bearings in the
smaller concrete tunnel when she put her forelegs over the side,
shoving away the board, and pulled herself up. Mhumhi backed up,
half amused by the way her long legs kicked out into the air as she
wormed her way inward.

"It's just up there," she said, when she had
gotten into the tunnel far enough to kneel. One of her forelegs was
scraped and bleeding, and Mhumhi went up to lick it without
thinking.

Maha gave a little utterance of pain,
flinching from his tongue. Mhumhi moved back and licked his lips
nervously. Her blood tasted just the same as any dog's.

"Don't let that touch any sewage," he said,
keeping his voice stern. "If you had proper fur, you'd be better
protected from that kind of thing."

"What do you want me to do," asked Maha,
"start growing it?"

"Can you do that?" Mhumhi put his ears
forward with interest, and then back again at her peals of
laughter.

"Come on," he said, as she covered her mouth
with her hands to staunch her giggles. "We've got to hurry on,
because even when I get out I'm going to have to find the
dispensary, and then figure out what time it'll be open."

"Oh, it's just up that way," said Maha.
"Don't be cranky."

Mhumhi gave a little huff and turned and
trotted up the tunnel. Maha followed him at a much slower crawl, as
the tunnel wasn't tall enough for her to stand up in.

He saw the larger chamber of the storm drain
very quickly, and stopped abruptly. There was a mass of what looked
like old paper and assorted wood near the bottom, and his ears were
picking up all sorts of strange noises.

"Why'd you stop?" asked Maha, crawling up
behind him.

"There's something in that pile," said
Mhumhi, lowering his head with his ears trained forward. He was
picking up rustling and high-pitched chittering. "And I think it's
alive."

"Ooh!" said Maha, and she suddenly squeezed
by him, shouldering him roughly out of the way. She was taking
something out of her bag- a flat piece of wood- and to Mhumhi's
amazement, she scrambled over to the pile and began beating it
furiously.

There was more shrill squeaking, and
something small shot out of the pile and passed Mhumhi, who snapped
at it out of pure instinct. His jaws missed, and it vanished down
the tunnel.

"Aw," said Maha, who had paused in her
beating to wipe her forehead with a hand. "You let it get
away!"

"It was
fast
," Mhumhi said, rather
defensively. "You didn't get any!"

"Yes I did!" Maha hopped back off the pile
and peeled back a particularly large piece of faded cardboard.
Beneath protruded the limp gray body of a rat.

Mhumhi's ears pricked, and he helped her dig
around the pile. They found another dead rat, and then something
unexpected: a dying rat curled around a pile of pale yellow
newborns.

When Mhumhi went to sniff the mother, whose
back looked unpleasantly dented, she squealed and snapped at his
nose from her prone position. He flinched away. Maha picked her up
by the tail and bashed her on the ground, and she went still and
limp.

Mhumhi stared at the dead rat in her hand,
but Maha put it in her bag right away with the others and grabbed
one of the blind, squirming newborns.

"These are the best!" she exclaimed, and bit
off its head.

Mhumhi stared at her, eyes round, as she ate
the rest of the body, which sounded crunchy. "You- it's only a
baby!"

"Yeah, so you can eat the bones," Maha said,
and reached for another one.

"But it's a
baby
!"

"So?" She drew up the hairy parts above her
eyes. "That means they're better. And plus they can't get away."
She bit through her second, and Mhumhi cringed. He looked back down
at the remaining newborns, which were squeaking softly and
beginning to crawl every which way.

"Do you want to try one?" Maha picked up one
of them and held it out to him, flat on her palm.

Mhumhi stared at the tiny naked thing, its
eyes still covered in skin, its soft little paws twisting as it
tried to right itself. As horrible as it was, he could feel a
sudden urge- that same urge he got when he watched sick Tareq
whimper, when Maha fell down and he saw the back of her neck. He
began to salivate.

"No," he said, licking his lips, and backed
away.

Maha turned down her lips and moved her
shoulders up and down, then ate the little thing herself.

"I'll have to bring one for Tareq," she said.
"He likes these a lot… I found a nest in here before, but I didn't
think any would come back after that…"

"What are they doing, having babies all the
way up here?" asked Mhumhi, averting his eyes as she picked up yet
another one. "Is there something to eat?"

"No, but I bet they were lookin' for a place
those little dogs don't normally go," said Maha. "I mean, they
never
come up here. There's no reason to, cause when it
rains it gets all flooded out. But it hasn't rained in a
while."

"No, it hasn't," Mhumhi agreed. He could
dimly remember the last time it had rained: the day Sacha had
called him out of the subway. That had been the day that started
everything- he'd seen the dogs fighting- he'd met Bii- and it was
because of Bii that Kutta had felt it was safe to share her secret
with him...

"Mhumhi, you can go up now," Maha was saying,
and he blinked. She had stowed the remaining baby rats in her bag,
and was now rearranging the pile of trash so they could climb up
it. "I can move the grate. You have to hurry, right?"

"Yes," said Mhumhi, and watched as she
clambered up the pile, teetering, and reached up for the rack of
iron bars above. Sunlight was streaming through them, lighting her
dark cheeks, and the shiny flecks of blood around her lips.

Mhumhi started up the pile, slipping on bits
of loose cardboard, as she shifted the grate. It scraped very
loudly. Maha gave a little grunt; apparently it was heavy.

"Have you got it?" he asked, bounding to
stand next to her where she squatted at the top of the pile,
straining with the bars. She did not answer, merely bared her teeth
and squinted her eyes and forced the grate sideways. For a very
frightening moment, as the edge cleared one side, it tilted
diagonally and looked like it might fall in on them. But Maha
caught it and was able to shove it the rest of the way to the
side.

Mhumhi gave her bare shoulder a quick lick,
feeling rather humbled. There would have been no way for him to do
that himself.

She scrubbed at her forehead, panting a
little, and then turned to give him an expectant look.

"You did very good," Mhumhi felt compelled to
say, and she smiled and reached out to him. He moved back and away,
paws sliding on the trash.

"I've got to go up now," he said. "Pull it
back closed after me. I don't want any dogs catching you."

Maha's face fell a bit, but she bobbed her
head in the affirmative.

"I don't know how long I'll be," he said.
"I'll try to be quick… Stay here, understand? Don't go running in
the sewers without me."

"But like I said, I do it all the time," Maha
argued, but fell silent when he moved closer with his ears
back.

"Do as I say. There are more dogs here than
there used to be, and we don't want anyone to see you. When I get
back, you need to be here to pull the grate off for me again,
too."

Maha scrunched her whole face together at
this, which Mhumhi found extremely off-putting.

"Eat the rest of your rats," he told her.
"I'll be quick as I can, and I'll come back with proper meat."

"All right," she said. "Don't get hurt
anymore, okay, Mhumhi?"

"I won't," he said, an easy lie, and then
leapt through the opening above, out onto the street.

His paws touched asphalt and he felt his
senses heighten, and he cast all around, sniffing. He could smell
dogs, but not terribly nearby. It looked like the storm drain led
out into some sort of alleyway, because there were very tall
buildings on either side of him with banks of glossy black
windows.

He turned back around and watched Maha pull
the grate back over for a moment, grunting and straining.

"You should get out from where someone can
see you if they look down," he told her. She stuck out her
tongue.

Mhumhi decided it'd be prudent to leave her
to it and trailed down the alleyway, limping a bit as the pain in
his leg flared up again. The impassive rows of black windows seemed
to go on forever on either side, and the street began to curve
around. There wasn't a door in sight anywhere; Mhumhi wondered how
anyone could possibly get inside. The way it looked reminded him a
little bit of the dispensary, strangely enough.

He saw the corner, finally, and hastened
around to it, hopping on three legs. He was not prepared for what
he saw on the other side.

Dogs in
the Field

Beyond the glittering black buildings that
had surrounded Mhumhi in the alleyway, there was a vast field.