Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (38 page)

Maha was pulling him to his feet- he seemed
to have fallen over- and there was bright blood on his wrist.
Mhumhi at once went to lick it, but Maha grabbed the fur on his
back, gripping him tightly.

"Mhumhi," she whispered.

In the dark all around them, shining in the
flickering yellow light, were countless pairs of eyes. And they
were getting closer. Biscuit gave a tremulous growl.

Mhumhi himself was frightened and bewildered.
The forms that were emerging around them up out of the darkness
were small and sleek: little dogs, foxes, not a sign of the dappled
coat of a police dog anywhere. Yet there were so many of them, and
they were coming up so quietly and assuredly, with hard stares and
heads lowered.

He could feel Maha trembling against him.

"It's all right," he murmured, though he felt
that it was anything but.

Kutta backed up closer to them, leaving
Biscuit trembling and growling in front of them all.

"What do you all want?" she said, letting her
voice carry; the time for silence was very much over.

A dog leapt up onto the stoplight behind Bii-
a large dog, a golden jackal: Sundu. Beside her came a culpeo, a
culpeo Mhumhi recognized with a sinking feeling.

"Bii...?"

Bii said nothing, just sat and curled his
tail around his paws. The nervous feeling crawled up to Mhumhi's
mouth, and he began to pant.

"Hello, orphan pack," said Sundu. Her eyes
flashed as the light above her head flickered. "I like not the
company you keep these days."

Biscuit glanced back at them- apparently he'd
recognized her too. His tail had tucked entirely underneath him
again, and he started backing up closer to them. Mhumhi really
wished he wouldn't.

"If you don't like it," said Kutta, raising
her tail, "then stand aside and let us take it away with us."

"I think not," said Sundu, baring her teeth.
"I'd rather have answers- answers about the disappearances, answers
about what has eaten our families-"

"You think we have something to do with
that?" snapped Kutta. "Don't be stupid!"

"You're working with this traitor domestic,"
said Sundu, jerking her head at Biscuit. "You've been conspiring
with him, and now you're traveling with
live hulkers
. I'm
sure we don't know what to think…"

"You've been spying on us!" cried Mhumhi,
feeling it all click in his head. He looked again at Bii, and Bii
tilted his head, and then flashed that implike little grin of
his.

"Lisica's idea, not mine. You can understand
our anxiety at having such large dogs in our midst when the rest of
the city seemed so against us."

"Anxiety!" sputtered Kutta. "Come on, now,
when have we ever-"

"Yet here you are," said Bii, "with this
domestic, and those..." He glanced at Maha and Tareq again, and
then seemed to decide not to say the word he'd been about to use.
"It surprises me. You seemed genuinely frightened when I led you to
the other hulker."

"I was!" said Mhumhi, still unable to quite
believe the words that were coming out of Bii's mouth. "Bii- you-
how could you spy on us? I thought-"

"What you thought is not important," said
Sundu. "What is important is what is going to happen now. You can
trust us to show you mercy if-"

"Trust you? After you've been
spying
on us?" cried Kutta, in a tremulous voice.

Sundu seemed to shrug this off with a flick
of her ear. "You're moving these hulkers tonight to Silent Street
for some plot, we know that much. You had better provide answers
now, or we'll tear you apart."

Mhumhi laughed. It was a bold laugh. "Is that
a serious threat? You think we're frightened of a bunch of
foxes?"

He saw the assemblage around them flick their
eyes at one another; some
did
look nervous. Sundu, however,
flashed her teeth again.

"It may take longer to kill you this way, it
is true. I don't mind."

Maha's fingers squeezed painfully into
Mhumhi's fur.

"I'm sorry to let you down, but we aren't the
ones behind the attacks," said Kutta. "You've wasted your time. Or
did you think that these puppies could really harm you?"

Sundu opened her mouth in a snarl, and there
were some fierce yaps from the crowd.

"That domestic dog was seen carrying Lisica's
dead body in his mouth!"

"Then go ahead and kill
him
," said
Kutta, bluntly. Biscuit whirled around to give her a shocked look
as the crowd fell into barking and growling.

"Silence!" Sundu barked, and they quieted,
though there was a sense of restlessness in the air all around
them. "The bat-eared fox has made a deal for you. If you stand
aside from the hulkers and the domestic, we'll take you into
custody and let you live. If not-"

"Take the domestic," said Kutta. "But the
hulkers are ours. If you wish it, we'll disappear from Oldtown with
them, but you won't be killing them here tonight."

"Shame on you!" cried another voice- it was
the little fennec, their one-time neighbor, emerging from the
shadows. "I thought you all were all right, I thought you were on
our side, but you've been feeding these monsters the flesh of other
dogs-"

"We don't eat dogs!"

That had been Maha, her voice shrill with
fear, and it made the crowd fall very silent. She shook with fear,
looking all around, and licked her lips before she spoke again.

"We're dogs like you- really- and who would
eat their own kind?"

There was another moment of complete silence.
The stoplight cast flickering yellow across the raised fur on many
backs.

"Kill all of them," said Sundu.

The crowd all rushed forward at once. Mhumhi
saw Bii lay his ears back, his button eyes fearful, before he was
suddenly overtaken by a pair of hissing cape foxes, darting forward
to nip at Mhumhi's legs. Two snaps were all it took to send them
back, but more were coming up on either side, snapping and lunging.
Mhumhi kept his teeth bared and his body pressed against Maha, who
was crying and clinging to him- Kutta had leapt around on the other
side to defend Tareq, her eyes wide and her teeth bared. Ahead of
them Biscuit whined and thrashed and spun around. Mhumhi smelled
blood.

Sundu leapt down from the stoplight and ran
directly at Mhumhi, mouth open, and Mhumhi barely had time to lay
his ears back before Kutta leapt in front of him and engaged her,
snarling, both rising to their hind legs in a flurry of snapping
and yowling.

Mhumhi wanted to help her, feeling his heart
pounding away with confusion and fear, but there were more sharp
teeth in his injured leg, and with a yelp he whirled around and
snapped at the dark-furred Pampas fox that was leaping away,
catching her ear so that it tore through his teeth.

Tareq screamed. Mhumhi turned to see the
little boy crouching with his arms over his head while the culpeo
tore at the back of his neck.

Mhumhi reared up and caught the culpeo around
the shoulders and tore him off, flinging him to the ground as the
fox gave a surprised little scream. With an angry twitter Mhumhi
lunged down at him again only to break off just as abruptly.

A sound had filled the air, a kind of moaning
whoop.

The foxes either did not hear or did not
understand the meaning; they continued surging forward, snapping
and growling. In front of Mhumhi, Kutta and Sundu broke apart, the
latter panting and bleeding profusely from the neck and muzzle- it
seemed she'd come off the worse.

"What's that noise?" she asked. Kutta looked
at Mhumhi, eyes wide.

Sundu yelped- Biscuit had come at her from
behind, dragging her by the haunches with his huge jaws, and shoved
her to the ground. There was blood covering his muzzle, and his
pale eyes were sickeningly bright.

"Save the male!" he cried to Mhumhi. "Save
the male, get him out of here, I'll cover your retreat! The female
can be sacrificed-"

Maha gave a pained little cry- Mhumhi and
Kutta exchanged a look and turned their backs on the domestic
together, standing on either side of Maha and Tareq. Mhumhi pushed
his shoulder against Maha.

"Do you think you can run?"

She bobbed her head, sniffling and sobbing-
there were bite marks on her arms and legs. Mhumhi felt a warm fury
building up inside of him, quashing his fear.

"Then when I give the word, you take Tareq's
hand and head for the nearest house- we'll cover you-"

A fox screamed ahead of them. Mhumhi looked
up and saw a hyena standing at the edge of the crowd with a limp
body in its mouth.

"RUN, MAHA!"

Maha burst into a sprint, dragging Tareq
behind her- the surprised foxes fell away, for most of them were
staring at the hyena- the hyenas- more were coming out of the
darkness, squealing, sniffing, dark eyes gleaming. The air was
sodden with the scent of blood.

Kutta raced forward, catching them up- Mhumhi
lunged after her with a snarl, shaking the culpeo's teeth out of
his leg. They ran to the nearest building, a rack of apartments-
Maha's hands fumbled at the door and she choked out a sob when the
knob would not turn.

A few foxes had started to chase them, but
many were scattering, whining and yelping with terror: the hyenas
were moving through the crowd, almost leisurely, catching fox after
fox in their teeth. Mhumhi did not dare stop long enough to count
how many there were.

"Come on, Maha, down this way," he shouted,
and Maha ran again, stumbling, dragging the howling Tareq as they
turned together down an alleyway. Kutta leapt back and snapped at
one of the sand foxes that was following them, making it spring
away.

That seemed to be enough for the foxes, and
they peeled away, tails tucked and panting fearfully. From behind
them they could hear the sounds of the hyenas gibbering and
laughing- ripping- tearing-

Kutta retched but did not stop moving,
helping Mhumhi herd the terrified and sobbing children forward.
They rounded the corner of the alley into a street lined with
parked cars. Maha broke away from Tareq and ran to the nearest door
to rattle the knob- it was locked.

"Come back!" shrieked Kutta, and Mhumhi
whirled- a gray blur was streaking towards them around the opposite
corner.

Mhumhi had a moment of frozen terror before
he realized it could not be a hyena, for it was half his size- it
was Sundu, snarling, bloody. From the streets behind her Mhumhi
could hear heavy paws thudding on asphalt.

"Car, car!" Tareq shouted, and Mhumhi looked
back at him for a split second, bewildered. But it seemed to spark
something in Maha, for she turned around and grabbed at the door
handle of the nearest car. The door opened.

"In here!" she shouted, and more shoved than
helped Tareq inside. She climbed inside, then Kutta leapt after
her, a cinnamon blur- Mhumhi was gaining, seeing Maha's reaching
hand-

A hyena thumped loudly on the top of the car,
squealing, and then launched itself at Mhumhi.

Mhumhi turned end over end with the heavy
reeking body- he heard the car door slam and other hyenas gibbering
behind him. The hyena had not yet bitten him, merely struggled
against him and wafted its hot foul breath into his face and neck.
He wrenched himself from underneath it and took off, trusting that
somehow the car was secure, that he could lead the hyenas away-

I didn't want to die for them
, he
thought, heart pounding and thudding, and he knew anyway that his
death here would be pointless, it would not help them, yet he could
not stop himself from running-
Follow me, follow me, don't hurt
them
-

It had worked at least partially- heavy paws
were thumping after him. He jumped as something again streaked by
his side- Sundu. They exchanged a terrified glance, her with her
eyes wide and fearful and blood smeared through her fur, certainly
no longer enemies now, not when these monstrous beasts were chasing
them.

They turned a corner, thumped over parked
cars, scrambled through the gap between a lightpost and a brick
wall-

Sundu suddenly gave an awful sound, a
strangled choking gasp, and jerked backwards. Mhumhi could not stop
himself from skidding to a halt, turning to fight the creature that
had caught her- but there was nothing, nothing holding her- she was
choking and thrashing against air-

The light from the lamp gleamed against the
wire caught around her neck.

Mhumhi whimpered, because there came the
hyenas, loping easily in their queer hunched posture, noses
sniffing for Sundu's blood. Sundu had already stopped thrashing,
her eyelids drooping. She slid downwards, trembling, held taut by
the wire. Her eyes met Mhumhi's, wet and shining, and he realized
that she had already given up.

There were two hyenas, grunting and yowling
as they approached, sniffing and jerking back when she gave a
straining twitch. One of them looked up and its black eyes met
Mhumhi's.

Mhumhi turned and ran, wishing he could shut
his ears, wishing for a hulker's dull hearing, wishing for
anything, really, other than the reality that he was in.

He ran around the next corner and circled the
block, heading back towards the car, now that the hyenas were no
longer interested in following him.

When he returned he had to jerk to a stop,
tongue hanging out as he gasped and panted. The car door was
hanging open, the interior was empty, and he could smell blood.

Maha's distant scream made his sinking head
fly up, eyes wide and ears pricked, and he ran in that direction,
sprinting, muscles churning like they had never before.

He came down the street and saw her and Tareq
being held by two hulkers, dragged by the arms, towards a large
black car. In front of them there was a hyena, standing on top of
Kutta's body.

Mhumhi gave a scream and lunged forward,
catching the hyena's sloping flank with such force that they both
spun around. The hyena squealed and giggled and ran a short
distance away, head low and trembling. Mhumhi lowered his head over
Kutta's, shaking.