The Wolf Age (57 page)

"Seven to one against our victory?"

"Yes."

"That seems a little high."

"Yes."

Rokhlenu sat and listened while Morlock told him what he had found about Yaniunulu's finances.

"He must know something," Rokhlenu reflected. "Or thinks he knows something. He thinks that there is no chance we'll win."

"Yes. I don't know what it is."

"I think I do. I expect that the Aruukaiaduun will side with the Sardhluun-Neyuwuleiuun Alliance. Bastards."

"Hm." Morlock reflected and asked, "If I called you a bastard, would it be an insult?"

Rokhlenu was amused. "Naturally. Why? Wait: have you been calling me a bastard around Dogtown?"

Morlock repeated his conversation with the bookie and added, "What I meant was that you were tough and relentless, even though I was angry at you. Insults like that can carry this meaning in other languages."

Rokhlenu shook his head, and looked sourly at Liudhleeo, who was holding her hands over her face and shaking with silent laughter. "I suppose it can," he conceded grudgingly. "It's pretty poisonous language, though."

"Sorry. "

"No, no. You were right. Just the thing to keep up the illusion that we're against each other. But I have to admit this odds thing bothers me a little."

"Beyond Yaniunulu, you mean?"

"Yes. It's the bookies who are setting the odds, and other people will know about it, even if they never place a bet. It makes us look like losers, and that's always bad. No one likes a loser."

"Eh."

"Long shots, then, if you don't like losers."

"It doesn't matter to me; I was just going to say something."

"I'm sorry; I'm not used to that sort of wild behavior from you. What were you going to say?"

"We could send citizens into town to place bets with bookies. Lots of bets."

"Yes, but we couldn't do it on credit; we'd have to use money-but I was forgetting. You can make the stuff."

"So can Hlupnafenglu. I taught him how to make gold and copper, anyway. I take it weights of the metals will pass as currency; I wouldn't want to counterfeit coin."

"No, of course not. That would be wrong. They might send you to the Vargulleion."

Morlock smiled wryly and opened his hand.

"Yurr," Rokhlenu said, after some silent thought. "I like this. I like this betting idea a lot. It's a new way to get the ears of the citizenry. If the odds start sliding our way, everyone will start talking about it. Let's get started on it tomorrow."

Morlock looked at him, looked out at the sunlight, and looked back at Rokhlenu.

"I know there's daylight left," Rokhlenu said, "and that many a bookie does business after dark. But there's a rally tonight on the Goweiteiuun's home mesa, up on Iuiunioklendon. I need to get some sleep now, and-given what you've told me-send a message or two to the Goweiteiuun gnyrrand and his band of happy warriors."

"I forgot," Morlock admitted.

"Well, I guess if we ever saw each other these days I might have mentioned it." He looked dubiously at Morlock for a moment, and Morlock thought he was going to say something about his health or appearance. But what he actually said was, "This farce about us being enemies may have run its course. I'll talk it over with the First Wolf; her instincts on these things are better than mine. But you had certainly better not join us tonight."

Morlock hadn't planned to, but he felt a pang when Rokhlenu said this. He thought it might be more a reflection of his illness than electoral politics ... and, probably, it was justified under both headings.

"What about me?" said Liudhleeo, briskly, looking from one old friend to the other.

"The rally will be all-wolf. It will be a two-eyed night," Rokhlenu said, meaning that two moons would be aloft, "and all our fighters will be in their night shapes. So I don't think we'll need your services as healer, tonight, Liudhleeo; I hope not."

She nodded, and said, "I hope not, too. Send for me if you need me."

Rokhlenu said he would and, after some more talk about this and that, he left.

It was a solemn, if not a silent, crowd assembling in the amphitheater on Iuiunioklendon that evening just before sunset. Most of those present were native to the mesa, and most of them belonged to the Goweiteiuun Pack. The election didn't seem to be going well for them; their reckless union with the lawless outliers had brought other packs into alliance against them-and everyone had at least heard a rumor that the Aruukaiaduun Pack would join the Alliance.

There were claques of citizens favoring the Sardhluun and the Neyuwuleiuun. They made noise occasionally, barking their slogans about unity in solitary strength. But no one was quite sure what they meant, and they didn't catch on with the crowd at large. And the barkers didn't sound very happy or confident: this was a make-or-break rally for the Alliance, and both packs had lost a great deal in this election already. Even if they ultimately won, the cost might prove too high to be borne.

Plus, almost everyone was hungry to some extent. Food was scarce and expensive, and growing more expensive daily. The weather was so bad that people expected the rest of the year and next year to be even worse. And if it got much worse, many citizens would simply starve to death. Concerns like these tended to blunt the edge of slogans that were not about food.

One enterprising merchant from Apetown made a great deal of money in a short time by offering for sale a completely novel form of food: fish sausages. Each sausage was guaranteed to contain a certain proportion of real fish, caught on the shores of the Bitter Water and rushed for sale in the great city of Wuruyaaria before it could spoil by magical means the seller was unfortunately unable to disclose, interesting though they were. His audience was skeptical, but in this grim year they could not afford to be scornful. The merchant sold all his fish sausages at a remarkable profit. If he had thought to provide himself with a couple of guards, he might even have taken the money away with him. Still, he lived, and both he and his customers and those watching had learned something interesting and useful: werewolves would eat fish, if sufficiently hungry, and would pay well for the privilege.

The sun set, and presently the major moon, Chariot, peered out in somber brilliance through the bloody stain the sun had left on the eastern sky. Every citizen who could do so assumed the night shape. Then, as one, they turned to the west to look at the minor moon, Trumpeter-smallest of the three moons, but standing fiercely bright in the western sky.

It was time for the rally. The Goweiteiuun gnyrrand, Aaluindhonu, was the first candidate to appear, followed by his bold cantors and their brave band of volunteers. So Aaluindhonu described them in his opening song, but it would probably not have occurred to anyone else to do so. One of the cantors was actually trailing his tail on the ground, like a puppy who had been shouted at.

But Aaluindhonu sang well and fervently. There were rumors about him, and the crowd whispered them to each other as he sang. They whispered that he once had semiwolf kin in Dogtown, and the Sardhluun had killed them. Others said, no: the semiwolves were held hostage by the infamous First Wolf of the outliers, and others told other stories. But everyone had felt doubts about the gnyrrand's dedication to victory earlier in the Year of Choosing, and no one doubted it now.

In his song he hit the Neyuwuleiuun very hard, pointing out that the airships had never before been used against werewolves, and that if they could be used against the outliers then why not against the citizens of Dogtown? Of Apetown? Of Iuiunioklendon? Not only had the Neyuwuleiuun Pack committed a crime, they had failed: their vaunted airships had been struck from the sky by the daring and skill of the outliers. Bad enough to elect criminals to lead them-but failed criminals?

Which brought him to the Sardhluun. For years they had taken money and resources from the city to house prisoners in the Vargulleion and the Khuwuleion. Some they had killed, for meat or mere cruelty. Some they had sold like cattle to the wild packs. When a brave remnant had broken free from their sluggish hold and brought the truth to Wuruyaaria, the Sardhluun dogs had been powerless to stop it, just as they were powerless to answer that dreaded question. Where were the prisoners of the Khuwuleion? Where were the prisoners of the Khuwuleion? Where were the prisoners of the Khuwuleion?

The refrain infected the crowd, most of whom were anti-Sardhluun anyway. As they sang, the outliers raced into the amphitheater, green-and-gold streamers tied to the cords of honor-teeth around their necks. Their appearance raised the first genuine cheer of the night. When that subsided, the great gray werewolf who led them, the dragon-killer Rokhlenu, began to sing.

He sang that the outliers and their Goweiteiuun partners had founded a colony on the shores of the Bitter Water. He said that even if the harvest of the land failed and all the cattle died, the harvest of the sea would go on forever, fresh with life in the cool blue water. This, in essence, was the contrast between the Sardhluun-Neyuwuleiuun Alliance and the Goweiteiuun-outlier Union. The Alliance were dishonest jailors and failed sky-pirates. The Union dared to think in new ways to save the lives of citizens in these troubled times. Did citizens want the vicious past of the Alliance or the shining future of the Union? The choice was theirs.

His song was brief, convincing, eloquent, and had several direct references to food. The audience howled their approval at the two-eyed starspangled sky.

Suddenly there were new bands charging into the fighting ground of the amphitheater. The gnyrrands of the Sardhluun and the Neyuwuleiuun, grimly silent, running side by side with their bands of cantors and a stunningly large crowd of volunteers in their wake. The Alliance werewolves ran silent circles around the werewolves of the Union, and the crowd fell silent too. The Alliance was waiting for something, and the crowd waited also.

It happened. Five standard-bearers appeared at the amphitheater gates. But instead of flags, on the standards were the heads of citizens. Most were rotting, almost skeletal. But one was freshly killed: his blood was still dripping, his eyes still shining with tears in the moonlight.

Between the standard-bearers came the Aruukaiaduun band and their volunteers, teeth bared, snarling, ready to fight and kill. They charged straight at the Union werewolves, and as they did so the Alliance werewolves broke their circle formation and charged inward.

Few in the amphitheater recognized the heads on the standards, but Rokhlenu thought that he knew them. They were the heads of his father and brothers. The shock of seeing them was great, so great that he didn't even feel it as grief. He had long mourned them as dead. It maddened him a little to think that his youngest brother, one of the two who had disappeared around the time the others were murdered, had been alive until moments ago. It was his head that was still dripping on its pole. They had killed him just now to torment Rokhlenu, make him lose control.

He would not give them that.

He snarled a directive at his reeve, Yaarirruuiu, and at Aaluindhonu. They'd suspected they would be outnumbered, although not this badly, and had planned a retreat. He sang they should execute that plan now-but added they should kill the standard-bearers if they could.

The Union wolves struck as a body against the Aruukaiaduun band rushing down on them and sent the newcomers into confusion. Soon the Aruukaiaduun were entangled in the advancing lines of the Alliance werewolves.

The Union werewolves made their escape in the confusion, killing several of the standard-bearers as they went.

Rokhlenu sang one last line to the audience as he stood in the amphitheater gate, the last to leave as his enemies bore down on him. He sang that this was the meat and drink the Alliance would serve Wuruyaaria: their own flesh and blood.

Then he turned and vanished into the night.

Now, at last, the Alliance gnyrrands sang their songs. They welcomed the Aruukaiaduun werewolves to their band, and the Aruukaiaduun gnyrrand acknowledged his pack's worth and the new Alliance's glory. They talked a good deal about sternness, lonely strength, the need for order, and they boasted time and time over of their victory.

The crowd, apart from the Alliance claques, was mostly silent. It was true the Alliance had won the rally, but they had won in the ugliest possible way. It was not against the rules to overwhelm your opponents with the number of your volunteers, as the Alliance had done, because very little was against the rules in the Year of Choosing. But it was a very low-status way to earn a victory. Many remembered and repeated Rokhlenu's last words. And everyone noted that the Alliance werewolves said nothing at all about food or famine.