by James Enge
The frizz-haired red werewolf paused to goggle at her. “High Huntress,” he said, “with respect—”
“Listen, I'm not sure who you think you're talking to, but I am sure your respect means less than nothing to me. When I told you to give it to him, I meant for you to give it to him. So give it to him.”
Silently Yaniunulu took a staff hanging from his belt and handed it to Rokhlenu. He proceeded down the far side of the wall without another word.
The staff was wrapped with a black covering. When he pulled that loose, he found that the staff was a flagstaff: around it was wrapped the green-and-gold banner of the outliers.
“It would be better if all the other nominees were here,” Wuinlendhono said, “but I thought it might come to this. Now you can fight under our banner.”
Rokhlenu mulled this over for a moment, then said, “You knew there would be a general election rally tonight, and you lied to me about it.”
“I still don't think we're ready to intervene in the general election—we don't even have an ally in the treaty packs yet. And I didn't lie; I just didn't go out of my way to correct your mistaken impression. Oh. Oh, ghost. I hate it that I just said that.”
After a moment of tense thought Rokhlenu said mildly, “We'll have to do better.”
“You're right,” she admitted frankly. “I'm not used to this partnership thing. I'll go with my guards and get the wedding ready; I have my bride-price,” she added, shyly tapping the prison register. She scampered down the rope before he could kiss her good-bye.
Hrutnefdhu was coming up the rope now. Morlock, the last of the group, climbed up when Hrutnefdhu started climbing down the outer wall.
He caught Morlock by the arm and hauled him up—not that Morlock needed the help; he climbed better than Runhuiulanhu.
“We're going to be fighting after all,” he said to Morlock.
“Some sort of rally?” Morlock said. “I heard you talking. Won't it go against you with the treaty packs if you break up an election rally?”
Rokhlenu looked at him with astonishment he was unable to mask. “Have you ever seen an election?” he asked.
“Many,” Morlock said. “They didn't usually involve fighting.” He paused. “At least, not on purpose.” Another pause. “Actually, I'm not sure about that. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Tell me about your election rallies.”
The your stung a little. But Rokhlenu had almost forgotten that Morlock was a never-wolf; there was something so wolvish about him.
“Once the packs elect their nominees,” he explained to his old friend, “pack meets pack in a series of rallies all through the election season. They speak and they fight; citizens come to watch. The pack that speaks and fights better gains bite. The other loses bite. The nominees with the most bite at the end of the election season lie down in the Innermost Pack of the city.”
“Then,” said Morlock, and climbed down the outer wall.
By the time Rokhlenu reached the ground, Wuinlendhono and her guards were gone. The werewolves and Morlock were standing with weapons drawn, waiting for him.
He shook loose the green-and-gold banner and handed it to Hrutnefdhu.
“Don't lose it,” he said.
“Won't,” said the pale werewolf in a strangled tone.
Banner-bearer was a position of high honor and Hrutnefdhu was the male of lowest bite among them, but the irredeemables were for it. “Ha!” said Yaarirruuiu. “You'll have some bite after tonight, plepnup.” The irredeemables growled their approval.
“Or we'll all be plepnupov,” Hrutnefdhu snapped back, and the irredeemables hooted. The ex-trustee was judged the winner of that exchange.
“Let's go,” Rokhlenu said, and they ran side by side into battle.
Mercy was the weakest of the Strange Gods, and her visualizations were often less than complete. So she was surprised when War manifested himself alongside her on the road to Wuruyaaria. He wore his now-favorite form of a decapitated man, holding his severed head like a lamp. She wore the form of a woman without a mouth, carrying a white lotus flower in her hand.
“Going to the rally?” the decapitated man signified, flapping its gray lips with a hint of mockery.
“I am,” Mercy confirmed. “I am surprised to see you there. Will your friend Death also be watching it?”
“My visualization doesn't embrace that,” War admitted. They had hated each other so long that they had reached a state where it was pointless to lie to one another. “She is stranger than ever, in recent event-series. Even when she signifies directly to me, I have trouble disentangling her symbols. They seem almost random, empty of meaning.”
“There may be no deaths at this rally, anyway,” Mercy signified. “I hope not.”
“I care not. You may be right; you may be wrong: the Sardhluun are ruthless bastards. They are stupid, though, and rarely amuse me.”
Their manifestations overlapped the nexus of space-time where the rally was occurring.
The gnyrrand of the Goweiteiuun, a citizen named Aaluindhonu, was standing with his slate of candidates under a banner of blue and red, telling a parable of a man with five sons. The man asked each of his sons to take an arrow and break it. They did. Then he took five arrows, bound them together, and told them each to try and break the bundle. None could, and this showed, the gnyrrand said, that strength came through union: of brother with brother, citizen with citizen, pack with pack. The Goweiteiuun Pack was for the strength of the city through unity. The gnyrrand slouched back among his dozen or so followers without waiting for the crowd's applause.
There wasn't much applause to wait for. The crowd of spectators, gathered in the open area between the two bands of candidates, was not particularly impressed. The arrow story was trite; the lesson was the sort of la-di-da their den mothers and teachers had been yowling at them for as long as they could remember. It might be true, but it bored them. They turned with relief to the Sardhluun band.
The gnyrrand of the Sardhluun Pack was not present; this wasn't an important enough rally for him to appear. His second-candidate, Hwinsyngundu, gave the Sardhluun response, standing under a banner of black and green, in front of fifty volunteers wearing the same colors. He was a burly, broad-shouldered werewolf, his fat neck wholly covered with thick bands of honor-teeth. He stepped forward and reached out one hand. A werewolf in Sardhluun colors put five arrows in his outstretched palm. Hwinsyngundu gripped the bundle with both hands, held it over his head, and—without a word—he snapped the bundle in half.
The crowd roared. This was better than the truth. This confirmed their irritation with the old truism—scratched the itch they had long felt.
“That was clever,” War signified generously. “It was prearranged, of course.”
“Yes,” Mercy signified. “Aaluindhonu, the gnyrrand of the Goweiteiuun, betrayed his pack. The Sardhluun threatened to kill some of his semiwolf kin who live in Apetown unless he cooperated with them. He is fond of his kin, even if they are semiwolves, and has little hope in the elections anyway, and so he submitted to the Sardhluun demands.”
“All's fair, I suppose,” said War dubiously. Politics was much like war in some ways, almost an extension of war by other means, but sometimes the methods involved made him uncomfortable. “I wish Wisdom were manifest,” he continued. “He'd enjoy this. The crowd certainly is.”
The crowd itself was not particularly impressive. It was numerous, surely, especially for a rally this early in the season on a moonless night, when the fighting was likely to be bloodless. But there were many citizens wearing the night shape—probably denizens of Dogtown, where the never-men tended to congregate. Many of the others may have come from Apetown: they were not well dressed, and there were many semiwolves among them. Many in the crowd wore not a single honor-tooth. They had little bite to bestow.
But what they had, they gave to the Sardhluun and to Hwinsyngundu before he opened his mouth: they cheered; they howled; they barked. It was Sardhluun's rally to lose at that ex
hilarating moment.
Hwinsyngundu began to speak. He said that the city was strong because of its strongest citizens; life was a war, with every citizen in conflict with the others. The strongest ruled; others cooperated because they must, because they needed the strength of the strong, but the strong needed nothing but their strength alone, so the city should grow the strength of the strong to become stronger as the strong ruled the city with strength and in strength for its strength and theirs. Their strength, that is. In strength was safety and in safety was strength. He then expanded on these important points, perhaps repeating himself a little.
The crowd grew much less enthusiastic as he spoke (at much too great a length). This was just the usual Sardhluun line, almost as trite as the handholding inanity of the Goweiteiuun gnyrrand. They began to vacate the space between the two packs of candidates, long before the second candidate had finished his speech. Eventually, he noticed that he was losing the crowd and concluded with some screeching insults about the cowardice of the Goweiteiuun ghost-sniffers.
The crowd applauded politely. Hwinsyngundu had lost most of their esteem, but they were still somewhat in Sardhluun's favor because of the great stunt with the arrows, and because they were obviously going to win the ensuing fight. The Sardhluun candidates and followers behind Hwinsyngundu looked somewhat dismayed, though.
“What a clown,” War signified impatiently.
“He believes what he is saying,” signified Mercy, who felt sorry for the inept politician. “Hwinsyngundu really believes he is a bold lone hero who has clambered to the top through his strength and independent daring.”
“He grew up in, and inherited, a household of five hundred personal slaves. He is the Werowance's bastard son and grandson.”
“Yes. The family should outbreed more, obviously.”
Now the space between the bands of candidates and their auxiliaries was quite clear, and the crowd readied themselves to enjoy a quick drubbing and mocking of the Goweiteiuun.
“Where are the prisoners of the Khuwuleion?” came a shout from the darkness beyond the rally torches.
The crowd fell silent, astonished. The candidates paused, unsure what was happening.
Even Mercy was surprised. She observed War, who made the gray lips of his severed head smile cheerily at her.
“Where are the prisoners of the Vargulleion?” the same voice shouted.
Now the crowd was less surprised, and more amused, because they all knew the answer to this one. The Sardhluun had lost all their male prisoners in the largest prison break in the history of Wuruyaaria. It was a shameful display of weakness from those who bragged constantly of their strength, and it had been enjoyed as a joke on all the mesas of Wuruyaaria.
Hwinsyngundu stepped into the open space between the two parties and shouted into the darkness. “The prisoners fled like weaklings to the cowardly outlier pack, who admit their weakness by submitting to the rule of a female. We of the mighty Sardhluun Pack have given them a first burning taste of vengeance and, if need be, they will drink the whole poisonous bowl and die of it. None defy the mighty Sardhluun Pack and live!”
“I did,” said the speaker in the shadows, and strode forward into the light. He was a tall, gray-haired werewolf in the day shape, his wolf-shadow rippling below him in the firelight. Over his head rippled the green-and-gold banner of the outliers, the flagstaff held by a pale mottled werewolf.
“I am Rokhlenu,” said the gray werewolf, “gnyrrand of the outliers. I come with my fighters, all escaped from the Vargulleion, and my old friend Morlock Khretvarrgliu. We say that you lie, Sardhluun sheepdogs. You were too weak to hold us. You were too weak to retake us. And you sold your prisoners of the Khuwuleion like meat to the wild packs in the empty lands. The Khuwuleion is as empty as the Vargulleion, as empty as every Sardhluun promise, as every Sardhluun boast. Only cowards lie. Only weaklings worship strength. We come here to fight alongside the noble Goweiteiuun Pack against the Sardhluun fleabags. If you really are the stronger, you have the chance to prove it now.”
Out of the darkness stepped two dozen werewolves, more or less human in shape. And there was the never-wolf, Khretvarrgliu, his shadow the same crooked form as his body. He held a sword the color of glass in his hand; his eyes, too, were the color of gray glass.
The Goweiteiuun followers cheered their unexpected allies; only their gnyrrand seemed dismayed. The Sardhluun werewolves looked at the Goweiteiuun, looked at the newcomers, and fell in a body on the outliers.
“This is what you came to see!” Mercy signified. “You visualized this!”
War's headless shoulders shrugged. “I could not be sure. None of my visualizations have the light of certainty these days. But several futures showed something like this. Ulugarriu was present in those features, but is not here now, unless disguised somehow.”
“Ulugarriu might be able to baffle a god's indirect visualization, but not direct perceptions from our manifest selves. Surely?” signified Mercy, ever less sure as she thought of it.
“I don't know,” War admitted reluctantly. “It's a good fight, though, don't you think?”
“I hate it. They have struck down that pale werewolf with the banner. They are going to kill him.”
“No. No, you're wrong. Look how his comrades come to his aid. That one they call Khretvarrgliu. He's not even a werewolf. He's standing over the pale one's body. He'll die rather than let them hurt his friend. Doesn't it move you, Mercy? This is what war is really about: heroism, self-sacrifice, daring, strategy. Not just killing and cruelty.”
“There is a great deal of killing and cruelty. Your hero Khretvarrgliu has killed three Sardhluun werewolves already. And he would kill them all if he could: there is a madness in him.”
“You're right, of course. They should have killed him or left him alone.”
So far the fighting had only been between the Sardhluun and the newcomers. The Goweiteiuun followers were urgently addressing their gnyrrand, who wore a bitter haggard look on his narrow face. Finally he nodded. The Goweiteiuun gave a thin howling cheer and they charged the flank of the Sardhluun werewolves.
The fight was far from certain even after the Goweiteiuun struck. The Sardhluun still had the greater numbers, and their band were all broadbacked fighters.
But their union was broken when the Goweiteiuun attacked. Some turned to respond to it; others hesitated; others stayed engaged with the outliers. There was a gap in the Sardhluun line, and the ruthless outliers took advantage of it. The gray-haired blue-eyed leader leaped forward, a long-faced ape-fingered werewolf at his side. By now the one they called Khretvarrgliu had lifted the pale werewolf from the ground and was holding him up with his left hand; the pale werewolf in turn held the green-and-gold banner high. The outliers shouted (or howled) as one and followed their gnyrrand into the broken Sardhluun line. Mad-eyed Morlock came last, hauling the banner-bearer like a banner and stabbing with his glittering glass sword.
The Sardhluun band retreated to re-form their line, but the others charged with them and the melee continued. Werewolves lay dead or dying on the moonless ground. Others, only wounded, were crawling out of the torchlight to hide in the shadows. The Sardhluun retreated again, and suddenly they were not retreating but running, a rout of werewolves in black and green fleeing for their lives down the road to the Long Wall.
The Goweiteiuun did not pursue them but stood cheering on the rally ground. The crowd, too, was cheering: the fight was excellent and unexpected; the stunt with the arrows had been a good one; in all, it was a much better rally than anyone had hoped for. The outliers did follow the Sardhluun until the defeated werewolves began to enter the Low Road Gate through the Long Wall. Then the leader of the outliers turned his fighters back and went to have words with the sad-eyed gnyrrand of the Goweiteiuun band.
“A good fight indeed,” signified War. “Yes, I think this will be a fine election year.” He demanifested himself with no further symbolism. It was uncivil, but he and Mercy had neve
r been on the best of terms.
Mercy turned to find Death manifest beside her in the form of a spider-limbed woman.
“How your weakness repels me,” Death remarked. “I struck here tonight, and you could do nothing to stop it.”
“In the shadows,” Mercy replied, “are five she-wolves of the Goweiteiuun. They came to tend the wounded from their pack after tonight's rally. As it happens, all the seriously wounded are Sardhluun. The she-wolves will tend them as their own and no more of them will die.”
Death rose to all eight of her legs and looked down on the small mouthless woman with the lotus in her hand. “They will all die,” Death signified. “Each one will die, and none will save them.”
“On another day. On another night. Tonight,” signified Mercy with great satisfaction, “I have struck, and you could do nothing to stop it.”
Death indicated amusement, indifference, and patience. Then she ceased to manifest herself.
Mercy stayed to watch the acts that fell within her sphere, and to watch the increasingly intent conversation between the gnyrrands of the Goweiteiuun and the outliers. More deaths would come of that; more fighting; more need for mercy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NIGHT SHAPES
Wuinlendhono and Rokhlenu's mating was settled for the fourth day of the year's third month—the month the werewolves called Uyaarwuionien (“third half-lunation of the second moon”) but Morlock called Brenting. So he explained to Rokhlenu after Rokhlenu bespoke him as a guest and he accepted. They stood talking outside the irredeemables' lair—now considerably less barnlike thanks to their relative wealth, bite, and a good deal of hard work.
“What difference does it make what the month's called?” Rokhlenu asked Morlock.
“Nothing, except I find Brenting easier to pronounce.”
“Are you joking? With that lippy growling bibbly sound at the beginning of the word?”