The Wolf Age (14 page)

Rokhlenu had just undergone the change; the hallway was echoing with the howls of those doing the same.

Morlock looked up and saw, of course, Khretnurrliu, holding his severed head like a lantern in one hand. Next to him, in the center of Morlock's vision, was Wurnafenglu, that one gray-muzzled prison guard who seemed to have significant bite. He was looking directly at Morlock, dark lips parted in a wolvish grin that was all-too-human. He was expecting a good show.

"Rokhlenu," Morlock said, "they're about to try something. Be wary."

But Rokhlenu didn't listen. He was distracted by something happening in the hallway. Morlock heard the noise, but Rokhlenu was reacting to a scent. His nostrils dilated and he slunk toward the cell bars as if he were being dragged by the nose.

Several guards dragged a she-wolf into view. It was the first female werewolf that Morlock had seen in the prison: there had been females among the raiders, but none among the guards. This one was collared, her back feet bound to a metal bar that kept them spread-eagled. She was whimpering; blood was dripping from her mouth; she had been beaten, perhaps many times. She was evidently in heat.

The guards, laughing and making obscene gestures, showed her to Rokhlenu.

Rokhlenu seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. Finally he threw himself against the bars in a desperate attempt to reach the female.

The guards laughed and mocked him. In a chorus, man and wolf, they sang an obscene song at him; Morlock wondered if it was a version (or inversion) of one of Rokhlenu's songs; there was some mention of three moons aloft.

Rokhlenu was breaking his teeth trying to gnaw through the bars.

The guards raped the female werewolf, one by one. The senior guard, Wurnafenglu, the one with the grizzled fur and the multitude of honor-teeth, went first; the guards wearing the day shape went last. Even headless Khretnurrliu held his severed head high, as if to see better, and gruntingly thrust against the empty air with his decaying phallus.

In the end the she-wolf lay without moving on the stone corridor. Morlock wondered if she was dead. Two of the man-form guards dragged her away. The others turned and started barking insults and mockery at Rokhlenu again. They said they could bring in a she-wolf again every night, if Rokhlenu had enjoyed the show. They said that he probably couldn't have done much if he had made it through the bars-as they themselves would have done, in his place. They described the visceral pleasures of forcing the she-wolf in grunted songs that, again, seemed to be parodies of love poetry. They said a great many things that Morlock did not understand and made no effort to understand.

Rokhlenu kept battering himself against the bars. Whatever reason he had, it was not at his command.

Morlock hated to see it. He hated to see the guards laughing at his friend, mocking him in his moment of weakness. So he jumped forward and strangled him. He wrapped his right arm around Rokhlenu's neck as tightly as he could, and ignored the wolf's savage claws tearing at his flesh, scattering fuming fire-bearing blood on the stones of the cell and the corridor outside.

The guards roared with excitement. This was the game they had long waited to see. They called down the hallway to the other guards. They demanded that Hrutnefdhu bring his bag of betting slips-where the ghost was Hrutnefdhu whenever they needed him?

Morlock clamped down on Rokhlenu's windpipe as hard as he dared and held until the werewolf stopped scrabbling and clawing to get free.

He stood straight up, holding the motionless werewolf's body aloft by his neck. From the grinding sensation under his fingers, at least one bone was broken.

The guards in the hallway applauded him. They called him the beastkiller. They said he had earned much bite, and could earn much more.

Morlock threw the dead werewolf into the square of moonlight on the cell floor.

He turned toward the cell bars. He found the senior guard and fixed him with his gaze. He snarled at him in Moonspeech. He could see by their faces that this shocked the guards; even Khretnurrliu seemed dismayed, to the extent that Morlock could see expression on the severed head's face.

Morlock snarled that, if they wanted bloodshed, one of them should come into the cell. In the day shape or the night shape. With weapons and armor, or naked as the bald-faced bastards of ape-legged brachs that they were. He jumped up to the cell gate and shook the bars with his bleeding hands; the guards all instinctively recoiled. He laughed and turned his back on them.

Rokhlenu was reviving in the white-hot pool of moonlight. He rolled groggily to his feet. His eyes found Morlock, dripping blood and fire near at hand, and shied away from the sight. He didn't look at the hallway, still crowded with eager guards. He slunk over to a lightless corner of the cell and curled up on the floor.

Morlock went to the opposite corner and sat down with his back against the wall. He didn't expect to sleep, but he must have, eventually. After a dreamless interval he woke up and saw that it was past dawn. His wounds had mostly dried up, but one on the wrist was still dripping persistently.

Rokhlenu, now wearing the day shape, was sitting crouched in his corner, his hands across his face. He had not yet put on his loincloth, which was normally the first thing he did after transition.

Morlock rose and limped over to the loincloth. He picked it up with his left (unbleeding) hand and held it out to Rokhlenu. "Here."

"Get away from me," Rokhlenu said, not moving.

"Here," Morlock said, more insistently.

Rokhlenu struck the filthy cloth away from him. "Don't you understand?" he screamed. "The bond is broken. There never was a bond. I'm not one of you. I'm one of therm. I know it now. They know it. Why don't you know it?"

Morlock stooped and picked up the loincloth and held it out. "There is you and me," he said patiently. "There is them. You and me against them. No bond is broken. I say so."

Rokhlenu silently took the loincloth and wrapped it around himself. As Morlock turned away, the werewolf reached out his hand and grabbed Morlock by one shoulder. "You and me," Rokhlenu said, "against them. I'll remember this, Morlock."

Morlock nodded and went back to the other side of the cell, where he was less likely to bleed on his friend.

orlock didn't bother binding his wounds; he guessed the Sardhluun would be reluctant to let their beast killer die until they had wholly given up on finding ways to use him.

He was right. Presently Hrutnefdhu came slinking down the corridor in man form, the jar of healing salve in one hand, a roll of bandages in the other. He stood in the corridor, not looking at the guards as one opened the gate while the others nocked arrows and aimed them at the prisoners. Hrutnefdhu stepped into the cell. He didn't look at Rokhlenu, either, but went straight to Morlock with the salve.

"Thanks," Morlock said, slathering on the ill-smelling goo.

"I'll bind them," Hrutnefdhu said, unrolling a stretch of cloth and tearing it with his sharp white teeth.

Morlock thought this unwise, as his blood would likely cause the bandage to burn. But then he realized that Hrutnefdhu knew about this, and said nothing as the werewolf deftly bound up his wounds. The cloth absorbed the salve and Morlock's blood and did not burn.

"This salve and the cloth have been dephlogistonated," he said to Hrutnefdhu.

"I don't know what that means," the werewolf said.

"A powerful maker made them," Morlock said. "Who was it?"

"I don't know-the Goweiteiuun practice magic. Or maybe Ulugarriu made them."

"Ulugarriu?" Morlock asked. "I thought nobody saw him?"

"Nobody does," Hrutnefdhu said. "I didn't mean it. If any great wonder has been worked, they say that Ulugarriu did it. It's stupid. Never mind."

"Do you know what happened to the she-wolf?" Morlock asked.

Every muscle in the mottled werewolf's flexible body seemed to freeze. "What do you mean?" he asked finally.

"Did she die? Will she recover? They hurt her very badly."

"Yes." Hrutnefdhu swallowed painfully. "She is not dead. She is not well, but will recover. She is my mate, Liudhleeo."

His mate. Morlock did not understand how a castrato could have a mate, but that was not the most important thing, perhaps. "I am sorry," he said quietly. "I hated them for what they did. I hate them more now. I know that doesn't help."

Hrutnefdhu closed his eyes, opened them. "It's not nothing. There is you and me. There is them."

"There is Rokhlenu, also."

"I suppose there is."

"Will you bind his wounds also?" Morlock asked.

Hrutnefdhu's pale eyes focused on Morlock for a moment. Then he nodded impassively.

Rokhlenu had no visible wounds. But the smeared ointment would look like dried blood. And Morlock hoped that a rope maker's son could unobtrusively fashion the bandages themselves into respectable strangling cords.

The months passed and the deadly heat lessened slightly. It was autumn, presently, and from then on the nights were moonslit: great Chariot, the major moon, would be aloft until the last day of the year. But Rokhlenu often practiced the discipline of not changing into a wolf at night. When he did assume the night shape, he usually avoided the transformation into the day shape on the next morning.