The Wolf Age

by James Enge

  "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-andgold 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 longfaced 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 never been on the best of terms.

  Mercy turned to find Death manifest beside her in the form of a spiderlimbed 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.

  uinlendhono 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 Brent
ing easier to pronounce."

  "Are you joking? With that lippy growling bibbly sound at the beginning of the word?"

  "You can say it."

  "Of course I can say it, but why should I have to? I'm not an ape hanging by my feet from a tree branch. What's so hard to say about Uyaarwuionien? It practically sings its way out of your mouth."

  "Not my mouth. I still haven't mastered the vowels of Sunspeech, let alone Moonspeech. Yesterday I asked a citizen selling grain in the marketplace whether she would sell me a pound of wheat flour and she started to take her clothes off."

  "Oh. Oh, I see." In Sunspeech, the word luiunhiendhi meant "flour ground from wheat" whereas luunhendhe was an abrupt and rather intimate invitation involving another type of seed entirely. "Still, it's promising that she was so eager to go along. Did you get anywhere with her?"

  "I got my flour eventually, if that's what you mean."

  It was not what Rokhlenu meant at all. Like many males about to mate for life, he was eager to see his friends married off also, or at least happily settled. Morlock was an awkward prospect in this line.

  "Well-pronounce it any way you want, as long as you're there. The act needs witnesses, and I want you to be mine."

  "I'm honored, old friend," Morlock said formally, then added, "What should I bring?"

  "Just yourself."

  "Hm." Morlock looked unhappy. After a moment he said, "Rokhlenu."

  "Morlock."

  "I think our friendship has passed the point where we waste time being polite to each other?"

  "Sometime on day two, I'd say. Why?"

  "I remind you that I have never been to a mating of werewolves. If a gift is customary, I would prefer to bring a gift, polite protestations notwithstanding."

  "Yes, I see. But I mean what I say, Morlock. When a First Wolf mates, or anyone with a lot of bite, really, it's the custom to not give gifts to the happy couple. They are supposed to be too ghost-bitingly wealthy to need the guests' assistance. We really only want you to be there."

  "I will be." Morlock looked closely at him, a faint smile on his face. "You say `happy couple' as if you mean it."

  Rokhlenu shrugged and threw a chair at his old friend. Morlock caught it neatly-with his right hand, Rokhlenu noticed with a pang; he hardly ever moved the left hand anymore unless he had to. "I do mean it, I guess," Rokhlenu admitted. "Sad, isn't it?"

  "Sad? No. Tragic perhaps."

  "Tragic?"

  "Happiness is usually tragic."

  "It is?"

  Morlock twirled the chair nervously in his fingers. He was no longer smiling. "I may be using the wrong words. The word I am thinking of in my native language implies no criticism."

  "Now who's being polite? Get out and don't come back until you want to."

  Morlock smiled, nodded, threw the chair back at him, and left.

  "Your friend has been life-mated," Wuinlendhono said sagely, when Rokhlenu told her about the conversation later.

  "Morlock? Married? Impossible."

  "I'm sure his wife came to the same conclusion, at some point."

  "Don't put the snarl on my old friend."

  "He knows stuff about marriage that you don't, is what I'm saying, really. He has a sense of what you're getting into."

  "I'm not getting into a what. I'm getting into a who."

  "There's a what and a who. The who is your mate; the what is the marriage itself. There's usually trouble with one or the other."

  "You worry too much about trouble. What happens can be dealt with. What never happens, you never have to deal with."

  "Very philosophical. But I've got enough trouble to worry me. If these parfumiers don't come up with a decent wedding scent I may have to be mated wearing garlic instead of honor-teeth."

  "Suits me. That or your natural scents: what could be more intoxicating?"

  "It's not for you, clod. If you think I'm going to appear before what passes for the gentry in this bug-bitten swampy suburb without a decent wedding scent you ... you can ..."

  "Think again? Bite you? Whistle up my tail?"

  "You may not finish my sentences for me until we're mated and old."

  "I can't wait to get started."

  The waiting was hard, and became harder as the day got closer.

  The day before the mating, grim news came from the city. Rokhlenu's father and two of his brothers had been killed in a night-theft while they were working as rope winders. His other brothers were missing; no one knew where they were-or, at least, if they knew, they would not say.

  The messenger came to him just before sunset, and he went immediately to Wuinlendhono. He found her lying in her sleep chamber, just waking up from her afternoon sleep. Sitting down beside her sleeping cloak, he told her all he had heard.

  "They can say night-thieves," he said. "And maybe they were nightthieves. But Rywudhaariu, that god-licking old gray-muzzle, he sent them. This is his work."

  "It's a good guess. When did this all take place?"

  "Seven months ago."

  "You were on the fifth floor of the Vargulleion. There was nothing you could do."

  "I know," Rokhlenu said, but he still felt guilty. He felt the shame survivors sometimes feel. "I think we should cancel the mating."

  "Rokhlenu. Beloved. We will not cancel the mating."

  "My father is dead. My brothers are dead."

  "No deader now than they were yesterday."

  "But now I know. If they were your kith, you would understand."

  "I do understand. No, let me show you something, stalwart."

  She rolled out of her sleeping cloak and grabbed a great heavy codex that was lying on a nearby chair. It was the prisoner book they had taken from the Vargulleion.

  "I am not in here, by the way," she said, looking over the volume at him with her night-black eyes. "Evidently they didn't consider me a prisoner. But look at this."

  Her forefinger rested on an entry; he read it over her shoulder. A prisoner named Slenginhuiuo. The crime was adultery. The dates of admission and discharge were illegible, but the prisoner was discharged as dead. Annotations in ideogrammatic Moonspeech added that the body was unfit for use as animal fodder and should be chopped up for fertilizer on the plantations.

  "My mother," Wuinlendhono said. "I found this a few days ago. I hadn't wanted to look for it. I wanted to believe that he forgave her at last, that he sold her into some wild pack, that she was growing old licking someone else's cubs in the empty lands. But now I know. I know that she is dead. He had them torture her until she died."

  "And you say we should be mated anyway."

  "This is why we must be mated. Our families are gone. Our pasts are gone. All we have is each other, the present, and the future. Grieve. Plan vengeance. Do what you must. But tomorrow you will mount me as your mate. I need you."

  If she had said (as he half expected her to say), be sensible, the plans are made, I finally have chosen my mating scent, we have bought expensive food and smoke which will spoil if it is not used, be sensible, all the invitations have been spoken, we have responsibilities to others, what will people think, be sensible-if she had said any of that, or anything like it, he would have left her forever. But the words she actually spoke tolled in his heart like a bell; he knew he could never leave her. She and no other was his life-mate.

  "Need you, too," he grumbled.

  "Oh, you golden-tongued persuader."

  So Rokhlenu's mood was unexpectedly chaotic as he donned his wedding shirt the next day in the late afternoon. He was vibrating with hope and longing for Wuinlendhono; nothing could change that. But he was shaken by waves of grief and anger and loneliness, too. Somehow, no matter what he had done and where he had been, he had always seen himself returning to his family's den and telling his tale to them and listening to others from them as he lay by his brothers and father on the hearth before the long fireplace. Now they were dead, and that part of him was dying, like a gangrenous limb.

  He stood in the l
ittle sleeping closet they had built for him in a corner of the irredeemables' barracks. A male was supposed to be mated from his parents' lair, the home where he grew up. But if that place still existed, it was just a place, a hole in the cliffs above Nekkuklendon mesa. The people who gave it meaning, who made it home, were dead. This place was just a place. He could still smell the sawdust from its making. But if he'd lived here for a hundred years, it still wouldn't be home.

  "Chief," a hesitant voice broke in on his thoughts, "your friends are here."

  Rokhlenu raised his head and saw that the door to his sleeping closet was open. In the doorway stood claw-fingered Lekkativengu.

  "Good news," he said heavily, and moved toward the door. Lekkativengu stepped hastily out of the way, but Rokhlenu grabbed him by the shoulder before he had retreated entirely.

  "You're in charge here, after I'm gone," he said.

  "I know, Chief. Thanks."

  They both knew it was a consolation prize; Rokhlenu had picked Yaarirruuiu to be the reeve of his campaign band. Lekkativengu had never really bitten through the bone as Olleiulu's replacement. Now that Rokhlenu had tasted real grief he was less inclined to condemn Lekkativengu as a scatterwit club-juggler. But he needed someone he could trust to watch his back in the long days and nights ahead, and he had seen Yaarirruuiu in the hour of action.

  But the job of herding the irredeemables wasn't nothing, and Rokhlenu needed Lekkativengu to do it well. He said, "Olleiulu trusted you. Show me you deserve it and I'll never forget it."

  Lekkativengu nodded, put his claw-fingered hand on Rokhlenu's shoulder, and said something about Rokhlenu's intended that would have earned him a knife in the belly on any other day. But encouragements like that were traditional between friends on a mating day, so Rokhlenu grinned and said, "If you insist. Over and over."

  They released each other, and Rokhlenu turned to his friends. They were a rather motley crew: the never-wolf Morlock, the biteless healer female Liudhleeo-no, she was wearing an honor-tooth. No, it was the crystal spike she had pulled from Morlock's skull. Excellent: Wuinlendhono had told her to wear it. And it was a reminder, a very civil reminder, of how much he owed her. Beyond them stood the twenty irredeemables who had fought with him at the recent election rally-the twenty who had survived, anyway. Pale Hrutnefdhu was the only one missing.