“What happened to Morlock?”
“What happened to us—only a second sooner.”
They looked around. They were still somewhere on the northern plains, to all appearances. This ground was a little rougher and there was some scrub, not quite trees, toward what seemed to be the northeast. The patch was crosslit by the setting sun—along with something crouching down in it.
“God Avenger,” she whispered. “Come on! Let’s get out of here.”
“Why?” asked Kelat reasonably.
“Werewolf over there in that dead brush.”
“We can’t handle a single werewolf?” the dwarf asked.
“Werewolves are like rats, Deor. Where you see one. . . .”
“I get you.” The dwarf glanced around. “Some kind of city west of us.”
Ambrosia would have liked to know how he did that. She saw nothing to indicate a city there. Did he hear it? Did he smell it? Was it some kind of specialized talic insight? At the moment it didn’t matter, though. She said, “Then that’s our next stop.”
They strode westward. The wolf shape broke from cover and followed them, but they outpaced it before night fell.
Ambrosia drew to a halt and looked back uneasily.
“What’s wrong?” Deor said, stopping beside her.
“Apart from everything? It’s like this, Deor. A werewolf should have been able to keep up with us if it wanted to. Regular wolves get bored and wander off during a long chase, but werewolves are more like men.”
“Stubborn, you mean.”
“Yes. And there was something funny about the way the thing moved. Didn’t you think so?”
Deor snorted. “I know more about things below the mountain than above it. I’m no farmer, nor weidhkyrr.”
“A pity we don’t have someone so useful with us,” Ambrosia snapped back.
“It was like a child playing wolf,” Kelat remarked, forestalling Deor’s witty comeback.
“Eh?” She kept forgetting that he was there, and that he had things to say. “What do you mean?”
“It ran like a boy or a girl on all fours.” With surprising deftness, he moved his right hand like a child galloping over the open field of his left arm.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was a little like that.”
She decided to wait for it. The others looked at her curiously for a while then settled in to wait, too.
Presently the werewolf came over the ridge they had just passed. It wasn’t surprised to see them; of course, it had scented them. It sat politely atop the ridge and waited.
“Who are you and why are you following us?” she sang in Moonspeech, the language of werewolves wearing wolf form (or “the night shape” as they call it). Deor and Kelat both jumped a bit as the howling syllables blew out of her, but they didn’t run away or ask stupid questions, so that was something.
The wolf stood on all fours and sang in reply, “I am Liyurrriyu. I was sent to find you, if you are they who go to the end of the wide world.”
“And if we are, and if we do, what business do you have with us, my furry friend?”
“I was sent to help you.”
“Why? And by whom?”
“By the one who watches in the night and guards us against the gods. By the mighty deviser and slayer. By the one who runs with no pack and yet with all.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Ulugarriu sent me—Ghosts-in-the-eyes. I am to help you, if I can.”
“It’s your world, too, is what this Ulugarriu is thinking.” The ululation of her howl made it clear that by your she meant werewolves in general.
“Yes.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Survival.”
“What’s in it for you?” Ambrosia used the short bark that designated an individual.
“May I come closer?”
“Sure.”
Liyurrriyu loped downhill toward them. He (the werewolf was clearly male, and the -u ending to his name was masculine) sat down seven human paces away and held up his right forepaw.
But it wasn’t a paw at all. It was an ape’s compromise between a hand and a foot.
Ambrosia vocalized an interest in approaching nearer. Liyurrriyu tilted his head left and right in assent.
She walked over and knelt down beside him, taking his hand. It was covered in a leather glove—or maybe more like a shoe for the hand. She tugged the glove off and examined the astonishingly human hand within.
“You see how it is with me,” Liyurrriyu sang in whispered vocables. “I am a nightwalker, never able to assume the day shape. But I am also a neverwolf—never able to fully free myself from the ape.”
“And this Ulugarriu says he can fix you.”
“Of course Ulugarriu can fix me. He says that he will fix me, if I do all that I can to help you kill the Sunkillers.”
“Calm yourself.” Ambrosia put Liyurriu’s hand shoe back on his hand foot. “What do you think you can do for us?”
The werewolf growled thoughtfully. “I have lived on these plains all my life. I know many things. I can track and find. I can kill and kill and kill.”
“We’re all of us pretty good at killing.”
“You must be better. The bitter cold in the far north is sending all beasts fleeing southward. You must swim through a wave of cruel hunters, desperate to find prey. You are prey. I am hunter.”
Ambrosia had her own opinion about that, but nonetheless said, “You’re hired.” She rose to her feet. “Tell me about the city to our west.”
“Aflraun. We’re not going there, are we?”
“We are.”
“Urrrr. Better that than Narkunden, I suppose. They make werewolves wear muzzles there, or swear self-binding oaths not to eat fresh meat within the city limits.”
“Monstrous.”
“Dried meat. Burned meat. Salted meat. They put salt in it, do you see? Or they stain it with smoke!”
“Each to their own.”
“I suppose you’ve been there.”
“Frequently. And I have to warn you, if you travel with me, you will see me and my companions eat those variously mistreated meats. Nerve yourself up to it.”
The werewolf shuddered and sang, “I can face what I must face.”
Ambrosia hoped that this was true. She had an idea to make Liyurriu acceptable to the townsfolk of Aflraun, and she suspected it would test his determination to its limits.
The next morning, before dawn, Jonon, signudh on duty for the Shortgate guards, came to a rather sleepy alert and confronted a group of travelers coming from the trackless east.
This was odd. Few lived east of Aflraun, and those that did weren’t the type to travel to a city market or sample the secret joys of Whisper Street.
One was a dwarf. One was a Vraidish barbarian, from his hair and weaponry. One was a woman, crooked as an Ambrose, apparently the leader. The fourth was an odd one—as tall as the woman, but hunched over, he wore a long coat with sleeves and a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his face. He seemed to have a pretty heavy beard.
“Greetings, travelers,” Jonon said when they were in speaking range. “Do you come in peace, war, or business?”
“Peace,” said the crook-shouldered woman Jonon had tagged as the leader.
“Have you got any food for trade?” Jonon asked. This was not an official question. But sometimes he made good purchases from food traders before they found out how much they could charge in the city markets.
“Food for ourselves; none to trade,” the woman said, disappointing but not surprising Jonon.
“Is your companion a werewolf?” Jonon asked. This was an official question. Wuruyaaria had made several raids against the outskirts of Aflraun and Narkunden; more were expected. They had been instructed to watch out for spies.