By then the glass spike had dried and was safe to touch. Rokhlenu picked it up and looked at it. The end was unpointed and rather rough. It looked as if the tip had broken off, perhaps left behind in the wound.
"I know," said Liudhleeo, embarrassed. "But I think we've done what we can. Perhaps all will be well."
Rokhlenu handed her the dark spike. Then he lifted the dragon tooth from around his neck and held it out to her, chain and all. Wuinlendhono twitched a little at this but said nothing.
"No," Liudhleeo said, even more embarrassed. "I haven't earned it."
He went down on his knees, eyes intent on her, still holding out the tooth.
She took his hand and firmly folded his fingers over the tooth. "No one but you can wear this, Rokhlenu." She pushed his hand away, but he did not withdraw it.
"I never blamed you," she said then, not looking at him.
"I did," he said. "I do. But that's not what this is about. He saved methree times, four times, I don't know how many times. And you saved him. This is all I have. If it is worthless, it is still yours."
"Wear it for me, then," she said.
"For you," he said, and put the chain around his neck again. "Claim it when you like."
She bowed her head and motioned impatiently for him to stand, so he did.
Wuinlendhono stood also. "You'll keep the book, of course, my dear," she said, "and wear that spike like an honor-tooth. We'll discuss the filthy lucre another time."
"I did it for Hrutnefdhu," Liudhleeo whispered. "Khretvarrgliu is his friend, too."
"Yes," Rokhlenu said, remembering as if it were a thousand years before. "It was the three of us. The three of us against all of them."
"Well," Wuinlendhono said, gently taking his arm, "there's a few more of us now." She guided him toward the door. "Call on me, my dear, if there's anything you need."
"I need my Hrutnefdhu. Send him to me if you see him, please."
They descended the dark stairs to the street, already streaked with the long shadows of a strangely summery winter's afternoon.
"Let me put it this way," Wuinlendhono said then. "I give you a dragon's tooth as a courtship gift, and before sunset I have to watch you on your knees, begging another female to take it. Fairly accurate?"
"Yes," Rokhlenu said glumly. "I understand if this means you're done with me."
"You silly chunk of meat, I'm barely beginning. Five was always my lucky number. Come on along; let's see if a certified dragon slayer can't find a place to sleep indoors tonight."
Chapter Thirteen: The Sardhluun Standard
A dead man who carried his severed head like a lamp was walking beneath the walls of the empty Vargulleion.
"A fine manifestation," signified a passing snake. "But to what purpose, if no one is present to see it?"
"It pleases me," signified War. "It reminds me of the battle that was in this prison house, while the scent of it is still fresh."
"But the battle is over," signified the snake, a manifestation of Wisdom. "There will be no new deaths."
"Deaths are incidental to war, Wisdom. I'm surprised you don't know that."
"You can't have a war without deaths, can you? What is more essential?"
"Courage, and cowardice. The need for cunning, and the uselessness of cunning. Victory. Defeat."
"You could get all that in sporting competitions-"
"Are you trying to see if I can vomit in this manifestation?" War wondered.
-or elections."
"Perhaps the way the werewolves run them. I always look forward to their election year."
"Primaries are beginning. The Sardhluun begin picking their representatives tonight."
"Yes, and I visualize that both you and Death will be manifest there. You wish me to accompany you."
"I do," acknowledged Wisdom. "I dislike this plan of hers, whatever it is, and I think it may be time to reacquire her oath for our pact."
"I did think there would be more fighting," War admitted. "I'll go with you and see what she signifies."
The snake and the corpse with the severed head transited-by-intention to a neighboring locus of space-time.
It was the great arena of the Sardhluun Pack. The time was well after sunset; Horseman the second moon was high in the west; the sky around it glowed indigo. All the werewolves crowding the stands had transited to wolf form.
The Incumbent's Gate swung open in the arena wall. Out of it, a werewolf trotted proudly into the center of the fighting pit. The gate slammed shut behind him. His black fur was silvery on his muzzle. He had a great many honor-teeth: there was a great torc of them hanging around his neck. In his jaws he carried black-and-green streamers, the standard of the Sardhluun Pack. He was the incumbent gnyrrand, the citizen who, for the last year of choosing and several before, had led the Sardhluun's electoral band.
But the crowd did not esteem him: they yodeled his name in contemptuous tones: Wurnafenglu, Wurnafenglu. They called on the sacred ground of the fighting pit to swallow down the misbegotten luckless citizen who dared to pollute it. They howled insults against his relatives in elaborate verse forms.
He trotted back and forth across the arena ground, indifferent to their hostility, secure in his bite. If anyone wanted the Sardhluun standard or his honor-teeth, they would have to fight him for them.
Finally, one werewolf in the stands took up the challenge. He leapt down into the arena proper and barked a challenge. He was a whitish beast with black bristles running from his head down his spine all the way to the end of his tail. He wore a necklace of honor teeth-more than a few dangled there, though nothing like as many as the incumbent carried.
Wurnafenglu dropped the Sardhluun standard, since his right to it had been challenged.
The werewolves in the stands grew silent. They sat down to watch. The election was beginning.
A never-wolf slave entered the arena through a door set into the Incumbent's Gate. She carried two bowls of drink in her trembling hands. The spectators near at hand leaned forward to catch a scent of the deadly brew, then leaned back gasping when they did, or thought they did.
Everyone in the arena knew that the bowls contained an infusion of wolfbane.
The never-wolf slave put the bowls down in the center of the arena and backed away hastily. She ran back to the door in the Incumbent's Gate, but it was now locked and would not open for her. She was the only person present who had supposed it would.
A few werewolves chuckled mildly at her dismay, but all eyes turned now toward the Werowance of the Sardhluun, whose task tonight was to preside over the election of the pack's gnyrrand, its lead candidate in the upcoming general election. A silver-gray wolf with many cords of honor-teeth, the Werowance lay resplendent on his ceremonial black couch in a box set lower than the stands. He pressed a lever with one foot. A narrow opening appeared in the wall below him; a platform extended. On it was a ceramic bowl, brimming with antidote.
The Werowance sang what everyone knew. He was the Werowance of the Sardhluun, chosen by chance, by destiny, and by bite and by the common will of the Sardhluun. It was his duty to lead the Inner Pack in times of peace and to preside over the pack elections. This challenge would choose a representative for the general election to come. Only the strongest, the most cunning, the most ruthless of the Sardhluun could hope to carry the standard of their pack, the youngest and greatest of packs, against the corrupt beasts of the older treaty packs.
There was an incumbent, as they all knew: the detested Wurnafenglu. For many years, Wurnafenglu had tended the green-and-black standards of the Sardhluun like a herd of fat beeves. He had stood for the Sardhluun in the Innermost Pack of Wuruyaaria, even rising on occasion to the couch of the First Singer. But he had spent all his honor and all the glory of the Sardhluun in a single night of disgrace. Though he was the commander of the Var gulleion, the prison that (with the Khuwuleion) was the foundation of the pack's fortunes, he was absent on First Night, celebrating with his disgusting plurality of wives, when the prisoners rebelled. Many of his guards had died; he should have died with them. The subsidies from the city that they received for maintaining the prisoners would disappear; so should Wurnafenglu disappear. The Sardhluun were now a mockery among the older, weaker, less ruthless packs; so should Wurnafenglu be a mockery and a byword until the sun faded and the moons crunched its golden bones in their shining blue teeth. When Wurnafenglu might have done them all a favor by slinking away forever into the night of ignominy and shame, Wurnafenglu insisted on standing again for election to the Innermost Pack, as if to tie disgrace like a rotting puppy around the neck of the Sardhluun forever.