"We were just going, High Huntress," said Hlupnafenglu humbly.
"See that you do," she said briskly, and swept past.
Morlock and Hlupnafenglu edged past the river of female citizens rushing up the stairs. Soon they were standing outside on the stinking winestained street in the searing spring sunlight. Some citizens were still standing around, but when they saw Morlock they turned and fled.
"You call it an odd murder, then," Morlock said.
"Yes, Chieftain," said Hlupnafenglu. "It is one thing to sever the head. That makes sense, for a night murder. But why not hurl it out the nearest window? Why carry it dripping away with you?"
"How do you know they did?"
"I smelled it in the stairway."
Morlock nodded slowly. "Then we can trail them-" And then he broke off, staring distractedly at the wine staining the boards. "God Avenger. What have I done?"
The red werewolf punched him gently in his good arm. "Don't gnaw on yourself, Chieftain. We'll walk on the streets nearby a bit, and I'm sure we'll pick up on their scent."
That was what they did, and soon the red werewolf said he had found it.
"Are you sure that's the scent?" Morlock asked, feeling somewhat foolish.
"Fairly sure," Hlupnafenglu replied. "A citizen's blood is a distinctive smell, and Hrutnefdhu's has a tang to it I've never noticed in anyone else's. I'd be surer in my night shape. The wolf's nose is sharper. Hrutnefdhu taught me that when I-when we-when you made me whole. Sometimes I wish you hadn't done that, Chieftain."
"You did seem happier before."
"Maybe happiness is overrated."
Morlock had always hoped so, but said instead, "Should we wait for nightfall? There will be a moon aloft tonight."
"I think the scent might be gone then. Best while it's fresh."
The trail was clear enough. Even Morlock saw a few blood drippings at times. The scent led them to the northern gate, where a few irredeemables were standing guard. Two seemed to be coming on duty, two others going off, and they were standing around talking.
"Khretvarrgliu!" called one of the off-duty guards, and Morlock saw that it was ape-fingered Runhuiulanhu. "What's this rotten froth I hear about you and the gnyrrand fighting?"
Morlock opened his hands and said, "We had words. It's nothing serious."
"Politics?" Runhuiulanhu guessed.
"Sort of."
"I don't know much about politics."
"Neither do I."
"But I know what side I'm on."
"Rokhlenu and I will always be on the same side." Morlock lowered his voice. "But it may not look that way for a while."
"Oh. Oh! I get you! Some kind of strategy?"
"Sort of."
"I know crap-all about strategy either," said Runhuiulanhu, with a certain satisfaction.
"Eh."
"Can I buy you guys breakfast? I just got paid, and my mate bought some sausages. They're guaranteed to contain a certain proportion of real meat. And if they don't, I'll rip the sausage off the walking mouth who sold them to her."
"Thanks, but we're going into town," Morlock said. He didn't like to think of the meat that might be in a sausage made in the werewolf city. "Are you mated?" he asked. "Last time we met you were still …"
"Paying for it? I guess so. I thought about what you said that night. Two ape-fingered werewolves ought to be able to get along, shouldn't they?"
Marriage was not among the few topics where Morlock felt he could give useful advice. He hummed and shrugged as noncommittally as possible, and was horrified when Runhuiulanhu said, "Yes, yes, I know what you mean, there."
Hlupnafenglu intervened. "Runhuiulanhu, were you on duty all night?"
"Just since midnight. Why?"
"Did anyone pass by last night carrying a bloody bag or something like that?"
"A bloody bag. What is that, some kind of joke?"
"Can't you smell the blood? I can."
Runhuiulanhu sniffed the air tentatively and he said, "No, I-wait a lope. Wait a lope. Hey, Iuiolliniu," he called to his watch-partner, who was turning away. "Did someone come through here last night with a bloody bag?"
"No one came through all night. Nobody at all. Not that I remember."
"Of course they did. There were those whores walking home from Dogtown; and the guy who kept dropping his lamp and we thought he was trying to burn the plank road, only he was just smoke-drunk; and old Lekkativengu and his bookie friend."
"Oh. Right. But except for them, nobody."
"Yurr." Runhuiulanhu turned back to Hlupnafenglu and Morlock. "Were they going in or out?"
"Out," Morlock said.
"Bloody bag. Bloody bag. You'd think I'd remember that. And yes. Yes, I do remember it. Three of them, right?"
"You tell us."
"Three of them. There was that fuzz-faced goldtooth guard of Her Supreme Wolfiness. Yaniunulu. Which I think she just keeps him around to make fun of him, and why not. And the guy with the bag. He looked kind of familiar to me, but I didn't know his name. All his fingers were the same length. His thumbs, too, I mean."
"Luyukioronu," Morlock said. "They call him Longthumbs."
"Right. You're right! The watchers had us both in lockup before I got sent to the Vargulleion. I guess he got out. Forgery, that's what he was in for."
"Who was the third citizen?"
"That fuzz-face guard. Yaniunulu. That's three."
"That's two."
"Yurr. This shouldn't be so hard. There was Luyukioronu. And fuzz-face, Yaniunulu. And the guy with the bag. That's three."
"I thought Luyukioronu had the bag."
"He did."
"Then that's two."
"All right. Let's see. There was the guy with the bag. And Fuzz-face. And Longthumbs."
"And he had the bag."
"Right." Runhuiulanhu began to look frightened.
"Can you describe him? The third one," Morlock said.
It turned out that he was neither tall nor short, nor of any clear coloration, nor was his scent distinctive, nor was he clearly in the day shape nor the night shape. In fact, Runhuiulanhu could not describe him, or even be sure that it was a male citizen rather than a female citizen. Runhuiulanhu's fear was then more open.
"Don't worry yourself," said Morlock. "I think you've met Ulugarriu."
The ape-fingered werewolf's fear vanished. "Really? You think so? I wish I could remember him!"
"Maybe next time."
They said good-bye, and Morlock and Hlupnafenglu went through the gate out to the plank road.
"The trail is clear," Hlupnafenglu said after a while. "But we'll lose it if it goes into the city."
"Maybe," Morlock said.
"You're full of maybes today, Khretvarrgliu."
"Here's another. The maker who created the moon-clock in Mount Dhaarnaiarnon, and the funicular way, and the other miracles that are credited to Ulugarriu. That maker."
"Yes?"
"Maybe he could make a bag that wouldn't leak."
"Oh, well …Well. Yurr. You think he wanted us to come this way? Maybe. Maybe you're right. Then why are we following this trail?"
"The trail is what we have."
The sunlight dimmed as if a heavy curtain had been pulled across the sky. Looking up, Morlock saw this was true: a dense, turbulent, lightningscarred layer of clouds was spreading over the world, cutting off the light of the sun.
Together Morlock and Hlupnafenglu began to run. If it began to rain, the water would wash away the blood trail. And it was going to rain: the air to the east and south was already blurred with falling water, and the cruelly hot morning air was already retreating before the cool moist air of the storm.
They reached the city's southern gate at the same time as the storm front. But at first it wasn't rain that fell, but haiclass="underline" great chunks of it, some as large as a child's fist, drumming on the roads and the stone walls and the heads of the travelers, particularly Morlock and Hlupnafenglu. They fled into the open gate and stood there, with the guards and some other passersby taking refuge from the storm.
For a long time, they gazed in unanimous silent wonder at the shallow drifts of melting ice forming in the streets. Eventually, Morlock caught Hlupnafenglu's eye, nodded toward one of the gate watchers, and glanced at his own right thumb. Hlupnafenglu looked baffled, then amused. He nodded.