Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) by Lydia West Page A

that
meat for you, now eat it."
    Maha stiffened her shoulders, but she took
the meat and divided it into two not-quite-equal halves. Mhumhi
noticed that she took the smaller portion for herself. He stepped
closer to the two of them.
    Tareq cringed away with a whimper, but Mhumhi
was slightly distracted, sniffing at the nest of blankets. They
smelled like old urine, though a kind of pale, watery hulker urine
that he did not approve of.
    "Where do you drink from?" he asked, hoping
that the answer wasn't in the sewage.
    "There's a tap right there," said Maha,
raising her arm with one talon extended. He stared at it
uncomprehendingly.
    " That way," Maha repeated, and looked
to his left. He followed her gaze and saw that there was a tiny
little side room attached to the one they were in, with a sink and
a little toilet. He supposed at least the waste didn't have far to
travel.
    "Doesn't the little one know how to use the
toilet?"
    "He does," said Maha, "he's just sick
now."
    Mhumhi gave Tareq another sniff-over as the
little boy cringed. He wished that he'd stop whimpering like that,
because it was making Mhumhi salivate again.
    He did smell a kind of rubbery sickness on
the puppy, evident in the urine and in the snot dripping from his
nose.
    "He'll make himself worse if he sits in it
like that."
    "We don't have any other blankets," said
Maha. "He's too cold."
    Mhumhi licked his lips. It was indeed very
cold in the sewers; he would not fancy spending a night down here
even while healthy and covered in fur.
    "What about those wrappings you have on
you?"
    Maha seemed surprised, and looked down at
herself. She plucked at the front of her wrapping.
    "You mean clothes?"
    Mhumhi gave her a blank look.
    "I could get more, but I'm afraid," said
Maha. "Mother brought us these from outside a long time ago, but
the way she used isn't any good anymore."
    "Isn't any good?" asked Mhumhi, distracted by
the notion of his mother carrying wrappings to the little
hulkers.
    "Something uses it now," Maha told him.
    "What uses it?"
    "Something," Maha informed him, pulling the
corners of her lips down.
    Mhumhi thought of what Bii had been telling
him about the things that lurked in the darkness of the sewers, and
decided not to press the issue.
    "Are there any other ways to the outside
around here?"
    Maha looked up, and Mhumhi followed her gaze.
In the concrete ceiling was carved a circular tunnel going straight
up, with iron rungs every foot or so.
    "So there isn't," he said.
    "I can climb up there!" said Maha. "You
couldn't, but I could. I used to, but then more dogs came here, and
I was too scared."
    Mhumhi craned his neck up, trying to fathom
how anyone would be able to make it up there. "Where does it let
out?"
    "On a big street," Maha told him. "Lots of
tall buildings. Lots of stores. You could get clothes and candles
and everything."
    "What's a candle?"
    "It's made of waxy stuff," said Maha,
wiggling her hands around, "and you can light it with a match, and
it gets warm and makes light."
    "Like a lightbulb?" Mhumhi asked,
puzzled.
    "No, not a lightbulb, 'cause there's no
glass. And it hurts if you touch the fire."
    Mhumhi put his ears back- he knew what fire
was, as he'd once seen a house- electrical wires laid bare by
excessive chewing- go up in flames and take out half an Oldtown
block before it wore itself out. It had indeed been warm, if
demonic.
    "It's just a little fire," Maha said. "This
big." She moved her hands about again.
    Beside her, Tareq, looking furtively at
Mhumhi, tugged at her wrappings and gabbled something.
    "What's he doing?"
    "He wants more meat," said Maha. "I could've
given him the rest of mine."
    Mhumhi gave her a warning look, and she
subsided.
    "Why doesn't he talk more?"
    "Cause he's little, and he also doesn't
understand much Dog."
    "Much… dog?" Mhumhi repeated. "What do you
mean?"
    "I mean, there's what we speak, and that's
Dog," said Maha, scratching her forehead with her blunt nails. "And
then there's what the