The Wolf Age by James Enge

would you have done?"
    Morlock gave it some thought and said, "I would gut every member of the Sardhluun Pack with a silver knife."
    This caused a rustle among the ever-watchful guards. Even Rokhlenu jumped a little, but then he said, "Right! And I'll hold them down for you. Anyway. The different packs can nominate members to the innermost Pack, but the nominees have to earn their place in competition with each other."
    "How does it work?"
    "Fight and bite. Bite and fight. You can get bite by fighting, or talking, or singing, or making, or doing. You can buy it: people who make money always have lots of bite. I got a lot of bite from a song I composed."
    "Oh? What's it about?"
    "The way a she-wolf's genitals smelled when Chariot was aloft in midwinter."
    "That's impossible, though," Morlock pointed out, after some vocabulary was explained to him. "Chariot doesn't rise until the first day of spring."
    "You have to make things up for a good song sometimes, Morlock."
    Morlock shrugged dubiously at the necessity of fantasy and said, "So your political career led to the prison house."
    "As it often does-maybe not often enough. I was popular; my family was rich; I was a well-respected singer; people knew I could fight. They knew it so much that I never had to."
    "Wasn't that good?"
    "Yes and no. I'd have liked to get in a few more fights to raise my reputation. But if you run around starting fights with people, it can actually decrease your bite."
    Morlock nodded. "So: the dragon."
    "Exactly. I took many a long run down south to the mountains, hoping to get into trouble I'd have to fight my way out of. Not too many werewolves actually go into the Kirach Kund, though. I had to wait a long time before I found a dragon that was vulnerable, but it was worth it."
    "Go on." Morlock had a professional interest in the killing of dragons.
    "I came upon one that had been drugged by the Spiderfolk. They had just taken its dragonrider prisoner and they were hauling him away. They could not approach the dragon-they're very susceptible to fire. You remember."
    "Yes."
    "So I waited till they were gone and I sneaked up on the dragon and killed it. And-"
    "How?"
    "I crept into its mouth and gnawed through the palate into its brain."
    "Oh."
    "I can't say that I enjoyed the dragon brain much. But the palate, and dragon meat generally, is very pleasant: a firm white meat, somewhat like rattlesnake or chicken. Have you ever-?"
    "No. Not dragon, at any rate."
    "Well, everyone has to draw the line somewhere. I've never eaten another werewolf, no matter how hungry I've been. Not knowingly, anyway. So, after I left you in the Vale of the Mother, I went back and stripped the dragon's skull and brought it back to my father's house for a prize."
    "It must have earned you a lot of bite."
    "It did! It did! My father hired the best ghost-sniffers from the Goweiteiuun Pack to confirm my story in an affidavit, and the pack voted me a new name. They liked the story of how we were taken by the Khroi and the odd Dwarvish word the Khroi used for dragonkiller, so they voted me that for my new name."
    "Oh? What was your name before?"
    "Slenkjariu," Rokhlenu said reluctantly. "After my mother's grandfather. None of my mother's people amounted to much, and with names like that you can see why."
    Morlock didn't exactly see why, but his friend actually seemed embarrassed and he didn't want to make it any worse. "I still sense a long road from there to here."
    "A short one. There was, and is, a gray-muzzle in the Aruukaiaduun Inner Pack, name of Rywudhaariu; he had a list of nominees for the next citywide election, and I wasn't on it and he didn't want me on it. So he had a few of his boys rob and murder a bookie and then frame me for it."
    Morlock needed some words explained ("bookie" and "frame" particularly). Then he remarked, "Was there a trial? Didn't your heroic bite help you there?"
    "Not against Rywudhaariu, who'd been collecting teeth up and down the mesa for more