The Tiger and the Wolf (11 page)

This time he did not ambush from the water’s edge, but
turned his burst of speed into a leap out of the bloody wash that
had him Stepping straight into his Champion’s form, landing on
two clawed feet with a shrill shriek of challenge.

The enemy nearest him had been about to cast a spear. She
Stepped as she saw him, dropping into the heavy body of a lioness. Her amber eyes were wide and her ears flattened back,
though, and she retreated from his stalking shape, swiping at
him with a paw.

Asmander took a moment to take stock, despite the fierce
need of his soul to seek battle. There was Venater’s long, blackscaled body locked in a murderous embrace with a young lion,
his jaws closed on the beast’s throat, his hook-clawed feet sunk
into its hide. On the other side, where the boat was, a handful of
the Horse were fighting savagely with spears and long-handled
dagger-axes. Two were down already, and then another Stepped,
rearing up as a stallion and bringing bronze-hard hooves down
on the heads of the attackers.

He heard a shrill cackle, and caught sight of Shyri, a hyena
snapping and dancing as she led on a lion almost twice her size.
She seemed terribly outmatched, and yet the bigger beast’s hide
was bloodied, and she was always just outside its reach. Then
she was a woman again, whipping her cloak across that great
muzzle and then driving her spear towards it, bloodying the
claws it put out to snare her.

Asmander could hold himself back no longer. Three steps
and a leap took him into the midst of the band that was pressing
in on the Horse men, ripping a claw down one woman’s ribs
and bowling over a couple more. Instantly he was surrounded
by lions, snarling and baring fangs, but the Horse took their
chance, driving at their enemy with their long weapons, cutting
themselves space.

Asmander had fought the Lion before and knew them well. A
big male cat was heavier and stronger than his Champion form,
but nowhere near as swift. More, the Lion were always courageous on the attack, far less so when forced to defend themselves.
They liked easy conquests and were too wise to fight against the
odds. With that in mind, Asmander unleashed a flurry of strikes,
nothing that would kill or raise more than a scar, but he got a
claw into all three of the beasts close to him and they sprang
away, hurt and startled.

By then he had the Horse backing him, and Shyri slunk in
on one side with her teeth grinning red, whilst Venater was
approaching along the waterline with a slow, insolent, tail-dragging pace.

The Lion raiders reformed partway up the bank, some as
humans, some as beasts. They still outnumbered the travellers
by more than two to one, but the presence of Shyri and the two
southerners was plainly an unwanted complication.

Then one of them stepped forth: a man bigger than his fellows, his chest bare and gleaming like copper, hatched with
scars and painted with thick white dagger-blades. He wore no
mane of grass, and his face seemed misshapen, heavy-jawed and
brutish. He had a short-hafted axe in each hand, the blades of
chipped flint.

A pair of the Horse were getting their wounded on the boat
as calmly as possible, making no sudden moves. Asmander
Stepped abruptly to human, to draw the Lions’ attention.

Shyri followed him. ‘He’s—’ she started, but Asmander cut
her off with a sharp nod. A Lion Champion this, no doubt of it.
He could feel the presence of the man like a tangible thing,
something more than the mere bulk of him could account for.

It was an unlooked-for prize, to pit his soul against this
man’s. Asmander squared his shoulders, feeling within him that
thrill of anticipation that was both his and not his.

Then Venater had unfolded into his human shape as well.
‘This one’s mine.’
Asmander glanced at him. The pirate was grinning, just a
little, showing his brown and yellow teeth. He was shorter than
his opponent, broader at the shoulder but surely more than ten
years older.
‘You’re sure?’
For answer, Venater stepped forwards, pointing the stone
blade of his
meret
at the Lion Champion. ‘Hey, fat boy!’
Shyri yelped in amusement, sitting back on her haunches.
In an instant the Lion had dropped to all fours and Stepped,
undergoing a monstrous shift as his bulk bloated out and forwards. His cat shape was stub-tailed, heavy-shouldered. He was
half again the size of the largest lion Asmander had seen, fangs
like swords curving from his upper jaw. Every line of him
demanded fear and awe. Here was a monster that lived only
within the soul of the Lion; no beast like this walked the earth.
The Champion roared, the sound rolling across the rocks like
thunder. Everyone else held motionless as he padded forwards,
his steps almost delicate. Venater stood waiting, still as stone.
He had his tricks, though, did the old pirate. The first was
that sudden shift of stature, from big man to the low-slung bulk
of a lizard. Venater was moving even as the Champion increased
his pace and, when his enemy pounced, he was ducking, lunging
forwards into his reptile form as though he was a thrown spear.
The whip of his tail raised a welt across the Champion’s ribs,
and then they were both turning, the Lion faster, Venater just
fast enough. The Champion smacked out with a paw, the claws
skidding off his opponent’s pebbly hide to leave a smear of
blood. Venater’s sharkskin coat lent a thousand tiny blades to his
lizard scales. Then the Lion’s terrible jaws were gaping wide,
insanely wide, about to drive those killing teeth down into him.
Venater writhed aside, taking a gash across the shoulder that
peeled even his tough skin, and dragged his own regiment of
fangs across the Lion’s foreleg just as he twisted away.
Then the two of them were circling, or at least the Champion
was circling and Venater was mostly staying still, just shuffling
round to keep facing his enemy. Blood welled sluggishly from
his opened shoulder.
The Champion went for him again, a smooth transition from
stalking to leaping that caught Asmander by surprise. The old
pirate had been waiting for it, though, rearing up onto his hind
legs and then abruptly becoming human, trying to vault over the
swift bulk of his enemy. He almost made it, too, but the high
crest of the Lion’s back knocked him aside, sprawling him on
the ground.
Asmander was aware of many eyes flicking towards him,
wanting to know when he would intervene to save his companion. He wanted to – moment to moment he wanted to – but it
was not his place. Venater would have cursed him for it.
Venater was up on one knee, breathing heavily under the
yellow gaze of the Champion. He drew the greenstone of his
meret
up to his mouth and licked its edge as though seeking the
taste of blood there. He stood up slowly, watching the Lion
pace, weathering the fire of the Champion’s presence. He looked
like a man waiting for execution.
Then the Champion was rushing down on him again, but
three steps into his charge the Lion stumbled, his wounded foreleg folding unexpectedly. Venater was on him immediately,
seeming for a moment to be grappling the creature, and then he
had brought the dense weight of his blade down across the
Lion’s back and ribs with a single solid stroke.
The Champion yowled in pain, knocking Venater flat with a
blow of his paw but not following up, instead backing away,
limping and favouring one side. For a second he was a warrior
again, staring at Venater in bafflement:
Why aren’t you dead yet,
old man?
Asmander knew that look well enough.
Then they had both Stepped back to their fighting shapes,
but this time it was Venater who was advancing implacably, and
the Champion fell back, one uncertain step at a time. The
venom in the Lion’s veins was not enough to kill, but the great
beast’s strength was being sapped moment to moment. He
would need a quick victory over Venater, and yet, when courage
was most needed, the man was failing.
Asmander found himself silently urging the Lion on, Champion to Champion, willing the man to stand and fight.
What
would I do, if I were he?
Of course he would like to think that he
would go on until the death. Was it really true though? Surely
every man’s courage was a rope of uncertain length, hauled
hand over hand out of clouded waters. Who knew how suddenly
that rope’s end would whip up into the air?
Then the Lion Champion was a man again, standing impassively, staring at the black length of the dragon lizard before
him. He closed his eyes, letting his axes fall, and then he had
dropped to one knee – not submission so much as being unable
to stand any longer. A current of anguish and despair murmured through the Lion raiders as they saw it.
Venater regarded him, bluish tongue flicking. He took another
lethargic step forwards.
‘Back,’ Asmander told him. ‘Enough.’
A shudder of annoyance rippled down the lizard’s body.
A fistful of threats came to Asmander, invocation of the
powers his clan had gained over the defeated pirate, the oaths of
fealty that had bought him his life. In the end, though, all he said
was, ‘No doubt you will enjoy your fill of Champion’s blood, old
man, but not today. Your chance will come.’
Venater was abruptly human again, staring back at him.
Asmander’s meaning was heard and understood. When he had
won his name back from the First Son of Asman, there would
be a settling of scores.
‘These things are known,’ he growled, and Asmander nodded.
The Lion raiders were retreating back up the ragged rocks on
the bank. One of the Horse Society was dead, two injured but
not in imminent danger. Venater moved his torn shoulder, wincing and feeling for the damage.
‘Let them see to it,’ Asmander advised. He thought the pirate
would refuse, but then a tired expression came to Venater’s eyes
and he nodded wearily.
A familiar pressure came to Asmander then, and he looked
about to find Shyri still sitting at the water’s edge but in her
human form now. This time she did not look away.
‘You would have killed him, of course, or let Venater kill him,’
he observed to her.
She shrugged. Seeing that the Horse had brought all their
boats to shore and were cutting away the two ropes restricting
the river, he abruptly sat down beside her.
‘How far has your mother sent you, Laughing One?’
‘What makes you think I am sent?’ Her stare was intrusive,
like a prodding finger.
‘How far will you go, then? All the way to the cold?’
‘Wherever I wish, however far I care to.’
‘And will you follow me?’ he asked her.
Her eyes flared wide. ‘Longmouth, you flatter yourself,’ and
she was suddenly up and stalking over to the boats, leaving
behind only Asmander – and Venater’s faint laughter.

What surprised Maniye was how well she could run. For all her
life she had been tethered to Akrit’s hall and to the scatter of
mounds that was the village of the Winter Runners. At best she
had gone as far as the treeline perhaps, or ventured between the
fields and pens that spread out beyond the mounds. She had
never known what it was like just to run, to give her paws free
rein and let them tear up the miles.

The wolf inside her knew, though. It had been born to the
wilds and, from the first time she had Stepped, those wilds had
been planted in her like a yearning that grew and grew.

She had the best of both worlds. A true wolf would have felt
the cold far more, but she had swallowed up three layers of wool
and deer hide when she Stepped, and carried that extra warmth
with her, husbanding her strength rather than spending it profligately on fighting the chill.

If she had been traversing the forest on two feet, with only
the senses of a human girl to aid her, then she would have
become lost very swiftly, gone in circles and never known it until
her father’s people caught up with her. The wolf in her could
not get lost. Her nose was the gateway to a world of a thousand
thousand clues, where every tree was a wealth of information to
navigate by. With each inhaled breath the world told her where
north was, with the promise of snow borne on white wings. She
knew instantly the paths her mute brothers the wolves used
when they crossed the forest, and knew to avoid them. She knew
where the boars had rooted, where the deer had run. Her nose
marked where the owl had stooped and the sinuous track the
marten made. She knew the grave of every mouse, the buried
hoards of squirrels. Every moment told its story, and all those
myriad stories joined together in her mind to weave a picture of
countless threads, telling her exactly where she was and which
way she must go.

She never ventured deep into the forest, but kept the edge of
the trees at the periphery of her attention, hiding from view and
yet cutting the shortest path. Sometimes she forgot the burden
on her back that no natural wolf would bear. Sometimes, for
short spaces, she even forgot what she was running from. The
running had become an end in itself.

She surprised small animals, even birds. She killed a young
deer, bursting out on it in a moment of mutual surprise and then
lunging forwards, hooking her teeth into its haunches and tasting the sudden salt rush of blood. She brought it down in a
furious struggle, clumsy and panicking at first, but then riding
her instinct to rip at the kicking beast’s throat. Afterwards, her
wolf jaws fed ravenously while her human mind commended
her prey’s soul to its totem to be reborn anew, perhaps as a mute
beast again, or perhaps as one of the Deer’s tribe.

As she ate, Hesprec Essen Skese slithered from her back and
Stepped into his old human bones. She regarded him warily
because, if he wanted to talk, she might have to join him in that
shape, and she did not want to. The wolf was warmer than the
girl might have been. The wolf was freer too.

He tore himself a little meat, in tiny scraps that he could swallow raw – certainly nothing that he might have needed to chew.
What he ate would not have sated a stoat, and yet it seemed to
be enough for him. Perhaps the serpent in him, slim as it was,
needed little sustenance.