The Tiger and the Wolf (19 page)

It rained soon after, adding a new misery to the rest. As well as
the wet chill that soaked into her pelt, they had run out of the
food gifted to them by the Horse, and the hunting here was
meagre. With the world’s scents washed away and its creatures
under cover, they might as well be in a desert, for all the prey
she could scare up. This time it was Hesprec who saved them,
setting little traps of thread unpicked from his robe edge so that
a dozen small creatures – squirrels and mice – were caught overnight while they slept.

‘The Serpent has other ways to be fed than all this chasing
about,’ he explained in that manner of his that trod the line
between dignity and self-mockery.

He kept a single mouse for himself and let her take what meat
she could from the rest of the diminutive catch. His own meal
he swallowed whole and raw, Stepping into his snake form to
digest it. He had explained that he could live for a week on such
a repast, if he needed.

She had not thought she would come to rely on him. In the
pit of the Winter Runners, he had seemed such a frail and helpless creature.

Later it snowed again, overnight, so that the white world was
waiting for them once more when they awoke. By then, Maniye
felt her ribs tight against her skin, her skin loose over her
shrunken belly. She could not live on a mouse every handful of
days, nor could Hesprec save himself from a freezing death
without her wolf-warmth each night. Their co-dependence
would not be enough to beat back the encroaching winter.

The taste of it, that lone evidence that she and Hesprec were
not the sole surviving humans in the whole of the world, gave
her back a little fire and set her feet bounding and scrabbling
through the snow, even as a fresh feathering of white began to
descend. Someone had lit a fire. A fire meant warmth. A fire
meant food. A fire meant home. Right then she was prepared to
kill a stranger for those things, if only she found the strength for
it.

She was not so maddened with hunger that she just went
charging right in: when she spotted the fire’s red eye, deep off in
the forest, she Stepped to her human form and shook her
satchel until Hesprec awakened and slung his coils out, spitting
and cursing at the chill the moment he resumed his bony old
human shape.

A simple pointing finger was enough to bring him up to
speed.
‘A campfire, I think,’ he murmured, squinting into the twilight. ‘Some other wanderer, perhaps. Who would be abroad this
night? The dangerous and the desperate, none other.’
‘You’re having second thoughts?’ she demanded.
He tucked his gloved hands under his armpits. ‘Let us go
anyway, and hope they are dangerously hospitable and desperate for company.’
‘On these feet?’ she asked, meaning:
In these shapes?
‘It would seem best,’ he agreed weakly. ‘I mean no slight, but
who welcomes a wolf to their fire?’
They approached carefully, treading as lightly as possible
through the snow and squinting into the dark at the burgeoning
reddish glow that was fast becoming the focus of their world.
Maniye had thought of Stepping to her tiger form to scout the
strangers’ camp, but if any of the fire-makers were resting in an
animal shape, then they might pick up her scent. Worse, if she
was spotted skulking about the edges of their camp, and if one
of them had a bow or even a good spear-arm . . .
Closer, and the tantalizing scent of cooking drifted to them:
fish was not common fare in Akrit’s hall, but even a human nose
could not mistake it.
‘Do the rules of hospitality hold, so far to the north?’ murmured Hesprec. He had withdrawn his arms entirely from the
sleeves of his robe, huddling his way along with them wrapped
inside it about his skinny body, and in constant danger of falling
over.
Only one way to find out
, Maniye realized, but her own teeth
were now chattering too much to say it.
The fire had been set in a hollow cleared of snow, to hold in
as much of its heat as possible, so they were obliged to creep
very close before they could get sight of its master. When they
did, lifting their heads over the dip’s edge, Maniye caught her
breath in shock.
The fire itself had been laid within a half-cairn of stones to
shelter it and to direct its heat. The structure was constructed
intricately, a veritable work of art in dry stone, each piece interlocking with its neighbours elegantly – and all the more
remarkable because its builder was a giant.
Even sitting at the fire, he would have been able to look
Maniye directly in the eye. Standing, he would have loomed at
least head and shoulders over Hesprec and, rather than being
lanky like the Snake priest, he was massive, vastly broad across
the shoulders, wide at the waist, lumpy with muscles like boulders. He wore a robe of overlapping, stitched-together hides and
the garment itself probably weighed more than Maniye could
lift, perhaps even with Hesprec’s help. Over that he had a cloak
of coarse wool that would have made a tent for a man of more
modest proportions. His black hair was long, plaited into two
thick braids that rattled with bone rings alongside his cheeks.
His beard was the size and shape of a spade-head.
At his side sat a pair of muscular grey dogs, wolf-like but
most certainly not wolves, and behind them, covered with a skin,
was a sled. The dogs’ attention was entirely fixed on what their
master was doing. He sat cross-legged with a fist-sized ball of
earth before him, and with a gentle tap he cracked it open,
revealing a curled fish inside that had cooked in the heat of his
fire. The smell was unbearably delicious.
Maniye spared a glance for Hesprec, who was plainly not
going to last much longer without that fire. For herself, she felt
that she would not last much longer without the fish.
Her stomach made the decision and pushed her forwards,
one hand snagging the old priest’s flapping sleeve to draw him
after her.
As they half stepped, half slipped down into the hollow, she
expected the huge man to leap up, outraged at these intruders,
but apparently the two of them were not so very alarming as all
that. Instead, their hoped-for host leant back, one eyebrow
raised quizzically, and one hand moving over to rest easily on
the haft of an enormous axe she had not noticed before. It was
as long as she was tall, with a head of copper held to its armthick shaft by three sockets, and yet it seemed barely adequate
for the man’s huge hand.
‘What’s this now, hrm?’ That last was a sound from deep in
the man’s throat, a growl that sent a shiver of fright through
Maniye’s bones. His voice was very soft, just as his stance was
very calm and still, but both made absolutely plain the ferocity
they were gateways to.
Maniye had no idea how to address one of the Cave Dwellers
– for he could be nothing else. The sheer bulk of him had struck
her silent, mouth opening but her words afraid to venture forth.
‘Kind lord,’ came Hesprec’s voice at her ear, ‘we are but travellers in this land, who saw your fire from afar, as if it were a star
to guide us.’ His voice shook and shuddered from the cold, but
he managed a stiff bow, and Maniye wondered if this was how
people actually talked where he came from, or whether he was
just making things up again.
The Cave Dweller grunted.
‘Even I,’ Hesprec went on gamely, desperately, ‘who first saw
the sun in a land far distant, have heard of the welcome generosity of these, your cold lands. Wherever life is harsh, there life
is precious, that is what they say. Even for two strangers such as
we . . .’
The huge man raised a hand abruptly, and Maniye found
herself flinching back from him, even though he stood halfway
across the fire from them.
‘Share the fire, why don’t you?’ he suggested quietly, with a
touch of exasperated humour. ‘Leave all those words out in the
dark, though.’
Now it was Hesprec who was lurching forwards and dragging
Maniye after him, almost falling into the fire in his eagerness to
get warm. Once he was sitting, shivering uncontrollably, she
reached over and pulled his robe open a bit, against his protests,
so that the fire’s heat could get to him through all those layers.
Their host poked at the fire with a stick and excavated
another clay lump. The look he gave his guests was distinctly
put-upon. ‘You’ll be hungry, of course – all sorts of cold and
hungry.’ He looked mournfully at the ball before him. For him,
they were very small fish.
‘I will survive,’ Hesprec said, ‘but my friend has been doing
much of the walking.’ He pressed on with sudden abandon. ‘I
am Hesprec Essen Skese, a priest much respected in civ– in my
own land, and the girl here is Maniye.’ The exchange of names
was an essential element of the bond between host and guest, as
everyone knew.
The big man stared at him for a moment, his sullen expression almost a child’s, then he shrugged. ‘Loud Thunder,’ he
rumbled, striking a fist at his chest. A hunter name was better
than nothing, Maniye knew, although not quite so potent as a
birth name.
There were six more fish still in the fire, and they were able
to watch the precise tilting of greed and conscience in Loud
Thunder’s face as he cracked the earthen balls all open and considered how to divide the spoils. In the end, Hesprec got half of
one, Maniye the other half, and the smallest one of the remainder. Two went to the dogs, the huge man filleting the fish neatly
with a thin blade of flint and then letting the animals snap and
squabble over the meat. Nobody complained. The taste was surprisingly rich, flavoured with the herbs the fish had been
wrapped around before being encased in clay.
Loud Thunder watched them as he ate, his knuckle-sized
teeth making surprisingly delicate work of it. His expression was
a little puzzled, a little resentful, but mostly that of a man withholding judgement.
Then, just as Hesprec had finished picking flesh from bone,
one of the dogs lifted its head from the last scraps of its food,
ears pricked high.
‘Who is it that travels with you?’ Loud Thunder growled suspiciously.
For a moment Maniye could not understand what he meant.
A second later, she
knew
, without any doubt, who it must be.
In a thought she became a tiger, turning away from the fire as
she Stepped, her keen eyes paring away the darkness, hunting
out what the dogs had sensed.
There was a man out there, standing still as a tree amongst
trees, and it was Broken Axe. There was no mistaking him. His
image was branded on her mind.
The shock of seeing him jolted her back into human form,
and she turned to see the Cave Dweller staring at her with
almost comical surprise.
‘Please,’ she got out. ‘Please, we are being hunted. There is a
man out there, a killer. He is sent by my father to murder me.
Please.’
Loud Thunder’s expression told her that this went beyond
any contract between host and guest, and his great head shook
slightly. Then Broken Axe, human still, stepped carefully into
the firelight with his hands empty.
The Cave Dweller’s hand was resting on his axe again, but
with no obvious intention of using it. Maniye felt her innards
freeze up, the fear clenching her there hard enough to hurt.
‘Please,’ she forced out, ‘he killed my mother. Please. He
killed my mother.’
Now she had the absolute attention of all three men as the
Wolf hunter approached.
‘Well,’ Loud Thunder murmured, taking a deep breath. For
one mad moment she thought he would take up his axe and
defend her, stranger though she was. She had a dream-vision of
that heavy copper blade cleaving through the Wolf without slowing, just a single blow that would end forever her nightmares
and her running.
Then the Cave Dweller nodded. ‘Axe,’ he hailed the newcomer, with evident familiarity.
‘Thunder,’ replied Broken Axe and, at a small nod from the
big man, took a place at the fire.

Akrit was out on the training ground, pushing himself hard,
working up a sheen of sweat despite the cold. First he had been
wrestling with a few of the younger hunters, showing them just
how little youthful vitality was worth against experience. Then
he had called out Smiles Without Teeth, the biggest man there,
whom none of the youngsters had yet dared challenge. Akrit
knew Smiles well, though: big and strong but without imagination.

And loyal, in the bargain. Too loyal, perhaps, to show up his
chief before the tribe. There had been a time when Akrit had
known he could beat Smiles easily, matching his skill and speed
to the man’s strength. Now he beat the man, throwing him twice
and then forcing him into a grunting armlock, and yet there was
a nagging doubt in his mind that would not be silenced.
How
much of this is he giving you? How much could you truly take by
force?

The fear – and the anger that always followed on its heels –
made him twist Smiles’s arm more savagely than he had
intended, and he cast his henchman sprawling on the hard
ground. For a moment he wanted that other kind of fighting,
the serious kind. He wanted to get his teeth bloody. He stared
about him at the hunters there – who had killed in their time,
both as beast and as man. He found that he was desperate to be
challenged, desperate to be brought to bay now, while he was
still young enough and strong enough to tear the hide of any
upstart who tried it. What were they all waiting for? Didn’t they
want to be chief?

And yet he knew what they were waiting for, any one of them
with a drop of ambitious blood in them. They were trailing him
like a good hunter should, letting him tire and tire as the years
rolled by beneath his feet. Why attack the buck when he is full of
pride and life when you can run him to his knees and then open
his throat?

Now, with Smiles Without Teeth struggling back to his feet,
here was Kalameshli with news.
Akrit did not ask the obvious question, not here, not before
everyone.
Is the girl with her?
He could see it, anyway, from
Kalameshli’s expression. Amiyen had come home without her
quarry.
He directed a glower about at the younger men, and they
dropped their eyes gratifyingly, none of them wanting to confront his wrath. With that brief, petty satisfaction, he dragged his
cloak about him and stormed off to his hall. Kalameshli would
bring Amiyen to him, he knew.
‘Out, all of you!’ he bellowed as he entered, scattering thralls
and wives. ‘Underfoot and listening, every one of you!’ He
slapped a young Deer tribe slave as she tried to scurry past him,
sending her tumbling to the floor. ‘Out!’
For just one moment, old habit prompted him to go and root
the girl
out of her den up above, as he had been forced to do on
other occasions when he wanted quiet counsel with Kalameshli.
But, no, of course there would be no need now.
Nobody had mentioned her since she fled. Or nobody had
dared do so to his face or within earshot, which was not the
same thing. He had no doubt that his errant daughter had
become the talk of the Winter Runners behind his back – and
probably the news had got as far as the Moon Eaters and the
Swift Backs by now, for that matter. In his own sight, though, it
was as though Maniye, his sole daughter, had never been.
He kicked a couple of bearskins together and sat down,
hunching himself towards the embers of the fire. Now he was
not wrestling, the cold seemed to make a sudden leap at him.
And it
was
cold: the winter was coming on fast. It was the cold
and not the years that made him shiver beneath his cloak.
Kalameshli and Amiyen entered, the priest settling the doorhanging carefully to keep the heat in. Akrit fixed the woman
with a baleful look.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
Amiyen did not lower her eyes. The angry stare of her chief
did not cow her, but was instead swallowed up amid her own
sour and festering anger. ‘She’s gone,’ the huntress spat.
‘Where?’ Akrit hissed.
‘She went to the Horse, and when they gave her up, she fled.
A storm ate her tracks. I went downriver halfway to the next
Horse camp, but there was no sign.’
‘You failed.’ Akrit was trying to disentangle the knots of her
expression. ‘How hard did you search, Shatters Oak?’
‘Oh, believe me, if she could be found, I would have found
her,’ Amiyen spat viciously. ‘She killed my son, my Iramey.
Come the spring I will go hunt her again.’
Akrit could not afford to show the shock he felt, holding his
face carefully impassive.
Killed . . . ?
True the girl was a wild one,
but he could not imagine her besting even Amiyen’s younger,
not as woman nor wolf . . .
But as tiger . . . Akrit remembered well how fiercely a tiger
could fight when cornered. He recalled those battles, in the days
when the whole of the Crown of the World had risen under the
Wolf, and when men like Akrit had forged futures for themselves . . .
Simpler times, better times . . . But living in the past was for
older men than he.
‘Tell me,’ he ordered, and Amiyen recounted it all, how she
had almost caught the girl at the Horse camp, but lost her in the
snow. How she had then searched for days before the snows
returned, and she and Rubrey were driven before the advancing
cold all the way back to the stronghold of the Winter Runners.
And since that first storm there had been no sign at all of
Maniye or the Snake priest.
And her son . . . She spoke very little of her younger son, save
to report his death. She kept the grief all inside.
Looking her in the eye then, Akrit knew that if the Winter
Runners would consent to being led by a woman, then she would
have called him out right there. Her mood was ugly and rebellious, and it was the blood of his blood that had spilled her own.
‘What about Broken Axe?’ Akrit demanded.
‘There was no other,’ Amiyen declared. ‘Just the winter and
me.’
Once she had gone, Akrit sat in silence for a long while, with
Kalameshli seated across the fire from him, like his reflection in
a dark pool.
The people of other totems pretended horror at the Wolf,
especially those milksops of the Deer and the Boar who lived
within the Wolf’s Shadow. They claimed that a chief of the Wolf
ruled only until a stronger beast tore his throat out. They told
themselves that the Wolf were cruel – stronger than them, but
only at the expense of some moral refinement. They did not
understand, and that was one reason that those peoples had
always come second: the playthings of whatever predator was
stalking at the edges of their villages, be it Bear or Tiger or Wolf.
In truth, mere fighting skill won no chieftainships.What made
a chief was the confidence of his tribe. A challenger without the
backing of the pack would not even be allowed into the circle. A
chief facing the loss of his tribe’s support would back down
without baring his teeth, knowing that the battle was lost. Only
if the tribe was divided, only if the race was close, would it come
down to bloodied fangs.
Akrit could feel that confidence in him slipping away. He was
still chief; the Winter Runners would still follow him, but for
how long? How long with one as respected as Amiyen gnawing
away at his support like an old bone? He thought about her
older son, Rubrey – a popular youth but unproven still. A bare
handful might stand with him if his mother put him up to the
challenge. A bare handful
this
winter but what about the next,
when he had one year’s more strength, and Akrit a year’s less?
Therefore take a warband against the Tiger, capture some
thralls, shed some blood, show the world that Akrit Stone River
remained a power to be reckoned with. He had faith that his
hunters would be up to the task, and there was always some
skirmish, some theft or intrusion from the edge of the highlands
that needed avenging. And, yet, just such a small venture was
the meat and drink of young challengers: somewhere they could
prove themselves. The shedding of blood was ideal for binding a
new pack together about some emergent leader. Was Rubrey,
son of Amiyen, that man?
When he himself was a young man, Akrit had known large
dreams. The Wolves and their allies had thrown off the Tiger
yoke, and he had caught the enemy ruler – taken that proud
woman from the midst of the fray. He had already challenged
for the leadership of the Winter Runners – he was the hero of a
dozen battles and the tribe loved him. In covert conference with
the new priest, Kalameshli, he had aimed his arrow higher. The
Wolf tribes were choosing a High Chief, already planning their
own hegemony over the Crown of the World. Akrit and Kalameshli had been looking to the future, assessing the chance that
power over the Tiger might bring the Winter Runners into dominance over everyone born to the Jaws of the Wolf.
And it had seemed such an easy thing: get a child on the
Tiger Queen. A child of two souls who would wear the wolf’s
skin but still provide enough leverage to make the Tigers bow.
And a girl-child too, as it turned out. What more could he have
asked for? She was destined to be just one of his numerous
brood.
He had since wondered if lying with the Tiger woman had
not poisoned him, somehow, soured his seed within him. Each
night he lay with one or other of his Wolf wives, yet not one of
them bore his child, for all the charms and old wisdoms they
resorted to.
More recently, he had begun to wonder if it was not the girl
herself, Maniye, who had cursed him. That child, born of violence, sullen and resentful, sitting up in her nook like some
malign ghost: who was to say that her mother had not given her
some Tiger magic at her birth to ruin the man who had conquered her?
And yet, even though she was a girl-child, even though she
was a wretched, hating creature who looked on nothing with
kindness and had none who would call her friend, she was still
of Akrit’s blood. She was his only blood. He did not like her.
Most certainly he felt no real father’s love for her. She was the
sole sign of his potency, though. She at least showed him to be
a man in that vital way.
And she was out in the cold, and this year’s winter promised
to have teeth that would make even the Wolf back down. Even a
strong hunter would not willingly live through the winter with
only his pelt to keep him warm. How would the girl survive at
all?
And with her death, Akrit would lose both his chance to
mount his grand campaign against the Tiger, and the sole issue
of his loins. With Maniye dead, how long could he ever hope to
hold on to the Winter Runners? If not young Rubrey, then there
would be some other.
‘There is always Broken Axe,’ he murmured. He knew too
well that Axe could live through any number of hard winters,
and did not always choose to shelter with the rest of the tribe
when the snows came. So long as there was no sign of the man,
then Akrit could believe he was still hunting Maniye.
Kalameshli was staring at him, his lined face solemn, a
bruised look in his eyes.
‘What?’ snapped Akrit. ‘You think this is how I wished it?’
‘I think that you sent away her from the village as readily as if
you gave her the order,’ the priest replied, his tone quiet and
clear. ‘Your mouth, your words. And I think our people have
gone to every village and camp, and come back with empty
hands. And I think that the winter has no soft heart for girls just
past their Testing, when caught in its teeth.’
Akrit scowled at him ferociously, but inside he felt a cold
trickle of fear, because the moment that Kalameshli turned from
him, then he could start counting the days. He and Kalameshli
had always been two wolves running abreast on the hunt, knowing each other’s movements and working together without fail.
He had always been able to rely on the priest to intercede for
him, both with man and with god.
But a priest’s true loyalty was to the tribe and not its chief,
not even to Wolf. If Kalameshli was losing faith in him . . .
‘She was tested, she was tempered,’ the priest whispered. ‘I
had struggled with her two souls for all her life, to drive her into
the jaws of the Wolf. And now . . .’ A tilt of his head to convey
all of the cold, white world outside.
‘You mourn your lost work as if it was
your
lost kin,’ Akrit
told him harshly. Kalameshli’s head snapped up again, and for a
moment the two men just stared at each other, the balance of
power shifting between them. Akrit felt as if he was grasping a
rope, putting his whole weight on it, seeing if it would part suddenly and betray him. But better this now, when it was just the
two of them here in the hall, than on some other occasion before
the whole tribe.
But it seemed Kalameshli was not quite ready to break with
him, not yet.
‘There is always Broken Axe,’ the old man echoed, still seeming cut to the heart about the girl’s desertion. ‘There is no other
like him in the hunt. We must hope that Wolf has found our
sacrifice sufficient, and smiles on us.’
*
Winter had already prowled into the northern reaches of the
Crown of the World by then, and daily it stalked south, doing
battle with the sun and extinguishing its fires. The Winter Runners, as with all the people of that land, withdrew into their
village and trusted to their stores of yams and wood, quamash
bulbs and salted meat. Winter, that great god, was driving his
warbands towards the coveted warmth of the southern lands.
Some day, so the stories said, he would not permit spring to end
his campaign, and would cover all the world in ice. It was not a
story that any except children believed, and yet at the same time
Akrit knew it to be a parable, a tale of what the Wolf might
accomplish if it could bring all the Crown of the World together
under a single banner. The world could belong to the Wolf.
There were still some travellers abroad. The snows were not
so fierce, yet, and the better-trodden paths were clear. A few late
Coyotes arrived with goods to trade – or in some cases just to
beg. A Crow trader down from the Eyrie braved the mockery
and disdain of the Winter Runners in order to trade a welcome
bag of salt for meat. And there was a messenger, too.
She rode in on a Horse Society mount, a stern-faced woman
of the Wolf swathed in furs and with a woollen scarf drawn up
past her nose, to ward off the cold.
A woman, but a hunter, too, no doubt about that. She travelled with two spears holstered behind the saddle and a bronze
axe at her belt, and she rode as easily as the Horse men themselves, swinging herself off the back of her beast to stand before
the Winter Runners.
She was recognized quickly, an older man and woman from
the Runners coming forth to greet her. All the Wolf tribes were
connected by bonds of kinship, and it was common for messengers to be sent to where they might expect blood relatives to
vouch for them. Strangers could find an uncertain reception in
Wolf lands.
Her name was Velpaye Bleeding Feathers, of the Many
Mouths tribe, and the spray of quills she wore in her hair had
come from Eyriemen raiders that had fallen to her spears. She
had come to speak to Akrit and, by the time that was known, the
entire tribe was aware that something important was afoot.
Nobody would send out a messenger at the dawn of winter for
small matters.
Akrit received her in his hall with his wives and thralls, with
Kalameshli and a score of other households represented. He
wanted Bleeding Feathers to go back home with the right
impression of the Winter Runners.
The news she brought must wait, of course. First there was
food and drink laid before her, and she ate with careful politeness, sampling everything, her eyes on the people about her.
Now she was their guest, and they her hosts, and a curse be on
whoever might act to break that bond.
All through the ritual, Akrit’s mind was busy. The High Chief
of the Wolves spoke for the Many Mouths.Word from that quarter could mean many things. Was it war? Were the tribes being
called together for some great campaign? Was it time at last to
storm the Eyrie and put those thieving cowards in their place?
Thinking of the possibility made Akrit feel like a young man
again, or closer to one than he had felt in a long time. What a
chance that would be to impress other tribes with his strength
and cunning, laying the groundwork for his ambitions!