The Tiger and the Wolf (21 page)

Her people called the Bear tribe ‘Cave Dwellers’, and indeed the
back chamber of Loud Thunder’s home was dug into a hillside,
its walls of packed earth shored up with props that had once
been tree trunks. The rest of his hall was built of timber, logs
stacked on logs and the cracks between them stuffed with moss
and mud. The roof sloped so as to shrug off the snows and not
break under the weight, and the whole was set so deep within
the dense-packed trees that it could hardly be seen until they
were right on top of it. Thinking about it later, Maniye realized
this concealment was hard won: Thunder must have hauled all
the logs in from far off, rather than cut down the trees conveniently close.

She had travelled as a wolf from the cooling campsite, Hesprec tucked in her satchel once more. The choice was not just
for his benefit either: Loud Thunder set a swift pace, his dogs
hauling the sled between them and the big man striding through
the deepening snow as if it was not there. Only as a wolf could
she keep up with him, and even then it was hard going, floundering through the drifts and constantly in danger of falling
behind.

The door into the Cave Dweller’s hall was low and wide, and
the skins hanging across it were pinned to the ground by large
stones. After he had rolled them away, Thunder’s dogs bounded
inside joyously, racing about the interior and then returning to
leap up at him. Ignoring his guests entirely, he made much of
the beasts, congratulating them for bringing the sled home, then
wandering inside with the animals trotting at his heels. Maniye
hovered unhappily at the threshold. The interior smelled very
strongly of bear, which was a scent like Loud Thunder’s own,
but with an added overtone of threat.
You’d have to be mad to go
readily into a bear’s den . . .
But they were the Bear’s guests, or
else his prisoners, or something . . .

Hesprec slid across her shoulders and managed to Step into
human form before the snow could chill his scales. ‘These
things are known: there are worse places to endure the winter,’
he murmured, and then called out at the hanging skins, ‘My
gracious host, might we enter?’

‘Gifts.’ Maniye shook her shoulders, newly human again, feeling the cold reach out for them. ‘Have we any . . . ?’
‘Food? Not that would feed a rat,’ Hesprec admitted sadly.
Abruptly, Loud Thunder’s broad face appeared at the edge of
the hangings, stooping in the doorway to stare at them. For a
second it was as though he had never seen them before, but then
memory apparently returned. ‘What, then?’
‘Can we . . . ?’ The thought of simply walking in, as though of
right, was a breach of everything she knew. To sit in the Horse
Society hut to talk terms, or share a campfire for a night, that
was different. To come to the house of a stranger and accept his
shelter and his food, but have nothing to render in return, was
inviting ill fortune. In her present position, bad luck was something she wanted absolutely no more of than necessary.
The Cave Dweller’s eyes cast about, trying to see what the
problem was. Then he grunted.
‘As you’re standing there, fetch wood, get water. Someone
needs to break the ice on the stream. Some wood left, just a
little, out in the store.’ And he vanished inside again.
It was not exactly a princely contribution, Maniye knew, but
it would satisfy custom.
In the end she had to perform both tasks. Hesprec was not
even strong enough to crack the ice. Perhaps he did not fear bad
luck, or perhaps they did things differently wherever he called
home. When she asked him, he assured her that the mere presence of a Serpent priest was gift and blessing enough, and she
could not tell if he was being serious.
Inside, Loud Thunder was feeding the dogs. He barely
glanced at his new guests as they entered, despite his stand-off
with Broken Axe in order to get them here. But then the winter
would be long, and they would have quite enough of each other’s company, one way or another, before its end.

To travel in winter was no man’s first choice but, of all the tribes
of the Crown of the World, the Wolf took to it most easily. This
was the hungry season when their totem walked the field of stars
above them. When deer and boar stayed close to their homes,
when horses would founder and get lost, the wolves ran free and
taught all others exactly why the winter was to be feared.

Akrit Stone River and most of his band had not taken human
form since they left their own village. The road to the Many
Mouths, after the snows came, was long and hard. Anyone
trying it on two legs would freeze to death, or be brought down
by the hunger of the mute wolves.

He travelled with a half-dozen of his hunters and with the
messenger, Bleeding Feathers. The Many Mouths woman alone
had Stepped back as a human into the cold each night, taking it
as her duty to build a fire that the pack could huddle round, the
animals profiting from the work of human hands.

They made good time, a fleet flurrying of grey across the
snow-clad slopes, over the ice of rivers and lakes, taking prey
where their noses led them to it, and otherwise trusting to the
deep-buried reserves of strength and endurance that let a wolf
run and run.

When Akrit spotted the mounds of the Many Mouths ahead
of him, at first seen just as the darkness of cleared earth against
the white horizon, he stopped and threw back his head, howling
out his presence. His pack joined in, each adding a voice to their
chief’s. The Many Mouths would know they had visitors long
before they saw them.

Let me not be too late
, was the most human thought in Akrit’s
head at that point. The idea had to fight for dominance by then.
Travelling so long as a wolf, without ever Stepping back, clouded
the mind. The thoughts of the animal became ever stronger,
until such concepts as high chiefs and wars with the Tiger were
harder and harder to hold on to. There were many tales of those
who had simply let go of all that human baggage, their souls
returning to a native state out in the wilds, heedless of the kin
they had left behind. They were sad tales, but the lament was for
the abandoned, not the abandoner. There were worse fates.

When the time came for him to finally Step, it took an effort
of will. A welcoming party had come cautiously out from the
village, a score or so on two legs and four. The burgeoning part
of Akrit’s mind that was solely wolf told him to veer away, to get
clear of these human haunts. He shook it off and came back to
himself. Bleeding Feathers was already Stepped by then, and his
hunters followed one after the other, some more reluctantly than
others.

The man before him was familiar: surely this was Otayo, the
first son of Maninli Seven Skins. He was a lean man, close to
Akrit’s own years, but no hunter nor warrior. When the war with
the Tiger had raged, he had minded his father’s people, guided
them and advised them. He was a hearth-husband: once he had
a mate who bore his sons. Now she was dead and Otayo kept the
hearth of another widower, a strong hunter who had been his
friend from childhood. All the Many Mouths spoke of Otayo’s
wisdom, but he had never cast a spear and he would never be
chief of the Many Mouths, let alone High Chief of all the Wolves.

‘None other,’ Akrit agreed. He could not come straight out
and demand, ‘Am I too late?’ and so he read the other man’s
face, seeing there a sadness, but not a final sadness. Maninli
Seven Skins had not passed on yet. ‘I am come to give honour
to my great friend, Seven Skins.’

Otayo nodded, surely well aware that more than mere sentiment had brought Akrit all this way, but he threw wide his arms
and declared, ‘I give the Winter Runners welcome in my father’s
name.Your hard journey honours us. Will you guest with us this
winter?’

‘Our journey is no more honour than the High Chief deserves,
and we would gladly be your guests.’ Formalities, always formalities, but amongst a people like the Wolves it was wise to
reinforce such traditions whenever possible.They would be given
food now – sealing the pact between host and visitor, binding
them both to fair dealings and good conduct.

The village of the Many Mouths was a little smaller than
Akrit’s own, and it would be a lean winter for the tribe because
his people were not the only guests. He spotted some that were
probably Moon Eaters, so the news of Seven Skins’ time had
spread far.
Competition
, Akrit realized sourly, but a quiet question put to Otayo revealed that the other tribe had not sent their
chief, just respectful ambassadors.

Otayo fed them in his own hall, that had been built in the
shadow of his father’s.
A fit image for the man’s whole life
, though
he did not seem to begrudge his role. Seven Skins had not been
wanting for children, Akrit knew. Four sons and three daughters
he had sired who had survived to adulthood. Akrit remembered
his second son well, a fierce warrior who had led the fight
against the Tiger many times, until they had caught him and
killed him slowly. The third son, Water Gathers, had also fought,
but only in the war’s final year, a youth who had been desperate
to win some small slice of glory for himself. He would likely be
the new chief of the Many Mouths, thus the man Akrit would
have to outmatch.

Water Gathers has at least one son already
, Akrit thought sourly,
his thoughts straying briefly to his own troubles.
If the girl is dead
in the snow, I will have Kalameshli beg the Wolf to torment her soul,
to rend it into pieces. I will have him bind her ghost into a rattle.

Who else aside from Water Gathers would be a challenger for
High Chief? The man who governed the Moon Eaters was older
than Akrit, a clever man but not a fierce one. He would be
someone to woo, perhaps, with gifts or with promises. The Swift
Backs chief was new, a young hunter who had come away unexpectedly victorious from a challenge; rumour said his own
people were already rebellious, and that he might not last long.
Still, the Wolf was plainly with him, to raise him up so swiftly . . .
and a strong challenge for dominance over the other tribes
could be what he needed to secure his position . . .

Otayo granted Akrit and his fellow hunters space in his hall,
and Akrit let his people go out into the village, trusting that they
would bring him any useful news they heard. He himself had
waited long enough. It was time to call upon Maninli Seven
Skins. It was time to pay his respects.

He had expected the High Chief’s great hall to be bustling with
well-wishers, slaves and family. Instead, there was just a woman
kneeling before the door, who Akrit thought must be Maninli’s
wife, the new one, after the Tigers had killed his first. He
remembered her as young, but she was grey now, and solemn.

For a moment he paused, unsure of what to say, but then: ‘He
must be close to his time.’
She nodded, lips pursed. There was that love that Maninli
had always inspired in kin, in friends, even in strangers. Akrit
had never known another man his equal for it. Seven Skins
could stand up before a hostile crowd and calm them simply
with a wave of his hand. He could take the dispirited and the
broken and turn them into hard warriors.
‘You are remembering him,’ the woman divined.
Akrit found that he was smiling slightly. ‘I am. I would like to
see him.’
‘He may not know you. He is on the Wolf’s trail much, these
days. Best that you Step, if you do go in.’
Akrit nodded, and shrugged down into his wolf shape, the
world twisting around him as his senses shifted: colours dimmer,
sounds sharper, a world of scents rushing in from all sides.
Mostly, as she held aside the skins that covered the entryway,
he smelled the sickness of Seven Skins. It was a sour, stomach-turning scent, that of a man too long in the world and
whose body had begun to fail. It was a smell of rot, of things
gone bad, of excrement and stale urine.
It was a man-scent, though, not a wolf-scent, and within the
hall was a wolf. Akrit padded in, seeing the old grey beast lying
on a pile of skins before the embers of the last night’s fire. At the
intrusion, Maninli pushed himself to his feet, hackles up and his
yellowed teeth showing.
Akrit knew the form: he, who had not needed to bow to
anyone, man or wolf, in a long time, now ducked his head low,
angling it so as to show his throat. He stayed still as the older
beast stalked over, shaking out the stiffness in his legs. For a
moment he thought that Seven Skins would truly not know him,
that he was too far gone into senescence or down the Wolf’s trail.
Then Maninli had Stepped, and was sitting before him with
his back to the fire, a wondering expression on his face. He had
a hand out, almost touching Akrit’s muzzle.
‘Can it be?’ he asked softly.
Old – he was
old
. Akrit took a moment before Stepping also,
because he could not show Maninli a human face with that look
of shock on it. The strength that the beast within retained was
always deceptive. It could even hide a weak, hollowed-out man
like this.
Here was Maninli Seven Skins: the man who had brought the
war host of the Wolf together and beaten the Tiger out of the
heartlands of the Crown of the World. Yes, he had burned
through his best days to do it, but he had always been strong,
unbreakable. And yet the years since Akrit had last seen him had
broken him. His skin was jaundiced and he looked as though he
had not slept forever, the white of his eyes pink with misplaced
blood. He trembled constantly, as though simply sitting there
and holding his head up was taking all the strength he had. He
was thin, the furs they had clad him in to keep him warm just
hanging off his skeletal figure.
‘I know, I know.’ The roaring voice of Akrit’s memory was a
hoarse whisper. ‘Look at me, old friend. I know.’
And Akrit forced himself to look. He owed Maninli that
much.
‘It’s good to see you one more time. And you braved the
winter for me. That’s a thought to take with me when I go.’
Akrit reached out gingerly and laid a hand on his arm, feeling
it bone-hard, bone-cold, fragile as a stick beneath his touch.
‘You’re waiting for midwinter?’
Maninli shuddered. ‘I’ve waited too long already. I should
have gone before the snows. I’m the wolf almost all the time
now. The wolf isn’t cold or tired like this. The wolf doesn’t hurt
like this. The wolf can
eat
, even. Only, when I become a man
again, I cannot keep it down.’ When he shook his head, it
seemed to sway loosely on his neck. ‘Eat . . . ? I’m being eaten,
Akrit. It’s the death that comes to us, the gnawing death picking
at these bones. But it’s difficult to let go . . . Even though I make
things worse for everyone, the longer I stay, it’s hard.’
Akrit had always thought that, when the time came, he himself would go bravely and be no burden. That was the hunter’s
way after a long life or a crippling injury. Now, looking at
Maninli, he did not know for sure. Seven Skins had always been
a brave man. If even this carious human existence was precious
to him, what could Akrit truly know?
‘I will retell your stories,’ Akrit said softly.
‘There are few left who can.’ For a moment a new expression
came upon the old man, a sly alertness that was something of
the past creeping back. ‘Otayo tells me you will raid the Tiger
next summer.’
‘Does he?’ Akrit held his face still.
‘They say he should have been a priest, that one,’ Maninli
managed a thin chuckle. ‘They say the invisible world whispers
to him. They don’t realize all you have to do is listen and think,
and you can predict the future well enough. So will you?’
Akrit had not planned to talk about such things with anyone
beyond Kalameshli, but here he was, and he just could not
refuse his old friend. ‘We have unfinished business,’ was all he
said. Besides, if Otayo was thinking of a mere raid or two, then
he was thinking too small.
If the girl is alive. If the girl is brought back to me.
He shook off his doubts angrily.
Maninli was watching him from under half-lowered lids. ‘Too
late, too late. I would have been glad to have a few more of the
Tiger given to the jaws of the Wolf before my passing. It would
sweeten my path, surely. What meat would he savour more?’
‘When chance brings me one of their warriors, then the Wolf
will have that meat, and in your name,’ Akrit promised.
The gap-toothed smile he received was almost senile in its
bloodlust. He could see the focus draining out of Maninli’s eyes,
and so he straightened his shoulders. ‘Old friend, do not spend
all your strength before your time.’
A terrible, hunted look came to the old man’s face, and in the
next moment he had Stepped: not even a farewell, just a flight to
the refuge of a wolf body that still had some strength in it. The
animal stared at Akrit with yellow, unblinking eyes, and he could
not say whether it knew him or not.

Akrit had assumed that Maninli intended to hold out for midwinter to pass on. Having seen the old man, that seemed unlikely
now. The Many Mouths were holding themselves in constant
readiness. Each night the cold’s grip on the Crown of the World
tightened, and surely their chief must simply wish to let go and
leave them. And yet he held on, a little of the man clinging
within him as if fearful of the great dark that was waiting for
him. His soul had grown used to his hands, was the saying that
Akrit heard most often.

He and his Winter Runners settled down for a stay of uncertain duration, penned in by the growing strength of winter.
In truth, there was little to do save talk. The people of the
Many Mouths told stories, while their hunters contested in races
and wrestling. Akrit stalked about their village, constantly skirting
the circle of influence maintained by Water Gathers, who seemed
just as conscientious in avoiding him. The mood soured slowly.
Nobody seemed to know what Maninli was holding out for.
‘But it has to be something,’ Otayo explained to Akrit one
evening. ‘You have seen our new priest, Catch The Moon, who
the Wolf chose after old Singing Branch passed on? He is young
but he has many visions. He has spoken to my father much.
There is something yet to come.’
‘What?’ Akrit demanded in a hushed voice. They were the
last two still sitting awake by the fire. Most of Otayo’s family was
asleep.
His host gave him a calculating look. ‘He will not tell me –
and do not think I haven’t asked. I do not believe he has told
Water Gathers either, which eats at my brother.’ A slight quirk of
the lips: it was no secret that the sons of Seven Skins did not
always see eye to eye. ‘Who would he tell then . . . ?’
The next morning Akrit went to visit Maninli one last time.
It was hard to persuade the man’s wife that he should be
allowed a second audience. She was terrified that her husband
might die in human form, and so prevent his soul from passing
on. There was a fragility about her eyes that made Akrit wonder
if it was not the prospect of Seven Skins’ angry ghost haunting
the family hall which most frightened her.
When Akrit finally talked his way in, he approached the old
grey wolf as warily as before. This time, though, Maninli did not
Step, but just turned away and settled down by the fire, shifting
mournfully every so often in an attempt to find a kind of comfort that time had stripped from him.
Akrit settled down beside him in human form, knowing that
now he must talk and hope the wolf ears would still convey his
words to a human mind. He recounted what Otayo had said,
fishing for some sign that his suspicions were right, hoping that
the bond of one-time comradeship between them would be
enough.
But he had more to say than that, when the wolf remained a
mute animal beside him. It was time for Akrit to share his own
dream with Seven Skins: a pledge to the Wolf that the old man
could carry with him when he passed on.
‘I will take the Tiger,’ he explained softly. ‘Not just raids. I will
bring them into the Wolf’s Shadow at last. After that, perhaps
the Eyrie will bow to us, or we will starve them out. The work
you began, old friend, is not done. The people of the Wolf have
a destiny.’
There was a sound beside him, and Maninli was sitting there,
old head loose on his neck, eyes almost closed. He looked measurably older than when Akrit had seen him before.
But he spoke, and Akrit leant closer to catch the mumbled
words.
‘Catch The Moon has seen it. There is a time coming, a
Great Dying Time.’
Akrit shivered to hear it, and the failing man’s sour breath
suddenly seemed to bring with it a chill, the sense of invisible
presences looming near. Maninli’s soul seemed perched on his
very lips, clinging to the last threads of his human existence as
his body consumed itself. There would always be spirits hovering close at such a time. Many of them would be wicked, and
some would hope to poison Maninli’s soul if it was trapped in a
man’s dead flesh, to turn it into something that would sicken
and corrupt all of the Many Mouths, even all those of the Wolf.
But such spirits whispered prophecy to the dying, too. The
words of a man this close to passing on were pregnant with divination.
‘Catch The Moon has seen a shadow that might stretch all
the way to the world’s end. He says that those who do not
submit to it will pass from this world. Whose shadow can that be
save for the Wolf’s? That is what it must be.’ He coughed thinly,
a feeble and miserable sound. ‘Water Gathers, my son . . . he
thinks that the world will never change through all his lifetime,
that every tomorrow will be as yesterday once he is chief. But
you can see further. You know the Wolf must grow stronger. I
should have sent for you before. The Wolf has guided you to
come to me.’
Akrit sat very still. Was this what he had been seeking? Yes,
surely, and yet how much more weight did it place on his shoulders? How much more important that he become High Chief
and that he bring the Tiger into the Wolf’s Shadow? And for
this, for all of this, he needed the girl Maniye, who might already
be dead . . .
He leant close to Maninli, despite the reek of the man’s
decaying body. ‘My friend, is this what you have stayed for?
Know that you may go, you may pass on. You need not torture
yourself in this flesh any more.’
The shake of Seven Skins’ head was barely perceptible.
‘There is one more I must see,’ the withered lips moved again.
‘They are coming to us now, those who can help this destiny to
come to pass. When they are here, then I shall know my time is
right. Strangers, Akrit. Strangers in winter. Mark them. It may
be their deaths that you need, or it may be their lives. Make your
decision wisely.’