The Tiger and the Wolf (27 page)

He was called Lone Mountain, she discovered. He was not
Loud Thunder’s brother by birth, but a cousin. The aunt they
had in common was the Mother of all the Bears.

Hesprec was listening intently, as though this all made perfect
sense to him, but for Maniye it was hard to follow. The Cave
Dwellers did not live together as a tribe, like all the other people
of the Crown of the World that she knew. They lived here in this
harsh country, and they spaced themselves far across it, allotting
to each one or two or few a territory. They were a tribe, though,
and they had their ways, their gatherings and meetings. And
they had their mother. Of all the powerful women born within
the Arms of the Bear, one was acknowledged as pre-eminent, by
secret ways that were obviously as much of a mystery to the two
Cave Dweller men as they were to Maniye.What marked out the
Mother of the Bear people was her strength, but also her wisdom.
The Mother saw many things, Maniye understood. What the
Mother asked for, the Mother usually received.

‘And she has asked for you,’ Lone Mountain declared. ‘You
must go to the Stones once spring comes. She will be there.You
have been apart from your people long enough. Many have said
it.’

Loud Thunder merely grunted, and stared at the fire.
‘Did you think a son of the Bear could live always on his own,
one such as you?’ Lone Mountain did not seem entirely pleased
about this whole business himself.
‘I do not want it.’
‘Your wanting does not matter,’ Lone Mountain told him.
‘It should be
you
she calls for.’
Maniye looked from one to the other, trying to decipher what
they meant.
‘I had always thought so.’ Mountain scowled. ‘But the world
is changing. Her dreams and seeing have led her to call your
name, so you must go.’
‘What is it? What are you talking about?’ Maniye demanded.
She fully expected to be ignored – too small and insignificant
for these two vast creatures to notice. Loud Thunder glanced at
her, but said nothing. It was Lone Mountain who graced her
with an answer.
‘Mother has said that the Bear seeks a war leader.’
‘War?’ Now it was Hesprec chiming in. ‘War against the cold?
Against the trees?’
Lone Mountain shrugged ponderously. ‘This is what Mother
hears from the Bear. And of all of the hunters in the Bear’s
Shadow, it is your name she speaks. And you must go.’
‘I will say no.’
‘Say it to her face, if you dare,’ Lone Mountain challenged.
‘But go to her you shall. None will then say I did not do what
was asked of me.’

What irked her was the change in Hesprec. He had been like a
grey shadow all the winter, until she was convinced that he
would not see the spring. Aside from his stories, there had been
nothing to be got from him: as if he had retreated to the last
spark of warmth inside himself and shuddered his way through
each cold day, each long and freezing night.

Now a new brightness had come into his eye, and it was not
just the promised spring. He was looking
smug
.
‘This was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?’ she accused
him. ‘It’s the real reason you were here in the Crown of the
World – seeking wise counsel or whatever. Did
you
make this
happen?’ She would have believed it, too, for who knew what
the minions of the Snake could accomplish, or how their magic
worked? Perhaps everything following her rescue of him from
sacrifice had been twisted into place by the movements of the
Serpent’s coils.
‘Does it suit my purpose? Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Can a poor, worndown stub of a priest bring such things about, no matter how
the Serpent favours him? Such things defy possibility.’ And,
when she still looked on him with suspicion, ‘And does this not
serve your purposes too, little hunter?’
‘How can it?’ she demanded.
‘Before spring comes, our host here must set out for your
Stones, or else risk offending his Mother,’ Hesprec pointed out.
‘What was your plan for the coming of spring? To flee into the
wilderness until the hunter tracks you down? Better travel with
Loud Thunder. Seek for your new escape amongst the people
who will gather at this place. You shall find more chances there
than amongst the trees.’
She pictured Broken Axe on her trail again. He would follow
her all the way to the Stone Place, but that was a magic place at
a magic time. The division between spirits and ghosts, totems
and men, it was frail there. The priests of many tribes met and
held back their hatreds. A rash act in that company could curse
the culprit for life or mark them out for the greater spirits to
torment.
In her heart she did not feel that such considerations would
dissuade Broken Axe any more than the winter had.

Maniye had assumed that Lone Mountain would travel with
them, to ensure that Loud Thunder did not go astray. Apparently either Thunder’s word was unquestionable or the Cave
Dwellers were simply not people who lied to one another. As
soon as Thunder had agreed to travel, Lone Mountain was
already departing. He strode to the shadow of the trees, then cast
a single look behind him before Stepping into his great-muscled
bear form and loping off.

Hesprec was standing at the flap to Thunder’s home, looking
out. ‘Sad that brothers keep each other at arm’s length,’ he
mused. ‘Will you speak of it?’

Loud Thunder looked unhappy. ‘Mother calls for me. She
should call for Lone Mountain. He is the better man. He is the
one who stayed to serve his kin, not me. But it is my name on
her lips, and I must go. You should go also.’

Thunder shrugged massively, the vague gesture of one hand
describing the great expanse of the world.
‘The Horse Society will return to the north along with the
thaw,’ Hesprec said softly. ‘Not yet, and not soon, for the rivers
are still full of snow melt, so they must crawl their way overland,
but they will return to all their places in time. You could go to
them.’
The Horse would not venture as far north as this, of course.
Maniye would have to travel back into the Shadow of the Wolf
before she could find a trading post and, even then, would Hesprec’s bluster work a second time? She had spent a winter
listening to his stories of the south, and now it had become just
a story-place to her. She had ceased to believe in it.
‘I . . .’ Now that she must leave, she found herself far more
attached to this little house, this ice-locked glade, than she would
ever have thought. A worm of doubt found her, writhing in from
Hesprec’s words.
‘But you will come to the Horse with me,’ she suggested
uncertainly.
Hesprec looked solemn. ‘I had a purpose that drew me to the
north.’
‘You were looking for wisdom. I thought you’d worked out
there wasn’t any.’
Loud Thunder snorted at that, and she glared him into
silence.
‘These Stones, this gathering . . .’ Hesprec explained. ‘This
was the lure that drew me here so long ago. I had not imagined
the path would be so long, to get me there. Or so cold.’ He grimaced, showing his scarred gums. ‘But I would go with Loud
Thunder. I am sorry, girl.’
She stared at him, hard-eyed, for a long while, while Thunder
shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘And then?’ she demanded.
Hesprec took a breath, and she heard it wheeze inside his
chest. ‘If the Serpent preserves me from this cold, and from these
people, then I shall gather what wisdom I find and carry it home.’
She nodded. ‘Then I come with you: to the Stone Place, and
then to the south. After all, were you going to
walk
? Or did you
think Loud Thunder would carry you in his pocket or about his
neck, old Snake?’

The old pirate cocked an eyebrow at her then glanced ahead
at Asmander, who was walking with their Coyote guides.
‘It must be simple living on the Plains,’ was his only reply.
Around them, the Crown of the World rose and fell, as
though once the land had rolled like the waves of the sea, and
then the gods – all of them together, it would have to be – had
put out their hands and frozen it in place. The land had a hundred little rivers, and every one of them had carved its dominion
out of the rock, holding on to its own hard-won territory for a
half-mile or so before being swallowed by some greater watercourse. Nothing like this existed in the Riverlands. Where the
Tsotec held absolute sway, almost no lesser streams paid it tribute at all. It ran its solitary course all the way to the sea, where
it broke apart and flowered into the net of islands and channels
that was Venater’s home.
‘In the Plains, we know that life will set enough burdens on
us, without our inventing more of our own,’ the Hyena girl
pointed out.
Venater’s expression made it clear that ignoring her was a
tempting option, but then he rolled his shoulders irritably. ‘You
mock me for my name, so you know how it is between us.’
‘But I am beginning to think that I do not,’ she answered.
‘And what would you do with your name anyway? If he should
hurl it at you, like a bone thrown to a dog, do you even know
what you would do?’
‘I would kill him.’ The words came out with a certainty and
suddenness that seemed to surprise even Venater. Then, the
qualification: ‘I would try.’
Shyri was silent for a handful more steps, and a fresh flurry
of fine snow blew past them, drifting onto white ground that
already bore scars of bare rock and the first shoots of green.
‘You do not give him much incentive to free you,’ she noted
diplomatically.
‘These things are known,’ the pirate grunted, that oft-used
saying of the south:
That is how the world is; that is its nature
. ‘But
no doubt you’re glad of it.’
‘Why is it mine to be glad of?’
‘You’re sweet on him, aren’t you?’
She gave a quick laugh at that, although he had a nasty,
knowing expression on his face – and it was a face made for just
such a look.
‘Steer clear of him,’ Venater cautioned, with his brown teeth
grinning back at her. ‘You’re not what he’s looking for in this
land. And, even if you were, he’ll be promised to some Crocodile girl by his father, just like his father pulls all his strings.’
‘I have no interest either in him or his father.’
‘Well, then, why haven’t
you
killed him? Feeling the loin-pain
for him’s the only thing I can think of that balances out how
annoying he is,’ Venater said disgustedly.
Her laughter at that sally was more natural, less forced.
‘And what are you looking for, in this land?’ She made herself
grin at him, just to see if he would bite.
‘Girl, I had your mother.’
‘The Malikah’s not my mother – not in that way.’
‘Enough so for me. I’ve no wish to go sticking myself in the
Hyena’s Shadow any more than that.’
‘Is this honestly the best topic of conversation the two of you
could come up with?’ Asmander called out from ahead. Shyri
started, missing her footing, and would have skidded off down
towards the abode of the local river god had not Venater caught
her arm in a tight grip.
‘Oh, and he has really good ears, the malingering bastard,’ the
pirate added with some satisfaction, before setting her back on
her feet.
Meanwhile, Asmander himself just shook his head and then
took a handful of quick strides, to catch up with the two Coyotes.
‘What was that your friend was saying?’ Two Heads asked
him.
‘Just that he wishes to kill me.’
‘That’s normal, where you come from?’ Evidently nothing
would surprise the Coyote about the barbarous practices of
other lands.
‘It’s normal for
him
.’ He grinned abruptly. ‘Do you have no
such friends where you come from?’
‘None we stay near to.’ Two Heads rolled his eyes. ‘There is a
lot of wide open world, and no reason to stay in any part of it
that displeases you, let alone to fight another for it. If only all
men realized this truth, then the world would be a good place to
live.’
‘And nobody would ever spend two nights in one place.’
‘Also no bad thing.’ The Coyote shrugged. ‘Roots are for
trees.’
‘You fill me full of envy.’
Two Heads glanced at him in surprise. ‘Yet here you are,
more of a traveller than we have ever been,’ he pointed out.
‘If you’re not where you would like to be,’ Quiet When Loud
pointed out, ‘then just keep moving. There will be a better place.’
An oddly comforting philosophy.
And yet in Asmander’s mind
there existed something like a knot: a snarl of relationships and
decisions that had brought him here. Travel as far as he might
– to the highlands above the Crown of the World, or to the jungles of the Pale Shadow People – he could not escape the tether
that led him back to the Sun River Nation. Here was the knot
that was Tecuman: his friend, the man who would go to war
against his own kin’s blood in order to rule the Riverlands. Here
was the sharp-edged snarl that was his father, the Patient One, a
man broiled and leathered by the sun until nothing was left in
him but desire and ambition. And here . . . here, like a hot coal
in his head, was Venater’s name.
He had thought often of speaking it aloud and returning it to
its owner. He had imagined that moment as a scene from legend,
when the hero utters the names of the great spirits and unleashes
them. He had pictured something invisible but unmistakable
returning to the pirate’s long-jawed face, to his stony eyes.
And then they would fight, as they had fought before, only
this time Venater –
Venat
– would not be hungover or caught
unawares.
The thought made Asmander shiver. Always the same astonishment:
How did I ever beat him?
And now, without his name, that fire was lessened within him.
Not Venat, but merely Venat’s son, as Asmander was Asman’s. If
he died as Venater he would go to the Dragon as a boy – no
deeds, no glory, no bloody-handed history – and only Asmander
could give him back the name he had surrendered. How the
hate must be stoppered up within him.
Venater was like a beast penned, and Asmander found himself staring at the lock of its cage, over and over, and knowing he
held the only key.
‘I’ve never really moved at all,’ he said, voicing the trailing
end of his own thoughts, but the two Coyote seemed to understand him.
I’m like the river. I seem to be driven ever onwards, and
yet here I am always.