The Tiger and the Wolf (29 page)

At first she intended heading straight for the Tigers’ fire. Perhaps – she had not totally decided – she would even walk
straight up to them, show them what shape she could assume,
show them that
I am of you.
She imagined it all, daydreamed it
in detail even as she left the Bears’ hearth. She assured herself
what it would feel like to step from under the Wolf’s Shadow
and into the embrace of a different god. Even while she wore the
Wolf’s own shape, she thought it. Perhaps that was why her feet
led her astray.

Despite the fires, it was very dark in the Stone Place. Above
her, the stars were shrouded, mocking those below who might
seek to fish the future from their pond. Her wolf nose was battered by a multitude of scents: the bodies, fires and food of a
dozen tribes. Abruptly she found that she could not tell which of
the leaping lights of the island were nearby, and which were all
the way across it.

Trying to shake off her uncertainty, she pushed forwards
with a sudden flurry of speed. Ever since leaving the Winter
Runners, she had raced through the world as though distance
itself was a cure for all ills, and now it betrayed her. Abruptly the
land was clear on either side, just the packed earth of this artificial hill . . . and then there were the stones.

They rose above her, to the left and to the right, great dark
sentinels that she sensed more than saw. In a convulsive moment
she felt as if something had gripped hold of her – intangible and
irresistible, stripping her skin from her, nose to tail. A moment
later she was in her tiger shape, its keener eyes harvesting distant
firelight so as to make out the tall, still monoliths rising before
her. For a brief moment she felt that the wolf was gone, totally
gone, and scrabbled with unexpected panic within her, searching out all its old haunts one by one. Then she had it again,
cowering at the very back of her mind, while the tiger in her was
so bold . . .

She had almost run straight inside the circle of stones. She
had almost crossed into the eye of the Stone Place, where the
spirits watched all the time. Only priests went there and, though
she had pretended to herself that she felt like a priest, now she
knew she was nothing but a fugitive girl. If she had taken
another handful of steps . . .

Who could know? But she would be marked forever. To stand
before the greater spirits even a priest must purify himself and
sacrifice and beg.

Her eyes caught the approach of more lights: a line of torches
emerging from one of the camps, and she froze, torn between
the desires to flee and to spy.

Their own fires picked them out for her, and her tiger’s heart
jumped – for it was her people, her own people, the ones she
had never known.

A woman led them, who wore mail of bronze squares and an
ornate helm with a feathered crest. The skin of her cheeks was
raised in thin lines that the torchlight turned into dancing shadow-stripes. Behind her followed two men, their faces solemn.
They had some of the look of the people Maniye had grown up
with, but with something else as well. Their eyes were angled,
their faces longer. There was a mystery written into them. To
Maniye, they were beautiful.

She followed their progress, crouching close to the base of
the closest stone. They were tracing a curving path, and she
knew they were making for some special point, some invisible
path known only to the Tiger, by which the circle could be
entered.

Turning to keep them in view, she realized her error.
She traced the line of the stones with her eyes. The circle was
simple, just a ring of irregular, jutting fingers with a single squat
altar in its very centre. As the torches neared, many of the stones
leapt into relief, casting their shifting shadows across the ground,
across the circle that they enclosed.

The circle that she was
inside
. She had bounded straight into
it, and only been brought to a halt by the stones on the far side.
She knew then that it was the coming of the Tiger to these
stones that had Stepped her into this shape. If she had just been
some hapless Wolf girl, then surely she would have been punished: struck blind, driven mad, killed on the spot. The spirits
could do such things.
With this new knowledge, though, she could not stay.
Half-belong as she might, she could not trespass within the
circle during a Tiger ritual. There was reckless, and there was
outright foolhardy.
She held her breath as she backed out between the stones,
between the same two pillars that she’d thought had been keeping her from going
in
. Casting a glance behind her, she saw the
three Tigers now enter the circle, their priestess at the fore.
Moving further away, she could see more. Her eyes caught a
deeper darkness between the fires, and after a moment she identified it: spies, other spies. Of course, any who chose to look up
the hill towards the stones might see something of what passed
between the Tiger and their god, but these – whoever these were
– they had drawn closer.
Still clad in her tiger shape, she circled them, closing carefully, wondering who it was that took such an interest in her
people.
Yet who else but her
other
people? She stopped dead-still
because she had recognized a face she knew. Yes, yes, there was
Kalameshli Takes Iron, and the sight of him sent a jolt of fear
and hatred through her, a short lifetime’s worth of taunts and
goads flurrying through her head, like snow. A moment later he
was almost forgotten though.
Akrit Stone River was here too. He knelt on the ground, a
man with patience to spare, and stared at the stones and the
three votaries within. The two Shadow Eater men were singing
now: one low and one high, an eerie counterpoint that seemed
to rise up into the clouded sky and resonate through the earth.
Their torchlight barely touched Akrit’s eyes, lurking there as the
faintest of angry embers.
She began to back away. Their attention was fixed on the
ritual. The spirits had blessed her this much: that she had spotted them first.
It was the fur of her flanks that told her of the other: not her
nose, nor eyes nor ears. When she twitched away from him, he
was close enough to reach out and take her by the scruff of the
neck.
Broken Axe regarded her expressionlessly – no, not quite:
there was a slight twitch to his lips, a token amusement at having
found her yet again.
She had frozen in shock, and she saw his eyes flick towards
the gathering of Wolves and to the Tiger ritual beyond. A shout
from him would bring Akrit and Kalameshli both down on her
back. She was caught, helpless and immobile, torn between
leaping and fleeing.
Then that seed of a smile grew a little, and he shrugged and
turned away, strolling over towards the other Wolves, not a hint
of hurry in his steps.
She fled then, but he never called the alarm, and her father
never knew she had been there.

The Tiger ritual had been disconcerting: a familiar message yet
written in an alien tongue. The woman who stood in for their
priest, and her two eunuch servants, they had gone through
strange steps, made unfamiliar offerings, and yet Akrit felt he
understood. Watching from out in the dark, he had seen an
urgency in those motions, an invocation of martial preparedness. The Tiger tribe, too, were readying for conflict.

‘There is a time coming,’ Kalameshli confirmed, later. ‘The
spirits speak of it. My dreams – the dreams of many priests here
– are disturbed by it. So the Tiger hear the same voices. They do
not know your plans.’

Akrit had never concerned himself that the Tiger might be
readying themselves to defend against him. He was struck by
the sudden thought that his own plan – the plan he had been
nursing all these years – might not be
his
plan at all. What if it
had merely been gods and spirits working through him? He
knew many who might be proud of playing such a role, but not
he. Akrit Stone River was, above all, his own master. The Wolf
wished no cringing thralls amongst those born in his Shadow.

The morning after, and keyed up by Kalameshli’s words, he
went to speak with the priests of the Moon Eaters, who were
here in force. He needed to present himself to them, to win their
blessing. He needed to have them thinking of him as the next
High Chief.

And yet, when he reached them, it seemed he was a man
come second to the feast. The hard, derisive eyes of Water Gathers stared out at him from the midst of the priests.

‘Stone River,’ began the son of Seven Skins, ‘who would have
thought to find you here? What purpose can you have, so far
from home?’

Catches The Moon, the young priest of the Many Mouths,
was lurking in his shadow, and there were plenty of sidelong
glances shared between the Moon Eaters.

‘I have told these wise men of the passing of my father,’ Water
Gathers explained expansively. ‘All agree he departed from his
tribe as a strong man, a warrior, should.’

‘He did,’ Stone River agreed. ‘He was a man we shall not see
again for a generation. Would that more were like him.’
The twitch at the corner of Water Gathers’ mouth was slight,
and utterly unamused. ‘I have told them also of my father’s last
words to me: how he bid me follow in his tracks, how he marked
me for greatness. I am my father’s son, his heart, his all. I was
his joy, when he still lived amongst us; to see me in my strength
was what gave him the strength to leave his people in my care.’
‘So much he told you.’ Akrit could sense Kalameshli right
behind him, the old man urging him silently to hold his temper.
‘And yet I guested with your brother, a fine man and a wise one,
and it seems your father had said not a word of this to him.’
‘My brother Otayo is no hunter,’ Water Gathers replied contemptuously. ‘He brought my father neither joy nor solace by
tending hearth while his mate sought prey.’
They are already with him more than with me
, Akrit thought,
letting his peripheral vision inform him of the Moon Eaters’
disposition, even as he kept his eyes fixed squarely on his opponent. He knew what he wanted to say, and also he knew that
those words could never be taken back. They would fan the
hatred of Water Gathers into a high burning fire that might consume either or both of them.
And he realized that he was going to say them anyway. He
was losing face moment to moment. No man would follow a
High Chief who turned his back.
‘I, too, spoke with your father before his passing,’ Akrit said
softly, making them lean in to hear more clearly. ‘It is true he
said much of you. You were uppermost in his thoughts. But he
was also my friend, my teacher, like unto my own father. We
began the rising against the Tiger that drove them into the high
places, and we finished it, he and I. Who else can boast the same
that lives now?’
Not Water Gathers, certainly
. ‘He spoke fondly of
Otayo but, like you, he lamented your brother’s choice to keep a
home rather than to lead the hunt. For, if your brother had taken
up the bow and the spear, your father would not have to lament
your becoming chief of the Many Mouths.’
The Moon Eaters had gone quiet and still, recognizing that
moment in a fight where wrestling and blows are no longer
enough, and the knives are drawn.
‘He was a honed blade, your father. Even in his last days he
had a keen edge to him. Even sick, he was a man I would follow
into the fire. And you are no blade, but a maul. You are a blunt
striker, without wisdom or subtlety. You are not the man to
follow Maninli Seven Skins.’
The words struck home like arrows, but Water Gathers was
still standing firm, braced against them. There was only one
brief moment when his mask cracked, and Akrit could see into
his soul. He saw there more self-knowledge than he had
expected. He saw that Water Gathers knew all of what his father
had thought of him, and that becoming High Chief in Maninli’s
place was the only way he could erase the burning venom of
that knowledge.
‘And yet I am a man,’ Water Gathers spat. ‘I say my father
loved me, and he saw himself in me. And in my sons, Stone
River, my sons who shall carry the blood of Seven Skins down
to their own sons. We have heard the wind of your words. Now
show us your sons. Show us what the loins of the Winter Runners can fruit.’
‘I will show you,’ snarled Akrit, and yet he had none, and not
even the girl to bring before them.
And if I had her, I’d tell them
precisely what I would bring for the Wolf, with her at my side. If I
had her, I’d have her here to beat them with. If . . . If . . .

Amongst the Stones was a bad place to be, Asmander had
decided. They all felt it: the northern spirits of place bending
their gaze upon the three travellers. Shyri was skittish, jumping
at shadows. Venater brooded and glowered, his flinty eyes stabbing out at anyone who looked his way, meeting the savagery of
the north with savagery of his own.

A spirit place. And of course the Riverlands had such places
of their own, but most of them had been built upon, weighed
down with stone and garlanded with priests until they became
something else, something that was a part of the Sun River
Nation. Asmander had no sense that this place was a part of the
Crown of the World in the same way, if for no other reason than
there
was
no single Crown of the World. Just like the Plains, this
was a fragmented place where men had never learned to live
together. And just like the Plains, it was a foolhardy place to
venture unprepared.

Asmander felt unprepared. He had come to treat with the
heart of the north, but found it had no heart. The invisible presence that swathed this place like a miasma, and pricked up the
hairs on his arms, was a divided and many-faced monster.

The two Coyote had left them as soon as they crossed the
causeway, as though being seen with the southerners would be
bad for their own reputations. The pair were priests, he had
realized. All this time travelling with them, thinking of them as
itinerant pedlars, when they had come here for their own devotions. Asmander tried to work out just who had used whom the
most, in getting here.