The Tiger and the Wolf (44 page)

choose
, she had to know what she
wanted to be . . .

When she came back to herself, the cold of the ground had
leached into her bones. Broken Axe was calling out her name,
his hands on her. His ice-water eyes were the first things she saw
as she opened her own.

She made a questioning sound, little more than a croak.
Moving her limbs, she found herself shaky and weak, barely able
to sit upright.

Broken Axe’s expression was closed, but his body thrummed
with tension. ‘Can you run?’ he asked her. ‘I’ve heard the Wolf
calling.’

‘What . . . ?’ She wanted to ask him if she had been struck;
she wanted there to have been an attack, some cause outside
herself. She could not deny the knowledge, though. Her souls
had fought: they were grown too great for her small body. They
had fought inside her, and now they had withdrawn to lick their
wounds, leaving her the strength of neither to help her.

‘You fell,’ Broken Axe explained shortly. ‘You started shaking.
There was foam on your lips, and your eyes were white.’ He was
keeping himself as calm as possible, so as not to pass his alarm
on to her. ‘Many Tracks, can you still run?’

‘Yes.’ But she could barely stand. Terror shot through her: not
at the thought of being caught but at being unable to trust or
master her own body. Every muscle within her was trembling,
and the more the fear mounted, the more the strength ebbed
from her limbs.

Without a word, Broken Axe had swept her up and in a
moment she was clinging to his back, arms clasped before his
throat and her legs about his waist. He spared no more effort on
words, but began trudging on between the trees. She could read
his mind though: a burdened man on human feet could never
outpace wolves or tigers. There was no escape that way.

She wanted to tell him to leave her – his life was surely forfeit
if he was caught, just as hers was. But strength to make such
sacrifices was gone from her along with the rest. She just huddled into him, feeling his muscles shift beneath her.

They found the deer soon after: not the tribe but their mute
brothers. Spring had come to the Crown of the World enough
for the first bucks to be out gorging, and the hollow they found
was one of their feeding grounds. At the intrusion, the halfdozen beasts fled, white tails flashing in the sun, and Broken
Axe set her down.

‘We need a new plan,’ he told her. ‘This place is thick with
deer-scent. If I leave you here, can you hide yourself? Can you
Step?’

She reached tentatively for the souls within her, then flinched
away. Her expression was all the answer he needed.
‘I will find help.’
‘Loud Thunder?’ She knew herself how far it was still to his
cabin.
For a moment, Broken Axe didn’t answer, and she realized
that it was because he
had
no better answer. Even he was
beyond the edge of his inventiveness.
‘I will wait.’ She was stronger now than she had been. If the
Tiger or her father caught up with her, then she would find out
whether she could run or not. ‘Broken Axe . . .’
But she had no words to follow his name, and he understood.
A moment later there was that pale wolf with the dark shoulders
again, before he was off into the forest. She found shelter for
herself amidst the roots of a tree, and husbanded her strength.

She heard wolves calling as she crouched there – not close, but
not as far away as she would have wished. The Tiger she did not
hear, nor expected to. Slowly her two souls slunk back to her,
their power seeping grudgingly back into her limbs. She did not
try to Step, in case playing favourites with them might trigger
another rebellion. Denied their animal senses, she felt blind.
There could be enemies all around and she could not scent
them.

But then Broken Axe was back, far sooner than he should
have been – and not alone. She leapt up, knowing instantly that
he could not have found Loud Thunder in such a short span.
Her body was flooded with the need to fight or flee.

He had found other allies, though. He had come with the
southerners.
‘They were on my trail,’ he told her. ‘The girl here, she tracks
like a wolf.’
The southern woman made a scoffing sound at that.
‘Can you run?’ Axe asked. It seemed to be the question that
her life revolved around.
She did not know the answer, but she replied, ‘I can.’
‘Make for Loud Thunder’s home,’ he told her. ‘I will run
ahead to alert him. Perhaps the Bear will give us guest rights.’
And Asmander enquired, ‘Where is the Messenger?’ It was a
yawning moment before she realized who he meant.
Saying the words opened up the wounds again. ‘He is dead.’
The Champion stared at her.
‘I took him from the Winter Runners,’ she said in a whisper.
‘But he was hurt, and then the cold . . . I’m sorry.’ She was not
quite sure of the relationship between Hesprec and this man.
They had not been old friends from before, but the black youth
had shown the old priest immediate and unquestioning respect.
She was very aware of how little she knew any of these southerners.
The news had struck Asmander like a hammer. ‘A Messenger
of the Serpent, dead?’ he got out. Maniye wanted to remind him
that Hesprec had been old. She had wanted to say how he had
seemed at peace. The words would not come, though, and she
doubted that they would have helped.
‘We must .. .’ Broken Axe started, but Asmander wandered
off a few steps, unsteady on his legs. Maniye looked at the other
two. The southern girl was grimacing, a spectator to someone
else’s awkwardness, but when she met Maniye’s gaze she just
shrugged. The other man, the big one with the long hair, seemed
blithely unconcerned.
Broken Axe approached Asmander. ‘What will you do?’ he
asked. ‘Where does this leave you?’ His clenched fists alone
showed how aware he was of the valuable time lost.
‘I don’t know,’ the Champion said, and then, ‘It leaves me
with my duty.’ He did not sound glad about that. ‘Why can the
girl not run with you?’
Broken Axe frowned. ‘It is her souls.’
For a second, Asmander just stared at him blankly before
understanding dawned. ‘One must be cut away. The Messenger
could have done that.’
‘I could do it,’ Broken Axe said tersely. ‘But first she needs to
choose.’
‘Why not Wolf?’
‘What do you know about it?’ Axe asked sharply.
‘She grew up a Wolf, did she not? And you are a Wolf – there
is no Tiger here. She respects you.’
The hunter scowled. ‘Normally this is easy. Normally there is
one soul that speaks of home, and one that speaks of the
other
.
But Many Tracks . . . the jaws of the Wolf, the claws of the Tiger,
each is as unkind as the last.’ He took a deep breath, glancing
over at Maniye. ‘Southerner, where do you stand now?’
A flurry of conflicting thoughts passed across Asmander’s
dark face, but they were written in the fashion of his River
Nation, and Maniye could read none of them. ‘Don’t ask me
this,’ he replied hollowly.
‘I ask you to do what you believe is right,’ Broken Axe said
simply. ‘I would value your help, if you will offer it.’
Asmander’s expression was eaten up by something that
Maniye could not quite discern.
His big friend made a derisive noise. ‘Wolf, this is no business
of ours. Keep your girl and your tigers, and your piss-cold
north.’
Broken Axe nodded once. ‘I understand,’ he said, but then
Asmander held a hand up.
‘We will go with her,’ he declared, to the obvious surprise of
his fellows.
Why?
Maniye wondered.
Just because of Hesprec?
Does he owe me that much purely because Hesprec valued me?
‘Thank you.’ Broken Axe clapped his hand on Asmander’s
shoulder, making the southerner shy away from him. ‘She will
show you the way, and I will be with you, with help, as soon as
I can bring it.’
‘But will they help?’ Maniye asked. ‘The Bear, will they even
care?’ She felt far too fragile to have so much of the world concerned about her fate. The weight of it was crushing.
Broken Axe’s face showed that he had no such certainty, but
a moment later he was back on four feet and dashing away, vanishing into the trees in a moment.

‘What’s she good for, anyway?’ Venater demanded. ‘Right now
the only use for her that I can see is as lunch when our food
runs out.’

‘Enough.’ Asmander kept his eyes on the girl ahead, because
she didn’t seem at all as sure of where she was going as she had
claimed. She hadn’t Stepped either, trusting neither of her souls.
He guessed that mere human senses were inadequate to the task
of navigation.

‘Enough?’ growled the old pirate behind him. ‘The First Son
of Asman has a duty to his father, and yet here he is up in the
cold north, helping orphans.’

‘She’s not—’
‘I don’t care. Her parentage is like those knots your Snake
priests tie, that nobody can undo. So why’s it
our
problem?’ All
of this certainly loud enough for Maniye to hear.
‘It’s your problem because the First Son of Asman told
Broken Axe we would do this,’ Asmander snapped back at him.
‘I am your only problem, Venater.’
‘You’ve got one thing right, then.’ The man spat disgustedly.
When his voice was stilled, Asmander found that he missed it.
Snarling with Venater had at least kept his mind busy and not
asking itself the same question.
Why are you
really
doing this?
Going near that question was like touching a raw wound.
Broken Axe will be back soon
, he reassured himself.
Then I will
not have to make the choice of what to do.
They were making poor time, at the girl’s plodding pace.
Unless she trusts herself to Step, a three-legged wolf could catch us.
Shyri was bored. She sauntered past Asmander on four feet,
hackles high, and then Stepped right next to Maniye, making
the girl start.
‘So,’ she said, chewing at a piece of gristle, ‘Broken Axe . . .’
‘What of him?’ Maniye mumbled.
‘You and he,’ the Laughing Man girl continued, ‘he’s your
mate?’
‘No!’ Maniye told her.
‘No – or not yet?’ Abruptly Shyri was in front of her, walking
backwards directly ahead of the girl, putting that grin in her
face. ‘Maybe I’ll make him mine.’ She shot Asmander a look.
‘Strong man, doesn’t talk too much . . . I’ll bet he’d fight, too,
but not too much. Men like that, they like being broken—’
‘Enough!’ Asmander got out.
She stared at him with exaggeratedly owlish eyes. ‘Have I
shocked the Champion with my talk?’
‘Aim your barbs somewhere else.’
She smirked and slunk aside, letting Maniye stumble on. ‘You
are Broken Axe’s Champion now, are you?’
‘And you are very brave to mock a man who isn’t here,’ he
told her sharply, and caught a look of genuine hurt on her face
for just a moment before she covered it. ‘Broken Axe is a man
who says he will do a thing, and then does it. Not for gold or
meat or favours, but because it must be done.’ He surprised
himself with those words: before they came out, he had not realized how much the other man had impressed him.
If the Wolf
only had Champions . . .
Shyri’s face darkened, and no doubt she had a spectacular
put-down ready on her tongue, but then Venater snarled, and a
moment later he had coursed past them and into the trees, his
low-slung shape glittering black with scales. Asmander Stepped
to the Champion immediately, baring black stone teeth, and
Shyri was a hyena. Only Maniye remained on human feet,
clutching her bronze knife.
They heard the surprised yelp of something – Asmander
didn’t know the animals of this land well enough to guess – but
Venater came slouching back to them soon enough. When he
Stepped back, his face was frustrated.
‘Just one,’ he reported. ‘One, and fled.’
‘One what?’ Asmander demanded. ‘The Wolf?’
‘Cat,’ Venater said. ‘Stripes. The other one.’
‘And gone to fetch his friends,’ Shyri pointed out, ‘since you
let him get away.’
Venater gave her a sour look. ‘Maybe I wanted them to come
and put an end to this stupid thing we’re doing.’
‘Girl, can you Step?’ Asmander demanded.
Maniye wouldn’t meet his eyes. For a moment he thought she
would at least try, arms clutched about herself and teeth bared.
Then she was shaking her head, and shaking all over.
‘Then we’d better keep going. We run, and hope Broken Axe
is coming back for us.’

Then it was just the hard march onwards, their pursuers
devouring the distance towards them as inexorably as the sun
kept sinking towards the horizon. That morning she had said her
last words to Hesprec. The evening would bring the Tiger.

Maniye tried to keep her gaze focused before her, but the
corners of her eyes betrayed her. The woods seemed full of firestriped forms; the deepening dusk made tigers out of every
shadow.

And she was slowing all of them.
I must trust to my souls.
If she fell now . . . but if not now, then a mile later. Unless she

She reached inside of herself. She felt as though she was
looking into one of those pits her father’s people dug to keep
prisoners in. At its base, the lean forms of her souls paced round
and round, cramped by their captivity, snapping and snarling at
each other and at her.

Obey me, or I die
. But perhaps they wanted her dead – to part
company with each other and fly free of her corpse.
Then, from how far away she could not say, she heard a wolf
give voice, high and lonely, at the moon. The Winter Runners or
just mute brothers? At the sound, the wolf within her leapt for
freedom, and she Stepped, or tried to Step, only the tiger began
fighting her, clawing at her insides. She stumbled and fell, briefly
sleek and grey-furred, then bruising her human bones again.
She heard Venater curse her furiously, then Asmander had
yanked her upright on her human feet.
‘Go,’ he said, but at the same time Shyri announced, ‘They’re
here.’
A tiger leapt up before them, springing from the gathering
dark to stand proud atop a rock. Another crouched on a tree
trunk, while the spaces between the trees rustled with the passage of their bodies. How many? She could not know.
For a moment the Tigers were coming for them, but then
Shyri had dropped to four feet, and Asmander was the Champion without warning, exploding into his terrible, alien shape
right beside her so that she fell back from him – all the claws
and scales and jagged teeth of him. Only Venater had retained
his human form, a short-bladed club in one hand. He looked
fearsome enough in any shape. Maniye saw the lead Tiger
abruptly turn its aborted lunge into a casual pacing.The Shadow
Eaters were clearly not so sure how the souls of these foreigners
would taste.
And then Aritchaka was standing right before them, resplendent in her bronze mail and her feather-crested helm. Maniye
caught her eyes for a heartbeat, and saw regret there, but not
enough to stop her leading the hunt.
‘You have a thing of ours,’ she called out, and her warband
padded all around them, never still, never clearly seen.
Asmander was human again, toothed sword slanted over one
shoulder. ‘She says you mean to kill her,’ he observed.
‘She is claimed by the Tiger.’
‘Life too short to go over everyone who’s claimed her,’
Venater grunted. They all ignored him.
The Tiger priestess took a careful step forward. ‘Foreigner,
do not make us paint our hands with your blood.’ She sounded
genuinely solicitous. ‘We have no grievance with your people.’
‘Fair point,’ Venater nodded.
Maniye felt the world beginning to tilt against her once more,
to nobody’s surprise. In the handful of heartbeats when there
was still talking, not fighting, she reached inside herself again,
facing the tortured eyes of the two beasts trapped within her.
Wolf, carry me, or I will cut you away.With my last breath I shall
go gladly to the Tiger’s mouth, as one of his own
.
She sensed the snarl of canine teeth at that, the pain and the
resentment.
Shyri had Stepped back now, if only because, if there was
talking, she wanted her fair share. ‘Well, longmouth? Who
speaks within you now? Your Champion? Your father? The Axe
one? The Serpent?’ She was watching the shifting circle of the
Tigers close in on them imperceptibly.
Tiger, let me ride the Wolf or I will cut you away. If Aritchaka
catches me, it shall be a wolf soul the Tiger feasts on.
Was that even
a threat? But she heard the yowling in her ears, the hiss of displeasure.
‘We fight,’ Asmander declared flatly. He did not seem very
happy about it. ‘We keep her from the Tiger.’
‘But
why
?’ Shyri asked, but then the ground shook, and
something like a mountain cut loose from the ground had thundered out of the trees, bellowing its defiance; and dancing about
its feet was a pale wolf with dark shoulders. Loud Thunder and
Broken Axe had arrived.
The Tiger scattered, but in the next moment they were
attacking, springing out from the darkness. One tried to leap on
Loud Thunder’s haunches but he spun on the spot to face her,
roaring, so that the Tiger almost fell over her own feet trying to
get out of the way. Instead she met Venater, who did his level
best to skin her alive with that short stone blade of his.
Then there was another, a man of the Tiger, leaping up on
four feet to land before Maniye on two, a studded club cocked
back to strike.
She skipped aside from the blow, knife angled ready for the
Tiger dance, the fighting style of his priesthood. The sight of it
gave him pause: the men did not learn that dance but they
feared it. Then Shyri had jumped him from behind and torn a
ragged mouthful from his shoulder.
The clearing was alive with leaping shadows. She heard the
screech of Asmander’s Champion as it pounced into the midst
of the Tiger, scattering them, chasing them here and there. Loud
Thunder was holding two or three off, the Tigers’ claws and
knives not even managing to penetrate his hide.
Broken Axe went rushing past her, pausing to snarl at her
through bloodied fangs, and she knew it was time. She confronted the two beasts within her, reminded them of her dire
threats, and Stepped.
For a moment they were rebellious, writhing stubbornly in
her grip, but then she had forced her will on them, her blood hot
with the violence of the moment. Stepping, she followed after
Broken Axe, her nose telling her instantly that the sharp, alien
scent of Asmander was on her other side as they dashed into the
treeline. Behind her she heard the weird heckling cry of Shyri,
that hunting call of a distant land cackling out of the darkness.
Almost immediately the reek of tiger was strong and close in
her nose. She veered away, unseeing but hearing the sudden
rush of it as it tried to ambush her. A moment later the dark
shape bolted out behind her, raking at her flanks but falling
short, hissing a challenge.
A thing from nightmare dropped onto the tiger, leaping so
high that it seemed to fall out of the branches above. Asmander’s
curved claws ripped in, but Maniye heard the splintering of ribs
simply under the force of his landing.
Then the Tiger were on their trail in earnest. The woods
seemed full of them: with brief ember-bright glimpses of their
striped bodies, their moon-gleaming eyes. The fear that hammered within her was the Wolf’s generations-old terror of the
Shadow Eaters who came to devour their souls.
Asmander was gone now. She had no sense of when, just that
something had dragged him away. Then she was battling her
way through denser trees, swerving and scrabbling, knowing
that Broken Axe was off to her right and getting more distant. In
a sudden panic, surrounded by that peopled darkness, she
Stepped to her tiger shape to climb and leap, hoping to make
better time through the tangle, trying to break out into the open
where her wolf speed would count.
It was a mistake. In that moment of change her souls clashed
inside her, ripping at one another, and she tumbled over,
shocked onto two human feet, jarring hard off a tree trunk and
landing on her knees.
When she looked up, she was not alone. The sight of the
woman who had come so far to kill her hurt like a wound inside
her, one that would not close.
Joalpey, Strength In Moonlight.
‘Mother.’
The Tiger Queen looked down on her. The curved blade was
in her hand, but for just that moment she made no move to use
it. Around them the woods seemed abruptly quiet, as though
both of them had been abandoned by their allies.
‘I will not go with you,’ Maniye told her.
Joalpey nodded, and then one foot slid back and she was in
her fighting stance, ready for the dance of tigers. Maniye felt
herself fall into a mirroring pose, but there was a cold blade of
fear in her, because to fight she needed her souls, and she could
not say if either would answer her call right then.
Joalpey was moving as soon as she had made her stand,
bronze edge flickering forwards in curved paths through the
darkness, so that it was more an idea in Maniye’s mind than a
sight in her eyes. She let the shape of her mother’s body tell her
where the knife would go next, slipping aside into a crouching
pose and bringing her own blade up in an arc that would have
driven it into the other woman’s armpit if she had stayed still.
Joalpey made the smallest shift to her footing, Maniye’s point
missing her by an inch that might just as well have been an
arm’s length, while Joalpey’s own blade drew a long red line
down the girl’s arm.
And even as Maniye stepped back, stabbing at throat height
with a hand slick with her own blood, her mother became a
tiger, springing even as she Stepped. She launched herself under
Maniye’s strike, knocking her smaller prey off her feet and slamming down on her.
The bruising pain of it seemed to knock Maniye’s mind
askew even as the breath was driven from her. She was clawing
and biting furiously at the big cat atop her, snapping with a
wolf’s yellow teeth, digging in hooked tiger claws, digging in
with the point of her blade, even as she fought to keep Joalpey’s
own jaws away from her. She Stepped and Stepped, swift and
and uncontrolled as a spring flood, her fluid form denying her
enemy a target.
Then her mother was knocked away with a yowl of surprise,
as another of her people bowled into her, his fur bloody.
Venater’s reptile shape uncoiled from the dark after it, saw-tooth
jaws tearing open the injured tiger’s entire flank. Then the pirate
had bloated into his human shape, kneeling over the Tiger
hunter with hand upraised before driving his razor-edged blade
down, three hacking blows to butcher the beast with no mercy
given. When he stood again, gory implement in hand, his eyes
were on Joalpey. His grin looked like death.
Maniye fled, though right then she was not sure who she was
fleeing from. She hit the ground on wolf paws, hoping that her
mother would take up the southerner’s challenge.
She did not. Instead, she was pounding after her true target,
and Venater, for all his fearsome skill, could not keep up with
them.
But Maniye was faster: allow her twenty breaths of clear running and she must pull ahead of Joalpey. Ten breaths and no
more conflict within her or even—
All of that was tangled in her mind when Joalpey leapt at her
and caught her a raking blow down her haunches. The pain
seared through Maniye and she stumbled, losing her speed,
lurching desperately to get back onto her feet again. The tiger
was off balance too, her lunge overextending her. One more
time, Maniye fled.
Then there was a new shape coursing alongside her – Broken
Axe keeping pace with effort, with blood in his teeth and down
his sides.
Something passed between them, an understanding, and if
she had the time to take human shape she would have told him
not to do it. But he was already turning, Stepping into a man
with his axe drawn back. She heard the hissing scream of a
woman as the iron blade bit, shocked out of her tiger form by
the sheer pain. Not her mother, which meant that . . .
She had slowed without meaning to, waiting for Broken Axe,
and that was when Joalpey caught up with her. Maniye saw only
a flurry out from the dark, and then she had thrown herself
aside, a leap the wolf was not capable of, so that she landed on
her hands and knees, rolling and kicking to try and get up, her
knife lost, even as her mother approached.
The hot breath of the tiger was on Maniye and she froze,
reaching for any other form but the helpless, naked one she had
been born to. The Tiger Queen was a shape of fire-splashed
darkness, her eyes seeming to glow from within.
Then she was a woman once more, her knife levelled at
Broken Axe as he returned.
‘Why?’ Joalpey asked him.
‘For the same reason I saved you from the Wolf. Because it is
right. Will you not honour my judgement?’
There was a battle on Joalpey’s face just then, but she lost it
when another pair of Tigers slunk out to stand beside her, one
limping and the other with a torn ear.
‘For all I owe you, you were too late,’ she told Broken Axe.
‘You cannot heal the scars they left. And she is just one more
scar.’
Something stayed her though. Her history with Broken Axe
allowed Maniye two more breaths. The Tiger was fierce behind
Joalpey’s eyes, but the eyes were human still, somehow penning
it in. Not for Maniye; she would not defy her god for something
as trivial as her daughter. She wanted Broken Axe to flee now
though. She did not want his blood on her claws, his soul in her
teeth.
Then Asmander stepped out, a shadow from the shadows,
smudged darker with blood here and there, and his sword
jagged with missing teeth.
‘We’re leaving now,’ he announced to the world, his voice
ragged with weariness, but still trying to sound light and mocking. ‘Let the Tiger fill its belly somewhere else.’
Joalpey’s face twisted and she Stepped, snarling, but
Asmander met her shape for shape. The ear-splitting screech of
the Champion tore through the forest, sending the Tiger Queen
skittering backwards.
Axe’s hand yanked at Maniye’s shoulder, and then they had
seized the opportunity the southerner had given them, making a
straight line through the trees, away from Joalpey, and hoping
there were no more Tigers lying in wait.
Asmander caught up with them moments later, those long
reptile strides easily outpacing them. By then, Maniye’s husbanded reserve of strength was almost gone. Since the three of
them had set off to rescue Hesprec, it felt as though she had
never stopped running. Axe was stumbling too, and she did not
know how much of the blood that painted his pelt was his own.
Asmander kept in front of them, leading them, guiding them
downslope, darting between trees. Of the others – of Loud
Thunder or Shyri or Venater – there was no sign.
Maniye realized a moment later that Axe was straying further
from her.
Don’t go back to fight them
, she pleaded inside her
head. That seemed just the sort of thing that either of the men
would do. She felt that if she was left on her own, she would
simply collapse, that only their presence was pushing her on.
But Axe was not heading away – he was coming back now,
trying to reach her, but Asmander was in the way. Asmander
was herding her, pushing close, rushing her ahead. When Axe
got too close, the Champion snapped at him. In the midst of her
headlong flight, Maniye could not work out what was happening.