And the fight – so fierce a contest! Venat had struck at him with his bone-breaking tail and claws strong enough to tear open bronze. He had snapped his teeth against the scaly quills of Asmander’s hide, that were reinforced with the cotton and stone of the armour he wore. A shallow bite would have been debilitating, a deep one fatal, for the dragons of the estuary were venomous as well as merely savage. Legend said that dark spirits of the early world had created them to be as inimical to all other beasts as it was possible to be.
Asmander had let speed become his ally, leaping to drive his claws into the great lizard’s back, always a step aside, a step ahead. He had known exactly the risks he ran, and he ran them gladly. He had never lived, as when he had lived next to the death that dwelled in Venat’s jaws.
And at last the man was beaten, sprawled bleeding and cursing, shifting from writhing lizard back to man, and eventually just staring up at Asmander with hate-filled eyes, expecting nothing but death. And death was what he deserved: no noble robber of the stories, he, but a villain, a murderer, a rebel against prince and nation.
Asmander had placed one clawed foot on his defeated enemy’s neck and waited for his father’s command.
It had not come, and for a moment he had thought – he remembered this clearly – Is he dead? Am I Asman now? along with all the little attendant thoughts that whirled and spun in the wake of that huge one. But then he had cocked his head, while keeping one eye on his prize, and seen his father standing amongst his men, staring at his son with such an expression . . .
Pride, yes, but there had been depths to that expression, as clouded as the river. Anger that Asmander had so risked himself; calculation at how this proven asset that was his son might now best be used. And envy. Asmander remembered that plainly. The envy never left his father’s face, from that moment on, that his son should be so honoured by the gods as to be a Champion, whilst he . . . he grew older and no stronger, and some day this boy before him would bear his name.
But Asman was a man of politics, above all. He had lived his life navigating the hazardous waters of the Sun River Nation’s powers and factions. Not for nothing were his people known also as the Patient Ones.
‘What, then?’ he had asked his son. ‘Will you stay your hand?’
In his Champion’s shape, the youth could not answer, but he bobbed his head once, indicating his submission to his father’s will.
‘Notorious pirate,’ Asman declared, ‘you are defeated, your followers slain.’ Around them, their corpses stood as mute witness, some stabbed with jagged spears, others ripped by long jaws. A couple of the victorious attackers had retained their crocodile forms, coasting silently through waters now red and salty with blood.
Venat had glowered murder up at him, but Asmander’s talons were tight and sharp about his neck, holding him to his human form, a great sickle-claw poised ready to descend on his face.
‘You will be bound and noosed,’ Asman declared. ‘You will be brought before Tecumander, heir to the Daybreak Throne. There, you will die in the pool of the Crocodile, ripped into pieces by our mute brothers.’
The pirate’s mouth twitched, as though he wanted to spit, but was too wary of that hovering claw.
‘Or, as you are a man of skill and courage, however misused, you may suffer yourself to be stripped of all you are – yes, even your name – and sworn to the service of my clan, to earn back your honour until such time as you can once again call yourself a man. Think on that choice as we carry you back to Tsokawan.’
‘I’d rather die,’ Venat had finally got out.
But he had not. Despite his defiance, when they had stood him before Old Crocodile’s pool, he had bowed the knee and relinquished his name. Even then, he had stared at Asmander with a blood-red promise of revenge. The look he gave the youth now – these few years later, during which everything within the Sun River Nation had changed – was its close cousin.
Asmander was glad. It was a melancholy truth, but he had always been more at ease with hatred than with love. He knew where he was with antagonism, with challenge, with people who would rip out his throat if he bared it to them. He liked the Laughing Men on first sight for just that simple, honest quality. It was people who smiled and simpered and flattered him that meant him the more harm, he knew well.
Some day, he reflected, as Venater returned to his fighting.
‘Have them wash their wounds well after,’ he advised the spectators. ‘He has filthy teeth.’
Later, he came upon Venater as the man washed. ‘Finished with your playing?’ he asked.
The pirate gave him a sour look. ‘Travelling with the Horse is piss-dull. I like these people. They live well.’
Asmander smiled a little, hearing his own thoughts mirrored. ‘They cut you a little, I see.’
Venater’s bared chest and back bore a scattering of fresh scratches, a few of which still bled. For a precious moment he looked almost shifty, but then he laughed.
‘Not them. It’d take more than those dogs.’
‘Then . . .’ Asmander reassessed the damage: trophies of a different sort of combat. ‘You lay with the Malikah?’
‘Only because you were too scared of her.’
‘Not my type,’ said Asmander, and then he grinned, shaking his head. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘She appreciates a strong man. They don’t seem to have any around here.’
‘And you?’
Venater shrugged, then winced ruefully. ‘These things are known: beware a woman as strong as you are. I never ended a night with so many bruises. Are the Horse finally finished talking?’
Asmander had seen the Society delegation gathering, and he shrugged. ‘Something’s happening, anyway.’
The pirate growled. ‘I never thought I’d find a people who talk more than you River Lords do. We should just take one of those boats and go.’
‘And then you’d paddle? Or would that be just me pressing on the oar upstream, all the way to the Crown of the World?’ Asmander asked him wryly. ‘No, they know the back of the Tsotec, and we do not. And they will sell us fit clothing for the cold, once we are there. All lives interweave, as the Snakes tell us.’
Venater spat to show exactly what he thought of that but, soon afterwards, Eshmir the Horse Hetman was approaching.
‘We’ve exhausted the hospitality of the Laughing Men?’ Asmander suggested brightly. ‘No more chuckles; they want us gone?’
Her expression was awkward. ‘Something of the opposite.’ Seeing the tense anticipation that descended on him she was quick to add, ‘Not trouble, but they have invited you on a hunt.’
‘Me?’
‘Others as well, but the Malikah very much wishes for you to run with her hunters.’
‘She wants to see the Champion,’ Asmander divined.
‘I am sorry,’ she confirmed.
‘Why?’
‘You do not seem to wish to show it. Since leaving Atahlan, you have not Stepped . . .’ Her face was a study in concentration as she tried to navigate the hidden reefs of Sun River custom.
‘It is not for play,’ he told her. ‘Most certainly it is not to impress. The Champion of the River People is a shape not lightly taken. But for a hunt? Yes, a hunt is serious business. It is fitting.’
Her relief was palpable. ‘I was not sure . . .’
‘We are a complex people in the Nation and we care about many things,’ Asmander said softly. ‘But the Champion knows what is important in life. And sometimes that makes living with the cares of people difficult. Especially the Patient Ones.’
The Laughing Men hunted many types of prey, singly and in packs, but the great prize of the Plains was the wild aurochs. They had been tracking a solitary bull for days before the hunt, an old beast without a herd, yet strong and aggressive enough to warn off even lions. Now it stood in the chest-high grass, brooding and chewing, lifting its great head at every flight of birds or change in the wind. Looking on it, Asmander had the sense that th
e beast knew well what was to come, and welcomed it. The soul in that hulk of a body wished to move on with honour, and preferably with some blood upon its horns.
Venater did not care for the hunt, but the possibility of Asmander making a fool of himself was eternally attractive, and so he had come – with the Hetman and a handful of the Horse Society – just to watch. A good score of the Laughing Men were there too, half a dozen of whom would hunt alongside the southerner. These were the young and the strong, four women and two men, their skin fresh painted with streaks of white and gold.
‘How do I look?’ Asmander asked, grinning. He had the same adornment, the colours particularly striking against his darker skin.
‘Like a badly decorated pot,’ the pirate replied. ‘All you need is a little red, but that’s what those horns are for.’
The Malikah sent a stern glance towards him and, to Asmander’s astonishment, Venater fell silent. The entire venture was almost worth it just for that.
‘There was a tribe, once.’ The ruler of the Laughing Men drifted closer, her eyes fixed on their wary quarry. ‘They were the people of the Aurochs, and they were strong and fierce in battle.’
‘So what happened to them?’ Asmander asked, as was obviously required.
‘They betrayed their own souls. They took their mute brothers and penned them, and kept them for their meat, and so they grew weak, and we fell upon them and destroyed them. But now we have cattle, and so do all the peoples. All of life is profiting from the misfortunes of others.’ She grinned, feral and fierce. ‘In your hunt, Champion, know that the souls of the Horned Men live still, forever reborn into these mute bodies, forever knowing that they once had language and understanding. Know that, by shedding this old one’s blood, you move him one step further on in his journey. Perhaps one day he will be born as a man again, when his soul knows that he has atoned for the mistakes of his people.’
Asmander nodded, eyes fixed on the great beast in the middle distance. Did he feel a shock of contact, meeting that far gaze?
‘My hunters will drive him and channel him, but the honour of the kill is yours – if you can take it.’ The Malikah was watching him intently.
Asmander rolled his shoulders. He was here bare-chested and without armour. Stone mail would not save him against the sweep of those horns, only speed of action.
There was no signal, but abruptly the Laughing Men hunters had all Stepped and were racing off into the grass, where their progress was visible as a rushing tremor cutting a curving path that would overshoot the bull, then draw back to herd the beast towards Asmander. The spectators were slowly falling away, abandoning him to his skills.
He looked back once, meeting Venater’s gaze. The pirate’s expression said eloquently, Well, look what you’ve got yourself into.
His maccan was a comforting weight dangling from its wrist strap. He saw the bull’s head come up, scenting the approach of the hyena pack, and yet one dark eye was fixed on him alone.
‘Old Crocodile, fill me with your peace, let me wait in the calm of your waters, let my strike be sudden,’ Asmander murmured to himself, because soon words would be denied him. The high yipping cackle of the hunters carried to him over the grass. Abruptly the bull was in motion, just an amble at first, shaking his head in irritation, but then the pack must have appeared from another quarter, warding the beast away from his escape, and abruptly he was gathering speed.
‘Serpent, you who pass below all,’ Asmander said, now hurrying the words a little, ‘guide my prey’s soul swift to its new birth. Or my soul. Or mine.’ Then there was no more time for prayer, and he Stepped.
The Malikah and some of her people had stayed close enough to witness this moment, but he was oblivious to their reaction as his human form lunged forwards into that of the Champion of the River People. As he had said, it was not done for show.
He was no larger than human, in that form, and lower slung, his body canted forwards and balanced by the long stiff spine of his tail. His hide was something like scales, but longer, more delicate, and if he shook himself just so, they would rattle like a snake’s tail, like the coursing of the rain.
He stepped forwards on two feet, each with its killing claw held delicately off the ground to keep it sharp. His hands – and they were still hands, just – were also barbed weapons, as was the deep bite of his jaws. There was something of the crocodile to him, and something of Venater’s dragon-lizard, but mostly he was himself, an impossible animal. No man had ever hunted one such as he. His was a shape that existed only as a thought in the mind of the world, a memory of the great spirits for whom the span of all human years was an eyeblink, and irrelevant.
The bull was coming on fast now, with the pack nipping at its heels, infuriating it. Asmander stalked forwards with all of Old Crocodile’s patience, with the Serpent’s steady gaze. Inside, he felt as though he was only partly in control: the Champion was a second soul in him, passing through his life for the brief spans that he called upon it. No man could truly hope to own these killing limbs, this speed, this strength.
The dreadful anticipation that rose within him was that of the Champion, and to Asmander it was a like drug, a joy, a truth. The Champion saw the world so much more clearly that, each time he took this form, he did not want to let it go.
The bull saw him, that sleek reptile shape knifing through the grass, and turned its path away, tossing its head at a hyena unwise enough to get too close and sending the hunter yelping away. The aurochs was fast, moving at the limits of the pack’s ability to herd it, but Asmander was faster. And he could leap. There was nothing else in the world that could leap as he could.
Three long steps towards the aurochs’ turning flank and then he sprang, sailing clear above the grass to tear into the animal’s hide, hanging there with four sets of claws before ripping a long, shallow gash down the bull’s ribs and kicking himself away. He landed in a crouch and the bull turned on him, in fury, in recognition, its horns lowered. Asmander faced it down, head thrust forwards and jaws agape, screeching out his challenge.
For the length of a drawn breath, the world stood still: the aurochs and Asmander, whilst the Laughing Men looked on in wonder.
Then the bull charged without warning, its colossal weight and strength in furious motion, horns like lances and the ground shaking under its approach. Asmander felt a thrill of anticipation
– never fear, for the Champion did not know it – and then he was skipping aside, leaving that sinuous motion to the last possible moment, and another leap carried him to the bull’s hindquarters where he tore another patchwork of bloody lines. Still he did not bite: to bite was to commit, to fix himself in place to a quarry that could still very easily kill him.
He jumped off again, and this time the aurochs lumbered onwards, following the line of its charge until the Laughing Men materialized out of the grass to head it off. When it turned, it was wearier than before, its dark hide painted with blood.
It met Asmander’s yellow gaze.
Once more, my friend.This was why Asmander had valued the rage and hate of Venater more than the words of his own clan or his prince’s court. This was the kind of honesty that he sought in a crooked world. The bull wanted to kill him. The bull wanted to live. Asmander valued its hostile regard more than gold.
With the hideous cacophony of the Laughing Men at its back, it stamped and scuffed at the ground beneath it, and then it came for him, without hope but with honour – and how many men could say as much in their last moments?
This time, Asmander almost left it too late, seduced by the sheer power and beauty of the behemoth bearing down on him. The Champion knew its place, though, and swung him to the bull’s forequarters, one sickle-claw dug into its throat, one hooked behind its shoulders. And, as the bull bucked and plunged to dislodge him, he brought his jaws down upon the back of its great neck with all their strength, shearing through the dense thickness of muscle and severing the chain of bone along which ran the aurochs’ life.
When they reached him, the spectators, the Malikah, Venater, they found him in his human shape again, with the other hunters keeping a respectful distance. He was sitting by the huge mound of the bull’s body, one hand on its bloodied side, feeling as though he had lost a friend.
6
Compared to the evening cold without, the air inside the chief’s hut practically sweated with heat from the central fire, smoky enough to sting Maniye’s eyes.
Tonight the tribe was fasting. She could hear distant yelps and howls as packs of the young – the recently Tested and their siblings and relatives – ran wild between the mounds, chasing after each other in mock hunts, engaging in brief, snarling fights. She had no wish to join them, to inevitably become the hunted and be reminded of her lot. Just for once, she had wanted to sit all alone and know that she had passed; that she had succeeded in this thing that had been looming over her for so long. She had scaled the wall!
And now Akrit her father had sent for her.
He was seated facing away from her, staring at the fire. Stripped to the waist, there were no war-scars on his back, for he was a man who faced his enemies whenever he fought them. Instead, she saw the set of savage, puckered marks left by some ordeal or initiation, a double row of livid blemishes flanking his spine.
Kalameshli sat nearby, watching her closely. Otherwise the hall was empty, even the thralls had been sent away.
At last Akrit turned.There were several gourds strewn nearby, the air ripe with the scents of honey and fermented yams, and she realized that he was drunk, or at least a little. Normally that would have her fearing his fists even more than usual, but tonight he was drunk in some new way, some way that made him happy rather than fierce and angry. He regarded her uncertainly, as though he had never seen her before.
And he hasn’t, in a way. I am a new creature now. For once she felt she could meet his gaze without fear. She had something to hold her head up for.
‘Kalameshli wasn’t sure that you would pass,’ her father said to her thoughtfully.
The Tiger and the Wolf Page 7
