The Tiger and the Wolf

by kindle@netgalley. com

  Loud Thunder shrugged again. ‘So Little Feet here is a runaway and Many Words is all sorts of lost, and proud along with it, and you’re doing the Winter Runners’ running for them.’ He began taking the meat from the fire, obviously satisfied with its condition. The dogs got fed first, and then he cut strips for everyone, a swift and equitable division. ‘Tracked her a long way,’ Thunder got out, around a crammed mouthful. ‘Good hunt, that. Good run from her too. Till now.’

  ‘Until now,’ Broken Axe agreed.

  Thunder glanced at Maniye, meeting her gaze, seeing her unable to eat, sitting there with her hands crooked into claws, rigid with tension.

  ‘Said you killed her mother, too,’ he observed idly.

  ‘It’s not true,’ came Broken Axe’s smooth reply.

  ‘Liar!’ She spat out the word too fast for her fear to stop her, and the rest followed. ‘You took her and killed her, when my father had done with her! Everyone knows it. I’ve seen it in his face, and in your face every time you visited his hall! It was the first thing I ever knew about my mother, that she was dead – and by your hand.’

  Broken Axe made a wry face: Listen to the foolishness of women! ‘Thunder, you know me.’

  ‘I do know you.’ And it was a pronouncement that came down on neither side of the argument.

  ‘You think–?’

  ‘When we were young and we roamed with a warband, strange lands, strange faces . . . we saw many things. Some terrible things. Some that were made so by our own hands. Do I know what you’ve done or not done, since? How can I?’

  ‘And do you care? This is a matter for the Wolf to bother himself with.’

  ‘I saw how she was a tiger when she Stepped,’ Loud Thunder said carefully. If these two men had been wrestling or brawling, this would be the moment that a blade was drawn. Broken Axe went very still.

  ‘Loud Thunder,’ he said softly, ‘this need be no burden to you. It is a trouble of the Wolf.’ And, seeing the bigger man’s raised eyebrow, ‘and the Tiger, if you wish. None of yours.’

  ‘And yet now I’m curious,’ Thunder replied implacably. His eyes flicked from the hunter to Maniye herself.

  ‘He will kill me,’ she got out.

  ‘Not true,’ Broken Axe put in quickly.

  ‘Amiyen—’

  ‘I am not Amiyen.’

  A wave of Thunder’s hand, the big man obviously not wanting to deal with the names of any not actually there with him. ‘Tiger,’ he stated flatly, and then, ‘Wolf,’ as though he were weighing up the two names. ‘No, this makes me all sorts of curious. Tiger and Wolf had their war, yes. Yet both sides’ve kept beating that same drum ever since. You think we don’t hear it?’

  Broken Axe closed his eyes, summoning his strength. ‘Do I care about the war? I do not. But I am tasked with bringing this girl safe home, and I will do it.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Thunder, you don’t care.’

  ‘I’m curious,’ the huge man said again, more forcefully. ‘Tiger. Wolf. And this thing, whatever he is . . . Snake . . . thing.’

  ‘A sacrifice,’ Hesprec said sibilantly, ‘but saved from that death by the girl. A priest bound for sacrifice, did you ever hear such a thing?’

  ‘And worse,’ Loud Thunder grunted. ‘Sounds like Wolf work to me, yes. Take him if you want.’

  ‘I don’t want him. You can keep him, but I’ll have the girl.’ And Maniye could see the tension deep inside, drawing Broken Axe taut like a bow. He sat just the same, appearing easy, and with his hands in plain view, but in his fire-shadow she could see the wolf poised to pounce.

  Loud Thunder looked deeply disappointed with himself. ‘No, I’m curious. She and I will talk.’

  ‘Thunder—’

  ‘No.’

  And they had Stepped, the both of them, in the same instant. Even though Maniye had been waiting for it, the moment caught her unawares. Broken Axe was a pale wolf with dark hackles, teeth bared and his whole body bunched to leap. And Loud Thunder . . .

  He was huge even as a man. As a bear he was head and shoulders again as tall, and surely three times the weight, a vast red-brown mountain of furred flesh, his claws gleaming in the firelight with the copper of his axe-blade, the weapon swept up into the mountain of his animal form. He stood three, maybe four times Maniye’s height, bellowing and with his arms outstretched as though he would encircle the world, and the sky and the stars too.

  Before him, Broken Axe seemed tiny, but he gave no ground. He snarled a warning, pale eyes fixed on the bear’s throat, showing every indication that he would leap over the fire and attack, no matter the difference in size.

  Hesprec had been bowled into her when Broken Axe Stepped, and now she wriggled out from under him, shifting her own form through sinuous wolf to burlier tiger and then to wolf again, her shape dancing with panic as her mind flitted between fight and flight. The dogs were going berserk by then, not wanting to go anywhere near Broken Axe, but barking fiercely: deep, chesty sounds that were a savage threat to Maniye’s animal ears.

  Of them all, only the old Serpent kept his human form. A toothless snake was hardly going to be of use here, and if he left the fire he would freeze. Instead he just huddled, one arm protecting his head.

  Broken Axe and Loud Thunder locked eyes. The wolf showed his fangs, feinting forwards, trying to spark a reaction. His teeth were the dark iron of the axe he wore at his belt. The bear slammed down onto his forepaws and bellowed again, right across the fire into the wolf’s face. Maniye could feel her two souls both struggling for control over her, fighting as though they were imprisoned together inside her, scratching and clawing and biting at her innards. The sheer proximity of bloodshed was sending the pair of them into a directionless frenzy. She did not know what to do. Too much choice now, and too little understanding.

  Then Broken Axe Stepped again: nothing but a man once more, his hands out for peace. And for all that she hated and feared him, more even than her father or Kalameshli the priest, she could not help but be struck by the courage that must have taken. Loud Thunder had reared back onto his hind legs, and a single swipe of his paw would have smashed the Wolf hunter beyond recognition, for in Axe’s human form he could neither fight nor dodge such a force of nature. And yet Thunder stayed his hand, and Broken Axe waited, sparing his words until there were human ears again to hear them.

  At last the gigantic bear became the man – seeming diminished now, for all that he was still the biggest man Maniye had ever seen. ‘So,’ he pronounced.

  Maniye herself was a wolf at that moment, and a wolf she remained in case this should turn against her. Hesprec carefully reached out a hand and laid it gently on her back, and she knew he would be able to come with her if she chose to run.

  ‘Speak,’ Thunder prompted, crouching down to put a hand out to his dogs, letting them sniff at it, quieting them.

  ‘I see winter upon us,’ Broken Axe observed, as though the seasons had shifted during their confrontation.

  ‘Looks that way,’ Thunder agreed.

  ‘No time to be travelling south with a girl to look after,’ the hunter observed reasonably.

  The Bear tribe giant grunted.

  ‘I will return for her, come the thaw,’ Broken Axe stated.

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘I, Liosetli Broken Axe, say this.’

  Maniye realized she had never heard anyone mention his birth name before now. It made it a powerful thing to swear by.

  ‘You expect me to play host all through the winter?’ Loud Thunder frowned, just the simple man once more, faced with unwanted complications.

  ‘Or I shall take her now. Or else the winter will have her, and keep her.’

  Thunder’s head swung in Maniye’s direction. ‘Well?’ And, when she wouldn’t Step into a form that could answer him: ‘One yap for yes, two for no, is it?’

  Reluctantly she came back to herself, human voice and all. None of the three options before her was overly attractive. The Bear migh
t kill her, and Broken Axe could also be intending to finish Amiyen’s work. Winter, though . . . She had come a long way, but all her journey had done was teach her that she was not ready to face the winter alone and without shelter.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she told Loud Thunder, knowing that she could be making a fatal mistake. What did she know of him, save that he was a sometime comrade of Broken Axe? In her mind were all the fates that he might have in store for her: rape her, tear her apart and eat her, sacrifice her at some Bear tribe altar . . . She knew so little.

  But of her father’s people and Broken Axe, she knew more than enough.

  ‘You too, I suppose?’ Thunder rumbled at Hesprec resignedly.

  ‘Kindness in a strange land to a chosen priest shall not go unrewarded,’ the old man replied, regaining his feet, but not quite his dignity.

  ‘So many words,’ Thunder complained, mostly to Broken Axe. ‘And the fire’s going out now. Get some wood, if you’re here for the night.’ Just like that, it seemed the men were friends again, or at least no longer about to kill each other.

  ‘I’ll not disturb your dogs further,’ Broken Axe said, sounding sad. ‘I can find my own shelter, make my own fire.’

  ‘The Wolf that walks by himself. Good, good,’ Thunder agreed. ‘Just like always.’

  Maniye glanced between the two of them, sensing the edges of their shared history, however long ago it had been.

  Then the hunter’s dark eyes were turned upon her, and she did her best to face up to him bravely, easier to do so now that he was departing.

  ‘Farewell, Many Tracks,’ he told her, seeming almost fond. ‘I shall find you come spring, if you still live.’ And he had tracked her so indefatigably, so far, that she had no cause to doubt it. It would take more than a harsh winter to discourage Broken Axe. Only after he had gone did she consider that he seemed serious about the name, her hunter name. Many Tracks.Despite its source it felt like a garment that fitted her body well. Maniye Many Tracks.

  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.

  17

  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 villa
ge, 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.

  ‘Is it Stone River I see?’ Otayo called out.

  ‘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.