The Tiger and the Wolf

by kindle@netgalley. com

  Another few stones failed to hit any of them, and then they were past halfway up, whereupon Stone River halted and shaded his eyes, looking up at them.

  ‘Broken Axe, I see you there,’ he called out, and one by one the other Wolves paused, waiting. They were just outside the distance where they might have rushed the two defenders.

  ‘It needs no good eyes for that,’ Axe replied, still weighing his hatchet in his hand.

  ‘Shatters Oak is dead.’

  ‘I saw it,’ Broken Axe conceded.

  ‘It was she who wanted your blood. I have claim to it, for you’ve betrayed me and the Wolf. But I’ll let you go – and your fat friend, too,’ Stone River told him. ‘You’re not why I’m here. I can forget the bad blood between us. You’ve made a mistake. All men make mistakes. Wise men seek to amend them.’ ‘I did make a mistake,’ Broken Axe admitted.

  ‘Go then. Mend that error of yours. The girl is nothing to you.’

  ‘That’s not the mistake I meant.’ Broken Axe took a deep breath. ‘My mistake was not calling you out, ten years ago and more. How far have you chased, just to catch one frightened girl, Stone River? We both know you have no claim on her. Yet because she has defied you, you cannot walk away. That is your mistake, not mine. My mistake was turning my back on the man you became back in the war.’

  ‘The war with the Tiger,’ the chief of the Winter Runners echoed. ‘You don’t remember how it truly was.’

  ‘I remember enough,’ Broken Axe replied harshly. ‘Now come, if you’re coming. Or go.’

  He was almost too slow; he had been focused too much on Stone River, but a handful of the Wolves on either side had been inching up the hillside, drawing slowly nearer. Only Loud Thunder’s roar saved him as the Cave Dweller Stepped, bulking out into a bear that seemed to blot out the sun. Then there were three warriors clambering for him, fighting to get close enough to Step and close the last of the distance on wolf paws.

  Maniye was in a shadowed land of undulating hills that fell away in every direction she looked. Above her was the night sky, but the constellations were not those she recognized. Instead the stars drifted past one another, hunting the sky for . . . she could not say what for, but there was something threatening about those mobile motes of gleaming light. She was terribly afraid that they were actually hunting for a way in.

  ‘This is the Godsland,’ came Hesprec’s soft voice. ‘This is the secret known only to my people, and some few others. This is what we saved.’

  ‘Saved? From your Oldest Kingdom?’

  ‘Before that, even. We took this into our hearts and carried it away from the lands we had lost to the Plague People. And then we burned all the land behind us, so that they could not follow, and the sea rushed in to fill it. This is the land of souls, Maniye Many Tracks. When we die, this is where our souls return, and whence they depart to be born again. This is the heart of our dream.’

  Maniye knew she still sat atop the hill, with the three stones about her. She knew that what she saw was built from her own imagination and Hesprec’s hypnotic voice. And yet, with her eyes closed, she saw it: it was as real to her as the world of grass and trees and the sun which she had left behind.

  ‘You are not alone,’ Hesprec told her, and she realized it was true.

  Close beside her was a shadow standing under that restless dark sky. Eyes like green gems regarded her imperiously, and fire rippled down the great beast’s flanks in shimmering stripes. A tiger. The Tiger. The suggestions, the mere shadows and breath she had seen within the Shining Halls, were nothing to it. Seeing the beast before her, standing so close, she could barely breathe. Its scale and magnificence exerted a pressure in her mind. Away from it, a thousand half-seen reflections seemed to recede in all directions, mirror-tigers, each one of them less and less like the original as it fell further away.

  It regarded her imperiously, and distantly she heard Hesprec ask her what she saw, and her own voice stammer out an answer.

  ‘Look beyond. Find another hilltop. What do you see?’

  To think was to move her gaze, to look was to travel. The hilly land was crowded, she now saw. Every hilltop had its master, surrounded by myriad shades of itself. From the feet of the Tiger, now she found herself before the Wolf. A stare composed of moon-silver pinned her, crouched almost between its paws. The gape of its teeth could have swallowed the sun.

  ‘Good,’ came Hesprec’s dry tone in her ear. ‘But, tell me, what lies beyond and between? Whose domain is nearby?’

  ‘You must know.’

  ‘I cannot know. The Serpent’s lair is far from there. You have gone to your own place in the Godsland. I may not travel there. Maniye, listen to me. Because you saved my life not once but twice, I will tell you the secret of the world. I will tell you what no other priest or chief or sorcerer would wish you to learn. It is power, this knowledge, if you can only use it. But then again, all knowledge is power if it is not wasted . . .

  ‘So tell me, what do you see near the Wolf? Turn your back on him and search the nearest hills.’

  ‘I see . . .’ There was a lean, half-starved shape looking back at her from the next peak, like Wolf’s thin shadow. ‘There is Coyote there.’

  ‘Of course, Coyote that would be Wolf if he could,’ Hesprec confirmed, amused. ‘But further, look further.’

  ‘I see . . .’ There was an animal beyond, something like a bigeared dog with a spotted hide, but quite unlike the creature that Shyri Stepped to. Maniye described it uncertainly, but it seemed to make sense to Hesprec.

  ‘That is the hunting dog of the Plains. His people were Wolf tribe once, before they were driven south. Find yourself at the feet of the Tiger once more. Surely there will be something there . . .’

  She sought out the Tiger, thinking that it must be on the next hill, or the next. But when she found it, she had lost the Wolf, skipping over a vast gulf that lay between them. The hillsides about the Tiger were strewn with other cats, large and small. She saw Lion watching her with haughty stare, and the sly, cruel smile of Jaguar, and others still, but none to her purpose, not even the great sword-toothed cat that was the Lion’s Champion.

  ‘Where is the creature Asmander Steps to? Where is his Killing Claw?’ she demanded. ‘You must know the path that leads there.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Hesprec broke in. ‘That is not the way of the Godsland. Open your mind to me and hear my words.The Godsland is the land of the possible. It is the landscape of every animal that is and ever was, perhaps every beast that there could be. Travel from the Tiger and you shall reach first those beasts that are its brothers and sisters and cousins. Travel on from them, and you find totems like them, but less like Tiger, you see? So travel the land between Tiger and Wolf and tell me what you find. Surely there is some unknown shape lurking there that will be your Champion!’

  And Maniye walked that land, hill to hill to hill, and she saw cat-likes and wolf-likes ,and many shapes in between that were like nothing she knew. But many of them were small, more hunters of mice than of men. There were no giants, no savage killers that she could find, and between the two halves of her being was that great yawning darkess, where she could find nothing at all.

  Asmander crouched atop the boulder-strewn side of the hill. He could hear the voices of Axe and Stone River shouting at each other. Perhaps that was the tradition in the Crown of the World, before a formal fight. He’d heard the same went for the Plains.

  ‘Perhaps you should insult them,’ he suggested.

  Shyri shrugged. She had pulled out some armour of layered linen, which had been folded almost flat inside her pack, but now hung on her in starched panels: a cuirass and plates hanging down to her knees. To his eyes, it made her seem younger and more fragile.

  ‘Insult who?’ she asked.

  Asmander had been noticing shifting movement at the treeline for a while and, even as he opened his mouth, he heard the calls of the great cats to one another. He narrowed his eyes, watching for that first move, wo
ndering if he would leap down amongst them, or if he would let them come to him.

  Then Shyri yelled a cackling battle cry, and dropped past him with her axe descending. He heard the furious snarl of a tiger from right beneath his feet and realized the enemy were already upon him; that the Shadow Eaters had ghosted right up to the stones without him seeing.

  He did not hesitate, jumping down from the boulders and Stepping halfway, so that what landed before a startled Tiger warrior was the Champion, rattling its quills and shrieking like death. His opponent was a man, a cat, then a man again, thrusting at him with a spear, but Asmander leapt at him, springing high over the lunge and coming down across its shaft, shattering the weapon and knocking its wielder to the ground. There were more coming at him already, just flurries of movement in his peripheral vision, so he kicked the disarmed spearman hard in the stomach, catching him just as the man Stepped to his tiger shape and bowling the striped cat down the hill.

  Shyri had her bone-crushing teeth about a tiger’s foreleg, shaking her spotted head back and forth as it raked its other claws down her side. Then both of them had Stepped away, the Plains woman’s axe sweeping past the northern woman’s face as the Tiger retreated, ruined arm held close.

  Another woman came for Shyri with fluid movements like dancing water, cutting at her with the curved bronze edge of a knife. The Laughing woman skidded aside, losing a foot of hillside, but then Stepped and went for the throat, teeth snapping just short of her target before finding herself facing off against a tiger considerably bigger than she was.

  Asmander was about to go to her aid when he saw that one of the Tigers had gained the top of the rocks, with nothing between her and their quarry but a jump down. With a hiss of anger he took three quick steps and leapt, clearing the vertical distance in a single bound and landing off balance beside his enemy. She flinched away, but a moment later she was on him, claws hooking at his hide and her jaws gaping wide. She was going for his throat, but all she managed was to graze the flesh over one shoulder before he sank his own teeth into her. She Stepped, using the shifting of shapes to twist from between his jaws: this was the Tiger priestess who had led the hunt against them the time before. Then she had got her knife into him, just a glancing line of pain down his ribs. In an instant he had followed her, striking down with the stone points of the maccan. She swayed out of the way of the blow, sliding to one side in a move that put the point of her blade at his gut. Striking down, he caught her forearm with the heel of his off-hand, ramming the pommel of her weapon into her leg and trapping her arm against her own body. Before he could use the leverage she had pushed a hand into his face, almost toppling him from the rock. She was a tiger in the next instant, and he was the Champion again.

  Shyri was facing three – two big cats keeping her at bay, and a man beyond them with a fistful of javelins. They had all dropped some way down the hill, closer to the treeline.

  The priestess swatted at him a couple of times with a paw, trying to put him off balance, but he suddenly he had no time to fight properly. He struck out with his feet, not trying for a disembowelling stroke with his claws, but simply kicking the tiger hard under the ribs, spilling her from atop the rock and hopefully winding her. Then he had leapt out into space.

  He let his mind fall into the Champion’s well of calm, reaching out for a feeling, a way of experiencing the world . . .

  The breath leapt in his lungs. His great leathery wings caught the air and he shrieked for the sheer joy of it, the hideous cry of the shape that Hesprec had sent against the Eyriemen. He dropped onto the tigers like a monster from the old stories and they scattered, darting back for the trees.

  ‘Back to the rocks,’ Shyri yelled – there might have been some gratitude in her eyes, but there was no time for it to form proper words. A moment later and they were both Stepped and running again. There was a cry from Maniye – he heard it clearly, not of shock or pain but a wail of lament. For a terrible moment Asmander thought that Hesprec must be hurt. Even as they scaled to the base of the rocks, though, he heard the Serpent priestess’s voice calling out.

  ‘Laughing Girl, come here now!’

  Shyri, human once more, met Asmander’s lizard eyes.

  ‘That’s not a good plan,’ she declared.

  Asmander forced himself back to humanity, though the Champion resisted him, knowing bloodshed was coming and wanting its share. ‘You must go,’ he got out.

  ‘But—’

  ‘The Serpent calls, and you must go. That is how it is.’

  ‘For you, maybe.’

  ‘Shyri, please.’

  She looked frightened, but not for herself. Fearing what his own face might show in answer to that, he let the Champion take hold of him again, assuming his post atop the rocks once more, watching Shyri weave her way around to reach the others.

  The Tiger were coming out from the trees again, only a handful, but there was only one of him.

  46

  Broken Axe was swift, as man or wolf. He danced and darted and yet never fell back. The blows of his enemies cut through the air past him, and the iron edge of his hatchet was quick to respond. Stone River watched one of the younger hunters try him – darting in on four feet, all snarls and defiance. Broken Axe met the youth in the same shape, twisting aside from his teeth to worry viciously at the back of the boy’s neck, flipping him over and sending him rolling down the hill. His next assailant got close and then Stepped to human, bringing the grey edge of a knife towards Broken Axe’s gut. Nimble as a warrior half his age, Axe got his shoulder beneath the upward-cutting blow and guided the attacker’s knife-hand away. His own weapon lashed in, not a killing strike but a powerful blow with the flat to his opponent’s temple. Stone River’s warrior collapsed to the ground, stunned or worse, while Broken Axe still stood.

  And no wonder, for he was fighting in the shadow of the largest Cave Dweller that Akrit had ever seen. The huge Bear had not been shifted an inch since the skirmish began. Three Wolves had gone up against him, with spears and axes and fangs, but all of them had fallen back limping and mauled. Arrows and throw darts had not even penetrated the monstrous creature’s hide. At the Bear’s feet were two dogs fighting with the coordination of warriors, lunging out from behind their master’s ankles to snap and bark and growl, a constant threat and distraction to any enemy that might dare come close.

  On open ground, the entire pack could have descended on them, surrounded them and dragged them down – even the Bear. With the tumbled stones lending them a hard flank, the Wolves could not concentrate their numbers to finish the fight. Broken Axe stood in the Bear’s shadow, and to enter the Bear’s shadow meant broken bones.

  Stone River had hesitated, on seeing that great mass of muscle and hair and claws blocking the way. He was not reckless;he wanted his followers to wear the monster down first – though there was precious little sign of that happening as yet.

  ‘Bear-killer,’ he snapped, and one of his warriors handed him the weapon. It was a favourite of the Wolves: long-hafted with an inward-curving iron blade honed to a razor edge, and terminating with a piercing point like a beak. The Horse called it a falx, but the Wolves knew it as the bear-killer. And killing a bear was what Akrit needed to accomplish.

  But now it was the turn of Smiles Without Teeth, and if Akrit’s most faithful follower was smaller than the Bear, still he was the strongest of the Winter Runners. He loped up the slope with another couple of hunters to back him, stopping outside the Bear’s reach to survey his enemy.

  Arms spread wide, the Cave Dweller reared up on his hind legs and bellowed, and Smiles seized his moment to dart in. He Stepped as he came close, dropping down to one knee and striking in with his axe, with the other two Wolves right behind him. Broken Axe was there too, though, lunging forwards even as Smiles’s blow went swinging in. Their hafts locked together, deflecting Smiles’s stroke up and away, but for a second Broken Axe was left exposed to the next hunter in.

  Akrit hissed in triumph
, envisaging the death-stroke before it happened. The dogs got in the way, though, snapping and leaping at the hunter so that he flinched away, striking too late.

  The Wolf’s knife ripped into the side of one of the dogs, opening the wretched creature up. It was a meagre victory, but Akrit heard his follower cry out in triumph nonetheless. It was the last sound he made, though, for then the Bear saw what he had done. With a roar of fury the Cave Dweller came down on him, all his awful weight concentrated in his forepaws, splintering the man’s bones like kindling.

  It will be me, then. Akrit hefted the bear-killer in one hand, then Stepped and was heading up the hill at a run. Before him he saw Smiles Without Teeth Step and go for the Bear’s legs with his teeth, forgetting that there was a human mind behind that mountain of animal power. The Cave Dweller Stepped to meet him, kicking him in the stomach hard enough to bowl him over, then swinging furiously with that great axe of his. The blow had been meant for Smiles, but the other hunter got in the way as he lunged at Broken Axe with a spear, not paying attention to anything else. The Dweller’s axe-head caught him across the shoulder and chest, shattering his arm and spinning him away.

  Then Smiles was back. His iron coat had kept him from any real harm, just a solid bruise where the bigger man had kicked him. He had his axe upraised, ready to bring it down with all the power both mighty arms could manage.

  He had always sought to win his battles with strength, had Smiles Without Teeth, and amongst the Winter Runners it had sufficed.

  The Cave Dweller stepped back into his bear shape and slapped a claw-studded paw with crushing force under Smiles’s strike. The blow hooked the Wolf off his feet, hurling him away with the bear’s vast strength and sending him through the air like a stone, end over end. Just as the ground fell away from the hilltop, so Smiles Without Teeth seemed to fall away from the ground, falling upwards until the world remembered him and brought him down. From that impact, iron could not save him.