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 copper in the firelight, his axe swept up into the mountain of his animal form. He stood 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 might 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: enslave 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 thr
eat. 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 was long and hard after the snows came. Anyone trying it on two legs would freeze to death, or be brought down by the hunger of their mute wolf brothers.
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 village, 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 Moon Eaters, so the news of Seven Skins’ time had spread that 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.
Otayo fed them in his own hall, which had been built in the shadow of his father’s. A fit image for the man’s whole life, though he did not seem to begrudge his role. Seven Skins had not been wanting for children, Akrit knew. Four sons and three daughters he had sired who had survived to adulthood. Akrit remembered his second son well, a fierce warrior who had led the fight against the Tiger many times, until they had caught him and killed him slowly. The third son, Water Gathers, had also fought, but only in the war’s final year, a youth who had been desperate to win some small slice of glory for himself. He would likely be the new chief of the Many Mouths, thus the man Akrit would have to outmatch.
Water Gathers has at least one son already, Akrit thought sourly, his thoughts straying briefly to his own troubles. If the girl is dead in the snow, I will have Kalameshli beg the Wolf to torment her soul, to rend it into pieces. I will have him bind her ghost into a rattle.
Who else aside from Water Gathers would be a challenger for High Chief? The man who governed the Moon Eaters was older than Akrit, a clever man but not a fierce one. He would be someone to woo, perhaps, with gifts or with promises. The Swift Backs chief was new, a young hunter who had come away unexpectedly victorious from a challenge; rumour said his own people were already rebellious, and that he might not last long. Still, the Wolf was plainly with him, to raise him up so swiftly . . . and a strong challenge for dominance over the other tribes could be what he n
eeded to secure his position . . .
Otayo granted Akrit and his fellow hunters space in his hall, and Akrit let his people go out into the village, trusting that they would bring him any useful news they heard. He himself had waited long enough. It was time to call upon Maninli Seven Skins. It was time to pay his respects.
He had expected the High Chief’s great hall to be bustling with well-wishers, slaves and family. Instead, there was just a woman kneeling before the door, who Akrit thought must be Maninli’s wife, the new one, after the Tigers had killed his first. He remembered her as young, but she was grey now, and solemn.
‘Stone River,’ she greeted him.
For a moment he paused, unsure of what to say, but then: ‘He must be close to his time.’
She nodded, lips pursed. There was that love that Maninli had always inspired in kin, in friends, even in strangers. Akrit had never known another man his equal for it. Seven Skins could stand up before a hostile crowd and calm them simply with a wave of his hand. He could take the dispirited and the broken and turn them into hard warriors.
‘You are remembering him,’ the woman divined.
Akrit found that he was smiling slightly. ‘I am. I would like to see him.’
‘He may not know you. He is on the Wolf’s trail much, these days. Best that you Step, if you do go in.’
Akrit nodded, and shrugged down into his wolf shape, the world twisting around him as his senses shifted: colours dimmer, sounds sharper, a world of scents rushing in from all sides.
Mostly, as she held aside the skins that covered the entryway, he smelled the sickness of Seven Skins. It was a sour, stomach-turning scent, that of a man too long in the world and whose body had begun to fail. It was a smell of rot, of things gone bad, of excrement and stale urine.
It was a man-scent, though, not a wolf-scent, and within the hall was a wolf. Akrit padded in, seeing the old grey beast lying on a pile of skins before the embers of the last night’s fire. At the intrusion, Maninli pushed himself to his feet, hackles up and his yellowed teeth showing.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 21
