‘You are my blood. You are my tribe. You are born within the Shadow of the Wolf,’ he told her. ‘You have a purpose, for the Wolf and for me.’ He threw a hand out towards her. ‘Come here.’ It exerted a terrible gravity, that hand. It tugged at her and at all her memories, reminding her of every time she had tried to defy him; reminding her of why she had gone from day to day trying to stay out of even the corner of his eye.
But she fought against it. ‘I am Maniye Many Tracks. I hunt alone.’ She did not say, Like Broken Axe, and she was uncomfortably aware that Broken Axe himself was nowhere she could see.
‘You are no hunter.’ And he was a step closer, not with a sudden movement, but just a casual shuffle, till that hand was within a lunge of grabbing her. She could feel the Stone Place’s presence all about her. She felt as though the whole island held its breath.
‘I am Maniye Many Tracks,’ she repeated. ‘I do not accept you as my – chief.’ She choked off the word ‘father’. ‘I leave the Winter Runners. I am a tribe of one alone until I choose another.’ She did not know how she knew the words so well. When had she ever heard them recited? Still, they were the correct words. They were the words of her rights, as one born to the Wolf. Let her leave her tribe: they might hunt her, they might drive her away or even kill her, but they could not force her to be one of them.
But she saw from her father’s face that this was not his understanding, and that in his mind she was still a possession of his. He had his use for her, and he would not let her go. She learned then how fragile tradition was when set against human ambition. He was the chief of the Winter Runners, so who would gainsay him?
‘Girl,’ he said, and then he had lunged for her, the hand darting in to claim its property, and she Stepped and ran in the only direction he had left to her. She fled inside the circle, and he followed on his own wolf feet.
The feeling was like a hammerblow, like running into a gale. She had made a terrible mistake. She was no priest, able to run through the eye of the gods like this. She was cursed, surely she was cursed.
Time seemed to stretch, her dash across the stone circle becoming a trek of hours. She could feel them all and their sharp-edged scrutiny: the hungry, drowning spirit that made this place its own; the killing cold gaze of winter; the impassive distance of the mountains; the vast expanse of the sky; the stars; the moon. Beneath all these, the little huddle of totems that actually recognized the people of the Crown of the World seemed terribly small. Still they were closer, close enough to touch. She sensed their hostile regard, their outrage: Bear, Deer, Boar, Seal, all of them drawing back in horror, preparing their condemnation of her.
Beyond them, two others circled, always at opposite edges of the circle, constantly stalking one another: Wolf and Tiger. For a terrible moment she thought they might make her choose then and there. But, no, they kept at their pacing, watching her. They waited to see what she would do.
There was a groaning weight of fear on her shoulders, the moment she understood what she had done, and yet Tiger and Wolf just circled and watched. She was at the very centre of the circle, and her legs wanted to give up. She was ready to lie down on her side and simply die. This was the will of all the great and distant spirits. A speck had crossed into their sight, and they wanted it gone.
She faltered, mis-stepping, feeling something clench about her heart like a clawed hand. The inside of the circle became like a maze of unseen walls. Abruptly she had lost her bearings. She could not find her way out. The hot breath of Akrit Stone River behind her seemed infinitely less frightening that what she had blundered into.
But there seemed to be a line across the ground, within her sight. A crooked line, but a path nonetheless. It was picked out by a shadow, as though something long and twisted was coursing beneath the earth. A foreign presence, as unwelcome as she was, and yet, though the Wolf might dig and the Boar root, they could not bring it into the light.
Her feet lit on the track of that shadow and then she had found her stride again. Akrit’s teeth closed on thin air, and she was out of the circle.
She had only seconds. The other Winter Runners, Akrit’s entourage, had split on either side of the stones to flank her, and Akrit was right at her back still. She had been driven away from the Bear camp – as if they would have aided her – and surely at any moment Broken Axe would appear before her to head her off. It was what he did, after all. He was the hunter who knew the mind of his prey every time.
And then there was a sudden flurry of violence behind her, and Akrit was no longer at her back. On her left, Smiles Without Teeth veered away to help his chief, and she cut across where his path would have taken him, pulling away from her pursuers on the other side. She had a brief, blurred glimpse of Akrit and another wolf tumbling over and over, snapping at one another’s throats.
Akrit had seen the brief blur of motion from the corner of one eye, even as he was about to edge into a final burst of speed and overrun the girl. Something in that flash of grey told him everything he needed to know: not one of his people coming in to head Maniye off, but an enemy. An enemy born also in the Shadow of the Wolf. There was only one man it could be.
He veered away, so that Water Gathers’ fangs just grazed his flank instead of latching onto his leg, and then he had twisted to lunge back, the two of them rising briefly to their hindlegs to snarl and snap at each other, before going down, locked together, forepaws tearing, muzzle twisting past muzzle, as they tried to get their teeth around something vital of their opponent.
He must be mad, to dare this! Akrit was now on the defensive, giving ground and stunned by the sheer presumption. Impressed, almost: he would not have thought that Water Gathers had the warrior’s courage to brave the taboos of the island like this.
Another thought came, and he lost another handful of paces, retreating from his antagonist, knowing that some of his people were hanging back around him, unsure whether to aid him or not – or kept back by Water Gathers’ own bodyguard.
What if he isn’t the transgressor?
What if it’s me?
There had been Kalameshli plucking at his sleeve, trying to restrain him, but the girl had been right in front of him, and she had disobeyed him: she had the temerity to tell him No. She was his daughter, wilful runt that she was. She was his, to do with as he wished.
He lunged without warning at Water Gathers, a brief low duck, as though he was about to submit, and then jaws agape at the other wolf’s neck, forcing him back.
And yet the girl was an adult now. By the Wolf’s ways, she was free to take up the lone life, and to come and go as she pleased – to live or die by her own meagre skills, if that was what she chose.
But Akrit needed her. He needed her as his weapon against the Tiger. In his mind his three prizes circled and circled like distant hawks in the sky: the high chiefdom; control of his daughter; final victory over the Tiger. He had lost track of which he wanted most. He knew only that these three goals were interdependent, and that he was Akrit Stone River of the Winter Runners and he would have them all. The Wolf was always hungry. The Wolf was never satisfied.
With that, he gained an access of strength and speed, leaping on Water Gathers and drawing blood about the other wolf’s snout, tearing with his teeth, heedless of the claw-raking that he took in return. Then Water Gathers Stepped, a human in an instant, his hand coming down and the morning light gleaming on his axe-blade. Akrit matched him shape for shape, catching the arm and wrestling him over the weapon, the two men staggering back and forth, now one of them in control, now the other.
There were voices, he knew; he heard them distantly. Voices of men, though, and right then he was not interested in their opinions. Priests were calling for them to be stopped, but the warriors of both Wolf tribes were guarding the fight, the decision coming upon them all at once that this personal conflict had become something more, something divine. The chiefs of the Winter Runners and the Many Mouths were mad for each other’s blood, here at the Ston
e Place, and surely this was the gods’ plan.
Then Water Gathers had twisted away from his grip, with the axe cocked back to strike or to throw. Akrit sent a kick thundering into the hard muscles of his opponent’s stomach, so that the other man reeled away, gasping, swiping weakly with a blow that Akrit deflected with his forearm. For a moment his hands found purchase: behind the knee, at the elbow. Then he had dropped his weight under Water Gathers and thrown him in a perfect demonstration of the warrior’s art, a display of experience over youth.
Maninli’s son landed well though, on one knee, and then lurched back onto his feet, drawing the axe back again.
But Akrit was a wolf once more, even as Water Gathers had been flipping through the air, and he came up under the man’s striking reach, too close for the axe-blade, and clamped his jaws about his enemy’s throat.
The rush of blood down his throat filled him with fire. He could not have said if he had planned to kill the other man, rather than just shake him into submission, but with that blood in his mouth a terrible rage rose in him: the Wolf’s own fury. He shook and he worried and he slammed the man down, so that the axe bounced away and clinked against the altar. Water Gathers was scrabbling at his eyes with soft human fingers, but Akrit twisted and savaged and choked, until the struggles of his enemy grew weaker and weaker, lack of air, loss of blood. And he himself grew stronger. He felt the Wolf decant the man’s strength into him, a ladleful at a time.
And when the son of Maninli was dead, he saw at last that his throw, his leap, had carried them both back into the circle of the stones, and he felt the whole world of the invisible poised above him, like a mountain waiting to fall.
He knew he should despair that he had done such a thing in this place. He knew he should cower in terror.
But he was born in the Shadow of the Wolf. He was the hunter, the warrior, the spiller of blood. Fear was not his way.
So he lifted his head to the angry, purpled skies and howled out his defiance, his triumph, and outside the circle the other Wolves howled too: Winter Runner and Many Mouths together, and the cry was taken up across the island, tribe by tribe, until every son and daughter of the Wolf was giving vent to that long, lonesome call: triumph and melancholy in one, the voice of winter, the cry of the Wolf.
Maniye had not looked back: the absence of her father in immediate pursuit was not enough to make her slow. He would be there right behind, she knew, or some of his people. If she slowed – if she let curiosity best her – then he would take her.
But then she was seeing the murkiness of the marsh ahead of her, the heaped earth of the island running out, and her straight course became a curve that brought others into her sight. She had thought that they would be looking at her: she had pelted between the stones, stirred up the gods. But no, they were still looking towards the circle, and a single fleeing Wolf girl was nothing to them.
And then she could not stop herself. She looked back, and saw that none of the Winter Runners was there. Instead they were gathered before the stones, and within . . .
She witnessed the last moments of the fight. She saw Akrit Stone River triumph over his enemy, and then throw his bloody muzzle up to the sky to give vent to his victory.
The other throats that joined with him took on a single voice that stabbed at the crowded sky and made it something that usurped all that it touched, driving the gods and spirits before it, pushing them away from their own place until only Wolf was left, ringing in every ear.
She felt it deep inside her, where her wolf soul was. She wanted to add her own howl to that chorus, to become part of the pack that she had just forsworn. The need was something external to her, and yet it was strong. She felt herself being shaken in its jaws.
But she put her head down and forced herself on through it, knowing only now: I am my only master.
Around her she saw the more timid of the others already moving for the causeway. The Coyote and the Deer, the stocky men of the Boar, they packed their tents and left, or else just fled and abandoned what they could not pick up in that moment. She could smell their fear, the rich savour of it. The Wolf was loose and gone mad, after a generation where they had lived mostly in peace even under the Wolf’s Shadow. She saw a handful of men of the Eyrie simply take flight, Stepping up into the air in a clap of wings.
And she dashed past them all and through their camps, leaping over their fires and darting around their sleds and piled packs, and not one of them called after her or tried to stop her. She was Wolf, for all she was no part of what Akrit had done. She breathed out dread and trailed fear behind her.
Then there was another camp ahead, and she saw a sudden flurry of activity there: men and women in bronze-scaled mail spreading out, bearing short, curved knives and hatchets, hefting slender javelins. They did not scatter, nor did they reek of fear. The Tiger, she saw. This was the camp of the Tiger.
My people, and it was only when the first javelin flew that she realized they did not know her: they saw only Wolf, that had been their enemy before – and would be so again.
She twitched aside from the cast, and Stepped – knowing already that she was too close, that the next throw might pin her to the earth. Her panic sent her straight into her human form, abruptly running far faster than she was capable of on two legs, stumbling and tripping, hurtling head over heels.
Instinct took over then, and she realized only that she had landed on her feet, and that they were the feet of a tiger.
The Tiger warriors were staring at her, most of them, save for a couple still gazing out towards the circle. She forced herself into her human shape again, desperate to speak. ‘Please! I’m you!’ She had meant to say, One of you, or One of yours, but it came out muddled. ‘Please –’ and the irrevocable step – ‘take me with you.’
There was a woman there, the same tall priestess Maniye had seen in the circle. The others deferred to her, and her green eyes bored into Maniye’s soul. There was a moment of stillness between them, each studying the other. Like the Bear, the people of the Tiger looked different to the rest of the Crown of the World. Their eyes, their sharp chins, their skins with just a touch of the coppery Plains colour. They wore their hair pulled back and braided into long tails, laced with gold and gleaming stones.
‘We leave now,’ the Tiger priestess declared. ‘She comes with us.’ And, at the snarling looks from some of her followers, ‘There is a story here, and I will know it.’ Not the most reassuring of words, but better than her turning Maniye away.
She was bitterly aware that she was abandoning Hesprec. She could only hope that he would be safe with the Bear tribe – surely they were proof against the depredations of the Wolf? If she could have carried him with her, she would, but there was no chance, no choice. The world brooked no delay.
The Tiger carried what she had taken for large shields or curved drums, but when they reached the water’s edge, they turned them upside down and made boats of them. The eggshell things seemed far too fragile to trust her weight to, but everyone else there was larger than she was, and none of them hesitated.
She did, just for a moment, a heartbeat, looking back at the island, at the stones, at the unseen roiling host of spirits that was rising up like startled birds. She looked for something slender and serpentine, sliding towards her. She looked for a haggard old man with his bald head covered. She saw neither.
So she let herself be steadied in one of the craft, the priestess squeezing up beside her, embracing her close against the chill of her mail. Then the woman had taken up a short paddle, and she – and all the Tigers there – were making their way across the cloudy waters of the marsh, away from the howls of the Wolf.
26
‘So what now?’
With the taste of Water Gathers’ blood in his mouth he had been exultant, defiant. He had faced down the whole invisible world. He had howled, and the Wolf had howled back.
Now Akrit Stone River sat and stared into the fire, and felt the same leaden despondency t
hat often came to him after his fights and rages. The world seemed a dark and uncertain place again. He had done a terrible thing. It had been a bold thing, when he was doing it. It had been what a Wolf warrior should do. But now it seemed more and more a terrible thing, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
‘The signs are . . .’ Kalameshli looked grave and drawn, and yet with a new edge to him. ‘The spirits of this place are in turmoil.’
We are all in turmoil. Let them for once experience how a man lives. ‘I don’t care about them,’ Akrit made himself say. It was not true, but if he said it often enough then it might become true. ‘I don’t care about them, and they’re too big, too far away, to really care about us. Isn’t that what you’ve said? They’ll just forget.’
The priest’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘This is where they come closest to the earth, where they can hear our voices. A deed done here in their full view cannot but bring repercussions. You are marked, Akrit Stone River. The powers of the world have marked you.’
‘Let them. They mark great men, do they not?’ The wise man avoided the attention of the invisible world, but it was a sharp-edged knife, if he could only avoid the blade and grasp the hilt.
Kalameshli’s thoughts had probably run through the same twists. ‘The gods—’ he started.
‘Only one of them matters,’ Akrit said forcefully. ‘Do I care that the Deer resents me? Do I care if the Boar carries ill will? Or even the Bear? How do I stand with the Wolf, Takes Iron? I thought . . . when it happened, I thought I felt him. I was inside the circle and I felt him there. And I had done the right thing, I knew it.’ That blessed moment without doubts . . . but doubts always crept in, in the end.
‘The Wolf is watching you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He is following your tracks,’ old Takes Iron said. ‘He is following to see where you will take him. If he finds you wanting, he will bring you down.’
‘Or?’
The old priest’s gaze was level. ‘Or he will hunt alongside you.’
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 31
