‘So . . . you skinned him? This is a Wolf thing?’ Asmander enquired with a frown.
‘I am still welcome amongst the Winter Runners,’ Broken Axe said, though the echo to those words was, For how long? ‘You, though, Many Tracks . . . let Stone River decide to Step, and catch the scent of the child who fled him, and you’ll be theirs.’ He nodded to her. ‘You know what we will do with this.’
‘I . . . have heard of it being done.’ In stories, even in fireside recountings, but she had never witnessed it. It was a grisly thing, to wear two skins and carry another’s scent. ‘They will not think me Dirhath. I cast a smaller shadow.’
‘Then do not been seen by them. It is enough that they scent what is familiar,’ Broken Axe told her.
‘And me? You have another magic skin for me, perhaps?’ Asmander’s tone suggested they did not do such things in the south, even in stories.
‘You . . .’ Broken Axe scratched the back of his head. ‘I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know this creature that you Step to. But I have watched you run. You’re very swift, but you are not a Wolf. You will not match us for the long haul.’
‘Will I not?’
‘If you fall behind, go find your fellows. When it comes for us to bring the old Snake back, we will try and sniff you out. Perhaps we will have company when we return.’
Then he took the pelt of Dirhath, still sticky with the dead man’s blood, and laced the paws together so that it could rest on Maniye’s shoulders like a cloak, the unskulled head flopping and flapping behind her, the tail and hind legs dragging on the ground.
‘We will not know human shape again until we have caught them,’ Broken Axe pronounced.
Maniye nodded shortly, knowing that when she Stepped, her wolf form would be trailing the dead Dirhath’s scent; that some part of him would be carried with her, not his ghost but something of him nonetheless.
They ran as the wolves run, that can travel night and day when they have to. For most of that night, Asmander kept up, although the scent of him told Maniye he was flagging, all his lightning speed nothing compared to the constant grind of their own progress. This was how the pack brought down the fleet deer: not being faster, but never slowing, never giving up, running the prey ragged and staggering, then circling for the kill.
In the end, Asmander slowed, then Stepped, resuming his human form on one knee, raising a fist at the dark sky, perhaps in frustration, perhaps in salute. It was only Many Tracks and Broken Axe now.
She had run from Broken Axe for so long, before. Now he broke fresh ground and she followed, although her nose already warned her of the passage of many of her kin. She knew that Broken Axe was right: the Winter Runners were not moving swiftly.
In her mind was no plan, and that was what frightened her most. She had no idea how Stone River would have set his people when she and Broken Axe came upon them. They might still be on the move; they might be camped. If camped, they might have all eyes watching the dark, every nose alert for the stink of ambush. Perhaps the Tiger was still on their trail, after all.
And even if they felt themselves secure, away from the diminished reach of the Shining Halls, would she still be able to go creeping amongst them undetected? What of those who had been mourning Dirhath? What of . . . ?
Her body ran on, tiring, tiring slowly, with a wolf’s stubborn stamina. Her mind wheeled and battered like a trapped bird, but Broken Axe was always ahead of her, and so she followed, the second member of a pack of two.
She had feared him so much. He had seemed like Death to her, inescapable and always waiting. She still could not quite understand this drive in him to do whatever was right, not in the eyes of Wolf or Tiger or other people, but only his own. And yet he was surely the most gifted hunter she had ever known: a man swift and certain, sure in his judgement, at ease in both his skins.
It was that last she truly envied. She had three skins; none of them fitted her, and two of them were at war.
Then she would worry again about the choice still hanging over her like a blade:Wolf or Tiger; Tiger or Wolf. Small wonder she would risk this much for a chance to rescue Hesprec and receive his counsel once again. Of all the world that knew her, perhaps only he did not care which path she took. Or he and Broken Axe.
Would he have taken me as a mate? That had been Stone River’s drunken threat. Would it have been so bad? But make her the hearth-wife of Broken Axe, and she would never have got to know him. He would have been a mystery, more absent than present, close-mouthed and secret-eyed. Only this way could she have come to discover the man he truly was.
She lost track of the distance they covered, giving herself over to the long chase for its own sake, weariness her constant companion but not yet her master. Still, when Broken Axe finally slowed to a halt she was grateful. It was midday by then, the skies close with clouds, pregnant with rain on the very point of falling.
Broken Axe Stepped to his human form and beckoned her near, but she first took a moment to draw in a great breath of all the world’s secret knowledge. She inhaled the forest and the earth, the sky and the distant peaks, renewing her connection with it all, finding herself again within its vastness. I have been here, or close to here. This is known to me.
With a leap of hope she found the answer in her mind. The Tiger had driven Stone River west and north. Close to the lands of the Cave Dwellers. And Loud Thunder dwells on the border of those lands. For a moment she had a desperate thought of rushing straight to that cave-house and petitioning the giant himself. Too far, though. Days more of running to take her there. Hesprec would not have that long to live.
In her nose was the scent of Wolf, but other scents too: other people. Stone River had found company out here.
At last she crept closer to Broken Axe, shifting from wolf to a woman with a heavy pelt about her shoulders. ‘What is this place?’ she whispered.
‘A village of the Boar people,’ Broken Axe explained. ‘They call themselves the Spined Sons – they were Roughback once, but split from them and came out here.’ He plainly saw that Boar tribe squabbles were lost on her. ‘They are few. Stone River’s warband will have mastered them. He will be in the chief’s lodge by now, served by the best of their women. The others likewise. To have stopped here, they must think themselves out of the reach of the Shining Halls.’
‘Are they?’ Maniye asked.
Broken Axe’s face twisted. ‘Once, the answer would have been no. After that – after the war – yes. Now? Hard to say. The Tiger stir themselves more than they used to.’
‘So what will they . . . ?’ Maniye felt a sudden clutch of anxiety within her. ‘Have they done it? Have they given Hesprec to the Wolf already?’
Broken Axe shrugged. ‘I think not. The Wolf is not in this place. Offer a soul up here, and it would end up on the tusks of the Boar, like as not.’
‘But you can’t be sure.’ Maniye was thinking of every word that had been spoken before they set off, every wasted moment, of every step, when she could have pushed herself harder.
‘I can only go and see how the land lies,’ Broken Axe told her. ‘And you must stay here and keep your head hidden. There will be scouts.’
‘Wait.’ A thought that had been nagging at Maniye was suddenly at the front of her mind. ‘What about Shatters Oak? Does she still live?’
Broken Axe nodded grimly. ‘She does, and if she found my back turned to her, and nobody else to see, she would kill me. But she will not strike before the eyes of others.’
‘I thought it was him, that wanted me dead,’ Maniye told him. ‘After the Horse post.’
‘He has many plans for you, but not your death yet.’ Then Broken Axe had Stepped back to his wolf shape and went loping off through the trees towards the scents of Wolf and Boar, of hearth, and sheep dung and people.
Maniye Stepped, if only for the warmth and the security that a wolf shape gave her. She settled down low, belly to the ground and cloaked with another’s scent, and she waited. It w
as hard, that wait: harder than the long run to catch up with Stone River and his warband had been. Left with nobody but her own company, she found herself looking into the great expanse of the future. Rescue Hesprec. Yes, but then what? Those smoke dreams of going south? Had that ever been a real plan?
Then Broken Axe was back, slinking through the trees before pausing to lift his muzzle and scent the air.
‘They have him in the chief’s house,’ he confirmed after he Stepped, ‘the largest of the huts there. He’s not been well used.’
‘But alive?’
His expression suggested there was not much difference in it. ‘They are holding him cruelly. There is little kindness amongst the Winter Runners tonight.’
‘And Stone River?’
‘Your father broods in the chief’s hut even now, but he’s in his restless mood. Soon he will go out amongst his people, to remind them who he is. That will be your moment, if there is one.’
‘What about the others?’
He waved a hand. ‘They have the Boar to serve them. Some are guarding another prisoner, I think. Others raid the village larders, or they lick their wounds. All were on two legs when I saw them: after a fight, men love to tell each other how brave they were. You will have to be quiet and clever – just like back home.’
‘Then let’s do it.’
‘Follow in my shadow; find a place where you are hidden but can watch me. When Stone River sets out, that will be your moment.’
She envied Broken Axe, who could walk between the Shining Halls and the Winter Runners so deftly. While he strode into the village of the Spined Sons, with only Shatters Oak to worry about, she had to find a path of shadow to follow. In this she was aided by the clouds that chose that moment to break over the village, bringing not torrential rain but flurrying late-season snow. Maniye took that as her cloak and moved in.
The Boar village was laid out in an oval of low huts, each one little more than a sloping roof that reached from the ridge pole down to the ground, with a floor beneath propped on posts off the ground, to ward off flood and vermin. Each had a firepit dug at its entrance, protected from the snow by the eaves. In most, there would not have been room for an adult to stand up straight, but the Boar crammed their families and their goods inside until there seemed to be not a hand’s span of space left. The chief’s hut was the sole building on a grander scale, so that a tall man could just have stood upright down the house’s centre-line.
She made her way, shadow to shadow, wolf and tiger, feeling the chill of the snow on her pelt but blessing it for veiling her. She found herself a place to hide, where the earth under one of the huts had been eroded away just enough to fit a very small wolf.
The air was full of the sounds of people: familiar sounds. She could recognize voices, even: that was Bleeding Arrow, and there the deep rumble of Smiles Without Teeth. It was as though she had never left home.
In their own village, the sullen Spined Sons shuffled and scuffed about, seeking refuge with each other, shoulders bowed as they bore the unlooked-for burden of Stone River’s warband.
Then the skins at the entrance of the chief hut rippled, and Stone River pushed his way out, snarling up at the snow. A human snarl, though: no keen wolf’s nose to scent her out, not yet. She guessed he had been at whatever fermented gourds or mead the Spined Sons had stockpiled, for he had that ugly, belligerent expression she remembered from when he had been drinking. From the way he walked, this was not just a random venture his feet were taking him on: he was looking for someone.
Let him take long to find them. She crept out from beneath the eaves and covered the distance to the chief’s hut like a shadow herself. The skins barely moved as she burrowed beneath them.
The hut had a firepit inside it, the smoke coiling about the centre-line above before escaping through holes at either end. The slope-walled interior was red-lit by those sullen embers, and beyond the fire she saw Hesprec Essen Skese.
Broken Axe was right: they had used him cruelly. The old man was stripped to the waist, his body seeming just a bundle of dry sticks held together by skin. The firelight played across the bruises and marks that patterned his hide, where the warband had had their fun with him. Now they had him strung up by his wrists, hanging from the centre-pole. A cord was strung taut from wrists to the halter at his neck, hoisting him onto his toes. He was trembling, an old man at the very far shore of exhaustion. His eyes were closed.
She hurried over to him, Stepping as she did so.
‘Hesprec,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me. I’m here.’
One colourless eye opened and rolled over to stare at her. For a moment he did not seem to believe the evidence of his own senses, but then his withered lips crept into something like a smile.
‘Again? What bad habits you have fallen into.’ His voice was so faint that the popping of the dying fire almost drowned it out.
‘Enough,’ she silenced him. ‘Now let me get you down.’ She had her Tiger-made knife of bronze, that she could now Step with without any difficulty at all. What she did not have was the reach. He was taller than she, his bound wrists higher still.
‘I . . . I may have to climb up you,’ she decided tentatively, because he did not look as though he would survive a feather’s weight more burden.
And yet he nodded minutely, and closed his eyes again, bracing himself as best he could. Still she held back because he was so frail, and she was afraid.
And then she heard a call from outside.
‘Stone River!’ Broken Axe’s voice.
‘Axe.’ Her father. ‘If you’ve not found the girl, get out of the way. I’m not in the mood for you today.’
Maniye froze, caught stretching as high as she could with her knife – which was nowhere near far enough. A moment later she was crouching in the shadow that Hesprec cast in the firelight, waiting for the worst.
Stone River shouldered his way in, obviously in a foul temper, and there was Kalameshli Takes Iron along with him, the priest looking scarcely happier.
‘You’ve had enough time with the Wolf.’ Akrit Stone River cast a look towards the flap, as though fearing to be overheard. Thankfully he did not consider that there might be an eavesdropper already within. ‘Time to tell me what he wants.’
Kalameshli looked sour. ‘What does the Wolf ever want?’
‘I ripped out Water Gathers’ throat for him in the sacred place!’
‘Not through design,’ Kalameshli snapped.
‘But it happened!’ Stone River shouted back. ‘And here we are. The first clash with the Tiger, in how many years? And we lose two and end up running away.’
‘It was not—’
‘Tell it to them, not to me. What do I need to do, Takes Iron? What is it the god wants?’
‘I am only a priest. The Wolf never spoke clear and direct to anyone. But I think he is testing you. I think he is watching you.’
‘And he’s not impressed, eh?’ Akrit growled.
Kalameshli did not venture an opinion.
‘What, then? This old one?’ And abruptly Stone River was standing right there, staring into Hesprec’s hollow face, while Maniye crouched at the Snake priest’s heels and tried not to breathe at all, not even to think.
‘I’ve told you, not here,’ Takes Iron said exasperatedly. ‘This is not our place. The Boar is fat enough already.’
‘We can make this not a Boar place,’ Stone River mused. He had turned back to the fire and was fumbling with his belt. Maniye assumed he was about to piss in it, but there came no hiss of steam. ‘Round them up and give them all to the fire: the greatest sacrifice the Wolf has tasted for twenty years.’
Kalameshli sighed. ‘If we’d found a Deer tribe, then perhaps yes. We’d take whoever we could catch, and the rest would run. But the Boar . . . you know how the Boar people are. They bow their backs readily enough, but you can only push them so far. And we’d not get out alive if they all Stepped and came for us at once. You know that.’
S
tone River spat, still crouching by the fire. His mood was not improved when Takes Iron went on, ‘If you hadn’t given the prisoner to the others . . .’
‘They need to think we’re winning,’ Akrit told him sharply. ‘What better way than someone to play with?’ And then he turned from the fire. In his hand was an iron knife, its handle wrapped in skin, the heated blade glowing a baleful red. With a convulsive movement he thrust it at Hesprec. For a moment Maniye thought he would kill the old man then and there, and she had to fight down a scream, but then the flat of the hot blade was laid against the Snake priest’s brittle ribs.
Hesprec made a sound. Not a hiss or a yell or anything so identifiable, but a whimpering noise of pure exhausted agony. It made Maniye sick to hear it, more even than the smell of burning; her nightmares would be haunted by that sound for a long while to come.
Then the chief of the Winter Runners, the would-be High Chief of all the Wolves, stormed out of the hut, taking his priest with him.
Again she was left with the impossible task of reaching Hesprec’s wrists, but this time he got out, ‘The halter, girl. That is all I need.’
And she saw it at once, and cursed herself for being so foolish. His hands were bound, but a snake has neither hands nor arms. She sliced through the thong that was looped about his neck, desperately delicately to avoid cutting him, even though she was on her toes to reach. A moment later he was a serpent, coiling and writhing lethargically on the floor of the hut.
The flap moved again, and she was in her Tiger fighting stance, blade raised, because if Stone River came back now there would be no avoiding it. She saw Broken Axe instead, though, nodding with brief satisfaction to see that she had got the old man down.
‘Good work,’ he said softly, and would have said more, but the air was rent by a terrible scream. It was a woman’s scream, and what was worse was that it was not a first-scream, made from a first-hurt. It was the scream of someone who has been hurt and hurt, and held on and held on, and now cannot hold the scream in any longer.
There was a look that came to Broken Axe’s face, then.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 42
