‘We will not,’ Hesprec said quietly but firmly. ‘We will approach this place as its creators intended. Perhaps they were wiser than we. Certainly they were wiser than you.’ She raised an eyebrow at Venater, who loomed over her, big and mean enough to tear her in two. The old pirate just looked surly, though, and took a step back.
The path spiralled up the hill, in and out of trees at first, and then they had left the forest behind, climbing out of it onto rocky slopes, with each lessening turn bringing them closer to the huge stones above. Squinting upwards past the glare of the duskbound sun, Maniye’s mind jumped back and forth: natural or made; made or natural? She could not decide which. The greater boulders were too vast to have been moved there, too unworked to have been intended. And yet, as they drew near, her earlier conviction returned to her. Someone had built here once, laid stone on stone just as she had seen in the Shining Halls. She remembered the intricately carved stonework of the Tigers, and how so much of it had fallen to ruin. Whoever had made this hill their temple had done so in an age that made all the works of the Tiger seem mere follies of yesterday. The earth – the grass and moss and mounded soil – had almost completely swallowed all signs of it. Only the occasional protruding block remained there as mute witness; a certain regularity that led Maniye’s gaze along the secret, hidden lines of the place.
She remembered how the Stone Place had first seemed to her, with the spirits louring low in the sky, their twisting scrutiny anchored to that island in the swamps. As they approached the summit, she knew this was a kindred place. Not so grand, surely, but perhaps older. Those spirits that dwelled here, sleeping within the earth or spread across the wide sky above, they were powers that had been drifting away from human affairs for centuries. Yet there was strength here: she felt it in the hairs at the back of her neck; in the clutch of her bowels. Or else she was simply desperate to believe so, because if there was nothing here then all Hesprec’s lore and wisdom would accomplish nothing.
The three stones themselves seemed almost nothing. One stood, barely more than a man’s height; two were fallen, and one of those cracked in two. Together they formed two sides of a triangle inside a little round space that was half walled off by the mounded boulders. This small stretch of mystery was what their long spiralling progress had led towards.
Feeling the strength of those quiescent spirits, though, Maniye knew that Hesprec had been right. To approach as the Boar did; to approach as the ancient architects had intended, that was how to win one’s way to the sacred site without gathering the ire of those whose power suffused the place. If they had just scaled the hillside as Venater had suggested, then they would have reached the top amid an invisible tempest of offence. Any ritual conducted against that anger could only have gone badly wrong.
And now they were at the top, and Maniye collapsed onto her knees at the summit’s edge, looking around her at where those old, old stones cut through the turf like loose teeth. They had been carved once, but time had smoothed over whatever message human hands had incised in them.
Hesprec, though, was looking downwards with a speculative air.
‘One might wonder just whose hands raised this place, and when,’ the Serpent girl murmured, echoing Maniye’s own thoughts. Her copper eyes were narrowed in thought, and Maniye could see the world as she did, just for a moment. The spiralling path that encircled the hill was like the coils of a serpent, so that they now stood at its head, here where the stones were. And was that just a coincidence or was this some distant, cold splinter of the Serpent’s history that even Hesprec did not know of?
‘So you’re going to go straight on with this business, are you?’ Venater demanded.
The Serpent girl shook her head. ‘Preparation is ever the friend of the ritualist.’
‘What’s that even supposed to mean?’ the pirate demanded.
‘It means priest business,’ Asmander decided. ‘And we have travelled far and, while the Messenger works, we will sleep, save for those who watch.’
‘And when the Wolves sniff out the truth and come for us?’ Shyri asked.
Asmander put a hand to his ear. ‘What’s that I hear? Laughing Girl wants to take first watch? Then, of course, she must.’
‘Dung-eater.’
‘Not laughing now?’ Asmander challenged her.
She shrugged. ‘At least you’re not moping and groaning about your honour any more. Selling that girl to her father was the one clever thing you ever did, and after it you were no fun at all. I prefer you when you’re stupid and happy.’
Venater smirked. ‘You didn’t know him back home. He’s all smiles half the time, and about to cut his own throat the rest. You try being his slave, see how much fun it is.’ And then, seeing Asmander’s gaze on him, ‘What?’
‘A slave?’
‘Slave with no collar’s still a slave,’ the pirate replied with a rebellious look.
‘Enough,’ Broken Axe intervened. ‘Laughing Girl, you keep watch with Loud Thunder until the moon’s high. I’ll see out the rest of the night with one of these Rivermen.’
‘That means you, then,’ Venater told Asmander, stretching.
The Champion eyed him with half a smile. ‘Of all the slaves in the world, you are the least satisfactory.’
‘There are worse ambitions.’
Maniye had wanted to put herself forward to watch out part of the night. It had hurt when Broken Axe had overlooked her, though she knew she would not have been capable of it. In a sudden reversal of perspective, she understood how he saw them all: they were his pack, his tribe. They were here because of an odd network of loyalties, but all focused on making one of their number well again. While she was weak, Broken Axe had arranged the pack around her, their strengths covering for her. When – if – she was strong again then he would lean on her to precisely that degree that she could endure. That was how he led, and that was how a Wolf leader ought to.
Lying on the cold ground, huddling close with Hesprec’s slight form tucked against her, and Asmander’s back against her own, she indulged a fantasy in which Axe, and not her father, had risen to become chief of the Winter Runners. How the world might then have been different! And her own life, how might that have gone if her father had been no more than a strong hunter of the Wolves . . .
But without Stone River and what he had done to her mother, surely there would be no Maniye Many Tracks. Knowing what she now knew about her origins, perhaps there would just have been Akrit, childless. Her wolf soul would have found some other body to be born into, her tiger soul likewise. The unlikely and traumatic combination that had given rise to her would never have arisen. If she had a destiny at all, she shared it with him.
And she shivered, and tried to sleep, but she was still awake when Loud Thunder pushed his mountainous way in to share their warmth. Only then, with Broken Axe lying alert atop one of the rocks, his muzzle on his paws and his ears cocked, did she find a little rest.
Her sleep was troubled with dreams, but then she had been their plaything ever since she came to the Shining Halls. Asleep, the cages of her souls were thrown open and they ran about the spaces of her mind, hunting one another, hunting her too. Their battlefield was every place between her home village and this hilltop, all jumbled together inside her mind. She had expected to dream of great spirits, to be touched by the powers that inhabited this place. They did not come, though, and she was left to her own mercies until morning.
Dawn’s light found Broken Axe pacing restlessly about the hilltop, scrambling up to find a high perch, then dropping down again. When enough of them were awake, he Stepped into his grim-faced human shape.
‘I scented tigers overnight,’ he confirmed. ‘I didn’t see them but they were out there, down at the treeline.’
‘Then why didn’t they attack?’ Shyri asked. ‘They weren’t shy about it last time, and we don’t even have a cave to hide in now.’
‘Two, maybe. Three at most,’ he informed her. ‘Scouts, but they’ll be
back in force. Tonight we’ll have to face them, I think, if we’re still here. So tell me that we won’t still be here.’
Hesprec looked unhappy. ‘The Serpent’s path involves many twists—’
‘Just plain words,’ Broken Axe told her flatly.
She pursed her lips in exasperation before snapping, ‘You want words you can understand? Then know this: what Maniye is seeking, it cannot be done. Neither amongst Wolves nor Tigers is such a thing known. Even if she were of the Eyrie, say, or one of the Patient Ones, it could not be achieved without cleansing and ritual, fasting, meditation and the goodwill of her totem – or her totems, I suppose. None of this has been accomplished in the whole history of the world.’
Faced with that statement, Broken Axe blinked. ‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘I am of the Serpent, who were the first people in this world to undertake a great many things. And so perhaps I will be the first to accomplish this, if Maniye remains strong.’ She held up a hand to forestall his next question. ‘But it will take time. Maniye must go on a great journey, one that laughs at all her wanderings until now. I need water to be fetched for me. I need a fire going. Champion, do you know the Seven Figures?’
Asmander grimaced. ‘Perhaps I can remember them.’
‘Do your best. Scratch them on stones – big stones. Make a circle of them. And after all that is done, and after I have washed and prayed, and let the spirits of this place walk into and out of my mind and grow accustomed to my scent, then perhaps I will be ready.’
Broken Axe sighed, sharing a look with Loud Thunder. ‘So, by noon? Midnight? Winter?’
‘Every word you speak drives it further away,’ Hesprec told him darkly.
Asmander had finished scratching the Seven Figures, or at least as well as he was ever going to. They were part of every child’s education, or of those who got an education. The Snake priests taught them as an aid to contemplation, as the basis for the written script of the Sun River Nation. They were a relic from the Oldest Kingdom – that lost land the Serpent people still talked about with such bitter nostalgia. Ah, yes, what a land we had, what magic and majesty, before the coming of the Pale Shadow People . . . It came to Asmander now that a great deal of what he had so faithfully learned as a child had not served particularly to prepare him for his present circumstances. There had been, for example, a notable paucity of information about surviving the cold north.
There had been too many tales of heroes, and too little on how to act like one when the time came.
He set to repairing his maccan, which lost its teeth as often as Old Crocodile but sadly could not grow new ones on its own. He was almost out of the gum he used to reattach them, and it came to him that he had no idea what materials the Crown of the World might furnish for providing more. It was unlikely to be a problem that the Wolf tribe ever needed to solve.
He glanced back at the three great stones. Hesprec was kneeling there, hands on her knees, her head bowed. Chains of obligation. Axe felt himself responsible for the girl because of something to do with her mother. Thunder was here out of loyalty to Axe, and perhaps because he liked the girl also. Hesprec was bound to Maniye by cords of obligation. And I . . . ? It was time to admit that Asmander had so far made enough of a mess of his life that serving Hesprec seemed the only honourable path. But, as paths go, probably not a very long one. And, like all storied heroes, my death seems unlikely to be a private matter. I have invited my friends along.
Even with this thought there was a footstep nearby, and then Venater squatted beside him. Asmander studied his leering face: the heavy jaw, the cruel, flinty eyes, the broken nose never quite set right. There was a majesty to this man’s ugliness that the heroes of old might kill for.
‘The Wolves will be with us long before nightfall,’ the old pirate offered.
‘It seems likely.’
‘And the Tiger are already here – so says Axe – and more on the way. Reckon they’ll fight each other? We’ll have a good view of it.’
‘I think that they will mostly fight us,’ Asmander decided quietly. ‘Each other as well, but they will throw their greatest strength into seizing the girl.’
‘We should just let them take her.’
‘I am not arguing.’
Venater sighed. ‘You are, though. Because of the Snake and Broken Axe.’
‘Well, then I suppose I am.’
Venater nodded philosophically, chewing away at a strip of jerky. ‘This is the bit,’ he spoke around a wad of soggy meat, ‘where you tell me the Serpent possesses some great magic in this place that means somehow we win.’
‘That would be a good thing to be able to tell you, yes.’
‘Or that this thing that the Snake girl is doing turns out to be real knife-point magic at killing wolves and tigers.’
‘That doesn’t seem likely, does it?’ Asmander continued at his task, but cocked an eye at the other man. ‘Did you have something else you wanted to say?’
‘I wanted to say how stupid it is to have so many grown men wasting their time over one mad girl.’
‘Were I a priest, I would write your words in the Book of Truths so as to last for all times. Alas, I am not, so they will be lost when we all get ourselves killed by angry northerners.’
Venater snorted, but there was a coal of anger behind his eyes still, a look of resentment.
Asmander sighed. ‘I think it is time that we were honest, you and I. My father felt the hook of envy when the Champion chose me. It was something he himself had sought all his life, yet never found.’
Venater grunted.
‘And he has used my Champion well in pushing the interests of our clan, but there was ever a distance between us from that day on. A distance he would not speak of, and so it grew. And I think we both know that, in sending me to find the Iron Wolves, there was more than a little hope that I would not return. As with so many of my father’s plans, he wins every way. If I do not come back, he is rid of me; if I return with Wolves, then he gains in Tecuman’s eyes. If I return without them, I lose that same respect.’
‘He’s a clever bastard, your father.’
‘You say so little I can argue with that I feel disappointed.’
‘You’ll get to argue with the Wolves soon enough. We all will.’
Asmander laughed briefly. ‘The famed Iron Wolves! If only I could tell my father: they are real, yes. Also: they want to kill me. And they are just men – even as we are men. They eat different food and follow different gods but, like men everywhere, they quarrel with one another, and their stupid quarrels end in bloodshed. How like us they are – almost as bad as the Dragon.’
‘Nobody’s as bad as the Dragon,’ Venater stated with pride.
Asmander tried another laugh, couldn’t manage it, and so took a deep breath. The Champion stirred within him watchfully, sensing a moment of crisis coming but one it could not help him with.
‘I am now ready to fight,’ he declared.
‘Not sure about that,’ the old pirate jibed. ‘Give it another ten years.’
‘I was good enough to defeat you.’
He had been expecting an angry response, but Venater just looked away, his mouth twisted.
‘Yes, yes, you were drunk and half asleep,’ Asmander prompted.
The pirate shrugged.
‘But we have walked a long road together since then. And I have gained great joy from knowing that you would cut my throat while I slept, every night we have been together, if only you were free to do so.’
‘You’re right there.’
‘But we are here now in this stupid land, and I am proud to have you with me for one more dawn, Venat, though it seems likely there will not be another.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ the pirate snarled. ‘I’ll still be . . . still be . . .’ His jaw worked. ‘What did you call me?’
‘You heard.’
In the quiet falling between them, the laughter of Loud Thunder rolled in from across the hillt
op, startlingly loud and intrusive.
‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ Venater – Venat – demanded.
‘Whatever you want. That is the point of freedom.’
‘Why would you . . . ?’
‘Because I remember fighting you, at the mouth of the Tsotec. Because I should have killed you – or not killed you. You were mine. I should not have let my father chain you.’
It took the smallest motion for Venat’s stone blade to appear in his hand. ‘And if I slice you open right now?’
‘Then we will fight, and I would welcome it.’ Asmander felt himself tense, feeling the Champion crouch about his shoulders, awaiting its moment.
‘It’s a long way to the River,’ Venat said softly.
‘Not too long for you.’ He could not read the other man at all, had no clue whether to expect an attack. But then Venat shook his head, looking oddly lost, and a moment later he had turned away and was picking his way towards the treeline, weapon still in hand and his tread uncertain.
‘And you should go too,’ Asmander told the air. And sure enough there was Shyri, dropping down from her eavesdropping post atop one of the boulders, and Stepping back to human as she did.
She just looked at him, blinking a few times. ‘How could you let him go?’
He knew she wasn’t talking about the loss of Venat’s blade to help them in the fight to come.
‘The right thing to do,’ Asmander muttered. And then Broken Axe howled, loud and long. Relieved of further explanations, the Champion rushed over to see what had emerged from out of the trees.
They saw the Wolves: Akrit’s warband, that had plainly not been fooled as well as anyone had hoped. There was a good score of them there so far, some in one form, some in another. A handful of those who wore a human shape were clad in shirts of metal: the Iron Wolves whose fame had spread all the way to the banks of the Tsotec.
Look, Father! thought Asmander drily. It’s your army. What can I buy them with now, though? The only thing they want is my blood, will that do?
‘They’ve started.’ Broken Axe was abruptly at his shoulder. For a second Asmander thought he was simply stating the obvious, but then he glanced back to see Hesprec and Maniye sitting together between the stones.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 53
