‘You have heard the Wolves howl,’ he observed. ‘They have come for her, too.’ There was a flinch in response, though the woman covered it well.
‘Then stand aside so that we may take the girl before they do. Or would you fight us on their behalf?’
Asmander grimaced. ‘Not any more.’
‘I do not fear the Wolf,’ she spat at him, though he heard the hurt in her voice.
‘I would hunt Stone River for you, if I could,’ he decided, for surely that would be the correct action. ‘But what little honour I have left is committed to another’s service. So fight me, Queen of Tigers. I shall come down to you.’
He relinquished his greatest advantage, just slipping to the ground rather than leaping down amongst them. The Tigers were still bunched uncertainly there, held back by what they were hearing and seeing. He had them spellbound.
And their queen gestured them away. ‘I am not afraid of you,’ she repeated.
‘I do not want you to be,’ he confirmed. ‘I want you to fight me. That is what I am meant for. I have tried other purposes in my life. I have proven ill-suited for them.’
He got a smile from her then, just a faint one, but it was well worth the effort. Then she was before him, settling into a fighting stance with the ease of long practice, knife held low, axe across her body. He followed suit, maccan sloping at his shoulder, his right foot back, knees a little bent.
He had the reach, but she struck as he tried to use it, her axe hooking his weapon away and then the dagger darting in. He gave ground, back and sideways, trying to use her own hold on the axe haft to drag her off balance. She was a step ahead, though, the knife still driving for him, persistent as an angry bee. He swept a foot towards her legs, forcing her to step away, and followed up with a strike cleaving at where her neck and shoulder met, moving to complement the maccan’s weight and balance.
She passed through those moments of the duel as perfectly as a dancer, eyes always on his face, matching aggression with aggression, yet calm as still water. He could not land a blow on her.
It was an admission of defeat of sorts, but he was the first to Step.
He took the Champion’s shape, leaping abruptly so as to come down on her with his talons. Instantly she was a tiger ducking beneath him, so that when he landed she was almost behind him, a woman once more and her axe hacking towards his neck. He was a crocodile then, belly to the earth and lunging forwards with open jaws. She vaulted him, came down on his back as a tiger with her claws drawn in. She lost her grip a moment later, the Champion kicking her off and pursuing. He took a rake across his flank and another along his snout. For a moment he had her, the deep bite of his jaws fixed at her neck, his clawed hands hooked into her striped hide. There was bronze beneath that fire-and-shadow fur, though, and then she was a human woman twisting from his grip, her knife drawing a shallow line across his leg.
The Champion loved her, Asmander could feel. Not he himself, not his human heart, but the Champion was smitten. It wanted to kill and devour her, but it was love nonetheless.
Then the rest of the Tigers were there. In that moment, when she had been within his jaws, their loyalty had overcome their honour and they rushed forth. Abruptly he was surrounded. Their queen stepped back, face a mask of frustration and anger, but she did not call them off.
He fought; of course, he fought. The Champion gutted one with a rip of his claws. Old Crocodile’s jaws closed on the leg of another, as his armoured back shrugged off the blow of a stone-studded club. He spread leather wings and cowed them in his shadow, forcing them to fall back. Then Aritchaka tackled him from behind, wrestling and reaching until she had his throat gripped in her arms, bearing down his suddenly human body as another fought his hand, contending for a hold on the maccan.
47
Stone River glared back at his followers, willing them to descend on Broken Axe and clear the way to reach Maniye. They would not. Some would even look him in the eye, and still not rush to support him. Even Kalameshli would not come at his bidding. Their faith in him had been unravelling ever since the girl had run away, and every twist and turn of the trail had eaten into Akrit’s place in the world until the footing beneath him was suddenly treacherous.
Kill the girl, that was the answer. Even if another’s hand held the knife, the girl must die at his order. He would show the Wolf and the entire world that he was not to be denied, not even by his own blood.
But Broken Axe still stood in the way, and though he was a smaller man than the Cave Dweller had been, he cast a longer shadow. Broken Axe, whose name was known to all the Winter Runners and many beyond: the great hunter; the Wolf who walked alone.
Every legend needs an ending, Stone River decided, and hefted his bear-killer.
He went in with a savage scything cut. Broken Axe Stepped swiftly, ducking forwards under the stroke – so close that the iron edge must have split some hairs on his back. He struck Stone River’s chest with his forepaws, going for the throat, knocking the man to one knee. Axe came at him again, fangs glinting, and Stone River met his leap with the bear-killer’s haft, throwing him off and lurching back to his feet.
He was already bringing the falx down. Broken Axe’s wolf shape seemed to leap straight into the oncoming blow, and for a moment Akrit thought it would be as simple as that. His enemy Stepped back to human, though, the handle of Axe’s hatchet staying Stone River’s stroke, and Axe’s free hand curling about the shaft. Against the pivot of Akrit’s own grip, Axe pushed the falx up and back, yanking it half out of his adversary’s hands and twisting violently, so as to lay the shaft across Stone River’s shoulders and neck, bending him forwards.
Akrit Stepped: either that or be at the mercy of the hatchet. He left his falx in his enemy’s hands, turning even as he found his wolf feet, to chew at Axe’s hamstrings. He got a boot in his muzzle for his pains, but he dodged aside from the hatchet-sweep, drawing a little blood with his teeth as he snapped at his enemy’s hand.
Then Axe was a wolf as well, pale with a dark flash about his shoulders, bucking up to get his jaws to the back of Akrit’s neck. Stone River beat him to it, and for a moment they were chest to chest, twisting as each tried for the throat of the other. They slipped sideways, and went tumbling over and over down the hillside, scattering the rest of Stone River’s rebellious pack. Then Broken Axe was a man again, trying to pin Akrit down with a human’s greater weight, his blade coming up.
Akrit squirmed out of his hold, teeth ripping into Axe’s forearm. The hatchet went spinning away but, quick as water, there was a bronze knife in the man’s other hand. It drove in, once, twice, and snapped against the iron that lay within Akrit’s Stepped form.
Stone River returned to his true shape, getting a hand about Broken Axe’s neck and throwing him downslope, towards the trees. His hand found a familiar shape beneath it: his falx had come downhill too, ready for its master to reclaim.
He lunged with it, finding his enemy unarmed and still regaining his feet. The attack was hurried, though, the long weapon tangling with the outlying branches of the trees, and then Akrit had a wolf at his throat again.
He beat the animal away with a solid blow from the falx’s haft, but already Axe was a man once more, his arm snaking about the weapon, his weight dropping suddenly to remove it from its owner’s hands for a second time. His other hand found Stone River’s face, the thumb groping for an eye.
Akrit dragged his opponent down on top of him, and he ripped clear his strong iron knife from its scabbard and drove it into Broken Axe.
He saw realization come to Axe, as the blade sank deep under his ribs. The blood went out of the man’s face, just as it was coming out of his body.
Akrit knew he should fall back then: less for fear of any last trick of fists or jaws that his enemy might manage, but to give Broken Axe a chance to Step, to let his soul go to the Wolf. Instead he wrenched the blade sideways, sawing viciously within his enemy, giving voice to his hate.
Axe’s hand w
as at his throat, but the grip was weak. Still, there must have been strength left somewhere in the man because, with a great shuddering heave, he became a wolf at last, even with the terrible wounds Akrit was carving into him. Shuddering, he dropped off Stone River and fell over onto his side, panting once, twice, and then no more.
Akrit lurched to his feet, the reddened knife held high. ‘Well?’ he demanded of his people, for surely now they were his forever and forever. But they just stared with wide, frightened eyes.
In the distance, Maniye could hear voices as if echoing across the far hills. There was the Laughing Men girl, Shyri, demanding to know what she was supposed to do . . . saying that someone was fighting and that he was fighting alone against . . .
And someone was in pain, the small sounds of a great, great man sorely wounded, cursing through gritted teeth, hissing and snarling – and sometimes the sounds were those of a vast bear on the point of madness, and sometimes of a man just the same.
And Hesprec, that strange young girl’s voice that was still Hesprec’s voice, was speaking calming words to both of them. And the dog with its agitated Yoff! Yoff! Yoff! But there was no answering Matt! Matt! Matt!
And the hilltop, that real hilltop with the stones, in the world of men and beasts . . . Maniye felt as though it was the one stationary point, and that all the rest of the wide world, from the mountains to the southerner’s vaunted river, was being slowly twisted about that anchor.
There were many great beasts she had passed now that she could tread the road of possibilities between her souls: bears and huge wolves, great cats and other hunting beasts never seen before by human eyes. They were like ghosts. She could not reach them or make them real, call out to them as she might. Nothing was interested in answering her summons, and the world twisted tighter and tighter about its centre.
Something must surely tear, and soon.
And, with that thought, something did.
The more she had sought a new soul, the more her two natures grew restless. The further she had hunted away from the Tiger and the Wolf, the more the animals within her had clawed and howled to be let out.
And now, with a great heaving vomiting rush, they broke free of her, shattering the bonds she had placed about herself, leaping from her shadow to become things in their own right. A tiger and a wolf: the bitter mother, the callous father.
And they would fight each other: they would fight forever, but first they would finish their work of destroying her. She was where the Tiger and the Wolf were united: she was the halfway creature that neither could bear to let live.
And so she ran across that uneven landscape, stumbling and tripping over her two bare feet. Behind her loped the beasts that had escaped from her mind, her own souls hungry to seize her in their jaws and tear her in two.
And worse was what she knew herself to be: an empty vessel that thought it was a girl; a soulless thing no better than the Plague People in the stories. How could she be real when even her own souls wanted to consume her?
But still she ran, the instinct stronger than reason or religion. She skittered fleet-footed across the Godslands, and the gods looked down, disinterested, and turned their muzzles and their snouts away from her frantic cries for aid.
And at last she could run no more, scrabbling halfway up a steeper hill that was far from any landmarks she might recognize. She slipped back down, feeling her nails break and skin tear; railing at the terrible frailty of a mere human form; knowing the hot breath of her own birthright as it prepared to devour her.
And so she turned, standing at bay at last, and saw those two familiar shapes pad out to confront her, one grey as shadow, the other flickering with red embers. These were the beasts of the wild, the killers and eaters of men, the howlers and snarlers in the dark: the Winter Runner and the Shadow Eater. And she had nothing but blunt human teeth and clawless human hands.
They closed with her lazily, keeping a distance between them, the wolf to her right, the tiger to her left. Her feeble hands clawed at the substance of the Godsland for aid.
There was something hard under her fingers.
Her hand closed on it. That was what her hand was for. She hefted the stone and in a heartbeat she had thrown it, hearing the wolf yelp from the unexpected impact. That was what her arm was for.
She had been crouched and cowering. Now she forced herself to stand tall, to stand on her own two legs. Her hands were reaching again, drawing the shadows into other shapes, as though even those mute things had soul. She had a knife; she had a spear; she had a club; she had a bow.
But the two beasts were still closing in, though there was something cautious in their step now, a hint of wariness.
‘I am not yours.’ Her voice sounded tremulous and high, but it was the only voice in all the Godsland.
She had a stick in her hand now, which was just a slender wand. She lifted it high. Part of her had caught its breath at what she was about to bring into this place of spirits.
‘You are mine!’ she challenged them, the wolf and the tiger. ‘You were born from me and you shall go back to your place! I am your master. You shall hunt at my bidding, or not at all!’
And she struck the stick against the ground, and it blazed forth with fire.
She saw its light gleam back from their startled eyes. She saw it race across the Godslands, and the lesser beasts there shied away from it. Only those great, implacable creatures of myth she had come to seek were able to stare without any fear at the spectre of a human hand holding a blazing brand.
‘I am Maniye! I am Many Tracks!’ she yelled to her recalcitrant souls. ‘And you are mine! You are no more than my shadow!’
And she brandished the flame at them, first one and then the other, forcing them backwards, showing them that she was strong.
She knew what must be done now, though she could not have said how this knowledge came to her. She planted the brand in that dark earth and stepped past it, letting her two-legged shadow stretch long and tall across the undulating ground. And, where it touched them, it showed the two beasts before her to be no more than shadows themselves: wolf, tiger, human, all three just the shapes that the firelight cast outwards from her.
And when they were back inside her – when she knew she had mastered them in this place, and they would not drive her mad any more, or fight each other within the confines of her skull – only then did she turn back towards the fire.
On the far side of the brand, the flaring light was reflected in two eyes bigger than her fists, on teeth like ranks of knives. A beast had come down from its hilltop to gaze at her, at long last.
The maccan was twisted free of Asmander’s hand, its stone teeth gashing the fingers of the man who took it from him. He saw a knife curved like a claw raised up above him. Kicking out won him a second’s respite as he got a heel into a Tiger woman’s knee, throwing the whole tangled knot of them off-kilter. But then they had him again and he stared into the narrowed eyes of his killer.
Something black came amongst them then, like a long streak of night speckled with the glint of stars. Yellow teeth flashed in its jaws, shearing at flesh and leaving ragged wounds in their wake; claws dug and ripped and pried, prising the scrum apart as though opening a clam.
Aritchaka still had Asmander firmly by the neck, but abruptly his limbs were unencumbered, and he gripped her arm, twisting it away. Her knife jabbed at him, but it slanted off the quill-scales of the Champion as he slipped from her grasp just in time. Then she had fallen back along with the others, forming a loose ring of warriors and tigers with their queen in the centre, facing the Champion and his Dragon.
Venat Stepped, rolling his broad shoulders, weighing the greenstone meret in his hand. The weapon of a chief, Asmander knew: lesser warriors would use bone or wood or flint, not the hard jade rock that took long seasons to craft and retained its edge like nothing else. How hard it must have been for the man to bow his head, to relinquish his name and become a servant to a boy. When Asmander had
given it all back to him, he was sure the old pirate would kill him, or try. Some part of him had been hoping for it.
And now here he was, with his back to the rocks, his unnerving grin towards the Tigers. Those coal eyes of his took in the fire-shadow stripes of them, the shining bronze plates of their mail, the feathers cresting their helms.
‘Don’t we look pretty,’ he spat disgustedly.
Asmander Stepped, feeling the Champion still just a breath away and eager to resume the fight. ‘Did you forget something?’ he managed.
‘That’s how they do gratitude in Atahlan, is it?’ Venat bared his teeth: maybe a smile, maybe not. ‘How are you still alive, boy?’
‘I keep finding old men stupid enough to save my life.’
Venat squared his shoulders as the Tigers expanded their half-circle, taking their places on both flanks. One had a javelin drawn back to throw, and the big cats were drawing themselves up to leap.
‘Last time, I promise,’ Venat assured him.
Asmander Stepped again, the Champion’s bow-taut form closing about him. The Tigers flinched back a little, confronting the alien majesty of that shape as though they were looking into the sun. A Champion’s soul burned fierce and free, torn from the deep time when its avatars had once walked the earth.
And then it happened; they felt it, every one of them. The ground did not shake, but each of them, Tigers, Venat and Asmander himself, they all shifted their balance slightly and all at once. Something had changed.
Something new had come into the world.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Standing over the body of Broken Axe, one foot planted on the dead wolf’s blood-matted hide, Akrit Stone River bellowed to his followers. ‘Go get the girl, bring my daughter to me! Or is there another who would challenge me?’
And they were still staring, and only then did he realize that they were not staring at him. The Winter Runners stood in awe of something, and it was not their chief. Old Kalameshli Takes Iron’s old face was slack behind its tattoos. There was shock in his yellowed eyes, and there was fear, but there was something else to be read there too. Akrit was abruptly aware that it was reverence.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 56
