Long months had passed since the death of Stone River, of Broken Axe . . . and of much else. At the autumn equinox she had gone to the Stone Place and shown herself to the priests of all the Crown of the World, who had already heard rumours of what had come into the world. She had stood before them in that great bear-dog shape, burning with the strangeness of it, walking the circle of the stones on feet the world had not known since before the memories of man. And then she had stood before them as a small Wolf girl of tangled provenance, and seen in their eyes the fear and speculation. They had thought that she would come to hunt them, or to challenge them, or to rule over them. The most ambitious had thought on how to use her, the least on how to destroy her. She had seen it all in their eyes.
And they would grow used to the idea, and perhaps she would only be the first, for Asmander had told her that he was by no means the only Champion of the Riverlands. Hesprec said that when she stood in the Godsland and looked into those moon-round eyes, a new door had opened.
At the Stone Place there had been too many questions, and she had let most go unanswered. Only those which would have tied her to one place, to one tribe, had she rejected outright. Those who simply said she would be welcome, that she could be their guest, she thanked. Those who came to her with their allegiance . . . well, that had become complicated.
And there had been a command. Only one had been strong enough and self-contained enough to make demands of the new Champion of the north, but when the Mother of Bears demanded her presence, Maniye went to her.
Here she was now, up in the mountains, many days’ travel past Loud Thunder’s home. Here she had come, passing through high prairies already past their brief and frantic time of bloom and growth, following the streambeds until she came to cliffs that were pocked with caves.
Lone Mountain had greeted her solemnly. He was just as she remembered: taller even than the bulk of his people, and wearing linens and wools of bright colours to mark him out. The look he gave her was that of an equal: no deference for what she had become, but nothing in his eyes to acknowledge that the crown of her head did not reach much past his navel.
She had tried her authority, then, surrounded by these huge people, overshadowed on all sides, virtually underfoot. She had demanded to see Loud Thunder first, to know how he was healing. And they had frowned and shuffled and exchanged looks over the top of her head, but at last they had given in, with poor grace, and taken her to him.
He was on his feet again and well: well enough for her to feel a wash of joy come over her. She had known men crippled by lesser injuries, but Hesprec had more than one lifetime of healing lore at her disposal, and she had done well with treating those fresh wounds. He still limped a little, and sat stiffly, one hand resting on Yoff’s loyal head.
They spoke of many things: of his Mother and her plans; of the journeys of his youth; of those waiting in her future. And then word had come that she was wanted, that the woman who ruled these high lands was growing impatient. So here she now sat, cross-legged at a fire, while the Mother of the Cave Dwellers regarded her thoughtfully. The woman was even greater than Maniye remembered: a huge, slope-shouldered shape clad in the hides of a score of animals, stitched and overlapping.
‘I thought you’d be bigger,’ the woman muttered, almost a complaint. ‘Show me what you have with you.’
So many times, Maniye had been asked that. There had been plenty who had wanted her to perform for them: to dance from shape to shape just to prove that she could. She remembered what Asmander had said, when he was asked the same, and she knew it to be true. The Champion was not for casual display. It was not called on lightly.
But she guessed that the Mother did nothing lightly, and so she Stepped into the shape of the Champion, her bear-dog, and crouched there, head raised a little above her paws, looking the huge woman directly in the eye.
Eventually the Mother nodded, not seeming daunted, but just weary. ‘All I’ve heard is true. Take it away.’
‘Mother,’ Maniye said, when she had Stepped back, ‘I have heard it said that you see the future.’
The great woman snorted derisively. ‘No art to that,’ she muttered. ‘Tell me the sun will rise and you’ve told the future. But some see further. Some have better eyes. That old Snake who was at the Stone Place back in spring, he had good eyes, and good ears too, for he listened to every tribe.’
‘Hesprec said something was coming,’ Maniye agreed, ‘something bad. He said that everyone he spoke to had some piece of it, some glimpse. And you, you’ve seen the same?’
The Bear Mother grunted. A child came in just then – ten or twelve, and taller than Maniye – with a wooden platter of meat and fish hot from the fire. For a while the big woman just ate, as though she had entirely forgotten her guest, but at last she grudgingly invited Maniye to join her, her calculating eyes showing that she had been turning over her thoughts.
‘Something, yes. Enough word, enough signs. Birds flying out of season or on new paths, news from the Seal that the fish are schooling differently, flowers in bloom not seen for a lifetime, too many bad dreams, too many frightened children. And so we know something comes, but we’re blind as to what. So we try to prepare.’
‘You had Loud Thunder as your warleader?’
The Mother laughed. ‘And what use did we have of him? Some half-hearted lessons in war to our hunters, and then he must go chasing across the Crown of the World after his lack-wit Wolf friend. And yet . . . so many changes in the world, and one of them sits right before me now. And so perhaps that was what we chose Loud Thunder for: to see that you became what you have become. You see? Prophecy is even easier if you offer it after the event.’ She worried some more meat off a goat leg and chewed thoughtfully. ‘I had thought a war between the Wolf and the Tiger might be the start of it, but now it seems this will not be.’
‘With Stone River dead, there is none left so very desperate to be High Chief over the Tiger’s corpse. Perhaps the Wolf begin to see that they need none,’ Maniye said. ‘And the Tiger keep to their places, for now.’
‘And this you have accomplished?’
The girl shrugged. ‘It is just a madness that passed from the world when my f—when Stone River left it.’
‘And the Coyote and the Horse bring word and trade,’ the Mother mused. ‘And who knows what tomorrow’s tomorrow may bring?’ She leant ponderously forwards, casting Maniye in her shadow. ‘And now what will you do, little one? For I hear you make the people of these lands nervous.’
‘The chiefs fear that, if I am not theirs, I will threaten their power. They make me their guest, they speak kind words to me, some even offer themselves or their hunters as mates. But when I tell them I am not ready to settle, I see the worry in their eyes. The Wolf tribes, yes, and the others, too. I am too new in the world, and they remember Stone River and see him in me. They think I am ambitious.’
‘And of course they have no reason to think so?’
‘I cannot control what young fools do,’ Maniye snapped bitterly.
The Bear Mother chuckled deep in her throat. ‘How disappointed they must be, those bold hunters, when you send them away.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or do you?’
‘Most times, they will not go. They skulk like dogs at the edge of my firelight, or hunt and bring me meat and hides.’ One or two at first, and then a handful, and surely there were more on the way: misfits, mystics and bravos out for glory and adventure, and all of them had decided that their best trail was the one left by her new footprints. They came to the Champion and offered their weapons in her service. And so the chiefs of the Crown of the World grew more nervous, and Maniye could not keep from wondering what she might gain if she mustered these followers. What sort of power could she become, with a warband at her back?
And even before the equinox – where she had stood before those chiefs and priests and seen that she had gone in their eyes from being a bringer of peace to a harbinger of strife – she had seen her path. She wanted to
give no man cause to strike out at her but, more, she wanted to give herself no way to yield to temptation and strike first. She was no daughter of Stone River but she had grown up in his shadow, and that shadow moved in her mind sometimes and whispered about what she might do.
‘When I first fled the Winter Runners, I had a plan. The Snake priest and I, we would fly south to his homeland. I know a man who brings a handsome offer to any Iron Wolves who might come to aid his chief, there by the river they love so much. I will go south for a time. I will go with Hesprec and the southerners and any who will follow me. I remember Broken Axe telling me that, when he was young, he and Loud Thunder did just that, fought battles and had adventures and saw strange lands. Now I shall do the same. And when I come back to the Crown of the World, it will be more ready for me, I hope.’
‘When you come back, it may need you.’ There was a great deal of foreboding in the Mother’s voice, but Maniye just shrugged.
‘I’ve had enough of being gifted with futures. None of those I was offered ever appealed to me. Broken Axe, he made his own – and so will I.’
Acknowledgements
The usual suspects, of course: my agent Simon, Peter Lavery, Julie Crisp and the rest of the crew at Tor, without any of whom this book would not have come to pass.
Also, having worked at some places that treated being a writer as akin to contracting leprosy, I am very grateful to Blacks Solicitors of Leeds for being both supportive and flexible.
Finally, I am also enormously thankful to the many, many people who have supported my writing thus far. Sometimes writing can be a very lonely business, and someone just saying hi on Twitter or posting a humorous insect video on Facebook can take a lot of the gloom off.
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself, he subsequently ended up in law. He has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor. He has also trained in stagefighting, and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind – possibly excepting his son. He’s the author of the critically acclaimed Shadows of the Apt series, Children of Time and Guns of the Dawn.
www.shadowsoftheapt.com
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Shadows of the Apt
Empire in Black and Gold
Dragonfly Falling
Blood of the Mantis
Salute the Dark
The Scarab Path
The Sea Watch
Heirs of the Blade
The Air War
War Master’s Gate
Seal of the Worm
Echoes of the Fall
The Tiger and the Wolf
Other novels
Guns of the Dawn
Children of Time
First published 2016 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2016 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-77007-2
Copyright © Adrian Czajkowski 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock
Map artwork by Michael Czajkowski
The right of Adrian Czajkowski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.
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Table of Contents
Title page
Dedication page
Contents
Map
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
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18
19
20
21
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29
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39
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48
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Copyright page
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 58
