In between the men were the cats, shoulders high as Hesprec’s ribs, eyes narrow with green fire, their coats leaping out from the shadows when they moved, fading into nothing when they were still.
Therumit faced them down with a masterful arrogance. ‘You will not raise a hand against the Serpent.’
To Hesprec’s surprise, that sent a shiver of wariness through them. There would be some strange old stories told at the hearths of these hunters about the old times. Did they have doom-filled prophecies of Serpent’s vengeful return? Did they all bear the mark of their forebears’ ancient treachery?
Therumit guided her horse forward one more step, stick upraised. Hesprec knew full well how fierce her fellow priestess could look, no matter what face she wore. The warriors before her backed off, anger vying with fear naked on their faces.
She almost saw the movement in time to cry a warning, but by the time her mouth was open, the jaguar was already in the air. The big cat landed claws out on the haunches of Therumit’s mount and the beast reared up, screaming. She fell back from the saddle, landing in a looping nest of coils, rearing up higher than a man to menace them with her fangs. Hesprec Stepped alongside her, choosing a more slender shape that might go unseen for vital moments, dropping into the thick greenery that was sprouting between the stones of the path.
The attacking jaguar was still mauling the horse, but the others had made a move for Therumit. More than half had lost their nerve almost instantly, leaving only a handful with the courage to brave her. Hesprec lashed her body forwards, striking five feet out and then recoiling herself, seeing one Jaguar warrior drop with his leg gashed, the venom already starting to shake him. That sent another tumbling back, swiping at the undergrowth around him as though there were serpents everywhere. The remaining two met Therumit’s full wrath.
Her coils surged and coursed within one another like wheels, impossible to know where she was going until she was already there. One of the Jaguar was lost within them instantly, looped about the chest and arms and throat, legs kicking frantically. The final attacker swept his club at her body, the beak slanting away from her scales. Therumit reared higher, almost to the branches above, then struck down at him like a hammer, driving her fangs into his eyes.
Momentarily, Hesprec thought they would flee, but there was a sound from deeper in the overgrown city – a braying horn sounding some uncomfortable, jarring note. It did not give the warriors courage, but it gave them desperation, and abruptly they were thronging in, getting in one another’s way, spear-shafts rattling against each other as they tried to pin the Serpents down. Therumit Stepped again, from great constrictor down to ribbon-thin viper that squirmed between their legs like an eel. They lashed at her – carved up the earth and bloodied their own shins – but she was out from their knot and already lunging back to send a jawfull of poison into an errant foot. Hesprec took that moment to Step larger, erupting from the undergrowth as a great black snake rising as high as their heads, spreading a hood that flashed fierce eyes at them and sending them tumbling back. They were terrified, yet they were not fleeing, and all this show would only work for so long. Neither she nor Therumit had limitless venom and the numbers would tell. They must either flee into the unknown jungle or fight and fall.
A club cast its shadow over her and she shrank and darted away. Feet were trampling everywhere, threatening to crush her even if their owners did not realize it. She darted for the nearest leg and wound up it, climbing the man in rapid zig-zags as she would have done a tree. He cried out and tried to grasp her slender body but she slipped out from his fingers and threatened his face with her fangs. Then one of the others lashed at her and struck his fellow full in the head. She heard the skull crack like an egg from the force of it and dropped to earth with the dying body, already twisting to see where the next blow would come from.
But in that moment they were fleeing, gibbering and calling to one another in some bizarre speech from which she could make out one word in three.
We scared them off! But the thought died even as she tasted it. They had been crammed full of fear of serpents and still tried to fight. Some other force had mastered them in the end. She watched them plunge between the trees and her heart almost stopped when a great grey shape lunged from the shadows to bowl three of them over, seizing one in its fangs and bearing him away. A shape with many legs, larger than a horse. The spiders she had seen in the canopy were mere hatchlings compared to it.
She Stepped back to her human shape, feeling new bruises. Beside her, Therumit had done the same, levering herself to her feet and drawing her dignity about herself like a mantle.
Their hosts had arrived.
At first they seemed too bright to look at: radiant with silver and gold as though they had stolen the secrets of the sun and moon, striding through the forest like gods. Perhaps that was what the Jaguar saw, but Hesprec had lived enough lifetimes to see through such trivial matters. They were not truly lustrous, but it was the thought they placed in the eyes of those who looked upon them. And if you were not looking for it, you’d not see the emptiness within them. Maybe that’s how they fooled our ancestors. Which was less shaming? That their ancestors had lacked the wisdom to pierce this glamour, or that they had been blinded by their own pride.
Hesprec saw a dozen of them: eight women, four men. All were very fair, unnaturally pale. Had that inner absence not been apparent to her, no doubt she would have found them beautiful. They wore robes of shimmering gossamer that were likewise beautiful until she considered what must have spun them. Some had armour of hide that was ornamented with gold. Most wore bands of precious metal at their wrists and ankles and necks, enough that they could not have Stepped – although of course they had no shape to Step into, without a soul to gift it to them. So are they children, then? Children who never grow up? She felt it was a dangerous comparison.
There were spiders amongst them – some that crawled on their bodies or amidst their clothes, toying with the silks as though adjusting their fit. Others with iridescent bodies crouched on their breasts like jewels. Larger beasts ran beside them, grey and hairy and long-legged. If Hesprec had only glanced, and not truly seen, she might have thought they were accompanied by nothing more than hounds.
Therumit glanced for her horse, seeing it mauled and dead. Hesprec’s beast had remained nearby, more spooked by its surroundings than the bloodshed.
‘When last we met,’ she said, ‘a companion of mine introduced you to our customs of host and guest.’ She faced the glare of their glamour with barely a narrowing of her eyes. ‘Now see how we are met, who were invited.’
She expected them to retort with some piece of arrogance, but instead one of their women stepped forward, and she recognized none other than Galethea, their ambassador from the Estuary.
‘We are not all of one mind, one heart here,’ she said. ‘Please, come with us to the palace of our house. You will be safe there.’
Hesprec doubted that very much, not sure whether division within the Pale Shadow was something to fear or exploit. She glanced at Therumit in time to see the old priestess nod curtly. Without a word she snagged the reins of the surviving horse and hoisted herself into the saddle. She held a hand out to Hesprec, who Stepped into a little serpent and climbed up it, finding a roost about Therumit’s shoulders. Let the other woman do the talking; she would watch.
And watch she did, as the party of the Pale Shadow passed through the forest, noting how the buildings grew less ruined – how there were signs of occupation: cloth at the doorways, lights in the windows. She saw men and women of the Jaguar who were plainly the servants or slaves of the Pale Shadow – they knelt when the shining entourage passed by, and averted their faces from any sight of the Serpent.
And yet so few, Hesprec thought. She was reminded of the Shining Halls of the Tiger, a great power laid low by their losses in the war against the Wolf. So what war came here? But she sensed some more final hand was laid on this place than mere brawling. T
here was a gauntness to their hosts’ faces, a brittle precision to their motions. Had they been real humans she might have thought that a plague was stalking here, eating away at them even as they ate away at themselves. She had the sense of arriving at the ending of something nobody should witness.
But then that’s true of all the world right now, and if it were not for that I would never be walking in these shadows, and nor would any sane human.
4
The little band of northerners had attracted a lot of interest from the Plainsfolk. Grass Shadow’s people showed them off like a trophy: See who our guests are! Lion and Boar warriors turned up in bands of four or five to stare and measure themselves against the foreigners. Many wanted to touch the Wolf-iron. Sometimes they tried to barter for it: tools, livestock or the gold and bronze jewellery the Plains people were so adept at crafting. Amelak appointed herself chief diplomat to these people, pointing out tactfully that the Plainsfolk could not Step with the metal: strong as it was, it was useless to them.
Others came for purposes of their own. Errant children from some fire or other would chase the little coyote Sathewe through the camp. It hurt Maniye, but the little animal her friend had become seemed to enjoy the attention – just as she would when she had a human face – so she let it be. She was more concerned with the lean Leopard man, Tensho, who had taken to standing at the edge of her camp, staring directly at her. It was a challenge, Maniye knew. She asked Shyri about the Leopard, and the Laughing Girl had little good to say. They were an ill-omened people, living in the shadows and good only at stalking and killing. Most of the Leopard stories they told on the Plains were about murder and treachery, unwanted guests, missing children.
Maniye wondered what stories the Leopard told. At last, because she couldn’t ignore the man, she hailed him to the warband’s fire, ready to make a fight of it should matters go that way.
Tensho reminded Maniye a little of the Tiger, in the face and the coppery skin. The Tiger had come north from the Plains long ago, kin to the Lion and the Leopard, they said. One generation ago, two maybe, and there had been a loose-knit alliance of Cat tribes that had held a swathe of the Plains and half the Crown of the World. Then the Wolf had broken the Tiger, and some similar fate had fractured the unity of the Lion, but what of the Leopard? They were not numerous, not empire-builders. So . . .
‘So what do you want?’ Maniye asked flatly.
Tensho arched his eyebrows. He sat very still at the fire, like a branch drawn back that could be released at any time. There were neat parallel scars on his cheeks and shoulders and his shaved scalp gleamed. ‘You are the Champion, they say.’ His voice was low, enough that Maniye had to resist the urge to lean in to listen.
‘If you’ve come to see the Champion, you’ve seen her,’ Maniye pointed out.
‘You ask your guest to leave so soon?’ That raised eyebrow again.
‘You come to my camp uninvited. Tell me your purpose and I will share our food with you or I will ask you to go. Until then you’ve not become a guest of mine.’
Tensho stared at her for a long time and Maniye matched him, glower for glower. She could tell just how dangerous the man was – swift and strong and eminently confident in his ability to kill. On the other hand, Maniye was the Champion, and the Champion’s soul within her would not let her back down. So she just locked gazes with the man and waited to see which way the branch would spring.
And at last Tensho’s gaze dipped. ‘These fools will not listen to the Leopard,’ he said sullenly, a cock of his head taking in perhaps the whole Plains.
Maniye just shrugged, as if to say the doings of Plainsfolk were hardly her concern.
‘Since when does the Leopard care?’ Shyri’s voice cut in. Maniye grimaced inwardly, but she would have to trust her friend knew what she was doing.
Tensho spat, eloquently showing just how much the Leopard would normally care. Then he shook his head. ‘One came to my fire, seeking words with the war chiefs of the Plains here.’
‘Why did they not come to the Black Eyes’ fire?’ Maniye asked him.
‘For the same reason I do not. They are not welcome. The Wild Dog and the rest have made themselves mad telling spirit stories about them over their fires each night, until even to see a Leopard has them scrabbling to deflect our curses and our magic.’ He sounded more amused than annoyed at this. ‘But as the Leopard are to these fools, so the one who came to my fire is to the Leopard. So I intercede for them, and ask you to intercede for me.’
‘Who asks a Leopard to be their speaker?’ Shyri demanded incredulously. ‘Why you?’
A new emotion rippled on Tensho’s face briefly. ‘It was payment of a debt.’
Maniye opened her mouth to ask, but something in his expression suggested the debt had been a complex, perhaps shameful thing. Certainly nothing that could have been paid off with meat or hides.
‘So who is this friend of yours?’ Maniye asked him. ‘I can’t just go to the Black Eyes and say “Someone wants to sit at your fire.”’
Tensho told her, and she didn’t understand who the man meant, or the reason for Shyri’s sudden intake of breath in her ear.
Then the old stories came back to her and she remembered the Owl priest, Grey Herald, talking through How We Escaped the Plague People.
‘Yes,’ she said immediately. ‘Bring them to our fire. I will take them to the Black Eyes, to the Lions, to all of them.’
A commotion struck up from just beyond the circle of her warband and she leapt up, ready for anything. Even that was enough for Tensho to slip away, for when Maniye looked back he was already gone.
She Stepped to wolf feet to run. The world resolved itself into a texture of sounds and scents her human senses had not guessed at. Instantly she knew who was at the centre of the ruckus, and normally she would have turned away, exasperated. This time there was a new odour clinging to him that was not just the reek of his own mischief.
Most of her warband were Wolves, hunters and warriors and renegades seeking a banner and a cause. One had been a Coyote before the Plague People lessened her. One was a Crow. He called himself Feeds on Rags but his true name was Feeds on Dreams. The name was a curse on him for destroying the lives of others with his ill-thought schemes and rash actions. She should have turned him away, no doubt, but he was useful and there was no malice in him, any more than there was forethought. The Coyote, Sathewe, had been his closest confidante. He had sworn some sort of vengeance against the Plague People after their power touched her. Whatever vengeance a Crow can enact.
Now he had swooped down and Stepped, hopping from foot to foot, waving a bronze mace in one hand and crying out that he had slain the enemy. There was something at his feet that smelled sharp and wrong to her wolf nose. But he couldn’t have flown with one of their bodies . . .
As she arrived, Feeds was already arguing with Spear Catcher. ‘It is one of them!’ the Crow insisted, brandishing his cudgel. ‘I have taken the battle to the Plague People! I have slain one!’
‘They look like men!’ Spear Catcher insisted. ‘That’s no man.’
‘It is one of them, Stepped to their beasts,’ Feeds insisted furiously.
‘They have no souls! How can they Step?’ the Wolf warrior demanded. Then Maniye took on the shape of the Champion and bellowed in all their ears because it was the quickest way to remind them whose warband they were a part of.
In the echo of that, she took her human shape again and asked, ‘What is it? What have you killed, idiot bird?’
He cringed a little from the insult, but she still held him responsible for what had happened to Sathewe, as did he when he remembered. ‘Here!’ he cried, though, kicking at the thing by his feet.
She saw an insect there, save that it was the size of three of her hands together. Feeds must have been labouring in the air to carry such a thing. It was clearly dead, its shell cracked open and the curled body smeared with yellowish ichor. A beetle, and not the largest she had seen in the com
pany of the Plague People.
‘It is not one of them,’ she said quietly.
‘I told you—’ Spear Catcher started, but she held up a hand to quiet him.
‘It is of them,’ she stated. ‘It is a thing of theirs. Unless the Plains breeds these creatures?’
The Plainsfolk who had been drawn by the noise were quick to deny it. She drew a deep breath, thinking, Why must I always do the thinking? Where is Hesprec when I need her? ‘Where did you find this thing?’ she asked the Crow. ‘How far did you fly?’
‘There and back between dawn and noon, yes,’ Feeds on Dreams confirmed proudly.
Maniye said nothing, listening to the realization leap from head to head. Once people had begun to run off, to fetch their elders and betters, she asked over the murmuring, ‘Was it alone?’
‘There were others. Human-looking others,’ Feeds confirmed, and then skittered back at her expression. ‘Why are you angry? Was it I who put them there?’
‘You didn’t think to start with that?’ she yelled at him, once more regretting ever bringing him. The Plague People are already close. How far can a crow fly in half a morning? Feeds was swift when he wanted to be, but nobody had guessed the enemy were already gnawing at the edge of their cloak. She saw Grass Shadow pushing his way through the gathering crowd, demanding to know what was going on, and dragged Feeds close to her.
‘You remember everything, now. Remember, and tell it in the right order at the right time.’
There had been more than five, less than ten of them, Feeds wasn’t sure exactly. He hadn’t wanted to look at them much, nor attract their attention. Listening to his meandering account, his corrections and reversals, Maniye tried to imagine him there – off on a mission of his own making, seeking a revenge he couldn’t possibly exact. The Plague People had been pale and armoured, he recalled abruptly, breaking into his own recollection. They were dressed in the colours of sun and darkness.
The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3) Page 4
