The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  She had Stepped to her tiger shape and yowled and cuffed at the creature, yet without wanting to touch her at all, then bolted outside. Hesprec had sat with her for a long span of heartbeats before she was ready to try again. Before she once again felt herself on solid ground, without her very identity constantly under attack from their Terror.

  Their journey up the river had been in the company of Estuary warriors who had told of the fate of Tsokawan. The fortress was gone, the prince dead. Maniye thought of all the blood and ingenuity that had gone into saving Tecuman’s life. Had he some destined role that would now go unfulfilled? She somehow felt that the Plague People erased destiny as they erased everything else.

  Many people had told them that Asman was dead too. Shyri had taken the news with a tightened jaw and dry eyes. She had stopped her talk and her mockery and fallen into herself, clenching about the idea until Maniye felt that, had she touched the Laughing Girl, she would have been touching stone.

  It was only when they were in sight of Tecumet’s camp, with all its bright tents and bold flags, that Asman had found them – leaping in his Champion shape from the side of an overloaded boat, then coasting across the waters of the Tsotec on the leathery vanes of his winged form. He had landed before them, eyes wide and about to remark on the miraculous nature of their survival, and Shyri had attacked him. Not to kill, no knives or teeth, or he would have been a dead man, but kicking and punching and cursing his name every way the Plains knew how.

  When she had done, the somewhat bruised Asman had looked down at her and said, ‘On the River we just say we’re glad to see our friends.’

  ‘On the River you’re all stupid,’ Shyri had snapped, and Asman had agreed that, yes, probably that was so.

  Now he had gone to tell Tecumet that her brother was dead and her eastern fortress lost, a story already running swift between the fires of the camp. Maniye had wanted to do many things. She wanted to go and find her friend Moon Eye, who was with Tecumet’s Stone People Champion, Tchoche. She wanted to ask for any news of her warband that might come out of the chaos to the north. Most of all she wanted to sleep for two days and nights, but of all things that luxury would not be extended to her.

  But Hesprec was politely insistent. She had explained what Galethea was, retold the tales of the Oldest Kingdom and the Pale Shadow People.

  Galethea needed to hear what Maniye had seen. Hesprec had lived a long life collecting knowledge, and now she was faced with an enemy she could not understand. Perhaps the Pale Shadow could throw light on Maniye’s experiences as a prisoner.

  And so Maniye fought back her trembling. She found that part of her which feared, the last trace of that barb that had felt like a crippling wound in her. She called the Champion to her left side, the Tiger and the Wolf to her right, and told that fear: I cannot indulge you. I am sorry.

  And she re-entered the tent, holding that part of herself tight in her hands to stop it running through her mind setting fires.

  Galethea had a hollow face. It was pleasant enough, but she had exactly the same yawning hunger behind her that all the enemy did. And yet, as she sat there trying to be meek and unthreatening, she did something to herself. Maniye never saw her change, but heartbeat to heartbeat it was as though she painted herself, thicker and thicker layers over that pale face until she was beautiful and the hollowness was all but hidden.

  It was Plague People magic, like their ephemeral wings, some way they drew upon the emptiness within. Such gifts! And yet Hesprec had said that the Pale Shadow would give it all up for a soul to stopper that hunger.

  She sat with Galethea, listening to the woman ask questions in her accented speech, telling of all the madness she had seen. And she could see that so much of it meant nothing to the hollow woman. The flying ship with its fire, the killing rods and their invisible darts, even the different tribes of Plague People, all of it was either lost from the myths of the Pale Shadow, or else it had arisen after they fled their first home. And that was a strange thought: in the stories the Plague People were a force, forever waiting to devour the world, but a constant thing. Now it seemed that, in the long generations since they had lost their prey, they had been learning too.

  Maniye studied Galethea as the woman spoke. Every so often the mask of humanity slipped, reminding her that she was sitting in a tent with a monster. And yet such a desperate monster, such an obliging one! A monster that wants to be human. The Plague People out there did not want to be human, Maniye decided.

  Galethea agreed. ‘They do not understand what it is. They do not understand there is any other way than their own. They look at you and see beasts.’

  Maniye frowned at her.

  ‘They were curious about you. They saw you Step but they do not know about souls, and what they mean. They could not understand you.’

  Maniye thought about the two strange Plague People, the dark ones, and nodded cautiously.

  ‘Tell me of the Terror,’ Galethea prompted her, and so she did: how it felt in her, the way it affected others, the shield the Champion made that saved her.

  ‘You were the first live human they ever saw,’ Galethea identified. ‘All the rest were corpses and animals driven mindless by the fear of them. And so in their minds they were fighting animals. And that is an easy thing for those without souls, who do not have . . . mute brothers?’

  Maniye nodded. So when the Plague People die, they’re just . . . gone? No rebirth, no Godsland. Looking into Galethea’s deceptive eyes she thought she saw the truth buried deep there. The Pale Shadow know. Another reason they are so greedy for souls of their own.

  ‘You must have baffled them,’ the pale woman said in a small voice. ‘They couldn’t have known what you were. Perhaps it will make them think.’

  Abruptly Maniye shook her head. ‘Not the first human – the children, remember. What did they want with the children?’

  Galethea opened her mouth and then shut it again. Maniye could almost see the thoughts moving behind her eyes. At last she said, ‘I think they wanted to save them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have children,’ the Pale Shadow woman said. ‘Do not think we don’t have children of our own, and care for them. And so the Plague People came with their Terror, and they found deserted villages and maddened beasts, and children. Children who had no souls yet, and so children just like their children back in their home across the sea. What would they do?’

  ‘Kill them, if they hate us so much.’ But Maniye faltered in saying it. Except for the white-eyed priest, she had not felt hate from her captors. She would have welcomed hate; she would have understood it. Instead she had met with . . . not even incomprehension, but a failure to see there was anything to comprehend. The Plague People were obliterating her world without ever realizing what they crushed beneath their feet.

  And the children they took would grow up without souls, and become more of the Plague People, and Galethea was saying that they would see this as some great kindness.

  Abruptly she felt sick and could not stay in the tent any longer.

  She woke next morning, fighting the blanket, waiting for the leaden weight of the Terror to descend on her. The sun against the cotton of the tent was light shining on her through pale shadows, and any moment the two dark Plague People would walk in and demand she Step for them. And it was worse now, because in some small way she understood. They wanted her to Step because they were trying to understand. They were trying to understand how it was she could take their shape, when she was just a beast to them.

  But then a cool hand touched her, and became the dry scales of a serpent that wound herself about Maniye’s arm. She froze, and for a long time just let Hesprec lay her little head upon the back of her hand, the slightest of weights, but no less comforting for that. She was no longer a prisoner. Her friend had come for her.

  Later, when she was ready, she went to stand before the Kasra of the Sun River Nation, Tecumet in all her masked finery. Asman stood beside her, loo
king grim. Last night he would have given Tecumet the news of the twin wounds: her brother and her country. There were lines of small dark bruises across his face, and Maniye stared at them blankly before seeing them as the dents of teeth, where the Stepped Tecumet in her grief had taken her mate in her jaws. A testament to the Kasra’s self-control, that she had gone so far and yet hauled herself from the brink.

  Esumit, the Kasra’s chief priestess, spoke for her, praising the Champion of the Crown of the World’s victory over the Plague People, even as she praised Tecuman for defeating the enemy at Chumatla. No word was spoken about the sequel to that battle. The prince’s victory was left to stand unchallenged. And so it should, Maniye knew. Travelling upriver, she had spoken to those who had fought there. She had heard version after version of that battle, each more lurid than the last, but the skill of the strategy and the courage of the fighters had shone through.

  Beside the throne, fat Tchoche the Stone Man slouched, bedecked in the massive weight of his bronze armour. Maniye had fought the man before; Stepped, he was a monster, savage beyond the dreams of wolves and tigers. Her former follower Moon Eye sat at the man’s feet, looking calmer than ever she had known. The Champions of the Stone Kingdoms knew a lot about putting a leash on rage.

  ‘The Kasra asks what you will do now?’ Esumit asked, and Maniye started.

  Maniye could not remember how she was supposed to address Tecumet, or even who to speak to. ‘I . . .’ she said, feeling hollow as the enemy, not an idea inside her. Help me, she asked her souls.

  The Champion rose within her. As so often, it knew what was right. ‘I will go north to where the Plainsmen are. I hear there is a great gathering of them. I will tell them what I know of the Plague People. I will try to find my warband, if any yet lives of it. I will fight the enemy.’

  Tecumet’s mask nodded ponderously, and Esumit said, ‘None would think any less of you if you thought your part in the war done, but the Daybreak Throne is not surprised. Your Champion soul will be proud of you.’

  Maniye forced herself to nod back. She did not feel anything worthy of pride. She felt as though her Champion soul was a crutch, without which she would collapse.

  ‘Will you travel alone, or would you go with my own emissaries to the Plains?’ Esumit asked, for Tecumet. ‘For I will march my own soldiers north soon enough, and I must prepare the path for them lest the Plainsfolk think we are their enemies still, and not their friends.’

  ‘Will you send Asmand—Asman?’ Maniye asked. Abruptly she wanted that very much. The company of another Champion would be very welcome indeed.

  She saw Tecumet’s beringed hands twist, her shoulders hunch within the heavy robe. Esumit was nodding sagely though. ‘The Kasrani’s presence will show our good faith. This is no time for mistrust between allies.’

  Maniye confirmed that Asman’s presence would be very welcome, and then shuffled aside so the next petitioner could stand before the Kasra, some clan chief come to boast of the spears he had brought. Released from the mask’s august glower, Maniye backed away to the tent’s entrance and then turned to leave.

  She came face to face with a small man, half his face painted in stark black patterns, the other half plain. He was bare chested, his woollen tunic tied about his waist because it was too hot to wear in the southern heat, even with the breeze from the river.

  She stared at him, heart hammering. He looked just as startled, regarding her with first one eye, then the other.

  ‘Feeds on Dreams,’ she named him.

  ‘Many Tracks,’ he returned. And here he was, the least reliable, the most troublesome of all her warband, but alive still. Here he was, with word from the north where some of her followers yet lived.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t want to leave you here,’ Asman said. Idly, he rubbed at the bruises left by Tecumet’s teeth. He didn’t begrudge her. Her reaction to the news of Tecuman’s death had matched his own. She had Stepped on the instant, grief too much for a human frame to contain. When her jaws had closed on him, he had felt it the most perfect expression of their shared feelings.

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’ They were both in Tecumet’s tent, the regalia of the Kasra set aside for another day. She sat on her furs, wearing nothing but her shift, the cool air making the hairs prick up on her arms and neck. ‘But I am facing the deed every Kasra before me has wished to do, and turned back from. I am leading all the River’s spears into the Plains. If I arrive unheralded then the Plague People will find only the corpses of both sides.’

  ‘There are others you could send,’ he said, without conviction. ‘The Serpent.’

  ‘Oh, at least one of the Serpent will be with you,’ Tecumet said, shaking her head. ‘And too clever even for her fellows, that one. You have not spoken with the creature she brought from the south. Esumit does not know what to make of any of it. But the Plainsfolk never honoured Serpent’s priests.’

  ‘Nor will they honour me.’

  ‘Oh, they will. A Champion and the Kasrani both,’ Tecumet said bitterly. ‘And coming to them with but a handful, barely a warband. Why else would I send you into their jaws unless I was sincere.’ She spat. ‘I feel like your father, to use you so. And yes, some other might serve, but you will serve. I must give my nation the best of chances.’

  He sat beside her and she leant into him, huddling against him as he put his arms about her. The sounds of the camp were loud all around them, night notwithstanding, and yet that great murmur of humanity seemed tiny and fragile, somehow, against the greater backdrop of the empty dark.

  Asman woke before dawn, hearing careful movement outside the flap of the tent. In an instant he had leapt from beside Tecumet, standing on the Champion’s sickle-taloned feet within the stillness of the tent, imagining a hundred different enemies waiting outside in the grey light.

  It was Tchoche’s voice that sounded, though, a man simultaneously quiet enough to be deferential and loud enough to wake a sleeper. ‘A messenger for the Kasrani, so.’

  Regaining his human shape Asman ducked down to drag a robe about him, then stepped out into the chill.

  Tchoche stood there with a handful of his Stone Men, Tecumet’s bodyguard: stocky, ruddy warriors clad in heavy bronze. In their midst was an emaciated ash-skinned man wearing nothing but a loincloth, his body showing a life of poor meals and more than one whipping.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Asman asked softly.

  ‘Oloumec, so he says he is,’ Tchoche replied, drawing Asman a little way from the tent. ‘A slave, is also what he says, and bearer of a gift from his master, beyond those two things.’

  Asman studied the man, guessing him for a Salt Eater, one of the island people who braved the sea north-east of the Estuary. Their land was little more than rocks amidst the spray and they lived off fish and madness, according to most. They had come in answer to Tecuman’s muster, but this was none of their warriors.

  ‘Who is your master?’ he demanded.

  ‘None, once you take my gift from me.’ Oloumec’s voice was harsh and cracked. ‘I came all the way up the river a slave. I shall go home a free man.’

  ‘Your gift is not given yet,’ Asman pointed out, jabbing a finger at the leather bag Oloumec cradled in both hands. ‘Who is your master?’

  A smile that was at least three parts madness spread over the

  Salt Eater’s face. ‘He’s here. I brought him.’ He lifted up the bag, then flinched as one of the Stone Men snarled at him.

  Asman’s patience came to a ragged end. Lunging forwards he snatched the burden from the man and pulled open the thongs. One look inside was enough to confirm his suspicions. Salt; salt and a human head already wizened and dried.

  ‘Someone doesn’t know me very well, if this is what they send me,’ he remarked, showing Tchoche.

  ‘So it’s your master’s head you’re bringing us?’ Tecumet’s Champion asked. ‘Is this counted a good idea, among the Salt Eaters?’

  ‘No,’ Oloumec whispered. ‘Bu
t among the Dragon, yes.’

  Asman froze. ‘You come from the Dragon Isles?’

  ‘I was the slave of Gupmet,’ Oloumec whispered, ‘Gupmet who sat upon the Whalebone Seat and ruled the Black Teeth, greatest of all the tribes of the Dragon. I sat at his feet for many years and looked up to him. And then I carried him in a bag, and when I opened it up, he looked up to me.’ He grinned, terrified, exhilarated. ‘You’d know, he said. You’d know what the gift meant.’ It was obvious that he was not the unlamented Gupmet.

  Asman fought to still his racing heart. ‘Is he coming? Will he fight?’

  Oloumec’s bony shoulders shrugged, slightly out of time with each other. ‘It’s what the Dragon do, isn’t it? He spoke to my master’s mate and won her over, and then he gave me my master’s head, and he said you would know. Any questions, ask them of yourself.’

  ‘It’s a lot of teeth you’re showing there,’ Tchoche observed, ‘for a man holding a head in a sack.’

  But Asman let himself grin, because the Plague People were ending the world but at least Venat was on his way.

  19

  The dry warmth of the Plains was easier to bear Stepped than in human form, and easier at night than during the height of the day. It got hotter further south, so Loud Thunder was told by the Horse who were with them. He didn’t want to think about that. Their tales of the River Tsotec and the Patient Ones who basked on its banks could remain mere stories as far as he was concerned.

  They had left their own river, the Sand Pearl. Owls, Hawks and Ravens, and even the secretive messengers of the Bat had flown back and forth, scouting for where the Plainsfolk were. Not straight south, for certain. Not in any of the lands around Where the Fords Meet, or the lands west of that, or the lands west of that. There were signs of battle, bodies left for the hyena and the vulture, and there were abandoned villages.