‘Go to Thunder. Find out what’s going on. Stay well clear of—’
‘Yes–yes, I will,’ he promised her. There was a lot of fear on the air tonight; even Feeds had caught a breath of it and was being serious. Moments later he was just black wings vanishing into the black sky.
Maniye turned to see Alladai behind her.
‘You’re safe,’ she told him flatly.
‘My people,’ he said.
‘No, just stay here, with us,’ Maniye said. ‘We’ll find out what’s going on.’ His people were with Thunder’s, of course.
She saw his soul kick in him, hauling him towards the rest of the herd. She saw him master it. When he nodded it was him forcing himself to trust her, and give his choices over to her. The faith of her warband had never shaken her so much as Alladai’s trust. But then, worst come to worst, they could fight.
‘Some nonsense is starting up over there.’ Abruptly Kalameshli was at her shoulder, shrugging his armour shirt on over bare skin. ‘Get your iron on, child.’
She scowled at him, eight years old again just for a moment, and then she nodded. ‘Bring it to me,’ she said, craning to see what the closest shouting was. Her stature defeated her and she Stepped to the Champion, apologizing for using its greater height for such menial tasks. Reared onto her hind legs she would have dwarfed Loud Thunder’s bear, as she looked past heads and tents to see some kind of half-ordered gathering there – a handful of Plainsfolk shouting orders to the rest, bringing them to their feet with weapons in hand.
At last. She Stepped back so Kalameshli could dress her, helping the iron links over her head, and then she pushed forward, the Champion once more, shouldering effortlessly through the roiling crowd until she could hear what was said and who was shouting. She knew one of them instantly – the Lioness Reshappa, who had fought alongside Grass Shadow and Maniye herself in that first, fateful battle. There were two others, a Boar and a Wild Dog, and they were going through camps striking people with sticks and calling on them to arm themselves.
Maniye pushed on until they saw her, and she could add the weight of her presence to their demands. Already there seemed quite a crowd of armed Plainsfolk here, and surely other bands were gathering elsewhere – not the warriors of any given tribe, just whoever was within earshot and could take up a spear.
‘On, now!’ Reshappa was shouting. ‘On to defend your children! On for revenge for the dead we’ve lost! On for the blood of the enemy!’
But then a new voice spoke up, thin and piercing like a dagger-blade. ‘You cannot kill what they are with spears!’ it shrieked. ‘You cannot kill it with tooth or claw! Bring war against the Plague as you would against your neighbour and you will die a thing that does not know its enemy, nor even its kin!’ A haggard woman staggered through the crowd, arms thrown out, and the warriors fell back from her as though a single touch would damn them. ‘You cannot fight the Plague People with knives and arrows! You must fight them like you fight a fire.’
‘Shut her up!’ Reshappa bellowed, but though she raised her hand she would not strike the woman – another Rat Speaker, Maniye realized. The ragged robe the creature wore was rippling with a constant skittering motion. Maniye felt that laying a hand on her would transfer that burden of hidden vermin to her, and then perhaps the Rat words would be tumbling from her own jaws.
‘You fight a fire with a greater fire!’ the Rat Speaker screeched. ‘You starve it. You burn all before it until it has nothing to sustain it. You fear the Rat, you brave warriors? Then you should let your enemy fear the Rat more. Clean hands will not wipe out the stain of the Plague People from our lands!’ She shrieked out an appalling laugh, as shrill as if all the rodents about her had suddenly chorused it. ‘Come to the Rat. Become his weapons against the Plague. Come feed the Rat to make him strong, to make him your Champion!’
Maniye was ready for the crowd to scoff, to throw stones or beat the woman out of their camp, but she saw plenty of fear in their eyes, and more than fear in some. Some of them had a kind of hunger to them. What had the world promised them that was better than this? What else was there, but the total extinction that Maniye herself had been contemplating? In that moment she felt the tug of it, the unspeakable appeal the Rat words held. An end to worry. An end to loss.
She was about to speak, to shout down the gaunt creature, but the Rat held her one heartbeat too long and someone else took her place. A shudder went through the Rat Speaker as though all those unseen rodents leapt all at once, and then the woman’s grimy skin was ashen in the firelight. She tottered, mouth gaping but no more Rat words rushing forth, and then she fell. In her place, Stepping up from the shape of a viper on the ground, was Hesprec.
‘For the gods’ sake, make some order!’ the Serpent woman demanded. ‘I have been stilling the Rat’s voice from fire to fire.’
‘The Plague is here, River girl!’ Reshappa shouted at her.
‘Yes, yes it is!’ Hesprec shot back. ‘The Seven Tusks and the Torch Rock are out there trying to fight them, while you listen to the Rat here at your fires!’ Her voice swelled to take in everyone nearby. ‘The northerners are attacked even now. Ready your spears and bows! And have those who cannot fight leave their fires and go west, or would you have them here when the Plague arrives?’
Reshappa and her helpers went to the work with a will, trying to carve some semblance of order from a great mass of newly woken and terrified people. Hesprec shuddered and took a deep breath. Only now did Maniye see how tired she was.
‘I have sunk my teeth into three Rat Speakers already,’ she said.
‘Messenger!’ Asman bounded up. ‘I’ve followed a trail of bodies, when I followed you.’
‘This isn’t the last,’ Hesprec told him. ‘Listen to me, Asman, Kasrani. Gather your people. You must keep my guest safe.’
For a moment Maniye couldn’t understand who she meant, but then she remembered: Galethea.
‘The hollow creature?’ Asman demanded. ‘Surely there are more—’
‘No.’ Hesprec’s tone brooked no argument. ‘Keep her safe. We have no more like her. I do not want to stand somewhere in ten days’ time and say “If only we still had her.” Go, keep her safe.’
‘Where is safe? The whole camp’s gone mad with fear. It’s like a dam bursting out there!’ That Asman would speak to a Serpent priest that way showed just how far he’d been pushed already.
‘Take her to Loud Thunder and hope his shadow is big enough,’ Hesprec told him. ‘Go now, Champion.’ When Shyri made to run after him, the Serpent priest caught at her arm. ‘Not you. I need allies against the Rat, and Hyena are next best after Serpent.’
‘I’m not yours, Snake,’ Shyri snapped, but she stayed, eyes on Asman’s disappearing back.
Maniye Stepped to stand tall and look around again. There were little islands of spears forming, scattered across the camp, but the great bulk of the people – all those who had fled the Plague and then fled it again – had no mind for fighting yet another doomed battle. She saw men and women snatching up whatever they could and fleeing, trying to push past others fleeing a different way. She saw children on shoulders and in arms, screaming with a fear they could not understand. Here an old man was knocked down, falling underfoot; here two women fought, Stepping into the shape of lions to snarl and cuff at each other.
She understood them. She wanted to rail and curse and decry them as cowards, but she felt the same fear within her. If she had not played host to a Champion’s soul she would be running too. And the words of the Rat echoed in her head, surely spoken from a score of borrowed throats this night: you cannot fight the Plague as you would your neighbour. Not spears, not knives, not courage, not hope. None of these things would prevail against the Plague People.
‘Many Tracks!’ Feeds pushed up close enough that she almost stood on him, Kalameshli behind him. ‘Many Tracks, Loud Thunder’s people have fought. Some dead, some . . .’ His hands clutched the air for a word which described what the Te
rror did. ‘The Bear says he will go fight when the Plainsmen are ready.’
They will not be ready, Maniye thought. Not this night. She fell back down into her human shape, insignificant against all the confusion around her. ‘The warband must go to him,’ she decided. ‘Bring all the Plains warriors they can. Spear Catcher?’
‘Here.’
‘Gather every spear, every spear you can find. Tell every warrior they must go to where Thunder is camped.’ She looked around, feeling the fear rush in now she did not have the Champion’s mass of flesh and thick hide to keep it out. ‘No grand battle tonight, Spear Catcher. But there are far too many here who cannot fight and can barely run.’
‘I understand.’ And then Spear Catcher was off to round up the warband. She felt a sudden stab of worry for him, and it leapt to her thoughts of Alladai, and then everyone, everyone she knew.
She looked around for Hesprec – surely the Serpent would know what to do. After a moment she spotted her – the River girl was kneeling, hands to the ground; for a moment Maniye thought someone had struck her, but then she straightened up, a determined look on her face. She has touched the Serpent’s back, Maniye thought. She is hunting where the Rat has touched.
Hesprec turned to her, about to give some order that would set all the world to rights and tie it all together with the wisdom of the Serpent, but before she could speak, someone slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. In the general panic, Maniye thought it must be mere accident, but then three or four ragged figures had leapt from the crowd onto her. One had a cord about the Serpent girl’s throat even as the others wrestled with her limbs. Close by, another rake-thin figure rose up, hands lifted to the oblivious heavens. ‘Hear me, and put down your spears and knives!’
Shyri had thrown herself onto the bundle of struggling figures around Hesprec and came away with one of them, hyena jaws closing on a thin arm with an audible crunch of bone. The others were already pulling their prize away, seeming to rush through the crowd with impossible speed, as though beneath them was nothing but a carpet of rodents bearing them in and out of the stamping feet. Kalameshli surprised Maniye by lunging past her, jaws snapping at their vanishing heels, and then the three of them were rushing, pushing, threatening and shouting their way through the press of humanity, hearing the crazed voices of the Rat Speakers rising on all sides.
And they were heading east, Maniye knew. When the camp suddenly began to thin out around them, she understood it. The fires were cold, the tents abandoned, possessions and the occasional corpse left in the wake of the fugitives; they were rushing from the Plainsfolk towards the enemy, out into the night where the Plague People had come from.
And there was no sign of Hesprec or her captors then. They had spirited themselves away into the night, and even Maniye’s wolf nose could not find their scent amidst such a morass of fear and desperation.
She turned away, her muzzle casting left and right, snarling in frustration. Shyri Stepped, though, knife in her hand and staring into the night.
‘They will keep her alive until they can kill her properly,’ she said flatly. ‘The Rat doesn’t often get a Serpent’s bones to feast on, nor her soul.’
Maniye followed her gaze out into the dark, and remembered what she had seen out there, on her way in. Stepping, she asked, ‘What does “properly” mean? A sacred place?’
Shyri met her gaze. ‘Some place the Rat has touched, yes. Some place sealed away, where his reek is still strong. So, yes: the Horn-Bearer fortress will be closest for them.’
‘But you said it was sealed . . .’
‘Nothing is so sealed that the Rat cannot creep in.’
‘Can we get in?’ Kalameshli demanded.
Maniye stared at him. ‘You?’
He scowled at her. ‘The little Serpent and I have an understanding, priest to priest. And you stopped the Wolf eating her, so why should the Rat have the pleasure?’
‘We can get in,’ Shyri interrupted. ‘I can get us in. The Hyena knows the Rat better than anyone.’ She had more to say, and did not say it.
The Plague People were out there, on the ground, in the air, who knew? Perhaps the sealed fortress was already theirs, a trap even for the Rat that had claimed it. But Maniye needed Hesprec. She needed a world with Hesprec in it.
‘Lead, please,’ she said to Shyri, and the Laughing Girl was Stepped and running in the next heartbeat.
22
There was shouting all the way across the camp, and beyond it Loud Thunder could hear a great human rumble that was the panic of the Plains refugees, who had run this far and now were made to run again.
In the first moments of waking, knowing only that the sentries he had set had failed and the enemy were already here, he could understand none of it. He Stepped instinctively, bellowing out at the world to try and scare it into making sense. There were more frightening things abroad than a woken bear, though. He caught a faint whiff of the Terror and knew it was the Plague warriors.
He blundered between camps, man and bear and man again, until he found Mother. Of course the dutiful son must make sure that she was not in danger, and nobody would know it was Kailovela he was looking for.
They were all together: Mother, Empty Skin, the Hawk woman and her little monster. Some chiefs and messengers were already rushing up with news, babbled and contradictory. Thunder watched Icefoot and the Owl’s Grey Herald and Seven Mending try to understand what was happening, each story coming in too late, while the unseen fight seemed to pluck at the edges of their camp like a swarm of flies.
Loud Thunder had just made up his mind to head east until he ran out of fires and see the enemy for himself, when two coyotes dashed past his ankles and then Stepped right in Mother’s shadow. Two Heads Talking was gasping for breath, wheezing as he tried to recover. He pushed his mate forwards, Quiet When Loud sitting down heavily and shielding her belly.
‘They’ve taken the Swift Backs,’ Two Heads got out, loud enough to draw all ears.
‘Taken how?’ Loud Thunder demanded.
‘Plague Men, come from the sky and killing. A dozen Swift Backs dead, and the rest taken by the Terror. The Plague Men hold their fire and strike out from it. I saw it with these eyes.’
‘And escaped the fear?’
‘Because I showed them a very fast pair of heels and sang Coyote songs in my head until I was clear of them,’ Two Heads spat. ‘I felt them scratching at the inside of my skull all the way.’ He shivered. ‘What will you do?’
Thunder rolled his shoulders. ‘Fight. What else?’ He made his voice sound as full and loud as he could, and hoped it didn’t sound hollow with fear to anyone else. He should give orders now – this tribe and that, chosen to go into the fire with him. Who would be best? Whose lives did he value less today? But he was not that kind of leader – the good kind. Instead he must do everything himself. ‘All of you, you warriors. Go get me a dozen, a score, whoever you can find. Bring spears and arrows and we will remind them of the Seal coast.’
Bold words from a big man. Will that substitute for courage? But they were on the move – Tigers, Wolves, Eyriemen, Boar, all rushing to get their friends because, if Loud Thunder said a thing, it meant they didn’t have to think about it.
Thunder went to get his axe. His armour he abandoned, because the darts of the Plague People didn’t seem to care about anything less than Wolf-iron, and precious little even about that. When he came from his tent, hefting the great weight of copper on its tree-branch haft, he found Kailovela standing there, fitful child in her arms and monster at her heels.
She stared at him blankly for a moment, as if surprised to find herself there. Thunder stared right back.
‘You asked me for my blessing once,’ she reminded him.
He nodded. That had been to guide him in the Godsland. The journey felt like a child’s toddle compared to the war he had enmeshed himself in now.
‘You have it.’ She leant forward, hand warm on his bare arm, face deadly serious. Not th
e wishes of a lover but the benediction of a priest. ‘Come back live and whole.’
The night was dark, and the sky shook with the cries and yells of all those who could not see a way out. But Loud Thunder felt as though he carried his own flame with him when he Stepped and lumbered off towards the Swift Back fire.
He had enough warriors at his back by the time he arrived there: the brave and the foolish and those few who knew what was going on and simply knew it had to be done. His great ally was the darkness; the Plague People warriors had no eyes for it. He had seen night or storm baffle them and spoil the reach of their killing rods. Even as he was crossing the abandoned group towards them, he saw another band who had the same idea. A dozen of the Tiger, all Stepped and racing through the dark that had always been theirs, were rushing the Swift Back fire. Loud Thunder saw them as no more than a sinuous suggestion of movement, while he saw the forms of the Plague People plain. There were a score of them caught clear in the firelight, the razor-edged hollowness of them outlined by the flames.
Even as he gathered himself to double his speed and back up the Tiger, something changed. One of the Plague People cast a stone towards the night sky; it flew there and lodged, and burned as though it was a false moon, shedding a cold white radiance across the camp. Thunder felt more than heard the stampede of panic behind him, anyone who had stayed anywhere near the Swift Back fire now bolting, and the Plague People’s Terror ravening at their heels to drag them down. The Tiger were caught in plain sight, frozen like striped shadows under that hostile light, and the Plague Men loosed their killing darts instantly, cutting them down. Some ran, some tried to charge the fire, but they all died before a drop of Plague blood was shed. Loud Thunder fell back instantly, Stepping so that his human bulk might find some hiding place his bear shape was too large for. Above them all, the false moon was falling slowly, drifting a little with the wind and fading.
The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3) Page 24
