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

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘But if they know . . .’ Empty Skin started, because she was the youngest of them, and still innocent in some ways.

  ‘Why would they let the killing happen?’ Hesprec finished for her. Her eyes shifted briefly to Kailovela and saw the understanding there. ‘What is easier for them to say to their kin? That these are beasts who have no right to life, no wisdom, no humanity; or that these are people, to whom your ancestors have done a great wrong, and you have done more great wrongs ever since you came to these shores? Which is easier? For who wants to think themselves a monster and a descendant of monsters? It is easier to think yourself just a killer of beasts.’

  ‘But we can tell them . . .’ Empty Skin insisted, voice petering out as she saw their expressions.

  ‘How can we? They cannot hear our words nor will they let us get close enough to speak to them,’ Kailovela told her. ‘You said yourself, the grey priest went back to them with his own blood on his hands, crying betrayal.’

  ‘But we’re human!’ Skin shouted at her. ‘We’re people! They can’t not see that.’ She bit back the words, and Kailovela guessed that she was thinking how the Plague People would accept her. How she had been made one of them when they chased off her soul.

  ‘They will come and find my people,’ Galethea said quietly. ‘They will find some pretext to kill us too, because we know. Because we chose another way. And we will die without souls, and be lost.’

  Empty Skin’s mouth opened and closed as she fought for some magical argument that would prove them all wrong, and sought in vain. Kailovela could only think of poor Lone Mountain dead, severe Seven Mending dead, and so many others. And this was only the beginning of it. The Plague priest would be whipping up his followers into a frenzy of revenge against the monsters, and perhaps some of them would know those monsters were people, and perhaps they would not care. Easier to kill than change the way they viewed the world.

  She looked to Hesprec to share her despair, but the Serpent priestess had a pensive look on her face, taken by some unexpected thought. When she did meet Kailovela’s gaze, her face was full of secrets just like a Serpent priest’s look should be, and not of despair at all.

  Those who could, sent out scouts. Heron and Vulture, Owl and Hawk all took to the sky to go spy out what the Plague People were doing. Some did not return: the Terror had taken them, or perhaps the Plague warriors with their shimmering wings. Or perhaps they had fled, ashamed, but loving life more than courage. Kailovela could not blame them. She felt the sky calling to her as well. Sometimes her child seemed like the only anchor holding her to the ground. Now Kailovela wandered between the fires with her son clutched to her, and knew that, without that weight, she might just fly away and never be seen again.

  She kept her distance from Loud Thunder, while everyone waited to see what the scouts would have to say. He was busy trying to be a war leader and she would put thoughts in his head he did not need there. She kept her distance from Yellow Claw, too, though she felt him stalking her. He did not go to scout but lorded it amongst the Eyriemen, or let his keen gaze follow his former mate from fire to fire. She felt it like an itching on the back of her neck.

  Everyone now had some idea that things had changed. Most knew an attempt to treat with the Plague People had ended in ruin. And yet there was a sense of held breath, all across the camp. All those many hundreds who had been uprooted from their Plains villages, all those warriors come from the cold or the River: they waited with a hope that Kailovela knew was wholly unwarranted.

  She went to the Coyote, Two Heads Talking and Quiet When Loud, hoping they would have stories and wisdom to share, but he looked old and she looked frightened. The growing burden in her belly had become a curse to them: a child was of the future, and what future was there once the Plague People had done with them? Only a life like Empty Skin’s, with no soul and no shape to Step to, and none of the stories and histories that made up their shared world.

  She should go to Empty Skin, perhaps, who would at least understand her. She should go to Galethea and prise some truths out of the woman before it was too late, save that she was weak and slept, and anyway what truths could a hollow creature truly hold?

  And so she returned at last to her own tent and there Loud Thunder was waiting for her.

  She stopped awkwardly. He was sitting like a great lump beside her tent’s entrance, looking like the most miserable man in the world. All his emotions were outsized, to match the rest of him.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. The words came out more sharply than she had meant and he flinched. ‘What do you want?’

  His sorrowful gaze told the truth of that: you. But he shrugged massively. ‘Just. Let me sit with you. Just for a while. I have lost my cousin and there is nobody I can share it with.’

  ‘You have all the warriors in the Crown of the World to tell his stories to,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I don’t want to tell his stories,’ Thunder mumbled. ‘I don’t want to say how great he was, what a talker, what a hunter. I don’t want to say all those things we say to stop us being sad. I don’t know where his soul is. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Tonight I want to be weak and be sad for Lone Mountain, and for all the rest I have to be strong. Please.’

  She all but felt something break in her, some final barrier that had been keeping him out. The Eyriemen were braggarts, constantly flaunting their strength at each other. She had never before heard a man beg for the privilege of being weak.

  ‘Come,’ she said, pushing into her tent. Her child was sleeping by then and she settled him delicately, desperate not to set him squalling again. He had not wanted to leave Quiet When Loud’s arms for hers. She couldn’t blame him.

  Thunder shouldered in, undignified on hands and knees. When he sat, he hunched forwards to keep his head clear of the hide stretched overhead. His eyes spoke mute gratitude to her.

  With a sense that any choice now would be a mistake, she sat beside him and put her arms around him, easing the front of his robe open until she could feel the great rounded contours of his shoulders and chest. She laid her head on him, and tried to use what magic she had to salve the wounds he bore that the healers could not see or reach. Whether that did any good, she couldn’t say, but he slept after a while, still sitting up, chin on his chest.

  Before dawn next morning those scouts who would be returning were returned, and though the rest were still looked for, the word of their spying was swiftly all across the camp. At the Plague camp where Empty Skin had gone, the children had been taken away, and in their place came warriors. Plague Men marched in from the east, or flew, or rode in on mounts that might once have been men and women of the Horse. They came with their mail and their killing rods; they came with their skittering beasts. The walls of the camp were already a maze of webs strung higher than two men, but it was clear that they were not intending to sit there and defend.

  They were not so many, compared to all the people of the world. When they went to war they would be outnumbered hundreds to one. And yet none doubted that they would bring the fight, and few doubted they could win. Their weapons and their wings, but most of all their Terror would carry the day.

  But there was more and worse. The fleetest of the scouts had seen a shadow growing in the eastern sky; the Plague Ship was coming, ready to carpet the earth with fire. The Plague People would launch their attack from the shadow of their indomitable floating fortress.

  Kailovela heard the voices at every fire, saying, ‘But we are so many. We are all the strength of the world, all the spears there are, drawn together in one place. Surely they cannot defeat us.’ But she listened past that cracked, desperate optimism to the others. She heard Plainsfolk who had lost their land a day at a time, and their warriors too, whenever they had turned to raise a spear. She heard Rivermen who had seen their great stronghold of Tsokawan fall in flames. She heard northerners talk about the horrors they had found on the Seal coast, and how many had been lost to drive away even a smal
l band of the enemy.

  That evening she stood and stared not at the sunset but at the darkness of the east, the realm light had already fled.

  * * *

  Alladai had made a little corner of the Horse Society within the Plains camp.

  In his own tent he had made a den for Maniye, a nest of cushions and hides where she could lie and get well. She found him exasperating and was always on the point of leaving or telling him to go away, but he read her moods artfully, her frustration with how her wounds still dragged at her. He walked the line of her temper and never crossed it.

  This evening he had more guests, old comrades. He had played host to them, long ago in the Crown of the World when Maniye had been running from her twin natures. Now, a fugitive himself, he could still find salt, milk and meat to perform the host’s duties.

  Loud Thunder had come, after a day of people running after him, all with the same bad news and demanding What are you going to do about it? Asman was there, sitting close against Venat’s dour bulk, and Shyri at his other hand, with more pointed distance between them.

  Asman and Venat took the role that argued for a fight. The River Champion spoke of numbers, of a sudden strike, a surprise attack, keeping the momentum of a battle rolling against the Plague People so their Terror never had a chance to bite. He talked of the advantages they had, the different skills of the various tribes of people – who was fleet, who was strong, who flew, who walked unseen. He argued that they must attack the Plague People at their camp, burn their white walls and slaughter them all together, with Venat egging him on at every turn.

  ‘This is a gift for us,’ he insisted. ‘They have brought all their strength and we can finish them.’

  But sheer conviction would win neither battles nor arguments right then. ‘They fly, Longmouth,’ Shyri said tiredly. ‘The moment they think they might lose they’ll just go, and we can’t stop them. They are not here with their families or children, to tie them to the land. They will just choose a different battle to fight.’

  ‘And attacking their walls, that is no small matter,’ Loud Thunder added.

  ‘We can be the spearhead, Many Tracks and I, and all the other Champions. The Terror has no power to change us,’ Asman pressed.

  ‘There are maybe twenty Champions, if you gather all the Lions, all the Stone Men and the River tribes and the rest,’ Thunder pointed out. ‘And the Terror will sweep the rest away the moment they remember to be scared.’

  ‘Some war leader you sound like,’ Asman said desperately.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Thunder shrugged.

  ‘And Many Tracks’s not going to be fighting, not tomorrow, not soon,’ Shyri pointed out.

  Maniye saw that impact on Asman, just one more truth he was trying to overlook. He tried a strained smile at Shyri. ‘You’re supposed to be agreeing with me, Laughing Girl. Surely Hyena is up for a fight.’

  ‘Hyena can do what he likes,’ Shyri said flatly. ‘And if you think your grand fight is what he wants, then maybe you should think about that and what it means.’

  Silence fell in the wake of that. Maniye could almost hear Asman taking down his carefully constructed hopes and stowing the pieces for some better day that wouldn’t come.

  ‘Some people have gone already.’ Alladai broke the silence, ducking into the tent with a skin of mead he had somehow got hold of. ‘One fire at a time, they’re leaving.’

  ‘Good for them,’ Shyri said, but the Horse shrugged.

  ‘Not many, though, not yet,’ he explained. ‘I think my people will leave with the dawn. We have lost too much already. But many are staying on, watching their war chiefs and their wise people, none of whom want to admit that the fight is lost.’

  ‘It isn’t lost,’ said Asman, but his tone belied his words.

  ‘We need to get people moving, at least those who can’t fight,’ Maniye said quietly. ‘The Plague People strike fast. They can be here swiftly enough that we’ll have no chance to get people away. We need to go to every fire and tell people: here is your choice – take up a spear or flee.’

  A new voice broke in, ‘No.’

  They looked towards the tent flaps and saw a small figure there, just a slight dark girl with Serpent markings, but there was something dangerous and frightening on Hesprec’s face.

  ‘What do you mean, “No”?’ Thunder asked her. ‘They can’t fight. If they stay here, they’ll just make more bones.’

  ‘They can fight.’ Hesprec’s voice shook; whatever idea had gripped her must be something audacious and desperate even for her. ‘Not with spears, not with teeth, though we will need those fighters too. We will need people to play Three Brothers and hold the Plague at bay. But for the rest, there is something, something grand. Do not tell them to go.’

  ‘What is it?’ Maniye asked her. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Something impossible,’ the Serpent priestess said, and then shrugged. ‘Again.’

  30

  Hesprec had sent word by every messenger she knew, Coyote, Owl and Bat going from fire to fire and speaking to the wise of every tribe. Her name, or that of the Serpent, carried enough weight that by the first shade of evening she had many of them gathered in an open space before the tent of Tecumet. Maniye looked from face to face, seeing fear and suspicion unhidden in many. The River honoured the Serpent, the Stone Men too, but the Plains had little reason to trust him, nor yet the Crown of the World.

  Yet they had gathered, because they were desperate. All their wisdom had come to nothing, just as all the spears of the strong had broken against the Plague People.

  Hesprec spent a while just watching her audience, as they muttered and shuffled. There were other Serpents there, that Tecumet had brought from the River, and there were priests of the many Estuary tribes. There were old Lionesses, gnarled Boar men, skinny-necked Vulture women with their hair shaved to a stubble. There were Wolves and Tigers, there was Grey Herald of the Owl, and a gathering of lean, silent Bats, and Two Heads Talking of the Coyote. She caught herself looking for old Takes Iron and her stomach lurched, remembering.

  And there was Mother, wisest of all the Bear, looming at the back and keeping her own counsel, regarding Hesprec with a gaze heavy as stones. The little Serpent girl seemed too slender to bear it.

  And yet when she drew herself up to her small height before them, she had the authority of ages. She had lived many lives, watched generations spring up and die down just like the Tsotec flooded and fell each year. She was old in a way no other tribe could imagine and she gathered all those years to her, right then. She stood before them with the Serpent at her back, one of the three brothers who had stood against the Plague People the first time.

  ‘So we have come to it, then,’ she told them. ‘Most of you know we tried something other than fighting with the Plague Men, and it didn’t work. But then the fighting hasn’t worked either. Yes, we’ve bloodied them once or twice, but for every Plague warrior cut down, how many of ours? They gather all their strength at last. We have gathered ours. And so we go at it, spear on shield, do we? There are enough of us, far more than there are of them, that if we charge them with our fangs and our talons, we hope that they cannot kill all of us, their Terror cannot turn every mind amongst us. That is what we hope, is it? That is what is left for us?’

  She plainly had more, but Mother’s voice boomed from the back. ‘The Snakes have many ways of speaking. Each word is a coil until they strangle others into agreeing with them. I am not here to be strangled, little Snake. So just tell us your other way.’

  Hesprec held up her hands. ‘Forgive me,’ she said mildly. ‘Old habits. But, yes, there is something. And it will not mean no spear gets bloodied when the Plague People come, because we will need our warriors to hold the eyes of the Plague People while we do what we must. Because if this war can be won, if our dream of the world can prevail over theirs, it comes down to us, because we are those who have spoken to the gods.’

  She had begun walking back and f
orth before them, leading their suspicion left and right as it followed her.

  ‘I have walked in the Godsland, just a few days ago. Who here has seen it, since the Plague came?’ Not many, but a few; Maniye could see the knowledge in their faces. She wondered what dire errands had driven them to it, and whether they had found what they were looking for in the ashes of what had been left.

  ‘The Plague People are our enemy, and their very presence assaults us,’ Hesprec told them. ‘Even without meaning to, they destroy what we are, and now they very much intend to complete that job. But they are the enemy of our gods, more than us. Our gods have fled before them, because it is not just flesh and bone that the Plague People kill, it is all we are. They destroy our stories and our ways; they smooth away all the pictures we have drawn in the earth that tell us where we came from and who we are. And that is what the gods are made of. That is the death they bring to our gods and our souls.’

  They were all silent by then, listening. It was no revelation to them, but perhaps nobody had stated the matter so bluntly before. Nobody wanted to believe that their gods were as fragile as they were.

  ‘So we must fight, but we cannot fight alone. We must call back the gods who have fled, and have them fight the Plague People dream as our warriors attack their bodies. As our warriors lift their spears, the gods must be there, within and between them, giving them strength, fending off the Terror.’

  It fell to one of the old Boar priests there to ask, ‘How?’

  ‘A hundred ways,’ Hesprec told them. ‘All the ways you have to catch their attention and call them from the far places they have gone to. Light your fires and play your music, dance your hunts, act out all the old stories; who am I to tell you how to speak to your gods?’

  Maniye saw in her mind what that would look like: chaos, surely. And yet Hesprec spoke with such assurance, such passion.

  ‘Above all, whatever you do must tell the gods, “We are here!”’ she went on. ‘You must remind the gods of who we are and who they are. You must tell the stories of your heroes and how they bested each other. Tell of our fools and tricksters; tell of the great evils we have overcome. Tell the story of the three brothers, tell how Coyote stole back the sun, tell of First Eagle, how Serpent sought wisdom beneath the earth. Tell how Havesinder snatched his name from Old Crocodile’s jaws, and how Leyri and Usri made the hills when they fought over who should be Chomaro’s mate. Tell the deeds of your mothers and their fathers. Bring the gods close to the world until they are just the other side of the air, just beneath the skin of the earth. Because spears alone will not turn back the Plague People, not all the spears in the world.’