The Tiger and the Wolf (42 page)

‘Because he sought to kill her. And because you did.’
Silence from Amiyen Shatters Oak.
Broken Axe stepped round until Maniye could see him. He
seemed eminently unhurried.
‘Why would you?’ Amiyen said at last. ‘If I told Stone River
you had turned on your own—’
‘And if I tell him you would have killed his daughter, against
his word?’ Broken Axe raised an eyebrow. ‘He will say I was
doing his will.’
Maniye could feel Amiyen growing tenser and tenser, poised
to Step, to spring. She tried to warn Broken Axe with her eyes,
but he gave no sign of noticing her.
‘And now?’ Amiyen’s tone was low and dangerous.
‘Now you seek her death again. And you have no sons with
you.’ Broken Axe spread his hands wide. ‘But here I am,
Iramey’s Bane.’
Amiyen screamed out her hatred, throwing herself off Maniye
and Stepping at the same time, so that her hind claws gouged
and tore at the girl as she scrabbled for purchase.
‘Go!’ Broken Axe snapped, and then he was a wolf as well,
and the two were meeting each other, fang to fang.
And Maniye followed suit, running once again, wolf nose in
the air to warn her of any of her kin who might be close.
That was how, much later, she found the camp of Venater
and Shyri, who had been waiting with less and less patience for
someone to tell them what was going on.
By that time, Maniye was half dead with running, sorefooted, hungry and parched with thirst. By the time she was
ready to tell them what had happened, Asmander had arrived
too, stalking into the clearing as the Champion, proud and terrible and strange. Only when he Stepped back did he show that
he was just about as tired as she was.
His look at her was accusing, and she hung her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘The Messenger.’
‘There was nothing I could do,’ she told him, and then,
noting his expression, ‘He was my friend! I don’t know what he
was to you, but he was my friend. My only one!’
Asmander looked as though he had a lot more to say, but he
held it and he held it, and then it let it go, just breathing it all out
and leaving behind a man who was calm and in control. ‘We
should move on,’ he decided. ‘Your Wolves, they will be sniffing
after you with their long noses, yes?’
‘Someone’s coming,’ Shyri said, standing up abruptly with a
knife in her hand. Maniye Stepped instantly, but without deciding to what. Something within her chose tiger over wolf. Too
tired to run, she would fight.
The three southerners were all ready to make a battle of it
too, so she had to Step very swiftly and call them off when she
saw it was Broken Axe.
He regarded them narrowly, taking in the foreigners.
‘Your old man, the Snake,’ said Broken Axe. ‘Stone River has
him. They will give him to the Wolf.’

‘Who is this?’ Asmander demanded, seeing only another Wolf.
The air between Broken Axe and the southerners was tense as a
strung wire

‘Calm,’ Maniye said, drawing their taut gazes onto her.
‘Broken Axe is a Wolf who follows his own path. He keeps many
counsels and we need to know what he can tell us.’ She was
sensing out the balance of power between the southerners: who
cared about Hesprec, and who was spoiling for a fight.

Messenger, tell us why they won’t have shed his blood already.’
‘They’ll want to do it properly,’ Broken Axe explained. ‘The
old man, he was due for the Wolf’s jaws once before. They have
no idol here to sear him on, but Takes Iron will do what he can
to make it a proper sacrifice, to appease the Wolf. They say that,
after what happened at the Stones, the Wolf’s eye is fixed on
Stone River right now. He’s being measured. Anything he can
do to win favour, he’ll do.’
‘Then they must’ve done it by now,’ Maniye argued. ‘A big
fire, a few words, what else is there?’ After her time spent
amongst the Tigers, all the rituals of the Wolf clans seemed no
more than brutal muttering.
‘They would have to stop for it,’ Axe explained. ‘Stone River
is on the move. They have come too close to the Shining Halls.
Tiger scouts have been playing games with them, and they
already fought off a Tiger warband – one that was also hunting
you, like as not. There was a fight, wounds on both sides. The
Tigers slunk back to the Halls to lick their wounds, but this is
still Tiger land, and Stone River is making for another camp of
his, heading west.’
‘How far?’ Maniye demanded.
‘Less than two days for a wolf, but the old man is no wolf.
With a halter about his neck he’s no snake, either. So they must
pull him on a sled, and that slows them. Slows them so that a
wolf could catch them.’
Maniye stared at him. ‘Would you lie to me, Broken Axe.’
‘If it was the right thing to do.’
‘And now?’
‘The right thing to do is to tell you what I have told you.’
‘Why?’ Asmander demanded suddenly. ‘Why do you care?
Yes, I will do all I can to save the Messenger from
your
people,
but why tell us this, save to trap us? Surely any sacrifice to the
Wolf god must be music to you.’
‘The Wolf I follow is in here.’ Broken Axe tapped his chest.
‘He wants no sacrifice. He needs no man to die in agony by fire.
He wants the clean joy of the hunt, the fresh snow, the wide sky
and the moon. He wants a simple life that isn’t stained by other
men’s ambition and greed.’
It was hardly enough to win over Asmander, Maniye thought,
but at the man’s words the southerner nodded thoughtfully. ‘If
this is true, then we must travel now.’
‘We must.’ Broken Axe’s nod took in Maniye and nobody
else. ‘Stepped, we’ll overtake them. Can
you
run with the Wolf?’
‘How will I find out save by trying?’ Asmander replied. ‘You
two,’ he turned to his southern companions, ‘track us, and make
what pace you can.’
Shyri, at least, looked rebellious at that, and who knew what
pace she could keep up, but the life of Hesprec was apparently
not something she was willing to exert herself for.
They Stepped then: Broken Axe, Maniye and the southern
Champion. Two wolves and a stalking lizard creature left the
camp, heading west.
During that first stretch it was plain that Asmander could not
only keep up, but could have sprinted far faster than they if he
wanted. He was constantly having to rein himself in, cocking his
head back towards them and scratching at the ground while they
caught up. Then Broken Axe was human again and signalling a
halt, though they had covered almost no distance. They were on
the same slopes where the Winter Runners had attacked previously, and there was a stench in Maniye’s nose: a personal scent,
familiar and yet somehow changed.
‘Why’ve we stopped?’ Asmander demanded. ‘You’re going to
camp here for the night?’
‘I must retrieve something, that is all.’ Broken Axe searched
about, Stepping into and out of his wolf shape, until he had
found the right place. Then he reached up with human hands
and hauled himself into a tree, coming down again with something bulky draped over his shoulder.
Maniye, who had remained a wolf through all of this, knew it
for a pelt. Some part of her was desperate for this to be the last
remnant of Amiyen Shatters Oak, but it was not. The scent was
familiar, but she could not immediately put a name to it.
‘Dirhath,’ Broken Axe supplied, and she remembered: a
young hunter, scarcely more than a boy, strutting and unsure
but desperate to win the approval of his elders. He had not yet
won himself a hunter’s name. Now he never would.
‘He was caught by the Tigers, separated from the pack. They
killed him, and his spirit is flown.’
‘So . . . you skinned him? This is a Wolf thing?’ Asmander
enquired with a frown.
‘I am still welcome amongst the Winter Runners,’ Broken Axe
said, though the echo to those words was,
For how long?
‘You,
though, Many Tracks . . . let Stone River decide to Step, and
catch the scent of the child who fled him, and you’ll be theirs.’
He nodded to her. ‘You know what we will do with this.’
‘I . . . have heard of it being done.’ In stories, even in fireside
recountings, but she had never witnessed it. It was a grisly thing,
to wear two skins and carry another’s scent. ‘They will not think
me Dirhath. I cast a smaller shadow.’
‘Then do not been seen by them. It is enough that they scent
what is familiar,’ Broken Axe told her.
‘And me? You have another magic skin for me, perhaps?’
Asmander’s tone suggested they did not do such things in the
south, even in stories.
‘You . . .’ Broken Axe scratched the back of his head. ‘I don’t
know what to do with you. I don’t know this creature that you
Step to. But I have watched you run. You’re very swift, but you
are not a Wolf. You will not match us for the long haul.’
‘Will I not?’
‘If you fall behind, go find your fellows. When it comes for us
to bring the old Snake back, we will try and sniff you out. Perhaps we will have company when we return.’
Then he took the pelt of Dirhath, still sticky with the dead
man’s blood, and laced the paws together so that it could rest on
Maniye’s shoulders like a cloak, the unskulled head flopping and
flapping behind her, the tail and hind legs dragging on the
ground.
‘We will not know human shape again until we have caught
them,’ Broken Axe pronounced.
Maniye nodded shortly, knowing that when she Stepped, her
wolf form would be trailing the dead Dirhath’s scent; that some
part of him would be carried with her, not his ghost but something of him nonetheless.

They ran as the wolves run, that can travel night and day when
they have to. For most of that night, Asmander kept up, although
the scent of him told Maniye he was flagging, all his lightning
speed nothing compared to the constant grind of their own progress. This was how the pack brought down the fleet deer: not
being faster, but never slowing, never giving up, running the
prey ragged and staggering, then circling for the kill.

In the end, Asmander slowed, then Stepped, resuming his
human form on one knee, raising a fist at the dark sky, perhaps
in frustration, perhaps in salute. It was only Many Tracks and
Broken Axe now.

She had run from Broken Axe for so long, before. Now he
broke fresh ground and she followed, although her nose already
warned her of the passage of many of her kin. She knew that
Broken Axe was right: the Winter Runners were not moving
swiftly.

In her mind was no plan, and that was what frightened her
most. She had no idea how Stone River would have set his
people when she and Broken Axe came upon them. They might
still be on the move; they might be camped. If camped, they
might have all eyes watching the dark, every nose alert for the
stink of ambush. Perhaps the Tiger was still on their trail, after
all.

And even if they felt themselves secure, away from the diminished reach of the Shining Halls, would she still be able to go
creeping amongst them undetected? What of those who had
been mourning Dirhath? What of . . . ?

Her body ran on, tiring, tiring slowly, with a wolf’s stubborn
stamina. Her mind wheeled and battered like a trapped bird, but
Broken Axe was always ahead of her, and so she followed, the
second member of a pack of two.

She had feared him so much. He had seemed like Death to
her, inescapable and always waiting. She still could not quite
understand this drive in him to do whatever was right, not in the
eyes of Wolf or Tiger or other people, but only his own. And yet
he was surely the most gifted hunter she had ever known: a man
swift and certain, sure in his judgement, at ease in both his skins.

It was that last she truly envied. She had three skins; none of
them fitted her, and two of them were at war.
Then she would worry again about the choice still hanging
over her like a blade: Wolf or Tiger; Tiger or Wolf. Small wonder
she would risk this much for a chance to rescue Hesprec and
receive his counsel once again. Of all the world that knew her,
perhaps only he did not care which path she took. Or he and
Broken Axe.
Would he have taken me as a mate?
That had been Stone River’s drunken threat.
Would it have been so bad?
But make her the
hearth-wife of Broken Axe, and she would never have got to
know him. He would have been a mystery, more absent than
present, close-mouthed and secret-eyed. Only this way could
she have come to discover the man he truly was.
She lost track of the distance they covered, giving herself over
to the long chase for its own sake, weariness her constant companion but not yet her master. Still, when Broken Axe finally
slowed to a halt she was grateful. It was midday by then, the skies
close with clouds, pregnant with rain on the very point of falling.
Broken Axe Stepped to his human form and beckoned her
near, but she first took a moment to draw in a great breath of all
the world’s secret knowledge. She inhaled the forest and the
earth, the sky and the distant peaks, renewing her connection
with it all, finding herself again within its vastness.
I have been
here, or close to here.This is known to me.
With a leap of hope she found the answer in her mind. The
Tiger had driven Stone River west and north.
Close to the lands
of the Cave Dwellers. And Loud Thunder dwells on the border of
those lands.
For a moment she had a desperate thought of rushing straight to that cave-house and petitioning the giant himself.
Too far, though. Days more of running to take her there. Hesprec would not have that long to live.
In her nose was the scent of Wolf, but other scents too: other
people. Stone River had found company out here.
At last she crept closer to Broken Axe, shifting from wolf to a
woman with a heavy pelt about her shoulders. ‘What is this
place?’ she whispered.
‘A village of the Boar people,’ Broken Axe explained. ‘They
call themselves the Spined Sons – they were Roughback once,
but split from them and came out here.’ He plainly saw that
Boar tribe squabbles were lost on her. ‘They are few. Stone River’s warband will have mastered them. He will be in the chief’s
lodge by now, served by the best of their women. The others
likewise. To have stopped here, they must think themselves out
of the reach of the Shining Halls.’
‘Are they?’ Maniye asked.
Broken Axe’s face twisted. ‘Once, the answer would have
been no. After that – after the war – yes. Now? Hard to say. The
Tiger stir themselves more than they used to.’
‘So what will they . . . ?’ Maniye felt a sudden clutch of anxiety within her. ‘Have they done it? Have they given Hesprec to
the Wolf already?’
Broken Axe shrugged. ‘I think not. The Wolf is not in this
place. Offer a soul up here, and it would end up on the tusks of
the Boar, like as not.’
‘But you can’t be sure.’ Maniye was thinking of every word
that had been spoken before they set off, every wasted moment,
of every step, when she could have pushed herself harder.
‘I can only go and see how the land lies,’ Broken Axe told her.
‘And you must stay here and keep your head hidden. There will
be scouts.’
‘Wait.’ A thought that had been nagging at Maniye was suddenly at the front of her mind. ‘What about Shatters Oak? Does
she still live?’
Broken Axe nodded grimly. ‘She does, and if she found my
back turned to her, and nobody else to see, she would kill me.
But she will not strike before the eyes of others.’
‘I thought it was
him
, that wanted me dead,’ Maniye told him.
‘After the Horse post.’
‘He has many plans for you, but not your death yet.’ Then
Broken Axe had Stepped back to his wolf shape and went loping
off through the trees towards the scents of Wolf and Boar, of
hearth, and sheep dung and people.
Maniye Stepped, if only for the warmth and the security that
a wolf shape gave her. She settled down low, belly to the ground
and cloaked with another’s scent, and she waited. It was hard,
that wait: harder than the long run to catch up with Stone River
and his warband had been. Left with nobody but her own company, she found herself looking into the great expanse of the
future.
Rescue Hesprec
. Yes, but then what? Those smoke dreams
of going south? Had that ever been a real plan?
Then Broken Axe was back, slinking through the trees before
pausing to lift his muzzle and scent the air.
‘They have him in the chief’s house,’ he confirmed after he
Stepped, ‘the largest of the huts there. He’s not been well used.’
‘But alive?’
His expression suggested there was not much difference in it.
‘They are holding him cruelly. There is little kindness amongst
the Winter Runners tonight.’
‘And Stone River?’
‘Your father broods in the chief’s hut even now, but he’s in
his restless mood. Soon he will go out amongst his people, to
remind them who he is. That will be your moment, if there is
one.’
‘What about the others?’
He waved a hand. ‘They have the Boar to serve them. Some
are guarding another prisoner, I think. Others raid the village
larders, or they lick their wounds. All were on two legs when I
saw them: after a fight, men love to tell each other how brave
they were. You will have to be quiet and clever – just like back
home.’
‘Then let’s do it.’
‘Follow in my shadow; find a place where you are hidden but
can watch me. When Stone River sets out, that will be your
moment.’