The Tiger and the Wolf (48 page)

‘You have him?’ Maniye demanded.
‘He crept into our camp, but we were waiting for him,’ Kala
meshli confirmed. ‘He will say nothing, but I know he came for
you.’ The moon caught the old man’s raised eyebrow. ‘Is it for
your mother that he would save you?’
‘My mother cannot live with the fact of me,’ Maniye said
bitterly. ‘And Broken Axe . . .’
‘If you have grown an affection for him, you should have
become his mate when your father offered the match,’ Takes
Iron observed with that mocking tone she was used to from him.
‘He will surely die now. Amiyen demands to wield the blade, for
she claims a right of vengeance against him.’
‘Amiyen and her son would have killed me, once they found
me,’ Maniye told him flatly. ‘If not for Broken Axe they would
have done so. She is no loyal hunter of Stone River.’
The old priest nodded slowly. She could still not believe that
he was just sitting here speaking with her. Where had the savage
tormentor of her childhood gone? Why did the man
care
?
‘So Stone River believes that the Wolf will welcome Broken
Axe’s soul as a gift?’ she enquired.
‘Broken Axe will die – as all who turn against the Wolf must
die,’ Kalameshli replied equably. ‘But because of that—’
‘Broken Axe
is
the Wolf,’ Maniye hissed fiercely. ‘He is the
Wolf that walks alone. He is a man unto himself, not a creature
that needs the crutches of others, like my father does. You think
the Wolf will be glad when Broken Axe’s blood is shed? The Wolf
will curse Akrit Stone River seven ways.’
Kalameshli sighed, exasperated. ‘Girl—’
‘My name is Many Tracks. Broken Axe gave it to me.’
He slapped her. In the dark, she barely saw his hand move
before the hard boniness of it exploded against her cheek.
In the startled silence that followed, Kalameshli spoke slowly
and patiently. ‘Broken Axe will die. If he is weak and a traitor, he
will die for that reason. If he is strong and a rival to Stone River’s power, then it is fit he will die for that. Let the Wolf decide
what taste his soul has. But, with that sacrifice, it may be Stone
River will be satisfied.’
But this time Maniye felt that she had wisdom, and it was the
priest who indulged in foolish fantasies. ‘If he finds more to
barter, then he will trade it all, and get whatever value he can.
He would cut a thousand throats if he thought the Wolf would
place a great sign on him to make him known as High Chief.
You know this, Takes Iron.’
And he did know it. She could see it from the defeated slump
of his shoulders. Still he tried to argue: ‘He has listened to my
counsel for many years. He has heeded me since before you
were born. He will heed me now when I tell him you must be
spared.’
‘Why?’ she asked simply, and then to clarify, ‘Why would you
even try? You say you have tried to make me strong? Old man,
you have tried to break me all my life.’
‘That is how it is with iron as with men,’ came his
almost-whisper. ‘They must be taken to the point of breaking,
beaten, hardened, tempered. Only then can they be strong
enough to take an edge and not to shatter. With iron and men
both, that is how it is. I have always tried to make you strong,
stronger than the rest. I have tried to make you such a thing as
the Wolf might be proud of.’
And the word,
Why?
was on her lips again, but then there
came to her some words of her mother’s, when the woman had
been least able to stand the sight of her own daughter, because
of the captivity and the treatment that had ushered Maniye into
the world.
I cannot forget them, Stone River and that loathsome
creature his priest.
And here was the priest, cursed by her mother
for exactly the same deeds as Akrit himself.
And she understood: staring on Kalameshli, she saw it all, the
secret that even her father – that her father most of all – could
not know.

Broken Axe had been ill used. The moonlight touched the
bruises the Wolves had laid on him in capturing him, and there
was a noose drawn tight about his neck. He was strung up by his
thumbs to a branch, high enough that he was on his toes trying
to keep his own weight from tearing at his arms.

He was guarded, but the woman standing before him had no
eyes for Asmander. Instead her venom was turned entirely on
her captive. Words drifted on the air, hissed in an ugly mutter:
she was telling Broken Axe how he would suffer. They would
give his soul to the Wolf and to the fire, yes, but she would bring
him plenty of pain before then.

Asmander was still creeping along, belly to the earth, just a
long low shape that took one slow step at a time as he neared.
He would have to find his human feet soon enough: even the
ground was chilling his innards like ice.

And then he was as close as he dared, and he Stepped so that
he was still lying low to the ground, arms splayed out, hands still
in the mud, thick clothes all dry as if he had never been in the
river at all.

He understood the woman: from her words, she had a right
of vengeance for a dead son. It was a debt that would be understood over all the world. In the Sun River Nation a parent’s grief
might be bought off, but here in the Crown of the World they
were more true to themselves.

To interfere with a right of vengeance was the wrong thing to
do, but Asmander felt he had the curious luxury of already
having placed himself beyond honour. And he could not leave
Broken Axe.

He shifted closer, crouching low on all fours. There were
plenty of Wolves in earshot but none watching: this woman’s
vengeance was personal and private. When she struck out at
Axe, marking him with her knife, that was a matter between the
pair of them, and Asmander was an unwelcome eavesdropper.

But he would have to kill her instantly and noiselessly. One
cry or shout of warning would set the whole camp on him.
He saw Broken Axe notice him, as he rose up behind the
woman: just a flicker in the man’s eyes, hurriedly masked.
A blow from his
maccan
would not suffice, he reckoned, and
he had no expectation that he might creep close enough to gag
the woman and cut her throat. She was a warrior, and likely she
would manage to shout or wrestle herself away from him.
This left him one option: not sure by any means, but it might
serve. This was a trick he had been taught by the Serpent
priests: something that was common practice amongst them, but
came far harder to all other people.
He was standing behind the Wolf woman now, watching as
she slammed a fist in under Broken Axe’s ribs, raising nothing
but a stubborn grunt from her victim.
Gingerly, Asmander extended a hand, until he could have
touched her shoulder. In his mind he was trying to think
through that exacting set of translations he would need: something closer to mathematics than mere Stepping. And again he
was putting things off, despite the danger should any of the
Wolves happen to glance this way.
The woman made his mind up for him. She caught sight of
his hand in the corner of her eye and began turning, her mouth
open.
He Stepped, throwing his shape forwards along the line of his
extended arm. For Serpents this was easy: their legless nature
divorced them from the human shape almost entirely. A crocodile was closer to a man, but still different enough that, if
Asmander fought hard, he could twist himself so that his outstretched arm exploded out into the gaping jaws, his head
merging into his shoulder, his body whipping out into the long,
saw-scaled tail, even as he lunged forwards.
His jaws snapped down across the Wolf woman’s head and
arm with all the force he could give them, and the falling weight
of his body – more than human – took her off her feet. He
wrenched her savagely about by the grip of his myriad teeth that
were hard and sharp as onyx flakes. He felt her neck break, her
skull crush inwards. Her blood was warm and maddening in his
throat, awaking Old Crocodile’s hunger savagely. He was hard
pressed not to give in to it and simply feed.
She had died in her human shape, he knew. Her flesh was a
prison for her ghost, and to eat of it would be to invite madness.
He shook his head until the mangled body fell clear of his jaws.
He could feel her ghost stuck between his teeth, caught there
like a fragment of meat.
Then he was human again, and cutting Broken Axe down.
The renegade Wolf had no words for him, but there was understanding in his eyes. That was all the reward Asmander needed
just then.
He could have Stepped to the Champion’s shape then, for he
felt he had regained enough of his honour to do so. He could
have called out all the Wolves and seen how many it would take
to bring him down. He wanted to finish what he had come for,
though: retrieve the girl and get her away. Moreover, he wanted
to live.
He shared a moment’s silent communication with Broken
Axe, and the Wolf nodded towards that big, haphazard tent.
There.
The two of them crept about the periphery of the camp,
whilst nearby there were plenty of Wolf eyes turned outwards,
watching for the wrong enemy. Axe had stepped to his wolf
shape, slinking like a grey shadow, crouching in stillness when
the pale stripes of the moon passed over him.
Then he had frozen, one warning look cast backwards to
warn his follower to do the same, and now someone was emerging from the tent. Asmander recognized the Wolf priest, in his
coat of bones, and guessed that he had been conducting some
ritual to prepare the girl for sacrifice. The old man paused, looking up at the sky, and there seemed something dejected or
defeated about him.
The world is full of stories
, Asmander reflected, willing the man
to be on his way.
Yours does not concern me.
And then the priest was gone, hurrying off towards the main
fire, his face crossed with lines of worry. Asmander made to go
forwards, but another look from Broken Axe stopped him. As
the wolf slunk into the tent, Asmander crouched in the shadow
of its entrance, hand on his
maccan
.
He heard a gasp from within, and then murmured words. He
hoped that, in rescuing Broken Axe, he had gained an ambassador to Maniye, to speak for him.
Then Axe was at the flap again, a hand stretched out, and
Asmander passed over the flint edge of his knife, without needing to be asked.
That was when the woman’s body was found. That was when
the Wolves discovered the absence of Broken Axe.

She had not wanted to believe it at first. As soon as she thought
of the secret, she had tried to rid her brain of it, as though it was
yet another soul jostling for room there. But the idea refused to
go and, looking into the shadowed eyes of Kalameshli Takes
Iron, she saw the confirmation. She knew, and he saw the knowledge in her.

She could destroy him, or at least she could try. If she
convinced Akrit of what she had intuited, then he would turn on
his own priest. What price angering the Wolf then? If he killed
Takes Iron, the other tribes might even abandon him altogether.
Killing priests was as bad as killing kin.

Although she had spent all her years hating him, now that she
had that weapon in her hand – the weapon he had handed her,
hilt first – she did not know whether she wanted to harm him
with it or not.

He had backed out of the tent, stiff with the knowledge of
what she could do to him, and she had turned away from the
intruding moonlight and tried to think. This might be her last
night before the Wolf took her in his fiery jaws. She wanted to
have some of it to herself.

But no, she heard his tread again, coming back to her, this
time padding in the shape of his god. She curled in upon herself, screwing her eyes shut, as if she could simply unmake him
and unravel all his history back to the beginning.
‘Many Tracks,’ a voice addressed her.
Her heart jumped within her chest. It was not Kalameshli.
She scrambled to sit up, and there he was, impossibly: Broken

He ducked out for a moment, and came back with a sharp
flint, sawing away at her collar with swift strokes. She wanted to
question him but, if there was a tale to be told, this was not the
time. She could not understand how he had got free and then
walked through the camp of his enemies to come to her. She
knew only that he had.

Then she was loose, and she felt both the tiger and the wolf
within her leap up, clamouring for her attention. For an instant
her own shape slid through her hands, and she felt herself losing
control of it, her twin souls about to battle each other there and
then. Her Serpent dream had lent her a little control, though, as
if its invisible coils were still hobbling them. She took them each
by the scruff of the neck and held them apart in her mind.

Then there was a yell from elsewhere in the camp, and
Broken Axe bared his teeth, that grimace becoming a wolf’s
snarl as he Stepped. She copied him, finding her wolf feet, and
the two of them were out of the tent and into the open air.

She scented him instantly: the southerner. He was crouching
by the tent flap, but Broken Axe stood beside him, and so she
understood that somehow the dark man was here as her ally, not
her enemy. She would trust Axe’s judgement.

There were more important matters right now, for the Wolves
were coming.
It was just a couple of them at the moment, but their cries
had woken up all the camp. There were vital seconds in which
confusion would run from Wolf to Wolf – surely the Tigers were
attacking! Then they would look to their prisoners and all would
be lost.
There was one who came as a wolf, and the other as a man.
Perhaps hoping she would just flee, Broken Axe threw himself at
the first, snarling and snapping out of the shadows, the two of
them rolling over and over. The second paused, a hatchet
already to hand, eyes flicking from the two fighting animals to
Maniye herself. He was a hunter called Thorn Foot, one of
Akrit’s cronies since forever.
He lunged at her, letting his companion trust to his own luck.
He was coming in with an open hand though: grabbing rather
than attacking, just as if she was still the girl he remembered.
She got her teeth into his fingers and shook her head savagely,
and he howled with pain. Bones ground between her jaws. Then
the axe came up, a swift feint at her that sent her skittering back,
his blood in her mouth – and Asmander cut him down.
The southerner made his rise from the shadows flow into the
downward-cleaving arc of his sword: a single fluid motion. The
stone teeth of the weapon sheared into Thorn Foot just where
his shoulder met his neck, and the man was snuffed out just as
swiftly, live meat to dead meat in an eyeblink. The taste in Maniye’s throat was abruptly that of a corpse.
‘Go, now!’ Asmander urged. Broken Axe had seen his opponent off, sending the other wolf running with his tail between his
legs. The whole warband was converging on them, though. They
were in the heart of their enemy’s little domain.
Maniye had a sudden vision of herself ending up with the
altar at her back, the whole escape attempt nothing more than a
means to bring her to sacrifice.
‘With me!’ The southerner was haring off through the camp.
He was still a man, not even in his fighting shape.
Broken Axe shared a look with her, wolf to wolf, and she saw
that neither of them had a better idea.
She saw a wolf leap at Asmander, enraged beyond all telling
by the foreigner’s intrusion. He caught the animal with a smooth
upward swing that barely seemed to interrupt his sprint, yet cast
his attacker away trailing a spray of dark droplets. Others were
massing into a pack, though, and there would be archers. Even
the greatest warrior in the world could not fight all of Stone
River’s hunters together.
And yet she followed the southerner, Broken Axe coursing
alongside her. There were jaws nipping at her heels and she saw
an arrow darting almost lazily above her, close enough that she
could have jumped and caught it. She could hear her father’s
furious bellow.
A man came at them with a spear, driving it for Broken Axe’s
side. Axe twisted away, almost belly to the earth to avoid it, and
Maniye leapt into the attacker’s face, snapping jaws one moment,
then Stepping to her tiger shape to slap him down with her
greater weight, raking him a little with her rear claws even as she
kicked away.
But there was nowhere to go, and Asmander was at bay now,
his back to the river. Still, he was calling to her, calling to both
of them: ‘With me! With me!’ An arrow clipped his arm and
hung in the thick fabric of his coat.
And by then there were enough of the Wolf close behind her
that all she could do was head towards him. All her options in
this whole doomed venture had narrowed to that.
‘Step,’ Asmander yelled, ‘and hang on!’ He had slipped his
blade away and was reaching out with empty hands.
Broken Axe reached him first, clasping wrist to wrist and
being yanked closer, and then Maniye just threw herself forwards. For a terrified moment she did not think she could
resume her human form – the souls within her twisting in rebellion – but then she slammed into Asmander, arms about his
waist, hard enough to knock him into the water.
She felt him Step. His body thickened suddenly, her grip slipping and scrabbling over ridged and rugged scales. She thought
she would lose her purchase on him altogether, but then she had
hold of a stubbly limb, her legs wrapped about the strong barrel
of his torso. He was driving forwards into the water with great
flexing contortions of his spine. She could barely snatch a
breath of air, held underwater half the time. Arrows and even
spears were lancing into the river like murderous kingfishers.
She saw at least one strike solid against Asmander’s armoured
back but simply glance away.
And then they were out of the camp, even though there were
wolves trying to pace them along the banks. With the current
and his thrashing strength, Asmander was making them run
hard to keep up with him. All the while the banks grew higher,
the forest more snarled.
From then on, simply getting herself a half-breath of air was
all Maniye could concentrate on.