The Tiger and the Wolf (18 page)

She tried to break south, heading away from the lake, but he was
a man who had lived a hunter’s life, two feet or four. He was
already putting on a burst of speed that would lead her into his
jaws as she tried to veer away from the water, cutting a long,
curved line as though he and the lake together made a pack that
was closing her in, shutting down her options just like the prey
she was.

She was fast, but she was hungry and tired and carrying a
burden. Broken Axe loped along, sparing his strength, knowing
that no matter how she dodged and turned, he would run her
down with a wolf’s patient endurance.

The sheer impersonal calm of the man was more frightening
than slavering rage might have been. The chase was nothing
special: just one of hundreds for him. When he brought her
down – to tear out her throat or to drag her home – he would
not exult, nor even much care. One more quarry, that was all
she was.

This thought gave her access to a hitherto unsuspected surge
of strength, and she pulled ahead, springing away from the
water and into the trees, hoping she might lose him again. But
this time there was no enshrouding snow to aid her. Even if she
could put enough trees between them, her tracks would be his
road towards her.

And he was still on her heels. She could hear the regular
panting of his breath, almost feel the heat of it on her haunches.
The crisp thud of his footfalls in the snow were so very close.
There was panic in her heart and she could not but give it rein,
letting it whip her faster and faster. She would tire, she knew,
but she did not have the ability to pace herself. That was a
luxury so seldom granted to prey.

She twice tried to cut back south, desperately hoping to
barter a brief burst of speed into something that would do her
some good. He was there both times, mouth open in a wolf’s
easy grin, heading her away, making all the decisions over where
this chase was going.

Somehow she was able to form the cogent thought:
He knows
the ground already.
There was not a hand’s span of the Crown of
the World that had not known Broken Axe’s tread. Even with the
snow masking the tell-tale scents and muddling the scenery, he
knew where he was. He was forcing her to head exactly where
he wanted her, as a shepherd would nip at the edges of his flock,
and she could do nothing to stop him.

The going was harder now, and she understood that Broken
Axe was forcing her uphill, tiring her out further while he himself just dipped into what seemed an inexhaustible well of ready
strength. The ground underfoot became more uneven, riven by
stones and outcroppings of rock that the snow turned into
ankle-breaking traps for the unwary. She kept her eyes ahead,
legs still pounding away as she leapt and shouldered her way
through the snow, burning with exhaustion a little more with
each breath. The skew and disposition of the trees ahead were a
hidden language telling her where the rock lay, where the
ground was earth and roots. She spurred herself on, scrabbling
and darting. Every time a tree passed on either side, she cast
herself that way, trying to put obstacles in his path.

He did not seem overly concerned. Sometimes he was almost
abreast of her, his sinuous progress at the corner of her vision,
on the left or the right, steering her adroitly by the menace of his
very presence. For him, the trees and rocks might almost not
have been there.

Then she saw, ahead, where the land would call a halt to the
chase; where she, exhausted and terrified, would be brought to
bay against a wall of upthrust grey stone. As though a god’s
stroke had severed the earth, the shallow, uneven rise that he
had been hounding her up met with a weathered and cracked
cliff face three times the height of a tall man. The barrier
extended on either side as far as she could see, a grey gash in the
white expanse of the world. Only now did she know how close
she was to the uplands, because here they were. This was where
the Wolf’s Shadow grew fainter. Here were the first few jagged
points that lined the northern edge of the Crown of the World.

Here was where Broken Axe sought to break her.
He was even slowing down, letting her dash herself against
the rocks; letting her drive out the last few sparks of defiance
that still burned in her.
She increased her speed, and for the first time had the sense
that she had caught him off guard. The stone loomed over her,
as though it would crash down and obliterate all trace that there
had ever been such a thing as Maniye, Stone River’s daughter.
A plan formed in her head: a mad plan but the sane ones had
all failed her. There was no wolf-test at which she would better
Broken Axe, but she could do something he could not.
This
cannot work
, but she guessed that Broken Axe had not been
interested in the Testing. Certainly he was not the sort to engage
in idle gossip with the Winter Runners, and there were drawbacks in being a man alone.
But it was very high, and she had never tried something like
this.
She Stepped. For a moment her pounding paws became feet
in Horse-gifted hide boots, going far too fast for a human, about
to trip over herself and plant her face straight in that rough
spread of stone.
She jumped, kicking off with all her strength, and as soon as
she had cleared the ground she was a wolf again. It was Broken
Axe’s trick to leap the stream. The distance her human strength
would throw her human body was far less than it would throw
the smaller wolf that she became. For a second she was a terrified animal, scrabbling at the rockface.
She had already worked through the sequence in her mind. In
the next eyeblink she let her tiger out, its claws already hooking
at whatever chink or fracture the rock would grant her, finding
impossible purchase for a half-breath that would let her rake her
way higher up the stone. She sensed Broken Axe at her very tail,
leaping up with jaws bared, but falling away, falling short of her.
Her satchel strap snapped, and for a moment she felt sure
that she would lose Hesprec again, and that he would fall into
the waiting teeth of the hunter. Something like a chill whip
coiled about her shoulder, though, and she knew he had lashed
himself close to her for all his old snake body was worth.
Then her battle with the stone and with the yawning pull of
the earth below consumed all her attention. She was fighting for
a hold with all four feet, lurching upwards in uneven bursts,
knowing that to fail was to fall. Her enemy was waiting to tear
into her the moment she allowed him to.
But it was for her to allow. For the first time she was in control: she would succeed or fail by her own merits, not merely fall
victim to Broken Axe’s long-learned skills.
Then, halfway up, she lost her purchase and felt herself parting company with the treacherous rockface, almost as if it was
shaking her off. She felt herself in fierce contention with its
stone spirit, the stubborn and uncooperative entity that slumbered within it. Then it had shuddered, like a vast beast that
feels the itching of some insect on its hide, and she was falling.
She twisted as only a cat can twist but, instead of poising
herself to fall on her feet, she thrust herself away from the stone,
imagining Broken Axe watching her arc overhead with a blank
stare.
The outer branches of the pine tree whipped at her, and her
weight shattered them as she half leapt, half fell. Then she hit a
branch that was solid enough to bear the small tiger that she had
become. She flailed madly at the bark, claws digging in wherever
they could. The trunk bent under her, but she gave it no time to
realize the lunacy she had inflicted upon it. She scrabbled and
scratched up another six feet, shifting her weight to lean in
towards the cliff, and then let the tree spring away as she
jumped again. Below her, Broken Axe jumped away from the
explosive shower of snow she released.
This time she had spotted her target – the higher reaches of
the cliff were riven and messy with roots and grass. For a
moment she thought that only one set of claws had caught – not
enough to keep her anchored there – but then both hind feet
had found just enough roughness in the rock to boost her up,
and it needed only three heaving breaths’ work to see her over
the top.
She turned, then, to look down. It was not exactly a gesture
of defiance, and when she collapsed into a crouch it was because
she was shaking too much to run any further. Still, she faced her
hunter, and in doing so shook off the role of prey, at least for
now.
The pale wolf that was Broken Axe looked up at her. She had
thought he would Step to his human form and try to coax her
back again, but there was just the beast below with his pale eyes
and his dark shoulders. He sat back on his haunches and stared,
and she tried to read many things into the language of his lean
body, and could not be sure of any of them.
Then he stood and shook himself and trotted off along the
line of the cliff, his intention plain. It would take more than the
intervention of the earth itself to put him off his hunt.
She thought about trying to climb down then, but
he
was still
there, somewhere below, and, if she thought of it, so might he
have second-guessed her, as he seemed so apt at doing. Instead,
when she had recovered her breath, she turned and set off again
away from the fractured side of the earth. She had meanwhile
returned to her wolf shape, but by now she had no clear destination left to her. The pursuit itself was the only thing that was
keeping her moving.
When she grew tired, worn down by covering the broken
ground, she sheltered wherever she could find, hunching in
whatever nook the land would give her: under rock shelves or in
the wind-shadow of trees. Hesprec made no appearance, having
stowed himself back in her satchel. She felt as lonely and lost as
if she was the last soul on earth.
Sometimes she went uphill, because she hoped Broken Axe
would assume she would go down. Sometimes she went downhill, because she was tired and it was easier, and she was not
thinking. The wind remained cold but the snow did not return,
and the weakening sun began to eat into that which had already
fallen, slowly restoring the world to her, and erasing her tracks.
On the third day, Broken Axe still not having caught up with
her erratic wanderings, she broke into the clearing, and halted.
In one sinuous movement, Hesprec unwound himself from
her satchel and Stepped into his old man’s body, drawing his
robe tight about him.
‘What is this place?’ he hissed, one hand making a quick gesture at the sight ahead of them, as if to ward off some hostile
and very present power.
She had been running tired for some time, her head low,
implacable feet drawing her on despite the bone-weariness in
her limbs. She had not noted all the stumps of felled trees that
had lined her path towards this place. She had not realized that,
out of the domain of the wilds, she had come to a place of man.
There were no men here now though: the start of winter had
driven them lower to warmer ground. She wondered if they
were thralls of the Winter Runners or if she had wandered close
to some other pack’s territory – the Moon Eaters perhaps.
Whichever, this was Wolf tribe work. No others did this.
Here, the felling of trees had cleared a great circular space
containing the wreckage of a dozen mounds. Where the snow
had melted, she could see the char of ash left behind, and there
was plenty of half-burned wood scattered about, the shell that
had been peeled away when the thralls had dug at the treasure
within.
She had always known that the Wolf had marked her – and
probably as prey. Here, she felt his presence keenly, his spirit
lingering even after his work was done.
When she Stepped again, exhaustion fell on her like a
hammer and she sagged to her knees. ‘This is a sacred site.’ She
felt that she should be very scared to intrude here – as Hesprec
must be, for certainly he had sensed the god of his enemies
hanging about the place. Instead, though, she felt unnaturally
calm. The Wolf was watching her but had yet to bare his teeth,
and she was too sapped by her long run to show either deference or defiance.
‘What do they do here?’ the old Serpent asked, eyes narrowed.
She should not tell him, she knew. No child of the Wolf
should divulge such secrets. But the rebellious streak that had
driven her so far flared up again, and she looked the invisible
Wolf right in its eye and said, ‘This is where they make the
magic wood. Kalameshli has scores of thralls employed for it.
They do something special in the burning of it, and this normal
wood becomes magic wood, the Wolf’s wood.’
She glanced at him to see what he might make of that, and
noticed a thoughtful expression under the shadow of his hood.
‘This is the iron-magic?’ he guessed.
‘It is the iron-magic,’ she confirmed. She did not know the
secret, of course; only Kalameshli and his acolytes – and their
counterparts in other tribes – could claim that knowledge. She
knew the magic was only the Wolf’s to use, though, a secret
knowledge that had seen her father’s people cast down her
mother’s, and that no outsiders must ever know. The iron was
that unnatural, terrible metal that made tools that could shatter
stone and weapons that could crack bronze; iron that no man
could attune himself to and carry with him while Stepped, without going through terrible ordeals as secret as the metal’s
working.
‘Your god is here.’ Hesprec’s voice seemed remarkably steady.
‘Or one of them, at least. How does he look upon you, tell me?’
Wolf filled the clearing, towering high as the sky, his sightless
paws planted as far apart as the furthest trees. She felt his vast
attention on her, watchful and considering.
Well, O Wolf?
she asked, inside her head.
Speak to me of your
disapproval.
She knew the stories of those who betrayed the
pack: hearth-husbands who were greedy when food was scarce;
chiefs who led their people astray; hunters who were clumsy or
over-proud; kinslayers – most of all kinslayers. In the stories,
they found themselves in the wilds and they came face to face
with Wolf, and they were judged.
There were many qualities Wolf despised, but many that he
valued, too. Not all his people ran with the pack. Some walked
alone, after all.
Wolf weighed her and scented her and marked her trail – all
of her trail all the way back to Akrit’s hall, and she felt no condemnation, not yet. Wolf was waiting to see how she would
survive, now she had cast herself into the wilderness. She would
know his judgement: it would be expressed in her living until
spring, or in her frozen corpse being buried by the winter snow.
Wolf despised betrayal and cowardice, but she felt neither of
those rods descending upon her back. Instead, she knew that
Wolf valued determination and perseverance, the endurance of
the long chase, the will to survive the lean season of the ice.
‘He is waiting,’ she said softly. ‘He wants to know what I will
do next.’
Hesprec sighed and sat down beside her, stiffly enough that
she heard his joints creak. ‘And what
will
you do?’
‘Survive.’ The word came to her unbidden.
‘Excellent. Always it is good to have a plan.’
She glanced angrily at him, but saw the slight smile there, the
sign that he was baiting her.
‘And you have a plan too, O Serpent?’
‘It may be so. This is not my land but these things are known:
what we have just lived through was the least hatchling of winter’s brood, no? When the season comes in earnest, we will die.’
He saw her stubborn expression, and amended that to: ‘
I
will die
– of that I am sure.’
‘I hear no plan,’ she told him curtly.
‘We are reaching the far bounds of your people, here? I had
always thought that the highlands were not Wolf lands?’
‘The Wolf walks where he wills,’ she replied archly, but then:
‘I think we must be at the very edge of the Wolf’s Shadow here,
though. This camp may even mark it. The Wolf-wood takes
much normal wood to create, I think, so the camps are far
spread.’
Hesprec closed his eyes and bowed his head. ‘Let us head
north, then.’
‘Further north?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘North, into the highlands proper,’ he confirmed. ‘Use that
nose of yours to sniff out some habitation that is not Wolf tribe.
Let us claim some right of hospitality, and hope that whoever
dwells here is kinder to a wandering priest than your kin were.
Seek out the scent of smoke, and let us then trust to the power
of our words to win us a place for the winter.’
‘That is no plan,’ she decided.
‘It is my only plan. And yours is . . . ?’
She tried to sense what the Wolf might think. Was it craven to
creep into some stranger’s good graces just to ward off the chill?
Should she not brave the utmost winter to show how she was
the Wolf’s child?
Except that she was not only the Wolf’s child and, anyway,
even the Wolf told stories of the clever as well as the strong and
the swift. Wolf valued the crafty even as he valued the mighty.
She half felt that Hesprec’s suggestion was doomed anyway.
Surely they could wander all over the highlands and not find a
single campfire kept burning. But there was no harm to scent
the wind for the taste of smoke, after all. In the end, even if the
Wolf did disapprove, she wanted to live. A stranger’s hearth was
better than a cold grave.