The Tiger and the Wolf (40 page)

Akrit had expected to meet resistance from the Swift Backs.
They were a tribe that had few links with the Winter Runners
and bad blood from a couple of generations back. When the
Wolf had risen against the Tiger, the Swift Backs had not been
easy under Seven Skins’ leadership, Always they had followed
their own paths, never where they were supposed to be. But still
they were of the Wolf, and their lands were closest to the Tiger.
He could not ignore them.

And the girl had been brought this way, for he had followed
her trail this far, with his warband at his heels.
He had fought Water Gathers for the loyalty of the Many
Mouths, and he had come with the expectation of more blood in
his mouth before this day was out. Instead, he and his people
were welcomed as guests. For once somebody was pleased to
see them.
He and Kalameshli Takes Iron stayed the night in the longhouse of the chief. Word was running through this part of the
Crown of World like the wind: the Tiger was on the move. Hunting parties were coming down out of the Shining Halls, driving
the game of the Swift Backs before them. There had been raiding parties, stealing both thralls and food. A burning stand of
the Wolf’s wood had been scattered and despoiled. Scouts and
lone hunters were missing.
The Swift Backs were between the claws of the Tiger, Akrit
found.
Word had come to them from the Stone Place, outstripping
Stone River’s own progress. They looked at him with a measure
of fear, a measure of respect. He felt as though he could almost
reach across to them, to take them in hand and make them his.
Despite it all, though, they were waiting. They watched him
eagerly, but in anticipation of what he might become.
He went to see Takes Iron the next morning. ‘What do they
want? Should I have come here wearing Water Gathers’ skin?
Do they want the spirits to take flesh and kneel before me?’
The old priest grimaced a little at the words. ‘They have
heard stories, and tales grow in the telling.’
‘I am less than they expected? Is that what you now tell me?’
Kalameshli took a deep breath, glancing sidelong about him
in case any of the Swift Backs was too close. ‘If word has come,
then it will be word of all, the good and the bad.’
Akrit hissed through his teeth. In that moment he wanted to
tear down the Swift Back village with his bare hands and scatter
the earth of their mounds. ‘The girl, still?’ He had a terrible
sense of a story being told here, one of the old tales:
The Chief
who Hunted His Daughter.
And how did that story end? ‘What
do they expect me to do? Stride into the Shining Halls and seize
her?’
‘I think that is just what they expect.’ Takes Iron shrugged.
‘They have lived close by the Tiger’s Shadow, all this time. Year
after year they have watched it creep down from the heights to
inhabit their woods. All this time, the Winter Runners have told
stories of the Tiger’s defeat. The Swift Backs have told stories of
what they once did when they were strong.’
‘And now they think they’re strong again?’ Akrit spat.
‘I think, for the Swift Backs, every darkness has a tiger in it,’
said Kalameshli, shaking his head. ‘They want someone to rise
up and lead the war against the Shadow Eaters, but they will not
raise their spears unless they believe they can win. As the shape
of the enemy has grown in their minds, so they need a great
leader – one who does all he sets out to.’
Akrit turned his mind to the Shining Halls, remembering his
one sight of the place when he was young.Yes, Seven Skins had
driven the Shadow Eaters back to the highlands, but even he
had not brought the fight to the very heart of their power. A
dawn had come when even he had turned around and said,
‘Enough.’
‘Enough,’ Akrit’s voice echoed his thoughts. ‘Give me the
warbands of all the Wolf tribes, and I will tear down the stones
of the Shining Halls gladly. But not now.’
He was still brooding the next day when a Swift Back scout
came hotfoot back from spying out the edge of the Tiger’s
Shadow. There were warbands come down from the Shining
Halls, she said, and the craven panic that went through her
people was pitiful to see.
But there was more: they were not come to raid the Wolf, the
scout announced. Instead they were hunting strange fugitives.
The scout had seen that with her own eyes.
Long before he had heard all, Akrit knew the truth, and he
was calling for his people to hunt too.

Next day, Yellow Claw’s messenger flew back on swift wings
from the Shining Halls. He made his report out of earshot of
Maniye, but she could watch them between the trunks of the
testing ground.Yellow Claw was not exactly overjoyed with what
he was hearing, but plainly his man had learned something. The
Eyrieman leader’s gaze slid across to her, again and again.

Then he came striding across the bluff towards her, slipping
a copper knife into one hand.
‘The Tigers are searching the forests for you. The priesthood
women are all very upset you have gone,’ he announced with a
sneer. ‘But nobody says why. So it seems I must dirty my hands
with you, after all. Have you stolen something of value that
you’ve hidden from us? Is it some secret you discovered, that
they wish no one to know?’
Maniye just stared up at him stubbornly. She did not know
why she was protecting Joalpey, after what had happened. The
bond was still there, though. That new-forged link was a cord
that could not be cut by just one pair of hands.
Yellow Claw sighed theatrically, raising his eyes to the sky. ‘I
will find this knowledge in you, even if I must cut you open and
read it in your entrails,’ he declared, matter-of-factly.
Still she said nothing. She would gladly have answered him
with something scathing, an insult even, but fear kept her from
it.
Then the cry went up from one of the Eyriemen, ‘Coming up
the path!’
Yellow Claw rolled his eyes at this distraction. ‘I shall be brief,
little one,’ he told her, as though she was his lover, and then he
strode over to a spot at the bluff’s edge that must be the sole
accessible point, with sharp stakes thronging on either side of a
narrow gap. A handful of other Eyriemen had gathered there,
some with bows, but Yellow Claw was plainly not impressed by
what he saw. He was curious, though: Maniye could read that in
him. And Grey Herald was speaking there, too, giving some
quiet piece of advice.
The Eyriemen backed off, enough to allow the newcomers to
reach the top of the path. Maniye caught her breath. It was
them
.
Not the whole mob of them, who would probably have been
riddled with arrows by now, but two had come. One was Hesprec, leaning on his staff, nothing but bone-stretched skin in the
shape of an old man. He looked exhausted just to be there, even
though he had surely been carried up the path in his serpent
form. The other was the black man, the true southerner. He was
Asman or Asmander, she could not remember which.

The young southerner rolled his shoulders, looking over the
Eyriemen but mostly at their Champion. Yellow Claw was the
same brute of a man he remembered from their journey to the
Stone Place – perhaps his presence there had been required for
some Eyrie supplication, as that part of a Champion’s life was a
weary memory for Asmander.

Asmander wore the proper regalia of Old Crocodile’s chosen
warrior, as he had to fight the Wolf, Sure As Flint. It did not
make him feel any happier.

There were enough warriors here to do away with him without much of a fight, and he could hardly outrun a flight of
hawks if things went badly. Hesprec seemed confident, though.
Just two nights ago he had been in solemn conference with a
shadowy figure who had flown in on silent wings, and departed
the same way. From that he had conceived a plan, little of which
he had been inclined to share.

The night after that . . .
Shyri and Venater were down at a camp at the base of the
slope, far too distant to provide help. Asmander hoped the pair
of them weren’t killing each other even now. Venater had been
particularly bitter, saying the whole business was a fool’s errand
and that, when Asmander got himself killed, who would give
him back his name?

‘You will just have to beseech the Dragon to grant me health,’
had come the Champion’s dry reply, ‘or you will die a fullgrown child, and then what body would ever want your soul?’

There had been real anger and fear in the pirate’s eyes, at that
remark. The reaction had been oddly reassuring.
And he’s right. This is a stupid thing to be doing. If the old man
wasn’t of the Serpent . . .
But a life spent in the Sun River Nation
had taught Asmander to respect the priesthood. Their true
intent was seldom obvious, and almost never what they claimed
it was, but it was usually for the best. Or so they taught, at least,
and history had borne them out.
What lay ahead of them was knotting his stomach. Not the
challenging of Yellow Claw, but what that challenge might force
him to do.
His head was full of Hesprec’s words, the preparations they
had made, the ritual he had undergone. He was frightened by it.
Fear of pain and death was something he had the shoulders to
shrug off – those were things outside him, and he knew how to
brace himself against them. This new thing which Hesprec had
gifted him with, though, it was buried within him, alien and
eager.
‘I remember you,’ Yellow Claw said, eyes like stone for all he
affected a mocking tone. ‘No woman to do your fighting for you
this time?’
‘I thought I should leave you at least a small chance,’
Asmander acknowledged.
‘What do you want, black man? Or perhaps you have come
here to learn to fly?’ Yellow Claw’s glance encompassed the
nearby sheer drop that made up most of the bluff’s edge.
Asmander managed to force out a snort of amusement,
although he had decided on the way up that he was very much
not fond of the heights that most of this cold country seemed
built from. ‘I’m here to fetch the girl.’
Yellow Claw went still. ‘Why?’ he hissed. ‘What is this girl,
that the world wants her? This ugly little Wolf brat?’
‘She is dear to my friend,’ Asmander said, with a sideways
nod at Hesprec. ‘And, besides, if not for her I would have not
have been given this chance to challenge you.’
The Eyrieman laughed, and Asmander was not heartened to
see that it was a genuine laugh, rather than something put on for
his followers. ‘I am the Great Eagle, black man. I am a Champion of the Eyrie. Nowhere in the Crown of the World will you
see such a terror as me!’
‘I am a Champion of the Sun River Nation,’ Asmander told
him mildly. ‘I will fight you for the girl.’
There was a gleam of cunning in Yellow Claw’s eyes. ‘But we
already have the girl, do we not? What does the Eyrie stand to
gain, save painting our ground with your blood? But this your
friend
, this dead stick beside you, he can tell us the girl’s value,
yes? Why would he seek her, unless he plans to sell or use her?
When you are dead, he will tell us all he knows. Or he will go to
meet the Hawk.’
Asmander cocked an eye at Hesprec, and the old man
nodded tiredly. Last night’s business had clearly taken a great
deal out of him.
‘Enough bragging.’ The south’s Champion squared his shoulders and drew out his
maccan
. ‘Let’s fight.’
Yellow Claw made a derisive face. ‘Look, your wooden sword
has stone teeth. Is that so you will be able to eat when your real
ones are broken, black man?’
The Eyrieman sauntered over to that snaggle of logs jutting
out over the drop, plainly expecting dismay from his opponent
at the sight. Asmander was forewarned, though, by Hesprec’s
informant. He had always known how this was going to go.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.
Yellow Claw leapt out into thin air – the action of a maniac if
he had not become an eagle at the apex, mighty wings shadowing the ground as he lazily flapped and circled until he found a
roost atop the furthest pole, where he became a man again,
balancing without effort.
‘Come, Man of the River!’ he called. ‘Come bring your challenge.’
Asmander looked once more at Hesprec, hoping to see a suggestion in the old man’s expression that the plan he knew of was
only some small part of the Serpent’s scheme. The pallid Snake
priest looked ashen, though, drawn and haggard. His colourless
eyes met Asmander’s and there was no help to be found there.
The other Eyriemen were drawing closer, eager to see this
foreigner beaten. Asmander reached the closest pillar and inched
out along it, arms extended for balance. There, he managed to at
least approximate Yellow Claw’s enviable poise.
At the bluff’s edge, the Hawk warriors were spreading out,
and plenty of them had knives. There was no going back that
way until the fight was over, and the only other exit was straight
downwards. And, of course, Yellow Claw himself could just fly
away.
The Eyrieman Champion had a knife in each hand now: long
and tapering blades of bronze, styled like feathers. Asmander
found himself almost obsessing over their craftsmanship, which
was beautiful, because the alternative was actually starting the
fight.
But he had to fight. It was not about the girl. It was about
being a Champion.
The step to the next pillar was a long one, but manageable.
Beyond that, they were more spread out, some surely beyond a
man’s ability to reach without jumping.Yellow Claw was like his
reflection, moving as he moved. The sun gleamed along the
length of his knives.
The next step was more of a stretch, and Asmander was
forced to teeter for balance as he made it, to jeers from the
Eyriemen. Yellow Claw came rushing for him in the same
moment. The Eyrieman had not Stepped, but just ran across the
posts with great, sure strides that Asmander would never have
been able to match. He had closed the distance between them in
an absurdly brief moment, one dagger snapping out. Asmander
could not just feint aside as he might have done on the ground.
Instead he struck at the blade, stone scraping metal and deflecting the thrust, throwing them both off balance.Yellow Claw just
took a long step to the next post, not even looking back, whilst
Asmander swayed in place.
Time to shift the odds . . .
and he Stepped.
The shape he took was something the Eyriemen did not
know, and did not like now that they saw it. Asmander’s Champion shape, with its sickle-clawed feet, its heavy jaws, was
something beyond even their stories. Yellow Claw gave ground
swiftly, putting a half-dozen posts between them, but Asmander
was the Champion now: a new soul had taken hold of his limbs.
A little distance was not going to dissuade him.
He sprang, the great strength of his hind legs sending him
sailing forwards three posts, to land almost next to Yellow Claw
with a scrabbling of talons, straight tail out for balance. The post
gave dangerously beneath him, sagging towards the abyss. The
Eyrieman swiped at Asmander’s snout with a blade, but he was
backing away as he did so, three jumps and the last one almost
a fall. Asmander screeched at him, riding a wave of defiance.
He had one more chance, another spring with an almost flat
trajectory, bringing him down to rake a post that Yellow Claw
had just vacated. The Eyrie Champion was shaken, but he was
not beaten. A vicious grin had forced its way onto his face.
‘Very fine, black man,’ he called, ‘but can you fly yet? I think
not!’
Before Asmander could pounce again, he had Stepped himself, hunching as an Eagle on his own post, wings half-spread.
The River Champion paused, muscles tense to spring, knowing
that the bird would be in the air before he landed.
Then Yellow Claw was airborne anyway, his spread of wings
seeming to shadow the whole bluff, rising up with indolent
slowness, untouchable, and then abruptly snapping into a dive.
Twin clutches of bronze talons stooped on Asmander like a
sudden storm. He threw himself out of the way, almost missed
his footing despite all the nimble balance the Champion’s form
lent him, and then the eagle was swooping for him again.
For a moment he was preparing to fight back, to risk
everything to try and take the bird in mid-air as it came in. Then
either his nerve broke or his rational mind told him that he must
fail, and he was hopping away again, awkward and graceless –
and pursued.
They went through the same game three more times, and by
then Asmander knew that it was a game, that the Eyrieman was
having great fun chasing him around and demonstrating his
superiority to his followers. And it told Asmander what sort of a
man he was, which was useful for what came next.
Yellow Claw broke off and settled on a further post, Stepping
back to his human form with his arms outspread just as his
wings had been.
‘Well, black man?’ he demanded. ‘Have you learned to fly
yet?’
Asmander assumed his human shape, breathing heavily. His
heart was battling within his chest in what seemed to be a determined bid for freedom, but it was not the exertion nor fear of
death at the talons of Yellow Claw. This was the plan. It was
Hesprec’s gift.
They had sat up late, that last night, and the old Serpent had
looked into his soul. ‘A Champion is touched by the invisible
world,’ he had said. ‘There are paths that have been trodden
once. Perhaps they might be travelled again.’
Asmander looked Yellow Claw in the eye and tried to find
some cutting rejoinder, but no words came. He was drawn bowstring-tense by what he was about to try, and there was no room
for wit.
He wanted to say,
Yes . . .Yes I have learned to fly.
He Stepped. It was not to his Champion’s fighting form nor
to the low-slung water shape of Old Crocodile. It was to something else, something that Hesprec had invited into him: a new
soul enticed into his body.
He could not say what it might look like through someone
else’s eyes. He knew only what it felt like: the feet that gripped
the post beneath him were fiercely taloned, the barbs gleaming
with the black lustre of obsidian. His arms were long and attenuated, hands reaching out until the last finger of each was longer
than his whole body. When he shook them out, the webs of skin
between them and his narrow body snapped sail-taut, twitching
and rippling. His head was like a crested spear, forming a razoredged beak longer than a man.
When he spread his wings, they were almost as vast as Yellow
Claw’s own. When he gave voice, it shook the peaks above them.
He was something like a bat, something like a crocodile, nothing
that the eyes of men had ever seen.
The transformation struck Yellow Claw as hard as a sword
blow. He Stepped to his bird form, stuttered back to man, then
bird again spreading his own wings and keening, but a moment
later he was crouching on human feet, the two knives held out.
His eyes were wide enough that Asmander could see the white
all around them, could stare right into their depths to Yellow
Claw’s mean and bitter souls, and see his own reflection ravening back out of them.
Asmander beat his wings and pushed himself forward, gliding
two posts closer to Yellow Claw and managing a creditable landing with his hooked feet and the fingers of his wings. Part of him
was trying to exalt in this new form, but far more of him was
terrified of getting it wrong. The body’s shape knew the air, but
there an understanding of the air that Yellow Claw had and
Asmander lacked. Some things only came with practice. And the
moment he slipped, the moment he looked a fool, his hold on
the other man would be gone.
If it came to it, and if Yellow Claw fought fierce, then the
Eyrieman would still win.
So Asmander came on strong, hop after hop, shrieking and
thundering with his wings. He made that unfamiliar body into a
death threat aimed straight at his enemy.
I too can fly! There is
nowhere you can go I cannot follow.
And he thought:
If all my life
I’d had mastery of the sky, uncontested, then would I be a brave man
still? If I had the luxury of living where none could attack, of attacking only where I chose.
He was maligning the Eyrie, no doubt.
Surely there were many brave warriors there, for they had to
strive against each other to prove themselves. Their Champion,
though . . .
And he made that final lunge. Yellow Claw was a man until
the second before he struck, and then spread his wings and
kicked away, flight over fight. Asmander became the Champion
and caught him in the moment that he took to the sky. Sickle-talons raked across the eagle’s body, ripping feathers and
scoring lines of blood, and then the bird was free of him, wheeling and tumbling in the air, circling down awkwardly, one wing
trailing. He was a man again as he landed, clutching an arm to
his chest, bloody where the claws had raked.
For a moment Asmander wanted to stoop on him, to finish
him off, but that was not the way between Champions – for all
such niceties were probably unknown in the cold north. Instead,
he Stepped back to human form, standing tall and proud and
high.
‘I claim my victory,’ he called. ‘Free the girl, and if I see a
wing-speck in the sky following us, then I shall rise to meet it.’
Empty words, but he gave them force.