The Tiger and the Wolf (50 page)

The dark girl sat beside her, at the edge of the camp. The fires
were behind, the measureless night extending before them.
There were wolves in that night, and the sullen shadows of
tigers, but for once Maniye had no thought for either. Knowledge was echoing inside her, making her head ring like a bell.
She had come to the brink of Revelation, that deep understanding of the world that changes all things. It was not something
that she was equipped to deal with. A great many things she had
once thought were immutable had become fluid and uncertain
through just a handful of words.

‘I told you, when we first met, that my people were special,’
the strange girl told her, grinning with bright teeth. ‘You were
asking then – you thought southerners were dark, burned black
by the sun. And, as you see, we are.’

‘Hesprec wasn’t.’ Because Maniye could not bring herself to
say, ‘
You
weren’t,’ as if such things were everyday matters.
The girl shrugged, smiling. ‘And, if I have the chance to grow
old once more, then, when I am old and my skin grows loose
and brittle on me again, I shall seem pale to you once more.’
‘And . . . and then?’ Just a whisper, from Maniye.This felt like
either madness or the sort of lore that gods guarded jealously.
But the girl continued, quite unconcerned with supernatural
retribution. ‘And then I shall find myself somewhere alone, and
at the end of my body’s strength, and I shall seek peace and go
find the Serpent beneath the earth. And I shall touch his coils,
and partake of our mystery, and I shall be born anew and be
young once more, just as I am now.’
‘As a boy – a man, I mean?’
Again that carefree shrug. ‘Who can say how matters may fall
out? I did not know, this time, if I would succeed. I thought that
it might be a final death, despite all your bravery. The Crown of
the World is a long way from those places where the Serpent is
strong. But my faith is rewarded: he is beneath the earth even
here.’
And Maniye could restrain the question no longer. ‘How
many times?’
‘How often have I shed my old skin?’ The girl’s eyes glinted
as she looked at her.
‘Yes, are you . . . ? You told me, during the winter, of the
Oldest Kingdom that your people lost at the start of the world.
Were you . . . ?’
‘Was I there?’ The girl laughed gently, and it was that sound
which made her Hesprec. A young throat, but an old laugh. ‘No,
no, I’m not so old that I laid any pair of eyes on those wonders
. . .’ And then she grew reflective. ‘But I spoke once with an old,
old priest who did, or so he said.’
Maniye felt an almost crippling sense of time, for here was an
ancient being in the body of a thirteen-year-old girl, speaking in
awed tones about one who had been
truly
old.
And at last Hesprec sighed, and admitted, ‘Eight times, now,
and that is plenty of years enough.’
‘Were you a man or woman? First of all, I mean.’
‘You know, I’m not sure I can remember.’ Hesprec shook her
head. ‘A little of the memory sloughs off with the skin, each
time. We shed our childhoods soon enough.’ She looked up,
finding the moon in the sky just as that pale crescent cut its way
out from the clouds. ‘And will you leave now?’
‘Leave?’ For a moment Maniye could not think of what she
meant.
‘You were planning to go. Because you did not want to hurt
people, I think.’
‘I . . .’
‘The Tiger has been here, but two days ago.’
Maniye stared at her.
‘They came asking after you,’ Hesprec continued. ‘None was
there then whom they might have marked. But their queen was
with them.’
An uncertain, shocked sound escaped Maniye as though she
had been stabbed. ‘The queen . . . ?’
‘She did not announce it, but these eyes of mine knew her,’
the girl confirmed. ‘And no doubt there will be wolves howling
beyond the camp soon enough.’
‘Then I must leave.’
‘Leave in the daylight. Leave with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I owe you a debt. I know that some of the others
have fought for you, for their own reasons, but I owe you my life
twice over, and what I can do for you, it shall be done.’ Hearing
so young a creature make so solemn an oath should have
seemed absurd, but there was a current of certainty in Hesprec’s
voice that most people could have lived a hundred years and not
achieved.
‘You can’t help me. My father and my mother hunt in vain,
because I will destroy myself. My body has three shapes and
they are at war. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to
save myself.’ And all her resolve had crumbled with the words,
leaving her voice shaking. ‘I have too many souls, and they’re
tearing me apart.’
Hesprec put a youthful arm about her shoulders and hugged
her close. ‘The Serpent hides many secrets, and the Crown of
the World contains more than one seam of wisdom. There are
. . .’ And then the girl trailed into silence, cued by a change in
the way Maniye held herself. ‘Or perhaps you have thought of
something,’ Hesprec finished quietly.
Maniye looked at her, feeling as though she had donned the
halved face of an Eyrieman: wolf eye, tiger eye; tiger eye, wolf
eye: her souls jostling behind her visage. But, yes, her own words
had sparked a thought, an unlooked-for avenue of enquiry.
‘I will stay,’ she said softly. ‘For now, I will stay.’ There was a
conversation she needed to have and she was not looking forward to it.

In the morning she watched as Loud Thunder made a fuss of
his dogs, teasing them and scratching under their jaws and
throwing them scraps of fish. She could never quite get used to
dogs: the language of their bodies was so like wolves, and yet so
different. Time after time she thought they were attacking
Thunder for real, and then it became clear they were only playing after all.

After that – for she was still working up courage – she
watched the Horse and their fellows wading about in the broad,
shallow basin of the river. She realized by now that more than
one set of eyes was fixed on her, watching to see what she would
do. There was an awareness in Broken Axe’s look that suggested
he knew she had been on the point of fleeing overnight, and of
course there was Hesprec. She had thought that the Serpent
priest’s eyes should have been a fixed point, some part of him
that he would carry forward, shed his skin as he might. Instead,
the dark girl looked back at her from wide eyes of bright copper,
and there was nothing of Hesprec in that gaze at all.

A shadow fell across her, as she stared across the water. She
glanced up, then further up, for this was a tall man of the Horse,
long-boned and even-featured.

‘Blessings of the morning on your road, child of the Wolf,’ he
intoned formally, bringing his hands together before him. He
was keeping a precise distance between them, and she reckoned
it was calculated as the reach of her arm if she had a knife to
wield in it. That this long-boned, broad-shouldered man should
be so wary of her was almost funny.

She opened her mouth, trying to think of something equally
elegant to say in reply, but what came out was, ‘I know you.’ She
was abruptly back at the Horse outpost on the Sand Pearl,
where she and Hesprec had gone to seek passage south. There
had been a fat man leading the Horse back there, but when the
Winter Runners came hunting, it had been this tall, fine-featured
youth who had come bearing food and clothes and warning.

He nodded solemnly. ‘I have been a servant of your host,
during another season. I am—’
‘Alladei, Hand-son of Ganris,’ she recited. A moment later
she felt herself colouring, for to remember the man after so long
seemed oddly embarrassing. He was striking, though, and she
remembered thinking so the first time she had set eyes on him.
His eyes widened, but then he nodded. ‘You do me much
honour. You are the one they call Many Tracks. Welcome to our
camp.
My
camp, as my hand-father has trusted me with this
expedition.’
She nodded cautiously, still aware of the respectful distance
between them. ‘What is it the Horse has travelled so far for?’
‘Travel is life and breath to the Horse,’ he declared. ‘But here
is where we gather magic stones.’
She blinked. ‘Magic . . . ?’
He reached into a pouch and came out with a thumbnail-sized orb of translucent gold. ‘They love these so much on
the River that they will shower us with wealth for them. They
love stones of all kinds: turquoise, serpent-stones, tiger’s eye. But
for magic, they must have the river-gold, these sun stones. Look,
this is a cursed one.’ He held it out to her. ‘There is a little
demon caught within it. With this their priests can do great
magics.’
She squinted closer, seeing in the murky depths of the stone
a tiny hunchbacked shape, a suggestion of veined wings, a tangle
of thread-thin legs.
A fly?
She reached out to touch it, and he
pulled the stone back hurriedly, holding it to his chest as though
it might give him some protection from her.
‘I’m . . .’ Maniye managed a weak laugh. ‘I’m not going to
hurt you.’
‘Such was never my thought, but we know by now that there
are those who would hurt many to reach you. Would they risk
the enmity of the Horse Society to do so? Who can say?’ He
gave a sad smile, but she felt a chill run through her.
‘I cannot stay.’
‘You are our guest.
My
guest, since my hand-father has
trusted me with this expedition. I shall shelter you as befits a
host, so shall my family and all who heed me.’
‘And, as I am your guest, I cannot stay,’ she completed.
‘I would we might meet in happier times.’
She thought it was just a Horse pleasantry, but his eyes were
still on her, and abruptly she felt uncomfortable.
‘I must . . .’ And she had spotted her quarry now, out beyond
the tents along with his fellows. ‘I’m sorry, I must . . .’ But Alladei was nodding, saving her from hunting down further words.

Asmander was performing some sort of dance with his sword. It
was not like the Tiger dances, intended to be interlaced with the
leaps and raking claws of an animal. Instead, she watched as he
and his stone-toothed weapon moved about one another, performing an exercise in balance. Asmander killed invisible foes
for her, the sword curving and striking, but never still, and he
never still at its other end, so that they seemed equal partners in
the fight.

The other two were nearby: southerners together. The laughing woman had been watching the dark man intensely, and now
she turned the same keen gaze on Maniye. The big old warrior
was just lying on the ground with his eyes closed, letting the
morning sun warm him.

When one of his strikes brought him round to face her,
Asmander stopped his practice and just waited for her to
approach, his weapon still to hand. His face was unreadable,
save that he did not look happy.

Standing out of reach of a strike from that jagged blade, she
took a deep breath and met his eyes.
It’s time we spoke.
He nodded curtly, not needing her to say the words. ‘Go, find
some other to bother,’ he told his friends.
‘Hmm?’ Venater opened his eyes, registered Maniye, then
waved a hand idly. ‘I’m comfortable.
Yo u
go, if you want.’
‘And I want to hear her put her claws in,’ Shyri said pleasantly. ‘So speak, Wolf girl – or Tiger girl, is it? Tell the Son of
Asman what you think of the honour of the Riverlands.’
Asmander scowled at her, but his face was composed as he
turned back to Maniye. ‘So, speak.’
In truth, ever since seeing him in the Wolf camp she had baffled herself over what she might say to him, whether she should
condemn or thank him, or just ignore him. But now her life was
easier, in this small way. Now she knew exactly what she must
say.
‘I don’t want to talk about that – any of that,’ she told him.
Now her life had contracted into a single knot and she could not
indulge herself in raking over history. ‘What was that thing you
Stepped to, there in the camp?’
‘That?’ Asmander frowned. ‘That is Old Crocodile. That is
the shape of my people, the Patient Ones, lords of the river.’
‘And that’s a . . . this is something that exists, where you
come from?’
Venater snorted, eyes still closed: ‘Is she stupid?’ And Shyri
snickered.
‘Why would she know?’ Asmander chided. ‘This land is too
cold for Old Crocodile. But, yes, they are common all along the
Tsotec – the river of my people.’
‘Then what is the other shape you take?’ Maniye demanded
of him.
‘That is the Champion. I told you so before.’
‘But what is the Champion?’ she demanded. ‘I have heard the
Eyriemen talk of their Champions. I saw Yellow Claw take on
the Great Eagle’s shape, when you fought him, and when he
snatched me from the ground. So what is
your
Champion?’
Understanding her at last, he nodded. ‘It has many names,
like your hunters do. The Champion is Running Lizard, he is
Killing Claw, Swift Reaver. But he is no beast that is known to
men. The Champion comes from deep time, the priests say, a
shape from the days before our fathers ever fled to this land. It
came to me and it chose me to bear its soul. It is a great burden,
a great glory . . .’ His voice trailed off, because Maniye was staring at him fiercely.
‘Then it’s true,’ she hissed. ‘I didn’t think of it before, but it’s
true. You have two souls. You live with two souls.’
‘The soul of a Champion is not like . . .’ And he was shaking
his head. ‘No, I know why you ask, but this is not what you seek.
You are torn between Wolf and Tiger – they are in balance
within you, so that neither can chase the other out. When the
Champion’s form comes upon me, Old Crocodile shifts himself
aside. He knows not to contest his kills with such a creature.’
Maniye found herself baring her teeth at him, because this
was her idea, her only
idea
about what was happening to her and
how it might be controlled. ‘I will tell Hesprec. He . . .
she
will
find a way to help me, with this,’ and she was off, running back
into the camp and looking for the priest.
She had only just tracked the Serpent girl down when a deep
horn was sounded by one of the Horse sentries. They had spotted a pack of wolves breaking from the treeline.