The Tiger and the Wolf (10 page)

After the hunt, only Venater would come close. Nobody needed
to ask why Asmander did not Step to his Champion form for
trivial purposes. The Laughing Men regarded him with that mix
of awe and envy that he was used to, even from his own family.
The shape he had been gifted with had no mute brothers in the
world; the eyes of men had seen no other beasts that strode on
those two sickle-clawed feet. There was something intangible
but undeniable that hung about that shape: deep and fierce and
demanding of respect.

If only this gift had fallen to Tecumander and not me.
Asmander
pictured his childhood friend, into whose young retinue old
Asman had schemed so hard to place his son. And it had worked:
the two boys had been inseparable, no stronger comrades in
mischief to be found in all the Sun River Nation. When they had
been young, it had not mattered that one was the son of a
mid-ranking clan head, and the other was the son of the Kasra
– the lord of all the Riverlands.

Had it been young Tecumander singled out by the gods for
this honour, then a great many difficulties would never have
arisen, and Asmander would not even now be heading towards
the inhospitable north.

Back at the Laughing Men village, the Horse Society had
already bundled up its belongings, ready to depart. The intact
return of their Hetman and their two passengers was greeted
with poorly hidden relief. They decamped to the river shortly
afterwards, with the Malikah and a party of her people coming
to see them off.

‘Champion,’ the Malikah of the Laughing Men addressed
him, as the Horse people loaded their canoes, ‘you must know,
we hear much news of your nation here, by land and water.’

Asmander’s manner suggested this topic of conversation was
no great matter to him. ‘Indeed?’
‘You are not the first guests we have entertained here. Some
were not heading north,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘Some came
solely to seek my attention.’
He shrugged. ‘No doubt you showed them the same good
hospitality with which you have honoured us. Perhaps they were
here to trade.’
‘In their own way. They sought to trade for the use of our
spears. It is an odd thing, but the wind tells me that there is
strange weather in the Sun River Nation since the old Kasra
died.’
‘We are a complex people,’ he said. ‘Will you tell me of your
response to them?’ They could not be Tecuman’s emissaries that
had come to her, that much seemed plain. And if they had not
come at the behest of Asmander’s friend, they were likely his
enemies.
‘Will you tell me of your prince?’ Her breath was hot on his
cheek, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.
‘He is a paragon of honour. From his youngest days he was
marked to rule, by his own manner and by signs and portents
noted by the priests. All who saw him knew him as he on whom
the mask of the Kasra must surely fall,’ Asmander recited.
‘I think not,’ the Malikah said softly, ‘for if it were as you say,
then I would not have visitors from the south seeking the spears
of the Laughing Men to come to Atahlan.’
‘And what did you tell them, these visitors?’
Her yipping laugh was so loud and sudden in his ear that he
started away from her with a curse, the Champion’s soul stirring
briefly in him.
‘Champion, the Laughing Men do not take sides,’ the Malikah
declared. ‘We wait, and we mark those who are weak, and those
who have lived too long, and those whose time has come to pass
on. Merely hope, then, that your prince is strong.’
Then she turned from him and gripped Venater by the arm,
hard enough to make him bare his teeth. ‘You, you old GoatEater, you are a villain,’ but her look was fond. ‘If your young
River Lord is too soft a master, come back here. There is always
work for a man to do.’
He twisted his arm from her grasp and sent her such a look
– that of a man who truly does not know how to take the measure of the woman before him. Despite the grim conversation he
had just endured, Asmander summoned a laugh from somewhere.
Then the Horse were pushing their boats out into the water,
and it was time to leave.
Just as Asmander swung himself over the side of the nearest
vessel, another figure splashed out towards them. For a moment
he thought it was the Malikah herself, but it was a different
woman of the Laughing Men, much younger, a sack and two
spears in one hand and a cloak of aurochs hide over her shoulders. The Horse Hetman made room for her in her own craft,
with an ambiguous look towards the southerners.
‘Seems you impressed them too much,’ Venater said, staring
at the woman with suspicion. ‘Looks like they want to keep an
eye on you.’
Asmander had half expected as much, given what the
Malikah had said. When he looked at the new arrival, he found
her gaze on him already. She had her hair cropped close at the
sides, with a tawny crest on top, and there were bars of red highlighting her cheekbones. Like so many of her fellows, she had a
startlingly
alive
quality, a flame of the moment for which the
weights of old history and future prospects that troubled
Asmander’s people simply did not exist. It made her beautiful,
as fire was beautiful even as it destroyed.
The Plains tribes were becoming aware of changes in their
southern neighbour. Some would seek to profit from it; others
might be dragged in despite themselves. And the Laughing Men
would always be ready to pick over the bones.
Or these waters may yet grow calm
, he reminded himself, not
for the first time. There were no battle lines yet, no declarations
of war, no accusations or claims. But Tecuman had gone to the
fortress at Tsokawan that secured control of the estuary islands,
whilst in the capital of Atahlan . . .
But nothing will happen before the new year’s floods. Surely
nobody is so eager to shed blood and break down walls? They will
talk and talk, and the Serpent’s priests will meet, and nobody will lift
their hand in anger, not yet.
It will not come to that.There will be bellowing and splashing and
a showing of teeth, that is all. The Sun River Nation cannot war
against itself.
That was his mission to the north, of course: the same that
had sent other emissaries to the Laughing Men. He was going to
fetch more teeth, better teeth. He was going to entice the Iron
Wolves of the Crown of the World to come and stand by
Tecuman’s side. Surely that would be enough.
He felt the gaze of the Hyena girl fixed on him keenly, as
though she was waiting for him to die.

It was the same when they drew up to the bank to make camp.
When he looked for her, she was busy setting out her own blanket away from the Horse Society and the rest, laying out the
brightly striped cloth with an air of great ritual. She was still
watching him, though: when he turned his head, her eyes were
like points of faint pain in his mind.

It was a game, he knew. She wanted to draw him to her. The
Malikah had tasked her with learning about the southern travellers, perhaps, or at least about their quest in the north. Perhaps
the two of them would fight at some future time, her mission
and his reaching their distant crossing point from which only
one would walk away.

So he smiled to himself, and made a great point of ignoring
her, and thus sought to draw her to him, to force the questions
from her. It was an old game amongst the Patient Ones of the
Riverlands. His father had played it like a master, using silence
like a killing edge to savage his enemies – and his own family.

It was one of Asmander’s deepest-buried secrets, the thing
about his father. He himself was the dutiful son, the paragon of
his clan, the boy who did everything that was expected of him.

But the Champion’s soul did not like his father. It loved the
prince Tecuman as Asmander did, but his father, no. That fierce,
proud soul bucked against the man’s hand, bared its teeth at his
orders. And who was Asmander to say that it was not right? It
saw so many things more clearly than human eyes could.

And another smothered secret thought was just this:
If I were
not his son, would I like him? Or would I loathe him as a dangerous,
ambitious creature?

Just as well I’m his son, then. And just as well he supports
Tecuman, for I could not make that choice, not blood kin against
bound brother.

‘She says she’s Shyri.’ Venater dropped down beside him
heavily.
Asmander closed his eyes. The delicate game that had been
coming together between him and the girl was abruptly in ruins,
and one more source of entertainment on the journey north was
gone. ‘You have no soul.’
‘I have a Blackteeth soul,’ Venater replied robustly. The Blackteeth were his tribe amongst the people of the Dragon, one of
three equally vicious and disreputable clans of villains. To
Asmander’s knowledge, he had abandoned any close loyalty to
them long ago, but he was still proud of bearing the violent
stigma of their blood.
‘So what is this Shyri and why do I care?’
‘I thought you were sweet on her, from the way you weren’t
looking at her,’ Venater leered.
‘Oh, really?’
‘These things are known: Asman’s First Son has a reputation,’
the pirate goaded.
‘Not known this far into the Plains, I hope.’ Asmander managed a wan grin. ‘And no, not interested, save in what she wants
from us.’
‘She says she’s the Malikah’s daughter,’ Venater stated. ‘Not
sure if that’s actual daughter or just one of her tribe.’
‘Well, if she can bear your breath, she’s all yours,’ Asmander
assured him.
Venater gave him a crooked look. ‘Not likely. Lay the mother,
then the daughter? That’s inviting ill luck.’ His broad shoulders
twitched. ‘Besides, one woman of the Laughing Men is quite
enough. Enough for a lifetime.’
This time Asmander laughed outright. Glancing over at the
Hyena girl, he caught her predatory stare, just for a moment.
Sitting away from the fire, away from the dozen Horse Society
travellers already sharing a skin of something and telling one of
their circular and recursive stories, she seemed as estranged as
he was, even though this was her land.

The attack came two days later. The mechanics of it were
simple: two ropes strung across the course of the river at a
narrow point, sagging low enough that two of the canoes had
passed over the first without noticing it. Then the trap was
sprung, and abruptly both lines were pulled tight, catching the
lead pair of boats between them, and almost flipping the last
craft over as the line sprang up beneath its bows. Then there
were warriors leaping down from the east bank, brandishing
spears and bows.

The terrain here was rugged, the river grinding a canyon
through the dry land that grew steeper the further north they
travelled. The west bank rose in sheer cliffs, accessible only
through occasional landslips or the odd path that had been
painstakingly carved into the rock: the road to the Stone Kingdoms. The eastern shore was less severe, but still a ragged
tumble of rock and scrub, sometimes rising to ten feet over the
water, sometimes closer to twenty. The eroded, rocky ground
offered plenty of hiding places, and in the first seconds of the
attack Asmander felt that the whole bank was suddenly transformed into leaping, whooping men and women.

They were tall and long-limbed, some unarmoured and wearing only cloaks and tunics, others with cuirasses made from
strips of thick grey hide. Most of the men amongst them sported
headdresses of feathers, stiffened hair and grass that surrounded
their faces, standing out in a ragged mane on all sides like the
rays of the sun. Their faces were painted with white darts, like
teeth.

The handful that had bows were already loosing arrows in
shallow arcs over the water. One of the Horse men in Asmander’s
boat was struck at once, the shaft piercing deep into his arm.
Others were scrabbling for their own weapons or trying to shelter under the gunwales. The lead canoe had struck the forward
rope and skewed off towards the bank, the eddy of the current
taking it right towards the attackers, as had obviously been
planned.

The Hyena girl, Shyri, was in that first boat, and Asmander
saw her crouching there, one spear in her off hand, and one
cocked back ready to throw.

The pirate nodded, his face gone hard as stone. A moment
later he had Stepped, from human to a great lizard coiled within
the boat. Lunging over the side, he almost upset it entirely. Then
he had vanished into the water, nothing to be seen of him but a
sinuous wake.

Some of the Horse were now sending back the attackers’
arrows, using their deceptively small recurved bows that were
supposed to be the best in the world.

Asmander bunched himself and then dived over the side of
the boat into the water, Stepping even as the cool river hit him,
so that what moved beneath the surface with a powerful thrashing of its tail was Old Crocodile, the long, ridge-backed shape of
the River Lords. Instantly he was alive with new senses, feeling
the liquid medium pulse and surge around him with every
movement, scenting blood and fear, and letting the tremors and
currents inform him. His whole body rippled with muscular
ease, surging him forwards with all the speed he could muster,
mastering the current that was trying to drag him away. His eyes
broke the surface, seeing the confusion of movement that was
the attackers. More than one of them had gone in ankle-deep or
more to snare the lead boat.

His lunge was perfect, wholly unsuspected, his great jaws
thrusting from the breaking water to clamp across the calf of one
of the warriors there, filling the hungry void of his mouth with
blood. A spasmodic twist of his tail and his yelling victim was
dragged into the deep water. Here was where Asmander’s mute
brothers would hold the prey until it drowned, then tear it apart,
working their jaws against each other’s. He had no such desire or
luxury of time, and so he wrenched himself sideways, spinning
his body as if he was trying to tear off a mouthful of flesh and
making a horrible ruin of the warrior’s leg. A second later he had
released his hold – fighting his crocodile soul which wanted only
to slake its gluttony – and whipped himself back towards the
shore. The river would finish what he had started with his prey.