The Tiger and the Wolf (26 page)

Her head was so filled with Broken Axe’s words, and their veiled
implications, that she just ran back towards Loud Thunder’s
home, taking no care and keeping no watch. So it was that she
was caught completely by surprise as a huge hand fell on her
shoulder, arresting her almost by its very weight, so that her feet
skidded out from under her. For a moment she was falling, but
the hand closed tighter on her, an immovable anchor that held
her upright, letting her regain her balance – but then would not
let her go.

Her instinct was to pull away but the grip could not be
broken. Even when she Stepped to her wolf form, it had her by
the scruff of the neck, dangling her off the ground. For a few
pointless moments she snarled and snapped and twisted. Then
he had shaken her once, not even very hard compared to the
heavy, solid strength she could feel in that arm, and she lurched
back to her human form, toes just touching the ground, twisting
to look at him. And look up at him, and further up.

Another Cave Dweller, no doubt of it. Loud Thunder was
broader and more massively built, but this newcomer was taller,
towering so far above her she half thought there should be a
white snowcap to him, far up the slopes of his body.

He was close to clean shaven, just a fuzz of stubble about his
jowls and chin and neck, and he stared down at her dolorously,
as though she was some poor omen. He wore hides, like Loud
Thunder, but over them was a fur-lined, sleeveless robe of some
fine material, coloured a green that Maniye had never seen
before, and faintly edged with gold. Threadbare and ancient it
was, but only amongst the Horse had she seen anything so fine.
Hanging over his chest was a pendant of stones, flat and oval,
black and painted with white lines, each of them the size of her
open hand and all of them strung on a cord so thick it was
almost a rope.

‘What do you want,’ she got out, trying to keep her voice
steady. He had this in common with Loud Thunder: in the
silence, his attention seemed to wander, so that only with her
speaking did his eyes and face remember her. His hand, though,
never forgot.

‘You go to the cave of my brother,’ he told her sonorously.
‘Tell me then: what are you to him?’
She wondered what he might have guessed. Slave, perhaps?
‘A guest,’ she said forcefully.
‘Hrm.’ The same dubious growl that Thunder had made that
first time. ‘Guest of my brother then: take my words to him. Tell
him that his brother is here. Bid him let me in, for I have words
for him from our mother.’
She tugged to escape his hand, and he released her with a
frown of surprise, as though he had not expected to find her
there at the end of his arm. Retreating from him, she tried to
think of some alternative to doing what he had just instructed.
Loud Thunder’s home was her only point of reference though.
She backed away another few steps, keeping her eyes on him,
and then she was a wolf again, bounding off over the hardpacked snow as swiftly as she could.
She knew, even then, that this was the thing that Loud Thunder had been fearing, this personal doom he had been hiding
from. Even as the year turned towards spring, so it was waking
up and remembering its grievances. Broken Axe would come for
her, and Loud Thunder’s brother had already come for him.

‘Water Gathers has a journey he will take. He will go to the
Stone Place when spring comes,’ Otayo confided to Akrit, two
mornings later.

‘To the priests?’ The chief of the Winter Runners rubbed at
his chin thoughtfully. ‘But will it help him, do you think?’
Seven Skins’ eldest son regarded him with a humorous
expression. ‘My brother has every chance of following our
father and becoming chief of all the Wolves,’ he pointed out.
‘You think the priests will not welcome him?’
‘And yet here you are talking to me.’
‘Even so.’ Otayo’s Deer tribe thralls had brought them food:
hard cheese and smoked meat and dried fruit, a slice of what the
winter had left them.
‘You and he are no great friends.’
‘If I were chief, I would guide the tribe away from his path.
But I am no hunter.’
For the space of a moon, the nights had been long, grappling
with the sunlight and strangling it before its time, but now the
days were regaining their strength, wearing down their enemy
until there came a time when they were evenly matched, like two
brothers. On that day, on that night, the priests of many people
would gather to read omens, to share knowledge, united briefly
in a bond that was supposed to know neither tribe nor shape.
Kalameshli would travel there, if he could, and Akrit knew he
would meet with Deer and Bear, the farseers of the Eyrie, even
with the blood-priests of the Tiger. There would be sacrifice,
contest, ritual combat and invocation, each of them trying to
control the fortunes of the coming year.
Those who came there without the aegis of a priesthood took
their lives and futures in their hands. The spirits of the Stone
Place could curse, the priests could kill, but some might come
away blessed, the star of the hero shining above them. Water
Gathers sought the benediction of the priesthood to strengthen
his claim – after that disastrous business with the southerners,
he needed something more than just his bloodline to recommend him.
As for Akrit himself, he had not thought to go there, but
Otayo had achieved his aim in making the idea irresistible. The
benediction of the Wolf priests would speak loudly of Akrit’s
virtue, and surely Kalameshli held some influence over them.
And, while there, he could seek the omens for his campaign
against the Tiger, and perhaps plant some seeds of his own.
When the time came to raise a war-host, how much better if
there were those, priests especially, who were already thinking
fondly of such an idea.
‘Will I go?’ He shrugged, in a great display of indifference.
‘All things may come to pass.’

‘You have made no friends amongst the Many Mouths,’ Akrit
pointed out. The little camp of the southerners was considerably
shrunken now. The Horse Hetman woman and her people had
left immediately after the fight, plainly sensing the expiry of
their welcome. Such a
cautious
people – which explained why
they seemed to end up everywhere and profiting from everyone,
of course. And yet sometimes a man had a venture, a bold and
grand venture, where caution might only be an impediment.

The two Coyote who had come along with them were still
slinking around somewhere, but they were seldom seen consorting with those they had guided here.Thus far, the Many Mouths
had found no way to express their anger, for their man Sure As
Flint had been killed in a fair fight, and one of their making. The
Coyotes could sense that this could not last forever: a handful of
foreigners who had roused the ire of the Wolf could not be safe
for long. Akrit knew that the priest Catches The Moon was
already talking with Water Gathers and some of the elder hunters, trying to find some interpretation of recent events that
would justify revenge.

The black man, the Champion, looked up at Akrit and smiled
brightly. ‘I am not good at making friends,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘People say so everywhere I go.’

‘These things are known,’ rumbled the big man beside him
– another southerner, but of some different breed, with yellow
skin and blue-black hair that was long and lank. Their third was
a Plains woman, young and very fierce – as more than one of
the Many Mouths hunters had discovered.

‘Why are you here, First Son of Asman?’ Akrit asked him.
‘I come to learn about the Wolf.’
‘And what do you learn?’
‘That he fights. I hear that he wears the Crown of the World

Akrit shrugged. ‘Sometimes the Wolf goes south, sometimes
the Dog Pack comes north. And any man who fears nothing is
a dead fool. But there is some truth in what you say.’

‘I am Stone River, chief of the Winter Runners, come to witness the passing of my friend Seven Skins.’
‘Are the Winter Runners any better at making friends than
the Many Mouths, I wonder?’ the son of Asman enquired.
Akrit examined him, thinking on Seven Skins’ words. The
dying man had taken the arrival of these strangers as a sign, and
yet desperation made a sign of anything. Water Gathers had
taken that sign and made it into a thing to destroy, to overcome.
That had not gone well for him.
‘I shall depart soon for the Stone Place,’ Akrit informed the
southerners. ‘There we will see the spring in, and hear the signs
read, for there the wisdom of the Crown of the World is gathered.’ Because Kalameshli would be there too, and right now
Akrit felt a keen need for his counsel.
‘Wisdom is a thing I always lacked, my father said,’ the southerner remarked. For a moment Akrit thought he would ask to
accompany the Winter Runners there, although no doubt they
would slow the wolves considerably. The man’s dark face was
unreadable, though, thoughts moving unseen behind it like dark
waters.
And yet, later, Akrit saw the black man speaking with the two
starveling Coyotes again, and it was plain that he was negotiating some service from them. What else could it be? Perhaps this
First Son of Asman was wise enough not to arrive at the Stone
Place in Akrit’s shadow, but he would go there nonetheless. Akrit
had a sense of great things moving invisibly in the sky, of the
spirits of the world bending low to take notice of human affairs.
Always such times were fraught with danger, but out of hard
days were hard men made, and great ones.
***
Maniye delivered the stranger’s message word for word. Even
though she felt safe within the home of Loud Thunder, beneath
his roof and at the mouth of his cave, the presence of the new
Bear hunter was like a pressure at the back of her head. He was
out there still, and she could not ignore it.
The dry eyes of Hesprec drifted towards her as he sat
hunched before the fire – it seemed he had barely moved from
it all winter, feeding it twigs and scraps, consuming their firewood in small mouthfuls until Maniye had to go outside with
the hatchet again.
On her return, Loud Thunder had been staring at her from
the deep shadows of his cave, his gaze like a trapped animal’s.
He still had the fug of winter about him, that made him ill-tempered and clumsy and only half present, but her message had
aroused his fear again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told him, and those great rounded shoulders
shrugged.
She had expected him to have her invite the stranger in, but
Thunder just hunched in on himself even further, a man clinging to the few barricades he has left before the enemy arrives.
Soon after, she could hear a voice calling from outside: ‘Your
brother is thirsty! Will you leave him to parch at your very gates?
Come, fetch a cup for your brother who waits for you!’
There was something ritualized about the words, and something lonely too. If it had been night outside then Maniye’s
thoughts might have turned to ghosts and spirits, those who
died locked in a human shell, cut loose from their animal souls
and forced to wander forever seeking succour.
Loud Thunder’s head had lifted sharply at the voice, and his
face twisted in resentment. She had thought he would ignore the
call, but a heavy gesture to her indicated the waterskin hanging
from the ceiling.
Outside, the new Cave Dweller had seated himself on a mat
laid out in the snow, sitting patiently as though nothing was
more usual for him. She handed him the cup and he drained it
in one, giving her the barest nod. She had the sense that he did
not really see her, or at least as nothing more than Thunder’s
agent.
‘Please,’ she whispered, still somewhat in awe of the sheer
bulk and height of him, ‘he doesn’t want to come out.’
No anger from the visitor, only a brief, disinterested glance.
‘He is my brother.’
She retreated inside and tried to busy herself with some small
chores, but the presence of the stranger seemed to deform the
very ground outside, as though he had a weight to him that
pulled down the land about him: her thoughts were constantly
sliding away towards him.
She was not alone in that, and eventually Loud Thunder
shambled out of his cave to squat by the fire and cast angry
looks at everything and nothing.
‘Once there was a man,’ he told them, ‘who travelled too far
and saw too much.’
He poked the fire with a stick, and his dogs whined at his
dark mood.
‘This man came from a hard land of winter, where his people
lived a hard life of winter, and they were few but strong. Seldom
indeed did they find the need to venture to other lands and meet
other people, for they knew all the ways of their home, and it
provided for them,’ Loud Thunder addressed the fire. ‘But there
was a son of this land who found even so few too many, and for
whom the land of his birth was yet not hard enough, and so he
took to his feet and left his mother and travelled south into the
bowl that men call the Crown of the World.’
‘Brother!’ came the abrupt call from outside, and to Loud
Thunder it might have foretold a death. ‘Your brother is hungry!
Will you let him starve at your very gate? Come, a meal for your
brother who waits for you!’
Loud Thunder gave a long sigh, like a man waking up none
too willingly. Wordlessly he found smoked meat and berries,
sweet chestnuts and a pot of salted deer fat, then looked again to
Maniye.
She went outside – the sun was gleaming bright on the snow,
and all around her was the sense that the world was turning,
new life stirring itself in an orgy of change. The Cave Dweller
regarded her solemnly as she brought him the food.
‘He wants you to go away,’ she told him. Although she had no
place here, she still felt as though she was playing a role in some
great story she had no understanding of.
‘He is my brother,’ the huge man said again.
Back inside, Loud Thunder shook his head. ‘This man,’ he
went on, for obviously the fire needed to know, ‘visited many
other people and lands, because his own were not enough. He
lived amongst the Deer and the Boar, he fought alongside the
Wolf. He went to where the land is flat and open as the sky, and
where the Plains people have their battles and their hunts. He
took strange brothers amongst the people of those lands.
‘He saw more than any man of his tribe, in all living memory,’
Loud Thunder told the fire and the walls and the timbers of his
home. ‘But home remained like a hook in his thoughts, and so at
last he went back to a people who did not want to hear his stories of what he had seen. But it was his home, and that was
where he knew he should be. And those stories were like another
hook in his mind when he went home, so that he could not just
settle there and forget. And so he made his home at the very
edge of where his people lived, and he lived alone, as his people
did.’
‘Brother!’ came the call again, and this time Maniye had been
expecting it. ‘Your brother is cold! Will you let him freeze at your
very gate? Come, a roof for your brother who waits for you!’
And Hesprec said quietly in the silence that followed, ‘For
they are strong and solitary, all of them. Each could mean the
death of another very easily, by intruding into a den without
welcome. And so they call, and build the bond of guest and host
between them most carefully, don’t you think?’
‘But what does he want?’ Maniye asked.
Loud Thunder looked at her, and it was as though he had not
seen her properly for a long time. Abruptly he was
here
and
now
again in a way that had been lacking since before midwinter.
‘And this man who had travelled was shunned by his own
people –’ and he had stood up – ‘because they could no longer
understand him, for all the things he had seen.’ He reached the
door in one stride. ‘And yet he knew that one day the world
would change so that even those who dwell in caves must be
aware of it. And on that day they would come to him and offer
. . . and offer . . . things he did not want.’
He pushed his way outside, and in the same moment he was
Stepping, looming up and outwards into the vast form of a bear,
now standing out in the waning cold and shaking itself. For a
moment he was on two legs, a tower of dense flesh and bone
and claws. Then he fell forwards and slouched forth on all four
paws, head held low.
The stranger had stood as soon as he came out, and Maniye
saw him also Step, almost lazily, stretching up into an equally
massive beast.
Maniye scrambled out to see Loud Thunder slope towards
him, feeling that a clash between them would level the forest for
miles around, would be heard all the way back to the Horse
post, even to the village of the Winter Runners.
When they were close to each other, they both pushed themselves up as tall as they could go, tottering on their hind legs and
bellowing into each other’s faces, great yellow teeth bared like
swords. The echoes of their roaring came back to them from the
forest, from the mountain peaks, resounding from the sky itself.
Each of them was on the very point of mortal violence, cuffing
at the other with blows that would have shattered every one of
Maniye’s bones. They dropped down, snarled and circled, bawling murder at each other, stamping and clawing at the snow.
Then they were up again, grappling, measuring weight and
strength, each always an inch from sinking his teeth into the
opponent’s throat.
And yet, after three of these exchanges, not a drop of blood
had reddened the snow, and Maniye thought of what Hesprec
had said, how they could destroy each other. The newcomer
could simply have torn open Thunder’s carefully constructed
home to get at him. They could have flayed each other with their
claws, bloodied their fangs on each other’s lifeblood.
It was an argument, she saw: an argument between brothers
who happened to be bears.
And, at the end, Loud Thunder had dropped down again,
seeming almost baffled and shaking his head. He had not lost –
indeed Maniye thought he had got the upper hand, older and
heavier than the newcomer. He had not driven the other bear off
though. It had endured the worst of him, and was still there.
Loud Thunder turned, then, and stomped back towards his
home, Stepping from brooding bear to brooding man as he did
so, and the newcomer followed suit, walking almost in his tracks.