The Tiger and the Wolf

by kindle@netgalley. com

  ‘Someone tell me what you’re both not saying,’ she said at last.

  ‘It’s a small matter.’ Asmander made a dismissive gesture.

  ‘With so many enemies around us, no matters are small matters.’

  ‘So you think them enemies too?’

  She laughed, uttering a brief high yap of a sound, always disconcerting to hear from a human throat. ‘Of course they’re enemies. Everyone’s an enemy until you make them a slave or a friend. And friend’s harder.’

  ‘How lovely it must be to be a Plainslander,’ Asmander remarked. ‘Such carefree lives of constant happiness.’

  ‘Happy indeed,’ she agreed. ‘For it is not I who am sent here to beg. Such security you southerners must know, that you invite in even the Wolf to keep the peace.’

  ‘These things are known,’ Venater murmured.

  ‘Enough from you,’ Asmander told him, more sharply than he meant, but the older man just chuckled.

  Because he could not sleep, the night found him later outside their tents, in a chill that seemed to have banished even the Wolf tribe to their hearths and halls. Above, the sky had the hallucinatory clarity of a scene viewed through a drop of water. He felt that he could count every star.

  When he heard the scuff of someone approaching behind him, he was not surprised to find Shyri there.

  ‘I begin to think I must have killed you back in the ruins,’ he said softly. ‘No ghost ever haunted a man more diligently.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all about you,’ she replied dismissively, arms folded. But then her next words were, ‘So, the father who sent you, he loves his children, yes?’

  ‘It is a great honour to have a Champion for a son.’

  ‘He takes great pride in it, no doubt.’

  ‘He is a proud man,’ Asmander told her.

  ‘Having a son greater than yourself, that sounds like the sort of honour that could rub badly against a man’s pride,’ she observed. Her attempt at an innocent expression was pitiful.

  ‘You have been listening to Venater too much.’

  ‘He doesn’t like your father.’

  ‘Being liked is not my father’s aim in life.’ Asmander immediately wished he had not said it. The cold here seemed to draw words out of him as though speaking hard truths was the only way he could keep warm. ‘Venater has his reasons. My father took his name from him.’

  ‘I thought you did that.’

  ‘Well, Venater doesn’t like me, either.’

  She regarded him doubtfully, taking a step closer. She reminded him of someone stalking small game, trying to get as close as possible before it spooked.

  ‘Let me guess, your own father is a paragon of mercy and kindness,’ he suggested.

  She snorted. ‘Mercy and kindness are things the Laughing Men have no use for, longmouth. And it’s the least of a girl’s worries, where I come from, to know her father.’

  ‘I envy you,’ he murmured.

  ‘Then you don’t know my mother. I’d trade her for your father any day.’

  He found he was grinning, despite having come out here with the express purpose of indulging his melancholy.

  Then: ‘Lie with me,’ she said.

  He gave her a very appraising look, and she laughed at him.

  ‘Longmouth,’ she said, ‘it is freezing, and the Horse tents are worth nothing. Come lie down, and share your warmth, at least, instead of pissing it out into this big sky. Or do I go fit myself into Venater’s armpit instead?’

  ‘Ah, romance,’ he said drily, and took her hand when she extended it to him. ‘Let the three of us entwine ourselves then. Perhaps we can scandalize the locals.’

  Akrit knew, somehow, when he awakened. There was something about the pale, flat light of morning that told him so, as certainly as if a spirit had whispered the knowledge in his ear.

  ‘Today.’ As he broke his fast with his own hunters and Otayo’s family, the knowledge would not be kept inside. ‘It will be today.’

  Seven Skins’ oldest son nodded soberly.

  By the time the sun had cleared the horizon, most of the Many Mouths had gathered. The foreigners were there, too, standing in a close-knit group with their guides a few steps away, as though ready to deny any association with them at a moment’s notice.

  Coyotes and Crows, Akrit thought derisively, but even such scavengers had their uses.

  Casting his gaze about, he met the eyes of Water Gathers, Otayo’s younger brother. The hunter was staring at him with a flat, patient dislike.

  Good. We understand one another. It must have soured the cub’s milk when Stone River had come to pay his respects. No doubt but that Water Gathers reckoned himself as great a man as his father, fit to live in his hall and call himself High Chief. Akrit wondered whether Maninli’s son had it in him to kill a guest of his tribe. Would he brave the ill fortune that such an act would bring, if it would secure his future?

  Would I, if he were in my hall? Akrit gave the thought some honest consideration. I would broach it with Kalameshli, at least.

  There would be a great gathering of the tribes at the equinox. Perhaps the Wolves would kneel to a new leader then. Akrit tried to weigh the odds: a tested warrior and chief backed by a respected priest, set against Seven Skins’ son with his youth and his children.

  They will not choose.He could already see how it would go. They will hold back and the longer they do so, the further apart they will grow, until no man will kneel to a High Chief at all. Then all that work in bringing the Wolf together must begin again.

  So I must prove myself: I must either win the fealty of the Tiger or destroy them. I must do this even if the girl is gone. And it must be this year. Another winter will be too late.

  Up on the chief’s mound, Maninli’s wife emerged from his hall. Seeing her face, Akrit knew it must be time. A ripple of that grim knowledge passed through the crowd. The man they had respected and loved would not be leading them into another spring.

  He himself emerged into the cold air, padding past the woman who had been his wife and lifting his shaggy head to sniff at the morning. As a man, he had been cadaverous, eaten away by time and the curses that time brings. As a wolf he was old, but still sound. As the years had bent his human body, withered it and gnawed at it and crippled it, his soul had stayed strong, and all the winters that had burdened him had slid off its grey flanks. The beast whose shape he had Stepped into was in its prime, broad-chested, heavy-shouldered. There was a pack out there in the fields of winter whose chief would face a hard choice tonight, to fight or to yield. Akrit would stake a great deal on that yield, for Maninli was a leader no matter what form he took.

  For a moment, as he passed his wife, Seven Skins Stepped back, revealing an eyeblink of a stooped, shuffling old man, his naked form showing every fold and crease, the fragile cage of his ribs where the skin was stretched over them, the belly distended and lopsided with the tumour of his disease. His fingers trailed through his wife’s hand: one last touch, one last moment of humanity, before he passed.

  Then he was on four feet once more, descending from the mound and already moving to a subtly different beat: not the Stepped man but the mute beast. Within him, Akrit knew his human mind would be sloughing away. All the likes and dislikes, the memories, the thoughts that had made him Maninli Seven Skins would unravel like loose threads until only his true soul, the core of him, would be left. By the time he reached the mound’s foot he was moving faster, a beast that finds itself trespassing in a human place, eager to be gone.

  His people made way for him and the grey wolf that had once earned the name Seven Skins bolted for the outskirts of the village. He did not look back, but was away over the snow in an easy lope: free from pain, free from care. Akrit had expected harsh grief, but instead that sudden bounding progress lifted his spirits. His old friend’s soul was finally free of its mortal prison.

  ‘My father has passed!’ It was Water Gathers’ voice that disturbed his thoughts, of course. Maninli’
s hunter son was striding into the empty space left by his father’s passage. ‘He has gone to join his mute brothers! Shall his soul go alone? Or shall the Wolf watch over him, and bless him in his new life?’

  Akrit’s eyes were narrow, and his hand was on his knife-hilt. This was a bold move from Water Gathers, but then he was just as much in need of deeds as Akrit himself. While the chief of the Winter Runners had concerned himself with the ritual of passing, it seemed his rival had been making plans.

  ‘My father was a great man!’ Water Gathers went on. ‘He defeated the Tiger. He subjugated the Crown of the World and brought it under the Wolf’s Shadow! Shall he pass on like any common man, or shall we send a message in blood, so that the Wolf knows to watch over him – so that the Wolf knows how we value him?’

  And how far are you going with this, boy? Akrit wondered, feeling that familiar tightening within him that spoke of bloodshed. So Water Gathers wanted to wet the Wolf’s jaws with blood.Very well, and it was his right to call for it. But whose blood was another question. Do you dare try me here, boy? And he knew that he should stop thinking of Water Gathers in such a way – the ‘boy’ was not so much younger than himself. It was a boy’s strategy, though: brash and heavy-handed. Akrit found that he was more than ready if Water Gathers called him out. And ill luck, for sure, to send a son after his father in such a way, but I’ll do it gladly if you make me.

  For a moment, their eyes met, and Akrit could see him working up courage, finding out whether he had it in him to try and send Stone River to the Wolf. They sensed together the precise moment that Water Gathers’ resolve failed him, and instead he cast about him, looking for another victim.

  Naturally enough, his eye lit on the little band of the Horse Society. ‘See!’ he called out. ‘See what Wolf has delivered to us. The Horse come to us with gifts. Let them make a gift of blood for the Wolf’s jaws!’

  It was a stupid idea, Akrit knew. Why alienate the Horse Society when their traders might make the difference between life and death? But some of the Many Mouths were already calling out their support. Their faces were hard with grief for their lost leader, the man who had guided them for two generations. Time and old age were enemies they could not offer to the Wolf in sacrifice, after all.

  Otayo was not happy, but he was not a hunter either. Being Water Gathers’ older brother would count for nothing. Even the young priest, Catch The Moon, was nodding along.

  The foolishness of it was goading, and perhaps that was even part of the plan. Akrit would not speak out – it was not his place, not with so many of the locals set on the idea. And perhaps this was what Seven Skins had meant when he said the foreigners were important. Perhaps their blood in the Wolf’s jaws was all that the future needed.

  So should I cheer them on? But Akrit stayed silent and watched.

  Water Gathers’ hunters were closing in on the foreigners, who had bunched together, hands reaching for weapons. It surprised Akrit just how many were in the impromptu warband. Certainly most of Seven Skins’ own followers were making their new allegiance plain.

  His own retinue were looking at him, but he held them back with the smallest gesture. Let this play out . . .

  There was a flurry of motion. The Crow man that the Horse had brought with them was abruptly in the air, a confusion of black wings as he bolted for the skies. For a moment Akrit thought he had made it, but someone had a bow to hand, and a moment later the heavy bird had jerked in the air under an arrow’s impact. He lurched to one side, one wing still beating madly, and then spiralled to the ground, spilling feathers. The Many Mouths tried to bind his neck to keep him from Stepping, but what fell to earth was already a corpse, the man’s spirit flown where his body could not.

  The two Coyote, the foreigners’ other guides, were keeping their heads down, quiet and submissive and making no protest about the imminent demise of one of their patrons. Wise, wise, but then Coyote were always survivors – and cousins of a sort, just enough to be more ‘us’ than ‘them’.

  ‘I leave the choice to you, Horse woman,’ Water Gathers was shouting. ‘I give one of yours the honour of going to the Wolf as a gift of blood and fire, so that he will watch over my father in his new life. But choose swiftly. My pack are hungry.’

  One of the foreigners was coming forward, pushing his way out of his fellows. It was the dark youth, the most exotic of them.

  ‘You may have my blood.’ It took Akrit a moment to understand what he was saying: he spoke the language but in a strange way. ‘You may have my blood, yes, but only if you fight me for it. It must be taken, not gifted.’

  ‘What makes you think you can set terms?’ Water Gathers demanded.

  ‘Do you know what a Champion is in these lands?’ the southerner demanded. ‘I am a Champion of the River Nation. Come, which of you will take my blood?’

  Akrit stayed silent, but his pulse quickened abruptly. Seven Skins’ vision: is this what he meant? And before he could think too much of it, he was calling out, ‘It’s only right, is it not? Challenge is the lifeblood of the Wolf.’

  Water Gathers’ head snapped round, glowering. ‘What say have you? I am chief here.’

  Akrit grinned, or at least he bared his teeth, because of course the man was not chief yet, and abruptly his support was ebbing away, his hubris suddenly unpopular.

  ‘I have no say, of course. I am but a guest,’ Stone River went on. ‘But I have led the Winter Runners for many years and I know what it means when a man refuses a fight.’ The trap closed neatly, leaving Water Gathers inside it. There were many things that would lose a man the confidence of his people, but none cut so deep as cowardice.

  Asmander held himself very still, waiting. Either he was going to have to fight, or all of them were – and they’d most likely die if it was their little band against the whole of the Many Mouths. This other chief of theirs seemed to be winning some of them over, though, enough that the certainty of a bloodbath was now becoming something muddled and unclear. For a moment nobody seemed to know what would come next, and the old chief’s firebrand son had lost his momentum. Then a burly hunter was stepping out from the throng: a big, scarred man of Venater’s age.

  ‘I will fight the black man,’ he stated. ‘I will give his blood to the Wolf. For Seven Skins I will do this.’

  ‘Sure As Flint,’ the chief’s son named him. ‘You were my father’s fiercest warrior. Fitting the honour should be yours.’

  ‘You have any idea what you’re doing?’ Venater growled in Asmander’s ear. ‘Only, I heard you were supposed to be recruiting this mob. Just let them have a Horse girl to cut up.’

  ‘Honour,’ Asmander told him. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  Venater rolled his eyes, but then gave a sharp nod, and Asmander saw the chief’s son, the angry one, approaching, sizing him up.

  ‘Champion,’ he spat, glaring at Asmander.

  ‘You have such warriors, among the people of the Wolf?’

  A sneer. ‘We are all Champions. Prepare your soul, black man. When you are dead, your friends will go with you to the altar of the Wolf, all of them.’

  ‘Oh, well done,’ Shyri remarked, as the man stalked off.

  ‘You’d just have thrown them one of our number, would you?’ Asmander asked her, genuinely interested.

  ‘Harsh seasons, harsh measures.’ She shrugged. ‘There are a lot of them. It won’t be fun fighting clear of here, once your corpse hits the floor.’

  ‘Such optimism!’

  ‘Well, you’re the one come to buy their service, because they’re such terrifying warriors,’ Venater pointed out. ‘We get to see just how good, then? That was your plan?’

  ‘Plans are overrated.’ Asmander shrugged. ‘Get my armour. I don’t know much about souls but I’ll prepare my body.’

  So he pulled on his quilted cuirass, with the plates of obsidian nestling in each diamond panel. About his waist went his belt of twisted cloth, with a panel of layered cotton to guard his groin. He had a br
acer of interwoven hide strips for his left forearm, and greaves of the same make for his shins. A little tortoiseshell buckler slipped over the knuckles of his right hand. So he donned all the fragments and pieces of his life, and the ritual was a comforting, centring one. At his heels went his sickle-shaped jade spurs, and in his hand his stone-toothed maccan sword.

  Sure As Flint was coming now, having made his own preparations, no doubt just as much a ritual, drawing the spirit of the Wolf about him just as Asmander had cloaked himself in the invisible influence of Old Crocodile.

  Venater’s low whistle of appreciation was the only sound. The watching Wolf tribe had gone reverentially quiet. Here was what Asmander had come to find. Here was one of the legendary Iron Wolves whose fame had spread as far as the Riverlands.

  He wore a wolf’s pelt, cut so that the beast’s head topped his own, fitting over a cap of leather and fur. The dead beast’s hollow sockets seemed to fix Asmander with a judging stare, and he wondered if the creature’s soul was bound inside there, a spectral ally for the man who bore its skin.

  Sure As Flint had bracers from wrist to elbow that were leather set with bronze discs. Above that was his coat, that fell from neck to knee. Asmander had never seen anything like it. It was a coat of iron hairs, all twisted into curls and interlinked with each other. Wires, he realized, like a jeweller might draw from gold or silver, and yet who would ever have made armour out of wire?

  But this was the Wolf-iron; this was the magic these people guarded so carefully. He felt almost privileged.

  In the man’s hands was an axe with a curved blade that gleamed like the moon.

  ‘Black man,’ said Sure As Flint, shrugging his shoulders a little to shift the weight of his iron-hair coat. ‘You have a name?’

  ‘I am the First Son of Asman.’

  ‘Let no man say the Son of Asman lacks courage,’ the Wolf stated. ‘I promise you a good death.’ His eyes twitched to cover the other travellers, an acknowledgement that the same consideration would not be extended to them.

  Asmander let himself settle into his fighting stance. ‘Come then. I’m sure we both have other business to attend to.’