And she realized that she was not the only listener. For all that he spoke quietly, there were more than a few of the Eyrie with their eyes open, tilting their ears towards Grey Herald to catch his words.
‘And those few who had escaped their hunger spread across our lands,’ the storyteller went on, ‘and found that the game was scarcer, and the water less sweet, and that the winter brought cold, and the summer drought. And they fought, and they divided – from one tribe of many forms to many tribes each of a single Stepping.
‘And of the three who had fought the Plague People during that long night, what of them?’ He raised his eyebrows sharply at her. ‘It is said those three, and all their children who came after them, kept the secrets of the other lands and formed brave societies to teach them, lest they be needed again. And they painted their faces in the colours of their enemies, to remind all who saw them of the old dangers. And they never forgot what had been lost. And each remembered who had stood beside them, be it never so long ago. So it is that there shall always be an understanding and a friendship and a shared burden between the men of the Owl and the Bat and the people of the Serpent.’
He uttered the last words very deliberately, staring at her intently, and Maniye’s heart leapt. For the Eyriemen it was just a story, well known and well told. For her it was a message.
Hesprec. Hesprec, somehow. He is giving me hope.
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 bl
ack 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 sprin
g 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.’
The Tiger and the Wolf Page 40