The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Hesprec tensed, ready for Therumit’s angry tone to go down badly. There were plenty of weapons there: spears and clubs in the hands of the Jaguar guards, and some of the apparently lower-status Pale Shadows had knives and longer blades of bronze that were like little swords.

  She saw the pride and offence build behind the face of the queen, but before it broke the surface it was consumed by something greater, which rose beneath it like a sea monster and gulped it back down.

  Despair. She was shocked to see it there so nakedly, stretched across the chasm of the woman’s hollow nature. It was the most human expression she had seen on any of their faces. Hesprec saw the need writhing there beneath that near-translucent skin, and yet the words that came from the Pale Shadow’s lips were mundane. ‘And what do you think of our wonders?’

  She gestured, and in that moment Hesprec could have been persuaded that all about them was bright and opulent. But then the moment passed and it was dust and time-faded silk.

  ‘Long have I lived, and wished to look upon these sights,’ Therumit said. Hesprec heard the edge in her voice, though perhaps their hosts would not. ‘Long have my people told tales of these halls.’

  The queen had been leaning forward as she spoke, and Hesprec realized abruptly that Therumit’s accent must be as strong, to her, as hers was to the Serpent. ‘And it is past time you returned to them, in peace,’ the woman said, after a moment’s pause. ‘Ask what you will of my servants. Nothing shall be denied you.’ And still that need beat beneath the words, but the queen was too proud to ask what it was her people wanted – no, she was too proud to beg, though Hesprec saw the begging in her and wondered at it.

  Later, a woman of the Jaguar led them to a chamber that was taller than it was wide, the walls positively swathed in ragged tapestries where the efforts of a thousand battling warriors were slowly being eaten away by the work of the worm. There was food – some manner of stew too highly spiced for Hesprec’s liking, containing unguessable meats. And there was the company of Therumit.

  She caught the older woman’s eye. They had a lot to talk about and would have to do so without words. No doubt the Pale Shadow were listening.

  She gathered up dust in the hem of her robe and dumped it out on the cracked stone of the floor, flattening it until she had smoothed out a regular surface. She and Therumit both took up slender sticks, and set to writing. One would scratch her swift characters in the dust, then the other would erase and write her reply, so swiftly that, even had someone been looking over their shoulders, they might not have been able to catch any of it. And I have seen none of our writing on their walls anyway.

  Hesprec started. You have a plan.

  We have a plan. Therumit drew an oval box about the single character she had erased and replaced.

  Hesprec wiped the words away. Do we remember why we are here?

  Why else would a child of the Serpent come to the Oldest Kingdom?

  I never thought I would.

  You have always looked towards the wrong horizon. Therumit marked that column of characters with a sour look at her.

  Hesprec’s return expression was mild. Well, we are here now. You have the ear of their queen. How will you use it?

  I will find my way about our city and see what they have left of it, Therumit picked out quickly. I will learn all I can about our enemies and I will bring that knowledge back to the River.

  Are they our enemies now? Hesprec set the words down in the half-smudged remnants of Therumit’s own.

  How can you ask? Therumit marked out below that, and then angrily swept all the characters away and set out, You learned the same histories I did.

  Some I learned from you, Hesprec followed. We are guests here.

  When we return here it will not be as guests. Not now we have found them weak and foundering.

  Hesprec swept that aside and then took time to gather and flatten the dust again, so that she could think. And the Plague People? she wrote, feeling her hand rebel against setting down that name.

  Therumit stared at her. We do not even know if they are the Plague People, she wrote.

  We do. Hesprec would not let her get away with that. I did not go all over the world and nearly get sacrificed to the Wolf just to bring back empty stories. All the foresight in the world has been screaming at us about the doom to come, and now it is here. The Crow told us, and even the Pale Shadow told us. She was cramming her characters in, smaller and smaller to make them fit.

  Therumit hesitated, but then let her sleeve sweep all those words away, to be replaced with, What are the Plains to us?

  It is not just the Plains, Hesprec wrote under that. It is the Crown of the World and it is the River. And why should it not be here?

  Why should it? The Plague People will glut themselves long before their eyes turn here.

  Hesprec looked into her fellow Serpent’s eyes and saw the utter certainty that never visits the wholly sane. But Therumit was writing again. We held them back before. When all the Serpent are gathered together in their own kingdom, the Plague People will not dare come near us.

  And the rest of the peoples? Hesprec scrawled through Therumit’s writing.

  The wise shall come to our gates, Therumit set down. The foolish shall perish. And when all listen to us and do as we bid, we shall drive the Plague People from the world and into the sea again. She scrubbed out her own writing hurriedly to make room for more. Because the whole world will move with the coils of the Serpent. No more factions, no more little wars, no more tribe turned against tribe.

  Hesprec looked at her levelly. What a grand plan, she thought but did not write. She felt very cold inside, that Therumit could look on what was happening in the Plains and see it all as a means to an end. A glorious end, perhaps, but such terrible means. And yes, a Serpent’s long life did lend itself to a certain lengthening of perspective, but either Therumit had far outstripped Hesprec’s vision of the future, or she had fallen very short.

  Hesprec swept the floor clear, but had no more words to write. Instead, she stood and brushed down her robe. ‘I remain unconvinced,’ she said – aloud so as to forestall further argument. ‘I am going to ask some questions.’

  ‘You believe the answers will be worthwhile?’ Therumit growled.

  ‘I want to know what they really want with us.’ Hesprec turned to the doorway to leave, finding that Therumit behind her was an uncomfortable thing.

  6

  A pack of Laughing Men arrived just as the Black Eyes and their many guests were readying their spears. They were led by a craggy-faced woman calling herself Effey, wearing a cloak made of lion-hide with the manes as a luxurious mantle about her shoulders. She had a grin Shyri recognized as almost a religious obligation amongst her people.

  These were not her tribe but they were her kin, some other band of the Hyena blown in on the bad tidings of what was happening to the east.

  ‘So, little daughter.’ Effey stretched lazily, watching the frenzied preparations. ‘You are far from home.’

  Shyri bristled at that. Effey might style herself Malikah of this little band, but she was no mother to Shyri. ‘The Hyena goes where she wills, if the Lion doesn’t chase her off. And the Lions around here have other problems.’

  Effey had brought thirty warriors, which was a lot of armed Laughing Men to have in one place. It showed this was not some mere scouting expedition. She eyed Shyri, that grin still in place. ‘We like it when the Lion has problems.’

  ‘These are not just the Lion’s. The Horse you see here – their home is gone. Those Boar there as well.’

  Effey shrugged, the worries of the Horse and the Boar beneath her. ‘And so all these brave warriors will draw knives together and not kill each other.’ She sounded disappointed, displeased even.

  ‘You have brought many knives,’ Shyri noted. She had a bleak feeling she knew where this conversation was going.

  ‘You can never have too many knives.’ Effey’s grin widened. ‘Word has come even
to the ear of Hyena that a great dying time is on the wind.’

  Shyri had been waiting for that, but knowing it was coming and mustering arguments against it were two different things. ‘A great threat, yes.’

  ‘Better a great dying,’ Effey said firmly, taking in all the warlike preparation around them. ‘The world goes badly for Hyena when the Lion is friends with the Dog.’

  ‘Be friends with the Lion, then. Right now the Lion needs many friends,’ Shyri tried.

  ‘And Hyena has no friends, and needs none,’ Effey pointed out. ‘It’s the act of a bad friend to gnaw on your friend’s bones, little daughter. Who has been filling your head with these stories?’ She regarded Shyri with easy contempt. ‘You sound like a River priest.’

  Shyri felt herself full of words – just like a River priest. She wanted to say that this was bigger than the Hyena and the Lion, bigger than the Plains and the River. She wanted to talk about how Hyena’s dreams of a world of bones and Laughing Men was a grand dream but a poor reality. She wanted to say many things, and for most of them she didn’t even have the words or any way of stringing them together. And then there was the other part of her which just wanted to agree with Effey’s comforting world view, that the Laughing Men were on their own, waiting their turn when all the rest had been broken against the rocks of the world. She was not thinking like her mother’s daughter any more. Too long spent trailing after that cursed River Lord boy because he was pretty and made her laugh. Too much seen in foreign places. So she said nothing, ashamed at where her thoughts were taking her.

  Effey clapped a patronizing hand on Shyri’s shoulder. ‘Run with us, daughter. Let us stalk the Lion and see where he hunts. I am curious.’

  Perhaps when she sees the Plague People she will know we must hunt as well. It was a faint hope, but Shyri clung to it.

  So she walked at Effey’s shoulder when the Malikah sloped between the camps, her people strung out behind her, some on two feet and some on four. The great gathering around the Black Eyes’ village was breaking apart. Those who could not or would not fight were fleeing further west, in the hope that . . . what? That the blood of others would save them? That the Plague People would advance so far and no further? Shyri saw a terrible fear stamped on the faces of those who had already met with the enemy – some were shepherding children, some were old or young or crippled, plainly not able to take up a spear. Others could have been warriors, but the fear had stripped that from them. They knew only to run.

  But there were still enough left with a warrior spirit in them. Grass Shadow had won his argument with his chief: there were close on a hundred of the Wild Dogs ready for battle, whooping and clashing spear and shield. The fugitive Lion had produced a fair number, too, led by a grey-bearded old man but with Reshappa clearly doing all the work of keeping them in line. Their two Champions prowled through their ranks, already Stepped – great barrel-bodied cats who could have walked shoulder to shoulder with Shyri, long fangs like curved knives jutting down below their chins. And there were many of the Boar, their faces and bristling hides painted in angry colours, and a score of the Horse with their famed bows that could shoot to the horizon.

  Beyond these, Shyri saw the others. There was Maniye Many Tracks and her warband, a cluster of tan-skinned northerners in their iron coats. Shyri wanted to run over to them – they had made her one of their own, after all – but she felt Effey’s stern eye on her. When she travelled with Asmander or Maniye, she had done what she wanted. Now she was back with her own, and she felt the pressure to walk in the Hyena’s footsteps. For a moment she bucked rebelliously. Not my tribe; not my mother. But her own Malikah was enough like Effey that a surrogate authority still bound her.

  Striding through it all was the Bat Society warrior. No grand speeches from that one – her mere presence was enough. Effey stopped and stared at the lean figure, and for the first time a little uncertainty crept into her.

  ‘A great dying time,’ she murmured, and Shyri hoped she was considering just how far that dying might go, and that being born to the Hyena did not make anyone immortal.

  Grass Shadow was boosted up to shoulder height by a knot of his hunters, while another Dog blew a blaring note from an aurochs’ horn. There were too many there, too much muttering and shuffling, for any great inspirational talking. Instead he just waved his spear in the air – a clutch of bright feathers and cloth below the head – and then he was down and his people had Stepped, surging forwards as a dappled pack for the rest to follow.

  For a moment the rest were just milling and then the Horse were following, tossing their manes and stamping their hooves, the Boar at their heels. By then the Lion had motivated themselves to slink along after, and Maniye’s band was a little river of grey at their side, with a crow circling overhead and calling out dire warnings. At their very edge Shyri caught a glimpse of Tensho the Leopard’s spotted coat before the cat faded into the landscape, and she felt a stab of loss. I should be one of them. That’s my place.

  She even started forwards, horribly aware of Effey at her shoulder. But then the Hyena warband had Stepped too and was flowing after the others, an unwanted rearguard. But they are going, at least. Shyri fell in with them, loping along through the dust.

  * * *

  Feeds on Dreams landed smoothly, only Stepping once he was under cover of the long grass. ‘They’re at some huts,’ he announced.

  The great bulk of the combined warband was still some distance away, spread out across the plains with the Wild Dogs acting as runners between different groups. The leaders had gone forward to take a look at the enemy. Now Maniye, Grass Shadow, Reshappa and the Bat were crouched in the grass, awaiting Feeds’ report. A pair of Shadow’s people were crouched nearby, still Stepped, ready to play messenger when they were needed.

  ‘Fifteen, I counted,’ the Crow told them.

  ‘That’s more than you said,’ Maniye noted.

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe some were away.’

  ‘You’re sure, fifteen?’

  ‘Maybe twenty. Less than us. A lot less.’

  ‘Whose huts?’ she asked Grass Shadow.

  ‘Uglies,’ he said, and then swiftly corrected that to, ‘Tooth Markers. Boar – we have plenty of them with us.’

  ‘Not your friends, normally?’

  Reshappa chuckled softly. ‘Not his friends ever, till now. Everyone knows the Uglies and the Dirt Dogs hate each other.’

  ‘Until now,’ Grass Shadow echoed. ‘What are they doing there, Eyrieman? Are they building the white walls?’

  ‘Didn’t see any.’ Feeds shrugged. ‘These Uglies, there’s some bigger place of theirs, sunways?’

  ‘This close by is just for their herdsmen to rest in,’ Grass Shadow agreed. ‘Their village is close, too.’ He drew out some lines in the dirt, showing the relative positions of here and there. ‘We should have some good hunters circling round to get between them.’

  ‘The Lion will do it,’ Reshappa said promptly.

  Grass Shadow cocked an eye at that, but then just shrugged. ‘Well then, that’s the Lion’s due. We’ll have the Tooth Markers as our left horn, the Horse and whoever wants to run with them as our right. Many Tracks, will you be the teeth with me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Straight down the centre while the horns curved in at either side and the Lions waited to catch the runners. Maniye remembered her previous encounter with the Plague People and felt her heart speeding. ‘There will be fear,’ she warned them. ‘Not just fear of harm or death, but a fear that goes deeper. A Fear.’

  ‘Then let’s make them fear in return,’ Grass Shadow said. ‘What else can we do? Run and abandon all we have? The fire has already heard that one talked out. We fight.’

  Maniye slunk back and found her warband again, the wolves lolling in the Plains heat, tongues out. She didn’t need to brief them; they would follow her lead to where they needed to be. She just set Feeds to go ride the shimmering air above and watch for when people started to move.


  The waiting was hard, but she knew the Lion would be moving slowly, sliding between the grass so as to leave barely a ripple while the Plague People performed their nameless rituals in the huts of the Tooth Markers.

  And then Feeds dropped down on them, cawing news that didn’t need human words, and they were moving. She saw the dust kicked up on either side as a great host of Boar and Horse and the rest rushed forwards, trampling the grass flat, blowing horns, squealing and thundering. A moment later, Grass Shadow’s people were running too, all Stepped, and Maniye’s warband needed no sign from her. With their iron worn beneath their skin they surged ahead like a single living thing, and Maniye just a wolf amongst wolves.

  She saw the huts ahead, sooner than she had thought. There was movement there that had a human shape but no human soul. The Plague People were swarming out – more than twenty of them, and they had long rods she knew were weapons. Their attention was focused to Maniye’s right, where the stampeding Horse made the largest targets. She saw a handful of them lift and point their rods and – snap! – a half-dozen Horse were tumbling, rearing and dying.

  The Fear touched her, then. She felt it ripple through everyone around her.

  But the Tooth Markers themselves were now curving in, the other horn, so that the Plague People had to divide their attention – Maniye saw them running from one side of the huts to the other. They were killing Boar, too, but fewer of them, the lower targets half-hidden in the grass. Then they looked for the centre of the charge, and Maniye felt a jolt through her as the attention of the Plague People at last rested on her.