‘And why does it do any of these things?’ The new voice sent a shock of fear through Kailovela, even now: Yellow Claw, of course. ‘What does it want, out of this?’
The subject had obviously not come up. Galethea spoke to the little monster again, and it answered firmly, tiny fists clenched, staring at Yellow Claw and at anyone else who doubted it.
‘It claims it wants to right a wrong,’ Galethea said, trying to infuse the words with doubt. ‘It has been our prisoner, it says. It could have just flown. But it knows us, as its people do not know us. It has seen the wrongs done to us. It will try, this once, to heal the wound. And then it will go back to its own places.’
The little monster’s eyes were on Kailovela all through Galethea’s words. I do this for you, because you showed me kindness. She needed no translator for that. The thought made her sick at herself. It was not kindness. It was this craft, this magic I have. I was only ever your jailer.
And of course everyone had an opinion that they needed to express immediately, and very few of the voices Kailovela could hear sounded as though they were for the plan. Surely it was a trick of the Plague People. As though they needed to use tricks. Surely it was death for whoever went. As though death wasn’t already a guest at everyone’s fire. And there were far more who simply wanted no peace. They could not conceive of a world where they lived, and also the Plague People lived, the ensouled and the soulless in uneasy truce. And yet what victories we have won are fleeting, and the Plague People only grow stronger. There were a thousand real people for every Plague warrior, but the balance only shifted one way.
Galethea looked relieved, hearing the mood of the crowd, but then her eyes sought out Mother and found no condemnation there, only a sober thoughtfulness.
Two days later, a great host of spears was sighted to the south. A brief rash of panic swept all those who had fled this far, and were constantly on the point of fleeing further. It was not the Plague People. The soldiers of the River Lords had come.
Tecumet led them, carried at the fore, wearing the Kasra’s fierce war mask and – Asman knew – armour beneath her fine robes. When the River forces arrived and struck their camp at a diplomatic distance from the rest, a delegation came to meet the leaders of the Plains and the Crown of the World’s war hosts. Tecumet sat silent while the Serpent priestess told everyone how the River had come to fight the adversary of all humanity. Everyone already knew the truth. The Kasra’s fortress at Tsokawan was ruins, her brother dead. Even the might of the Sun River Nation had not held back the Plague tide.
Asman went to her after all that formality was done, slipping almost apologetically into her tent to watch Esumit divest her of all the weighty regalia. Beneath it, Tecumet looked frailer than before, her eyes baggy and red with sleepless nights.
‘All that work to muster the army, and half of me thinks the war is already lost. Half of me thinks that these men should put down their spears and return to their families for whatever time’s left,’ she admitted. ‘And you have moved a long ways west since we set out. We have climbed here on a ladder of messengers, each with a different story of where your tent was pitched. Will you tell me there is some clever stratagem behind this.’
‘It is . . .’ But Asman had never been a man for comforting lies. ‘Just what you’d think, Te.’
‘Terrible things,’ she supplied hollowly.
‘Terrible things,’ he echoed; their childhood game now turned into the end of the world.
Esumit had come and gone while they spoke, and now gave her Kasra a nod. Tecumet held her arms out abruptly. ‘Hold me, Asa.’
He blinked in surprise but went to her, smooth skin against his own, her perfume and her sweat in his nostrils equally. ‘What is it? More bad news?’
‘For me? Probably. But never for you. Hold me now, because I know your loves and I want a moment where I don’t have to share you.’
‘Share me?’ But someone else was shouldering into the tent, much to the helpless displeasure of the guards. Asman looked into that familiar lantern-jawed face, no different to the last time they’d met save for a new scar or two.
‘He brought us a Dragon warband from all the way down the Tsotec. And probably raided every village on the way up,’ Tecumet said, but Asman’s heart leapt, because she was looking on the old pirate and there was none of the spite or loathing he would have expected. It is enough that those I love do not hate one another.
‘You’re chief of the Black Teeth now?’ he asked the man.
Venat chuckled, then came over to punch him in the side for old times’ sake – grunting with surprise when Asman hugged him fiercely, ending up with an arm over his shoulders, an arm over Tecumet’s.
‘When I left Whale Seat, I was chief,’ he told them. ‘By next sunrise, probably not. They’ll be cutting each other’s throats all over the islands to see who’s in charge, the stupid bastards. It got me the chance to raise a score of boats to come to the fight, though. If it’s the end of the world, nobody’s going to say that the Dragon didn’t show.’ He grinned, that vicious, ugly expression that warmed Asman’s heart. ‘So everyone over here’s doing really badly then. Are they actually going to fight, some day, or just roll over and bare their throats?’
Asman had a quick answer prepared, but it died in his throat. He remembered that night of panic when the Plague People attacked. Overshadowing that, he remembered Tsokawan’s fall, the tearing grief of Tecuman’s death. I loved three people more than life itself, loved them with my mind and heart, yearned for them, all three, with the burning passion of my body. One is dead, and the other two are here, where the blade will fall next. I fear no death of mine, but I fear the death that may come for them.
‘Or . . . what?’ Venat asked, and Asman knew himself to have gone very still and solemn, holding them both. Tecumet looked into his face, seeking what had made him sad; as usual he buried it all deep, ready to shrug it off with a smile and a joke. But the sadness would remain, the fear of what even victory would cost, if to win by the spear was possible.
Unless there was another way.
‘There is a plan.’ His voice cracked over the words. It was not a good plan; in fact it was the worst plan, from the worst source, but it was a plan for something other than dying in a great fight, and suddenly he had more time for such a plan. ‘The Iron Wolves and their allies, they have a prisoner, a little monster . . .’
Every fireside had its argument, it seemed. The tribes of the Wolf were at each other’s throats about it, and the Tiger against the Eyrie, and every warband divided, but Kailovela thought the clear majority were against it, at least amongst Thunder’s war host.
She had taken wing to listen to voices talking with Plains accents, or the soft voices of the Riverlanders, and found no unity. The Plains, who had lost most, would be those paying the price of any compromise, and yet all the same, there were plenty amongst them who simply wished to lose no more – no more land, no more sons and daughters, no more tribes swallowed up. Just as there were those who had turned to the secret worship of Rat for salvation, so there were those who would clasp hands with the Plague People, if the Plague People would only stop their advance.
But it seemed to her, when sat at Mother’s feet with the little monster squatting at her own, that far too few voices spoke for such a move.
Mother herself gave no sign of her opinions, but time was drawing back the bow, and all from the Crown of the World were aware of that absence of a pronouncement. The fact that she had not destroyed the little monster’s plan with a few heavy words was more and more marked. If she said yes to it, Kailovela thought, what would they do, all of them? Because the plan is nothing if they are all against it. You can’t force people to make peace if they won’t set down their spears.
She went to sleep with that melancholy thought in her head, in the tent she shared with Empty Skin and the little monster, three freaks together. The moon was still high when she woke, though, hearing the distinctive sound outside
that was Loud Thunder being stealthy.
Is it now that he has broken? She had been waiting for him to lose patience. He desired her, and who would waste a harsh word on him for taking what he wanted. And yet every chance given to Thunder, he had examined like a curious pebble and then gently put it down and walked on. And now she had found the ability to talk to him, and she had seen him lead in his humble-bumble way, and she had seen he was strong – not his arms or his bear shape, but deep in him. Hearing him outside, a shock went through her and she wondered whether she had come to want him after all. She was so unused to having it be her choice.
But no, he was here because Mother had sent him, muttering her name apologetically as though trying not to wake her even as he tried to wake her.
‘Mother wants you. All of you. The River people have called a council.’
‘Now?’ she hissed, hearing Empty Skin groan and the little monster flourish its wings briefly as it woke.
‘Now,’ Thunder whispered – his whisper was a huge thing that seemed to cup the tent in the palm of its hand. ‘Secret things are afoot.’
‘Secret things,’ she echoed. She looked over and met Empty Skin’s gaze. Surely there was only one secret thing demanding Mother’s attention, right then.
Perhaps she had expected a great moonlit gathering, but Mother sat on her rock and the small group around her seemed like conspirators. She saw the Coyote, Two Heads Talking, and Lone Mountain, who was Thunder’s brother or cousin or some such thing, and who wanted to be war leader of the Bear. Icefoot of the Moon Eaters and Seven Mending of the Owl had brought wisdom, and there were a handful of old Plainsfolk too, mostly of the Boar tribe. Most of all there were the Riverlanders – their Champion and some of their warriors, and in their midst the Pale Shadow woman with her cloak pulled tight about her.
The River Champion, Asman, glanced over, but he was seeking the little monster. His eyes did not settle for a moment on Kailovela. ‘Good. Bring it here,’ he said, and she bristled a little at his tone. A moment later she did as he said, presenting the creature to the gathering there.
Asman knelt before it, staring into its face, or the hungry emptiness behind it. ‘A trick,’ he told it, though his words would mean nothing to the thing. ‘You want us off our guard. You have begun to grow scared of us, is what they say? We are now so many – and with the spears of the River joining too! – that the Plague People believe their killing rods and their Fear will not be enough. Hmm? So they send you with your offer to talk.’
He straightened up from that blank stare. ‘Well, we’ve all heard the word about the camp. Nobody is off their guard. Nobody is tricked.’ He grinned, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. ‘But now Tecumet Kasra has heard the news. Tecumet Kasra thinks perhaps some small band might see if it is possible to exchange words with the Plague People. Small, so that if it is a trick, few are lost. And small because small is the number of those who believe it is worth the venture.’
Lone Mountain growled, deep in his chest; plainly he was not one of them. The slightest motion from Mother stayed him, though.
‘What does the River propose?’ she asked.
‘Some few of ours, some few of yours,’ Asman told her, bearing the weight of that gaze without flinching. ‘Your little monster and its handlers; our Pale Shadow, to swallow one set of words and spit out another.’
There was an exclamation from the midst of the River warriors, and Galethea forced herself forwards. ‘You mustn’t do this!’ she spat. ‘There is no dealing with them.’
‘They are your people,’ Mother observed thoughtfully.
‘Not my people! Not for many generations.’ She trembled before Mother’s solid regard. ‘Please, if they see me, they will know we are there. They will come for all my people. Do not ask this of me.’
‘We ask nothing,’ Asman said shortly. ‘We set it as the price of our aid. You came because your people wanted our help. Will you take that help from our bones and cold hearths?’
‘I came with Hesprec,’ Galethea told him, ‘who would not ask me this!’
‘And Hesprec is gone, not seen since the attack,’ Asman told her harshly, as though it was her fault. ‘And who will be next? And why should you not shoulder the risk, since the reward you seek is so great? There is nobody else.’
Kailovela could almost see the waves of glamour radiating from the Pale Shadow woman as she tried to twist Asman’s mind about, but the Champion was like stone. At last, she herself stepped forward and touched Galethea’s shoulder.
‘I will be with you,’ she told the hollow woman. She saw Loud Thunder start, because he hadn’t seen her on this expedition, only Empty Skin, perhaps, to hold the little monster’s leash. But she was needed. And perhaps the Plague People would see some kinship in her and stay their hands for her sake.
‘I will be with you,’ she repeated, and knew her own glamour was reaching out to touch Galethea. Surely it would slide from her like water off wax, for Kailovela’s power was weak and this woman had lived and breathed it all her life. It caught, though, and she saw the white woman reluctantly let go of her tension. She wants to believe me, Kailovela knew. Here was one of the soulless, the enemy in all but name, and yet she was as lost and weak as any of them, and desperate enough to clutch at any comforting lie.
27
‘It’s still out there,’ Maniye said. They were camped high up, nestled into a jumble of rocks and without a fire. She had hoped that the beetle creature would lose them, just blunder past in the dark. Her tiger eyes could find no trace of it, but her wolf nose told a different story. She had slept fitfully for a while, worn down by what should have been a modest pace, the poison of the Rat still sapping her body. Now she woke with that acrid, alien scent biting at her nostrils.
‘We should kill it,’ Shyri suggested. ‘Crack its shell and see what hatches.’
‘Probably.’ But Hesprec’s tone did not suggest total agreement.
‘It’s the Plague People and their monsters, all in one,’ the Laughing Girl said, shaking her head. ‘Is it the next way they’ll come for us, the first of a whole war host of them, do you think?’
‘There was only one,’ Maniye noted.
‘That we saw. So far.’
‘It’s following me.’ The certainty had been building in her all day, as they tried to put distance between themselves and the unseen creature, and it stubbornly refused to let them.
‘Why you? What’s it to you, or you to it?’ Shyri demanded.
‘It knows me.’
‘From the camp where they kept you,’ Hesprec filled in, and she nodded.
‘How can you tell? They’re all just hollow things,’ Shyri complained, in the manner of someone trying to convince herself.
‘They have their hunters and their hearth-keepers, their priests,’ Maniye said quietly. ‘Only, not like us, not really, but I saw enough of them. This one I know. We would say, “One of the Wise”, except the other Plague Men didn’t seem to listen to it.’
‘Just like one of the wise, then,’ Hesprec put in drily, but Maniye shook off the humour, feeling through her memories to connect them to what she had seen.
‘There were two of them. Like cousins to each other. They made me Step from shape to shape. They watched and watched.’
‘Where is the other one, then?’ Shyri eyed the moonlit grasslands suspiciously.
‘Hesprec . . .’ Maniye said, so softly they both leant in to hear her. ‘When we fled them, there was . . . something had happened to catch their notice.’
‘Yes,’ the Serpent girl agreed, her mind already there.
‘A terrible thing to them.’ Maniye had left those memories alone, buried in the dark places of her mind: the story of ‘When They Caught Me’ that she had not wanted to uncover and look at. But now she forced herself. She and Hesprec had fled under cover of a great horror that had come even to the soulless Plague People. They had been gathered about a hideous, misshapen thing, a twitching, dying thing that had aspects
of insect and human to it, running together like wax.
‘I think it was trying,’ Hesprec said unhappily. ‘I think its companion succeeded. It is mad and does not know itself any more. But it knows you.’
‘Does it think I can help it?’ Maniye asked her.
‘These things . . .’ Hesprec shook her head. ‘These things are not known.’
They saw nothing of it that night, no matter which of them kept watch, but somehow Maniye knew it was out there, tethered to her by whatever panic or revelation had gripped it, stumbling about in the grass on too many legs.
They made little progress the next day, as though the presence of the beetle-thing was gnawing at Maniye’s strength. Her fever came back, and there was no shape she could take to escape it. Even the Champion felt like a prisoner of its own weighty flesh. Hesprec and Shyri tried their best to help her along, but she kept losing focus, the dry heat of the Plains desiccating her mind until she kept rediscovering herself stumbling through tall grass under an unfamiliar sky, as strange to her as the Godsland itself.
Is this how the beetle-thing feels? she wondered. She remembered the disjointed panic of its movements. Was that just how beetles were, or had it been dying even then, poisoned by the thinking mind that inhabited it, by the soul it had somehow swallowed.
She wanted to tell that to Hesprec, then, but there would be no need. Hesprec knew all that she knew, and kept her own counsel on it. Maniye had no revelations that would surprise the Serpent.
They rested up towards noon, finding a barrel-trunked tree standing alone amidst the grass and scavenging shade from it. The idea was to press on once the shadows lengthened, but Maniye could not. She felt that waves of sickness were pulsing towards her from the very earth, from the baking air. She shivered in her human skin, whined and gnawed at her wounds as a wolf. Shyri went to hunt but came back soon after; she had seen swift shadows passing across the earth and gone to ground, hiding from the eyes of the Plague People. There were many of them, she said – passing back and forth to some place ahead.
The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall Book 3) Page 30