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

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  And she had them, Maniye saw, or enough of them. Some might yet steal away, seeking more life under the shadow of a rock somewhere south or west or north of here. But most would go back to their people, their war leaders and chiefs, and say what must be done.

  Afterwards, she asked Hesprec, ‘Why didn’t you tell them what your plan really is?’

  The Serpent shrugged. ‘They wouldn’t have liked it. And when did Serpent ever do anything the straightforward way?’

  The next part of the plan had come from the Lion. An old priest named Oreto had come to Hesprec the day before, after he heard the Serpent had something secret hidden in its coils. He was thin as a switch, but he looked as though his wiry muscles were hard as stone. He came to them straight from some Lion ritual, coppery skin painted with reds and whites and a mane of dried grass about his face.

  He invited them to his tent amongst the Lion fires, and they walked there beneath the suspicious glower of all those warriors, the heavy-muscled men, the strong, graceful women, all of them sharpening their spears for the battle to come.

  ‘All my ancestors will curse me for this,’ Oreto said, once they were inside and cut off from that fierce scrutiny. ‘The Lion will take me in his jaws and tear me. This is a great secret of our people, and the Serpent has always been our enemy.’

  Hesprec regarded him warily. ‘Then why tell me? You’re right, the Lion has never been a friend of the River or my people.’

  He set out a bowl of water for them, and another of seeds, meagre hospitality for a lean season. ‘I spoke with my wives last night, and my brothers,’ by which Maniye had gathered he meant priests and priestesses of his people. ‘We know it is the end of the world. Why keep secrets then? There will be a great battle soon, like none ever seen before. If we can add even one more cup of strength to the arms of the warriors there, then we must. So I volunteered to risk Lion’s wrath, and lose our secret to the Serpent.’

  Hesprec nodded, acknowledging the sacrifice.

  ‘And for this one,’ Oreto said, nodding at Maniye, to her surprise. ‘We have heard of this one, the Champion of the Crown of the World. We have heard of the many gods who had the making of her. She is Lion’s, as she is his sister, Tiger’s. So some small part of her is of us, and she is your guardian and companion. So perhaps it is not so great a betrayal that we tell you this.’

  ‘So tell,’ Hesprec invited.

  ‘We have Champions amongst the Lion,’ Oreto said. ‘More than many tribes, for we are strong. But, still, the Champion souls come to few. They cannot be everywhere and we do fight everywhere. All the Plains speaks in fear of the might of the Lion.’

  Hesprec nodded diplomatically.

  ‘But the Lion has long known how to share that strength, just a little,’ Oreto explained. ‘There is a ritual known to us, where our Champions give of themselves to make the whole pride greater. The fire of the Champion enters into each, some of that greatness of soul. One of my brothers came to this camp, just days ago, saying that he enacted this ritual before the Plague People came to destroy his village, and they held the Terror at bay just a little while, to let those who could not fight escape. Just a little, but it is something. And every tribe in the world has sent its Champions here.’

  Hesprec’s eyes had lit up, to hear that, and Maniye could almost hear her adjusting her plans.

  Now, after her grand speech to the wise, Hesprec gathered all the Champions she could to stand before Oreto, who had a basin of red stone before him, and a copper knife heating in the ashes of his fire.

  Maniye herself stepped forward first, because she knew she had given herself over to Hesprec’s plan, and so she would follow wherever it led her. Asman was there too, and stout Tchoche who was Tecumet’s bodyguard. There were other Rivermen – some so old they must surely have come from a peaceful retirement for this battle – and people from the Stone Kingdoms, and there were plenty of Lions, and a scattering from other Plains and Estuary tribes who had found a way to access those great souls from deep time. Even scowling Yellow Claw of the Eyrie had come, because he could not live with being left out of so great a gathering.

  Oreto cut each of them and let a measure of their blood flow into his bowl. He anointed them with oil and ash, and each differently, his fingers finding the shape of the soul guesting within them. The blood he would mix with honey and beer, bone dust and the sap of certain plants gathered by the Lion on days sacred to them, until he had a great cauldron brimming with the thick brew. Then skins of the stuff would be dispatched to chief after chief, to pass amongst their warriors.

  ‘And perhaps it is all nothing,’ Hesprec confided to Maniye. ‘But let the Lion brag of his strength, especially if, for once, he shares it. Let our warriors go to war knowing they are stronger, because that is all that matters when the enemy’s greatest weapon is fear.’

  ‘And maybe it will work,’ Maniye said, because she liked the idea, and the Champion within her liked it too.

  Hesprec shrugged. ‘These things are known: drowning men clutch at every straw. And also: it’s late, and I have only one last loop of this plan to put in place. Morning will be best for it, and tonight you have other duties.’

  Maniye frowned. ‘What duties?’

  Hesprec put a hand on her arm, stilling the world around her. ‘Go to your friends, those you care about. Tomorrow we begin the ritual. Great things will be done, and probably done badly. And the Plague People will come, and bring their war and their floating ship to destroy us. Tomorrow will have no time for goodbyes, so say them tonight, while you still can.’

  Maniye sought out Alladai, just pushed straight past all his people with their needs and demands and threw her arms around him. He would not fight, tomorrow. His people would dance their Horse dances and speak long poems of travel and hardship and friends met at the end. She felt that, of all the people of the world, the Horse were almost a memory, the whole heart of their world eaten away by the Plague. And yet they had outposts in the north and in Atahlan and across the Plains, little seeds of the Horse Society that might yet grow, if the earth could be cleared for them.

  She took him away from his responsibilities – they were the Horse, after all, a people used to counting and managing. They did not need Alladai this one night. He tried to ask her what she meant and what was the matter, but they were all questions he knew the answer to, and just did not want to face. At last he gave in and held her, unlacing her clothes with his deft care, letting a sliver of moonlight in to touch her body.

  He was gentle; she was weak still, and shivered when he touched the scars the Rat had left, the scars of the hooks that had taught her the secret of iron, those given her by her father and by the man she had thought was her father, and all the other lines and blemishes that spoke of hurt and death.

  ‘You will fight, tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘You are not strong enough.’

  ‘Hesprec has other uses for me,’ she told him, but would not be drawn. It was not her secret to share.

  In another tent, Kailovela stood before Loud Thunder, looking into his broad, simple face and wondering if he would live. All his size and power would count for nothing against the killing darts of the Plague People. He would lead from the front, and he would be nothing but a greater target for their aim.

  ‘I cannot give you what you want,’ she told him. ‘This thing you feel for me, it is too great, too all-consuming. I cannot feel that for anyone or anything. Not my own child, not my people.’

  He nodded philosophically, but tonight she had sent word asking for him, rather than him coming to seek her, and so he waited, hoping there was more.

  She put a hand on his arm, seeing him shiver a little at the contact. ‘I wish I could lose myself in you, though. You are a good man. You are the only man I ever knew who took strength and power over others and did not twist them. You have all the tools to be a great monster amongst men and yet here you are, pining for your little cabin and your quiet. And so, what I feel for anyone, I feel for you. It
is not enough; you deserve more from someone, but it is all I have to give.’

  And, because he was who she said he was, he took that with a wide, incredulous grin.

  She gave herself to him, thinking at first that she was like a sacrifice, that he might fight well the next day, but as his hands cupped her body, the act became more and more about her, needs she had always associated with pain and humiliation given a new life because she knew he would neither hurt nor cage her. And they were as quiet as they could be, and still the baby woke and cried, and had to be nursed back to sleep, and he was patient, and held her as she held her son.

  This could be your life, said an insidious part of her, but she knew better than to trust it. Tomorrow, Loud Thunder would lead the war host of the Crown of the World to fight the Plague People who came by land.

  And tomorrow, as she had told nobody, she would take wing and bring what magic she had against the enemy who came by air. One way or another there would be no long happy life for Loud Thunder of the Bear and Kailovela of the Eyrie.

  The same night, once he had shed blood for Oreto, Asman went to Tecumet’s side. He had seen plenty of tearful moments as he stalked through the camp. Warriors were with their mates for what could be their last night; parents and children knew that the coming fight would sunder families. The thought of the Plague People loomed large in every mind, the battle against the Terror already half lost.

  Let my blood, all our blood, give them all courage. Even another ten heartbeats of fight might be enough to carry the day. In his mind he made the armed might of the true people a great tide sweeping away the Plague People, their beasts, their walls, their godless, soulless dream that they had brought to his world. He could almost believe it, even all mustered together, even with their sky ship and their fiery rain.

  But then the images crept back, his memories: he saw Tecuman die; he saw the very Tsotec burn. The Terror could not destroy him, but he still knew fear.

  He could only guess at the grim expression he was wearing when he sloped his way past the guards into the Kasra’s tent. Tchoche had gone before him, and would have explained how the Lion ritual had gone and what Hesprec’s grand plan was. Asman had heard the Serpent’s words about the gods, but in his heart he knew it would come down to spears and swords and courage. Let the gods strengthen men’s arms and shore up their hearts, we will not see them walk the earth beside us. If they could do it, would they not have done so before?

  Tecumet was not one of the weeping women he had seen, already thinking of themselves as widowed, childless. There was a new expression on her face, though. The times had called on her to make many of a ruler’s hard decisions, but now she had come to some final conclusion, and he could see it pained her. Or perhaps this is her face beneath the mask, and I never knew.

  She sent Tchoche out and beckoned Asman near, looking him up and down as though he was new to her.

  ‘Tchoche goes to his own people, to lend them his strength,’ she said. ‘The Stone Men, come down to the Plains to fight. Not something that has happened in two generations.’

  ‘Now is a good time to do all those things we have put off,’ Asman said. ‘Tomorrow may be too late for them. Perhaps we should invade the Crown of the World or something.’

  He scared up barely a ghost of a smile from her. She put a hand to his face, fingers digging slightly as though trying to find the real Asman beneath the calluses the world had put on him. ‘I loved you as much as my brother did, you know that.’

  ‘I know. I loved you as much as I did him.’

  ‘But not with all your heart.’

  He kissed her forehead. ‘My heart is a pack of dogs straining after many quarries. It does not mean I do not love you.’

  ‘I know. I knew before I made you Kasrani, but perhaps I fooled myself. But I cannot change that part of you and still keep the you I love. And tomorrow I may not even have that. And if not that, the day after I may be Kasra of nothing, and the River may not be the great Tsotec, but just a river with some Plague name no true human can say. But there is tonight.’

  He moved to hold her, but she broke away. ‘I believe you will live, Asman. I believe you will fight until the Plague People cannot threaten us. I believe you are the Champion of the Sun River Nation, a Champion amongst Champions. Hesprec Essen Skese will call close Old Crocodile and the Serpent and all the gods of the Estuary to stand at your back, and you will triumph. I believe it with all my life, with my soul. I wager everything on my belief that there will be another night for you and me, beyond this one.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he confessed.

  ‘I know your heart’s loves,’ she said. ‘And there is one who goes to fight tomorrow who may yet die, for I have enough belief for you, and not for any other. I know you feel an ache for him, and that it does not lessen what is between us, son of Asman. And, though he would never admit a word of it, I know he keeps your name within him, as you keep his. And as I claim all your tomorrows, so I give you tonight.’

  Asman blinked at her, and kept staring as she called her servants and had them load her with the mask and robe of state, so she could go amongst her people and have Esumit tell them they would be brave on the morrow.

  Only after she had left did the tent flap part again to admit Venat, looking as baffled as he. Their eyes met, though. Asman saw some mocking comment occur to the man and get swallowed back down.

  ‘Come,’ he suggested. ‘We’ll drink.’

  The Dragon rolled his shoulders. ‘First sensible thing you’ve said for days.’ He glanced back after the vanished Tecumet. ‘I always reckoned she’d have my throat cut.’

  ‘Because you don’t know her. Perhaps I don’t, either. But she knows my heart. And so she sent for you.’

  Venat scowled at the sentiment, but Asman knew his moods, which were deep-carved, and which only painted on his skin.

  ‘Tomorrow—’ the Dragon started, but Asman hushed him.

  ‘No more of tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Not when we have tonight.’

  Elsewhere, but never too far away, Shyri drank and laughed with whoever she found, at whichever fire presented itself, and told herself she didn’t care.

  Elsewhere still, Hesprec went to where the sounds of grief masked by cheer were muted, where the wounded lay. Healers and the wise of a dozen tribes were still here, doing what they could for the sick and the injured and she passed amongst them like a ghost. Her duty as a priest tugged at her with each cry for the Serpent’s aid, but she plucked the hooks out the moment they latched on to her and went on her way. She was here for one casualty in particular.

  The tent was quiet – so much so, Hesprec feared the woman had died. Galethea still breathed, though. Whether it was some innate hardiness of her kind or the half-hearted efforts of the healers, she could not say. Nobody had wanted to spend their time and medicines on the hollow creature, not when her glamours had dropped away. Hesprec had found some of the Milk Tear, who were the best healers the River had, and all but threatened them with the Serpent’s coils. They had done what they could, and then left the woman to her own constitution, but it had been enough.

  Hesprec slipped into the tent – no other of the wounded would share it – and heard Galethea’s breathing change as she woke.

  ‘Who—?’ the Pale Shadow woman started weakly.

  ‘I,’ Hesprec told her. ‘Only I, but with little time and much to ask. Where is your strength, Galethea? Did you leave it on the rock when the priest stabbed you, or do you have it still?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Galethea hissed at her. ‘I went to the Plague People because of you and yours. I am stabbed because of you, and all for nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps not for nothing. Your words, when you came back, taught me about the enemy. Other things I saw, while you were getting yourself cut open, taught me more. I have enough, now, for a plan. A plan that needs you.’

  She heard Galethea turn over on her pallet, a laborious process carried out in stages. ‘I have los
t enough for your plans, all of them. And gained nothing, not for me or my people.’ Then there was a sudden motion – Hesprec’s eyes had adjusted just enough for her to see the woman sitting up, her pale skin luminous in the dark of the tent. ‘And my people will suffer, once yours are no more. They will find us and kill us all.’

  ‘So you have nothing to lose and much to gain, if I can turn back the Plague,’ Hesprec pointed out mildly. ‘But there is more than that. You came a long way, Galethea of the Pale Shadow, and it was for a purpose.’

  The pale woman was very still. ‘More tests, then? To prove myself worthy of your aid?’

  ‘And if I said that it was more, that I had a grand experiment in mind?’

  ‘I would not believe you. You have greater concerns than obliging me.’

  Hesprec came closer and crouched down beside her. ‘The Serpent has many coils, O Pale Shadow, but there is only one Serpent. Many things may be done, that are all to one purpose.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Stripped of her magic, Galethea’s voice was a thin whine. ‘I’ve seen the way your people look at me. I’ve felt their hands on me. They hate me. The rift between what they are and what I am is too great. I’ve been a fool every step of the journey. I should have stayed with my people and faded with them.’

  ‘I will tell you what I have seen,’ Hesprec said. ‘And then you will change your mind and come with me tomorrow.’