The Tiger and the Wolf (16 page)

Well, he needs me
, she told herself.
He needs me more than I need
him.
It was a mean thought, but she was still unsure of him, this
pallid foreigner with his faded scale tattoos.

He wrapped his arms tightly about himself, shuddering and
more serious now. ‘What place is this?’
Maniye didn’t answer, but he plainly read the truth in her
face.
‘I see you don’t know.’ He grimaced.
‘We will find water and follow it downstream.’
‘Back to where we were? And if your enemies are still there?’
‘What is
your
plan, wise one?’
He exhaled deeply, pluming the air. ‘Alas, I was separated
from my plans by your so-hospitable people. I fear I will never
get them back.’
More clowning from him, but she was wondering,
And just
what were those plans?
Because he had never made them plain.
She was ashamed to find that a part of her still yearned for that
odd tale he had made up for the Horse: how he had come to
find
her.
That she was special to the world as something other
than leverage for her father to use against her mother’s kin.
Hesprec had taken a few steps, and now he paused in
thought. ‘Until it snows once more, or until it thaws, what a tale
we will tell wherever we go. Your hunters, they will be looking, I
think, for the tracks of a little wolf? Or else the tracks of a man
and a girl walking together.’
She nodded.
He appeared to come to a difficult decision. ‘They will not be
looking for one man on his own, perhaps. One set of tracks.They
will not wish to go hunting every lost traveller or woodsman.’
Maniye stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’ Was he abandoning her? Did he think he would stand more of a chance alone in
this cold and alien land, and go unhunted?
It cut her, and deeper than she would have imagined. She
almost opened her mouth to beg, to demand . . . but she had
been born in the Jaws of the Wolf. The Wolf endured, no matter
what. She drew herself up straight, confronting him adult to
adult.
‘Well, if that is what you think, we should part.’ Her voice did
not quaver at all.
He regarded her levelly. ‘I was about to suggest that I carry
you.’
She said nothing.
‘You have carried me, after all, for some long distance. And,
although the keen noses of your people may scent you out
anyway, the deception seems worthy of the attempt.’
At last she broke out, ‘You couldn’t carry me, old Serpent.’
She put a lot of scorn into her voice, but only to disguise the
relief she felt.
‘Not as a girl. Perhaps as a wolf, perhaps for a while. I would
be denied the joy of your conversation, but that would be only
another burden for me to bear.’
He carried her as she had seen shepherds bring in lambs, her
lean wolf body draped over his shoulders, his hands resting light
on her legs to steady her. He made slow progress of it, plodding
through the snow, and she could only hope that if one of their
pursuers came across his single track, they might persuade
themselves to ignore it.
It was a faint hope, she knew. Better to hope that her foes
were nowhere close at all. There was a lot of forest, after all –
stretching from here all the way into the uplands, to the foothills
of the
real
north.
Hesprec stopped to rest frequently, but he managed to bear
her on his shoulders for most of the day. They ate some of the
Horse Society’s food but made no fires and, although the sky
through the trees was white as the old man’s skin, no more snow
fell. When they were moving again, Maniye let her nose guide
them still, pointing out the way for Hesprec. When she caught
even the faintest trace of wolf – for all that it was not familiar
Winter Runner wolf but just her mute brothers – she urged him
away. When the breeze brought a hint of running water she
guided him towards it. It was still her hope that somehow she
could follow a stream leading to the Sand Pearl; that those hunting them might be gone from the Horse post; that there would
still be a path south.
Alladei and his people would be already gone though, that
much she knew. She would need to seek downriver into Swift
Back lands for any of the Horse at all. Most likely, by the time
she arrived there, they would not be travelling. There would be
no movement on the river until the summer. And staying by the
river, or with the Horse, was just an invitation for the hunters to
find her.
And yet she had nothing and nowhere else. Only now with
the luxury of hindsight, as she draped over Hesprec’s narrow
shoulders, did she realize just how little she had thought matters
through. In her mind a hundred scenarios played out, and she
had constantly to fight a nagging voice saying that life in her
father’s shadow would not have been so bad. To betray her
mother’s people, to become the mate of terrifying Broken Axe,
these things could be endured more easily than the killing cold
and hunger of a winter spent alone.
That night she found another hollow to sleep in, repairing her
satchel as best she could to provide a bed for Hesprec. She did
not dare try for a fire, but felt mournfully sure that she would
not have been able to start one anyway. She had the understanding of how to do it, yet not the skill.
The next day she travelled on her own four feet, and he still
on his two: too weary now to carry her further and yet too
proud to beg a ride just yet. They passed the time in silence,
with Maniye shackled to Hesprec’s slow pace. That morning
they finally found the stream that her nose had been telling her
about. The land here was broken, worn snarls of rock pushing
out of it like bones, the lie of it tilting up into slopes that were
the edge of the uplands. She guessed that she had wandered
even further north in her search for it, but here it was: falling in
a fierce, unfrozen torrent from the higher ground and carving
its stony channel in the ground, a line free of snow.
She Stepped, needing a human mouth to speak and human
eyes to read his face properly. ‘Downstream will take us . . .’
He nodded. ‘I know, I know.’ For a long while they shared an
uncertain stare. Downstream was a direction and a destination,
two things they had bitterly felt the lack of since finding themselves in the forest. And yet every step would increase the
chance that the Winter Runners would discover them.
‘Can you fight at all?’ she demanded.
‘Threats only.’ He tapped at his lips. ‘And when they see he
has no teeth, who shall fear the serpent?’
‘I mean
you
, can you do . . .’ even as she asked it, she felt like
a child, ‘
magic
at all?’
He looked at her not with derision but with a great sadness.
‘How I would like to say yes. And yet, if I had such magics – if
there were any such in the world – would I have been where you
found me?’
She could not refute the logic.
Then they found where the stream led: not to a river but a
lake. She should have thought of it: the Crown of the World was
dotted with a thousand such. The still body of water had been
here forever, since the world was made, and yet to her it seemed
just one more unnecessary impediment designed to wear her
down.
She looked out across it, still with a skin of ice in its centre,
even if the water was clear about the edges. The snow of its
shores was trampled at many points, by deer and other animals
coming to drink.
‘We must go about its edge, this way.’ She was recovering her
orientation enough to know which was the southern shore. ‘We
will find where the water leaves it, and follow that.’
Hesprec nodded. He was looking drawn and his skin was
almost bluish, even huddled in the heavy robes of the Horse
people. When she set off again she held to her human shape,
trying to match his pace and not forcing him to hurry.
The stream they found was broad and swift-flowing, winding
off through a gully into the forest. Perhaps there would be more
such lakes, Maniye considered, but there must eventually be a
river, and that river would lead them
somewhere
.
Always assuming
somewhere
was where they wanted to be.
And then the voice, not Hesprec’s, called out: ‘I have a name
for you. They should call you Maniye Many Tracks.’
She froze rigid on hearing it. At her side, Hesprec shifted
slightly, his hand reaching for hers.
Broken Axe stood on the far side of the stream, so still against
the snow that she had not noticed him. He must have been
watching them approach around the lake’s edge all this while.
She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to demand how he
could always be there ahead of her. She would have believed, in
that moment, that Axe was more of a sorcerer than Hesprec
could ever be. Her voice stayed locked in her throat though, save
for a tiny whine of fear.
She could Step now onto a wolf’s paws, and dart away. She
would be abandoning Hesprec, but then Broken Axe wanted her
and not the old man. Or at least her
more
than the old man.
‘I am here to take you home,’ Broken Axe informed her,
taking two casual steps forwards. Maniye was as aware of the
lessening distance between them as she was of her own rapid
breathing.
‘You are here to kill me.’ She was amazed she could even say
the words.
‘Not I.’ And another step, his feet seeming to move without
the knowledge of his face, which was trying, along with his
voice, for earnest honesty. ‘I will not say that your father worries
about you. We’d both smell the lie in those words. But, still, you
will be better in his shadow than dead in the jaws of winter.’ And
she could sense the tension coiling in him as he inched nearer,
and still she could not move. He was two steps from the stream
bank on his side; she was three steps from it on hers.
‘What about him?’ Maniye asked, and Hesprec’s hand finally
closed on her wrist.
‘I don’t care about him, Many Tracks.’ She saw Broken Axe
shift the set of his feet.
‘Go,’ whispered the Snake priest, and his bony fingers drove
into her skin, the sudden shock of it breaking the spell and freeing her. But only to flee, once again, craven as a coyote.
Not knowing what he would do, she Stepped in that instant,
dropping into the wolf shape that seemed almost more natural
than the form she was born into. When she Stepped, it was
always into the feet of each form, and so she had a desperate
vision of Hesprec just collapsing into the coils of his serpent,
and being left behind. His grip never left her, though. Somehow
he cast himself up the arm that was touching her, so that when
he whipped into the slim cord of his smallest shape, it was
already coiled about her. There was a horrible moment when
she felt him throw himself about her shoulders and neck, heartbeats from dragging her back to her human form, but then he
had himself settled somehow, twisted about the knotted straps of
her satchel, and she was dashing away, then twisting back to see
. . .
In his native shape, still, Broken Axe took his final two steps
and jumped, kicking off from the bank to cast himself across the
stream. He Stepped in mid-air, the strength of his human legs
lending the pale wolf more distance than it could ever have leapt
across itself. In an instant he was almost alongside her, and once
again she turned and ran.

The Horse people at the trading post on the Tsotec were surprised to see them. Asmander had the impression that, give it
another two or three days, they’d none of them still be there.
There was one final raft of logs rocking at the crude quay, and
they were busy loading it with everything that could be carried,
leaving just the hollow stockade behind.

The local Hetman, another tough and compact little Horse
woman, obviously thought little of Eshmir and her journey.
Asmander learned a great deal by watching the two of them talk,
as the new arrivals enjoyed the fire’s warmth in the post’s only
hut. It was not about what was said – all of which was very comradely – but about the way they sat and the distance between
them, the attitude of their arms and shoulders.
Rival clans
,
Asmander knew, without any doubt at all. The Horse Society’s
strength was its unity, that was what everyone knew about them:
a network of trade and talk and travel from the northern ice to
the southern banks of the Tsotec. It was fascinating to see the
cracks.

At last, some northern natives were located and brought forward. They looked a sorry lot. On the one hand, a man and
woman in furs and wool, each with a pack that looked half as
big as they were, and neither of them looking young enough to
be tramping through the wilderness in winter. The third was a
small man with half his face tattooed or painted black, so that
one eye stared out of that mask like a mad, trapped thing, while
the other was creased with sardonic humour. He wore dark
clothes: a woollen robe that looked almost priestly, with a heavy
quilted cloak over it. All three had those flat northern faces: skin
the colour of wet sand, high cheekbones, and eyes that seemed
constantly suspicious of everything.

The other’s Crow, from the Eyrie. They’re better than nothing.’
‘How much?’ Asmander asked her.
‘Enough. They will guide us to the Many Mouths. They are

not much, though, failed traders who got here too late, after all
the pickings had gone. They’re luckier to get us than we are to
get them.’

‘You fill me full of confidence,’ he remarked.
At his shoulder, Venater snorted. ‘They’re no fighters.’
‘I hope we shall need no fighters. With winter coming on,

there will be few others abroad, I’m assured.’
‘Assuming these natives don’t lead us into an ambush,’
Asmander put in, almost cheerily.
Eshmir gave him a pained look. ‘We leave come the morning,’
she informed him.

Everyone else was leaving under the same dawn. The local
Horse traders cast off their final raft after a stilted exchange of
well-wishings with Eshmir. The new arrivals were left in sole
control of the stockade.

Eshmir and her people wanted to leave at once, but the three
guides had apparently been conspiring, and they insisted that
everyone sit and talk over the journey, which meant heading
back into the hut.