The Tiger and the Wolf Read Online Free Page B

knew would one day go to join them, just as, in time, their
spirits would be reborn to human mothers of the Wolf tribes.
They were kin and yet they were the enemy, too. They raided
the herds and they culled the weak, devoted to making the lives
of men harder, so that the people themselves became harder,
fiercer, swifter. That was the way of the world, and that was the
way of the Wolf. Maniye could not help feeling a jab of pride at
knowing that her father’s kin ruled the Crown of the World
almost undisputed, while the people of the Deer and Boar paid
tribute.
    There was also the wolf that ran in the sky, he who had slunk
into the night above at the start of fall, lean and hungry and
written in stars. He was chasing the herds out of the heavens,
and soon he would hunt the cold winter skies, prowling above
his people each night until he sniffed out the approaching
spring and brought back life to the growing earth, laying it at
their feet like a trophy.
    Then there was Wolf whose people she was born to: Winter
Runner, Moon Eater, Many Mouths and the other tribes within
the Jaws of the Wolf, who were masters of the world. Wolf was a
harsh god, but no harsher than life itself. He pushed his people,
howling in the cold nights and sending them hardship, famine
and enemies to fight. He taught them that together they were
stronger than any of them could be alone. And, when they triumphed, as they had triumphed, Wolf was proud of them.
Kalameshli himself said so and, for the Winter Runners, Kalameshli was the very voice of the Wolf.
    For Maniye, the Wolf was breathing down her neck. She
could not know how it was for her peers, those others of the
tribe for whom a place within those jaws meant security and
belonging. For her, the Wolf was with her everywhere: the one
set of eyes she could not evade. Wolf was not proud of her;
instead, he sniffed dubiously at her tracks. She could almost
hear his low, suspicious growl as he lifted his head from them.
    Not one of mine , the Wolf reproached her, as she crouched in
her jealously guarded alcove above the hall. You skulk like a
coyote.You hide like prey. Below them was all the bustle of a meal
being prepared: Akrit’s wives and kinfolk readying a feast for the
returned hunters, who had brought back not a span of antlers
but a true sacrifice for Wolf’s endless hunger.
    ‘I am yours,’ she tried to tell the darkness. ‘I am Akrit’s get. I
am born between the Jaws of the Wolf.’ But even to her, the
words sounded false. She was Wolf but she was also Other, and
she had not let go of that part of her birthright. It would be like
cutting away a limb.
    The Testing comes soon , came the Wolf’s dark chuckle. We will
see then how much of mine you are. She felt his hot, rank breath.
If she closed her eyes and reached out a hand, she could have
touched those yellow fangs, each longer than her arm: Wolf – the
true Wolf from whom all lesser wolves derived. He was vast, as
large as the sky, as deep as the darkness between trees at midwinter. And yet he fit everywhere, even in this little hidey-hole
she had dug for herself. There was no escaping him.
    She did not know if others heard Wolf as she did. Kalameshli
must, of course, but he was a priest and trained to it. She had a
horrible suspicion that she was alone in this fearful communion,
because, of all the youths who were due to be Tested soon, only
she was doubted. The Wolf had a keen nose for weakness.
    Her makeshift window beckoned. Impossible, of course, that
either girl or wolf could escape the hall by that means, but she
would go nonetheless. Not yet, for she would be looked for at
her father’s elbow while he ate, obliged to hear the story of how
he caught the Snake – a serpent that would grow longer and
more venomous with each telling. She would sit there in an oval
of perhaps fifty people, her father’s kin and his favourite hunters
and their closest family, and she would sense the