by Greg Keyes
It took all of Ghan’s strength and recently acquired riding skills to remain in the saddle; the way twined tortuously through trees, rising and falling, though in the main it rose. He kept his hands clenched in his mount’s mane and his head buried there, as well, above the heaving neck, and more often than not his eyes were clenched shut, too. They were closed when the angle of flight changed sickeningly, as if his beast’s head were pointed straight at the sky. A different horse—not his own—suddenly shrieked. He opened his eyes to find that they were scrambling up an incline so steep that Qwen Shen and her mount had fallen and were sliding. Cursing, she managed to remount. Bone Eel paid her no mind, but urged his own beast the more.
These are horses, not mountain goats, Ghan thought, heart thudding madly. But then the trail became just less steep enough that the horse could find a gait, a tortured trot often broken by stumbles. The trees around them thinned and were gone, unable to find purchase on the rocky slope.
When he looked down, a few moments later, he wished he hadn’t. The path his horse continued to slip upon seemed less than a handspan wide, and it wound up the side of a mountain—the mountain, he supposed—so that to the right was a nearly sheer cliff rising to greet the sky and to the left—to the left was a steep plunge that left him dizzy. Below that, the valley was filling with Mang, and from them lifted scores of black missiles, clattering into the hillside around them.
“There!” he heard Bone Eel shout furiously. Ghan looked about wildly and then saw them: a trio of horsemen above, blocking the way up.
“Surrender,” Ghan hissed. “We’re doomed otherwise.”
“No! Look!” And Bone Eel pointed again at the men above.
Ghan did see, then. They were not Mang; beneath their helms, pallid faces gleamed, and the cut of their clothing and armor was strange. They were—had to be—Perkar’s people.
His horse slipped, and a stone flew from beneath its hooves, out and down. Ghan hoped it struck one of their pursuers on his helmeted head. He glanced up again. Would they make it? It was so steep, so far…
Beyond the three riders was a fourth, very small, not dressed in armor at all but in some sort of yellow skirt. The distance was too great for him to make out any features, only the delicate brown wedge of her face. But he knew. He knew!
“Hezhi!” he shouted with all of the strength in his lungs, and he heard his voice repeating in the hollows of the mountain. The rider paused, but as her name began to come back to him, she suddenly spurred back into action, plunging dangerously down the trail toward them. “Hezhi!” he shouted again, clapping his beast’s flanks with real force now, his old heart suddenly new with fierce determination. He was here now, she was alive, and even with an army below them there was hope; he knew it as surely as he knew her.
He felt a twinge of pain in his back, wondered why his old joints had protested no more than this up until now. He could make out her eyes now, though the light seemed to be fading. Were there clouds blocking the sun?
The pain in his back was worse, and an odd numbness spread through his limbs, dizziness. He reached back and felt the stickiness of blood, the wooden shaft sunken into his kidneys.
“Bone Eel …” he began. He wanted to tell someone how surprising it was, to have something in you. He had always imagined the pain would be greater.
The mountain wheeled around him, as if his mount had begun to fly and roll about in the air. It seemed to him that he should cling tightly to something, but his hands had lost their ability to grip. The whirling became floating, and he watched, astonished, as his horse, Bone Eel, Qwen Shen, and the other riders seemed to fly away from him, and only then did he guess that he had fallen, that he was plummeting down the mountainside.
Then he struck something unyielding, and light vanished. Oddly he could still hear a sort of grinding and snapping, a vague and distant pummeling, and then that faded away, as well.
XXXIV
The Teeth of the Host
“Ghan isn’t dead,” Hezhi explained to herself in a hushed voice. “Ghan is in the library, with his books. Nothing could ever compel him to leave them.”
Then who was it she had seen? Whose toy-like figure had pitched almost comically off of the trail, bounced thrice on the rough slope before vanishing into the growth of the lower valley?
Not Ghan, that was certain, though she heard someone mention his name—one of the newcomers, dressed in Nholish fashion—gibbering like everyone else in some incoherent tongue.
Why don’t you all learn to speak? she thought bitterly. They probably weren’t even saying Ghan. It was probably gan or gaan or kan or ghun. Who cared, anyway? They kept saying “Mang” a lot, too, but that was unambiguous; she saw Mang warriors clustering at the base of the slope, heard their far-off whoops of challenge.
One of the white men took her gently from her horse and placed her up on his. She let him; she was too busy thinking to ride, and it seemed that they were in a hurry. Thinking about who that could have been, who so resembled her teacher. Because he was safe in Nhol.
“Is she wounded? What’s wrong?” Perkar shouted, when he saw Hezhi’s blank expression, and that she was mounted not on Dark but up behind one of Karak’s people.
“No,” the warrior replied. “She isn’t hurt. She just saw someone die.”
Perkar had already dismounted and was rushing toward her, but Tsem beat him to it, plucking her from the back of the mare. She was mumbling something to the half Giant, as if trying to explain to him the most important thing in the world. Tsem only looked puzzled.
Two strangers came behind Hezhi, a man and a woman. Both were striking, beautiful even, and both—as far as he could discern, from his limited experience—were dressed in the fashion of Nhol: colorful kilts and blouses. The man wore a cloth wrapped upon his head, though it was so disheveled that it hung nearly off one side. When that man saw Karak, he quickly dismounted and knelt.
“Get up, you fool,” Karak—still, of course, in the guise of Sheldu—commanded.
Looking a bit confused, the man straightened and waved up the woman who had also begun to bow.
A man and woman from Nhol who recognized and bowed before Karak. What did that mean?
He was tempted not to care, and it seemed he had little time for it anyway.
“Mang, blocking the valley. I’m sure some will come up for us.”
“Single file,” Karak said. “They can be slaughtered easily.”
“Until the rest of them work up the more charitable slope behind us,” Ngangata shouted as he rode over. “They can be here before the sun has moved another span.”
“This is the quickest way,” Karak insisted.
“Only if we get there. How many Mang? A few hundred? Thirty-five of us, Sheldu. We must go over the spine and ride to our destination through another valley.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Ngangata knows these lands, Sheldu,” Perkar interrupted.
“As do I!” Karak roared, his eyes flashing dangerously yellow.
“Yes,” Perkar hissed meaningfully, striding close. “But Ngangata knows these lands from horseback!”
“Oh.” Karak blinked. “Oh.”
Perkar turned to see Ngangata smirking at the exchange. He was certain the half man knew by now who their “guide” was.
“Over the spine,” Perkar grunted. He turned to Karak. “Unless you are ready to be more than guide.”
The Crow God slowly shook his Human-seeming head. “Not yet. Not until we are too close for him to stop us.”
“Then Ngangata and I lead; the place you describe can be reached other ways than the one we are going. If the way is longer, then we must go now rather than argue. Leave a few of your men here with plenty of arrows to stop the Mang from coming up that trail. Tell them to give us a good head start and then leave, before they can be surrounded.”
Karak pursed his lips, annoyance plain on his face, but then he nodded brusquely and shouted the orders, moving off to choose his m
en.
“Well,” Ngangata appraised, “I wondered if you had left us again.”
“Soon enough, friend,” Perkar told him. “But not just yet.”
A moment later they were back on the move, their mounts scrambling across the trackless ridge. Mang war whoops seemed to be everywhere, and Perkar watched the tightness gather in Brother Horse’s face. Difficult as it was, moving in and amongst trees, Perkar maneuvered close enough to the old man to hold a shouted conversation.
“You’ve done more than anyone can expect of you,” Perkar shouted. “I urge you to leave us now. No one should have to fight his own people.”
“I know what I am about,” Brother Horse snapped back at him, though he was plainly agitated. “Save your concern. I will not turn on you; I have cast my lot. If I am fortunate, I will not have to slay any of my kinsmen. But what goes on here is more important than any claims on blood.”
“I never thought to hear a Mang say that,” Perkar admitted.
Brother Horse set his face in a deep scowl. “If you search for an enemy among us,” the old man growled, “best to start in your own heart.”
“What do you mean by that?” Perkar shouted.
Brother Horse lifted one hand in a gesture of dismissal. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But the last few leagues have brought me uneasiness about you.”
Perkar urged his mount ahead, angry and confused. How dare the old fool question him, when it was Mang who rode for the Changeling—the enemy of them all.
Ngangata was pacing close behind; their horses broke from run to canter and back as the leaves slapped at them. Perkar was vividly reminded of the last time he had ridden these ridges, fleeing the Huntress. Then, of course, they had been fighting to escape Balat and its mysteries; now they strove to reach its heart.
“Our pursuit is gaining more quickly than I thought they could,” Ngangata yelled over to him. “I think they split even before we saw them.”
“How many, can you tell?”
“Many. Hundreds, coming from possibly three directions.”
“How far do we have to go?”
“Too far, from Karak’s description.”
Perkar smiled savagely. “How long have you known who our friend ‘Sheldu’ really is?”
Ngangata laughed coarsely. “Almost since you have. I read it on your face. And you’ve gone fey again.” He stabbed his finger at Perkar. “You aren’t thinking of riding back against them?”
Perkar shook his head. “No. I mean, I did think about it, but what would be the point? Most would just go around me. If there were a narrow pass to hold, or if I could reach their head—Moss, or that—thing…” He turned fiercely in his saddle. “I will warn you of this, my friend. If I see an opportunity to slay the creature from Nhol, I will take it. Do you understand that?”
“No,” Ngangata replied frankly, “but I can accept it.”
“Good.”
Perkar spent the next hundred heartbeats fighting his way to the front of the column. Hezhi still looked dazed, but Tsem’s horse could not bear even her tiny additional weight, and so she rode up behind Yuu’han. In fact, the Giant’s massive charger quivered so that Perkar feared it would collapse any moment. Then what would Tsem do? Of course, soon all of the horses would be useless enough to any of them; even T’esh was near exhausted. And Sharp Tiger, pacing placidly and stubbornly behind him, would be no help to anyone.
The howls behind him were drawing nearer.
Even Karak seemed concerned, glancing nervously around.
“You could stop them,” Perkar pointed out.
“That isn’t my place,” the Raven answered testily. “We are too close to our goal now. I can almost taste our victory. If I reveal my power, if I uncloak myself here, now, Balati might notice all of this going on. Who knows what he would then do? I don’t.”
“If we are all slain—” Perkar began.
But Karak interrupted. “You and the rest could purchase some time for me and Hezhi,” he said. “She is the crucial one. Only she matters.”
“There aren’t enough of us,” Perkar snapped. “They would flow around us like the River they serve. My companions and your men together would slow them down not at all.”
“It will come to it soon enough. Then I may have to reveal myself,” Karak said. “But I won’t until I must.”
“You mean until the rest of us are dead and you fly with Hezhi from here.”
“Yes, now that you mention it, that is what I mean. But let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”
At that moment, Ngangata raised his bow and shrieked, and his cry was echoed by a half score of Karak’s men. For a moment, Perkar feared that the Mang had caught up with them, but then he saw the truth; ahead of them, the trees bristled with spears and bows. The dark, lean forms of wolves coursed between the great trunks restlessly, and more warriors than could easily be counted. They stretched out along the ridge as far as Perkar could see, utterly blocking their way.
Ghe dug his talons into his palms, calling on all that remained of his self-control. The outriders had discovered Qwen Shen and Bone Eel. He could be upon them in instants, if he wished, take himself up on pinions of wind. Yet Moss warned him not to, and with greatest reluctance he conceded the young shaman’s expertise. Though he felt that nothing could resist his power, Moss assured him that such was not the case—and indeed, whatever black arts Qwen Shen and her doltish husband controlled had not only concealed them and allowed them to steal Ghan away, but it had also made them exceedingly difficult to follow. Even now he could not sense where they were, though Moss assured him that they were not far, that before the day was done his army of Mang would encircle the whole lot of them, Hezhi and her pet demon included. Then there would be fighting enough.
“What we cannot do,” Moss had insisted, “is allow our eagerness and anger to separate us. My spirits and I have woven a hundred spells to keep from awaking the Forest Lord and to protect us from the other things that haunt this wood. If you go off alone, you will only have your power to protect you. You have much raw strength, but there are gods here who have more, gods you will not easily dispense with. Together we have a chance, you and I.”
So even though Hezhi was so near, he must cultivate patience.
Death came to him on the breeze: Mang warriors, bravely daring the winding trail up which Qwen Shen, Bone Eel, and Ghan had fled. At the top, someone was defending the precarious pathway. He felt their lives flicker and go out, and amongst them—someone else dying—someone familiar.
“Worry not, Moss,” he told his companion. “I’ll go no farther than the outriders. But there is something ahead I must see.”
“Have a care,” Moss cautioned. “Whatever you sense, it could well be a trap.”
“I know. But somehow I don’t think so.” He dismounted and, like a hound following a familiar scent, raced off into the scrubby, evergreen foliage of the slope. Whatever it was was fading, fading, and almost it was gone before he reached it. Yet it was stubborn, and when he found the source he knew he should have recognized it by that alone.
Ghan’s broken body lay curled around a tree in a sort of reverse fetal position, his back bent completely the wrong way. One eye stared open and empty and the other was closed by the crushing of one side of his skull. Only within him was there any sign of his life, the filaments of his ghost even now fading and detaching from his ruined flesh. Ghe stared, wondering that he could feel any sorrow at all for such an annoying, dangerous old man, but he did. It was a sight that made little sense, the dignified scholar whose pen formed such esoteric and beautiful characters lying here, hundreds of leagues from any writing desk, in a forest, broken and arrow pierced.
Gingerly he reached out and tugged at the strands, pulled them free of a body that would serve now only to feed beasts and the black soil. He took the ghost and settled it into its own place amongst the august company of gods, an emperor, and a blind boy.
There, old man. At last I have you.
What? the spirit feebly replied. What has happened? Where is Hezhi? I just saw her…
Hush, Ghe told him. Rest there, and I will explain all to you later. Then he closed up the doors on Ghan, for the fear and panic of the newly captured wore poorly on him, and he could not afford now to be distracted. But it would please Hezhi, he knew, that he had saved the old man. For her, he would even let the scholar speak to her through his mouth. Yes, she would be happy and grateful when he did that.
He turned; Moss had come up behind him.
“I’m sorry, old man,” the shaman told the corpse. “If you had only told me of them sooner…”
Ghe smiled sardonically. “He kept one secret too many, and now he has none at all.”
Moss shrugged, and then his eyes cleared and he gestured up the ridge with his chin. “My spirits have slain those who held the trail, and a third of my force is approaching the ridge from another direction. We’ll have them soon, unless something else goes awry.”
“When we do capture them, Qwen Shen is mine,” Ghe stated flatly.
“Well enough,” Moss answered, a slight edge in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” Ghe asked.
The shaman shook his head uneasily. “It seems too simple. The Blackgod must have planned more elaborately than this. I will trust nothing until we have Hezhi and have reached the River.”
“And how far is that?” Ghe asked.
“The Changeling? We are near his source, and he emerges into his upper gorge less than a league from here.” He closed his fist. “Once we have her, nothing must hinder us. If we but reach his waters, no god or power on earth will be strong enough to take her back from him.”
“They seek his headwaters,” Ghe said. “Why not simply let them reach them?”
“No, they must not go to his source. That they must not be allowed to do at any cost. And they will not. Fifty of my swiftest warriors went ahead, weeks ago, and I have but lately seen them with my eyes that travel. Should we fail here, they still stand between them and his source.”
