by Greg Keyes
Thunder cracked above, but to Perkar’s ear it sounded more like the croak of a giant raven.
By the time they reached the hills, the howling of the wolves had taken on an exultant tone, a fierce anticipation.
“Maybe we should just stop, make a stand,” Perkar shouted up to Ngangata. “After all, we have the godswords.”
“That is the Forest Lord’s hunt,” Ngangata bellowed. “He can call every god and beast in this land. You cannot slay them all, Perkar. It would only give them sport.”
“They will catch us anyway!”
“Over these hills is the basin where the Changeling flows. We must cross those hills.”
Perkar set his teeth. Eruka was pale, frightened. Apad—Apad looked grim.
They forded a stream, stopped just long enough for the horses to wet their mouths. Ngangata reached back to the bundle on his saddle. He took his bow and strung it; Atti did the same. Perkar watched helplessly. He could string his bow, of course, but if he tried to fire it from horseback he would certainly fall off.
Ngangata slid the godsword he had taken from Apad from his saddle. He scowled at it.
“Apad,” he called, and tossed the sheathed weapon to the man. Apad caught it, bowed his head in acknowledgment and thanks.
“Piraku around and about you, Ngangata,” he said softly.
Ngangata nodded back. “Don’t let the horses fill their bellies,” he told them all. “They won’t be able to run.”
Mang stumbled often as they hurried up the steep slope. Once both front legs collapsed, and he nearly rolled over Perkar trying to get back up. Perkar dismounted and ran holding the reins of the trembling beast. Slower, that put him back with the Alwal, who were at last beginning to straggle. They were running in a tight little group, the slightly larger males on the outside, cane spears in hand. Perkar got a glance at their feet; their deerskin shoes were in tatters, and the flesh within was bruised and bleeding.
The ground steepened a bit more and, worse, became gravelly. The horses slipped on it, and for that matter so did Perkar. The wolves were close now; Mang shivered nervously at their scent, but was otherwise brave. Glancing back down the slope, Perkar made out a gray shape coursing toward the base of the hills—and then another and another. And then, through a break in the trees, the hunt itself.
More wolves than he could count swarmed through the forest, but they suddenly seemed the least of their worries, for with them came the Huntress. Her face was too small to read at this distance, but Perkar could see her eyes flashing green fire. Her antlers were black, and in one hand she carried a recurved bow of bone. She was seated atop a lion, but it must have been the Lion Master, for it was three times the size of any lion Perkar had ever seen, golden but striped with black. It was female, maneless, a Huntress, too.
Karak, the Raven God, sat on the shoulder of the Huntress. In their train came more beasts: tigers with long fangs, boars the size of cattle. Many of these creatures also had riders, feral-looking men who were surely not men. They wore the skins of bears, and Perkar suspected that they were more of the Mountain Gods, ones he did not know.
Perkar realized that he had been staring, paralyzed. It was Digger, tugging frantically at his sleeve, who broke the spell.
The hill sloped more gently, after that, and he remounted. Wolves were actually loping on their flanks now, but they seemed only to be pacing them, herding them perhaps. Ngangata stood in his saddle; now and then, he loosed an arrow. Each shot was rewarded by an animal howl of pain.
Perkar drew his sword. “You gave me vision when I needed it,” he said to it. “What can you give me now?”
“I tend your wounds,” the voice in his ear said. Perkar reached up to his shoulder. Indeed, the pain had gone out of it, and to his astonishment the skin had already closed in a little pucker over the puncture. Only the hole in his armor assured him that he had not been dreaming when the demon stabbed him.
“I took the poison from you, too,” the sword assured him.
“Poison?”
“The wound was full of poison.”
“Can you kill gods? Can you kill the Huntress and the Raven?”
“I am a weapon. Of my own volition I can kill nothing. Wielded by the right hand I can certainly kill a god. But I make you no quicker or stronger than you ever were, no more skillful.”
“You did something to my vision, made me see danger …”
“There is that. I can draw your gaze to where it needs to be.”
“Can you draw my gaze to where I must strike, to kill a god?”
“Yes. But a god cannot be killed with one blow. You must sever the cords that hold their hearts, and that is not easily done. Gods have heartstrings like metal, and they must be severed one stroke at a time.”
“How many of these strings?”
“Seven is the usual number.”
Perkar wondered if the sword could close his wounds fast enough to allow him to fight the Huntress. He asked it that.
“I heal your wounds by strengthening the mortal strings of your heart with my own. A god will see this and begin severing mine. When I am cut away from your heart, I can no longer heal you and you will die.”
“You make me equal to a god?”
The voice in his ear clucked, and Perkar realized that it was laughing.
“Not equal to a Mountain Goddess. She would always be faster than you and stronger than you, cut your heartstrings like horsehair. Perhaps if you came upon her asleep …”
“She is not asleep. She has the hunt with her.”
“Well, then, I wonder who shall carry me next.”
Ahead, Ngangata and Atti both loosed arrows nearly simultaneously. One final scramble and they reached the top of the ridge, Perkar and the Alwal last. He looked back, the way they had come. The hillside was not heavily forested; the rocks gave purchase only to tough, scrubby plants. Perkar could see the hunt as a vast rustling, like an ant bed stirred up. The Huntress was in sight below them. Atti fitted an arrow to his bow and loosed it.
Perkar held his breath as the shaft arced down. Ngangata fired, as well. The goddess jerked as Atti’s arrow slid into her chest, nearly fell from her mount when Ngangata’s took her in the shoulder. Perkar saw her teeth flash in a horrible, predatory smile, and then her own bow was bending.
The next instant Atti reeled from his saddle, his throat neatly pierced by a black-feathered shaft. Perkar watched in horror as the red-haired man thrashed about on the ground.
“Over!” Ngangata howled. “Over the ridge!”
“Get Atti!” the Kapaka ordered.
“He is already dead!” Ngangata answered. Indeed, Atti still seemed alive, though his thrashing was already feeble. The shaft had passed through the great artery in his neck, and his blood was a fountain. Perkar urged Mang on, over the ridge. Ngangata, Eruka, and the Kapaka had already crossed.
A vast basin spread out below them, the hollow into which all of the surrounding hills and mountains bled their waters. In the crease of it was a gorge, the bottom of which they could not see at this angle. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt that it was the River, the Changeling. There was also no doubt that it was too far away. Perkar had once had a nightmare about being deep underwater, holding his breath, able to see the surface but with the sure knowledge he would never reach it. It was the same here. The slopes and floor of the basin were mostly bare, smooth stone, open ground that their horses could traverse quickly. But their horses were tired, and the hunt was strong, was gaining on them too quickly. It might be a close chase, but the certainty that they would not make it clenched Perkar’s heart like a fist.
Sunlight leaked through the clouds, casting mottled golden light on the gorge. He was not too tired to see the irony in the situation—his first view of his great enemy, and yet at the moment the Changeling represented salvation.
All of the party except Apad and the Alwal were already ahead of him, threading down the slope. He looked back, fearing to see Apad shot. He wa
sn’t; he was close behind Perkar. The Alwal, however, had halted. They were gathered in a little clump, their spears bristling out like the quills of a hedgehog.
“What are they doing?” Perkar asked—rhetorically, for Ngangata was too far ahead to hear.
“Picking where they are going to die,” Apad said. He grinned, suddenly, fiercely, the first such expression Perkar had seen on his face for some time. He held up the sword Perkar had chosen him, the one that had slain the woman. It was shimmering, colored like a rainbow. Perkar hadn’t seen it do that before.
“There was a trick to it,” Apad confided. “I’m glad I didn’t learn it earlier, or I would have killed Ngangata. I was wrong about him.”
“We all were,” Perkar said. “Come on.”
Apad glanced back at the Alwal. Digger was watching them, her expression unreadable.
“Good-bye, Perkar,” Apad said. “Remember me to my family.” He turned his horse and in an instant plunged back over the crest of the hill, back the way they had come.
For a second Perkar was paralyzed; then, with a shriek, he, too, wheeled his horse. With their weapons, he and Apad could make a fight of it, could slow the Huntress for an instant or two at least; give the Kapaka more time to reach the River. This mess was his fault as much as Apad’s. He felt a brief flare of guilt, for he was probably dooming Mang, as well, but that was as it must be.
He plunged down the slope behind Apad, heedless. It seemed almost as if their horses were falling rather than running, so great was their speed. When he whooped, Apad turned once and grinned at him. About that time, Perkar felt a terrific flash of pain in his chest. He looked down, gape-mouthed, at the arrow standing there.
“One heartstring gone,” the sword told him. Perkar slumped forward in the saddle, spit blood out of his mouth. It hurt terribly to breathe. Mang continued his plummet, however, and they tore through a slash of scrub; there, just below the steepest part of the cliff, the Huntress was following their progress with the tip of another arrow.
Apad did not slow his horse or take it down the switchback trail they had made coming up. Instead, shrieking like a madman, he urged his horse straight down, so that the poor beast bolted out into space. He seemed poised there for an instant; the shaft loosed by the Huntress seemed to float lazily up at him, before it lodged in the airborne horse. Then Apad and his mount slammed into the Huntress and the lion she rode, the horse shrieking piteously. Karak squawked and took to the air, just as the Huntress went down beneath Apad and his horse.
Perkar had too little strength to challenge Mang to the same feat, though the pain in his chest was already fading somewhat. Mang charged down the switchback; when Perkar reached the fray he could see that Apad had not only rolled clear of the tangle of horse and Hon, but was setting about him among the feral-looking riders. He was shivering like his sword, dancing wildly with more skill than Apad had ever before demonstrated. Even as Perkar watched, one of the Bear-Men sank to his knees, decapitated, his blood a golden spray from his neck.
“He’s carrying Madedge,” the voice said in Perkar’s ears. It sounded jubilant. “Madedge can fight!”
Perkar wasn’t paying attention anymore. Mang died underneath him, sprouting a dozen arrows. Perkar took another in the ribs and two more glanced from his hauberk, but now his anger was on him. Even as Mang stumbled he was leaping from his saddle. A wolf died instantly, cloven by the jade blade, and Perkar let the weapon guide his eyes, prioritize his attacks. Next was one of the Bear-Men. Perkar parried a spear thrust and impaled him. Wrenching the sword out, he pushed on.
“That didn’t kill him,” the sword informed him.
Perkar didn’t care. “Huntress!” he shrieked. “Fight me!” He slashed at wolves, fighting toward the Huntress. She had regained her feet, wielding a long, bright-pointed spear. Her smile was one of satisfaction, even of joy.
Perkar saw Apad die; Karak, the Crow God, lighted on him, one black claw on each shoulder, slashed down with his razor-sharp beak. Apad’s head split like a seed.
Perkar stumbled as a wolf bit into his leg; he cut it, but it did not let go, and then his head snapped around to face the greater danger: the lion. It was favoring one leg, probably from the impact of Apad’s horse. Still, it leapt, snarling, and Perkar sheared into its skull even as the weight of the beast hit him. Distantly he felt his belly split open, heard the mail tear. More pain followed, from too many places to keep track of. The last thing he saw was the Huntress standing over him, her spear flashing down toward his throat.
IX
A Gift of Bronze and Hope
For the next few days, Hezhi worked diligently on her map; she hoped to have it done before she started bleeding again, before the priests came back. Despite what she had told Tsem, she had no wish to have her fate decided without even knowing what was happening. D’en and the others were taken down the Darkness Stair. It was clear to her now that, as she had suspected, the stair descended into a part of the buried palace. She found evidence that the central portion of the palace had its foundation reinforced with thick pillars of basalt—so that it would not collapse into the underpalace. It seemed to her that it would have been simpler merely to fill the old rooms with sand, as had been done in most other places—unless there was some use for the rooms. The extra foundations suggested that the rooms down there were still open, perhaps even maintained. A sort of secret palace, where people like D’en were whisked off to for some reason connected with puberty. With power, she suspected. With being “River-Blessed.” Her hypothetical “underpalace” could be quite large, she realized. Her earlier explorations actually might have taken her very near it.
Thinking about it further, she concluded that the Darkness Stair could not be the only way in, either. If there were people down there, there must be water—and, of course, a sewer system. For the first time in a year, her thoughts returned to actually going down, beneath the city again. But she wanted a map first, some idea of where she was going. It would be easy and embarrassing to get lost, and probably fatal to Tsem.
She stopped work about midmorning and began her tasks for Ghan. He had ceased to watch her closely, these past days, and she realized gradually that he trusted her. Though he seldom complimented her work, he rarely denigrated it, either. For Ghan, this was a rare show of kindness. She suspected—only suspected, and she would never mention it to him—that he had torn the book and indentured her because it was the only way he could teach her. He was a stern, hard man, without much love for anyone, no children that she knew of, no wife. He never gave anything away, at least ostensibly, and yet it seemed to her that he had given her the most valuable gift she could imagine.
Yen came into the library about noon. He had been there, working, almost every day, though they had not spoken for the past several, only nodded at one another from across the room. Today, however, he approached her, rather shyly, she thought.
“Hello, my la … ah, Hezhi.”
“Good day, Yen,” she returned, again hoping she sounded a bit older, more mature.
He nodded nervously. “I wanted to thank you …” he began.
“You did that already,” she told him.
“Yes, but it appears that thanks to you I will keep my position with the engineers, at least for a while. I …” Still embarrassed, he produced a little cloth package. “I wanted to give you something. To show my appreciation.”
Hezhi’s eyes widened, and she reached hesitantly for the small packet.
“Please don’t misunderstand,” he added quickly. “It’s just … well, it’s only a present because you helped me. I’m not …” He stuttered off, unable to finish, his dark eyes appealing for her to understand what he was trying to say.
“Thank you,” she said. “I understand; there isn’t any need to explain. Here in the palace we give presents often.” But no one other than my servants ever gave one to me, she finished, in her head. Not even the annoying Wezh, who had been trying to get her attention more and more lately.
“Ah, well, see if you like it,” Yen suggested. “If not, I could bring you something else.”
She fumbled at the cloth, simultaneously eager to open it but aware that she should not seem too eager. When the wrapping came away, she grinned in delight. It was a little bronze figurine of exotic workmanship, quite unlike anything in the palace. It was a horse in full gallop, but instead of a horse’s neck and head, the slender torso of a woman rose up, naked. Her hair was feathering behind her, as if in the wind, and in one hand she carried a spear. Her expression was fierce, barbaric, joyful.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“It is Mang,” he informed her.
“Mang?”
“My father trades with them, sometimes, with the southern ones, anyway. They follow the River down from the north to the port at Wun.”
“The Mang are half horse?”
Yen smiled. “No. This is part of their legend. The Mang live on horseback, you see. They believe that horses are their kin. The horses are even members of their clans, if you can believe that.”
“It seems very strange,” Hezhi murmured, turning the statuette over and over in her palms.
“They are very barbaric,” Yen confided. “I met one once. They always carry swords and spears and never take their armor off, even to sleep or … uh, even to sleep.” He reddened a bit and then went on. “Anyway, they believe that horse and rider who die together are reunited like this, after death. They even say that there is a place, far to the east, where these creatures dwell.”
“I like this,” Hezhi said. “I like the story, too. Thank you for both of them.”
He grinned happily, bowed. “My lady,” he said, and then backed away toward his books.
