“We'll go where Perkar said to,” Hezhi mumbled. “Where the Blackgod said to.”
“Where?”
“We'll go to the mountain.”
Ngangata frowned. “Princess, I—”
Hezhi stared at him, suddenly angry. “I know. I know he flows from there. But that is the only compass we have at the moment. If any of you has a better suggestion, tell me or decide for me. But if you want me to decide …”
Ngangata shifted uncomfortably. “The war is there. We would only be plunging into the heart of things.”
Brother Horse cleared his throat. “I know of a camp, up in the White Crown Mountains. It should be far from any such troubles.”
“If you know of it,” Hezhi retorted, “it is certain that other Mang know of it. Besides, this gaan seems to be able to smell me wherever I am. He knew to send Moss and Chuuzek here.”
“That could be coincidental, Princess,” Tsem pointed out.
“No. They came straight to where I was, in the cliffs. I was in a closed-off canyon, wasn't I, Brother Horse? What reason would they have for going in there?”
“They might have seen you on the plain, wondered who you were,” the old man muttered.
“You don't believe that,” Hezhi answered.
He shrugged his bony shoulders. “No.”
“If we go out into the desert and hide, they find us without you and your kin to protect us. If we go back to Nhol, the same fate that I fled awaits me. The same, too, if I try to cross the River. Twice now I have been told to go the mountain. That would at least put us in Perkar's homeland, where his people might protect us, would it not?”
Ngangata nodded wearily. “Yes. But that is a hard journey, by land, and we have to cross the country where the war is being fought.”
“One of you decide, then,” she said.
Tsem snorted. “You great men, you horsemen, you hunters. My princess has lived in these lands for half a year, you for your whole lives. Can't either of you think of anything?”
Brother Horse scratched his chin. “Only that she is right,” he admitted.
“That's all?” Tsem snapped—audibly, as his nut-size teeth cracked together on his last syllable.
“Listen, Giant,” Brother Horse suddenly blazed. “She is not a princess here. There are no armies waiting to march at her command. There are no kings on the huugau. Would that there were and I were one. I would surround her with my soldiers and a wall of stone and make her safe. But this is Mang country, do you understand? I have no soldiers, only kinfolk, and I have to spend as much time trying to please them as they to please me. And if I tell them to do something they are set hard enough against, they will ignore me. Then I lose face and power, and the next time they listen to me even less. Those men you killed today have relatives in my own clan. They will not forget you, or her, or me, for not giving you up. I have few enough years left to live, and I had hoped to live them in comfort, but that dream withers in the sun now. So don't you upbraid me for not being able to do what no man can do!”
Tsem's eyes widened with startlement, but his face stayed set. “I'll kill anyone else who tries to touch her, too,” he said. “So you better help us get away from here, before I have to break more of your precious kinsmen and make your old age even more uncomfortable.”
“Tsem,” Hezhi said softly. “Hush. He has already helped us, don't you understand?”
“No. I don't understand why they can't let you be. You've already … we've already…” Tsem suddenly bent and ground his face into the wall, shuddering.
Hezhi's gut wrenched. “Tsem!”
The Giant moaned and thrust his hand back, motioning her away.
“He must have been wounded,” Ngangata muttered. “I didn't see—”
“No,” Tsem croaked. “Not wounded.”
Hezhi understood then. The half Giant was crying.
“Please,” she said to Ngangata and Brother Horse. “Please get the horses together, or whatever. If we have to leave, we have to leave. But could the two of you make the arrangements?”
The old Mang nodded, but Ngangata hung back stubbornly.
“I will watch Perkar,” she assured him. “I'll watch him.”
After a moment the half man nodded curtly and followed Brother Horse from the yekt.
Hezhi approached Tsem and laid her hand on his massive ribs.
“I've never seen you cry,” she whispered.
“I don't mean to,” he wheezed. “It's just that… why can't they leave you alone!”
“Shh.”
“I saw how the priests hurt you, in Nhol, and I could do nothing. I saw the horror that never left your face, after you went down into that place, that place under the sewers. And then I could do nothing. Finally—”
“Finally you helped me escape the most terrible fate anyone could imagine.”
“Yes, and had to be carried away from Nhol on my back. I know who saved whom back in Nhol, Princess.”
She knelt, and hot tears were starting in her own eyes. “Listen to me, Tsem. You did save me, just not the way you think. I almost …” Became a goddess? Razed Nhol to its foundations? Would that have been so bad, looking back?
“I almost became something terrible,” she finished. “You saved me.”
“I don't remember that. How could I have done that?”
“Just by being Tsem. By loving me.”
“Ah. I thought you wanted me to stop crying.”
“I don't care if you cry,” she soothed. But she did. Even wounded, Tsem had not seemed so feeble to her. He had always been her wall, her strength. Wounded, he had merely been awaiting repair, being rebuilt to be her tower again. But this struck her down to the bone, all the way down. She was really alone here, in this place. She had to be her own strength, and even Giants couldn't protect her now.
She hated herself, but she wished he hadn't cried. She wished he had kept it in, wept to the wind later. But he hadn't, and now she knew, and she loved him enough not to tell him what he had done: that he had made it all worse.
“Come on,” she whispered. “We have to get ready to go. The world awaits us.”
XVIII On the Barge
A bright clattering of gulls blew through the door as the old man stepped into the darkened cabin. He stood for a moment, silhouetted in a rectangle of sunlight, a breeze that smelled like water and iron seeping past his body. Ghe motioned him in.
“You,” Ghan grunted. “What do you have to do with all of this?”