“Well, sweet boy,” she asked, when he was close enough to see that she bore fangs like a cat and that her tongue was black, “will you ride with me or not?”
“Ride with you?”
“Against them,” she said, indicating the sounds of the Mang approaching behind them. “Someone must stop them, or your friends will never reach the source of the Changeling. But I will need help, I think—and I seem to remember your love for the hue and cry of the charge.”
“I have never cared for it,” he muttered back.
“You rode against me once, and you killed my mount, whom I loved. Now I give you a chance to ride with the Hunt. Few mortal men are accorded that pleasure—fewer still have ridden on both ends of the spear.”
Perkar gazed around at his companions. Ngangata's eyes clearly warned him no, but Karak was nodding urgently. Hezhi—he saw many things in her eyes, but was sure of none of them.
“Very well,” he said. “Yes, very well. If you promise me the Tiskawa.”
“You will find him no easy foe,” the Huntress replied. “But as you wish.”
“Wait, then, just a moment,” Perkar said. He urged T'esh over to Hezhi and gazed levelly into her eyes. She met his regard fully, and he saw that she was indeed past her shock, eyes clear and intelligent.
“If I don't see you again,” he said, “I'm sorry.”
“Don't go,” she said faintly. “Stay with me.”
He shook his head. “I can't. I have to do this. But, Hezhi—” He sidled T'esh closer and leaned in until his lips were nearly on her ear. “Watch Sheldu,” he breathed. “He is Karak, under a glamour. He knows what must be done to destroy the Changeling—but don't trust him. And be careful.” And then he lightly kissed her cheek and rode to join the Huntress.
“Come,” Karak grated, and the company started off as the host of the Huntress began to move, parting around them, opening their ranks so that the Raven and those who followed him could pass through. Only Ngangata remained with Perkar.
“You have to go with them,” Perkar said. “You are the only one I can trust to watch after Hezhi. Only you know enough about gods and Balat to guess what must be done.”
“That may be,” Ngangata said, “but I don't want you to die alone.”
“I have no intention of dying,” Perkar replied. “I've outgrown that. And I ride with the Huntress! What can stop us?”
“Then you will not mind me joining you,” Ngangata persisted.
Perkar laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. “I want you with me,” he admitted. ”I've never told you this, because I'm ashamed of the way I treated you at first. But there is no one I would rather have at my side than you, no friend or brother I could value more. But what I said was true. I fear for Hezhi, and I need you there, with her. Believe it or not, I somehow feel you will be in more danger there than here. I'm sorry. But I'm begging you to go with Hezhi.”
Ngangata's normally placid face twisted in frustration, and Perkar thought that the halfling was going to shout at him again, as he had done back on the plains. But instead he reached his hand out.
Perkar gripped it in his own. “Piraku with you, below you, about you,” he told his strange, pale friend.
Ngangata smiled thinly. “You know my kind accumulate no Piraku,” he replied.
“Then no one does,” Perkar said. “No one.”
The Huntress—far ahead now—sounded her horn, and Perkar released his grip on Ngangata's hand and turned T'esh to ride with the host.
“And afterward, you must take me to see the lands beyond Balat!” he shouted back. Ngangata raised his hand in salute, but he only nodded, and then he, too, turned and rode to join Hezhi and the rest.
Perkar urged T'esh to a gallop. Wolves paced him, great black beasts the size of horses, as did fierce packs of rutkirul, bear gods wearing the shapes of feral men. A few moments at full gallop brought him beside the Huntress, who was now mounted upon a dagger-toothed panther. She nodded imperiously and then grinned a fierce, delighted grin. Despite himself—despite all of his doubts and fears—Perkar felt a bit of her joy, and the boy in him—the boy he had thought to be dead—that boy wondered what songs might be sung of this, of riding with the Goddess of the Hunt.
And as the sounds of the foe drew nearer, he surrendered himself to a whoop to match the howls rising from all around him. They breasted one hill and then the next—and the air was suddenly thick with black Mang shafts. One glanced from his hauberk, and his belly clenched; but then he saw, in the fore of the vast array of Mang, the face of his enemy, the one who had slain his love, and a red veil descended over his eyes, fury washed away his doubts and most of his humanity.
For the second time, Perkar Kar Barku raised Harka against the creature who had once been called Ghe, and pounding hooves closed the gap between them.
XXXV Shamans
HEZHI clenched her saw as the horses hurtled madly down the hillside. The sounds behind them were lost—the Huntress and her Hunt, the Mang, and Perkar—swallowed by the forest and the gorge they were descending into. All that existed now were rocks skittering down sharp, sometimes vertical slopes as their mounts struggled to retain footing. Even as Dark recovered from a stumble, one of Sheldu's men shouted as his stallion fell, rolling over him twice before smashing into a tree. The rider, hopelessly tangled in his stirrups, cried out again, more weakly as he and his mount reached a steeper gradient and vanished down it.
“Tsem!” Hezhi called back over her shoulder. “You dismount and walk!” The Giant was well behind them, his overlarge beast clearly unwilling to negotiate the vertiginous path. Tsem nodded reluctantly and got off, stroking the mare's massive head. He reached to unstrap his packs.
“Leave them!” Sheldu shouted. “We are near enough now as to have no need of that!”
Tsem, looking relieved, pulled out his club, threw his shield onto his back, and started down the hillside, puffing and panting.
“How much farther?” Hezhi snapped at the strange man who had somehow—she failed to understand how—become the leader of her expedition. Mindful of Perkar's assertion about him, she watched him carefully.
“No distance at all, as the crow flies,” Sheldu replied bitterly. “On foot, however—it will take some little while. But when we reach the bottom of this gorge, we can ride more freely.”
“Tsem cannot.”
“He can keep up; we won't be able to run, and even if we could, the horses would never manage it.”
Hezhi nodded, but her heart sank; she knew how quickly Tsem's massive bulk tired him.
True to Sheldu's promise, however, they soon reached the narrow bottom of the gorge. A stream coursed swiftly down it, and the air itself seemed cool and wet, smelled of stream. It raised her spirits somewhat, and Tsem, though round-eyed with exertion, seemed able enough to keep up with them on the soft, level earth. Hezhi let Dark lag so that she could stay beside him.
“Will you make it?” she asked worriedly.
“I will,” Tsem vowed.
“If you can't—”
“I'm fine, Princess. I know what you think of me, but I'm done complaining about how useless I am.”
“You were never useless, Tsem.”
He shrugged. “It doesn't matter. Now I know that I can contribute to this battle. Even if my strength to run fails I can turn and defend you against any enemies that might follow us.”
“Tsem, Ghan is already dead.”
“You don't know that, Princess. It couldn't have been Ghan. It must have been someone who resembled him.”
“I'm going to find out. Do you recognize either of those two?” She gestured at the man and woman who rode beside Sheldu.
“Yes. The woman is named Qwen-something-or-other. The man is a minor lord, Bone Eel.”
“A lord and lady from Nhol, here. Then it was Ghan, wasn't it?”
Tsem nodded reluctantly, but they discussed it no further.