Waterborn

squirming backbone. Then Atti was there, axe descending in a blow better designed to split wood than for combat. It hewed into a rear leg and severed it.

Perkar would never hear another sound like that; he would later call it a howl, knowing that such was no description for a noise that burrowed all the way into his bones. The god flipped back toward Atti, who had fallen along with his axe. Still screaming, it thrashed about on the ground.

'Up!' Ngangata yelled, still loosing arrows. 'Up and ride! We cannot kill it, we can only flee.'

The Kapaka seemed to know the truth of that; he was already gripping his saddle, preparing to mount. Atti struggled to his feet again, leaving a snail-trail of blood on the leaves behind him. Eruka stood, blank-eyed, until Perkar grabbed him by the arm and shoved him toward his horse. Then he was scrambling onto Mang. Apad was already mounted. Ngangata stayed a moment longer than they, placing three more arrows in the god—Perkar saw shafts protruding neatly from each eye. Then they were all fleeing on the thunder of horses' hooves. Perkar leaned onto Mang's neck, urging the animal faster.

'He was sleepy,' Ngangata howled, from behind them. 'Sleepy and slow. But he is awake now!'

'The other horses! Our packs!' Apad yelled back.

'No!' the Kapaka returned. 'I forbid it. Leave them!'

Leaves and branches lashed at them, as if by their own will. The six riders fought their way over one ridge, then a second. When would they leave this god's territory and enter another? Apad's words were finally penetrating. Kutasapal was still back there, back with that black monster. Perkar very nearly wheeled Mang around then. He only truly owned three things: his sword, Mang, and Kutasapal. If he left Kutasapal, he owned only two. And he had discovered something in himself, something he never knew he had. When his sword struck the god for the first time, when it reached for him—all of his hesitation, his fear had dwindled, replaced by something… large. Something like anger or fury but colder, harsher. Brighter. His desire had been to hit the god again and again, until it died or his sword broke. Now… why hadn't he?

Because if he died now, he could never kill the god he really wanted to kill. But now he knew. A god could be killed, and he could kill it, with the right weapon.

So they rode on, and night fell, and still they rode, for the moon was full. Perkar's hand tingled, and it felt good. He had struck a Wild God and lived. What could he not do?

Not much later, Atti fell from his saddle. Perkar had tucked away the memory of the blood he had seen, preferring not to think about it. But now he was nearest the flame-haired man, and he dismounted. Atti was already trying to regain his feet.

'Just wait a moment,' Perkar told him. 'Let us look at that.'

'Get him back on his horse,' Eruka called. 'That thing might still be coming.'

The Kapaka and Ngangata trotted their horses so that they stood between Perkar and Atti and the way that they had come.

'See to him,' the Kapaka said. After an instant, Apad also moved up to join them.

'Some god was protecting you,' Perkar told Atti. 'Telling you to put on your mail.' The tough steel links had torn in the Wild God's claws; three rips ran for the length of a forearm from ster-num to crotch. The claws had dug deeper, and there was much bleeding, but so far as Perkar could tell, none of his organs were laid open to the air.

Atti swore copiously as Perkar got his mail and padded undershirt off of him.

'I have some long strips of colored linen here,' the Kapaka said. 'I brought it as a gift for the Forest Lord.'

'Leave it then,' Atti said.

'I have other gifts, still with me,' the Kapaka replied. Perkar unpacked the linen and cut several lengths of it. Again to the sound of Atti's profanity, Perkar wrapped the cloth tightly about the hill man's chest and torso. Blood soaked it instantly, but even before the wrapping, Atti's blood had nearly ceased flowing of its own accord.

When Perkar was satisfied, he helped Atti back on his horse, handed him up a waterskin. Atti drank greedily.

'I think we need to go, if we can,' the Kapaka said. Back behind them, the limbs of trees were beginning to wave to and fro. There was no wind.

'I can ride,' Atti said. 'I became dizzy for a moment only.'

'This way,' Ngangata said, spurring back to the front. He seemed to be examining something on the trees; Perkar thought, in the pale moonlight, that he saw marks there, tattoos on the trunks of the birches.

 

 

'There,' Ngangata whispered. 'See the firelight?' The moon had set, and that had slowed them down considerably. Now Perkar saw the faint, pale flower of illumination Ngangata referred to. Left to himself, Perkar would never have seen it; fatigue sat on his forehead, pushing on his eyelids, gently, insistently. The Wild God seemed far away, a dream.

'Who can it be?' Eruka wondered. 'I hope they have some woti.'

'They do not,' Ngangata replied.

They wound through the last few trees. There, in the flicker of the light, Perkar saw his first true Alwa.

Ngangata had seemed so strange to him when they met, but suddenly Perkar thought him very Human, compared to the Alwat. Five of them clustered near the fire, standing as upright as any human. They were slender-hipped and broad-shouldered, thickly muscled. Their arms and legs seemed almost normal, but their bodies were not quite right, too wedge-shaped. A fine, silvery hair lay over their pale skins. It was in their heads that they were most strange, however. Their faces were flat and broad, bones as coarse as stone showing through them. They possessed neither foreheads nor chins; above their thick eyebrows their skulls were plainly flat; thick white hair was pulled back into buns. Massive but receding lower jaws blended into thick necks. It was in their eyes that he saw the most strangeness; like deep pools of water, they were murky, unreadable. They glimmered and quickened, darted or remained fixed, but in ways that seemed all wrong, that hinted at odd thoughts that Perkar could not understand.

Ngangata said something to them, the same clucking language he had spoken to the Wild God. One of the Alwat clucked back at him. The others stood stock-still. Their mouths were huge; Perkar was further reminded of the Wild God. What was it the Stream Goddess had once told him? That many gods took their forms from Human breath and blood? If so, perhaps in Alwat lands the gods took of Alwat blood for their forms.

'What are they saying?' Apad asked irritably.

'They say that the god will not follow us here. They say that this is the place of another god, Hanazalhakabizn. Hanazalhakabizn and V'fanaqrtinizd are old enemies.'

'Banakartenis?' the Kapaka asked, trying to imitate the alien name. 'Who?'

'V'fanaqrtinizd. The Wild God we just fought.'

'But he will not follow us here. What about the local one—Hana-whatever ?'

Ngangata and the Alwat conversed a moment; two of the others added something; Perkar realized with a start that one of them was female; though shaped much like the men, she was a bit smaller and had very obvious breasts. He was surprised he had not noticed earlier.

Ngangata listened and then relayed what he had been told.

'Human people are allowed to pass through on their way to the Forest Lord, but not to build or cut. V'fanaqrtinizd was driven insane by Human Beings who injured him and killed his trees. They say the sound of the trees dying drove him insane.'

Perkar was just realizing something else; that beyond the fire there was a building of some sort. A number of limber saplings had been planted and bent and tied together to form a sort of longhouse—a rude and tiny imitation of a damakuta. It was covered in bark and mats woven of some material. The Alwat were house-builders. Strange that he had never heard that.

The Alwat seemed to be through talking. They all squatted down, resting comfortably on their haunches. One of them—the female, actually—waddled a few feet from the fire and, as Perkar watched, commenced to shit.

'What disgusting creatures,' Eruka commented.

Ngangata regarded them darkly. 'Yes. They have agreed to let us stay near here. Tomorrow they will guide us on toward the Forest Lord.'