Waterborn

powerful still.

Toward midday, he noticed another vessel approaching him from the northeast bank. It grew quickly in his sight, a lean, long craft with a lateen sail, a white triangle fragment of the overhead sun.

He drew Harka, gazing off in the distance at nothing in particular. His regard was drawn inevitably back to the approaching craft. Twice more he tried looking away, and twice more he found himself staring at the ever-closer sail.

'They are a danger to me, then?' he asked the sword.

'So it would seem,' Harka replied.

He took the tiller and guided the boat toward the opposite bank. The Changeling let him; he knew from experience that he could get close to shore if he wanted, though when the River deemed him too close he would stop him. Despite this maneuver, the approaching sail drew nearer and nearer. In a short time, the strange boat was just to the left of him. As he watched, the canvas came down, and two men began paddling furiously as a third watched him impassively from the bow.

'What do you want?' he called to them, when he judged them near enough to hear.

The man in the bow replied in a language Perkar had never heard before, but understood well. It was the language taught him by his dreams.

'I don't know that barbarous tongue, westlander,' the man shouted back. 'But if you can understand real speech and have any sense, you won't make trouble for us.'

Perkar opened his mouth, and alien words licked off his tongue, first thickly, but swiftly learning more grace.

'I have no desire to cause you trouble,' he declared.

'Well, then,' the man retorted, as the two boats pulled almost within reaching distance. 'In that case, you will abandon your ship now and save us the trouble of throwing you off. If you jump, too, you can leave your boat in a single piece rather than with your head and body separated.'

'I have nothing of value to steal,' Perkar said reasonably. 'And I have no wish to fight you.' Both statements were more than true. Though strange-looking, these men were Human Beings, not gods who would wing home to their mountain and be reclothed. They were men, and if they died the River would swallow their souls. Perhaps they would end like the watery fish he had speared, far back at the headwaters, memories of themselves in the current. Like the Kapaka.

Fury sparked at that. He realized they might well kill him, too, and that he no longer wished.

The man in the bow scowled, fiercely ridged eyebrows bunching above a hawklike nose, piercing black eyes. He held up a curved sword—heavy-looking, more like a giant cleaver than something to fight with. 'Jump off or die,' the stranger warned. One of the other men produced a sword, as well, while the third maneuvered the boat closer still.

Perkar drew Harka and stood, too. A month and a half in the boat had left him more than adept at standing in a rocking vessel.

'Please,' he pleaded, though in him the anger was growing. 'There is no need for this. I have nothing.'

'You have your boat,' the man countered easily, 'and that will fetch a price worth fighting for. In fact, it might fetch a very high price as a curio. The Waterborn down in Nhol like curious things.' His eyes narrowed. 'And that sword; quite odd. Furthermore, you are clearly from far, far away. Why would you travel so far unless you have something to trade?'

It wasn't really a question, and Perkar realized that the man was not negotiating, but only trying to convince him to jump. Despite his belligerent attitude, he seemed reluctant to attack, even given the advantage he and his men had in numbers. He was perhaps thirty-five or forty, old enough to have experienced a few nasty surprises, to know that even the most promising situation could end in disaster. His men were young, younger than Perkar, though they had a hard look about them and numerous scars. The man's sons, perhaps?

'You can see I have nothing, or you are blind,' he pointed out. 'Let me go in peace. I can't jump in the River; he won't let me.' Why wouldn't they listen to him?

'The River doesn't care about you—or anybody—except the Waterborn,' the man asserted. He spat. 'That for you. Get out of your boat or die.'

He hesitated, wondering what would happen if he did jump overboard. Surely the Changeling would not let them take the boat. But if it did…

Perkar saw the man decide; it was a hardening of the eyes, a tightening of the gut, and then, as if by some signal, the two strangers leapt into his boat, swords drawn and already swinging.

Sudden, dark joy stabbed through Perkar as he shifted his weight to account for the sudden motion of the boat, crouching as he did so. At last, someone to strike, someone to kill who deserved it. He brought Harka up to parry, slid the godsword on over his head to catch the strike of the second man. The first sword rang and slid away, but the younger man's weapon made a very peculiar sound as Harka cut straight through it. His eyes seeking danger, Perkar turned quickly enough to catch the first attacker's return stroke. The enemy sword shuddered and nicked deeply. Reversing again, he sliced back at the other pirate, who had not quite come to terms with his ruined sword and was swinging it anyway. Ignoring the wild attack, he cut into the man's exposed ribs just below the armpit. He sliced cleanly through, felt a slight jolt as the spine clove in two. Harka disengaged easily, caught a third attack by the first man—on whose face a sudden comprehension was just dawning. The parried sword slid into the side of the boat, thunked into the wood as Harka glittered through the sunshine, flinging droplets of blood behind, and opened the man's belly. Entrails spilled out like eels from a split sack, and the man stared at Perkar, wide-eyed. Perkar was turning yet again at Harka's insistence, but the weight of the younger man fell heavily against him, hands clawing at his head. Perkar brought his elbow in frantically—the fellow was too close for sword work—but it was more of a stumble than an attack; the young man slid against him, slicking him with blood. For the second time in his life, he was drenched in the stinking red fluid of another person's body.

He snarled and turned toward the boat, though Harka did not beckon him to. The third man was rowing desperately away, eyes wide with terror. Perkar shouted incoherently after him.

The older man was still alive. He lay in the bottom of the boat, trying to hold in his intestines. Perkar shuddered, ran his finger down the river of blood on his body. 'This was your fault,' he spat furiously. 'You made me do this!'

The man just blinked at him.

Blood, Perkar suddenly thought. The Changeling knew me because he tasted my blood.

He tried not to let the thought form fully, tried not to puzzle it out. It was more instinct than anything else that drove him to grab his pack, sheath bloody Harka, and dive into the River. The bank was close, as close as it had been in a long time.

The River let him go at first, but it had done that before. It wasn't until he actually felt sand beneath his feet that he shrieked in jubilation. It had worked! The Changeling had mistaken him, cloaked in another's blood!

Two steps he took through the shallows, and the River took hold of him.

'No!' he hissed through his teeth. He kicked, strained with everything he had. Current clenched him, hauling him back out. In desperation he dove, clawed with his hands at the shallow bottom, and miraculously, his fingers brushed something hard. He tore at it, got a hold, pulled.

Unfortunately he could not hold onto the thing—it seemed to be a root—and raise his head above water, too. He knotted all his determination together, tied it about the root, and heaved, even as his lungs began to remind him frantically that breathing was a necessity. He pulled until his shoulder ached as if stung by ants, but finally he managed to drag himself far enough inland to get just his nose up, to sip a tiny amount of air. His arms were trembling now, but he was so close.

When he got his whole head above water, he knew he would succeed. It took a long time, until his body was weak and his mind reduced to a single thought—pull!—but at last he lay on the sand, the warm, dry sand. With the paltry energy left him, Perkar stumbled as far from the water as he could get, crashing into trees, torn by briars. When he finally stopped, it was because he could go no farther.

He could no longer see the River, but with the last of his strength he faced it. 'You let the bit slip,' he gasped. 'I warned you.' Then he sank down, resting against a tree trunk, trembling from exertion. Free.