Waterborn

Then something cold and hard slid into his kidney. Snarling, he spun, felt the blade in his back tear a gash, swung backhanded and decapitated that assailant, too.

If they had all rushed him then, it might well have been the end. But he bellowed and whirled, yanked the offending sword from his body, and though he staggered and his knees nearly buckled, the men seemed to take note not of that but of the fact that he was still on his feet, while three of them lay dead. In a few heartbeats, their eight had become five, and those five looked nervous.

Perkar felt the pain ebb then, and strength returning. By the time they chose to renew their attack—circling him now—he had cleared his head of the pain and felt ready to deal with them again.

As soon as the circle closed on him, he let Harka pick the most dangerous point, hurled himself at it, sword cutting brightly. He broke another sword and cut off its wielder's arm, sliced deeply into the thigh of another, though he took a hard slash into his own ribs, felt a flood of warmth wash down his side. He wished he had his hauberk; that would have deflected the last cut.

Now, effectively, they were three. They were stubborn men, and one of them managed to wound him again— this time rather high in the chest—before he finished them and sagged back against the dock, coughing up blood. He turned to ask Zeq' if he might get a drink of water, when he realized that the boat was already leaving the quay, Zeq' madly working the sail. 'Wait!' Perkar called after him.

'I'm sorry, my friend,' Zeq' yelled back. 'There is nothing I can do for you. You're already dead, you just don't know it yet!' 'I won't die,' Perkar insisted. 'Come back!' 'I didn't bargain for this,' Zeq' yelled. 'They probably already caught the Giant and the girl. It's over, barbarian! I'll tell people of your battle.'

'I don't care about that!' he howled. 'Just come back!' Zeq' didn't answer. His sail caught a breeze blowing out from the shore, and his little boat began to pick up speed.

He made to shriek one last time but blew out a clot of blood instead.

'Careful,' Harka cautioned. 'That last one got your lung.' 'How quickly will I heal?'

'Quickly enough. We have five heartstrings left between us. If you can wait a little while before getting run through again, you'll have six.' 'How long?' 'Half a day.'

'I'm waiting here,' he said stubbornly. 'For as long as I can. If I have to fight more soldiers, I'll fight them.'

Back to a piling, Harka on his knees and eyes alert, Perkar waited. A crowd of thirty or more people stood, staring at him and the corpses of the king's guard. Two of the latter lay moaning, and two passersby were helping them staunch the blood flowing from their arm and thighs, respectively. He doubted if either would live. Belatedly, he felt a stab of remorse, then wondered why the possibility of regret never occurred to him before a fight anymore. He had heard that killing grew easier as one became accustomed to it. It was certainly easier when your enemies attacked you in such a dishonorable fashion, eight against one. Of course, he had Harka, but they hadn't known that. They had believed him a lone barbarian with a normal weapon. Such was their misfortune, to be both without Piraku and wrong at the same moment.

A member of the city guard appeared in the crowd and gaped at the dead men and at Perkar. He made as if to draw his sword and come forward, but Perkar shook his head, a silent no. That was apparently enough for the guard. He took his hand from his hilt and vanished up the street, surely seeking reinforcements.

'Hurry up with your girl, Giant,' he muttered.

 

 

The blood was soaking through Tsem's makeshift bandage before they had crossed five streets, but Tsem seemed untroubled by his wound. He rushed ahead of Hezhi, and people scrambled from his path.

For her, the city was a series of broken patterns, faces, colors rushing by her. She had no time to comprehend it, to chart it out in some way she could understand. The newness was too steeped in blood, pain, fury, and fear. What should have been a moment of discovery was instead just another tunnel she was rushing down, seeking her life.

They ran, it seemed, forever, and the air changed as they went on, became thicker, scented with fish and truly unpleasant smells that chewed at the back of her brain.

'Almost,' Tsem said, triumph and worry both audible to her ear, so familiar with his voice. A crowd burst apart before them, as much from the force of Tsem's presence as from his mass.

The scene revealed then was a strange one, and oddly enough, the first thing that Hezhi noticed, the thing that she would always remember, was the River, right there, lapping at a wooden walkway no more than ten steps away. Looking at him, from level ground and not from above, the River was somehow more awesome, a sheet of power that lay over every bit of the world but for that upon which she stood. Rivergulls complained above, fighting the wind forcing them from shore and whatever meals they might find there.

Next she saw the bodies, the blood, and, last of all, him. He was the man from her dream, there was never any question, though at the moment he looked absolutely unlike any image that had ever come to her. Spattered in blood, his face an odd, angry red, wearing some sort of peasant garb, he sat watching them and the crowd, looking across the bodies as if they were a field of grain he had just reaped, as if he were resting a bit before gathering it up, his sword a red sickle on his knee. It was he, though; she smelled a hard, sweet metallic smell that was not just blood but his blood, and she knew it, as if she had smelled it or even tasted it before. That was the River in her, she knew, recognizing him, not her eyes, not her nose.

What's more, he knew her, too. His strange gray eyes flashed, a weird little smile played across his lips.

The River, the bodies, the man—there was a stroke or two missing from the painting, she understood, and Tsem's stunned grunt of consternation suggested what it might be. The gray-eyed man confirmed her guess, in a wintery voice.

'Our friend Zeq' should be out in the channel about now,' he said. 'Seems he didn't care much for the elite guard's attention.'

'How did they know?' Tsem bellowed. 'Who told them?'

Hezhi was becoming aware of the crowd, a sea of faces staring at them, angry, curious, frightened.

'I don't know,' Perkar said. 'I only know we have to leave some other way, and quickly.' He frowned. 'You're hurt.'

'They caught us at the gate to the palace, too.'

The man stood and strode over to the two, so that they need not shout. 'A city guardsman just came by,' he said. 'He probably went for reinforcements.'

'Probably,' Tsem answered, glancing around at the carnage, at the man's clearly hideous wounds.

Closer, he looked more like his dream image, though the dream image had been more boyish somehow, younger. Perhaps it was the blood that made him look older. His eyes focused on hers again, and then he dropped to one knee.

'Perkar Kar Barku,' he said. 'I believe you summoned me, Princess.'

Hezhi opened her mouth—she did not know what her reply would have been—when there was a hoarse shout up the street.

'Guards coming!' someone in the crowd cried, and she couldn't tell if she and her companions were being warned or whether the person was eager to see another slaughter.

'This way,' Tsem bellowed, and once more they were running, pounding over the cobblestone streets. Above them, the dark sheet of night was drawing over the sky, hastened by clouds flying in on some high, furious wind. She glanced now and then at Perkar, wanting to ask him so much, wondering how he could still be alive with such terrible wounds.

'The South Gate is our only chance,' Tsem gasped. 'It will be least guarded. Perhaps the barbarian and I can fight our way through.'

South Gate? Something about the South Gate rattled memories, didn't it? She tried desperately to think. They rounded a corner— Perkar was hanging back, trying to discourage the crowd—fully half of them were following the trio, clearly hoping to see more fighting. Tsem, ahead of her, nearly slipped in a puddle of some nameless gunk…