The Blackgod

That was nearly it, the blade said. He dug into our heartstrings, too.

Snarling, Perkar started forward again, but at that moment a horse slammed into him, battering him to the ground, and he had to raise Harka quickly to meet a Mang warrior's attack. The god-blade flicked out deftly and impaled the man as he leapt down. When Perkar returned to his feet, he saw the earth itself rise in a column, form quickly into the Huntress, now massive, bearing the black antlers of an elk on the snarling head of a lion. The Tiskawa had just risen into the air, wind rushing furiously about him, his lower body hanging limp, when she gored him on her horns. The Life-Eater shrieked, but he also reached around her neck with both arms, and—incredibly— lifted the Huntress off the ground. Together they flew into the air, blown up like leaves in the curled fist of an autumn wind. Perkar saw the Huntress transform again into some sort of dark-pinioned bird, and then the two of them disappeared into the dense opaque vastness of the canopy, gone.

Gripping Harka even more tightly, he thought to follow—somehow—but at that moment his body sprouted a pair of arrows; his hauberk stopped their heads, but Harka drew him relentlessly to face his mortal opponents.

“ You cannot kill the Tiskawa if you let these Mang hack you into pieces. ”

Grimly Perkar turned to his work, ashamed that, in his heart of hearts, he was relieved.

For the Tiskawa, he knew, would have killed him, and he wondered if he could face it again. Something that could give the Huntress such a battle …

Then there was no more time to think.

SHELDU'S men attacked the thing, but Hezhi did not need to see the first of them die to understand that what they faced was a god of no mean strength; she had seen him instantly, knew that he formed from the water and dirt rather than emerged from it. She did not even reach for her drum, but as when she had captured the bull, Hukwosha, she merely slapped her palms together and opened the lake.

This time she did not hesitate; she called on Hukwosha, and the bull bolted gleefully to the task.

But we must manifest, the bull said. We cannot fight only beneath the lake.

“I don't know how to do that,” Hezhi told him.

Give me your leave.

She hesitated only a moment; Tsem was rushing forward with his club, certainly to his death—despite his size, strength, and recently acquired skills. “You have it!” she cried. Might surged into her limbs, and she took in a breath that went on and on. Blood surged in her as her body thickened and distorted with agony that was so exquisite as almost to be pleasure; even before the change was done she was pounding across the earth on four cloven hooves. The colors of the world had faded to shadow, but her nostrils brought a new realm of sensation that she had never imagined and had little time to appreciate. She could smell Tsem, the acrid taint of his fear nearly masked by a sour anger. One of Sheldu's men had soiled himself, and Sheldu himself had no scent whatsoever. The leaf mold and the crisp freshness of the forest faded before the corruption of the attacking god and its sudden fear, stinking like a rotten corpse. Then he was on her horn, and she tossed him, gored him again, and slammed him into a tree. The dull salamander eyes glared at her feebly.

“Hezhi,” it groaned—not from its froglike mouth, but from somewhere inside. “Hezhi, listen to me.”

Hukwosha stepped back and hooked the monster anew on his horns and began to run joyfully.

“Listen!” Its eyes were fading.

“Talk, then,” Hezhi bellowed. “You haven't long.”

“Beware the Blackgod, he—”

Hezhi suddenly recognized the voice. “Moss? Moss, is that you?”

“Yes,” the voice answered feebly.

“Hukwosha, stop,” she commanded, but the bull continued to run, and sudden panic mingled with her elation.

Free, Hukwosha roared. Free me.

“No!” She wrenched at him then, grappled him back into her mansion, though it felt as if her body had burst into flame. She knew her body was changing again, and as that happened she sank into the unreal haze of the lake. The dying god shimmered, and she saw him—whoever he was. But linked to him she saw Moss, and he was impaled as plainly as the Salamander God.

“You've killed me,” Moss sighed. “I was only trying to … I wouldn't have hurt you.”

“I'm sorry,” she answered, and even in the flat cold of the otherworld she was.

“No matter,” he gritted out. “I—” Then his eyes widened, and he vanished as if he had never been. An instant later she blinked and the sight was gone. She was Hezhi, a little girl, lying on the leafy floor of the forest. Nearby, the corpse of the Salamander God blubbered out a final breath, and then its spirit departed.

Through the woods she could hear Sheldu and the others approaching.

* * *

AFTER a tense moment, the task became simple butchery. The unholy creatures summoned by the Tiskawa were all dispatched, and the Mang, though indeed brave and fierce, were no match for the host of the Huntress, as Perkar well knew. The horsemen fell to hon and wolf, to the gods who were sometimes bears, to eagles and hawks that swooped upon them—and to Harka, of course.

Before it was over, Perkar wept for them.

Among the dead he found Moss, who was not dead, though his gut was torn open. The young shaman's eyes followed him, pleading.

“Listen to me, swordsman,” he bubbled through a mouthful of blood. Perkar approached cautiously, mindful of what Chuuzek had managed in such a state.

“Listen,” Moss repeated. “I have no way of knowing whether you are the Blackgod's dupe or willing ally. But I am slain now, and I saw Ghe carried off by the Huntress. You may be Hezhi's only hope.”

“What nonsense is this?” Perkar growled.

Moss closed his eyes. “The lake comes to swallow me,” he muttered. “I can't—” He opened his eyes again, and they held a peculiar blankness. “Perkar, are you still there?”

Perkar crouched down beside his foe. “I'm here,” he said.

“I think I know what the Blackgod intends,” the dying man whispered. “I think I understand now.”

He whispered another sentence, and Perkar felt a profound chill. It was a sensation that gathered strength.

“Oh, no,” he muttered, because he knew it was true. There could be no doubt.

“Karak must have conspired with the Huntress to separate me from her,” he snarled. Moss nodded faintly.

“Does it hurt?” Perkar asked. “Are you in pain?”

“No. It's a sort of fading. Let me fade, if you will—it will prepare me. Many vengeful things await the ghosts of shamans, and we must have what advantages we can.”

“Can I help?”

But Moss didn't answer. He was not yet dead, but it was clear that he had spoken for the last time. With Harka's vision Perkar could see the last thread of life unraveling.

Trembling, he stood, Moss' revelation repeating itself in his brain, and grimly he began to run back the way he had come. T'esh was dead, and the last of the Mang horses either fled or devoured. He had no chance of reaching his destination in time, but he also had no choice but to try; once again, it was all his fault.

XXXVI Erikwer

GHE tumbled through space, the treetops a nightmare blur that they sometimes hurtled over and sometimes crashed among. They fought with claws and teeth and with the energies burning within them, and almost as soon as they began, Ghe understood that he would lose. The Huntress was the most powerful being he had ever faced save the River himself. Her existence seemed to extend all about him, into the earth and the trees—this form he fought was only a finger of her. His sole satisfaction was knowing she was not toying with him; he was giving her a good fight, drawing power from her to hold himself together—but he was losing, for she was both more powerful and more experienced than he. For the first time, Ghe truly understood the sheer desperation of the River in creating him, the minusculity of his chances of success.

Nevertheless, he clung to her as she disemboweled him again and again.

“You hurt me,” she admitted in a feral, growling voice. “Few have done that, so feel proud.”