The Blackgod

revenant cattle. Then something erupting from Hezhi's chest like a bolt of lightning, an erratic brilliance that struck into the bull. Ngangata reached her, lifted her up—and the herd came apart. Skulls separated from vertebrae that themselves spun out into falling streams of disks. Legs un-jointed, and ribs flew apart like rotten cages. But the bones lost none of their momentum, and so as they collapsed, still they hurtled forward, a crashing wave of black bone and dust. The wave smacked into his two friends, and they went down beneath the leading edge of it. Shouting hoarsely, Perkar bore down on T'esh, urged him ever faster toward the bizarre scene.

In the lake of bones that remained, only one set remained standing: the bull himself, stock-still.

By the time Perkar reached them, it was obvious that Hezhi and Ngangata had survived the impact. They were both on their feet, as was Ngangata's mount. Perkar dismounted, Harka drawn, and with two bounds placed himself between his companions and the Bull God.

Only then did he realize that Hezhi was chuckling. Ngangata looked dazed.

“How are you two?” Perkar asked frantically. “Are either of you hurt?”

“No,” Ngangata clipped out.

“I'm fine,” Hezhi answered, laughter subsiding. “Leave the bull to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's mine now,” she replied. She walked around him toward the thing. It stood shorn of the illusion of flesh, a beast of black bones and fire.

“Hezhi, don't,” Perkar commanded, moving to keep himself between the girl and the monster.

“She knows what she's doing, ” Harka said. “Though I would never have believed this. ”

“Believed what?”

Hezhi walked confidently up to the thing. She tapped it in the center of its skull, the horns reaching around her like the gathering arms of some handless giant. The skeleton collapsed, and the air shivered with flame which was quickly gone.

“What happened?” he asked Harka softly.

“She swallowed him, ” the blade answered. “Took him in. She has two gods in her damakuta now. ”

Hezhi turned to them, an insuppressible grin of triumph on her face. Behind her, the river of bones stretched off, empty of life.

Ngangata was the first to break that strange and uncomfortable moment with words.

“Where is Moss?” he asked.

RAINCASTER was dead, an artery in his neck severed by the wicked curve of the demon bird's beak. They left him on a natural table of stone for the predators to find, as was the Mang way.

Of Moss they never found any trace.

“He got away,” Perkar finally admitted. “How?”

Hezhi crinkled her forehead in thought. “I saw him ride into them and not fall.”

“It's clear enough,” Brother Horse said. “The bird, that herd—they must have been sent by the gaan, the one who dreams for the Changeling. Probably he sent Moss a dream last night, telling him what to do.” He shook his head. ”This is a powerful man, with powerful spirits at his beck.”

“One of them is now at mine” Hezhi reminded him. Brother Horse could not cloak the wonder from his eyes. He plainly believed her. A worry awoke in Perkar. He remembered her, back in Nhol, filled with power. She had laughed then, too. It had sounded much like her laugh earlier today, when she stopped the god and his ghost herd. Wasn't her power supposed to be diminished, away from the River? Was it diminished, or merely no longer under the Changeling's command? He would have to watch her even more closely than before.

But after that moment of sardonic glee, she seemed to return to being Hezhi.

“I don't see any point in tracking him,” Ngangata said, apparently in response to a suggestion by Yuu'han that Perkar had missed. “He'll be returning to the gaan, probably, and probably with more aid of the sort we just saw.”

Perkar nodded. “Right. We have to go on.”

“He knows where we're going,” Hezhi said. “He heard our talk about the mountain. He may not know why, but he knows that is our destination.”

“Is it?” Tsem asked. “I heard of this only recently, Princess.”

Hezhi shrugged. “Perkar and the Blackgod both insist we should go. I'm not afraid to now.”

Brother Horse cocked his head at that. “Princess,” he said, “what we have just seen is astonishing. You stopped and tamed a powerful god. But as powerful as he is, he is still nothing compared to the gods of the mountain, less still to the Changeling. The Changeling could swallow both of your guardians like small morsels and still have plenty of hunger for us.”

“Nevertheless, I won't spend the rest of my life being chased and hounded by the likes of Moss. Perkar is right; whether we like this or not, he and I must see this through to the end.”

“Raincaster won't be seeing it through to the end,” Tsem observed.

Perkar felt a familiar lump rise in his throat, and Hezhi's face twisted in anguish. In an odd way, that was comforting, to see this girl who had just defeated a god mourn a Human Being. To know that, at least to that extent, she was what she appeared to be—a thirteen-year-old girl. Perkar cleared his throat into the silence following Tsem's remark. “You all see what faces us now,” he said. “The skein of this destiny was wound from Hezhi and myself. The rest of you may have entered the tapestry knowingly or unknowingly. Either way, none of you needs face another god, another gaan, or another battle. Raincaster died for us, and others have done the same. I wouldn't blame any of you or think you lacking in Piraku if you were to leave us now. In fact, I even ask that of you.” He glanced at Hezhi, and she nodded in agreement, her little mouth set and certain. In that instant, he wanted to place his arm about her, stand with her as if they were a single tree. But he did not—or could not.

The others watched them blankly for a moment, all but Tsem, who looked as if he would erupt at any time. It was Brother Horse who answered Perkar, however. Except that he spoke not to Perkar but to Ngangata. “How long do you think these two would last on their own, halfling?” He cleared some dust from his throat and spat it out on the dry earth.

Ngangata seemed to consider that. “Well, let's see,” he considered heavily. “Between them they have a gods word, a shaman's drum, and two guardian godlets—have I left anything out?”

“Three Mang horses, including Sharp Tiger,” Brother Horse added.

“Yes, I should have mentioned them. I don't know; they might make it seven or eight days with all of that.”

Brother Horse shook his head in disagreement. “No. I think they would either be so busy arguing or avoiding each other or just prancing along in self-satisfaction that they would ride right off a cliff without noticing—in the first day or so.”

Ngangata nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. I withdraw my estimate.”

After that, both men sat their horses and just smiled thinly at Hezhi and him.

Perkar glanced over at the girl. “This ought to make us mad,” he said.

“It does make me mad,” she snapped. ”But I suppose they've made their point?“ She bailed her fists on her hips and stared up at the others expectantly.

Tsem finally sighed hollowly. “If we're going, shouldn't we go? Before Moss can go tell every other monster or god or whatever where we are?”

“I have to sing a dirge for Raincaster,” Yuu'han insisted softly. “Then we can go.”

“Yuu'han …” Brother Horse began, but his nephew flashed dagger-eyes at him.

“We can go,” Yuu'han repeated, and then walked over to the corpse of his cousin. Presently they heard singing, and Hezhi began to weep. Perkar felt salt sting his own eyes.

Soon after that, they started out across the high plains.

INTERLUDE: A Letter to Ghan

Ghan, it has been long since I have written. Two moons have waxed and waned as we travel across the wildlands, since we were driven from the village of the Mang. Too much has happened for a pen to capture, and I must be brief for one cannot write in the saddle, and that is where the most of my days are spent.