“Two days' hard riding and we'll be in Balat again,” the half-ling observed. “We'll have come full circle.”
“Not quite,” Perkar said.
“No? This is how we met, equipping an expedition to ride into the realm of the Forest Lord. Now we are back to that point.”
“I suppose. For you and me, this is full circle. Full circle for me will be when we reach the mountain. That's where my mistakes began.”
“Oh, no,” Ngangata said. “Your mistakes began here, too, listening to Apad and Eruka—allowing their prejudices and fears to become your own—and hiding your agenda. The Kapaka would never have taken you along had he known you were in love with a goddess.”
“Is that what this is about? Are you here to dissuade me?”
“Yes. Your last quest to slay the Changeling brought all to ruin. Surely you remember.”
Perkar kneed T'esh roughly in the side; the stallion was blowing out so that the saddle would be loose, and today Perkar was having none of that.
“As usual, Ngangata, you know best. I even agree with you. Deep down, I no longer even believe in this quest. I do not think the Changeling can be slain, and I do not think I can put all my mistakes back the way they were. But I no longer have any choice in the matter.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Remember your diatribe against heroes, Ngangata? About how they are merely fools who have been glorified in song, how they are death to their companions?”
“I remember.”
“Then for the last time, ride away, because I think that soon I will die. And if I am a hero, we both know what will happen to my companions.”
Ngangata turned to his own mount. “I know this,” he said. “But does sheV
“Hezhi? No. Truth to tell, I don't think I am the hero this time at all, Ngangata. I think she is. Maybe she always was. And that means we are to die in her service. What point in telling her that? Perhaps she can slay the Changeling, as Karak says. Maybe I'll live long enough to see that. Gods granting, I'll take my revenge on his instrument, at least.”
Ngangata shook his broad head and waved away a horsefly. “You are intimately familiar with several gods, Perkar. Do you think them likely to grant you anything?”
“If it serves them, yes.”
“Very well,” he conceded. “But listen to me.” He turned his dark, Alwa eyes upon Perkar, eyes Perkar had once found so intimidating. Time and friendship had taught him to see the deep expressiveness of them, the concern there—but they still gave him pause. “I will not leave you, Perkar. I will not allow you to throw your life from you like a worn bowstave. Whatever else you may be, you are my friend, and I can say that of very few. So when you ride to meet death, think of me by your side.”
“I don't want that responsibility,” Perkar sighed.
“You don't have it,” Ngangata grunted, in answer. “But if I force you to think of me—or anyone—before yourself, I've done a good thing.”
Perkar watched as Ngangata finished saddling his mount and then led his horse from the stall. “Will we win, Ngangata? Can we defeat the Changeling?”
Ngangata uttered an odd little laugh. “Of course,” he answered. “Why not?”
Perkar smiled thinly in response. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Why not?”
Together they rode out to join the company of warriors.
Perkar wondered idly if “Sheldu's” bondsmen knew who their lord really was, but decided that it did not matter. They were a brave company, well armed, and they seemed fit for anything. Thirty men now, plus his original six. Would the Forest Lord notice them and stop them? Perkar understood from experience that against the Huntress and her host, they would be as nothing. Then again, Karak rode with them, though disguised. Perkar hated to admit it, but it was a huge relief; with a god riding at their fore, he no longer had to worry about whether he was making the right decisions, leading them down the correct path. As when he had been caught on the River, he had nothing to say about where he was going—only about what he did when he got there.
“Why haven't you traveled with us since the beginning?” he wondered to Karak aloud.
“I had things to do and I would have been noticed” was the reply—not explaining who would notice, of course, or what things he had to do. “Now—well, we are about to enter my home. Even now, however, I must remain disguised. Do not expect much overt help from me. I am your guide, not your protector, though the closer we get to Erikwer, the more help I can be.”
“Erikwer?”
“His source; the place in the mountain from which he flows,” Karak answered. After that, the Crow God rode up front to talk to one of his men.
So Perkar allowed T'esh to lag back. The stallion's coat gleamed, and Perkar himself had bathed, been dressed in fine new clothes, and a shining steel hauberk rode packed on Sharp Tiger. He should feel new and refreshed.
But two days before, riding and laughing next to Hezhi, smiling at her wonder at the mountains, he had felt a hundred times better. He realized, with some astonishment, that he had actually been happy. Odd that happiness was something one only identified when it was entirely absent.
The sun cast gold on bright new leaves and the upturned faces of wildflowers, but each moment only brought him closer to despair and doom.
He tried to brighten when Hezhi rode up but failed utterly.
“What's the matter?” she asked. For an instant he almost explained; it hung at his tongue. But the chill remained in him, and when he shrugged instead of answering her he could almost palpably feel her pulling back from him, retreating behind her own walls against hurt and closeness.
“Well, then,” she said awkwardly. “I came over because I need to tell you some things.” Her eyes wandered from her skirt briefly to his face and back down before she went on. “I journeyed last night. I saw an army of Mang riding to meet us. An army much larger than this one.”
“Oh?” he said. Karak had not shown him an army, though now that he thought of it, he had alluded to one.
“Yes. They are led by Moss.”
“Moss?”
“Moss is the gaan—though I suppose we should have known that. I should have seen it.”
“Brother Horse says that gaan can hide their natures, even from one another.”
“Yes. Still; when he came to me, in that dream, he was attacked by something I never saw—something commanding lightning. The next day you found Moss, wounded. I never made the obvious connection.”
Perkar held up one hand helplessly, not sure what to say. Moss was just a boy—who would expect him to be the leader of hosts of Mang warriors? But then, he was older than Hezhi, and not much younger than Perkar himself.
“This army also has someone else with it,” Hezhi said. “Someone impossible.”
“Impossible?”
He listened intently as she outlined her vision, and when he understood that she had seen the destroyer who had murdered the Stream Goddess, his chest tightened until he thought it might rip itself apart. But then she explained who he was, and he remembered.
“I chopped his head off,” Perkar said incredulously. “Off. ”
“This is the River at work,” she replied dully. “I'll fight you no more about going to She'leng, Perkar. I just want you to know that. You need not coax me any longer.”
“I was never—”
“Don't lie,” she answered, and with chagrin he saw real anguish in her eyes. “Yen lied to me, and now … now he's coming for me again. He may not have ever been human. All I understand is this: when one of you comes close to me, holds my hand, kisses me, it's only because he wants something besides me. Maybe if I live long enough, I can learn whatever secret it is, whatever magic exists that will let me survive that, but for now I've had enough of it. You and I will see this through; we will slay the River or die trying. But I don't trust you, Perkar, because I know you've lied to me. I am certain, at least, that there are things the Blackgod told you that you haven't chosen to share. So I'm not doing this because I trust you, Perkar, but because it is the only thing I can see to do. And I don't know that I like you very much, either.”