He raised his sword, though the earth sought to drag it from his hand.
He carried his weight into the swing, knowing that if he missed it wouldn't matter anyway, he would never stand to attack again. He wondered dully why the Tiskawa tilted its head back, as if inviting the blow.
The Blackgod was perhaps more injured than he let on, for though he lunged to place himself between Perkar and the River-thing, he was too slow to avoid Tsem's broken club, which struck him in the shoulder blade and caused him to stumble. Then it was too late, and the sword Perkar's father had given him—the sword forged by the little Steel God Ko—bit deeply.
For the second time, Perkar watched Ghe's head leave its body. It was strange that the final expression to grace the assassin's face seemed to reflect victory rather than defeat.
XXXVIII Horse Mother
BLOOD geysered into the cavern, spewing from the stump of the River-thing's neck. It fell toward the lake and gouted liquid into the water, and the water burned. It caught like dry leaves in high autumn, like pitch. Glorious light of many colors gyred and capered madly in the cavern, and Perkar sank back to his knees beneath the rainbow dance of the River's death—and his own. And though wonder should have been shocked out of him, he still laughed and wept tears of joy when he saw, amongst those flames, a lithe form he had once loved, the Goddess of the Stream, hair coursing opalescent as she skated across the surface of the dying god.
“What have you done?” Karak shrieked. “What have you done?”
“Slain the River, I think,” Perkar answered, dropping his blade so he could lower himself to the floor with one hand and clutch his belly with the other. It was starting to hurt now, a slow burning that he knew would consume him for a long time before finally killing him. “Not as I planned, pretty thing,” Karak snarled. “Nevertheless, I think he is dead.” “Perhaps,” Karak said. “I don't see how, but—” “It is true; you know it. I have done it for you.” “It is not as I wished it to be,” Karak complained, his voice becoming a trifle petty.
“Karak, please. I know you can heal Hezhi and Ngangata, if they are not dead. Please. We did what you wanted. The Changeling is no more.”
“But what is in his place?” Karak snarled. “That I do not know. Perhaps he will be as bad as the Brother.”
That seemed wrong to Perkar, but it was just a feeling. And it was too much trouble to argue. “Save them,” he repeated instead.
“What of you, pretty thing? You don't want to die, do you?”
“No,” he answered, knowing at last that it was the truth. “No, I don't. But they should come first.”
“How sweet. But seeing as how you acted contrary to my wishes, I will heal none of you.”
“As if you ever acted in accord with anyone's wishes,” a voice boomed, shuddering the very stone beneath their feet. ”As if you ever accomplished the goal without twisting the intent.”
Karak and Perkar turned as one at the low, grating voice, a voice nearly below Perkar's hearing.
“Balati,” Karak said, almost a groan, almost an imprecation.
It was, indeed, the Forest Lord. His single black eye reflected the glimmering flames upon the water, but the rest of him seemed to drink in the light, a mass of fur and shadow and antlers that were really, Perkar could see now, trees that reached up and up, never ceasing to rise and branch. Near him stood a mare with a coat of gold and rust, the most magnificent mare Perkar had ever beheld. As Balati spoke again, the horse turned and sniffed first at the still form of Sharp Tiger, then at Hezhi.
“You have played a merry prank on me, Crow,” Balati muttered, his voice as solid and unyielding as stone. “You have killed my Brother.”
“He was dangerous,” Karak hissed. “In another thousand years—when it was far too late, and he was eating you—you would have understood that yourself.”
“That is what VW are for, Karak,” Balati said. ”That is my use for you, and you have performed it well. My Brother was ill—dead even. He was the ghost of a god, envying the living.”
“Ah!” Karak brightened. “It is well then—you do understand. In that case, perhaps I should fly and see precisely what has been wrought here. The new River God, like the old, has no sentience in Erikwer, but when he emerges from the cavern—”
“Oh, no, I think not,” Balati said, almost gently. “You need humbling, I believe, and I need you with me for a time, so that I can quicken enough to understand all of this.”
“Lord,” Karak said, “there is much I need to be about, much to be done in the world as it shall become.”
“Yes, I'm sure. But we will let mortals do it for a while, and the little gods of the land.”
Karak suddenly transformed into a crow and took wing, but as he flew, he shrank, and the Forest Lord reached out a massive paw and closed it upon him. Perkar heard a single, pitiful grawk and then saw no more of the Raven.
“L-Lord Balati—” Perkar stammered.
“I know you,” Balati said. “You slew my guardian, stole my things.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But I—and I alone of these here, and of my people—” Perkar groaned through thickening pain. “I was to blame, no one else.”
Balati cocked his head slowly to one side. Unlike the Raven, unlike the Huntress or indeed any other god Perkar had known, there was nothing Human in the gaze of Balati. He was the world before men or Alwat, the forest and the land before the forest came alive. There was no mercy, no compassion—nor hatred nor envy nor greed—to be understood in that nebulous single orb. “You wanted something before,” he rumbled. “What was it?”
Perkar blinked. “Before… ?”
“When you stole my things.”
A year ago, Perkar realized, when Apad and Eruka and the Kapaka and the Alwat all died. “We… we came to request more land for pasture, so that we need not fight the Mang.”
Balati gazed down at him for some time. “That is reasonable,” he said. “You may have them.”
“Have them?”
“Two valleys, the two which lie along west of the rim of Agir-uluta. You know the place?”
“Yes, Lord,” Perkar muttered faintly. “I know it. Thank you.”
But the Forest Lord no longer stood before him.
Now only the mare remained, stood near where Tsem crouched, weeping, beside Hezhi. The mare walked toward him, and as she did so, she became a woman, Mang-seeming, handsome. She looked angry.
“The girl Hezhi still has some life in her, and since she is the house my little colt lives in, I have healed her. Your friend will live.”
“Thank you,” Perkar murmured.
“Do not thank me yet.” She knelt nearby and put her hand to Ngangata's throat. Then she turned to him again. ”You slew one of my children in a foul and vicious way. You cut her legs from under her and left her to suffer.”
“I did,” Perkar admitted. “I have no excuse.”
“No, you don't. And so as punishment, I will give you a choice. I will either heal the halfling or you, but not both.”
Perkar closed his eyes. He did want to live. His goal was accomplished, and suddenly he could imagine a life that might have Piraku and perhaps even joy in it. He might once again sip woti, own cattle—and with Hezhi alive, he might even find a companion. And he was afraid', afraid of the hours of torture that lay before him, of the oblivion to come …
“You are cruel,” he said. ”Of course you must save my friend.”
The Horse Mother hesitated. “Perhaps I should do the contrary then. If you really want this one to live, then he shall die.”