“No? Well, ships are supposed to carry at least one priest, and they are raising a mighty hue and cry about this barge leaving without one. We must be under way before things become too noisy.”
“Oh.” Ghe wondered if the Ahw'en were behind this—if they suspected—or if it was just the usual petty political war waged daily in the palace courts.
“In any event, I am ready to go!” Bone Eel exclaimed, his deep voice tinged with enthusiasm. “Too long have I been a prisoner of land. I'm ready to feel the River beneath my feet again.”
“And how long has it been since your last voyage?” Ghe inquired.
“Oh, it's been—well, let me see …” He ticked off one finger, then the next, frowning.
“It's been five years,” Qwen Shen put in sweetly. She beamed at Ghe, but he thought perhaps there was a hidden glare in the expression.
“That long?“ Bone Eel muttered. ”Yes, too long indeed.”
Bone Eel continued to agree with himself as he went back above.
XIX Drum Battle
A wind slanted out of the east with the dawn, and Hezhi leaned into it, let it relieve her weary muscles of some small part of the task of supporting her. She was listing in the saddle anyway, worn out in more ways than she knew, and she could almost imagine that the wind, fragrant with sage and juniper, was a pillow, nestling against her, welcoming her to sleep.
Her body may have lain as if asleep while she traveled the skies, but it had apparently received no rest. After the fight and the discussion—after her decision—they had wasted little time, slipping from the camp while the sky was still an inky beast with a thousand eyes. Now they were more than a league from the Mang camp, the most immediate danger behind them, and events, unbroken by oblivion, crowded together in Hezhi's brain until they were a senseless litany of colors and shapes. Her eyes read the sky and the landscape only from habit, without much comprehension.
Of the night's watchful eyes, only one remained, the rest having fled or fluttered shut beneath sky-colored lids at the graying of the horizon, and that only made her sleepier, made her wish that she were a cold, distant, sleeping star. The holdout still flamed, defiant, defending his domain in the vault of heaven even though his was the easternmost portion, where the sun's birth was heralded by servants of copper and gold.
“What star is that?” Hezhi asked wearily, in an attempt to keep awake.
Brother Horse cracked the barest grin in the gray light. Hezhi noticed not so much the show of humor as how old he looked, with the stubble of beard on his chin.
“We call him Yuchagaage, the 'Hunter.' ”
“What does he hunt?”
Brother Horse waved the back of his hand at the star, winking dimmer each moment to their right. “He has hunted many things. Right now he hunts the sun.”
“Will he catch the sun?”
“Well, watch for yourself. The Bright King will kill him, sure enough, before even he has risen.”
“The Hunter is not the most intelligent of gods,” Raincaster added from up ahead of them, next to Tsem. Hezhi had been staring east in the first place to avoid watching the tail of Rain-caster's horse, which threatened to mesmerize her as it switched back and forth.
“True,” Brother Horse said. “He lies in wait for the sun, each morning getting closer. Always he is slain; he never succeeds—nor learns, apparently.”
“But he is still here, when the other stars have fled,” Hezhi noted. “He lives longer in defiance than in retreat.”
“The other stars are smarter,” Raincaster answered, but Hezhi thought she heard a faint contempt in the young man's tone—or had her ears added that?
“But not braver,” Hezhi retorted sourly. “And he isn't always running”
“I won't play this word game,” Tsem said, turning to speak but not so much that she could see his face. These were the first words he had spoken since crying the night before. “It was you who decided we should leave.”
“I never decide, Tsem,” Hezhi replied. ”It always happens, but I never decide.”
“Well, you are not a star, Princess, and if you are blown out like a candle one morning, you will not return to light the world again. I don't know much about these ghosts that people out here call gods—you know much more than I, as always. But they seem to me, from what I have heard, to be poor creatures to model your actions after.”
“Well put,” Brother Horse agreed, “though I must admit that as a young warrior I carried the likeness of the Hunter on my shield. Many young Mang do so still. He is a rash god, but then, young men value rashness.”
“What do old men value?“ Raincaster asked.
“Young women,” Brother Horse answered. “If I carried a shield now, I would paint one on it.”
Ngangata—riding slightly ahead of Raincaster—turned, his face a weird rose color in the light of the rising sun. “Perkar is like the Hunter,” he put in glumly. “Always. And you see where it gets him.”
The wind picked up, clean and cool, and for an instant it swept the rooms of Hezhi's mind of the broken bits of thought that cluttered them. She had to raise her voice a bit for Brother Horse to understand her.
“Yes, Perkar,” she said. “You told us we would speak of him.”
“Later, when you have had some rest.”
“I should rest soon, then. When I returned—well, just before I awoke, in your yekt—I saw the monster again, the one feeding upon him. I think it may be winning. If I do have the power to help him now—as you say—I may not in a few days.”
“That's probably true,” the old Mang conceded. “But first tell me everything. How you went through the drum, what happened—everything. We have time enough for that.”
Hezhi nodded and told him, trying to leave nothing out, though even the wind failed to keep her mind clear and the droning of her own voice threatened to put her to sleep. Her story became a patchwork of digressions, and she feared that what little sense it had ever made was now lost. The sky continued to brighten, as the sun puddled red on the horizon, and then, finding its spherical shape, rose up. At Brother Horse's direction, they put the rising light to their backs, bearing nearly due west. The land rolled and then flattened out like a pan, rimmed at the limits of their sight by hills on the south and north. Ahead, Hezhi could make out the purple contours of distant mountains. The sky was as clear as blue glass, and the last traces of snow were gone from the ground.
The end of Hezhi's story whipped off with the wind across the endless plain, and Brother Horse rocked silently in his saddle for some time without commenting on it. Hezhi did not rush him, instead looking about her once more.
Tsem sat a horse nearly twice as massive as the one she rode, and he was still too large for it, though the horse bore his weight without complaint. Tsem himself remained glum, his visage hidden from her as she recounted her journey to the mountain. It was just as well, for she feared what her words might have written on his face. Ngangata now rode well in front of the rest of them, ever the scout, and Heen had paced ahead with him. Yu-u'han led Perkar's horse, and Perkar dragged and bumped along behind on a travois. At Ngangata's insistence, they were also accompanied by Sharp Tiger, the mount that Perkar had been leading when he reached the Ben'cheen. Raincaster, after their conversation, had dropped back to rear guard, his hawklike features clouded with exhaustion. Two additional horses carried their provisions and tents.
Seven people and nine horses. We make no more impression on this plain than a line of ants, Hezhi thought. Dust in the eye of the sky.