This is in me, Hezhi realized. The Horse's world nested within her, a world of hooves pounding and strong, willful blood.
Come on out. Come out and help me, she thought. Her lips formed the same chant that Brother Horse had recited, but this inner speech seemed more important than the formal words. It was her wish that the mare responded to, not the syllables in Mang. The mare came gladly, the thunder of her hooves shaking the drum so violently that Hezhi very nearly dropped it.
Hezhi opened her eyes. Brother Horse was talking again, perhaps to her. He seemed to be speaking urgently, but in her dreamlike state she felt sluggish, too lazy to puzzle at his meaning. She was more interested in the spirit emerging from her; it was almost as if she were giving birth—or at least, the way she had imagined giving birth might be. Far away, she heard a dog barking frantically. Heen? He was never frantic about anything.
Then she noticed Perkar standing, facing her, bending toward her. The almond molds of his eyes were entirely black, seething, bubbling like boiling tar. He grinned oddly, and his teeth were black, too. His sword squirmed in a white-knuckled grip, now a blade, now an eagle, now a single long beak or claw.
“I told you,” Perkar said. “I warned you.” He lifted the sword to point at her throat slowly, as if it were heavy and he was having trouble raising it.
A feral swirl of gray and teeth and claws smacked into Perkar and his black grin turned to a snarl. He staggered beneath the onslaught, swiping clumsily about him with his weapon. Brother Horse still sat, hands tapping the drum, as the wolf that had emerged from him tore with white teeth at Perkar.
Hezhi stared, gaping. Were they to kill Perkar? If the price of evicting the Breath Feasting from his body was to kill him, what was the point? But Perkar did not seem in danger of losing. One hand gripped the wolf by the throat now, and though it squirmed and shifted shapes from wolf to serpent to man, still he held it and brought the godsword around. The wolf split nearly in half, and its yowl was deafening. Perkar tossed it aside and advanced upon Brother Horse.
“Old man, you should have stayed away from this. He has been given to me by one much stronger than you.”
“By whom?” Brother Horse asked. His eyes remained on Hezhi, however.
“I will take your ghost to him, and he will have some use for it, I think.”
“I regret that I cannot accompany you.”
Hezhi noticed that the two halves of the wolf were still joined by a thread of life, and the doglike creature was obstinately dragging itself across the cave floor toward Perkar. It would never reach him before the Perkar-thing reached Brother Horse, however. Only Heen stood, teeth bared, between the old gaan and death—but if a wolf god fell so quickly, how long could an ordinary dog stand?
Hezhi hesitated just an instant longer. What if Brother Horse was the enemy, and this all a trick to kill Perkar once and for all? She still, despite all of her experience, had only his word that he was on her side. But watching him sit there, calmly, facing something that looked like Perkar but was not, not really—
“Come, Goddess, ” she cried. “There is your enemy!”
And the spirit bolted from her chest, like a heartbeat escaping, heart and all. It was not unlike the feeling of terrible sadness or joy, tightened beneath the tiny bones of her breast, suddenly bursting out, and of the two, more like joy. The gates of her heart swung open, and the Horse God sprang out.
Perkar turned at the sound, gaping wider than humanly possible. In fact, his whole head hinged open, almost comically. Black flame coiled out from an open mouth framing sharklike teeth. He brought his blade up, but he was too late. The mare erupted into existence, fury and passion rolling in her eyes, and her hooves slashed with more speed and force than summer lightning. They caught Perkar in the head and his skull split, burst into shards like a shattered pot. He swayed on his feet for an instant, as the Breath Feasting pulled free of the stump of his neck. The demon leapt out, coiled sinew and scales scratching at the air, spinning out rays like a thousand-legged spider, each leg a segmented worm tipped with a sting. It wheeled toward the Horse God, who reared to meet it, teeth bared and snapping. Hezhi braced for their impact, but it never came; something suddenly settled about the demon, a hoop of shivering light, and Hezhi realized that she had not seen Brother Horse approaching the duel, though now she felt how insistent his drumbeat had become. He swept the circumference of his instrument—which seemed now much larger than before—over the Breath Feasting, and as the beast passed through, it came apart. It literally burst through the skin head of the drum, a fountain of worms rotting into shreds of moldy black cheese and finally smoke. The only sound was faint, something between a snap and a gasp.
The old man made a few more passes with the drum, making certain that all of the fragments had become vapor, but no darkness was left, no visible remains of the demon; even the smoke was gone now. Then he bowed to the mare and knelt by the wounded wolf-spirit. He drew the creature to him, and in a gentle shudder they became one again. When he came back to his feet, there was a new shuffle and limp in his gait, pain etched plainly on his brow. He approached Hezhi and gently took her hand. It seemed as if her fingers were farther away than Nhol, not part of herself at all, but when he took them, the sound of drumming ceased, and she realized that she had never stopped tapping her instrument. The Horse whickered, pranced widder-shins around them both, and then leapt back into her; Hezhi felt only a vague shock, smelled horse hair and sweat.
Fear smote her. The world beyond the drum was stark and, in its way, simple, and Human emotions were dim things there. But now, afterward, the reaction set in as wonder realized that it should have been terror. And Perkar had been killed, not saved. His head had burst apart, destroyed by her own hand—or by the hoof of her spirit helper.
She blinked. Perkar lay on the cave floor, as he had before. His head was whole, and as Brother Horse and Ngangata bent over him, he moaned once.
“What happened?” Tsem demanded. “Why are you shaking?”
Hezhi looked up into the Giant's puzzled face.
“The fight? Didn't you see?”
“See? I saw you and the old man tapping your drums and singing nonsense. Heen there started howling and growling, and then Brother Horse stood up and waved his drum around. There was some smoke or something; that's all I saw.”
“Truly?”
“Princess, that's all that happened.”
Frowning, Hezhi turned back to Perkar and the two men with him.
“Well? Is he better?”
Brother Horse shook his head solemnly. “He is still ill. It will take time for Harka to heal him entirely. But the Breath Feasting is gone.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Thank the Horse Goddess, or yourself.”
“You slew it.”
Brother Horse spread his hands. “It is not really slain, but it will be many years before its substance knits back together.”
“You drew it through the drum.”
“Yes. It is a dweller in the lake. Cast out of its waters, without flesh about it, it suffocates, in a sense. It comes unbound.”
“Are all gods thus?”
“No. The Breath Feasting is delicate, in some ways. But any passage through the drum—from one side of the 'lake' to the other—must be prepared for, by spirit, god, or Human. The transition is always dangerous.”
“What are you talking about? What lake?” Tsem asked.
“I'll explain later,” Hezhi said, patting his arm. “I promise I'll explain later.”
“Good. Because right now, the two of you sound quite mad.”
Brother Horse did not grin, but his old humor seemed to flicker in his eyes as he shook his head and said, “Indeed. Madness is a prerequisite for becoming a gaan.” He reached down and gave his dog a scratch between the ears.