But Ghe was still alive, and neither Qwen Shen nor Bone Eel numbered among the dead. Ghe was more powerful than ever, and his will to find Hezhi was fundamental. Ghan had hoped that as they departed the influence of the River, the ghoul would lose some of his sense of purpose, but the River had built him well, selecting only those parts of him that remembered and liked Hezhi, leaving other parts of him out. He wondered if Ghe understood that, the nature of his poor memory.
They passed the night in crude shelters, cold and damp. Some blankets and tarps had been salvaged but they were soaked through.
They ate horsemeat that night and the next day. Qwen Shen pointed out that the meat would spoil sooner than the retrieved rations. Some of the surviving soldiers argued for burying the dead, but Ghe, Qwen Shen, and Bone Eel dismissed that as a waste of effort. Instead, they moved upstream, away from the stench that would soon pollute the air.
After the move, as the men were working upon new shelters, Ghe came to speak to him for the first time since the catastrophe.
“Well, old man,” he began, squatting next to where Ghan slouched against a tree. “Shall I make the coming journey easier by carrying you inside of me?”
“Do what you will,” Ghan told him dully. “I care not.”
“Maybe you don't,” Ghe replied. “But I do. And I think I would rather see you walk on those frail old legs.”
Ghan shrugged indifferently.
“Because you knew” Ghe went on. “You knew that would happen.”
“No,” Ghan corrected. “I only hoped it would.”
“Well, you got your wish. But nothing can stop me, old man. I've eaten one of these 'gods' and I'll eat more. I'll send them out to serve me and bring them back in. If I tire of one, I will feast on him entirely.”
Ghan set his jaw stubbornly, about to retort, when a shout went up from the soldier watching the plains. Both men turned at the cry.
The horizon was dark with riders, savagely dressed and bristling with spears, swords, and bows.
“Well,” Ghan remarked. “I told you I would bring you to the Mang. Here they are.”
XXVII Stormherd
As Harka struck the bird, violent numbness raced up Perkar's arm, an agonizing tingling that chattered his teeth and jerked his heart weirdly in his breast. He caught a sharp whiff of decay and something burnt as the demon bird shrilled and clacked its cruel beak; Harka had severed one of its immortal strands. It climbed into the air and circled once; Perkar braced to meet the dive, only dimly cognizant of the blood oozing from his scalp.
It did not dive. Instead, it lifted a wing as if to salute the east and flew off toward the approaching storm.
Something in the storm, too, Harka told him. Perkar ignored the sword, scrambling for T'esh. Moss and his captive were already dwindling figures. Raincaster was down, Yuu'han at his side, and Brother Horse was still watching everything with mouth wide open. Ngangata had stayed to shoot at the demon bird, but as Perkar bounded onto T'esh, the halfling was already dug into his saddle, his mount at full gallop.
What did Moss think he was doing? Weighed down like that—fighting Hezhi—he could see her kicking and squirming furiously, even at this distance—how could he hope to outdistance them for long?
Perkar realized that was the least important question. A much more pertinent one was how Moss had managed to free his bonds without anyone noticing. Even more pressing was the matter of the demon bird and its origins. Had it been sent to aid Moss, or had he merely noticed it about to attack and snatched his opportunity? If Moss had one supernatural ally, did he have more?
It was obvious that Moss hoped to reach the approaching cloud of obscuring dust, use it to confuse them, and thus escape; but Ngangata was closing the gap at such a rate that it was clear Moss would be caught before entering his hoped-for refuge, though only by moments.
But Harka was buzzing in his ear, frantically trying to tell him something.
“What?” he snarled, over the rush of wind on his face.
“Look. Just look, will you? ”
And then he saw, and wished he had not. Behind the dust storm indeed followed rain, boiling black clouds torn by lightning skating over the rims of the mountains. But while it might be the windy edge of the tempest that was swirling the black dust about in the air, it was hooves kicking it up. The wonder was that he only now felt the earth tremoring up through T'esh, thunder burrowing underground.
Ahead, Ngangata waved his hand and pointed; he, too, had seen. It was a wall, not of air and dust, but of wild cattle, charging almost shoulder to shoulder. They ran in bleak, eerie silence. Though the ground trembled, there was no bellowing, no chill cries of calves going down, overrun. Perkar redoubled his speed; surely Moss did not intend to fly into the face of that monstrous herd? If so, his hope must be to kill Hezhi, even if it meant his own life. The shape of the lead bull emerged as Perkar raced toward the herd, and he suddenly beheld the spectacle with a new, razor-edged lucidity. In his chest, comprehension rapidly gave birth to a nest of stinging worms that immediately attacked his heart.
The gargantuan shoulders of the bull bunched and pulled a tall man's height from his hooves. He was black, blacker than charcoal, but for his eyes, which were hollows of yellow fire. His black horns were bent earthward, and if the bull were to stumble, the twin furrows he dug would be more than a horse length apart. There was no flesh on his skull.
“Harka, what is that? What is it?“ T'esh fought to turn aside, and though his mount did not outright refuse to continue forward, Perkar knew that soon even this Mang-bred stallion would balk at racing into the horns of that.
“A god. It is certainly a god. ”
“Do you know him, recognize him?”
“Something familiar' not one of the Mountain Gods, like Karak …”
“What can we do?”
“Ride the other way. Quickly. ”
“Moss is trying to kill her. He's riding straight into them.” He realized that they might catch Moss in time, but never with enough leisure to escape the hooved death bearing down upon them. All four of them were going to die.
The squirming panic had gnawed deeply into his heart by now; how could Moss do this? And then T'esh suddenly took his own nose, turned sidewise to the beasts. Perkar realized that he had slackened his control without even thinking, as if hoping his horse would balk. Grimly he cinched up on the reins. Ngangata hadn't slowed in the least.
His resolve wasn't firm enough, and T'esh knew it. The stallion made a frantic attempt to wheel about at full gallop as Perkar hauled with all of his might on the reins. The result was a sickening lurch as the steed lost his footing, and then both of them slammed to earth. T'esh rolled over him, and Perkar felt his leg twist oddly. The horse was heavy.
Somehow he kept hold of the reins and, though his blood hammered so violently in his temples that he feared his skull would burst, he struggled to remount while T'esh reared, his eyes rolling with madness. Across the plain, tiny figures were limned against the unearthly stampede, and though he knew he should be fighting T'esh back into control, he watched them helplessly instead. Ngangata stood in his saddle, bow in hand. Moss was crouched low in his, avoiding the halfling's shafts. Hezhi—where was Hezhi?