Perkar recognized him now, though his glimpse of the man—when he still was a man—had been brief, in the shadows beneath the streets of Nhol. He had been a worthy enough swordsman—without Harka, in fact, Perkar would never have beaten him.
His face aside, there was much about the Tiskawa that no longer seemed Human. Most of his clothing hung in shreds upon him, so the weird colors of his flesh and the bony unnatural lines of his torso and shoulders were revealed. His eyes held a kind of black fire as he pushed up through the slain beasts and gods to confront him. Perkar wondered where the Huntress was, and then forgot worry as he remembered this thing devouring the Stream Goddess. He howled and leapt.
Much faster moved the Tiskawa, fading away from the blow, even though he rose from an awkward position.
“You!” it snarled. “This time you cannot have my head.”
Perkar didn't answer. He kept Harka in a guard position. When the monster suddenly lunged, darting forward and slashing down with hooked talons, even Harka had difficulty moving his arm quickly enough. He struck for the neck, but an upflung arm interposed itself. Unbelievably, the godblade did not bite but slid instead down the forearm, skinning the flesh from it and revealing the yellow plate beneath. He twisted Harka and stumbled back, carried the blow on into the ribs of the Life-Eater, and there the edge finally parted flesh and bone, cut from the lowest rib through the spine, down to the pelvis. Then the claws swiped across his face and he felt sudden numbness at the same moment that a furious heat seemed to consume him. Like a child burnt by a coal, he shrieked and leapt backward. The Tiskawa tried to follow, but its body sagged crazily as the legs understood the spine that animated them was severed.
Scrambling back farther, Perkar put his hand to his own neck and felt a jet of warm fluid, realized that one of the arteries there had been torn, but even as he did so, the flow diminished as Harka closed his wound.
That was nearly it, the blade said. He dug into our heartstrings, too.
Snarling, Perkar started forward again, but at that moment a horse slammed into him, battering him to the ground, and he had to raise Harka quickly to meet a Mang warrior's attack. The god-blade flicked out deftly and impaled the man as he leapt down. When Perkar returned to his feet, he saw the earth itself rise in a column, form quickly into the Huntress, now massive, bearing the black antlers of an elk on the snarling head of a lion. The Tiskawa had just risen into the air, wind rushing furiously about him, his lower body hanging limp, when she gored him on her horns. The Life-Eater shrieked, but he also reached around her neck with both arms, and—incredibly—lifted the Huntress off the ground. Together they flew into the air, blown up like leaves in the curled fist of an autumn wind. Perkar saw the Huntress transform again into some sort of dark-pinioned bird, and then the two of them disappeared into the dense opaque vastness of the canopy, gone.
Gripping Harka even more tightly, he thought to follow—somehow—but at that moment his body sprouted a pair of arrows; his hauberk stopped their heads, but Harka drew him relentlessly to face his mortal opponents.
“ You cannot kill the Tiskawa if you let these Mang hack you into pieces. ”
Grimly Perkar turned to his work, ashamed that, in his heart of hearts, he was relieved.
For the Tiskawa, he knew, would have killed him, and he wondered if he could face it again. Something that could give the Huntress such a battle …
Then there was no more time to think.
SHELDU'S men attacked the thing, but Hezhi did not need to see the first of them die to understand that what they faced was a god of no mean strength; she had seen him instantly, knew that he formed from the water and dirt rather than emerged from it. She did not even reach for her drum, but as when she had captured the bull, Hukwosha, she merely slapped her palms together and opened the lake.
This time she did not hesitate; she called on Hukwosha, and the bull bolted gleefully to the task.
But we must manifest, the bull said. We cannot fight only beneath the lake.
“I don't know how to do that,” Hezhi told him.
Give me your leave.
She hesitated only a moment; Tsem was rushing forward with his club, certainly to his death—despite his size, strength, and recently acquired skills. “You have it!” she cried. Might surged into her limbs, and she took in a breath that went on and on. Blood surged in her as her body thickened and distorted with agony that was so exquisite as almost to be pleasure; even before the change was done she was pounding across the earth on four cloven hooves. The colors of the world had faded to shadow, but her nostrils brought a new realm of sensation that she had never imagined and had little time to appreciate. She could smell Tsem, the acrid taint of his fear nearly masked by a sour anger. One of Sheldu's men had soiled himself, and Sheldu himself had no scent whatsoever. The leaf mold and the crisp freshness of the forest faded before the corruption of the attacking god and its sudden fear, stinking like a rotten corpse. Then he was on her horn, and she tossed him, gored him again, and slammed him into a tree. The dull salamander eyes glared at her feebly.
“Hezhi,” it groaned—not from its froglike mouth, but from somewhere inside. “Hezhi, listen to me.”
Hukwosha stepped back and hooked the monster anew on his horns and began to run joyfully.
“Listen!” Its eyes were fading.
“Talk, then,” Hezhi bellowed. “You haven't long.”
“Beware the Blackgod, he—”
Hezhi suddenly recognized the voice. “Moss? Moss, is that you?”
“Yes,” the voice answered feebly.
“Hukwosha, stop,” she commanded, but the bull continued to run, and sudden panic mingled with her elation.
Free, Hukwosha roared. Free me.
“No!” She wrenched at him then, grappled him back into her mansion, though it felt as if her body had burst into flame. She knew her body was changing again, and as that happened she sank into the unreal haze of the lake. The dying god shimmered, and she saw him—whoever he was. But linked to him she saw Moss, and he was impaled as plainly as the Salamander God.
“You've killed me,” Moss sighed. “I was only trying to … I wouldn't have hurt you.”
“I'm sorry,” she answered, and even in the flat cold of the otherworld she was.
“No matter,” he gritted out. “I—” Then his eyes widened, and he vanished as if he had never been. An instant later she blinked and the sight was gone. She was Hezhi, a little girl, lying on the leafy floor of the forest. Nearby, the corpse of the Salamander God blubbered out a final breath, and then its spirit departed.
Through the woods she could hear Sheldu and the others approaching.
* * *
AFTER a tense moment, the task became simple butchery. The unholy creatures summoned by the Tiskawa were all dispatched, and the Mang, though indeed brave and fierce, were no match for the host of the Huntress, as Perkar well knew. The horsemen fell to hon and wolf, to the gods who were sometimes bears, to eagles and hawks that swooped upon them—and to Harka, of course.
Before it was over, Perkar wept for them.
Among the dead he found Moss, who was not dead, though his gut was torn open. The young shaman's eyes followed him, pleading.
“Listen to me, swordsman,” he bubbled through a mouthful of blood. Perkar approached cautiously, mindful of what Chuuzek had managed in such a state.
“Listen,” Moss repeated. “I have no way of knowing whether you are the Blackgod's dupe or willing ally. But I am slain now, and I saw Ghe carried off by the Huntress. You may be Hezhi's only hope.”