“The horse! For pity's sake, kill it!” Ngangata had his bow trained on the approaching figure. Perkar was nearest the suffering animal.
Of course. The Mang had been trying to reach the horse, put it out of its pain.
“Watch him, then,” Perkar answered, waving at the stranger. He turned on the beast.
It was gazing up at him, flanks heaving but its eye steady, a pool of black incomprehension.
“Oh, no,” Perkar whispered. “Harka, what did I do?”
“Bested two mounted men, I would say, ” his sword replied.
Perkar said nothing to that, but he swung the blade savagely down, cut through the handsome neck. The body heaved once as blood spurted, steaming, onto the snow, and then, mercifully, ceased to move.
Sickened almost to vomiting, Perkar turned as much of his attention as he could focus on the newcomer, who was by now only a score of paces away.
He had the appearance of a Mang man, though taller and rangier than most, features regular and handsome. His clothing was rich and spectacular; a long split coat of midnight-blue sable, ermine boots, a fringed elkhide shirt adorned with silver coins. Thick black hair, unbound, flowed from beneath a cylindrical felt hat, also banded with coins, both silver and gold.
“Huuzho, ” he said, uttering the typical Mang greeting in a sibilant, musical voice.
“Name yourself,” Perkar snarled back, still fighting nausea.
“Name yourself or come no closer. I have slain gods and will gladly do so again.”
“Have you?” the man said, bowing politely. “How interesting. In that case—I have no wish to die—I name myself Yaizh-been, and I present myself to you most humbly.”
“Yaizhbeen?” Perkar looked blankly at Ngangata, who was more fluent in Mang. “ Yai” meant a god of the sky, he remembered.
“Blackgod,” Ngangata translated. Perkar caught his friend's peculiar tone.
“At your service,” the man answered. “And so good to see you both again.”
“Again?” Perkar asked, but already puzzlement was grading toward dismay.
“Blackgod,” Ngangata said, without ever taking his eye from the man, “is one name that the Mang give Karak, the Raven.”
PERKAR snapped Harka up, flicking thick drops of horse blood through the air. A bit of it splattered on the Crow God's cheek, but he did not bunk, maintaining his somewhat condescending smirk.
“Karak,” Perkar gritted, “if you have a weapon, I suggest you draw it.”
“Perkar, this is useless, ” Harka's voice came in his ear.
Karak looked mildly surprised. “I fail to understand your mood,” he remarked, his voice smooth, confident. “And let me remind you that I named myself Blackgod. You asked me for a name, and that is the one you were given. Please call me by it.”
“I will call you as I please,” Perkar retorted. “Find a weapon.”
The Blackgod stepped forward until Harka was a fingerspan from his heart. His yellow eyes were steady on Perkar's. “What quarrel do you have with me, Perkar?” he demanded, though softly.
“Must I name them all? You tricked my friends and me into slaying an innocent woman. You yourself killed Apad. That is sufficient, I think.”
“I see,” the Blackgod replied. Perkar could feel the tension in Ngangata, but the halfling said nothing, though he surely wanted to. From the corner of his eye, Perkar could see that his friend's bow was still raised.
“Ngangata,” Perkar said, “please leave us.”
“Perkar—”
“Please. If you have come to care for me at all, if you have forgiven me at all, Ngangata, mount and ride from here. I could not stand it if you died now.”
“This is sweet, but there is no need for anyone to die,” Karak assured them reasonably.
“I believe otherwise.”
“Then let me answer your charges, mortal man,” the god said, a trace of anger showing at last. “For though I love carrion, I would prefer that you live for a time. Now, first, the woman. Who summoned my aid to enter the cavern and find the weapons she guarded?”
“We did not summon you.”
“Does it matter whom you intended to summon? You wished a guide to take you precisely where I took you, true?”
“Don't play games with me.”
Karak leaned into Harka until blood started on his skin. The blood was gold in color, dispelling any doubts Perkar had as to his identity. “True?” he repeated.
Perkar flattened his mouth into a grim Une. “True.”
“You wanted the weapons. They were bound to her blood, and she to the cave. The only way to take them was to kill her.”
“I would not have chosen to do that.”
“You did not. Your friend Apad did. Because you led him there, because he thought himself a coward and was proving himself to you. Apad got you what you wanted, Manchild.”
“And you killed him.”
“That was war. I obeyed my liege, the Forest Lord. I might remind you that disobeying your liege was what got you into that mess, by the way. Apad attacked me, and he died a warrior, rather than a coward or a murderer. He did considerable damage to the host of the Huntress before losing his ghost. What better death can a seeker of Piraku desire? How better to redeem himself?”
Perkar fought for words, but his tongue seemed thick and stupid beneath the weight of the Raven's verbal onslaught. “You are twisting this…” he began, but the Blackgod shook his head.
“Wait,” he went on. “There are crimes you did not name. Let me name them for you. I allowed you to survive, after the Huntress wounded you. I left you among the dead so that Harka, there, could heal you. I gave you a boat to negotiate the waters of the Changeling, at risk to my own life and position both from the River God and from my own liege lord. I cajoled and bribed Brother Horse into aiding Ngangata, here, to find you, and I told them when and where to locate you. Just now I killed an archer who might have slain your friend. Now. For these crimes will you kill me, as well, or will you kill me and then thank me, in the order that I brought things to you?”
Karak narrowed his eyes, and in that moment, though he retained his Human form, he seemed very birdlike indeed. “And,” he snapped, “if you have no interest in thanking me, do you not have even the slightest curiosity about my motives for following one lone, silly Human across half of the world to give him my aid? Do you not even wonder at that, Perkar? If not, you are a dolt. Push that sword into me, and we shall see who is the stronger, Harka or myself.”
“I know the answer to that already, ” Harka said. “Sheathe me, you idiot. ”
Perkar ignored the blade. “Tell me then. Tell me why everything.”
“Perhaps,” the Crow God said, his voice again mild, “when you have lowered your weapon. Perhaps I will tell you how to set things right. Set everything right.”
“The war with the Mang? My people?”
“Everything.”
Grinding his teeth, Perkar slowly, reluctantly lowered Harka. He heard the creak of Ngangata's bow unflexing, as well.
“Make camp,” Karak commanded. “I will retrieve my mount.”
“You play dangerous games,” Ngangata told him as the Black-god walked back off the way he came.
“Not a game, Ngangata. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Don't forget your own advice, my friend,” Perkar said.
“Which advice?”
“About heroes. My fights are not your fights. When I provoke my doom, you should walk away.”
“That's true,” Ngangata acknowledged. “I should. But until you provoke it again, why don't you gather some wood while I see if our friend, here, is still alive.” He gestured at the crumpled figure of the Mang warrior.
“What will we do with him?” Perkar muttered.
“Depends. But we should learn why they attacked us.”
“Perhaps they know my people and theirs are at war. Perhaps they merely wanted our skins as trophies for their yekts.”