Perkar nodded understanding. “Neither am I, friend. I speak your language because the River taught it to me somehow. Or maybe Hezhi did, without knowing. But my Mang is at least as bad as yours.”
“Me bet we talk to each other good in Mang,” Tsem stammered in his broken version of the tongue.
“Yes. We speak good together,” Perkar answered in kind, and they both smiled. Perkar felt, once again, a warmness for the Giant that was difficult to explain; Tsem had threatened his life when they first met and had been at best brusque since then. But something about the quality of his loyalty to Hezhi, his genuine selfless love, demanded affection from Perkar. When the River transformed her, only Tsem had prevented Perkar from killing Hezhi, not by stopping him physically but merely by being there, by protecting her with his own wounded body. To kill Hezhi, Perkar would have had to kill Tsem—and he had been unable to do it. Perhaps because, in so many ways, the Giant was like Ngangata. Not just because they were both only half Human, but because they shared fiercely good hearts.
He had never gotten to know Tsem, though. Injured in the escape from Nhol, the half Giant had been unable to accompany the Mang to the high country for autumn and winter hunting. And of course Perkar himself had been injured immediately on his return to the lowland camp.
“You almost made me laugh,” he said, still grinning from their exchange of garbled Mang. “That's more than anyone else has done for my mood lately. Ask your favor.”
“I think you should know something first,” Tsem said solemnly, and the smile fled from his face. “Something that shames me. When you were ill, I advised Hezhi to let you be, to give you up for dead.”
Perkar nodded slowly, narrowing his eyes, but did not interrupt as Tsem pushed on with his admission, eyes focused firmly on a yarrow plant two handspans away.
“She's already been through so much,” he explained. “I understood that she would have to do this thing with the drum—this thing I don't understand, only I understand how dangerous it is. I couldn't bear the thought that she would—”
“I understand,” Perkar said. “You have nothing to explain. She didn't owe me anything.”
“She thinks she does. Maybe she does. But that's beside the point, because I owe you. You saved her when I couldn't. You saved us both.” He frowned again, chewed his lip. ”That really made me mad.”
Perkar did chuckle then, though it was a bitter humor. “I think I understand that, too.”
“I haven't said the worst,” the half Giant growled. “After I got hurt, I just lay there, surrounded by these people speaking nonsense. I guess I had fun with a few of the women—” He shrugged. “That's nothing. But Hezhi left, went off with you. I thought T can't save her anymore and I can't keep her company.' And I figured you two would get married and that it would only get worse. And I couldn't tell Hezhi any of this, you see?”
“Married?” Perkar said, incredulous. “Whatever gave you the idea we were courting?”
Tsem shrugged his mammoth shoulders helplessly. “I don't know. Nothing. But she cares for you, the way she has never cared for anyone except me and Qey and Ghan. It scared me. And when I thought she might risk her life for you, that scared me more than anything.”
“Because you love her.”
“No, that's the worst thing—the very worst. Because I thought 'What will I do out here without herT Not 'What will she do without meT ”
Perkar regarded the Giant's agonized face for a long moment. “Does she know any of this?” he asked quietly.
“She knows I'm useless out here. She thinks I'm pathetic. She tries hard to talk her way around it, but she does. She looks to the rest of you for help and strength, but for me she only feels pity. And she's right. I am no use to any of you out here. Anywhere but in Nhol—in the palace. Such a little place; it was easy to be strong there, Perkar.”
Perkar honestly did not believe he had ever seen such a doleful expression. Like everything about him, the Giant's sorrow was huge.
“And so what can I do for you, my friend?” Perkar asked gently.
“Teach me to fight with something other than my fists. Teach me to be useful again. Teach me about this country.”
“What? I don't know this country. It isn't my home. And I'm no great warrior.”
“I've seen you fight,” Tsem said. “If you don't want to help…”
“Wait, wait, I just want you to understand. I fight well because I carry a godblade, not because of my own skill.”
“I don't understand. It's your hands that carry it.”
“True enough. But Harka cuts through ordinary steel, helps me know where to strike—and if I make a mistake and get stabbed, Harka heals me.”
“But you know how to use a sword, or none of that would do you much good.”
“True enough. I'm not a bad swordsman, Tsem, just not as good as you think. And as a teacher … well, I've never done that at all”
“But you could teach me,” Tsem persevered.
“Why me?” Perkar asked, suddenly suspicious. “Why me and not Ngangata, Yuu'han, or Raincaster? Because I'm the killer! Because Perkar is the one you just point toward the enemy and say 'kill that,' like some kind oïhoundV He tried to keep his frustration in check, but it was spilling out. Tsem thought of himself as useless. Was that better than being thought of as having only one use? And what good to be a killer if one were suddenly afraid of even that?
Tsem didn't answer the outburst, but his brows rose high on his forehead.
“Answer me,” Perkar demanded again. “Why me?”
Tsem made a strange face—Perkar could not tell whether it was anger, frustration, or hopelessness—but then the wide lips parted from champed white teeth in what seemed a furious snarl. But it wasn't; Tsem was urgently suppressing a smile. A giggle! Perkar's anger evaporated as quickly as it had come.
“What? What are you laughing at?”
“I shouldn't laugh,” Tsem said, hand across his chest, trying to hold in a series of deep, growling snickers. “But you looked so serious …”
Perkar watched him in absolute befuddlement, but the Giant's laughter, however inexplicable, made him feel foolish, and more, he found himself smiling, as well. “What?” he demanded again.
“Well, it's only that I chose you because you speak Nholish, that's all.” And then he interrupted himself with a real guffaw. It sounded ridiculous coming from the man-mountain, and then Perkar could help himself no longer, joining Tsem in his laughter.
“WELL, a sword isn't for you,” Perkar said later, when they began discussing the matter again.
“No?”
“No. First of all, we don't have one to spare, certainly not one that would fit your grip. Second, with your strength, you would probably break any blade you used. No, you would be an axe-man.”
“My mother carried an axe.”
“Your mother was a warrior?”
“She was one of the emperor's guards. He usually has full-blooded Giants in his elite.”
“But you weren't trained to fight?”
“Just with my hands. Wrestling and boxing. I think they were afraid to teach me to use steel.”
“I can see why. I would hate to have a slave three times my size that was armed.”
“No, that wasn't it. My mother was larger than I, and the men of her people are larger still. But they aren't… they aren't very bright. It would never occur to them to try to fight or run away, as long as they are well fed and treated with some respect. But I was an experiment. The emperor ordered my mother to mate with a Human man. I'm told that it had been done fairly often, but that I was the first successful cross. The emperor thought I might be more intelligent than my mother's folk, and so he never had me trained in weapons. He kept me at court for many years, as a curiosity, but then I suppose he grew bored with me and sent me to guard his daughter.”