by Greg Keyes
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 of hound?” 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.”
“They crossed your parents like cattle? That’s disgusting.”
Tsem looked thoughtful. “It’s no different from an arranged marriage, is it? Your folk do that, I’m told.”
“Well, occasionally, but that’s different,” Perkar said, taken aback by the comparison.
“Why?”
“Well, because marriages are arranged for property, inheritance, or alliance. Not to create hybrid stock!”
Tsem grunted. “I am not as smart as a full-blooded Human, so you will pardon me if I don’t see an enormous difference. Anyway, in Nhol, marriages are arranged to concentrate the Blood Royal.”
“I…” Perkar frowned, shook his head. “Anyway, to get back to our real problem: we don’t have an axe, either. No, I think for someone with your size and strength, and given our situation, we shall have to find a club for you.”
“You mean a big stick?”
“I mean a wooden mace. A good, heavy branch or sapling with a solid, hard knot on one end. We can work it down with a knife until it’s right.” He nodded thoughtfully. “We could make a spear, too. And a shield!”
“Do I really need a shield?”
Perkar reached over and poked him in the ugly scar across his belly, where the assassin’s sword had nearly gutted him. “Yes. You can hold the shield in front of you thus—” He hopped to his feet and turned so that only his left side faced Tsem, left arm crooked as if bearing a shield. “—and you strike over it, thus.” And he cocked an imaginary club back to his shoulder, then swung it down past his ear and over the equally fictitious shield. “With your reach, no one could get close enough to you to fight around your shield or through it. With a shield and a club, you will be more than a match for most warriors, even without a lot of training.”
“But you will train me?”
Perkar nodded, oddly elated. “Yes.”
“Good. I will never counsel Hezhi to leave you for dead again. When do we make my club?”
“First we have to find one. I think I know what to look for.”
“Can we look now?”
Perkar shook his head. “Too late. We should either start a fire up here or go down. There are wolves in this country.”
“You can start a fire?”
“Sure. Go collect firewood for me. We’ll keep watch together.”
He watched the Giant lumber off, happy to see him enthusiastic about something—he had never seen that in Tsem before. This development did nothing to solve his own problem, but neither did thinking about it. The distraction was welcome.
“Who is that singing, Heen?” Hezhi whispered, reaching to scratch the yellow-and-brown mutt where he lay near her feet, nestled against the sprawling cedar she rested upon. Above, a few stars glittered, jewels in a murky sea. Heen nuzzled her hand indifferently. Whatever the chanting was, it did not worry him. Curious, Hezhi smoothed her riding coat and stood. Though the days were warmer now, nights were still murderously cold, and even in the tents they all slept fully clothed—she never took the heavy wool garment off. She felt a fleeting worry for Tsem; she had seen him climbing up the mesa and wondered what business her former servant could have with Perkar. Whatever it was, the two of them were likely to spend the night together up on the plateau—it would soon be too dark and chill to descend safely.
Her soft boots made little sound as she walked around the steep projection of the slope to where she heard the faint music—a man’s voice, a lovely tenor lilting in a haunting minor mode. It suddenly occurred to her that she might be going into danger; gaan were also known as huuneli, “singers.” What if this were her enemy, the Mang shaman, following more closely than any of them realized, even now invoking some god against her?
A hushed padding alerted her that Heen was accompanying her, and though she wasn’t certain what such a tired old dog might do in her defense, it gave her the courage she needed to round the prominence.
The singer
knelt on a flat stone, eyes closed, face rapt. Nearby stood his mount, a familiar tawny mare. The song itself was in Mang, and she caught the sense of a single verse before the young man opened his eyes and noticed her.
“Hard Wind
Sister with iron hooves
Together we shall travel steppes
That no man nor mount has seen
Courage will be my saddle
And your bridle shall be my faith in you…”
That was when Raincaster became aware of her and stopped, his dark blush visible even in the twilight.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she apologized. “That was beautiful.”
“Ah,” he murmured, looking down at the sand. “Thank you.”
“I have heard your people sing to their mounts before, but never with such silvery throats.”
“You flatter me,” Raincaster demurred.
Hezhi lifted her hand in farewell. “I will leave you,” she said.
“No—please, I was finished.”
“I just heard you singing and wondered who it was, that’s all.”
Raincaster nodded again, and Hezhi hesitantly took that as an invitation to stay for a moment.
“I still do not fully understand the bond between you and your mounts,” she went on cautiously. “I love Dark; she is a wonderful horse, but I can’t say that I feel she is kin.”
“That’s because she isn’t,” Raincaster told her. “She can’t be.” She knew immediately he meant no offense but was only stating a simple fact. Still, she pursued it.
“Could you explain?”
He shrugged. “In the beginning the Horse Mother gave birth to two children, a horse and a man. Both were Mang, and neither of us ever forgets. Our lines have been separate, of course, but the kinship is always reckoned, always kept track of. We share our souls; in some lives we are born as horses and in others as Humans. But inside we are the same.” He looked at her curiously. “Do you not feel kinship with the goddess who dwells within you?”
Hezhi remembered the wild ride back from the mountain, the sensation of being joined to the mare. “Yes,” she admitted. “But I still do not think it is the same.”
“No,” Raincaster said, his voice very soft. “The old people say that when the perfect rider and mount are joined, they are not reborn amongst us. They go on to another place, where they become a single being. That must be more what you feel.” His voice had a wistful tone.
“Maybe,” Hezhi allowed. “We are as one at times, but mostly I do not notice her.”
“It is a rare gift, to be a gaan. You should be proud.”
“I am,” Hezhi assured him. “Have you never considered—” She paused. “You are such a fine singer. Are you not a gaan?”
Raincaster turned to his mount and began brushing at her coat. “There are two sorts of singers. There are two sorts of songs. I do not have the sort of mansion that gods can live in.” He could not hide the disappointment in his tone.
“Oh.” She searched for something else to say. “You have the gift to make beauty,” she offered finally.
“It is a small gift,” he replied, still not facing her.
“No, it isn’t. I may have power—I may be a gaan—but it seems that all I ever do is destroy, never create. I could never sing so wonderfully as you.” And then she did stop, for she had embarrassed herself.
Raincaster turned toward her then, and a faint smile graced his handsome face. “Songs need not reach the ear to be heard and understood. Such music is not made, it simply is.” Then he turned back to Hard Wind, his horse. Hezhi waited another moment, then turned quietly to leave.
“But thank you for your praise,” Raincaster called after her. “It is important to me, though it shames me to show it.”
The night was growing colder, so Hezhi made her way back to the fire, though her heart felt warmer already. Finally, she seemed to have said the right thing to someone.
Three days later, Perkar found Tsem’s war club when they stopped to hunt. It was nearly perfect without finishing, a natural cudgel of black gum that rose almost to Perkar’s waist when stood on end. That night, around the fire, he showed the half Giant how to shape wood by charring it in the fire and scraping off the burnt part.
“It hardens the wood, as well,” Ngangata put in, watching over their shoulders. He had just returned from hunting, and instead of a piece of wood, he had returned with an antelope. Tsem nodded at them both. It was just dark, and the wolves Perkar had warned of were singing in the distance, accompanied by the occasional skirl of a tiger owl. The sky was cloudless, the air crisp enough that the fire felt good. A pattering of twin drums a hundred steps or so from camp were Brother Horse and Hezhi, teacher and pupil at their arcane studies. Perkar gathered that Hezhi was making rapid progress in her study of the world of gods—not surprising, since the blood of the most powerful god on earth flowed in her veins.
Tsem scraped enthusiastically at his club. He was clumsy, but the wood and the method of working it were forgiving. A simple but deadly weapon was taking shape in his hands.
“I remember my first sword,” Perkar told them. He felt quiet tonight. Not happy, but not crushed by the weight of the world, either. For once, he felt no older than his age. “Oh, I crowed about it. It was such a beautiful thing.”
“What became of it?” Tsem inquired.
“I… traded it for Harka.” He didn’t mention that the blade his father gave him, the blade made by the little Steel God Ko, now lay near the corpse of the first person he was responsible for killing. But at least his father’s blade had never itself been sullied by murder.
Perkar looked up in time to catch the warning glance Ngangata shot Tsem. Ngangata, trying to protect him again. Did they all think him so fragile?
Why shouldn’t they? His tantrums and sulking had given them ample cause to think so. He resolved to be stronger, take a more forceful role in the journey. After all, it was him the Crow God entrusted with the knowledge of what should be done.
“How much longer, Ngangata? Until we reach the mountain?”
Ngangata considered that. “If we keep this pace, don’t lose any horses, and all else goes well—two more months.”
“Two months?” Tsem asked incredulously, looking up from his work. “Won’t we walk off the edge of the world?”
Perkar and Ngangata grinned at that. “No. We could ride another ninety days beyond the mountain and still not find the end of the world.”
“What would we find?”
“I don’t know. Ngangata?”
“Balat, for many of those days. Balat is a very large forest indeed. Beyond that—Mor, the sweet-water sea. Mountains, forest, plains—finally, I hear, the great ocean. Beyond that, perhaps, the edge of the world, I don’t know.”
“How far have you been that way? I never asked.” Perkar drew his knife and began helping Ngangata dress his kill. The hard knot of anger in the half Alwa seemed to have smoothed somewhat. He seemed willing to speak casually to Perkar again, which had not been the case since his “raid” on the Mang camp.
“I’ve been to Mor, no farther.”
“I should like to see that someday,” Perkar said.
Ngangata didn’t look up from his task; his hands were bloody to the wrist as his knife worked efficiently at the carcass. “I would like to see Mor again,” he agreed, and Perkar smiled as the strain between them loosened further.
“Such a large world.” Tsem sighed.
“Yes, but two months gives us plenty of time to teach you how to be a warrior in it.”
“Two months until what?” Tsem asked suspiciously.
Perkar stopped what he was doing, raised his eyes to meet those of the Giant. “I… well, until we reach the mountain.”
“And we will have to fight there?”
Perkar spread his hands. “I honestly don’t know. But probably.”
“Why?”
Perkar felt a bit of his old confidence return, so that his words seemed only
somewhat ridiculous rather than absolutely absurd.
“Well, Tsem, we’re going to kill a god, and they rarely take that lightly.”
Tsem’s enormous jaw worked furiously for a moment before he suddenly threw down the club and gazed fiercely at them. “Why haven’t I heard about this? What are you talking about? I thought we were trying to reach your people, Perkar, that we might live with them. I have heard nothing of slaying gods.”
Perkar realized his mistake, realized also that he needed badly to speak with Hezhi. Since his illness, he had been so occupied with his own fears and desires he had completely lost touch with the status of the group. Perhaps plans had even changed since he and Hezhi last talked; she was more firmly in charge than he was, more aware in some ways of what was going on. Perhaps the plans should change. Trusting Karak was a perilous thing, and though he had been convinced, at first, that what the Raven had laid out for them was possible, he was now skeptical again. Furthermore, what he had told no one—not even Ngangata—was that Hezhi was the essential ingredient in the scheme. At the headwaters of the Changeling, she—and only she—could slay the god: that was all he knew. But Karak had made it seem a simple thing, easily accomplished. All they had to do was get there.
That still wouldn’t be easy. The high plateau and mountains were dangerous, prowled by Mang and even more dangerous predators. And ahead of them was the war, where his own people fought and died against those of Brother Horse. How would the old man and his nephews react when they reached that point?
And Hezhi was willful. She might not agree to help, once he explained. But the longer he put off his explanation, the angrier she would be that he had kept it from her.
And there was Tsem, glaring at him, the consequence of his talking without thinking, of another stupid blunder.
“We haven’t talked this over yet, Tsem. Hezhi and I haven’t really discussed it, so as far as she knows, what she told you is true.”