“They seek his headwaters,” Ghe said. “Why not simply let them reach them?”
“No, they must not go to his source. That they must not be allowed to do at any cost. And they will not. Fifty of my swiftest warriors went ahead, weeks ago, and I have but lately seen them with my eyes that travel. Should we fail here, they still stand between them and his source.”
“How did you know that was what they sought?” Ghe asked.
The gaan shook his head. “I did not. I gambled. I still could be wrong, but I don't think so, not anymore.”
“Then let us go,” Ghe said softly. “Hezhi awaits us.”
THE host in the forest regarded them but did not advance, and for fifty heartbeats, no words were spoken or moves made. Karak sat his horse impassively, and Perkar had no sense of what his reaction was. A wind sighed across the hill, and in the distance the calls of the Mang came closer with each moment.
Perkar drew Harka. He knew whose horde this was, having been once slain by it.
“Can you see the Huntress?” he asked the weapon.
“No. But that is her host. And yet I sense no danger from them. ”
“No danger?”
I do not believe they are hunting you. ”
“Who then, the Mang?”
“ Wait, ” Harka said, and then, “there. ”
Perkar let his eyes be drawn, and then he saw her, emerging from the massed might of her Hunt. When last he saw the Huntress, she had been in the aspect of a black-furred Alwa woman with antlers and the teeth of a cat. She had ridden a lioness, which he had managed to slay before she speared him.
Her aspect had changed, but there was no mistaking her. The Goddess of the Stream had once explained to him that the gods took their appearance from contact with Human Beings, especially from their blood. The Huntress, Perkar knew, had tasted much blood, Human, Alwa, and otherwise. Her present guise was Human, more or less, a pale, lithe woman with thick black hair in a single braid that fell to the backs of her knees. Her eyes were slivers of deep brown with no whites, which gave her the appearance of a statue rather than a living creature. She was naked, and in her hand bore the same spear that had once pierced his throat. As before, antlers grew from her proudly held head, these backswept like those of a fallow deer.
“Well, what a pretty host,” she sighed, and it was the same voice, the same cruel set of the mouth that Perkar remembered. She gazed on him and her smile broadened. “Few there are who escape me,” she told him. “You will not do so again, if I hunt you. I know Harka now, recall his virtue. Remember that, little one.” She walked farther from her beasts and wolf-warriors, her eyes straying to Karak and a silver laugh coming up from her throat. But she said nothing to him, instead advancing toward where Hezhi sat behind Yuu'han, watching her dully.
“Well, child, are you ready? The final race is at hand now.”
“They killed Ghan,” Hezhi said, and even as she spoke, Perkar could hear her voice awaking, transforming from shocked to fierce. “They killed my teacher.”
Tsem dismounted and interposed himself between the Huntress and Hezhi, but the goddess merely stood there, nodding at Hezhi's answer.
“There will be no final moment,” Karak said, agitated, “if we are not on our way.”
“As you say, Lord—Sheldu, is it? As you say.”
“I did not expect you,” Karak went on.
“I'm hurt,” she replied. “Hurt to think you would not invite me to such a hunt as this.”
Karak did not reply. What was going on? What sort of games were these gods playing at? But then the goddess was approaching him again, and his skin prickled, remembering the languid glee with which she had once slaughtered him.
“Well, sweet boy,” she asked, when he was close enough to see that she bore fangs like a cat and that her tongue was black, “will you ride with me or not?”
“Ride with you?”
“Against them,” she said, indicating the sounds of the Mang approaching behind them. “Someone must stop them, or your friends will never reach the source of the Changeling. But I will need help, I think—and I seem to remember your love for the hue and cry of the charge.”
“I have never cared for it,” he muttered back.
“You rode against me once, and you killed my mount, whom I loved. Now I give you a chance to ride with the Hunt. Few mortal men are accorded that pleasure—fewer still have ridden on both ends of the spear.”
Perkar gazed around at his companions. Ngangata's eyes clearly warned him no, but Karak was nodding urgently. Hezhi—he saw many things in her eyes, but was sure of none of them.
“Very well,” he said. “Yes, very well. If you promise me the Tiskawa.”
“You will find him no easy foe,” the Huntress replied. “But as you wish.”
“Wait, then, just a moment,” Perkar said. He urged T'esh over to Hezhi and gazed levelly into her eyes. She met his regard fully, and he saw that she was indeed past her shock, eyes clear and intelligent.
“If I don't see you again,” he said, “I'm sorry.”
“Don't go,” she said faintly. “Stay with me.”
He shook his head. “I can't. I have to do this. But, Hezhi—” He sidled T'esh closer and leaned in until his lips were nearly on her ear. “Watch Sheldu,” he breathed. “He is Karak, under a glamour. He knows what must be done to destroy the Changeling—but don't trust him. And be careful.” And then he lightly kissed her cheek and rode to join the Huntress.
“Come,” Karak grated, and the company started off as the host of the Huntress began to move, parting around them, opening their ranks so that the Raven and those who followed him could pass through. Only Ngangata remained with Perkar.
“You have to go with them,” Perkar said. “You are the only one I can trust to watch after Hezhi. Only you know enough about gods and Balat to guess what must be done.”
“That may be,” Ngangata said, “but I don't want you to die alone.”
“I have no intention of dying,” Perkar replied. “I've outgrown that. And I ride with the Huntress! What can stop us?”
“Then you will not mind me joining you,” Ngangata persisted.
Perkar laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. “I want you with me,” he admitted. ”I've never told you this, because I'm ashamed of the way I treated you at first. But there is no one I would rather have at my side than you, no friend or brother I could value more. But what I said was true. I fear for Hezhi, and I need you there, with her. Believe it or not, I somehow feel you will be in more danger there than here. I'm sorry. But I'm begging you to go with Hezhi.”
Ngangata's normally placid face twisted in frustration, and Perkar thought that the halfling was going to shout at him again, as he had done back on the plains. But instead he reached his hand out.
Perkar gripped it in his own. “Piraku with you, below you, about you,” he told his strange, pale friend.
Ngangata smiled thinly. “You know my kind accumulate no Piraku,” he replied.
“Then no one does,” Perkar said. “No one.”
The Huntress—far ahead now—sounded her horn, and Perkar released his grip on Ngangata's hand and turned T'esh to ride with the host.
“And afterward, you must take me to see the lands beyond Balat!” he shouted back. Ngangata raised his hand in salute, but he only nodded, and then he, too, turned and rode to join Hezhi and the rest.
Perkar urged T'esh to a gallop. Wolves paced him, great black beasts the size of horses, as did fierce packs of rutkirul, bear gods wearing the shapes of feral men. A few moments at full gallop brought him beside the Huntress, who was now mounted upon a dagger-toothed panther. She nodded imperiously and then grinned a fierce, delighted grin. Despite himself—despite all of his doubts and fears—Perkar felt a bit of her joy, and the boy in him—the boy he had thought to be dead—that boy wondered what songs might be sung of this, of riding with the Goddess of the Hunt.