As Harka struck the bird, violent numbness raced up Perkar's arm, an agonizing tingling that chattered his teeth and jerked his heart weirdly in his breast. He caught a sharp whiff of decay and something burnt as the demon bird shrilled and clacked its cruel beak; Harka had severed one of its immortal strands. It climbed into the air and circled once; Perkar braced to meet the dive, only dimly cognizant of the blood oozing from his scalp.

It did not dive. Instead, it lifted a wing as if to salute the east and flew off toward the approaching storm.

Something in the storm, too, Harka told him. Perkar ignored the sword, scrambling for T'esh. Moss and his captive were already dwindling figures. Raincaster was down, Yuu'han at his side, and Brother Horse was still watching everything with mouth wide open. Ngangata had stayed to shoot at the demon bird, but as Perkar bounded onto T'esh, the halfling was already dug into his saddle, his mount at full gallop.

What did Moss think he was doing? Weighed down like that—fighting Hezhi—he could see her kicking and squirming furiously, even at this distance—how could he hope to outdistance them for long?

Perkar realized that was the least important question. A much more pertinent one was how Moss had managed to free his bonds without anyone noticing. Even more pressing was the matter of the demon bird and its origins. Had it been sent to aid Moss, or had he merely noticed it about to attack and snatched his opportunity? If Moss had one supernatural ally, did he have more?

It was obvious that Moss hoped to reach the approaching cloud of obscuring dust, use it to confuse them, and thus escape; but Ngangata was closing the gap at such a rate that it was clear Moss would be caught before entering his hoped-for refuge, though only by moments.

But Harka was buzzing in his ear, frantically trying to tell him something.

“What?” he snarled, over the rush of wind on his face.

“Look. Just look, will you? ”

And then he saw, and wished he had not. Behind the dust storm indeed followed rain, boiling black clouds torn by lightning skating over the rims of the mountains. But while it might be the windy edge of the tempest that was swirling the black dust about in the air, it was hooves kicking it up. The wonder was that he only now felt the earth tremoring up through T'esh, thunder burrowing underground.

Ahead, Ngangata waved his hand and pointed; he, too, had seen. It was a wall, not of air and dust, but of wild cattle, charging almost shoulder to shoulder. They ran in bleak, eerie silence. Though the ground trembled, there was no bellowing, no chill cries of calves going down, overrun. Perkar redoubled his speed; surely Moss did not intend to fly into the face of that monstrous herd? If so, his hope must be to kill Hezhi, even if it meant his own life. The shape of the lead bull emerged as Perkar raced toward the herd, and he suddenly beheld the spectacle with a new, razor-edged lucidity. In his chest, comprehension rapidly gave birth to a nest of stinging worms that immediately attacked his heart.

The gargantuan shoulders of the bull bunched and pulled a tall man's height from his hooves. He was black, blacker than charcoal, but for his eyes, which were hollows of yellow fire. His black horns were bent earthward, and if the bull were to stumble, the twin furrows he dug would be more than a horse length apart. There was no flesh on his skull.

“Harka, what is that? What is it?“ T'esh fought to turn aside, and though his mount did not outright refuse to continue forward, Perkar knew that soon even this Mang-bred stallion would balk at racing into the horns of that.

“A god. It is certainly a god. ”

“Do you know him, recognize him?”

“Something familiar' not one of the Mountain Gods, like Karak …”

“What can we do?”

“Ride the other way. Quickly. ”

“Moss is trying to kill her. He's riding straight into them.” He realized that they might catch Moss in time, but never with enough leisure to escape the hooved death bearing down upon them. All four of them were going to die.

The squirming panic had gnawed deeply into his heart by now; how could Moss do this? And then T'esh suddenly took his own nose, turned sidewise to the beasts. Perkar realized that he had slackened his control without even thinking, as if hoping his horse would balk. Grimly he cinched up on the reins. Ngangata hadn't slowed in the least.

His resolve wasn't firm enough, and T'esh knew it. The stallion made a frantic attempt to wheel about at full gallop as Perkar hauled with all of his might on the reins. The result was a sickening lurch as the steed lost his footing, and then both of them slammed to earth. T'esh rolled over him, and Perkar felt his leg twist oddly. The horse was heavy.

Somehow he kept hold of the reins and, though his blood hammered so violently in his temples that he feared his skull would burst, he struggled to remount while T'esh reared, his eyes rolling with madness. Across the plain, tiny figures were limned against the unearthly stampede, and though he knew he should be fighting T'esh back into control, he watched them helplessly instead. Ngangata stood in his saddle, bow in hand. Moss was crouched low in his, avoiding the halfling's shafts. Hezhi—where was Hezhi?

He saw her then, a tiny, colorful creature in her red-and-black skirt and yellow blouse. Her black hair streamed with the wind running before the lead bull as she stood to face him. Grimly Perkar doubled his fists into T'esh's reins and yanked down on them.

“Hey!” he shrieked. “Stop it. Stop it!” The stallion quit rearing, but his eyes were still frantic. Perkar took the horse's head into the crook of his arm. “Come on, boy,” he whispered. “Never forget that you are Mang! Don't forget that. Your ancestors are watching.”

T'esh was still trembling when Perkar remounted. “Come on,” he said, and then shouted, the closest approximation of a Mang war cry he could produce. The stallion spurted forward then, and when Perkar shrieked again, he put his heart into the charge, though it took him to the horns of the bull. A Mang horse, Perkar knew in his heart, would never balk if its rider was brave.

He still was not brave, but his old fatalism had seized him; his path was set, and to his knowledge there was only one way to go. Without Hezhi, all of his trails came to an end. Without Ngangata…

But it was far, far too late. Cowardice had already betrayed hope. His only ambition now was to reach them in time to die with them.

HEZHI looked up dully at the approaching mass of beasts. Her sight already told her that they were not what they seemed; stripped of the god who animated them, they were nothing more than bones. That meant nothing to her; bones could crush her as easily as real flesh and blood. She was still stunned from her fall. Moss had never had a secure hold on her, and despite his superior strength, he had also had to concentrate to keep his balking horse pointed into the stampede. The two goals had proven incompatible when Hezhi managed to swing her legs around and kick him in the face. Now she realized that she had been fortunate not to break her neck or shatter her skull in the fall.

Moss wheeled, a look of terrible distress on his face, but two arrow shafts whizzed by him, and he grimly turned instead into the skeletal cattle.

What could she do? Running was pointless. Ngangata would reach her too late, and Perkar was farther back still. If she crouched, might they run around her?

It was amazing how calm she felt. It was as if the coolness of the otherworld, the lake, had come over her. But she did not have her drum, and so that was impossible.

She frowned. Perhaps when the otherworld was manifest, already in front of her, she did not need a drum. She had a few instants to find out. Searching herself, she found no fear, but there was certainly waking anger, and there was her mare.