Blackdog by K. V. Johansen Page B

ask more than that.”
    She needs more than that.
    “Sayan help me, no!” Holla said, and his voice was rough and ragged. “No. She's not my goddess. This isn't my place. I'll take her away for you, find a safe place for her until she's capable of driving that wizard out. Nothing more. Not that. You find one of her own folk for your cursed magic.”
    None stopped to help her , the Blackdog said. They're not fit to carry the Blackdog's spirit.
    “There were plenty dying for her, in the town.”
    Dying for the town, I think, save the sisters. Besides, they're dead, or trapped. And they'd know less than I do of life beyond the mountains. ‘Lissa needs you, Holla-Sayan of the Sayanbarkash. She can't hide in the mountains.
    “No.”
    But you'll take her away?
    “I'd do that anyway, damn you, if there were no one else to take her in. Sayan knows I couldn't leave a lone child here to die.”
    I'm dying. Nothing the dog can do can keep life in me any longer. The Blackdog must have a host.
    “Then it can find one elsewhere, and hide and wait until she comes back. I'll keep her safe, and send her back when she's ready.” Holla-Sayan put a hand on the dog's head again, made himself meet those unnerving eyes. “I'm sorry…Otokas? Otokas. I can't do anything more than that.”
    Go with him, ‘Lissa , the dog said. He's a good man. He'll look after you.
    The girl gulped a wordless sob.
    Be brave, love.
    Holla heaved the girl up to the dun stallion's back, surprised at how light she was. His hands were shaking. A caravan was no place for a child, but they were at least heading into the easier half of the route, from Serakallash up to At-Landi, leaving the true deserts behind. He might be able to find someone travelling across the white-water river, the Kinsai-av, who would deliver her to his family in the Sayanbarkash. Might talk the caravan-mistress Gaguush into letting him go himself. His mother had always wanted a daughter, and so far his brothers had given her only grandsons. She'd be overjoyed to take in this waif.
    I'm sorry, Holla-Sayan. The Blackdog…not my will…does what it must. You'll understand.
    As he turned back to it, the great dog rose into black fog, swift as an exhaled breath, and settled on him, tearing through his skin, his eyes, roaring like blood in the ears, burning like water in the lungs, fire in the heart. He screamed, fell, bit his tongue, choking on blood and bile. In mindless flailing he found a man's hand and seized it, clung, until he could breathe again, dragging at air through clenched teeth.
    He did understand, Sayan help him, in the space of a heartbeat: a night's memories of horror and death. The man's love for the girl, the Blackdog's devotion to the goddess. The panic both felt at the goddess's uncomprehending certainty that Tamghat intended to devour her.
    “It's all right, it's all right,” a man was muttering. “It'll be all right, I'm sorry. You won't go mad. It won't kill you. You accept the dog. You must.”
    He could breathe, could see…shapes, blurred, the world turned sideways in growing light, a face. Could…smell, dizzyingly, water and weed and stone, blood and fire, and the dun stallion's frozen, sweating fear. Could hear waves, loud on stones, the girl's quick breath and the bubbling rasp of a man's, hear his own heart, the clatter as the horse backed a step, blowing through its nose.
    Could feel the goddess, a warmth like the egg beneath a hen's breast, sun on the skin, but within his own heart. This was what it was like to carry a child, was the confused shape of his thought: women knew this.
    The rough hand he gripped, cold, tightened on his own, then loosened to let him push himself up. Holla rubbed his face clean, frowning at the slurry of blood and dirt on the back of his hand.
    Broken spear in the man's chest, the overlapping bronze squares twisted, torn. Otokas. He was soaking wet, black and slick with slow-oozing blood. He tried to push himself upright, crumpled,