Sunrise Lands

Chapter Seventeen

Northern Nevada

June 1, CY23/2021 A.D.

"Yes," the scout commander of the detachment of the Sword of the Prophet said, sketching in the wet sand beside the pool. "The misbe lievers and their general are heading south and east, towards Goose Valley-you see, here, north of Wild horse Lake-they may push on into the hills south of the flats, to trace the old irrigation canal and repair it. The western pagans are keeping on eastward with the Mormon infidels; they should meet Thurston's force, or come very close."

The one-eyed man smiled, looking east and west over the encampment at the bottom of the canyon. There wasn't much to see; the horse lines were scattered up and down the rocky cleft wherever there was water within digging range, usually in clumps of cottonwood and willow. The men were even less conspicuous in the shadow cast by the narrow rock walls; a soft murmur of chanting came as some repeated the teachings in chorus, and the sound of oiled stone on steel as others touched up the edges of shete and lance and arrowhead. There was no smell of woodsmoke as there would have been with ordinary levies, no matter what the orders were; only rock and dust and the peppery-spicy scent of crushed sage and greasewood.

The commander of the detachment nodded eagerly at the scout's report; he was a youngish man, well short of thirty, shaven-headed and scar-faced.

"See how the Ascended Masters guide the lifestreams!" he said. "Your mission and mine, High Seeker, are now fully compatible."

Kuttner suppressed an impulse to grind his teeth. His authorization from the Prophet's son overrode ordinary military commands, or it should. There were times when he wished very much that the Prophet would establish clearer lines of authority below his own level, instead of letting disputes fester until they had to be referred to him… or to the Son.

And the Prophet speaks so seldom now, and so… oddly…

He shook his head. The Son has given you a mission. Let's get on with it. And when the Prophet discards his mortal envelope to rejoin the Masters, things will change.

Kuttner looked up again, and a man on the rim of the canyon waved down, stooping behind a boulder to be invisible from the outside.

Ritva Havel and her sister lay behind a ridge of rock. Their war cloaks covered and concealed them; perhaps not as thoroughly as elven ones woven in Lothlorien, but enough to make them effectively invisible beyond a few yards if they didn't move. The thin tough cloth with its loops full of grass and twigs and the gauze masks also provided welcome shade on what was turning into a hot day. In the high desert anything that broke the sun made a big difference.

There had been fresh horse dung down on the road that ran below and a mile west of this ridge. Someone had come by, even in this emptiness. Chances were they would again. Shod hooves, to boot. Which meant civi lized men, or at least the more capable and therefore dangerous type of savages.

The stretch of river valley ahead of her-the maps called it Goose Valley-ran from southeast to northwest, with an old graveled road down its center. It had been cultivated once; you could still see the outline of the square fields, and new marshes where the irriga tion canal had burst its banks, and a few small clumps of burnt out houses. She didn't know why whoever had lived here had left, but even this far into the interior things could have been very bad right after the Change. The thought was dispassionate; she'd grown up in a world where ruins were simply part of the backdrop of life. The death of the world that had built them was only a little more real to her than the Fall of Gondolin.

Insects buzzed and occasionally burrowed in and bit; conquering ants bore a beetle off in triumph across the ground in front of her face from right to left. Dry sage gave off its spice and-sneeze scent, to mingle with sweat she could feel trickling down her neck and flanks, and the smell of the dusty earth and pebbles beneath her. With the sun overhead there wasn't much danger of her binoculars giving them away either… though since there apparently wasn't anyone to see them, that was a bit moot. Still, they kept motionless as the sun crept up the sky behind them and then down westward ahead.

Think rock. Think root. Let the wind flow through you.

A maddening itch on the instep of her right foot came and went. A long eared desert hare hopped by, stopped for a moment to stand upright and wrinkle its nose at the dry air, then went on its way. A few minutes later a coy ote came trotting along its trail, then caught their scent when the wind changed. It shied violently sideways with a little spurt of dust before turning and loping away.

Ritva smiled to herself, a bit from the expression of bug eyed alarm on the beast's face and a bit smugly as well. When you could fool a song dog into coming within arm's reach, you were hiding, by Manwe and Varda!

That was how Aunt Astrid and the others insisted on training Rangers, and they were quite right, though some outsiders thought the Dunedain were too sneaky and patient to be real warriors.

Very faintly, she snorted and thought: Canuidhol lin. Rangers just didn't go in for the two masses of farmboys in-steel shirts-with-pikes style of head butting. She was sure the Fair Folk had never been quite that stupid; they'd had to contend with a much higher grade of Dark Lord than you found nowadays.

Though this Prophet guy seems to show some promise.

Antelope ran across the deserted fields; birds rose from the marshes and the dead trees. Then…

"Mmm-hmmm!" Mary said.

"Lots," Ritva replied; speaking quietly rather than whispering-whispers carried farther because of the sibilants.

There was dust coming from the north; individual trails, and behind it a plume-several dozen wagons or fifty or sixty horsemen, she estimated. And eagles and hawks, hanging in the air above them; they always did that out here when humans were on the move, hop ing for birds and small animals spooked into the open. One plunged as she watched, coming up with something wriggling in its claws.

And let that be a lesson to you, she thought. That's what comes of breaking cover 'cause you're nervous.

The trails of dust turned into horsemen. Ritva turned the binoculars with extreme care; the sun was getting lower and nothing gave you away at a distance like a glint. They looked like anyone's light horse-except that everything they wore was exactly the same; same short chain-mail shirt, same stirrup hilted saber, same model of saddle, same five pointed star tooled into the leather of the bow cases in front of their right knees.

About a dozen of them, Ritva thought. No, twenty.

They were obviously scouting the line of march; they poked into every clump of trees, over to the riverbed to the westward, and every ravine in these hills within range of the road.

Of course, to be really sure they should push foot pa trols up into these mountains. The ones behind her were a tangled dome two thousand feet higher than the valley floor. But if they did that, it would take weeks.

After a while more khaki-colored dust showed to the north, and a little after that an iron tramp-tramp — tramp of booted feet and the trrrripp-trrripp-trrripp of a marching drum and the squeal of a fife.

Ah, not fifty or sixty horsemen after all. Five times that number of men, but on foot, and some wagons. Lots of tools on the wagons, picks and shovels and wheelbarrows… bet those are sacks of cement, too.

At the head went the banner, a golden spread-winged eagle on a tall pole clutching arrows in one claw and an olive-wreath in the other, with the old American flag beneath, carried by a standard-bearer with a wolfskin cloak whose head topped his helmet; he was flanked by drum and fife. The men behind were in armor of steel hoops and bands, and they carried big oval shields and six foot javelins; the points of the throwing spears moved like the ripple of wind on reeds to the earthquake tramp of their marching.

Yeah, Boise, Ritva thought.

She'd never been to the city, but she'd been on their territory, and there was a lot in the Mithrilwood files. A good well-stocked filing system was one of the marks of those reckoned mighty among the wise.

As the soldiers halted and began digging in their marching camp-six-foot earthwork, ditch and pali sade-the sisters began to work their way backward. They were too far away to be seen easily, but even so they moved with exquisite care. Now that the Boise troops weren't moving, they might take the time to check the hills, or at least all the points that conveniently overlooked their camp. You never knew…

A pebble turned beneath a hoof, and Mary hissed. Both young women froze. Icewater ran from Ritva's lungs to her bladder, and her body tried to twitch in reflex fear before she stilled it. Slowly, slowly Ritva turned her head within the loose hood of the war cloak.

Two men had ridden up the dry creekbed behind them and a little south. They were in thick clothes of the type you usually wore under armor; the cloth was mottled with gray and olive green as well as dark rus set, so it took a moment to realize that it was a uniform. They wore hoods over their heads as well, baglike ones with only a slit for the eyes. In fact…

Pretty much like the ones in Sutterdown last year. Uh-oh. Cutters. The Prophet's men.

The men swung down from their mounts and dropped the reins to the ground-which meant very well trained horses. They were lightly equipped: daggers, point-heavy slashing swords worn over their backs so they wouldn't rattle, quivers, horseman's bows-about what the twins were carrying. And presumably they were on the same mission as she and Mary, which was a bit of a giggle when you thought about it.

Ritva made her breathing long and steady and slow, and felt the flutters in her stomach go away. Fear worked both ways-if you suppressed the physical symptoms, it calmed your mind. Dealing with people who wanted to kill you was never really a giggling matter, particularly if they had any chance of actually doing it. Rudi and Odard had boasted about the fight in Brannigan's inn, in a classy modest way. But then they were males, and therefore idiots about some things.

She glanced over at Mary, and caught the almost imperceptible single shake of the head. No. Her own nod was as quiet. Not worth the risk.

The two Cutters came up the slope towards the crest line, the last dozen yards on their bellies, moving slow and steady. When their heads rose above the peak of the ridge it was with glacial slowness; one brought a mon ocular to his eye, shading it with a hand to make sure it didn't flash in the setting sun. He spoke softly; his com rade dropped back until he was out of the line of sight, brought out a pad and began writing and sketching. They kept it up for a little while, and then the one with the monocular dropped down too, looked at the paper, and nodded.

Then they just waited. Perforce the twins did too; Ritva felt something crawling up her pant leg, and moved her hand down very slowly under the war cloak to kill it. Mary didn't move, but Ritva could feel her disapproval.

Well, it wasn't your sensitive bits it was going to sting, she thought. It had too many legs. They have centipedes around here! And scorpions, I think!

The sun faded westward and the wind blew colder, colder than the warm rock beneath her. The white and gray of the sagebrush desert turned colorful for an in stant, red and umber and sienna, and the mountains to the north and east blushed a pink that faded and changed tone instant by instant.

Then the light went that clear gray color you got in dry country just as the sun was dropping below the horizon-the hour between the dog and the wolf-and then it was dark. Stars frosted the sky as the last purple died from the sky westward, fading into being one by one.

Farewell, Father Sun. Mother-of All, I greet the stars that are the dust of Your feet, and… ah… Help!

Something howled far away; hard to tell, but she thought it was a lobo rather than a coyote. The two Cor winite scouts were simply darker spots. It took all her concentration to see when they finally started to move. Only a clink or two and one very slight rattle of stone on stone marked their passage-if she hadn't known they were there, she would have missed it in the general night noise.

When they got to their horses one of the beasts snorted. The enemy scout made a shushing noise and spent a moment gentling it; she hoped it hadn't scented her horse or her sister's, and that the two wouldn't an swer in kind. They were well trained, but horses had their own purposes and tended to forget things. Then the beat of hooves on sand sounded as the enemy walked their mounts away down the arroyo.

Which didn't mean they were safe. The two Cutters could be fully aware of them and just off to set up an ambush. In fact…

There was enough light to speak Sign. Ritva pushed her hands through the slits in her war cloak.

Should we get ahead of them and…?

The gesture that followed was one the Dunedain had come up with, and involved shooting, slitting and bashing motions in one quick writhing of hand, fingers and wrist.

I don't think so. Let's trail them instead.

Carefully!

The Cutter scouts looked like they were keeping to the high ground east of the valley. And they apparently knew it; all the twins had was a map copied from a pre-Change National Geographic and what they'd seen on their way up northward-and they'd taken the road most of the way. Navigating through rough ground you knew well was difficult in the dark. Trying it when it was strange country was a guarantee of getting hopelessly lost-or blundering into the enemy's main force.

The only way we're going to trail these yrch is to get ahead of them, Mary said.

Ritva hesitated; that was risky. But it was important to know where the enemy had come from. She raised her head and whistled softly; a few moments later her Duelroch and Mary's Rochael came trotting up. They slid into the saddles and turned west, down into the river valley, over the road and into the abandoned fields. Those were tall with brush and weeds, and rows of trees beside long unused irrigation ditches, but the mounts were Arabs and agile as cats… thousand-pound cats with hooves, of course.

They signaled their mounts up to a slow canter, keep ing their eyes wide for threats to their legs-once they had to crow-hop over a big disk-harrow that had been sitting and rusting and growing a coating of vine and stalk since before they were born. A barn owl went by overhead, a flash of white in the darkness and a screech as it dove through the night to carry off something small and furry spooked into motion by the riders.

"That's enough," Ritva said softly, peering to see the black outline of the heights against the star-shot blackness of the sky.

Mary nodded; one of the advantages of being iden ticals was that they agreed on most things. This was far enough ahead that they could cut back into the hills eastward, given that they'd moved faster. At the edge of the broken ground they left their horses standing in a hollow with the reins looped up; that took really good training.

Hold, Ritva Signed.

It was the two Cutter scouts they'd seen. The twins stopped in the shadow of a stand of scrub pinyon pine, their war cloaks turning them into shadows within shad ows. The enemy were feeling more confident now, walk ing along leading their horses. The twins turned their heads slowly, slowly, keeping their eyes moving. Ritva still felt herself blink when four more stepped out from behind a steep fold of striped rock.

Uh oh, Ritva thought, clenching her teeth. We must be inside their screen.

Mary Signed: Might as well go forward as back. We need to get some hard information on this crew.

Which was true, but still unpleasant. They waited again, while the men they'd followed disappeared behind that tall fold. Their eyes found a course-from one boulder or patch of scrub to another, points that would screen them as much as possible from the lookouts they couldn't see but knew were there. Walk slowly, pause… then down on your belly and crawl like a snake…

And catch the damned war cloak on thorns. Careful, careful. Nothing caught the eye like a flutter.

As they moved they watched for the betraying movements and noises. Setting out a string of guards around your camp was all very well, but you had to check on them regularly-otherwise someone could sneak in, practice Sentry Removal and then get away again with out being detected. You had to make sure the sentries were just being quiet, not lying there cooling to the ambient temperature.

The officer who did the rounds was quiet enough, but they caught his motion-his helmet was glossy, not dull matte, and it showed in the moonlight. Ritva felt her own pulse and counted, drawing her breath in steadily and evenly as the sentries were checked.

He makes his rounds every fifteen minutes, she Signed. And the lookouts are there… there… there… and there.

Mary nodded agreement. Another ten minutes, and we'll go through below that boulder. Maybe we can get out past them that way later. In the meantime, let's go look at what all these sentries are guarding.

It was snake-crawling all the way now, imitating a clump of brush. From pool of darkness to darkness, halting five minutes for every one they moved. The wind was in their faces, what there was of it, so dogs wouldn't be able to scent them, if the Corwinites had any. At last they were in the darker blackness beneath the great rock. Ritva raised her head, fractional inch by fractional inch.

There.

A long narrow cleft in the rock, east-west mainly but with serpentine wriggles, stretching out of sight on her right, and probably opening up to the river on the west. Black cottonwood trees along the sandy bed of the ar royo, and an occasional thicker clump that was probably a spring; the moonlight turned everything to shades of gray and silver, but the thickness of leaves was still ap parent. And the low red dots of banked campfires scat tered down it, bright to their dark-adapted eyes. A slight smell of woodsmoke, too, and cooking, and the stamp and whicker of horses.

Let's see, Ritva thought. Eight men to a fire… that means somewhere around two hundred all up.

She got the binoculars out. The horse lines were well hidden, in along the sides of the canyon, but she could see men hauling buckets of water to them, and bags of cracked grain fodder.

Enough horses for every man and a fair number of remounts… that's a wagon, light two-wheeler. They're traveling without much baggage.

For most of an hour they lay on the lip of the gorge, carefully noting the details. The Cutter soldiers did the things soldiers usually did-sharpening blades, tend ing armor, sewing things and patching things and oiling things and putting new laces in things, eating stew or beans out of communal pots and flat wheat cakes cooked on griddles. They also seemed to do a lot of praying, in a manner which involved kneeling in ranks and making gestures in unison; presumably they were leaving out any chanting or singing.

Then…

A face sprang out at her in the binoculars for an in stant: a middle aged man, forty or more, not big, not small… but with a patch over his left eye, and a long white scar diagonally across it. Mary hissed very slightly beside her. Ritva memorized the face; part of her noted that the man certainly had luck, to have survived that. Someone had cut him across the face with a sword, and hard enough to nick the bone. He turned away and walked into the darkness; two other men followed him, with the indefinable air of someone listening to a superior.

One by one the fires were covered by earth and the men lay down, wrapped in blankets and pillowed on their saddles. They also set up their walking sentries, close in and by the picket lines where their horses were tethered, and relieved the outflung ones on the heights around.

Good, Mary Signed. There's one we missed, see?

Ritva nodded. And right on our way out.

That was the problem with making yourself invisible. If someone missed you, you could miss them. Particularly, you could miss them until they didn't miss you.

This was going to be awkward. Her hands moved again.

Can we get past them on the sneak?

I don't think so. Not going this way.

Ritva bared her teeth behind the gauze of her war cloak's mask. They weren't here to fight, and she didn't like to fight unless she had to anyway, and if they couldn't do it quick and quiet they were unpleasantly dead. Her eyes went along the path they'd have to take, past the big boulder, then over the ridge…

Yup, she Signed mournfully. Sentry Removal. No choice.

Dunedain training involved a lot of Sentry Removal, and they'd taken the Bearkiller version before they left Larsdalen for Mithrilwood.

It wasn't precisely like combat. Killing people was relatively easy-which went both ways, unfortunately-but doing it very suddenly with complete silence and nothing visible beyond a few feet was another matter. Human beings were surprisingly tough that way; just stabbing or hitting them rarely did the job fast enough and often involved a lot of shouting and screeching and clanging. It was even more difficult when they were wearing armor.

They turned and crawled, waited while the Cutter officer did his rounds of the sentries, then moved forward right afterwards to take advantage of the maximum time before he came back.

The Corwinite scouts were well placed, about ten yards apart and turned so each covered the other's back, each lying behind a convenient rock with a leg drawn up so that they presented a smaller target but could spring erect quickly. And each had his recurved bow ready with an arrow on the string.

Can't shoot them, Ritva thought.

An arrow made noise, not much but enough on a still quiet night like this, and it usually ended in a scream even if you hit something eventually fatal. Both the men were in three quarter armor, back-and-breast of overlapping plates of waxed leather edged with steel, leg guards like chaps, mail sleeves. That didn't make them invulnerable to bodkin-point arrows from an eighty-pound bow, but it did make a quick kill even less likely.

Certainly can't run up to them and fence. Two swords now, two hundred in a couple of minutes after the first sound of steel. And I don't like the way those two sit and wait-I'll bet by Elbereth Gilthoniel that they know which end of the sharp pointy edgy cutty thing to pick up. Wild Hunter, give me a hand here, will you?

Her hands moved in minimal gestures. Mary's war cloak moved slightly as she worked underneath it, but no more than the slow cool breeze might ripple a bush. Then she crawled away, with the same stop-and-start rhythm as before, while Ritva waited, filling her mind with the image of a leaf drifting downward. Calm…

They were close enough now to see the sentries turn their heads, and Mary stopped whenever their eyes started to swing around in her direction. If you timed it right that made you the next thing to invisible; when it was this dark, a good war cloak just couldn't be told from a natural lump of dirt and vegetation. Ritva's right hand went to her waist. Not to draw a blade; instead she slid out a weapon made of two lengths of ashwood, each two feet long, joined by a short length of fine alloy-steel chain.

With deer, the stop and-start tactic could let you get close enough to touch them, or slit their throats, as long as they didn't scent you. Human senses were less keen but they could make up for it with wits. A good lookout memorized all the bushes and outcrops near his post. When one turned up where it shouldn't…

Her sister was out beyond the two Cutter sentries now. One of them-the one farthest from Ritva's motionless position-stopped his steady back-and-forth scanning and turned his head with a sharp snapping motion. The first time as if he didn't quite know what he was looking for, the second in a whipping arc as he noticed something that shouldn't be there.

Mary came to her feet in a smooth twisting arc that spun her like a discus thrower. Her buckler was in her hand, gripped by the rim; she'd stripped the rubber gasket from around the rim a few moments ago and slipped the hand grip out of the hollow side.

That left her with a shallowly concave steel disk a foot across, very much like what the old-timers called a Fris bee, two pounds of it with a knife-sharp edge all 'round. It flew from her hand in a long smooth arc that bisected the Cutter's face below the brim of his helmet with an audible but not-too-loud crunch.

You could cut through a two-inch sapling that way, or chop a horse's leg out from under it. There were old practice stumps in Mithrilwood with a lot of crescent-shaped slots in their surfaces.

As the man dropped, limp as a puppet with cut strings, some very distant part of Ritva's mind knew she'd wince over that sound for a long time to come. The rest of her reacted automatically, hitting the quick release toggle of her war cloak and charging on soft-soled elf boots with a tigress precision that hardly rattled a rock. The other Cutter had whipped around to see his comrade die. He drew and shot with lightning speed; the arrow might even have hit Mary if she hadn't thrown herself flat again the instant the buckler left her hand.

He didn't waste any time when he saw or heard or felt or sensed Ritva coming up behind him, either; he dropped the bow and turned the reach for an arrow to a snatch at the long hilt of his shete. That brought his hand down across his body to his left hip, which was convenient.

Once you'd snuck up on a sentry, you had to do some thing with him. If he was stronger than you-which a man would be more often than not-it required something more than brute force to remove him. The weapon she carried gave her a five-foot reach; the quick flick of her right wrist and arm swung it in a blurring circle to wards his neck. The chain link struck flesh and the other handle swung around to go smack into her left palm. Her wrists crossed and wrenched apart with a savage economy of motion and all her shoulders and gut be hind the explosive power. The handles and chain multi plied it like a giant nutcracker… and back home they practiced this move by swatting flies out of the air on summer afternoons.

There was a crackling, popping, yielding sound like stiff wet things giving way-which was exactly what it was, and which echoed up her hands and arms in a way that made her bare her teeth in distaste. The man's eyes bulged for an instant, and then he col lapsed, not quite as limp as his companion but not doing more than kicking and gurgling a little before he went quiet.

Aunt Astrid called it "using leverage."

Ritva frowned as she crouched beside the corpse and its heels drummed on the hard earth one last time. There were times… there were times when she wondered if there was something wrong with Aunt Astrid.

She passed a hand over her eyes and over the dead Cutter's, and touched a finger to the earth and to her lips. To take life was to understand your own death-that the Hour of the Huntsman also came for you; the sign ac knowledged that, and that they would all lay their bones in the Mother's earth and be reborn through Her.

Of course, there's Uncle John, she thought, as she joined her sister in a quick silent dash downhill towards where they'd left the horses. He doesn't use leverage, much.

Little John Hordle's idea of Sentry Removal was to sneak up-he was astonishingly quiet for such a big man-grab the sentry's chin in one huge red-furred hand and the back of his head with the other and give a sharp twist so that the unfortunate was looking back between his own shoulder blades.

Aunt Astrid called that "crude, just crude."

Two days later Ritva hid behind a hillside rock a hun dred and fifteen miles farther south and west, struggling to control the impulse to shoot.

Why do they keep following us? she thought. It's not reasonable!

She could see six of the Cutters below them, trying to track the twins over an expanse of bare rock. It was ninety yards' distance, and she could kill at least a couple of them…

The problem was that then they'd know they were on the right track; also they'd start shooting too, of course. She and Mary had doubled back on their own trail to see if they were still being tailed, and here the irritating pursuers were.

Don't be angry, she thought. Anger is first cousin to fear. If you make decisions because you're scared, you'll fuck up.

Under her breath, a movement of lips rather than air, she recited one of Little John's training mantras to herself:

I must not lose my temper.

Temper temper temper is the bum killer.

Temper is the little mistake which leads to you lying

On the ground wondering Oi! What's with all this spreading pool of blood, then?

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past the other bugger

Will be the one bleeding.

Only I will remain, wiping off me knife.

Calm returned. One of the Cutters was on foot, quar tering back and forth over the gravel and sandstone, trying to find a place where hooves had scored it. He wouldn't have much luck; they'd led their horses over this bit, then come back barefoot and wiped out every sign of their passage that they could detect-even sweeping up a lump of horse dung.

The dart of her will beat on the men; she hoped they could feel it as she murmured a binding spell. At last one of them straightened up and looked around at the rocky hillsides. Then he threw his helmet down and kicked it, shouted an order at another Cutter, who went and fetched it; and then they turned back on their own trail.

She slumped behind the rock, breathing deeply, feeling her heart slowing down from its pounding roil.

I was not scared, she told herself. I was just… peeved.

The song seemed to soothe the little clump of horses, or at least make them less determined to browse among the thin scatter of green brush in the tumbled rocks at the base of the hill, where water collected beneath the dry gritty soil. Rudi waved his lariat and got them mov ing back towards the main herd, keeping an eye out for their wild kin-they'd had problems with mustang stallions trying to cut the mares out.

These interior lands had an eerie emptiness to someone who'd grown to manhood in the lush valleys west of the Cascades. Life of hardy types adapted to the dryness and the alternation of savage heat and deep cold throve here, but sparsely; little handfuls of burro, mustang, big horn sheep, feral cattle scattered across endless miles, wolves and cougar less common still, with even jackrab bits and coyotes not something you saw every minute. They'd seen nothing of humankind besides the ashes of an old campfire near water now and then. This country had been thinly peopled before the Change, and most of the survivors had moved elsewhere in the generation since. The few who remained were wandering hunters, solitaries or single families or tiny groups who shunned outsiders.

He grinned to himself as he took up the song again; one of the little feral mustang studs had tried to cut out Epona, and gotten kicked into next Tuesday for his trouble. The big black mare got along better with horses than with most human beings, but she wasn't one to permit liberties either way.

The horses were moving well back towards the main herd when he finished:

And she sang: Ride with your brindled hounds to heel

And your good gray hawk to hand;

There's none can harm the knight who's lain

With the Witch of the Westmoreland!

He broke off as the head of the Mormon party rode up; he'd noticed that some of the old songs made the bishop a bit uneasy, grateful though he was.

"Thank you again for helping us with the horses," Nystrup said as he reined in by Rudi's side. "That alone will mean a good deal to my people."

Neither of them talked about anything larger or more political, though Rudi knew the older man was nourish ing a desperate hope of aid from the free peoples of the far West. Rudi had advised him to send an embassy, and given a letter of introduction, but…

I wish I could go back to arrange it, he thought. But I can't. The Powers have given me a task. And Matti's recommendation… her mother is probably so angry she'd string the messenger up rather than promise them help, sure.

"A little honest work never hurt anyone," the Mac kenzie replied politely, wiping at his face with a bandanna as he rode. "And we're not there yet, to be sure."

The sun was strong but the air temperature only a lit tle on the warm side of comfortable-the part of northern Nevada they were passing through was six thousand feet up, and didn't get really hot until August. Even then it would be a crisp, clear dry heat.

Sparse grassland and silvery sagebrush rolled on every side, studded here and there with the darker green of dwarf juniper on a hillside. A golden eagle wheeled high overhead in majesty, across a pale blue sky that was clear from horizon to horizon. It was probably waiting for rabbits or other small game startled up by the horse herd. Insects buzzed and rattled, and a long-tailed spotted lizard stared at him with beady eyes for a second and then whipped off behind a sage.

A herd of pronghorns had been edging closer most of the morning to get a look at the horses and wagons-the little beasts were incorrigibly curious-but now they took fright and fled at better than sixty miles an hour, white rumps flashing, faster than anything on earth ex cept a cheetah. Occasionally one would bounce up out of the herd's dust cloud, rising as if it had landed on a trampoline.

Maybe they're just running and jumping because they like it, Rudi thought, watching them with pleasure. Well, I do occasionally myself, so why not them?

They'd acquired that speed when there were cheetahs in North America, fifteen thousand years ago; to them the returning grizzlies and wolves and the spreading tigers weren't anything they had to worry about except from ambush. But there were cheetahs again, rumor said, down on the southern plains, escaped from private hunting pre serves in the aftermath of the Change along with lions and a dozen other types of game. In time they'd work their way north, adjusting to the harsher winters as they went.

And when the cheetahs arrive here, the pronghorns will be ready. As Mom says, that sort of thing shows how thrifty the Powers are at getting us to work their will, will we or no.

Hills rose to the east and north, white stone scored by gullies and spattered with the wide-spaced green of ponderosa and pinyon pine on their higher slopes. There wasn't much motion right now, apart from the fleeing antelope with the Y-shaped nose horns, and a fat desert tortoise calmly burying its eggs a little to the north. Then a flicker of something showed in a ravine, and a click and rattle of stones followed, faint with distance. His eyes narrowed, and his hand began a motion towards the bow cased at his knee.

"Someone coming," he said to the Mormon.

"Where?" Nystrup said, startled.

"Up there… ah, it's my folk. My sisters, to be precise."

The twins came riding from the higher ground north eastward, their horses picking a way down the rocky slope. They were wearing war cloaks, which made them look like bushes on horseback with the tufts of greenish yellow grass and sprigs of sage and juniper stuck through the loops that studded the garments. That meant they'd been doing a sneak on foot somewhere to the eastward during their scouting mission.

And that they found something important.

They drew up and nodded at the bishop and Rudi; the rest of the party from the Willamette drifted over as well.

"There are people ahead of us," one of the two said, her face dusty and drawn and tired. "Two different bunches of 'em, both about a day's ride out northeast."

The other took up the tale: "One of them's mostly on foot, heading south along the old gravel road. Say three hundred on foot, fifty on horseback, and packhorses and mule-drawn wagons for baggage. Over to you, Ritva."

Ritva-or possibly Mary-continued: "The others came in from the east a couple of days ago and they've been waiting since-camping cold, small fires for cooking and doused immediately, not much smoke and no noise. Two hundred, all mounted, with a remuda herd and some light wagons. They're holed up in a canyon overlooking the trail heading south up this valley to that old lake…"

She pointed south. Bishop Nystrup nodded and supplied the name: "Wildhorse Reservoir."

"Right."

She pulled a map out of her saddlebag, and they all dismounted to look at it; the twin weighed the corners down with rocks, and drew her dagger to use as a pointer as they knelt around the square of waxed linen and held their horses' reins.

"They're holed up here except for their scouts. They've got good scouts. The other bunch aren't bad but these guys are good. We had to do some Sentry Removal — "

He could hear the Dunedain italics and capitals in the words.

"— and they nearly caught us. Hiding is harder out here."

Rudi's brows went up. "You're sure they didn't back-track you?"

"We holed up for a whole day watching our trail, Rudi. No, we lost them in some lava country; we saw them turn back. But it was a bit hairy, and they'll be on their toes even if they didn't make us."

"They will?"

"They're short a couple of sentries."

Mary-or possibly Ritva-broke in: "And then we found tracks, men and horses both, near here, just now. Three miles north of here, but that's close enough to spot our dust trail, with binoculars. Maybe two days old. Shod horses, so they're not locals. About six of them, I think.

We waited in ambush on their trail, but they must have come out east a different way. Almost certainly more Cutter scouts. So they've made the main party here."

"Describe the ones you saw."

"The ones on foot've got the old American flag in front and they look like soldiers-infantry with some mounted archers for a screen, and a four piece battery of field artillery. Boise regulars, we've seen them before. We Rangers escort caravans that far east now and then."

In the terminology that Boise used, the men they were talking about were part of the Army of the United States. Everyone else called General-President Thur ston's regime after its capital city; he preferred "USA." In fact, he insisted on it…

"The ones hiding up are pretty much like the Proph et's men from Ingolf's descriptions, composite leather and metal armor, sort of reddish brown stuff. Medium horse-bows and swords and light lances. Flying a flag of dark red with a golden-rayed sunburst."

Ingolf nodded. "Not just Cutter soldiers. The Sword of the Prophet, out of Corwin-his personal troops. Well trained, and they all really believe the horseshit the Church Universal and Triumphant peddles. Very bad news."

Rudi pursed his lips. "That's not a good sign, a unit of them all this way west of New Deseret," he said to the bishop, who looked as if he were sucking on a green persimmon.

"No," he said shortly. "But we're thinly spread out, most of our towns are on rivers or irrigation canals. If they came in from the south, or through one of the sparsely settled areas…"

He shrugged. "But why should it concern us, Mr. Mackenzie? The others are clearly Thurston's troops, and he's no friend to us. We should try to avoid both."

"Are you at war with Boise?"

"No… no. Not now. But we have had… clashes… in the past."

"Then you should get friendly with Boise," Ingolf said bluntly. "And they with you. Or the Prophet will pile your heads in a pyramid next to theirs."

"One thing at a time, Bishop Nystrup," Rudi said calmly, nodding.

The older man fell silent and Rudi looked at the map. Three lines converging on a spot…

"What's Thurston doing sending troops down here? I mean, I know he claims the whole continent, but it's a bit outside his usual stomping grounds."

Nystrup's daughter spoke up unexpectedly; she was some sort of aide or secretary to the bishop as well as his child, but usually rather quiet because it was an irregular thing, a wartime emergency measure and a sign of how hard pressed they were. Now she said, obviously consulting a mental file, "There's good water at Wild-horse Lake, and at least a thousand acres of pretty good land that could be brought under the furrow near it. And a lot of underused grazing. Enough land for a big village, maybe two medium-sized. He could be planting a colony. We considered putting one there, before the war started."

Ingolf cut in: "From what I heard while I was there, everyone in Boise has to serve in the army for three years when they turn nineteen, and then they get land or a workshop or something when they muster out, if they don't stand to inherit one. They tried hard to get me to enlist while I was passing through there-I ducked out by night-and they offered me land at the end of the hitch. It would have been tempting, if I hadn't had places to go."

A grin. "Haven't had that damned dream since I met you, Rudi. You don't know how good that makes me feel!"

Rudi nodded absently. The new farmers build his country's strength and they'd be loyal to Thurston, too, probably, he thought. Smart.

Aloud: "So that's why a column from Boise might be heading south."

"Not just a column," one of the twins said. "The flag-pole has a golden eagle on top."

"That's either Thurston himself, or a very high-ranking panjandrum of his," Ingolf agreed.

Rudi looked at Bishop Nystrup. The older man nodded. "Thurston is

… hands-on, they used to say."

Rudi nodded. "Now… if I had a couple of hundred of the Prophet's horsemen, what would I be doing here?"

Ingolf spoke. "Something important. They wouldn't be risking elite troops like this except for something major."

"It's not likely that two forces are this close by ac cident," Mathilda said thoughtfully. "And when one's hiding and the other's not, that's pretty obvious-the Prophet's men are here to attack the Boise force. Which is another argument that someone important is heading it up."

"The false Prophet is at war with us, but not with the United States of Boise. Yet," Nystrup said. "To at tack them would be reckless, even for the madman of Corwin."

"Who is a madman, eh?" Rudi pointed out. "And possibly possessed by something that's no friend to hu mankind. But certainly crazy at least, and given to doing crazy things."

"One more thing," one of the twins said. "We got a look at what we think is the Corwinite commander. He's a pretty ordinary looking guy."

She looked at Ingolf, her tilted blue eyes consider ing. "Except that he's wearing a patch over his left eye. Didn't you mention you got the one who was holding you prisoner that way?"

"Yeah," Ingolf said, his tough battered face flushed.

Interesting, Rudi thought. That's a killing rage, if ever I saw one. And Ingolf isn't a man governed by anger, usually.

After a long pause, the easterner went on: "Still, we should go south with these folks. No sense in running into the Prophet's men earlier than we have to, and we've got places to go."

Rudi shook his head. "But along the way, things to do. We go north, and we save this General Thurston by warning him, that we do."

Epona pawed the roadway, where a little gravel had survived the rare but violent summer thunderstorms of twenty two years. Rock rattled off her steel-shod hoof, and a puff of khaki dust went up around it as she stamped. Rudi crooned soothingly and ran a hand down the black arch of her neck, muscle like living metal under the gleaming coat. He thought he saw a twinkle of metal northward; that might be a Boise scout giving them a once-over. Well, they wanted to meet them…

"Think the Mormons will be OK, Chief?" Edain asked, looking back over his shoulder at the dust cloud fading towards the south.

Rudi shrugged. "They'll be better off than they would with two hundred Cutters hunting them," he said. Then he smiled. "Rebecca in particular, eh?"

The younger man flushed beet red under his tan. "She's a nice girl, Chief, but she was a bit busy and grief-struck for dalliance, nor I so stupid as to try it. And there's that religion-Horned Lord and Mother-of-All, it's strange!"

"All in the point of view," Rudi said tolerantly. "Many paths."

"Do you think they were after the Mormons, then, Chief?"

"Either them or General Thurston," Rudi said. "More probably Thurston. And in either case, I'm thinking it would be a good thing to thwart them, so it would."

Everyone in their party looked a little tense, in their various ways. None of them were wearing armor, not even the brigandines or light mail shirts that they usually did on the trail; the shields and helms and lances were all back with the wagon and their remounts, in an ar royo and being watched by Odard's man Alex. The rest of them sat their best horses and tried to look peaceful-they had their swords and bows, of course, but you could scarcely expect travelers to have anything less.

Ingolf edged his horse closer. "You sure about appeal ing like this to General Thurston?" he said quietly. "I never saw him when I went through Boise, but he's got a major reputation as a hard-ass, and his people certainly looked that way to me."

"No, I'm not sure, exactly. Though they say he's a law-abiding sort, not one who chops off heads on a whim," Rudi replied cheerfully.

Mathilda nodded. "On the other hand, from what Mom and Lady d'Ath and Count Odell told me, as far as he's concerned, he's president pro tem of the United States, and everyone else who claims authority within the old borders is bandit scum who deserves hanging."

"Well, he's not the only one with that delusion," Ingolf said dryly. "Every second bossman out East called himself president back in the old days, from the stories my father and uncles told. Some still do-the Bossman of Des Moines lists it right after governor of Iowa when he's being formal. Ours in Richland doesn't bother anymore."

"Not so much of that backward nonsense in the Wil lamette," one of the twins said pridefully. "We've got sensible, modern titles, like the Bear Lord or the Chief of Clan Mackenzie or the Hiril Dunedain."

"Or the Lord… Lady… Protector," Odard said. "And barons and counts." He glanced slyly at Father Ignatius. "And sovereign bishop abbots, of course."

"The mayor of Mount Angel is elected by the people," Ignatius said, frowning. "The abbot bishop conducts the Order's business, not that of the secular population."

Which means running outposts across half the north west, Rudi thought. And the mayor listens most attentively to what Dmwoski tells him, to be sure.

"There's the Faculty Senate in Corvallis," the other twin said judiciously. "They're weird. But not as weird as having a president, like something out of the old days."

Everyone nodded. "We are out in the backwoods here," Rudi said. "Let's remember to be diplomatic, even when they're being odd."

"I'm always diplomatic when heavily outnumbered by armed strangers," Odard said with a small dry smile.

"Prudence is a virtue," Father Ignatius said. More thoughtfully: "I wonder how long the ghost of the United States will haunt men's minds? As long as Rome's did in Europe in the last Dark Age?"

They turned their horses north and shifted a little forward. Ingolf leaned close to Rudi while the clatter of hooves covered his voice.

"Is that why Odard's always so polite and diplo matic?" he murmured. "As far as he's concerned, we're armed strangers who outnumber him?"

Rudi blinked. "Hadn't thought of it that way," he replied, equally quietly, then put it out of his mind; he had more immediate worries.

Though it fits him uncomfortably well, the creature. Have to think about that sometime.

Mathilda's horse shifted over towards him as they waited. "Rudi.. anamchara, why are we really doing this?"

Rudi sighed. "Partly because I think if the Prophet wants to kill Thurston, we want to preserve him," he said. He hesitated a minute and went on, very softly: "And to be sure… the Powers have sent me on this journey. But I'm not altogether Their puppet. Or so I like to think."

The Boise scouts came in sight. They were a file of eight light cavalry spread out in a fan centered on the road. All of them were well equipped with saber at waist, bow cases at their knees, short chain mail shirts and flared bucket helmets modeled on the old army's style; the armor was covered with mottled camouflage cloth. Their swords stayed in the sheaths, but they were riding with arrows on the string, and they swung out to check the open country on either side of the western party with professional thoroughness. Rudi held up his open hands in the peace sign; the others sat their horses, trying hard to radiate harmlessness. Father Ignatius smiled benignly and signed the air as the strangers drew closer.

"Peace be with you, my children," he called.

Their leader was a wiry dark woman about thirty, the only female in the squad, with a set of chevrons riveted to the short sleeve of her armor. She reined in half a dozen yards from Rudi once the surroundings had been searched and looked him over; first with businesslike appraisal, and then with a different sort of glance.

"And with your spirit, padre." Then: "All right-you, the tall, blond and handsome one," she said dryly, letting her bow rest on the horn of her cowboy style saddle. " Who the hell are you guys, and what the hell are you doing here? You're sure as shit not locals."

Her eyes took in their gear. Rudi knew she'd be see ing the quality of their horses and details of weapons and clothing, and also that they couldn't have gotten this far without more mounts and transport and equipment than was showing.

"We're travelers from the far West, from beyond the Cascades," Rudi said, putting calm and warmth into his voice-his mother had helped train it. "And we've got urgent news for your commander."

"For the president, eh?" She looked at him, then turned in the saddle. "Smith, tell Captain Valier we've got some wanderers who want to talk to the bossman. Rojas, take my binoculars, get up on that hill and keep an eye out for company. There may be more of them than they've mentioned."

"Sergeant!" they both barked, and turned their horses to obey.

The rest sat watching the comrades, while not ne glecting their surroundings either; not exactly hostile, but extremely businesslike. The infantry came into view, marching like a giant spear tipped centipede behind the eagle and the flag of the Republic…

Rudi took in the hoop-and strap armor, the heavy throwing spears and big oval shields, and then the of ficers, one to each eighty men, with the sideways crests on their helmets and vinewood swagger sticks in their hands…

"Bet I know what General Thurston's favorite historical reading is," he said softly.

"Yeah," Mathilda replied, equally sotto voce. "I rec ognize it all- Osprey Men-at-Arms 46, Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan."

Other volumes of those illustrated histories were a staple of military education in the Willamette; he sup posed he shouldn't be surprised they were used elsewhere, too. And wasn't Thurston supposed to have been a soldier before the Change, an officer of the old US Army, trained at West Point? Not all that many of them had survived.

They mostly died trying to feed people and keep order, Rudi thought. Well, against Fate even gods cannot contend, much less even the best of men.

Doubtless Thurston had studied a lot of military history. There was a battery of field artillery along with the troops, six dart casters and shot throwers, which wasn't something you expected out here-the mechanic arts weren't as advanced in the far interior. Or so he'd thought…

The scout sergeant motioned them off the road, and they reined aside politely. The standard-bearer passed, and then the first block of soldiers; Rudi whistled silently to himself as they didn't even glance aside.

"Now, that's discipline, by God," Odard said from his other side.

The Boise cavalry sergeant waved to the small group of horsemen that followed the block of infantry. One of them spoke to a signaler, and a bugle blatted. The entire column came to a halt-a step and a stamp and a short harsh shout, and every man was waiting like a statue. Another blat and they relaxed, reaching for their canteens or turning to stare at the strangers.

Rudi could hear a couple of them speaking softly to each other.

"… use the rest, by Jesus."

The other answered, in a mock-childish falsetto: "What are soldiers for, Daddy?"

The first grinned and poured a little water from his canteen into his hand before rubbing it over his dusty face. He made his voice deep and gruff as he answered: "To hang things on, my son."

Well, they're human after all and not machinery, Rudi thought; then he made his face solemn and straightened in the saddle as the command group approached.

That's him, he thought.

Lawrence Thurston was a tall man, about Rudi's height and built much like him, lean but broad in the shoulders. He wore the same armor as his men on foot; it looked adaptable that way. His helmet crest was transverse, but dyed in stripes of dark blue, red and white, and he carried a round shield marked in the same colors.

When he pushed back the hinged cheek pieces of his helm and then slung it to his saddlebow Rudi saw the face of a man in his fifties, with some gray in his short sable cap of hair and hard blunt features, broad nose and thick lips. His skin was the dark brown that the pre-Change world had miscalled black, a shade that reminded Rudi of Will Hutton, the Bearkiller ramrod until last year. He rode with straightforward competence but not a natural horseman's seat, and his mount was a strong-bodied brown gelding, good without being in the least showy.

"Right, western Oregon," he said, looking them over.

His knob of a chin turned towards Mathilda and Odard. "You and the boy there are from Portland, the group that's resurrected King Arthur and the Round Table, right?"

Mathilda bridled at the words and the clipped tone. "We're Associates of the Portland Protective Association," she said curtly.

The twins smiled sweetly, and Ritva spoke before he could ask: "And we're the cuckoos who live in the woods and think they're elves," she said politely. "Though really that's just a scurrilous rumor and a narrow, bigoted stereotype."

"Mae govannen, cano," Mary added: Hello, General in Sindarin.

"Mae govannen," the general replied. "A secret language is sometimes useful."

"And Edain and I are Mackenzies," Rudi said.

Some men-and women, for that matter-had baraka, a force of personality that made them hard to resist; it was a gift of the Powers, and Thurston had plenty. Rudi had more experience than most with it, and set his mind like a wall. His voice was dry as he went on:

"You know… kilts… bagpipes… witchcraft… pagan gods."

The dark eyes considered him levelly for a long moment; then, unexpectedly, he smiled.

"OK, I've spent my life trying to resurrect the United States. I don't think that's insane… but I'll agree it's obsessive," he said; there was a trace of a soft drawl ing accent in his voice, overlain with decades of Idaho. "The Scottish discarded the kilt for all but ceremonial reasons in the First World War because they used too much cloth. Trews were logistically more supportable. And there's no finer sound than bagpipes in battle. As to the rest, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' That's from the Constitution of the United States, which is your Constitution, too. Well met, all of you."

Then Thurston's eyes narrowed as he looked at Ingolf. "I recognize you, " he said. "My intelligence people debriefed you last year. Got a fairly wild story, along with some useful stuff on the eastern states and some even better information on the Prophet."

Ingolf nodded. "I didn't mind telling them what I knew. It was the pressing invitation to stay that had me doing a flit. Reminded me too much of Corwin."

Thurston shrugged. "I can always use more good men-and so can the country."

Then he turned back to Rudi. "I thought I placed your faces. I know who you all are, too; there's been a hell of an uproar out there in the West lately."

Mathilda winced, and Thurston noted it with a quick flicker of his eyes. He went on: "Why shouldn't I spank you and send you home to your parents?"

"Sure, and I didn't think you recognized our parents," Rudi observed.

And it's a wee bit impressive you know who we are. Has anyone taken a photograph of me?

There were cameras around, though not many, but they were large and distinctive and he didn't remember posing for one since before his voice broke.

Or does he have men keeping files on us, complete with sketches? Then after a moment: Not a bad man, really, I think… but very focused.

"I didn't think that you recognized the Portland Protective Association's sovereignty either," Mathilda observed.

"I don't recognize your parents," Thurston said. "Not as legitimate governments. But swords have a certain weight in themselves these days, and when I'm not in a position to immediately restore the nation's authority, I have to make tactical accommodations with de facto regimes. I could gain a fair bit of goodwill by handing the young lady there back to her mother."

A bleak smile. "I've had messages to that effect from Portland. Very emphatic messages, carried by men with titles that would be imposing if they weren't so funny."

"I'm the heir," Mathilda said quietly. "It's not that many years from now that I come of age, either, and I'll be the Protector then. You wouldn't win my goodwill that way… and I may live and rule a long time."

"A point," Thurston conceded. "On the other hand, if you get your fool neck chopped on this stunt, and I could have prevented it, your mother will be… very unhappy with me, for as long as we both shall live."

"And, well, that weight which you truly say swords have is why we turned out of our way to meet you," Rudi added blithely.

He let the accent he'd learned from his mother grow a little stronger as he went on:

"There are two hundred heavy swords waiting for you the now not ten miles away. Heavy and sharp, sure, and two hundred men to carry them, and every one a long ungainly dreadful bachlach thinking on you with dark and ugly intent, the creatures. The Church Universal and Triumphant's men-the Prophet's Cutters in person."

"Unit of the Sword of the Prophet, out of Corwin," Ingolf added. "Guardsmen commanded by a High Seeker."

Thurston's face changed, though most observers would have been hard-pressed to say exactly how. Rudi decided it was as if a buried playfulness had withdrawn further into the forged iron core of the man.

"Is that so?" he said softly. "I suggest we all get off our high horses and talk about it." Then: "Captain Thurston, we'll take a short rest break here."

"Mr. President!" barked a young officer who looked like a younger edition of the Boise ruler, then strode away shouting orders.

Thurston went on over his shoulder: "Sergeant. The map and table."

"Got it, Captain," a man behind him said.

Rudi dismounted and let Epona's reins drop; she'd stay still, unless he called her. The others tethered their mounts to convenient bushes, and they crowded for ward. The man who'd called Thurston a captain came back with a folding table covered in cork, then set it out and pinned a map to it, a modern one block-printed on rather thick cream colored paper. He was fair skinned under his tan, with a graying blond buzz cut and blue eyes in a nest of wrinkles, and otherwise enough like his commander to be his brother.

"Captain?" Rudi said quietly.

Thurston considered him for a moment, then gave a very slight nod of acknowledgment.

"Captain was the rank I held on March seventeenth, 1998-Army Rangers, Seventy-fifth, out of Fort Lewis near Seattle. Sergeant Anderson was with me before the Change."

For a moment the ruler's eyes were distant, looking down the road of years.

"Our team was one of the ones sent out to find out what the hell was going on… He'll acknowledge my self promotion to general in-chief and president pro tem when we retake Washington and hold national elections."

"Yes, sir, Captain," the man said stolidly.

"Sure, and we all have our nonnegotiable points," Rudi said gravely.

And the old Romans had a man next to a triumphant general who whispered, "Remember; you are human," in his ear. Not a bad idea.

Then the Mackenzie traced the road they were on with a finger, down southward towards the old reservoir. "They're making camp here-the most of them, with a net of scouts flung out…"

He looked at Ritva, and Mary quickly tapped the locations, describing each lookout post in detail.

"Only two hundred?" the general mused.

"It's an ambush," Ingolf pointed out.

"And surprise is the greatest force multiplier left, now that nuclear weapons don't work," Thurston agreed, rubbing a finger on his chin. "But why would the Prophet's men be on my territory? They're fully occupied with their war against New Deseret, according to my reports."

Rudi coughed into one hand. "Ah… as it happens, we were traveling with some folk from there, for safety's sake. But… "

His finger moved on the map again. "… we were heading east, so, well south of here. The Cutters wouldn't have seen us. The Deseret folk are still down there, on their way to home. We spotted the Cutters and turned north to warn you."

Mathilda spoke: "If you know anything about the Prophet-and you're closer to him than the Protector ate is, General Thurston-you'll know he's insatiable. If he gobbles up the Saints, you're next. Why haven't you helped them?"

And it's not tact that you excel in, is it, Matti? Rudi thought.

Thurston stared at her, his face bleak. "Young lady, I don't approve of theocracies-the Prophet's, or New Deseret's. Granted they aren't murderous lunatics like the Unawhacker, but there's the principle of the thing. They've been offered help, if they rejoin the nation and accept separation of Church and State."

Well, there's the little thing of the delayed elections in Boise, Rudi thought, but did not say aloud. That collection of two-score graybeards you call the Senate and the House of Representatives haven't been chosen by anyone since before I was born, from all I hear.

"In any case, they're here now, " Rudi said. "And I understand you claim this territory. In the immediate rather than theoretical sense, that is."

"I do," Thurston said shortly. "Let me think for a moment, please."

He took a turn, boots scrutching in the dirt and rock, armor rattling. A few of his officers tried to speak to him, but he waved them curtly aside. The soldiers waited, leaning on their four foot shields or their long javelins, a few munching hardtack crackers or chewing stolidly on board-tough strips of jerky.

Then the black general nodded as if to himself. "We'll go see about the Cutters. And then we'll see about you youngsters."

After a moment, he went on softly: "And perhaps we can also find out who told the Prophet's men I was coming this way."

Sure, and I wouldn't want to be that man when our good General Thurston finds out, Rudi thought.

He'd known a fair number of very hard men, good and bad, starting with his own blood father and Mathilda's dreadful sire, and he suspected he'd met another here.

"You're walking into their trap?" Mathilda asked, curious.

Thurston smiled. "It's only a trap if you don't know about it."

Rudi nodded to himself as Ingolf chuckled. "And if you know it's a trap, it's still a trap… for the other guy."

And that's something to remember.

The Boise wagonmaster had taken over the Cones toga with a nod of approval at the vehicle's state as he added it to the column's baggage train, but nobody had objected to the westerners getting their fighting gear out. The infantry marched in their armor as always, but the camp auxiliaries had put on light mail or studded-leather jackets too.

"I'm thinking this will be a footman's fight," Rudi said, thoughtfully shrugging to settle his brigandine and resting his longbow over his shoulder. "At least on our side."

"Couldn't we have an earthquake or a bit of a stampede or a flood, something of that order instead?" Edain asked. "It's a bit soon after the last fight for my taste, to be sure."

"It's in total agreement I am," Rudi said sardonically. "But I doubt the Prophet agrees."

Edain sighed. "That's the thing, Chief, innit?" He looked at the ground, and then the sky. "And I wasn't asking for a flood or earthquake, understood?"

Everyone was acting nonchalant, which was surpris ingly hard when you expected homicidal lunatics to attempt your life at any instant. The high hills pulled back on the right, but to the east they were still close to the road. Rudi sang softly in Gaelic as he walked:

Oh, fhag mi ann am beul a brugh

M'eudail fhein an donngheal dhubh…

"That's your mother's language," Mathilda said.

She recognized it easily enough, but didn't know more than the odd word or phrase most Mackenzies dropped into their conversation now and then. Those were rote copied from Juniper just as so many imitated her accent, and others imitated them. Often badly and to her exasperated annoyance, though it had grown natural enough to the second generation, who'd picked it up from their parents just as they did any other part of their native tongue.

"What's it mean?" she went on.

"Ummm…"

Rudi thought hard; his mother's mother's birth speech was a splendid one for song and poetry and flights of fancy, but not especially easy to translate. It had always been the secret way he and his mother spoke together, at least until his younger half sisters Maude and Fiorbhinn picked it up as he had, sung to them in their cradles.

Aloud he went on: "It's a song about a brown-haired girl…"

Mathilda grinned at him and tucked one seal-colored lock under her coif with its covering of lustrous silvery-gray titanium mail. "Keep going!"

"I'd render it more or less like…

I left yesterday in the meadow of the kine

The brown haired maid of sweetest kiss,

Her eye like a star, her cheek like a rose;

Her kiss has the taste of pears."

He hadn't seen her blush often lately. She did now, and clouted him on the shoulder. Since he was wearing a padded doublet with short mail sleeves and collar under the brigandine torso armor, it was more symbolic than anything else.

"You're just missing all the Mackenzie beauties daz zled by your looks and lineage," she said dryly, after clearing her throat. "Well, I'm no light heeled witch-girl to be charmed onto her back with poetry."

"Alas," he said, rolling his eyes at her with a theatrical sigh. "What a pity. It's such a nice strong shapely back that it's a true pity it sees so little use."

Then they both laughed; though Rudi acknowledged to himself there was a little truth to his anamchara 's ac cusation. There were only three women on the expedi tion, after all-and two of them were his sisters, while the third was a very good friend and determined virgin.

I hadn't thought about it till recently, but it does look like this is going to be a mostly celibate trip. Lady of the Blossom Time, have mercy!

On her other side, Odard smiled thinly with his helmet under his arm; then his blue eyes narrowed over Rudi's head, and his handsome dark face stiffened slightly.

"I think I saw something move," he said softly.

Rudi saw something else; the heads of officers beginning to turn, and then carefully not doing so.

"Yeah," he said. "Nice one, Odard."

Ingolf gave a sigh."You know," he said,"I usually don't go looking for a fight. But I would really like to meet Mr. Kuttner again. Maybe deal with his other eye…"

When the attack came, it was a surprise even though expected. The first arrow went thock into a shield even before the rattle of steel horseshoes on gravel reached them. A trumpeter went down, in the clump of men around the flag of the Republic; a few more fell along the line.

Then the whole formation turned left in unison, going from a column headed south to a three deep line fac ing east with a deep shout of "Oooh rah!" The big oval shields snapped up, the first rank vertical, the next slanted back, and the rest raised in an overlapping roof. Rudi blinked in amazement even as he ducked behind the corner of the wagon, with more arrows whistling over head or going thunk into the vehicle's body and cargo or punk into the drum-taut canvas of the tilt or bouncing off the steel frame like ringing metallic rain. He'd never seen anything like that dragon scale maneuver.

Like the unfolding of a tree into leaf but a thousand times faster, or a bird's feathers bristling, he thought.

At close range some of the arrows punched through the thick leather and plywood of the shields, and a few more men fell. One went between Ingolf and him as they peered around the wagon, and they both drew back.

"Something smells," Ingolf said tensely. "That's a goddamned stupid move, and the Cutters aren't that kind of stupid."

Rudi nodded. The horsemen in the russet-colored armor weren't trying to turn the formation's flanks; they were coming straight down the rough slope at the part of the Boise line ahead of the command group, shoot ing as fast as they could. Then they switched bows for lances-done with formidable speed-and bored right in, their formation a blunt wedge.

The knights of the Protector's Guard couldn't break that line with a balls-out hair on fire charge, Rudi thought. Not even Bearkiller A-listers. Not without artillery in support or something.

And the Boise field pieces were going off now with a series of loud metallic tunnnngggg sounds. Four foot arrows punched out in blurring streaks, nailing men to horses or smashing through two and three at a time, ignoring armor as if it were linen, ripping off limbs or slicing open bodies. Then a globe of stickfire hit, turning one rider and his mount into a pillar of flame and splash ing burning napalm in all directions. Horses screamed, but the men never broke their chant:

"Cut! Cut! Cut!"

The Boise officers shouted all together: "Ready… first rank pick your man… pilaaaaa- throw!"

The formation opened out a little as the front rank cocked their heavy javelins back. Then a hundred mus cular arms did throw, at point-blank range and within a second of one another. The Cutter charge stopped as if it had slammed into a massive glass wall, invisible but hard. Horses went over, pitching forward in complete somersaults or tripping, and more behind them reared screaming as they tried to avoid the gruesome pileup. Rudi winced as he heard leg bones snap; he always hated the uncomprehending agony of the poor beasts. They had more sense when men left them alone…

"Ready… second… throw!"

The second rank lofted their throwing spears into the heaving mass, and then the third, and then the first rank used their second javelin. The volleys kept punching out until the spears were gone.

"Companies… charge!"

The Boise soldiers moved in unison again, to a huge crashing bark of: "USA! USA!"

Each sword hand snapped down to the hilt of the stabbing blade slung at each right hip, and then flicked it out and forward in a movement beautiful and deadly and swift. Then they smashed forward into the Prophet's men, swarming at them like ants-punching with the bosses of their heavy shields at the horses' faces, club bing with the edges at the legs of mount and rider, holding them up to turn the strokes of the long shetes. And stabbing, stabbing…

The Cutters' trumpet wailed from higher up the slope. Every horseman who could turned his mount and spurred out of the melee, while the Boise infantry slaughtered those who couldn't.

"The Prophet's Guard don't run like that," Ingolf said.

Rudi's skin prickled, with a nervousness that had only a little to do with the edged iron flying about. Then something caught the corner of his eye. Pure instinct moved him: he turned on his heel even as he drew the clothyard shaft past the angle of his jaw and shot. One of Thurston's guard threw himself aside with a yell as the fletching brushed his neck.

The general wheeled just in time to see the spear drop from another's hand where it had been driving for his back. Surprise froze him an instant, and then he snatched at his own sword as the would-be assassin plowed into the ground face first in a clatter of strip armor with an arrow driven up under the flare of his helmet. Sergeant Anderson was already between them, sword and shield ready; Rudi could see his mouth working in soundless curses as he looked around at the other guards.

Rudi had drawn and loosed again before the first man struck the ground, conscious that Edain had gotten off his first shaft less than a second later than his. Another man among the guards pitched backward with a Mac kenzie arrow standing in his face, and then a third went down-the bodkin points of two arrows driven through his armor and into gut and chest. His target had been a man near the general; that one struck as he spun, slashing open the assassin's throat to make three death wounds before he had time to collapse.

Then Rudi threw down his longbow and flung his hands in the air; barely twenty seconds had passed since the first shaft left his string.

"Peace!" he cried, pitching his voice to cut through the roar of noise around him. "They were trying to kill your general! Peace!"

An instant later Edain did the same, and the others of their band froze very still; there were probably a dozen weapons trained on them, and fingers trembling on triggers or ready to loose strings. Rudi felt a wash of cold liquid fear in his gut until Thurston himself bellowed,

"Hold!"

The last of the Cutters were out of range, sped on their way by bolts from the Boise fieldpieces. Thurston stared down at the body lying so close to his feet and then clashed his unmarked sword back into the scabbard. Men were beginning to shout and turn as word spread from one individual to the next-most had had their eyes fixed firmly on the retreating enemy.

"Silence in the ranks!" Thurston bellowed.

And a sort of silence did fall; even through his own fear Rudi admired the discipline of it.

"Officers, get your men in hand. Now! "

The beginnings of chaos died. A long moment later Thurston waved a couple of aides aside and walked over to Rudi; they'd been only a hundred feet apart. Two men followed him, the others who'd been saved from blades in the back by a ripple of Mackenzie archery. Rudi's eyes skipped over them; both had transverse crests on their helmets, and as they took them off…

Yes, they're his close kin, from the looks. Their skin was lighter, toast-brown rather than near black, and their short hair loose curled rather than woolly, but oth erwise the cast of features was the same. Sons, from their years-one's a bit more than my age and the other's about Edain's.

Thurston halted within arm's reach. Their eyes met for half a minute or so, and then he extended his hand. Rudi shook it.

"That was damned quick work," the Boise ruler said. "You saved my life there, you and your man… and saved my sons, too," he went on, confirming Rudi's guess. He glanced at them. "Martin, Frederick.. Captain Thurston and Lieutenant Thurston, respectively."

Martin was the older; he extended his hand too, and then Frederick did as well. The younger son was grinning.

"Pretty fancy shooting," he said, and touched Edain's longbow with a finger. "That yew tree didn't die in vain!"

His older brother was more sober. "And how the hell did the Prophet get men into the presidential guard detail?" he snapped.

His father made a quelling gesture. "We'll have to find out. They were ready to strike without a chance in hell of escaping, too… and at a guess, this whole attack was aimed at giving them an opportunity. Goddamn, I thought the Change at least got rid of suicide killers. Wish we'd taken one alive."

He turned back to Rudi: "I now owe you two a considerable debt," he said. "Enough for an escort to the New Deseret border, no questions asked-but this area's not safe, with the Prophet's cavalry loose in it. We'll return to Boise. You need to do some planning and I need to do some investigating. Maybe some of the Cutters know what's going on."

A glance back at his frozen command group. "And that was some fancy shootin', given the angles and the time you had."

A few yards away, a Boise officer who'd been question ing a wounded Cutter swore and jerked his head back. The man had bitten off his own tongue, and spit it at the questioner in a spray of blood as he bent to hear an answer. He was laughing with a thick gobbling sound when a soldier jammed a spearhead through his throat; then he choked, kicked and died.

"What shall we do with the others, Mr. President?" an officer said, white faced with shock at the assassination attempt but too disciplined to babble.

Thurston removed his helmet and sighed, rubbing a hand across his dense cap of tight kinked hair; he looked his age then. "We're heading back to Boise. We'll take them along. They can talk, or they can join the infrastructure maintenance battalions. Have their wounded treated as soon as ours are OK."

Then he looked over at Rudi and Edain. "I've got some good archers," he said, to the younger Mackenzie this time. "But none like that. I could use a longbow corps; maybe you could teach some of my men if you're interested in a job… What's so funny?"

The last was a snap that dampened the smile on Edain's face. Still, he was a free clansman of the Mackenzies, and he spoke boldly.

"I was just thinking of how my father trained me, General."

At his raised brow, the young man went on: "When I was six, he gave me a stave cut to my size. I'd hold it out until my arm ached.. and if I let it droop then he'd wal lop my backside. I learned to hold it as long as he liked… so then he gave me a thicker stave. When I got a real bow, I practiced an hour a day and longer on weekends, and that's not counting archery classes at school; I learned to care for my string, my bow, my arrows, to cut my own feathers and fletch my own shafts. I practiced shooting in calm, breeze, and strong wind, at still marks, moving marks, targets on the flat and in the air, and dropping fire on hidden ones, and all of them while I was standing… or kneeling… or running… or jumping."

Thurston looked as if he'd like to interrupt, but Edain continued: "Even shooting blindfolded at a target that rattled! Not to mention hunting. I dropped a running buck through thick brush at a hundred paces the year I turned thirteen, and he said I just might make a bowman worthy of the name. At sixteen I nailed a squirrel to a tree at the same range and he allowed that sure, I'd gone and done it. And that, General Thurston, sir, is how you make a Mackenzie archer!"

A couple of Thurston's soldiers looked alarmed at his insolence, even busy as they were. The general's own frown gave way to an unwilling grin, and his younger son matched the expression.

"Well, that put me in my place. Sometimes I'm still not used to the way some things take so long to learn these days."

Rudi nodded to himself. He'd noticed that about people who'd been fighting men before the Change. Evidently guns had been easy to learn well, easier even than a crossbow.

"Wait a minute," Thurston went on. "What's your last name, son? The real one, not the Mackenzie part."

"Aylward."

"You're Sam Aylward's kid?" Thurston said. "Well, no wonder."

"You know my father, sir?"

Edain sounded half-glad, half disappointed-he'd been living in that shadow all his life, and here it was a month's travel from home. Rudi sympathized; he knew what it was like to have famous parents. In his case it was worse; his were legends on both the spear and cauldron side.

"I met him in 'ninety-one," Thurston said, animated for a moment. "On a mission in the Gulf. And then he dropped in to Fort Lewis back in 'ninety-eight, just be fore the Change… and I heard of him afterward. Ayl ward the Archer, eh? No wonder, then. Wish to hell he'd ended up with me and not the flakes… er, the Mackenzies."

"You know, I love my dad," Edain muttered, as the lord of Boise turned away and began a rattle of orders to his waiting subordinates. "But there are times I get bloody sick of hearing about Aylward the Archer."

"Cheer up," Rudi said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Think of all the years you'll be Aylward the Archer."

From his expression, Edain was-and then suddenly his face fell as he realized that would mean his father wasn't around anymore.