Sunrise Lands

Chapter Twenty

Snake River Plain, East Of Wendell

Near The Boise/New Deseret Border

July 21, CY23/2021 A.D.

"Good looking farming country, but too hot and dry for my taste," Edain said.

Rudi nodded silent acknowledgment, hear ing the effort it took the younger man to sound casual. The Snake River plain was flat here, flat and rich with wheat and alfalfa and potatoes and orchards where the fruit swelled towards ripeness, wherever the irrigation canals from the old-time dams still stretched; silvery-gray sagebrush-filled fields had gone out of cultivation for lack of hands to work them or pumps to raise the precious fluid. Much still endured, tilled by the soldier farmers whose earth-and concrete walled villages dot ted the land, grain turning gold under the hot sun, nearly ready for the reapers.

But the fields looked empty today, nobody at work, the livestock driven within the walls for safety or to the distant hills on the edge of sight northward. The gates of the farm towns were tightly barred now, with families and older re servists anxiously atop the fighting platforms watching the army of the Republic march by… and their sons and husbands and younger brothers joining it, trickles that joined together to swell the endless river of green and brown and steel-sheen that passed, with a rumble of boots and wheels and hooves, a trail of dust and the strong smell of sweat and oil and metal.

Edain lowered his voice: "I'm a bit worried about Garbh, Chief. In a battle and all, a big one."

The big mastiff bitch looked up at her name, grinning and wagging her tail slightly, then going back to plodding in the dust.

"If it's any consolation, I don't think we're going to do any of the fighting. It'll be a spectator's position for us, like the watchers at a baseball game."

Cavalry patrols made their own trickle plumes of dust at the limits of vision, with sometimes a blink of light off the edged iron of a lance head. A glider hovered high overhead, riding the summer thermals and occasionally heading northward to climb again on the updraft over the rugged country there; it bore Boise's USAF blazon. Nobody seemed to know if the Church Universal and Triumphant had any aerial scouts, and if they did they weren't here now.

Mounted couriers or ones on cross-country bicycles dashed up to the command party now and then. The refugees from New Deseret straggling along the sides of the road or off in the fields to either side told their own story, and had since the day's march began. Rudi felt his inwardness wince slightly as a mother sitting on the bundle that must be all her household's goods watched him pass with dull beaten blue eyes, mechanically jog ging the infant that cried against her breast. Two older children sat beside her, and a white-bearded man who was probably her father slept on the hard dry ground limp with utter exhaustion.

Rudi saw his fellow clansman's eyes skimming over the refugees.

"Worried about Rebecca, too, eh?" he said-not teasing, but a real question.

"Well, we were friends," Edain agreed. "I'm sorry for all these folk, true I am, but it's different if you know someone in particular."

Another courier drew up with a spurt of gravel and dust from under his mount's hooves.

"Mr. President!" he said, saluting and pointing south eastward."The Saints' command group is about half a mile that way, with a couple thousand troops following. They're in pretty rough shape, sir-a lot more of their civilians and a lot of wounded, and they say their rear guard pulled out of sight of Twin Falls three days ago. The enemy's snapping at their heels."

"Thank you, Corporal," Thurston said. "Please give my compliments to their commander-"

"Bishop Nystrup, sir. Civil official."

"To Bishop Nystrup, and tell him we'll be with him shortly."

Rudi saw Edain's ears prick up at the name. Ragged tent camps appeared, set up by the civilian refugees and the Red Cross from Boise, and shapeless masses of exhausted people lying where they could in pasture and fallow land. More crowded around a field hospital and the advance guard of the main Boise force, who were handing out buckets of water and big loaves of hard dark bread from wagons.

But they're not trampling the standing grain, Rudi thought with sympathetic approval. That takes a special type of decency, it does, when you're hungry and hurt and fleeing for your life.

Just then Edain's head came around, a swift move ment like a hunting wolf's. He reined his horse aside and heeled it up into a canter, over to the field hospital, then leaned from the saddle and spoke to one of the helpers. When he came back, he was grinning, if a little lopsidedly.

"That was Rebecca! The Mother's hand is over her, and that's the truth!" A scowl. "They have some bad en emies, Chief. Those people aren't just hurt and hungry. Some of them…" He shook his head.

"Regiments… halt!" Thurston called, in a flat unmusical tone like angle iron hit with a hammer, as a dark thread grew visible on the road ahead.

The trumpets brayed, relaying the order down the long snake of men and animals that filled the old inter state for miles behind them. The marching regiments did halt, from the back of the column forward and in a ripple that brought the whole to a stop in less than a minute, without any of the collisions or stop and-start you could have expected among ten thousand troops on foot and half as many horses and mules.

"Command group, follow me!"

They legged their horses into a canter, the flag beside the ruler of Boise flapping in the hot wind of their passage; nobody had complained at Thurston's whim of allowing the youngsters from the farthest west along, though they got the occasional glance. A group of mounted men sat their horses at the head of the troops ahead, beneath another banner-dark blue emblazoned with a golden bee. Rudi recognized the Mormon leader who'd bought the horses from Rancher Brown, looking

Terrible, he thought. And I don't think he recognizes me… just doesn't have the attention to spare.

The bishop sat his horse among several other soberly clad bearded men, and a clutch of what were certainly soldiers and from their years most probably officers. They all wore olive-green uniforms and steel breast plates, mail sleeves, armguards, and round bowl helmets fronted with the golden bee. The armor was dinted and worn, and the square shields some carried were hacked and splintered, a few showing the stubs of arrows. Several wore bandages as well, some seeping red. As he watched one had to scrabble out of his saddle as his horse col lapsed. The stink of dried sweat from them was powerful even by the standards of soldiers in the field, and their faces were thickly covered with sweat-runneled dust.

"Thank you… Mr. President," Bishop Nystrup said as Thurston drew up, his commanders and aides beside him and the golden eagle and Stars and Stripes lofting above.

He spoke humbly; and unless Rudi was wrong, it was a difficult task for a proud man.

The army behind him was still proud too, but it was beaten, even the unhurt. A ragged bristle of pikes stretched backward in clumps that were not really units, mingled with archers and crossbowmen and a single field catapult that he could see; you could sense the weary shuffle that had brought the broken companies this far.

There were wagons full of wounded interspersed among those still walking, their moans and cries a soft threnody of pain below the sound of hooves and wheels on the broken gravel-patched pavement of old US 84. Supply columns from Boise were doing their best to feed them and take care of the injured.

"We'll do whatever we can," Thurston said, swinging down from the saddle and taking the man's hand as Nystrup clambered down stiffly. "And we'll do our best to get your people what you need."

"Thank you," Nystrup said again. "We've already gotten the food and medical supplies you sent, and…"

He fought his face to stillness. Thurston turned his own gaze aside for an instant, to let the man recover his self-command.

Nystrup swallowed. "Our rear guard has broken contact with the Corwinites, but they're close behind us."

One of the Mormon officers spoke. "We'd have had to turn and fight to keep them off the civilians within a day or two."

His eyes met Thurston's, sharing the same thought: And been massacred to the last man.

"Then we'd better coordinate our efforts," Thurston said, his face like brown iron.

"We're willing to consider your terms-" the bishop began again.

"My only terms are that we fight together to put down this madman," Thurston said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Startled, Nystrup blurted: "That's a change!"

Thurston shrugged. "I've made mistakes, but I try not to make them twice… and three times is excessive. I do ask for the military command, but we'll leave the poli tics for when that's been done. I intend to restore your people to their homes, and the US government won't ask for any territory-for anything that your people don't freely grant by their own unforced vote."

He spoke firmly, and loudly enough that both his own officers and the party from the east could hear him. Some of the Mormon military officers behind the bishop blinked in surprise at that, startled out of their exhausted dejection. A few looked suspicious; many glanced at one another, and there was a murmur as the words were repeated backward down the line.

Well, I've never heard a man confess a fault quite that smoothly, Rudi thought, letting one corner of his mouth quirk up. Sure, and I'll have to make a note of that for future reference, unless the gods give me the gift of infallibility.

And a few of the officers behind Thurston exchanged glances as well-doing it with a discreet flicker of eyes rather than any movement of the head.

"Let's get your wounded seen to, your troops fed, and your officers can brief me on what you've got available," Thurston said briskly. "There's a good defensive position about three miles east of here that would do nicely, and shelter these civilians until we can get them west and behind walls."

"Do you think the enemy will attack today?" Nystrup asked; his voice was calm now.

"No," Thurston said; several of the Mormon officers were shaking their heads in unconscious agreement. "Not today. But tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.

They've got their peckers up."

His smile was broad and cruel. "That's the easiest time to trim them off."

"I don't like it," Rudi said quietly, as the sun came fully over the eastern horizon ahead of them.

I don't, for sure and all. Something… something makes me itch. Or gives me a wee bit of a chill on a summer day, and it's not just the prospect of a fight in it. A fight I don't mind, and I have the beginnings of a grudge against this Prophet fellow, don't I just, by the horns!

He stood holding Epona by the bridle a little way from Thurston's command group, behind the Boise line, his companions around him. The grumbling, rum bling clatter of white noise, voices and armor clashing and feet thudding, made it possible to speak privately if you wished. Garbh was lying with belly and chin flat to the ground, ears cocked, quiet, but bristling in rippling waves.

But Thurston himself seems confident enough. Of course, he'd be acting that way in any case, eh? And he's taken a liking to me, right enough, enough to let us hang around, and to tell me his thoughts now and then. Well, and so have I to him and his sons. A hard man, yes, but not so hard as he's been painted. I think he's seen all he's done as… needful, even when it hurt him to do it.

Mathilda spoke quietly beside him as she stroked the nose of her charger. "The game of thrones, the game of swords… I don't like what they do to people. The ones who have to play them."

Rudi looked over at her in surprised affection. "It seems your thoughts are running with mine again, Matti. Well, you may not be liking it… but our host yonder seems a natural at it."

Mathilda shook her head and leaned on her tall kite-shaped shield. "I like him," she said.

"Me too."

"And I was thinking of how much happier he'd be running a big farm and breeding horses… or maybe something like a sawmill or a bunch of riverboats or… he's got the gift for organizing; he reminds me of Count Conrad that way. Him and his lady and their kids, mak ing a home, doing something… really useful, not just necessary, the way ruling is."

There was a wistfulness to her voice. Rudi nodded ruefully.

"I know what you're driving at." He hesitated. Still, when better to say it? This probably won't be our last day before the Summerlands; but then again, it might.

"I've been glad to have you along on this journey, Matti."

She gave him a quick glance, concerned; he could see her brown eyes narrow under the mail coif. At that he laughed.

"No, I'm not fey and hearing the screecher. I'd say so if I were." She relaxed in relief. "I am glad to have you with me, even though it's fair selfish of me. For you're my oldest friend, and you know my mind without my having to speak it all, and I yours, and that is a comforting thing."

She put an arm around him. "You are too, Rudi… remember that night at Finney's farm, back during the war, just outside Corvallis? I was so lonely, and so home-sick, and you and Juniper were about the only ones who were nice to me at first. We were ten, and you told me I was your best friend then. You're still mine. And I'll tell you something else; I'm glad to be here."

He nodded, then grinned slyly. "And while then you were a skinny little thing with a scab on your knee, now you're easy on the eyes, sure, even in a hauberk and greaves."

She snorted and thumped her gauntleted hand on his arm. "Men!"

Rudi jerked his chin towards Thurston, serious again. "Still, someone has to stand between the farms and mills and those who would burn them and kill the folk or carry them off slaves."

She sighed wordlessly and turned her face towards the east whence the Prophet's men would come, as if to say: From them.

They were on a slight rise, with much dry pasture and a few wheatfields that were nearly ripe behind and more of the same ahead; this ground had been too close to the old border to be densely settled. The lay of the land let him see the way the regiments flowed out of their encamp ments to take up their positions with unhurried speed. Messengers waited, and others manned an arrangement of lever mounted mirrors on tripods.

That's a cunning device, so it is, but it won't be useful for long, Rudi thought.

This soil was fertile but light, and it was dry-still a little cool with night, but you could tell it was going to be hot, too. It would come up like fine dust under hoof and boot. There was already dust from the light volca nic soil in the air; he could taste the slightly salty alka line bitterness of it on his lips, and it made him want a drink from his canteen. He resisted the impulse until he looked over his shoulder and saw light water tanks on wheels stationed behind the battle line, along with the ambulances and supply wagons full of spare javelins and bundled arrows and stacked shields.

There was more dust ahead eastward, much more-a plume growing wider as he watched.

Odd, Rudi thought. They could go around this army, sure and they could. Battle is like dancing, in its way; the partners really have to agree for it to happen. They may not send messengers and set out a time and place, but everything short of that, yes.

Ingolf spoke quietly, squinting into the rising sun under a shading hand: "They're shaking out from column into line. Moving fast, too. A lot of horsemen in that army, more than the Boise folks have. Three, four thousand, maybe even five."

"Any knights or men-at-arms?" Odard asked with in terest; he was in full lancer's panoply. "Thurston's people don't seem to have any, just light horse."

Ingolf shook his head. "There's the Sword of the Prophet-like the ones we saw at the ambush, noth ing heavier than that. Most lighter, like those men of Rancher Brown's."

He kept his eyes eastward, blinking in the sunlight. After a moment: "They're going to overlap our line a bit. Could be a lot of them, or they could be dragging brush to make it look that way, trying to spook us out of position. This is good ground-rises a bit towards us, and we're closer to water."

Ignatius nodded somberly. "There will be much more dust before sundown. As the crops are trampled and destroyed… what a waste war is. Men sweated to plow and plant here. I hate to think of their children hungry, because the work of months is spoiled in hours."

Edain spoke: "It's a slight on the Mother, is what it is."

His voice went quiet. "Back home they'll be up early to get the last of the wheat in. Pancakes and bacon, and Brigid's crosses hanging in the kitchen. Folk'll be think ing of the festival, and the feasting, and getting the gear ready for the fall plowing, and maybe taking some elk if Cernunnos grants, and the Lughnasadh games. I took the Silver Arrow last year, second time in a row. Dad was that pleased."

The homesickness on the square open face turned to a reminiscent smile. "He said he'd never shot better at his best! And after he had a beer or two at the tent he sang that old song that he had from his grandfather and his grandfather had from his… you know it, Chief?"

"And hasn't he sung it at Dun Juniper, now and then?" Rudi said; it was good to speak of homey things for a moment.

And we'll all drink together

Drink to the gray goose feather

And the land where the gray goose flew!

The twins were silent for once; he gave them a curious glance, and there was a spark there. Rudi's brows went up; his half sisters were uneasy too, and more so than they should be, more so than anything he could point to and name justified.

Mathilda spoke up, her voice a little distant: "The sun will be in our eyes."

Ingolf nodded."For a while. If it's a long battle, it'll be in their eyes. And it's the end of a fight that counts, not the beginning."

They all fell silent. A gap in the noise let them hear what Thurston was speaking to his officers:

"… so this will be a meeting engagement; they'll push us hard, to see if they can keep barreling west. Let them advance to contact; we've got the good ground and they'll break their teeth on us. You'll hold the sixth in reserve, Colonel Moore, with the seventh and twelfth. Any questions?"

His eldest son spoke: "Sir, any more news on the enemy's dispositions? This isn't his whole field force we're facing, not from the look of the dust."

The elder Thurston shook his head, but Rudi could hear the pride in his voice at the quick accurate guess: "Nothing new, Captain. Half Walker's men are still encamped around Twin Falls, which is holding hard. The rest are facing us-about our numbers, say ten thousand counting the Saints who've joined us. They're heavy on cavalry; his foot are mostly in the siege works. Say half-and-half horse and foot on their side, so watch your flanks carefully. Anything else? No? Then take your positions, gentlemen. It's going to be a long day."

Odd, Rudi thought eight hours later. A whole battle, and I've not drawn blade nor bow, done nothing but watch and wait and move forward or back a little. And yet I still feel tired.

Neither had Thurston touched his sword; in fact, he'd spent the entire engagement nearly motionless save for his eyes and the hands holding his binoculars, bending to consult a map, speaking now and then to send out his messages by flashing mirrors or courier. A few ar rows stood in the shields of his guard detail, and a field-catapult battery was dug in not far away, lofting six pound iron round shot and long javelins at the enemy whenever they came in range.

Right now it was an enemy they could hardly see; the world had closed in, gradually at first and then more swiftly as the armies churned talc-fine volcanic soil and the rising wind sent it over their heads in tawny drifts. The sound of combat rolled up and down the front line-voices human and equine shouting and screaming, the whistle of arrow and dart, now and then the rattle clang-thump of close quarter fighting building to a crescendo and dying away.

"Odd to hear more of a fight than you can see of it, and that in daylight!"

Several of the others made noises of agreement; the twins were ostentatiously playing mumblety-peg to show how relaxed they were, and occasionally coming too close to their own toes. Twenty or thirty yards ahead he could see the backs of the nearest Boise troops, three staggered ranks waiting on one knee with their shields propped up against their shoulders, a line that stretched out of sight to either side.

He knew there was another triple rank a little farther forward, but the dust-fog swallowed sight. The sharp edge of battle had swayed back and forth here; there were dead men and horses of the Prophet's forces lying, their blood drunk by the thirsty soil; no wounded, luckily, any such among the fallen Corwinites having been given the mercy stroke. The unfamiliar dry acrid sharp odor of the dust drank most of the smells of death, but there was an iron-and-sewage undertone to it that was all too universal.

As he watched a trumpet call rang, relayed down the whole front. The resting soldiers stood, raised their shields and trotted forward. As they faded into the war made fog the three ranks that had held the front for the last half hour came walking backward into sight; most were walking, at least. Their breath came harsh, eyes stood stark in faces darkened with a paste of dust and sweat, and the pungent musky smell of them was strong even through hundreds of feet of dry air.

Some were using their long javelins as crutches, some were helped along with arms over the shoulders of un wounded comrades, and a few were carried on shields used as stretchers. Mule-drawn ambulances dashed forward to take the wounded; the hale gulped water from the carts that followed and then sank into the same formation as the men who relieved them. Each file sent men back to pick up bundles of fresh pila for their comrades.

"That's a good trick, switching the ranks like that," Odard said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Ingolf agreed. "Keeps the men fresh… well, sort of fresh. Fresher than the other guys, I'd bet."

Rudi nodded, though that hadn't been uppermost in his mind. It was true, though. Fighting was brutally hard muscle work, worse than digging earth or cracking rocks with a sledge, especially when you did it in armor. The man who got tired and slow first was nearly as helpless as a sheep held for the butcher's knife. With the differ ence that an enemy wouldn't take trouble to make it painless or apologize to your spirit.

What I was thinking of was how difficult that was to do, and no mistake! Just a bit wrong, and the enemy would smash you up while you were at it like a hammer on an egg.

Another light water cart came up to supply the command group.

"My turn," he said, and everyone handed him their canteens.

Thurston came over to the water wagon as the Mackenzie tanist filled his friends' canteens and put his own under the other tap; despite knowing that half of leader ship was showmanship, Rudi was a little impressed at the casual confidence that showed.

"Disappointed?" the older man said.

He spoke through a mask of dust and sweat; even the red-white and-blue transverse crest of his helmet was nearly khaki. His dark eyes still twinkled a bit.

"Not in the least," Rudi said, truthfully. "I'm not so in love with handstrokes that it grieves me to miss a fight, and I don't enjoy watching men die. And I've learned a good deal from following how you managed the battle, sure."

The corner of Thurston's mouth curved up in a smile. "Maybe I shouldn't have let you. I might have to extend the nation's writ out west, someday."

"In your dreams… sir," Rudi said cheerfully, and they shared a smile.

"What's your appraisal, youngster?" Thurston said, a considering look in his eye.

"Well, you're beating them, so far. It's been like watching a man try to batter down a wall by running at it with his face, so."

Thurston nodded. "It's nearly over, though they may give one last hard heave; they've got an uncommitted reserve somewhere; I can feel it."

Thurston peered eastward into the dust, rubbing water over his face and then taking a long drink. "Damn this dust, though. It makes my gliders useless, and I had to land them back around noon."

"There's that airship of yours," Rudi said. "The good father was most impressed with it. Like something out of the ancient times, he said."

"Yeah, on a nice calm day close to home it's a world-beater," Thurston said."The rest of the time, it's me trying to explain why I wasted the public's hard-earned money on it. Hanks is too damned persuasive and he makes like that pedaling platoon of his is a diesel engine…"

"It would be useful here now," Rudi said. "The airship, that is, not the easel."

"Diesel-" Thurston began, then snorted laughter. "You know perfectly well what a diesel is-was."

The noise of fighting began to die down a little, enough so that you noticed how loud they remained. Thurston's voice was meditative.

"If they weren't so stubborn, it would have been over hours ago. They've got better infantry than I expected, and horse archers are always a pain in the ass, but they don't have a hope of breaking us and they can't go around us."

"Why not?" Rudi asked. "It's a spacious landscape you have here, to be sure. I was thinking just now that it was as if you and they had agreed to fight here."

"Go around?" Thurston's grin was feral. "Yeah, with fortified villages in it like raisins in a cake, and my army across their line of communication ready to corncob them. And they must have lost two, three thousand men today-they weren't expecting our field artillery, not a bit. I've kept it out of sight the last ten years-no big pitched battles where I really needed it."

"What will you do next?"

"I can beat them, but I can't catch them if they back pedal and don't want to fight; they've got more cavalry. So I'll just march towards Twin Falls in battle order. Then they can either fight with the city as the anvil and us as the hammer-and get broken completely-or they can lift the siege and pull right out of the Snake River plain, losing everything they've fought for three years to get. After that… we'll see."

The general's head came up, looking westward towards his reserves. The dust made it difficult to see, and the huge roaring surf of combat cut hearing, but it looked as if men were moving. He waved Rudi aside and strode back to his subordinates.

To an aide, he snapped, "Get to Moore and find out what's happening there!"

A minute later the young man came galloping back. "Sir, Captain Thurston reports-"

"Captain Thurston? Where the hell is Colonel Moore, then?"

"Dead, sir. He went to contain an enemy break through-stray arrow in the eye. Captain Thurston says that he had to shift the twelfth and four batteries of the artillery reserve to contain it."

Thurston grunted. "Sergeant Anderson!"

The tall silent blond man came forward. "Captain?"

"Go see what the hell is happening with Martin and why he's senior man there-or acting like it. Get back here soonest."

The noise to the front died down then, almost to si lence. The wind rose slightly; Rudi could feel trickles of it on his neck, stealing down to leave tormenting bits of comfort in the greasy, itchy sweat that accumulated under armor. He filled his helmet before the water cart trundled off, and then dumped it over his head; it ran down into the padding beneath his brigandine and mail, a flush of delicious coolness. His friends were silent as he handed out the canteens, their eyes fixed eastward.

Dust parted before them, though everything was still blurred by a brown-gold haze. Through it the foot sol diers of the Church Universal and Triumphant could be seen, pulling sullenly back in a thick dark mass of large round shields edged with steel spear points. They parted in the center like a door opening.

Beyond that was a line of glittering metal points of light over red brown… the lance heads of the Sword of the Prophet, three thousand horsemen strong. The line of light rippled and flashed as the butts of the lances were lifted out of the scabbards; it would be cold steel now, not long-distance play with arrows.

Thurston grunted as if he'd been punched in the belly. "Christ! Well, now we know where their reserve was. Courier! Courier! Get spare pila forward-"

Rudi stepped back as Thurston's voice rapped out in a string of orders and men exploded outward like a covey of geese spooked from a pond. Off to the north the dug-in artillery batteries were in a flurry of activ ity too, crews pumping like madmen to send water through the armored hoses to the hydraulic jacks that cocked their actions. More field catapults galloped up from north and south and deployed as he watched, and their loaders dashed back and forth to the ammunition wagons, staggering under loads of four foot javelins and hundred-and-twenty-pound rope bags of round shot. Others broke out bundles of beehive-wicked-looking six-inch finned steel darts, needle-pointed and heavy.

His friends tightened girths and set their helms on their heads; you left that for the last minute if you could. Wearing a helmet for hours at a time gave you a headache, as sure as a blow from a mace.

"For what we are about to receive-" Ingolf said.

"— may the Lord make us truly thankful," Odard fin ished, then kissed his crucifix, tucked it back under his hauberk and crossed himself; Mathilda and the big easterner followed suit, and Odard's servant Alex.

"Lady of the Ravens, fold me in Your wings," Rudi murmured. "Antlered One, God of my people, You whose voice is heard on the mountainsides, lift Your hand over us. To both of You I dedicate the harvest of the unplowed field."

His skin was prickling as he stripped the cover off a shield to let the world see the antlers and moon blazon of Clan Mackenzie. Edain gave him a grim nod as he strung his longbow and then started working his right arm in circles, loosening the thick muscles; he looked very much like his father just then, which was comforting.

A silence fell along the line-silence save for the screams of those too hurt for anything but the rending of their bodies to have meaning. The dust drifted westward, and they could hear the low endless rumble of twelve thousand shod hooves striking the ground; hear it, and feel it through the soles of their feet, first as a low vibration and then a shaking like a stationary earthquake as thousands of tons pounded the flesh of the Mother in every instant.

Epona tossed her head and snorted, ears forward; the other horses shifted uneasily, and Macha Mongruad squealed in rage, the leather-backed steel plates of her barding clattering.

Odard thought having two destriers ready was being extravagant. I don't think so.

A human sound rose through the hooves. The Sword of the Prophet were chanting as the lance heads fell level: "Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut!"

The fighting men of the Republic replied, a long Ooooooo-rah that rolled up and down the ranks, a deep snarling shout full of guttural defiance and threat. A sharp bull bellow of "Come, ye Saints!" from the New Deseret troops off southward.

"CUT! CUT! CUT! CUT!"

When ten thousand men shouted in unison it was less a sound than a blow, something that thudded into your face and made your chest sound like a drum. And it struck below that too, and made Rudi's lips curl back from his teeth.

He understood what it was to look into a man's eyes over a blade and know that one of them would die; that was how the Lord and Lady had made the world, as much as the leap of a tiger on a deer, or two buck elk locking horns in the spring. That was strength and speed, skill and luck and nerve against the same. Having a small city coming towards you with nothing but murder in its heart was something else again, and as impersonal as being caught in a mudslide… or lying strapped to the latest log in a sawmill.

"CUT! CUT! CUT! CUT!"

Thurston shouted to someone, loud enough to be heard above the stunning roar: "I don't care what they're doing; get the reserve up here now. All of them, and on the double!"

The catapults of the field batteries cut loose in unison with a multiple crashing of throwing arms against rubber shod steel. Javelins arched out, twirling as their curved fins took the air, seeming to slow as they went, and the steel balls of the round shot. Men fell, their mounts fell-sometimes an entire file of three, where a six-pound steel ball traveling at four hundred feet a second hit the ground and bounced and broke legs like brittle sticks as it spun whirling forward.

The Sword of the Prophet came on at a steady hand gallop, opening out around bodies thrashing and screaming and bodies lying still, closing again like a flood around a rock in a display of horsemanship that would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so frightening. The companions turned their mounts towards the front and raised their shields, barding and the kite shaped lengths of plywood protecting them and the horses against the bale wind of arrowheads whose farthest spray began to fall around them.

Ground and center, ground and center, Rudi thought; not trying to calm himself, but instead channeling the building fear and fury, until they opened doors in his soul.

When you did that Someone was always likely to answer. The world flashed for an instant into black outlines veined across with red, like the feather of a skeletal raven dipped in blood drawn across the surface of existence. Coolness ran across his skin, turning muscle and nerve to silk and fire, balanced and pure, moving to the beating heart of Earth that was his own pulse. Talons gripped all creation, and wings beat a wind whose dust was stars.

Doubt flickered out of him, like a candle flame's in stant death in a gale. This is right, it is, he thought. This is just where They wanted me to be.

Arrows whickered up from the rear ranks of the Cutters, black against the tired fading blue of the afternoon sky, snapping down faster and faster as they arched over the huge blunt wedge. Rudi's mind saw their course through the air, the weft of a single great loom, each etched like a thread of diamond through the world.

The lancers seemed like men without shadows as they charged into the setting sun, the heads of their horses driving up and down above the dust mist that half hid them. The catapults switched to the canister rounds, the bundles of darts sweeping forward, spreading out like the claws of leaping cats as the bands that bound them snapped.

They crossed the arrows in flight, warp to their weft, and the world shook to the thump of the loom's hed dle; the Weaver's face hung over it, ancient, terrible, sooty and single-eyed, scored with grief and anger huge enough for the death of suns. The massed grunt of the Boise footmen as they launched their spears made an undertone to it, part of the song the worlds sang. So was the endless flicker of their swords as they drew and crouched behind their big shields, shoulders tucked into the inner surfaces and strong muscled legs braced.

And the lances struck.

The sound went through him, thud, as if the massive impact had been in his own belly, snapping his teeth together in reflex. A crash, but the crash went on and on. Lances with a ton of galloping horse behind them struck through thick shields and steel-hoop armor, or broke and went pinwheeling up into the sky in a blur ring flicker. Men were bowled over by sheer impact, fall ing and sprawling stunned or curling under their shields against the stamping hooves; the whole front line vanished. Wedges of horsemen drilled in threes thrust into the gaps the lances and arrows had left; men stepped up from the second and third ranks, smashing with their shields, stooping for the hocking strike against the hamstring of a horse, stabbing, stabbing.

"They're breaking through!" Odard shouted, his voice crackling with excitement.

He snatched a lance from his servant Alex's hand and used it to lever himself into the saddle. Rudi put a hand on the cantle of Epona's saddle and vaulted into it. The Prophet's men had broken through, or at least chunks of them had. The Boise line kept stubbornly re forming behind them, and then the Corwinite infantry charged again. All the neat formations were gone, and it turned into a churning chaos of men who hit and stabbed and staggered forward and back, locked more closely together than lovers, sometimes stopping for a second by unspoken mutual consent to wheeze hatred at one another until they got back breath enough to fight.

Patterns, Rudi thought. It's all patterns.

So easy to see, with eyes that could see. Three or four hundred of the Sword of the Prophet were loose in the rear; they regrouped, like beads of water sliding together on a waxed board, and spurred their horses straight for the command group where the eagle standard of the Republic stood.

"Follow me!" Rudi shouted. Then a shriek: "Morrigu!"

They had just enough room to build up momentum as their lances dipped. The seven of them crashed into the side of the Cutter wedge as it hit the line of the presiden tial guard detachment. Rudi left his lance in a man's side and swept out his longsword; the motion ended in a cut across a wrist and the hand leaped free…

Seconds passed. A catapult lay on its side, one wheel spinning and its crew gaping dead about the tumbled metal. A horse beat its head against the ground and thrashed as it tried to stand, but both its forelegs were smashed, splinters showing through torn skin. A man crawled away from it, his face a mask of blood, pat ting the ground before him as he called, "Thumper! Thumper, boy!"

The roar of combat died away abruptly; a long trot ting line came up from the westward, threw their pila, snapped out swords and charged in a bristling unison like the hairs rising on an enraged boar's back. The combat swept past Rudi, swept the others away from him, all but Edain standing at his stirrup and glaring, his last arrow on the string. The eagle standard stood canted to one side, the red and white and blue of the flag hanging limp. Dust blew about them again, and the sun had touched the horizon to the west, starting its slide below the plain.

Heat held him like a vise, and the hand of something more. The sword fell slowly to his side.

Rudi could see. And hear, as if the scene before him were only at arm's length. Martin Thurston was on his knees beside his father, hand just touching the broken Cutter lance driven up beneath his ribs. Men stood around him, men with a numeral 6 above the crossed thunderbolts on their eagle faced shields; those same shields kept what happened from view.

"You're late, " the president whispered, in a last attempt at gallantry. Then a gasp, and: "Medic!"

With that he saw something in his son's face; his own went slack with surprise.

"Why?" he said, the tone almost normal, despite the blood on his lips.

"I had to," the younger man said. "You'd take my inheritance and my son's-your grandson's-and give it to strangers. I can't let you do that. Not even you, Father."

"Not… yours, " the wounded man gasped, as he began to struggle. "Not mine, not yours!"

"You're old, Father. Old and out of touch, and I knew you'd never understand. And-"

His hand moved on the wood of the lance shaft, driv ing the steel head deep with a single strong wrench. The body in his arms stiffened, tried to call out, then relaxed limply with blood on its lips. He pulled the steel loose then, and laid it beside the dead man.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry," Martin Thurston whispered, as the tears ran down a face rigid as a board. "I'm so sorry."

Seconds passed, and the son bent to kiss the father's forehead. Patterns, Rudi thought.

Only one man had been close enough to see, besides himself. Frederick Thurston stood not ten paces from him, his gaze slack and unbelieving. Rudi saw Martin's eyes on his brother as he rose from their father's body; they were black and bitter cold even as the rest of the face twisted with a terrible grief.

The universe moved, like a mountain balanced trembling on the sword blade of a god.

"Morrigu!" Rudi shrieked, breaking into the tense stillness of the moment, and clapped his heels to the destrier's sides.

A trooper of the sixth regiment went down beneath the pounding hooves; following at her dam's heels Macha Mongruad stamped on him, hard. Martin Thurston's mind might be in turmoil, but his reflexes did not sleep; he threw himself back with a yell, rolling in a back-somersault despite the weight of his armor. The tip of the longsword tore a tiny divot of skin and flesh from the tip of his nose as it passed, and snapped his head to one side. Then Rudi tossed it into his left hand along with reins and the grip of his shield, and bent in the saddle.

Rudi knew he was very strong. Frederick Thurston was a grown man in armor; to snatch him off the ground from horseback, and that at the gallop, was something he'd have thought beyond his reach. Now he did it, though every tendon from his right hand to his hips seemed outlined in blue fire for an instant. Then he was through; the young man he'd rescued from his brother seemed sensible enough to lie quiet across Epona's saddlebow for an instant.

As he circled around the rest of his companions gathered about him; the edge of battle was passing westward again, and the fight breaking up into clumps of men who hacked at one another or fled.

"We have to get out of here," he said bluntly, letting the young man slide to the ground. "Martin Thurston killed his father-"

"What?" Mathilda said, eyes wide.

"It's true," Frederick Thurston said, his voice shaking. "I saw it

… he was wounded… Martin killed him…"

"There's no time," Rudi said. "He'll want us all dead; he saw that I saw, and his brother too-"

Odard snapped his fingers. "That ambush we interrupted down south-the assassins-he must be working with the Prophet's men!"

Rudi flicked a glance westward. It was several thousand yards, but he could still hear the snarl of wrath that went through Boise's army as the news of their leader's death went from man to man.

"I wouldn't want to be the one to hold him to his deal," he said."Not now that he's won."

"Yeah," Ingolf added, his lips tight. "He won't stay bought… uh-oh. Cavalry headed our way. Those Cut ters who broke through aren't trying to get back to their own lines. Looks like they've got orders about us."

"We've got to split up," one of the twins said. "Into smaller groups at least."

Rudi nodded. "If they've got one dust trail to follow we're all dead. Meet at the rendezvous. Fast. "

Rudi had swung down out of the saddle and stripped off the barding from Epona and her daughter as he spoke; they didn't need fifty extra pounds.

"Right," he said, tossing Macha Mongruad's reins to the younger Thurston. "Fred, you'll go with Father Ignatius."

He met the cleric's eye, and received a short sharp nod.

"Everyone, get going."

Baron Odard Liu slid out of the saddle as his horse collapsed, wheezing blood and froth as the arrowhead worked its way into the lungs. He was in the upper reaches of a defile, and he'd have had to let the beast go soon anyway, as the footing grew worse. Rock crunched and slid under his feet, and he turned with his shield up as the yelping cries of the pursuit echoed off the tall rock faces to either side.

Death tasted of salt and tears and sweat, and bitter alkali dust and the chill of morning. Awareness of it had been growing as they ran and hid and twisted through the hours of darkness.

No man could outrun an arrow.

Or his fate, he thought. Still, I'd have liked to lay a few more girls in the clover and sing a few more songs before I went… at eighty, by preference, and on a throne…

"Sorry," he said to Mathilda Arminger. "I'll hold them as long as I can. Ingolf drew off a fair number."

Her face was stiff but unyielding. Brave to a fault, he thought, then scowled as she slipped down from her own mount.

"Now, please, don't spoil my gesture," he said. "I would like my last heroic stand to have some point."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I can't climb that in a hauberk, and if I try taking it off, they'll be on us before I'm half done. Let's make it cost them."

He sighed. "How deplorably practical you are, Princess," he said. "Admirably courageous, though."

But then, whatever anyone called her father, nobody ever said he was a coward. And I don't think the Spider has nerves at all, just clockwork and levers inside. Whenever I regret my mother, it would be well to remember what poor Mathilda has to put up with!

There was a mouthful of water left in his canteen, and they shared it as the Cutters rode into the space beneath them. Two boulders and a dead cottonwood gave the three of them a little cover. He was a bit surprised to see Alex hadn't slipped off; the little man was reliable, but this was beyond the usual call of duty.

That must have shown on his face. "The dowager baroness charged me most particularly to keep you safe, my lord," he said, and turned away to cock his crossbow.

"Good man," Odard said. Then he looked at Mathilda. "By the way, I love you," he went on. Then at her shocked look: "Well, it may not be the opportune moment, but there may not be all that many more."

The Cutters had sent their horses to the rear and were standing crouched with their shields up. It was middling bowshot, but they were fairly well armored, and the ground wasn't too steep most of the way from the dry creekbed to his position…

Their commander came out from his unit's shield wall and stood with hands on his hips. "I haven't got the time to shilly-shally," he called. "The High Seeker wants you alive; only the Ascended Masters know why. Give yourself up-and I guarantee your safety until you're turned over to my superiors. If you don't, well, I didn't promise to capture you unharmed. Just alive."

Odard searched for a suitable reply; Mathilda pre empted him with a short pungent pair of words. The Cutter's tuft of chin beard moved as he grinned.

"I won't forget that, soulless Nephilite whore," he said coldly, and drew his shete. "Ready, you servants of the Light bearer!" he called to his men.

The universe dissolved in silver light. When Odard could think again he found himself facedown, and even the dry gritty smell of the rock beneath his face made his stomach twist in nausea. He recognized the other sen sations-whirling dizziness, stabbing pain-and didn't bother trying to stand up; getting your brain rattled around in your head wasn't like taking a nap, and no body just sprang back to their feet and went on their way afterwards. The coif and padding had absorbed most of the force of the blow by Alex's crossbow butt, but enough had gotten through… He gulped back stomach acid and glared at his servant's boots.

The older man held the crossbow on Mathilda and spoke: "Your Highness, I didn't promise the baroness to keep you alive at all costs, so please don't move. Even that armor won't stop a bolt at this range."

"Traitor!" she snapped.

"I'm a Gervais vassal, and you're not my liege," Alex said tranquilly. "Baroness Mary saved my life and my family's after the Change, and I'm going to keep her son alive whether he has the sense to agree or not."

"Kill me, then!" Mathilda spit, beginning to raise her sword.

"Oh, I won't kill you. I'll just shoot you through the shoulder.. and I'm a very good shot, Your Highness. The Cutters won't hurt either of you. They'll even give you a good doctor. But you'll be laid out for months."

Slowly, reluctantly, her fingers opened and she dropped the blade. Smart, too, Odard thought with punch-drunk detachment. God and the Saints, what a woman!

Alex nodded and called out over his shoulder without taking his eyes off her, much louder: "Glastonbury! Violet God flame! I have your safe conduct passwords and two very valuable hostages, gentlemen!"

Odard let his head fall to the rock and groaned slightly. Obviously Mary Liu had been giving instructions behind his back again.

Mother, must you always interfere? he thought, and then let himself fall back into the waiting blackness.

Ingolf Vogeler laughed. "Haven't we been here before?" he said, as he looked at the drawn bows of the Cutters.

Near-ripe wheat hissed against his stirrups, the mealy smell earthy and dusty-sweet, infinitely homelike in a way that would fill him with bitter nostalgia if he let it.

Maybe I could have eaten enough crow to stay home, he thought. His spine stiffened, and he remembered Pierre Walks Quiet's voice around a campfire one night: A man lives as long as he lives, and not a day more.

He glanced over his shoulder at the walls of the village double-bowshot away across the flat yellow blond field. He'd run all night and into the dawn. Almost made the village wall, almost made the hills beyond. So close…

And I'm going to die thirsty and hungry and tired. Shit.

"The last time was a good ways east of here," he said. "It wasn't as good a day as you thought, or as bad as I did at first."

"Indeed we have met so," High Seeker Kuttner said. "Glad to see you again like this, Vogeler. Oh, so very glad to see you."

"Not seeing as much of me as you did the last time when you had two eyes, you pissant little Cyclops," Ingolf taunted, forcing a sand-dry mouth to speak and to smile.

He gave a silent sigh of disappointment as the ges ture that had almost ordered the horse archers to shoot stopped unmade.

The commander of the score of Corwinite cavalry looked around anxiously. Every third man of his troop was wounded, some with bandages still leaking blood, and foam streaked the shoulders and necks of their horses. Only two unsaddled horses followed on leading reins. He licked his lips and spoke: "High Seeker, there are enemy patrols all around us."

"They may not be looking very enthusiastically," Kuttner said, with a secret smile.

"High Seeker, we must break eastward now if we're to get through before the Boise cavalry get their screen tight. What shall we do?"

Kuttner smiled more broadly. Even ready for death and raising his shete for the final rush, Ingolf found his stomach twisting a little at the cruelty in the expression. Killing this one would be a service to humankind in gen eral. His eyes flicked around; a dozen bows, but he might just live long enough to cross the ten yards and strike "What shall we do? What there wasn't time to do when this apostate escaped from Corwin," Kuttner said.

Then he spoke three words and moved his hand in a sign. Ingolf dropped his shete to his side. Incredulously, he looked down at it and told it to move. Instead the thick muscular fingers opened, and the weapon fell point-first to go shink in the gritty volcanic soil beneath the wheat; the golden heads waved around the leather-wrapped hilt.

Kuttner rode close, and slapped him casually across the face. Sweat broke out on Ingolf's skin as he strove to move.

"You have much to learn," he said. "Much to experience, Ingolf apostate. The Ascended Masters have called your name. It echoes through the Valley of Paradise and whispers in the Eternal Flame. The Prophet is dying, and in His passing He will require servants. And there is a drum you desecrated that needs a new hide to cover it. Come with me."

"Lacho Calad! Drego Morn!" Ritva shouted in unison with her sister.

There were four men in the Cutter patrol that came over the rise, pushing hard to catch the pair they'd been chasing for hours. Two died as the sisters shot, the ar rows cracking into their breastplates and sinking halfway to the feathers; it was only thirty yards, and they'd carefully picked the ones with bows in hand and arrows on the string. The Cutters had all been in the battle yesterday, and the quivers of the other two were empty.

They charged without hesitation anyway, one leveling a lance and the other holding his shete up. Acrid dust shot up from the hooves of their horses, heavy with pebbles in this stretch where the flat plain met the northern foothills.

"Where did you two get that ambling crowbait?" Ritva shouted, as she legged her horse into a gallop towards them.

Which was unfair; Duelroch and Mary's Rochael had been standing idle all yesterday, and the Arabs had uncanny endurance to boot. On the other hand, fighting was the last thing on the Lord and Lady's earth you wanted to do fairly. The mares built speed with jackrabbit bounds despite the shallow slope they were climbing.

The two Dunedain and the pair of Cutters closed with the shocking abruptness a combined gallop produced, but the Cutters' horses were laboring. She could see snarls of effort on the men's faces, and the marks of exhaustion. Then only a pair of pale eyes over the shield rim as the enemy braced themselves for impact, ducking down behind their shields against arrows…

… and the twins pivoted left and right, splitting to either side like water from a wedge and throwing themselves away and down in the saddle as well. Ritva took her weight on her bent left leg and pressed her face into Duelroch's flying mane for an instant. The lance head went through the space she'd been in; then she was back in the saddle as her leg uncoiled like a spring, bringing the mare up on her haunches to shed her hurtling forward momentum.

Or most of it; still on her hind legs, Duelroch had to crow-hop twice to keep from tumbling, with dust shooting forward from under her hooves. Then she landed and whirled, superbly responsive to Ritva's shift of balance. The Ranger's hand went back over her shoulder and she had the arrow drawn to the ear before the horse had fully settled again. It stood stock-still to the signal of knees and legs as she aimed for half a second, with the kiss-ring on the string touching the chapped skin of her upper lip and the narrow pile shaped arrowhead resting on the arrow ledge over her gloved knuckle.

The Cutters were frantically trying to rein their own horses in and around, but they'd only begun when the snap snap of bowstrings on steel cut sharply through the whistle of the wind and the hammer of hooves.

Crack.

At less than twenty feet even the best armor wouldn't stop a bodkin point from a powerful bow. The leather plates over the Corwinite horse soldier's upper spine hardly even slowed it as it punched through and into bone. The man dropped limp as an empty sack, striking the ground and rolling twice, snapping the shaft of the arrow off.

Crack.

Mary's arrow missed the spine, smashing through just beside it and out the man's chest, transfixing the lungs but not the heart. He screamed and fell and dragged, one boot twisted in the stirrup; the horse stopped and looked back at him in puzzled alarm. Mary swung down out of the saddle and did the needful thing with her sword, putting the point behind one ear and giving a single sharp push; the man didn't resist, either too nearly unconscious or glad of the release from pain.

Then they freed the horses, stripping off saddle and bridle and slapping their rumps to set them off; they'd find water, and probably somebody would round them up eventually.

Mary grimaced as she came up, wiping and sheathing her sword.

"I hate doing that," she said, taking a drink from her canteen after they had both tasted earth and murmured the prayer.

"Me too, sis," Ritva said, thankful her kill had been clean.

Her hands fought to shake; suddenly she was conscious of sweat and itches and the heat of the noonday sun. Hot dry wind was cool on her sodden hair as she slung her helmet to her saddlebow.

"I think Rudi got cut off a little south of here," she said worriedly.

"Mer," Mary said, agreeing. "But he might get ahead of them and circle north. Let's get to the rendezvous and see who made it."

They worked their way northward, towards a butte shaped like a camel's head and hump. Ritva's head came up as she caught the ringing stamp of a shod hoof on rock, and then she relaxed again and lowered her bow as Father Ignatius stepped out from behind a curve of stone. Edain came next, and then young Frederick Thurston. He looked like a man who'd been hit behind the ear with a sock full of wet sand, but not quite hard enough to knock him out.

But then, Ritva thought compassionately, he's got it worse than us. He's seen treachery by his own kin.

"Rudi?" Mary said sharply; he and the younger Mackenzie left the battlefield together.

Edain's sunburned face flushed. "We had a big clump of them on our heels so we split up. I managed to lose mine and get here." His lips thinned. "We've been waiting since."

Father Ignatius nodded and glanced at the sun. "Anyone who is not here yet isn't going to arrive," he said.

Then he pointed north, to a tall hill. "And there is a dust trail heading in this direction. At least a score of men."

Ritva winced. That meant either the enemy, or Boise cavalry… who might well now be the enemy; she didn't have enough of a feel for the place or the politics to know how openly Martin Thurston could hunt the ones who knew he'd killed his father.

If it's the Cutters, they caught someone and made them talk, she thought.

"What do we do?"

Ignatius smiled; it was grim, but confident. "We need to find the others… Rudi most of all."

"Head back towards the Prophet's men?" Mary said. "And… well, if they've caught him, they'll either kill him or take him east. That's a big piece of flatland and then hills east of here. We can't search it all."

"Not on the ground," Ignatius said. "But I think there is an alternative, God willing."

Ignatius looked at the leveled crossbows and raised his empty hands in a sign of peace.

"Give me a moment to speak, my sons, and then do as you will," he said.

The great curved shape of the Curtis LeMay filled most of the emergency airfield; it was staked down to a dozen heavy steel posts sunk in the earth on either side. The gliders and their launching apparatus were scattered across a wide stretch of sparse pasture around about. Soldiers and ground crew stood about in clumps, their faces grim; many showed the marks of weeping. The air was warm and very still, and smelled of latrines and metal and crude cookery, and under that a chemi cal taint from the steel gas-generating boxes on a half dozen great six wheeled wagons.

"The couriers said you were wanted in connection with the president's death," Hanks replied flatly.

The men and women behind him growled slightly, gripping their weapons and staring narrow eyed.

"We saved the president once," Ignatius pointed out. "You know that, and that it makes no sense for us to save him once to kill him a few weeks later. But don't take my word for it."

He urged his horse aside. A gasp broke out as Frederick Thurston's brown face came clear to their sight.

"And here's your own president's son to tell you the truth," Ignatius said, his trained voice rolling out clear.

"I know this place," Rudi Mackenzie said to himself and his horse, his voice hoarse with thirst.

Mountains rose before him, bare save for a scattering of silvery gray scrub, up great walls of rock and scree to the glaciers floating far above. The smell of cold rock and aromatic herbs and old sweat soaked into wool and leather filled his nostrils. The rattle of stone under shod hooves was loud, and far and faint came a baying like wolves that he knew was men. Ahead was the rest of the bare ridge, and over it another huge empty valley. The mountains were very far.

On the slopes of the ridge he could look far behind. Three separate plumes of dust headed towards him; he judged their speed and then ran his hand down Epo na's neck. She snorted and tossed her head, weary as she was.

"So, my girl, you've run well, it's splendid and brave and strong you are still," he said.

But there's only one of you, and I'm riding heavier than most of those even with only my helm and brigandine, I think, he mused. Soon you will be grazing the meads of the Land of Youth.

High above, black wings cruised through the air. He chuckled. "It's often I've said I'm ready to come when You call me, Lady of the Crows. If this is the time… well, I'll harvest a field as a bridal gift for You, so!"

He dismounted and took a careful swallow of his water, then poured the rest of it into his helmet and held that for Epona. She slobbered eagerly and her lips chased every drop into the padded lining.

"Now, don't be greedy, my fair one. That's all there is," he said gently, and put the sallet back on his head.

The raised visor acted as a sunshade; it was six hours past noon, and the long night of pursuit had tired them both.

"Sure, and they're a very determined lot, and have most impolitely kept between me and the rendezvous," he said. "Now let's see if I can break through them eastward and circle about beyond them."

He couldn't; that was obvious. He might be able to take some of them with him to the Summerlands, and give them a good talking-to there along with the Guard ians, to shame them for serving a bad cause even if they did it bravely.

"And Edain got away," he said. "Now, that's a comfort. If Mother must grieve, at least old Sam is spared that."

Then he laughed, full-bodied. "So much for my grand journey across the continent! Yet I don't regret that as much as never really trying to give Matti a sound kissing."

He mounted again, waiting, and working his sword arm to limber it. There was no fear now, and he thought he could hear voices singing-a deep humming, perhaps the bees making honey in the flowering clover meads of Tir-na nog.

"Perhaps my father lingers there yet," he murmured as he drew his sword. "I never knew him as a man. We could talk, eh, and perhaps ride together and hunt and yarn, before we return once more."

The Cutters approached with shocking speed. Their "Cut… cut!" sounded triumphant as they saw him, and his answering shout was as joyous. Epona belled chal lenge, rearing, and he stood in the stirrups to call: "Welcome, brothers, in the name of the Crow Goddess!"

He laughed to see their rage, brought his shield up be neath his eyes as his legs prepared to clamp the horse's barrel one last time. For one long instant he thought the humming and song behind him were Her train, and the shadow that suddenly fell Her wings.

Then the Cutters were stopping, pulling their horses up so sharply that some of them reared or crashed in a neighing tangle into their neighbors. Bows dropped from nerveless hands. One stood and fired into the air, but a shaft streaked down from behind Rudi's head and went crack into his armor, the gray fletching of the Mackenzie clothyard shaft blossoming against the red-brown leather. As he slid from the saddle his mates wheeled and fled, only the cursing of an officer trying in vain to rally them.

Silence filled the air, along with a vast creaking. Slowly, slowly Rudi turned his head to see the Curtis LeMay ris ing further from behind the ridge, a hundred yards in the sky. That was close enough to see the faces-Edain, his half sisters, Frederick Thurston, Father Ignatius.

"Where-" he began.

Two of the crew slid down from the fore and aft of the gondola, planted anchors against solid rock, and winches squealed. Soon his friends and kinfolk were around him.

"What took you so long?" Rudi mock-scolded. Then his face grew serious. "The others?"

"No sign," Ritva said, and her sister nodded somberly. "There were enemy approaching the rendezvous."

Which means someone was captured, and talked, Rudi thought grimly.

He turned to Ignatius. "It's a luck bearer you've been for me, my friend," he said formally, bowing his head a little.

"God's will," the other man said.

"And Hers," Rudi added with a grin. That died as he looked at the others.

"It's a good deal of work we have to do," he said.

"I have to let everyone know how my father died," Frederick Thurston said; his young face looked somber, and more like his father's.

"And we have the others to find," Edain added; Garbh pressed her flank against him and whined, looking up at his head.

Rudi's eyes turned eastward. "And all that's part of something larger," he said softly. "The quest we started on, and that cannot stop either. Because-"

Then he staggered, pressing his hands to his head. Cold! So cold!

"Like fire," he muttered aloud, and then: "Lord and Lady!"

It was a matter of minutes before he was aware of hands guiding him to the ground and leaning him back against a boulder; a sharp scent of sagebrush rose as his brigandine crushed the herb against a rock. The mouth of a canteen touched his lips, and he drank eagerly, choked a little, swallowed more. The hard metallic taste of the lukewarm water was delightful as no mountain stream had ever been.

"What is it?" Ritva said sharply, going down on one knee. Blue eyes met gray green.

She suspects something, he thought. I wish I could make it clear to her, that I do.

"What's happened?" her sister repeated.

"I don't know," Rudi said softly. "But it's something terrible."