The Given Sacrifice

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

County of Napa, Crown Province of Westria

(Formerly California)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

April 29th, Change Year 46/2044 AD

Everyone went from genial to cold cat-alert at the tone. The Bow-Captain of the High King’s Archers was two years younger than her father and looked a bit older, a broad-shouldered weathered man of middle height who shaved his square chin, unlike most clansfolk his age. He made a slight imperative gesture, and the Archers all slipped off their horses and strung their great yellow yew bows with a brace and pull and flex; the beasts were for getting them about where bicycles weren’t practical, but you needed your feet on the ground to use the Mackenzie weapon.

The sound of a horse at a gallop came before the scout reappeared around a clump of oaks, and the muffled thud of a saber-scabbard against a leather-clad thigh and then the rattle of arrows in a quiver. Órlaith saw out of the corner of her eye that Heuradys had leaned over and was giving sharp concise orders to a varlet, who ran for the pack-train, but her main attention was concentrated on the messenger.

The quarter horse was lathered as she drew rein, with foam speckling her light mail shirt. Órlaith recognized her; her father had always said you should know as many names as possible. Nohemi Hierro, a wiry brown-skinned, black-haired young woman from the CORA territories around Bend, on the dry side of the High Cascades. A Rancher’s retainer by birth, with a hawk-nose and a small gold ring in one ear and a dandified trio of coyote-tails at the back of her helmet, spending a few years in the Royal service to see the world and build a stake.

“Your Majesty,” she said, raising her recurve bow in salute and offering a folded message. She pronounced it more like Yer Maj’sty, in the manner of her folk.

“Give us the verbal précis,” he said as he opened it.

Órlaith could see a sketch-map on the paper. Her father gave it a single flickering glance and handed it to her; he had an uncanny grasp of the terrain anywhere in the High Kingdom, as if he could summon up maps in his head or see the living land from a bird’s-eye view.

The sketch was concise enough, and everyone in the High Kingdom’s forces used the same set of symbols for landscape features. There was the marshy strip of beaver-dams and reeds and dense tangled willow-alder-sycamore-cottonwood forest along the river laced together with wild vines, the ruins of ancient Napa town, which were now a wood too, with bits of building sticking up through it, open country just to its north. An X at the western end of two parallel stretches of woods, and an arrow pointing towards it. She memorized and handed it back to Edain, and he to the rest.

The scout obeyed, raising her voice so all the officers and squad-leaders crowding close could hear clearly:

“Captain Hellman reports two groups of outlanders are fighting each other to the south of here, about three miles. There’s at least one beached ship, it’s burning, you’ll be able to see the smoke soon. He thinks two more beyond it, no more than a light watch on either.”

“How many blades?” her father said crisply.

“More than one hundred, less than two, both sides together, but one side outnumbers the other two, three to one. Some of them are Haida-”

There was a growl and a hiss and a rattle from the High King’s party; seaborne raiders from those northern isles had been a plague to the coasts of Montival since not long after the Change, despite defenses and punitive expeditions. They had little enough in common with the ancient tribe except the name, but they were pirates for certain, and vicious enough and to spare, and their hit-and-run attacks were the one problem Montival had never really been able to solve completely.

“But there are two other groups, different gear and banners, nothing we’ve ever seen or heard of. One lot is fighting side by side with the Haida against the third bunch.”

“Well, that simplifies things, just a bit; we’ll judge each by the company they keep, for the present.”

The scout nodded. “Captain Hellman is keeping them all under observation and holding us out of sight; we went in on foot and stealthy to get the information, once we spotted them on our way back from the Bay. They’re not paying much attention to anything but each other. He says that if you want to intervene, you’d best be quick; the fight won’t last much longer.”

“He’s wise to wait, with no more than a dozen scouts. Back with you, tell him I’m following in your tracks and he’s to meet and brief me, screening as he does. Prepare for action.”

He turned to Oak. “How many bows can Dun Barstow muster?”

“Who’re listed for the First Levy? Two-score and three; the folk here are mostly young and fit. Except for me,” he added with a grim smile. “And I’m fit enough. We’ve bicycles enough for them all. Like old times, eh?”

“If it’s all the same to you I’d rather watch sheep eat grass. Turn them out and follow quick as you can, with the usual cautions.”

Oak nodded without bothering to speak, and he and his snatched up their weapons and headed off westward at a run. Most Mackenzies were a loquacious folk by inclination, and loved argument and debate, but they knew when to shut up as well.

The High King went on, writing on his own order pad, tearing off the sheet and holding it out: “Sir Aleaume! A rider to Castle Rutherford. The commander to order a general alert, word to all the settlements in the valley, and his ready company to move out at once. And I want both his gliders in the air, I need reconnaissance of this whole area.”

The knight barked an order, and a messenger in the leathers of a courier took the paper, stuffed it under his helmet-lining and took off northward towards that half-completed fortress, leading two remounts at a gallop. Edain put his bow in front of his monarch’s horse as it turned to a shift of its rider’s balance.

“Arm up first, Chief. And the rest o’ the lobsters. We’re not in such a hurry you can’t spare that much time.”

Her father snorted, said: “Yes, mother,” and slipped off his mount.

Órlaith did likewise, speaking before the guard-captain could:

“And if you say the little princess had best stay behind I’ll clout you, old wolf. I’ve taken valor”-which meant qualifying for the First Levy, among the Clan-“and earned the golden spurs as well.”

Her mother Mathilda was Lady Protector of the Portland Protective Association as well as High Queen, and the old north-realm was the home of chivalry.

“You were the age I am now when you went east on the Quest, too, that you were,” she finished.

“Which is the truth, and I wouldn’t dream of saying anything like that,” Edain said, with a wry twist of his mouth.

And patent untruth; he’d been guardian to her all her life, even more than to her brothers and sisters. His own children had laughed to her more than once how glad they were he wasn’t such a clucking mother hen with them.

Her father stood with arms outstretched, and the High King’s squires rushed forward lugging heavy canvas sacks full of armor before they helped each other.

You couldn’t don full plate by yourself without time and contortions, and Órlaith was too recently a knight herself to have a squire of her own. Heuradys didn’t either, since her duties as junior household knight made it difficult; that was a substantial responsibility, one they both took seriously. Instead they would help each other on with the gear; that was nearly as fast as having a squire do it.

Heuradys’ eyes were shining. “This is it,” she whispered. “I told you back when we were little girls that I’d be your liege-knight and fight by your side someday.”

“You called it, liegewoman,” Órlaith nodded.

They put their hands on each other’s shoulders. Heuradys closed her eyes for a moment and spoke, with none of the usual hint of mockery in her voice:

“Shining war-maid, Gray-Eyed One of the piercing glance, I pray to you. Precision and unmuddled thought grant to me, surety and conviction, quick wit and quick action and unbaffled sight. Protector of the City, let me protect my King and her to whom I have sworn my oath, though my life be the cost.”

Órlaith hesitated for a moment. Then: “Dark Mother, in whatever form I need You most, come to me now, that I be worthy of my oaths and honor and the land that looks to my blood for guardianship. And what price You ask, that I shall pay without withholding.”

Something seemed to pass across her eyes. She blinked and it was gone. The rest of the lancers were on the ground too, assisting each other to complete the additions to the half armor they usually rode in to spare the horses.

Oh, Powers, she thought an instant later as they efficiently stripped the gear out of the padded bags. If Heuradys doesn’t make it, I’d have to go tell Lady Delia and her family!

It would be easier just to get killed yourself, but she pushed the thought aside. The arming doublet went over her head in a brief moment of blindness and the smell of stale sweat that never came out of the padding after the first use-cynics called it the scent of chivalry. Deft fingers doubled her fighting braid and tied it around her head; Heuradys just used a knitted cap for hers. Metal clattered and weight came on shoulder and hip, calming and reassuring and familiar.

She shook herself to seat it all properly when it was finished, and she and Heuradys touched the knuckles of their armored gauntlets and shook hand-to-wrist. Then she took the flared sallet helm and settled it on her head with her palms on either side of the low dome, making sure the six pads gripped firmly but not too tightly before she fastened the chin-cup. She left the curved visor up, like the bill of a cap. You didn’t want to view the world through a vision slit until you had to, the way it muffled sound was bad enough.

The fan of Golden Eagle feathers on the crest caught the breeze with a faint rippling sound. Heuradys wore a similar V-shaped wedge on hers, but it was fashioned from the black-scalloped white feathers of the Harfang, the Great Snowy Owl. Somehow the act of putting on your helm made you feel different. More focused, as if you were now about something more limited, more primal. Like the metal on the edge of a blade.

“What could this be about?” Órlaith said, looking south.

My first battle, perhaps, at the least, she thought, swallowing a mixture of dry-mouthed eagerness and a sinking in the belly as an involuntary flash of doubt over how she’d show went through her mind.

She’d been trained for it all her life that she could remember. Intensively so by the finest teachers since it became obvious she had the inclination and would grow into the heft for the business. Her own father was the foremost warrior of his day, and that with his own hands as much as commanding armies. Her mother had been a knight, a rare thing for a woman up in the Association territories, and a good one. Órlaith had hunted boar and bear and tiger, of course, and flown gliders and gone rock climbing, and tournaments weren’t exactly safe, not when a lancehead came at you travelling thirty miles an hour, even a blunt and rebated one.

But how could you really know how you’d greet the Red Hag before you met Her?

“That’s what we should find out,” her father said, answering her last words and unintentionally echoing her thought. “There are Haida this far south, which is bad, and foreigners making free with their steel on our land, the which I will not have. And if the Haida have made a foreign alliance, we must know of it.”

Varlets had switched their riding saddles for the heavier, longer-stirruped war type. Órlaith checked the girths-some things you just didn’t leave to someone else, even if you trusted them implicitly-took a skipping step and vaulted up. Doing that in armor was one of the tests of knighthood among Associates; not as difficult as it looked, since the fifty pounds of steel was well-distributed, but not easy either and it made you look a proper fool if you missed. Her father got into his with a plain businesslike lift and swing.

She settled into the saddle and accepted the four-foot kite-shaped shield. It was blazoned with the undifferenced Crowned Mountain and Sword that only she and her father could bear; she ducked her head beneath the strap and ran her left forearm through the loop set on the inside. The grip for her hand was at the upper right corner and she held it loosely for now, taking the reins around two fingers.

Riding in full plate was different, there was a lot less contact with the mount, but their horses were well trained and of the tall muscular breed called coursers-what knights rode in battle when they weren’t using the far more specialized and expensive destriers.

“Forward,” her father said calmly when everyone was ready, slanting his left gauntlet to the front for a moment.

Dancer fidgeted a little, sensing her nervousness. She made herself draw her breath deep, holding it and then releasing slowly while thinking of a pond of still clear water, a technique she’d been taught during a stay at Chenrezi Monastery far off eastward in the Valley of the Sun. It worked just the way the monks of the Noble Eightfold Path said, and she found herself taut but calmer. The Archers spread out in a double line and loped off southwards along the scout’s track.

Heuradys reined her mount Toad in on her right, Órlaith’s vulnerable shieldless side, and just a little back.

“I’ve got your flank here, Órry,” she said. “Just keep your eyes ahead.”

The High King spared his daughter a brief glance and a grim smile that was mostly a narrowing of the eyes, accompanied by a small slight nod. Her heart swelled; she’d imagined going into battle by his side a thousand times, and a fierce determination not to fail him or the others helped quell the butterflies that seemed to be nesting below her breastbone.

The Archers were moving southward at a steady trot with their kilts swirling around their knees, drawing a little ahead before the heavy horse followed. They all wore Mackenzie war-gear, the brigantine of little plates riveted between two layers of soft green leather, bow and quiver, short sword and buckler and dirk, though the blazon on their chests was the Crowned Mountain, not the Moon-and-Antlers. Not every one was actually of the Clan; to be accepted into that oldest of the Guard units all you had to do was pass some stringent tests, be very good with the bow to begin with. . and swear fealty before the bearer of the Sword of the Lady, who could see into your innermost soul as you pledged.

A few came from as far away as the kingdom called Norrheim on the far eastern ocean where her father had paused and found allies during the Quest in his youth.

The plate-armored knights and squires and men-at-arms followed with their horses at a quick walk, keeping in double column. The varlets brought up the rear, save for a few left with the provisions and tents, sumpter-mules and remounts. They weren’t fighters by trade, but they were armed and everyone in the High King’s train was expected to turn their hand to what was needful. The healer and her two assistants came last.

Órlaith could hear a soft murmur from her father beside her, of prayer to his patron and hers, the Goddess in Her form as the Lady of the Crows, the Dark Mother. It ended with:

“And if this be the day when the King must die for the people, then know that I go to You most willing, as to a joyful feast.”

She knew that one, but she’d never heard him speak it before. It was the prayer before battle, and the King’s prayer at that. When she spoke she tried for lightness:

“It’ll be a skirmish only, surely, Da? Compared to all the great battles you’ve fought.”

His grin was hard. “My heart, when men fight to kill, there’s no such thing as a small battle. Not for the ones killing and dying, at least. Nor is it the less hard afterwards to tell a mother why the one she remembers as a child at her breast will not be coming home, or a child why they’re an orphan.”

Abashed, she looked down at her horse’s head for a moment. His expression turned gentle, and his voice soft.

“My treasure, Edain or Sir Aleaume could manage this fight as well as I. For that matter, Father Ignatius could, even with his beard gone white-and for the rest of the daily work, he’s a better administrator than I, or even than your mother is or her mother was, and that is saying a very great deal.”

“But there’s more than either to being High King.” She’d known that, but right now it felt as if she was learning it all over again. “That’s why you’re going yourself.”

“Aye. Your mother’s faith and ours share a deep truth: that from sacrifice springs great power, and the greatest of all from the one who walks to it with open eyes, knowing their fate and consenting. Didn’t their God’s only begotten Son give himself to it? And that was a deed whose echo resounds down the ages; so also the One-Eyed gave Himself to Himself to win the wisdom he needed. So it is with the very Lord, who dies each year when the yellow corn falls before the reaper’s steel, that humankind may eat and live.”

“And He rises again in the spring to wed the Maiden.”

“Aye; we rest, and we return, but that doesn’t make the dying any less real. Your mother and I bound our very selves to this land and all its peoples and kindreds at the Kingmaking on the shores of Lost Lake, with the Sword of the Lady and a drop of our mingled blood. You were beneath her heart at that moment; through you we bound all our descendants to the King’s fate. One day my day will come. And one day. . may it be distant. . so you too will walk to the Dark Mother, your eyes open to the falling blade.”

“May it be distant for you too, Da!”

He laughed, and out of the corners of her eye she could see men in the column looking at each other and grinning to see the High King merry before a fight. They were alone enough to keep the conversation private if they spoke quietly, but in full view. Her father went on:

“From your mouth to ears of the Three who spin Fate, my heart. But we must always be ready for it. We of the royal kin are those whose blood renews the land.”

Seriously, with a brisk tone: “Now, you know what you’ll be about, girl, and take my word for it that you’re a warrior born and have learned your lessons well. They’re written in your bone and muscle now. Just listen to the wisdom of the body, and remember this: when a man takes a spear in his hand and comes up against you, he accepts his death and leaves you clean of it, just as you do for him. So strike hard and don’t hesitate.”

He looked beyond her to Heuradys. “And as for you, knight, you bear proud arms on your shield. Let’s just say I’m as happy to have you on my daughter’s shieldless side as I would have been to have your second mother in her prime. Which is to say a great deal.”

Captain Hellman trotted up and reined in, a rawboned man in his thirties with a weathered face and short-cropped brown beard, followed by his troop. His birthplace was east of the Rockies themselves in the kingdom’s farthest marches short of the Lakota lands, and there was a sharp High-Line plainsman’s twang in his voice when he saluted and spoke, pointing:

“They’ll be visible just beyond that clump of eucalyptus around the ruined farmhouse, sire. The ones under attack are making a stand on a slight rise-it’s open to the east, flanked by woods, and at the west end there are some low snags of brick wall they’re using, I’d say they were making for the mountains and that was as far as they got before the others caught them. There’s about thirty or forty of them left. Three times that of the attackers. Four-score dead and wounded on both sides. They’re serious about this, no prisoners I could see. Nobody else within an hour’s walk unless they’re lying on their backs in the swamp breathing through reeds.”

“How much time?” the High King asked.

He’s thinking of Oak, Órlaith knew. With his Dun Barstow levy, we’d have the numbers on our side.

“None. The next rush will overrun them, sire,” Hellman said stolidly.

“What’s the ground like, just there?”

“Grass, mostly, leadin’ up to the ruins. Looks like it was open grazing land or what did they call it, a lawn, and the snags of walls are long enough to have been a knight’s manor or a fair-sized Rancher’s home-place, but nothing much above waist-high now. None of these damned vine-stumps between those two tongues of woodland, and they’ve trampled it pretty flat. It looks solid, I’d take it at a gallop. Even on them big beasts you’re riding.”

“Gear?”

“Mixed. The foreigners on the hill all have pretty good armor and what looked like longbows and curved swords like the Kyklos use. They’re in dense formation around a banner but I couldn’t see what was on it. The Haida, the usual light gear. Looks like the strangers with them have mail, mostly; and they all have helmets. Pole arms and recurve bows, chopping swords. Some shields. They’re in fair order but it’s no Bearkiller phalanx.”

The High King blew out a breath. “Hasty approach, then.” He cocked an eye at their surroundings. “Not dry enough for much dust, they may not spot us until we’re upon them. The which would be a good thing.”

He thought for a moment, right hand caressing the pommel of the Sword, then went on calmly: “They’ll break for their ships if they can when they’re beaten. . you lead in on my signal, then extend our flank to the left, Captain Hellman. Block them when they run, we’ll have none leaving to alert others who may be about. We can snap up their ships afterwards. Sir Aleaume, we’ll let the light horse and the Archers soften them a little, and then give them the lance when they’re on the back foot. Edain, deploy on either side of the men-at-arms, riddle them, then follow us in when we charge.”

Edain grunted. “Where’s that battery of field catapults when you need them?” he said.

Rudi grinned. “Why not wish for that band of McClintocks we were offered when we guested at their Chief’s hall south of Ashland? Likely lads and lasses they looked, if a bit. . rambunctious and independent, as you might say.”

“Or a pack of drunken fookin’ savages. . as you might say. Covered in tattoos, as well. But I wish we had them, Chief, that I do.”

High King Artos heeled his horse a little forward and turned as he stood in the stirrups for a second, speaking to carry:

“Strangers have come with weapons in hand to make war on Montival’s land. It’s the King’s work to ward his folk from such. Are you with me, brothers and sisters?”

“Artos and Montival!”

Órlaith found herself shouting as loud as the rest, and echoing the growl within the cry. Her father raised a hand, and silence fell.

“All right, let’s be about it. Hellman, move out. Edain, follow at fifty yards.”

The light cavalry reined about. Edain wet a finger and held it up, then called to his command.

“The wind will be in our teeth and a little from the left, but not too bad. Remember you’ll lose ten paces range and correct for drift. We’ll start dropping shafts on their heads at ten-score and fifty paces and advance with walking fire; use your bodkins first and we’ll clear a path for the lobsters. They need it, the puir darlin’s.”

Many of the High King’s Archers grinned, and some of the men-at-arms scowled. Lobster was Mackenzie slang for the plate-armored heavy cavalry of the Association, and not a compliment.

Edain went on: “Shoot fast and listen for the word. Take surrenders if they’re offered at the last but don’t take any risks about it. Now follow me.”