The Tears of the Sun tc-5

by S. M. Stirling

  “You supplied us with just the information we needed,” de Stafford said, with a savage grin and an inclination of his head.

  Then he took a moment to unfasten the straps of his visored sallet helm and take it off, shaking his sweat-darkened hair out with a grunt of relief, leaving his head looking rather odd above the bevoir that buckled to the upper part of the breastplate and protected his chin.

  “They had about four battalions of infantry and a couple of cavalry regiments,” he went on. “A raid in force and enough to invest Castle Dayton and do much damage if we didn’t hit them hard. We had a stiff brush with them, and then their infantry pulled back on bicycles with their cavalry screening them. It might have been much worse if we hadn’t been forewarned, but there didn’t seem much point in following. They could get back to Castle Campscapell faster than we could pursue, and it’s a useless to attack a castle that strong if the garrison is alert. Without the sort of special help they had taking it last year.”

  Ingolf nodded wearily. Given a few miles start and on some sort of road, men on bicycles could run to death any horses ever foaled. There simply wasn’t any return in trying to catch them.

  “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “That might have been awkward, if they’d showed up here.”

  “You’re entirely welcome, but they’ll be back… and this is a close relative of yours, from the good bones?” he added curiously, looking at Mark and smiling. “Not your son, my lord? Too old, I should think.”

  That’s sharp, Ingolf thought. Aloud: “My nephew, Ensign Mark Vogeler.”

  “Off to a good start in his career, I see. Well, Maugis, Colonel, we need to talk. Can your wounded be moved?”

  A doctor looked up from one body resting atop the folding table he was using and threw aside the broken shaft he’d just extracted from the muscle of a thigh. He was an older man, gray-bearded, with blood splashed on his gloves and apron. The one shuddering through the leather strap clenched in his teeth was young Girars, but the peasant boy looked as if he’d make it. They were saving the ether for the really serious cases; two men picked up the stretcher he lay on and carried it off.

  “They’d better be, my lords. I need to get them under cover by nightfall, though fortunately it won’t be too chilly,” the doctor said. “Moving will hurt some but help more.”

  Then, absently under his breath as he returned to work, “Christ, I never thought when I got out of Johns Hopkins I’d end up sewing up sword-cuts and pulling out arrows in godforsaken Walla Walla County.”

  “We have plenty of wagons and carts, my lord de Stafford. It’s not far to Castle Tucannon and the Grimmond-on-the-Wold manor,” the local baron said. “My people should be arriving with the transport any moment.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  De Grimmond fell behind for a moment to whisper into Ingolf’s ear as the Marchwarden rode on with his lancers at his heels.

  “Ah… about my lord de Stafford… just a word to the wise

  …” he began.

  Ingolf blinked in surprise as he listened; Mary snorted from his other side as the baron heeled his horse forward again.

  “You mean you couldn’t tell?” she said.

  “No,” Ingolf said shortly.

  “Tell what, Unc… Colonel?” Mark said.

  Ingolf thought for a moment, then told him. The young man goggled for a moment. “ Him? But… but…”

  Mary laughed, which added to his confusion; he had what he probably thought was a well-concealed burning crush on his uncle’s wife. Who was only five years older than he was, after all.

  And good-looking if I do say so myself, Ingolf thought a little smugly. If you like ’em tall and blond and with an eye patch, which I do.

  She reached over and tweaked the young man’s ear. “Welcome to the club of those who’ve had their butts looked on with the eyes of desire, Mark,” she said. “ I’ve been a member since I was much younger than you, and it’s always a hoot when guys complain about it. That’s what I noticed about Lord Rigobert; he didn’t. Look lecherously, that is; not even a glance.”

  “Lord de Grimmond said he’s a perfect gentleman, though. Knows how to take no for an answer,” Ingolf said. Then he grinned. “It probably isn’t relevant, Mark. I never did make a try for every pretty girl who caught my eye, either.”

  “You’d better not,” Mary said, amused; Mark sputtered a little more.

  “You look like a landed carp,” Ingolf said; teasing the boy was probably unkind but irresistible. “And you’re turning the color of a ripe tomato. What’s the problem?”

  “Because he looks like, well, like a fighting man!”

  This time Ingolf laughed out loud; Mary chortled too, not unkindly.

  “Son,” he said, “what did I tell you assume does?”

  “Makes an Ass Out of You and Me,” Mark answered automatically. Then: “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.”

  Mary rolled her eye skyward. “If you knew the number of times people up here in the PPA have just taken it for granted I like girls because I wear pants and I’m not the flounces and furbelows type… since we got back and there’s this starry-eyed Companions of the Sword-Quest thing going around I’ve had to literally kick them out of my bed at least once…”

  Ingolf started to laugh helplessly; it wasn’t the first time he’d done that on a battlefield with the stink of death in his nose, or Mary either. That was where and when you needed a laugh most. Worry aside, there was a lot to be said for having a wife who was in his line of work. They could share things that most couples couldn’t.

  Mary pointed an accusing finger at him. “You didn’t help! You stood there and brayed like a laughing jackass, just like you’re doing now. And then she cried.”

  “Welcome to the club of them as has been cried at by girls, honey. I’ve been a member of that one a long time, too, and it’s sort of a hoot to hear a woman complaining about it.”

  She snorted, and turned back to Mark, who was crimson to the ears. Ingolf sympathized, abstractly. The kid was probably also longing to be able to adjust his jock-cup.

  I remember what it was like to be a hard-on with legs at that age. Thinking about gargling vinegar would give me one, much less imagining that situation!

  “It’s just so annoying!” she said. “And it’s true about ‘assume,’ Mark.”

  Ingolf reached over to tousle his nephew’s hair. “I couldn’t tell everything about de Stafford there, but I could tell he is a fighting man to be careful of, and I’d still say he’s exactly that. The guy whose brains were decorating that war hammer would say just the same, only he’s doing it sitting on a rock in hell… or the Halls of Mandos… cursing him as the world’s most dangerous killer faggot. Don’t assume about that. Don’t assume about anything, Mark. It can get you killed.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BOISE PROVISIONAL CAPITAL, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (FORMERLY BOISE, IDAHO) AUGUST 12, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  “A re you sure, Colonel Nystrup?” Astrid asked conscientiously.

  It wasn’t that she wouldn’t send people on a suicide mission, Ritva knew. It was just that she wouldn’t lie to them about it first. She wanted them to know what they were getting into without a shadow of a doubt.

  The warehouse belonged to a Mormon merchant who’d traded widely in alum, soda ash and other valuable minerals, and had been built by stripping out everything but the load-bearing concrete members from an office building. The trade had declined in the long destructive war between the CUT and New Deseret, and nearly halted altogether since the Battle of Wendell. He’d turned it over to other uses without a murmur, or any questions, then packed his family and portable wealth and left town in a hurry. The huge first floor stretched empty around them, dusty, smelling of chemicals, with spears of light from the high small windows.

  “Lady Astrid, we are extremely sure,” Nystrup said.

  He’d gotten a little thinner than she remembered him, from the time the questers pa
ssed through the CUT-occupied parts of New Deseret east of here and helped his band of partisan fighters; a leanly fit man in his thirties, fair and with a snub-nose that had been made more snubby sometime in the recent past with a blow. The sixty Mormon guerillas grouped behind him all looked as if they knew their business. Judging from the scars and what she saw in their eyes, Ritva judged that they meant what their leader said. Years spent fighting the CUT forces occupying their homeland had winnowed them with fire.

  “We are not engaging in suicide,” he went on earnestly. “That is damnable sin. We are taking on a dangerous mission that we know carries a very high risk of death, for our homes and land and people, and for the Church of Latter-day Saints, and for God, and against the servants of the Adversary. This war must be won, or our families will know only death or slavery. Part of Deseret holds out yet, but more than half is occupied by the false Prophet’s troops, and our refugees here in Boise are treated more and more badly. This… this Montival is our only hope. I have met Rudi Mackenzie, and we know that he has been sent as our deliverer.”

  Astrid nodded. “Come then,” she said gently. “Now is the time. Operation Luthien is a go.”

  Above them a rope shook. John Hordle came sliding down it with a rattle of equipment, in Dunedain battle gear with his greatsword slung over his back along with a longbow and quiver. Eilir followed him, similarly clad but carrying the recurve of horn and sinew that most Rangers preferred.

  The wind is from the north and rising, she Signed. I don’t like the taste of it, either. I’m afraid that the blimp may go faster than Major Hanks calculated.

  Ritva winced slightly. If the rendezvous didn’t go as planned, they died; it was as simple as that.

  Alleyne signed from the door: Street empty. Go!

  The four wagons were standard US of Boise army-issue, rated to carry a ton and a half of cargo beneath their canvas tilts. Half of the guerillas were already in Boise’s uniforms and hoop-armor as well; now they put on the helmets, low-crowned affairs with a flared neck-guard and folding cheek-pieces. When they tied the cords to those beneath their chins little could be seen of their faces, and they took the shields and javelins from the vehicles and fell in with a creditable imitation of the smooth precision to be expected.

  Ritva pitched in with harnessing the six-mule teams; the familiar task helped her calm herself, long slow breaths easing the knot in her belly until she felt loose and relaxed. She pulled on her close-fitting steel cap of blackened steel, climbed into the wagon and lay down, checking that all her weapons were ready once more, and that her eye was near one of the knotholes in the planks which made up its side so that she could look out. The Ponderosa pine wood was new, and she could smell the sap. It was a little thin, too, flexing where she pressed against it.

  Some contractor is padding his accounts using unseasoned wood that’s not of the right grade. Tsk!

  The thought almost made her laugh, but you couldn’t let your emotions loose at a time like this, even positive ones were a risk. In a way, a sudden surprise was easier than methodical waiting; you just reacted by trained reflex. She let her mind drift instead, mainly going back over the day she’d spent at the Drover’s Delight before the stretched-out arrival of the others.

  Ian really is sweet, she thought happily. And smart and funny and good with his hands… in more ways than one. But I’m definitely not going to go live on a farm in northern Drumheller, ever, ever, ever. If you shout there at Yule the sound doesn’t thaw out enough to hear until Ostara! Shudder! Oh, well, the war’s likely to last a while. We’ll see.

  The object of her meditation crawled into the wagon and wiggled through the other Dunedain until he was snuggled behind her; mainly symbolic, when you were wearing a mail shirt.

  “Not very private,” he murmured. “In the Peace River, we have sleigh rides for courting. A nice buffalo robe can conceal a multitude of sins.”

  “Shhh!” she said affectionately.

  A set of sacks filled with wheat husks was tossed in to cover the layer of fighters in the bed of the wagon; unless they were examined closely they’d look just like full sacks of actual grain, but they were light enough that they could be pushed off instantly. She could smell the redcoats’ sweat, and it wasn’t just wearing a mail shirt and padding on a warm day. They weren’t simply going to a fight, they were going to a fight that was certain death unless everything went right, including actions by strangers they didn’t know beyond brief acquaintance.

  Poor Ian is even worse off. He doesn’t know us, or Aunt Astrid and Uncle Alleyne or anyone but me… and we’ve only known each other a couple of months, though it’s been intense.

  There was a special rankness to the sweat of fear.

  She didn’t mind; courage wasn’t a matter of whether you were afraid, it was a matter of what you did. Nearly everyone was afraid before a fight if they had time to think about it, especially if they’d seen and felt and smelled the results and knew bone-deep how easily it could happen to them. Even if the surge of rage and effort burned it out during the actual face-to-face killing, the waiting was hard.

  Which is why you want the waiting to be over. Sorta.

  People who were never frightened were scary.

  Aunt Astrid is scary, for example, Ritva thought, as the wagon creaked out of the big doors of the warehouse.

  The day outside was much brighter, though there were plenty of clouds and it was well after dinnertime in the long summer evening. Her sandwich and cup of bean soup wasn’t lying too heavily on her stomach, and they’d all eaten several handfuls of dried fruit with honey for the quick energy, along with one small shot of brandy.

  Aunt Astrid is scary because she doesn’t control the fear, she just doesn’t feel it. I think something must have happened to her after the Change that burned it out though she never talks about it. I don’t think she sees what the rest of us see. I love her as my kinswoman and liege, almost a second mother, but I’m afraid of her too.

  This might not be the riskiest thing Ritva had ever done. Probably the flight from the Sword of the Prophet in the Sioux country last year was that, where they’d dodged behind a herd of stampeding buffalo to escape just a hair ahead of being trampled into mush, or the fight on the rooftops in Des Moines when the Seeker had made the assassins into puppets of meat with the same not-mind looking out from each pair of eyes-

  Manwe! The things I do! And it always seems like a good idea at the time!

  – but this was right up there with the worst things she could remember doing deliberately and in cold blood. The feeling that they were completely dependent on someone else for a chance at escape wasn’t very pleasant either.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Work the muscles, don’t get stiff, keep centered. Just do your best and let other people do theirs and afterwards you can tell stories about it.

  And Martin Thurston had threatened, sincerely, to cut out his wife’s tongue. Even though she detested the woman, that…

  Was exactly what you expect from Cutters. I don’t know what it is, Rudi tried to explain but I got the feeling he really didn’t understand it himself after we came out of… wherever we were on Nantucket. But whatever is doing things to the Cutters’ spirits, that whatever-it-is hates us for existing. We really, really need to do this.

  Noise built; they were into the populated part of the city, and she could see narrow glimpses of horses and bicycles and pedestrians and pedicabs and wagons and a handcart full of very fresh green onions that made her eyes water for an instant until she had to bite her lip to smother a sneeze. The steel wheels of the wagons grated and rattled and banged on the pavement, and the bed of the vehicle punched at her side as it hit little ridges and dips; nobody wasted leaf springs on a mass-produced freight carrier like this. Then the traffic thinned.

  “Roit,” a deep bass voice said, cheerfully. John Hordle was a bit scary too. “’ang ’ard, all. Time for the kiddies to play the fall down and bleed you evil buggers game.”

  Le
t your mind flow. Don’t think, just be, just do.

  A stretch of pavement, the gravel-and-concrete patches light even against sun-faded asphalt a generation old. A stretch of roadway, with a sheet-metal watering trough and an automatic nose-operated dispenser. Another one of those a little farther down, and an extremely fancy black carriage, with the Presidential seal on its doors, and a driver and groom watering an equally fancy set of matched black horses; she hoped with some distant corner of her mind they wouldn’t get hurt in the contentions of men. And a line of soldiers standing in a double file at parade rest against the plate-glass windows of the jewelry store.

  At least I’ll have these sacks of chaff off me in a second. It’s filtering down through the burlap and it itches. And I’ll be smelling something bedsides scared excited soldier.

  It would probably, almost certainly, be blood instead, and the smells you got when bodies were cut open. Until then she had more light and air than the rest of the dense-packed crowd in the wagon.

  No thought. Be. Do.

  Her bow was between her and the side of the wagon-box. She reached slowly over her shoulder and pulled four arrows out of her quiver; goosefletched shafts of dense Port Orford cedar with horn nocks and wicked bodkin points of hard alloy steel. At this point-blank range she could put them through plate, even, if they hit square on. A flicker of memory told her how little protection the light mail under her jerkin would be, but that faded away. She tucked the arrows between her left forefinger and the riser of the bow. Ready, ready.. .

  “Platoooon… halt! Right face!”

  The guerillas in Boise army gear came to a stop, crash-stamping in unison and turning to face the escort guarding the General-President’s family. A man jumped down from each wagon seat, hitting the quick-release catches in the military harness of the teams and making as if to take them to the troughs.