Tales of Downfall and Rebirth

by S. M. Stirling

  “Thanks for the signal fire.”

  “I could see your trouble. From the look of your ship, ye’ve had a hard time.”

  “Without ending in a whale’s belly like Jonah, it would be hard to have worse,” the captain agreed. “There are tiger teeth on this coast of yours. We were on our way back from a run to Hawaii when we got jumped by pirates out of Mindanao; Suluk corsairs, I think. Chased us all the way across the sea and cut us off before we could reach home.”

  Deor took a deep breath, still not certain in his soul that questioning these strangers would not cause them to vanish away. “And where might that be?”

  “Newport,” said the captain. “The Faculty of Economics, Entrepreneurial Studies.”

  “No—” Deor spoke more sharply than he had intended. “What land?”

  The man’s fine-boned face brightened suddenly. “Ah—” He looked around him at the broken bridge and the ruined buildings on the cliff above. “Of course, you wouldn’t know . . . We’re from the High Kingdom of Montival. The heart of it is the Willamette Valley, north of here, though come to think of it, in theory California is a part of the High King’s realm.”

  A king . . . breathed Deor.

  Alfwin grinned. “Wonder what Duke Morgruen will think o’ that?” For the children of men who had played at knights in the Society for Creative Anachronism before the old world fell, the word “king” had power.

  “You’re ruled by a duke here?” asked a sturdy young woman who was trying to dry a short coat made of closely woven brown wool at the fire. One of the others had called her Thora. She had a snub nose and a rather determined expression, and a mop of red hair stiff with salt spray. For a moment Deor stared. The thought came to him. She’s going to be important to me.

  “He thinks so—” murmured Willa. Her father had lost a leg in one of Morgruen’s cattle raids.

  Deor turned back to the captain. “My father’s the Baron of Mist Hills. Our burg lies a day’s walk or so inland.” He gestured toward the slopes that rose behind them. Clad thickly in pine and fir, their tops stood out in stark silhouette against the dimming sky. “Morgruen has a fortress down on the Rushing River near where Healdsburg used to be. He farms the valley with cannibals he’s captured and masterless men.”

  “We like t’ say he guards our southern borders from the cannibal band.” Alfwin grinned. “We can’t take him, an’ he says these hills aren’t worth his while, but I think he don’t dare try us on our own ground.”

  That balance might change, thought Deor, if the barony can establish contact with Montival. The crew of the Ark were good-looking men, agile and strong. As their clothing dried he could see that the fabric was near as finely woven as the stuff from the old times, but strong and new. And the rest of their gear—the metal fittings on belts and boots, and the steel cuirass that one man wore—was better than anything they could make at Hraefnbeorg. Any man could claim a grand title. But the newcomers’ gear and that ship could only have come from a prosperous community.

  “You’ll be safe with us,” he said quickly. “You can shelter here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll take ye to the burg.”

  “We’ll need to repair our ship—” said Captain Feldman, clearly uncertain what resources the Hraefnbeorg folk might have.

  Deor nodded.

  “You have a smith?”

  “And supplies—whatever you need. We’ve seasoned wood, and it’s been a good year—we can replace your stores. My father will want to talk to you about trade,” he finished in a burst, flushing a little at the captain’s understanding smile.

  He must know we’d do almost anything to get them to come back again.

  “Then I think we can do business,” Captain Feldman replied. “I’d like to leave half my crew to start the work and bring the rest to the burg.”

  “How many might that be?”

  The captain sighed. “We’ve twenty-eight remaining—no, twenty-seven, and of them, six are too hurt to be much use. So it would be about a dozen.”

  “Here in the cove your ship should be secure.” Deor paused, thinking. “Willa”—he turned to the girl—“you ride lightest. Can you leave at dawn? Bag up the fish we traded for and take the pack pony. Get back to Hraefnbeorg fast as you can and tell ’em we’re coming. If my mother fails in hospitality because I brought strangers with no warning she’ll have my hide.”

  “I’d hate to cause her any trouble—” the captain began, but his eyes were smiling.

  “Oh no, sir,” Alfwin said earnestly. “Lady Avisa’ll be delighted. Better’n a wedding, this. Only, y’see, she likes to be prepared.”

  My mother wasn’t prepared for the Cataclysm, thought Deor. It seemed to him that she had been trying to make up for it ever since. He was her last child, after two who died, and one of the things she tried to control most often was him.

  The headman of the village came toward them with wooden mugs of steaming tea. His folk had been here since before the Change. One of the two houses belonged to his family, the second to his brother.

  “Th’ woman says dinner’s ready soon. We’ll lay straw on old sails in th’ boat-barn t’ make beds for ye, get sleeping gear from th’ ship next trip. Come see—”

  “That would be . . . welcome,” the captain replied.

  * * *

  Thora Garwood set down her pack and scanned the clearing. It had been noon before they left Albion Cove and at this season darkness drew in early. She had expected they would have to spend at least one night on the trail.

  “What’s the best wood here to burn?” she called.

  Once they left the coast the terrain had changed. The higher slopes were thickly forested with mixed oak and fir where remnants of cloud still clung like the shreds of wool sheep left behind them. Mist Hills indeed! The trail wound inland through groves of the tall evergreens they called redwoods, following a creek swollen now from the recent rain. She grimaced as a drop from one of the overhanging branches rolled down her neck. The sailors were stretching a sail between the trees with their usual efficiency, but they needed a fire.

  The dark-haired young man who had appointed himself their guide had drifted to the edge of the stream bank. He looked a little younger than her own twenty years. He would probably have been a military apprentice at home. She rubbed the space between her brows where the A-list mark would go, if the Bear-Lord found her worthy once she got home. A day ago she had been wondering if she would live that long, but hope had returned now that she was on solid ground.

  “Lord Deor?” she called again. The last visitors had left a pile of small logs and kindling under a rude shelter, but they would need more, and the light was fading fast.

  He turned, blinking. “Th’ wights say to take wood from the river. All that debris from the storm is blocking the flow. The bits that stick out won’t be any wetter’n what you find in the forest,” he added as she frowned.

  At least the sailors didn’t mind getting their feet wet, she thought as Captain Feldman gave the orders. Neither did Deor. She watched as he led them down the bank, leaping over rock and snag as if he had eyes in his feet. In a moment he reappeared dragging a long branch tangled with weed, and began to chop the wood with swift, efficient blows.

  The captain’s son was darting about with the others, collecting kindling, but his father had eased down with his back against a redwood tree as two of his men hung a pot over the fire. Thora grinned. It was probably just as well it had been a short march. The sailors were tough, but their expertise was in running up and down rigging and hauling on lines. Bearkillers were trained to long marches, but it had been a while since she had scampered in full field kit up the trail they called Satan’s Staircase at home.

  She noted Deor’s lithe grace with appreciation as he bent to spoon up more stew. Barely more than her own height and wiry, still, he moved well. He’d do better as a scout, she thought, than
in the line. He straightened, looking around the circle of firelight with his slightly abstracted gaze, then stepped to the edge and dropped a spoonful of stew into a hollow at the base of one of the trees. He said something to his friend Alfwin, who grinned and punched his arm, then started toward her.

  As Deor settled himself she moved politely to make room. His gaze was intense, but as she met those gray eyes she realized that if it was not the avid appreciation she might have expected from a young man her own age, neither was it the evaluation of a warrior.

  “They say you are not from Cor-vallis—” His glance flicked from the basket-hilted sword that lay at her side to her brigandine, its leather worn through in places to show the layer of mail beneath, but still a more serious form of armor than the jacks of cuir-bouilli over heavy knit sweaters and loose pants that most of the sailors wore.

  “I’m a Bearkiller.” She touched the snarling bear-mask over her breast. “Most of our territory is inland, and we don’t have a port or ships bigger than fishing boats. Since the war with the Cutters ended, things have been pretty quiet in Montival. I wanted to see the world, so I signed on with the captain. Never expected to see California, though. We thought there’d be nothing but a few Eaters skulking through the ruins down here.”

  Deor’s face darkened. “There’s some bad ones . . . in San Francisco and ’cross the Bay, but we cleaned out the nest in Santa Rosa. There’s folk still hiding in the mountains, but they live on game. And there’s Duke Morgruen’s thralls.” He spat. “He keeps plowing more land and needs all the hands he can get, so I don’t suppose he lets them eat each other anymore.”

  He looked down at the bowl on his lap and took a deep breath. It was only reheated fish and barley from last night’s meal, but it smelled wonderful.

  “Thanks to the food that fills us, thanks for the hands that feed us, thanks to all wights with whom we share this land!”

  He sketched a Jera rune in the steam.

  “Hail holy earth that givest to all!” Thora echoed.

  She looked at him for a moment, then fished out the Thor’s hammer pendant from beneath her tunic. Her family was one of those that had followed Lady Signe in adopting the faith of Ásatrú some dozen years before.

  He stared. “You honor the old gods in Montival?”

  “You have no idea—” Thora grinned. “I think that every god anyone ever thought of must be worshipped by somebody in the High Kingdom. But if you mean Thor and Odin and all that lot, yeah, my folks do, and a fair chunk of the Outfit as well.”

  She’d never thought about it much, beyond that it was a good faith for a warrior.

  “Mine too, though we call Them Thunor and Woden. But in some of my father’s books They’re called by those names.” His gaze turned thoughtful. “In the old days, in the Society, he had what they called an Anglo-Saxon persona, but he took it seriously. There’s some in the barony who still follow the White Christ, and there’s the monks at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, but most folk are Heathen here. Myself, I’m training to be a scop—a singer—so I offer to Woden.”

  Thora shrugged. “I think it’s pretty much that way all over. In Hawaii they offer to Pele and Kane. That was worth leaving home to see! The old, old ways go better with the life we live now.”

  A smile lit Deor’s gray eyes and she felt a flicker of attraction. To let the crew even think of her as a woman could have caused stresses in the little world of the vessel. She had been wary even of making a friend, though the sailor-girls seemed to get along okay. But they were not on shipboard now. I could take Deor in a fight, she thought, but if he invited me to share his blankets, I wouldn’t say no . . .

  “My father leads the rites, and my sister Gytha uses healing spells, but my brother puts his faith in the spear and the plow,” he replied. “I’ve tried to learn the runes. Do you have anyone who knows more?” Any thought of dalliance was clearly miles away.

  Thora sighed. Admittedly she did not look her best, though she had bathed at the village and washed the salt out of her hair. But she didn’t know the customs here, and anyway, there was no privacy.

  “Not on the ship, certainly. In Montival, for magic I guess you’d go to the Mackenzies. Or the High King.”

  “Tell me—” Deor’s eyes shone. “Tell me about your king . . .”

  * * *

  What will King Artos think of this land?

  As the road wound upward Deor took a deep breath and looked back the way they had come.

  If it is his, will he belong to it in turn? Will he see how beautiful it can be? Surely Mist Hills was a part of Montival.

  The previous night the heroic figure of the High King had filled his dreams. And the Sword of the Lady—and Woden speaking through the godwoman to say it was forged for the hand of a King!

  The rain had ceased. The rich scent of damp earth and mulching leaves lay heavy on the air, spiced by an occasional breath of wood smoke from the farmhouses in the valley below. He thought the valley had impressed the visitors with its well-kept farmsteads, each surrounded by a stout palisade, and the stock grazing in the pastures and the orchards where a few apples still clung to the trees. They had stopped at Gowan’s farm for cider and meat pies, but that seemed a long time ago.

  The setting sun shafted between bands of cloud, illuminating ochre slopes half covered by oak forest, the wet leaves shining richly orange and bronze and gold. Farther down he could see the thick band of trees that edged the river, and mist smoking off the fir-clad ridges beyond. He had dreamed of seeing the world beyond this valley, but for a moment a sudden awareness of the land overwhelmed him, as if all the myriad lives around him had fused into a single Spirit that welcomed him home.

  Thora trudged beside him. She looked weary, but her hazel eyes missed nothing. He was surprised to realize how much he liked her. Lately his mother had started matchmaking, and it made him feel as if walls were closing in. Perhaps it was because all the girls at the burg felt like his sisters. His older brother had three children already and Gytha had two. The Godulfsons were not going to go extinct if he did not breed.

  He grinned as the long blare of a horn rose and fell beyond the trees.

  “It’s a fair land, your Mist Hills, and reminds me a bit of home. I take it we’re almost there?”

  After hearing about the wonders of Montival Deor did not expect to impress her, but he could not resist a spurt of pride as the rock wall and the palisade came into view. Beyond them rose the peaked roof of the mead-hall and a tower where two banners snapped in the wind, the one per fess azure and vert a fess wavy argent, and the other per chevron or and sable, a raven volant bendwise sable.

  His father’s huscarles were marching out to form two lines before the gatehouse. The last sunlight sparkled on the serried links of their hauberks of riveted mail and gleamed from the curve of the spangenhelms and the points of their spears and the bosses of their round gold and black painted shields.

  Beneath the arch of the gate waited the baron and his lady. For a moment Deor saw his parents through the strangers’ eyes—a man of sixty-two with scarred face and hands, still big in the shoulders though his body had thickened with age; a woman whose crisp linen wimple hid fading hair and a double chin, but whose erect posture and sharp gray eyes conceded nothing to the years.

  “Food and baths and beds for all!” he grinned. “And if I know my mother, a feast tomorrow. Welcome to Hraefnbeorg!”

  * * *

  I’ve made it to Meduseld . . . thought Thora as the summoning horn ceased to blow. The Rangers will love it here!

  She had never seriously considered joining them, but she had read the books the Dunedain called the Histories. The rest of Hraefnbeorg’s buildings were a maze connected by covered passages, the older sections weathered and much repaired, the new with a rough vitality. The kitchen was separate, and there was a small house for the images of the gods.

&nb
sp; The feasting hall was also new. It stood at the highest point of the hill, where the summit had been built out with stone. Timbers braced the sides, and the lower part of the shingled roof was angled outward over a porch. Above, crossed timbers ended in raven heads, stark against the sky. For a moment she stared, then followed Captain Feldman up the steps and into the hall.

  Her legs felt naked beneath the long skirts of the russet gown they had given her. Bearkiller women rarely wore them, but all her other clothes had been carried off to be cleaned. The meat must have gone into the pit and onto the spit as soon as they were sighted coming up the hill. Her stomach had been growling all morning as the scent of roasting pig wafted through the air.

  At the door a boy stood with a basin and towel so that the guests could wash their hands. Deor’s friend had said Lady Avisa liked to be prepared. To be in control was more like it, she thought wryly. Some people had reacted that way, after the Change.

  Light shafted down from windows at each end and from the dormers over the doors at the sides, but at first all she could make out were the two rows of pillars that ran lengthwise to support the upper part of the roof. As her eyes adjusted she could see that the uprights were carved and painted with bands and chevrons, as were the crossbeams that braced them. The long tables were filling with solid-looking folk, most of them in some kind of T-tunic or gown, though a few wore carefully preserved dresses or jackets and trousers. They must be the eorl’s guard and the more prominent farmers from the valley below.

  “This way, mistress—” Deor’s friend Willa appeared at her elbow and pointed her toward the trestle tables set up along the left side of the hall.

  Captain Feldman was already waiting by a carved chair in the middle, where the long hearth had been divided so that people could pass between the two sides of the hall. The crew sat on the benches beyond him. He seemed a little self-conscious in a tunic of purple cloth that looked as if it had been packed away somewhere since the Change.