The High King of Montival

by SM Stirling

  “True. But I don’t think it’s anything we need account to the Guardians for. It’s like throwing a stone into a pond; the ripples spread as they may, and no one can tell beforehand just how they will. That there will be ripples, yes, but the only way to avoid that is not to act at all.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “I’m glad the locals haven’t attacked us. The way it was going east, it seemed we couldn’t step behind a tree for a call of nature without an ambush or an affray or a fight or something.”

  Artos nodded, and his hand closed on the pommel of the Sword. Crystal light seemed to seep through his flesh; was he imagining that, or the warmth?

  “I think it’s this, acushla. The Sword of the Lady. The enemy can’t see us anymore, it comes to me. Not with eyes beyond the ones in their head, for Her hand is over us.”

  “They could see us? Before?”

  That was almost a squeak.

  “I suspected it, and now I’m certain. How else could they have dogged our steps so closely, again and again, through so many miles of wilderness? Even when we broke contact for weeks, there they’d turn up, like a debt collector from a Corvallis bank. But now . . . now we’re on more equal ground.”

  “Good!”

  They came back to the camp to the sound of raised voices. A crowd of onlookers was grinning and hooting; then the circle burst apart in two directions. In one a massively built Norrheimer stiff-armed his way through; that might have led to dangerous offense, except that the victims were laughing even after two of them fell on their backsides.

  “Hrolf Homersson,” Artos mused to himself. “Ritva’s lover of the moment—”

  On the other side there was a more flamboyant exit as someone vaulted onto a man’s shoulders in a handstand and back-flipped back to the ground, twisting in the air as she did so. The indignant bob of the blond fighting braid was unmistakable as she stalked away. Edain and Asgerd chuckled with the innocent cruelty of happy youth.

  “Hrolf on one side, Ritva on the other,” Mathilda added. “Of the previous moment, I’d say!”

  Bjarni strode forward, his broad-brimmed leather hat thrust back on his head; most of the crowd were men of his tribe, the Bjornings, but with a scatter from all the Norrheimer contingents.

  “All right!” he shouted. “Is this a collection of picked fighting men, or a clutch of gossips at a quilting bee? Syfrid, can’t you keep them working? In the days of the sagas, men so idle would be thought useless as anything but a sacrifice to the High One! I need a working party to collect our dinners, which will be roast beef and ribs and better than you wastrels deserve—you, you, you—each pick four more, and take as many horses. The rest of you, get your weapons and muster by your standards!”

  Ingolf walked over to Artos and Mathilda and shrugged. “They had a fight. I thought it was better to let them have it out, since it was personal, but it sort of escalated. Short of throwing a bucket of water over them . . . well, she’s my sister-in-law but your sister . . .”

  “Ah, you’ve the right of it. Sooner shove your hand into a hornet’s nest. What started it?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think it was a rabbit.”

  “A rabbit?”

  “Mary and Ritva got back from their scout, and they were pretty tired. Hrolf had just shot a rabbit, and he walked up and suggested that Ritva cook it for their dinner.”

  “Ouch,” Mathilda said.

  “Yeah. Then Ritva suggested he cook it himself since he’d been sitting on his ass all day pedaling while she did the real work. Apparently he’d heard that bit in those books where what’s-his-name does up the rabbit with herbs.”

  “Sam,” Edain said. “I always did like him best, of all the folk in those stories. Sensible lad. Me da thought so too.”

  Ingolf nodded, more as a placeholder than anything else, and went on:

  “And Hrolf thought it was a big joke to quote that and say she ought to be able to do it just as well.”

  Artos winced. “And her response?”

  “She suggested he cook it himself using his dick for a roasting-spit and then shove it up his ass with chili peppers on it—she said it in Sindarin first and then translated for him—and I’m afraid I laughed. Because in that language—”

  “To say, roast it on your man-spear with chilies and ram it up your back-hole sounds . . . indescribable, so it does.”

  “Yah hey. Then Hrolf laughed, and things went downhill from there. They didn’t actually draw on each other, but I don’t think it was just a tiff.”

  Mathilda laughed herself. “And you can smooth down the ruffled feathers in your war band, my love. But I think you’d better be solemn, for she’s not going to be seeing the humor of it all. That’s how I’d guess, at least.”

  Artos sighed. “Ah, a joyful and heady thing it is, to be leader.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GRANGEVILLE COUNTY,

  CAMAS MILITARY DISTRICT (FORMERLY NORTH-CENTRAL IDAHO)

  APRIL 14, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  “Maybe it would have been better to go northand through the Dominions,” Red Leaf whispered. “I need to get home soonest, but . . .”

  “That would mean crossing the Canadian Rockies,” Astrid pointed out, equally quietly. “At this time of year, very risky. They’re much, much higher. Also colder, and not fond of men, like Caradhras.”

  He grunted, as if to say And this isn’t a risk?

  The eight Dúnedain and the two Sioux all sat quietly after that, gnawing on strips of jerky that tasted like salty wood. They didn’t dare light a fire, and the steep lodgepole pine forest was still and cold, quiet save for the scolding of a few jays; they were far inland now, over the old Idaho border north of the Salmon River and several thousand feet up. She shivered a little, as much with exhaustion as the chill; not far away their horses stood with their heads drooping. Still, it was a day when the sky was aching-blue above, and the thin air was full of the awakening scent of the pines. She pulled the air into her lungs and let it out slowly, over and over, until her spirit expanded to fill the high forest.

  A warbling call from above and her head came up, swift but not jerky. Then another and she relaxed, coming to her feet and dusting pine-duff off the slightly damp seat of her soft leather trousers. The sentry slid down with no more than a few fragments of bark coming with him, his blurred outline shaggy in his war-cloak and gauze face-mask.

  “Man cennich?” she said softly: “What did you see?”

  “No sign,” the young man said, nodding westward to where the slope fell away into a river valley. “They’ve lost us or they’re better at hiding than we are at finding, Lady.”

  Astrid exhaled, hiding her relief. I’m not even really sure they were following us, she thought. But that’s two days.

  “Let’s go, then,” she said.

  Then she turned eastward and moved her hands in the broad gestures of battle-sign: Hold in place; await our return for the next three days maximum. They’d need a clear path of retreat across the river, just in case, which was why Eilir and John Hordle were back there with the other half of the party.

  It took a minute or two to collect everyone quietly; the Ranger band was spread over several acres of the hillside, for better concealment. While they did she consulted her map and compass, just to be sure. One of the things she’d learned long ago in the early years of the Rangers was how disconcertingly easy it was to simply get irretrievably lost in country you weren’t thoroughly familiar with and end up going in circles. Particularly in unroaded wilderness without man-made landmarks.

  I’m happy Alleyne is ahead of us breaking trail.

  Now they went in a widely spaced single file; her, then the Indians with her Rangers bringing up the rear and last a horse dragging a bundle of brush—which wouldn’t hide their tracks completely but would make them much harder to read in detail. The two Sioux were nearly as quiet as her folk; forested mountains weren’t their native range, but they weren’t altogether unfamiliar with them
either. The sun crept upward and the day warmed, enough to make her sweat a little under the leather-covered mail shirt she was wearing besides her travel gear. They rode and walked in about equal increments; that was good practice anyway, and the terrain made it impossible to do anything else.

  The Ranger-sign Alleyne had left was faint, easy to miss if you didn’t concentrate even when you’d helped invent it.

  The Histories are frustratingly vague there. Runes, yes, like Weathertop, but that’s not really very specific. Oh, well, it was long Ages ago. We’re lucky so much was preserved.

  A rough triangle of twigs, a scuff-mark, a broken weed, all things that could have happened naturally. At one point they guided her down to a rocky stream; they led their horses through it for half an hour. That wading was hard on the hooves and human feet inside the greased, waxed leather of boots, but the risk was worth it to break the trail so conveniently. When they were about to lead the animals back up the bank and check for loose horseshoes and change into dry socks themselves the horses grew restive and someone said quietly:

  “Brôg!”

  A bear it was, an adolescent male grizzly too young to be very massive yet but already near its full length, and thin with spring. For a moment it looked at the equally surprised humans, black nose wrinkling as it took in the scents of man and horse and metal, and then it reared up to its seven-foot height as if to say:

  I’m dangerous, so take no liberties!

  Grizzlies ate plant food as much as anything—this one had been nipping at green spring shoots—but they were more than ready to kill for meat when they could get it. She put her hand to Arroach’s nose as the animal swung its head up in a startled gesture. Six of the Rangers brought their bows to half-draw and two leveled spears in a moment of stillness that stretched. Then the bear decided to move aside, lumbering up with a crackle through the stiff vines and saplings at the edge of the creek. It wasn’t afraid, nor moving fast, just reasonably cautious, which struck her as an eminently sensible attitude in a chance encounter. She’d hunted bear, but never without careful preparations.

  “Go in peace today, Brother Bear,” Astrid murmured.

  “Yeah, heel and toe it, namesake,” Rick Three Bears said in relief.

  His hand was tight on the bridle of his nervous mount. If the big bruin had turned ugly they would certainly have lost horses before they could have taken it down, and probably warriors as well, since they were not in a position to dodge. Grizzlies took a good deal of killing.

  Then the slopes gentled as they descended; they saw plenty of bird-life and game-sign, and now and then some mule deer, but they weren’t pausing even to shoot for the pot. The sun was high enough that the grassy open expanse ahead seemed to shimmer with green and patches of bright blue as they caught glimpses between the trees. The other side was a line on the horizon, vaguely suggesting hills; it must be many miles away, to be so small from this height.

  I hope we’re just where I think we are. I don’t want to blunder around wasting time looking for the rendezvous.

  “Is that swamp, the blue?” Red Leaf asked. “Standing water with grass growing up through it?”

  Astrid smiled and shook her head. “Camas flower,” she said. “It’s early this year, but later it looks even better. This is the Nann i Camas, the Camas Prairie I told you of.”

  She could feel the Lakota relax; she’d observed that they liked a big sky and a long view and felt cramped in close country. Dúnedain tried to be at home in all types of landscape, but there was no dispute that forest offered more scope for their particular talents.

  “Yeah, we got camas in the makol too, but not nearly so many. Too dry, I suppose,” Red Leaf said. “That’s some good-looking pasture out there.”

  Astrid breathed a soundless sigh of relief as she saw Alleyne rise from a nest of branches and war-cloak that had made him the next thing to invisible. The rest of the column came up and spread out to either side of his waiting place at the edge of the woods, far enough back that no betraying glint would make them apparent to a patrol out on the prairie.

  “Secure?” Alleyne asked.

  “No sign of those cavalry. Eilir and John are holding the rear in case we have to move back quickly, but I don’t think so.”

  He nodded and called: “Hírvegil, Imlos,” while pointing upward.

  The two young Rangers unwrapped their war-cloaks from their packs, and donned them and their claws. Then each ran up a tree with a cat’s hunching speed, picking ones with good fields of view on the back trail as well as ahead.

  Astrid unshipped her Zeiss palantír en-crûm and leaned against a half-fallen pine to brace her elbows. Back and forth; no sign of man, save for a big herd of red-and-white Herefords already at the very edge of sight and slowly moving eastward with only two mounted cowboys in attendance; they’d vanished within an hour. This was rich farmland, well-watered dark basaltic soil planted to wheat and canola before the Change, but there was no need to till nearly as much now when crops weren’t shipped to great cities far away. Most of it was sparsely grazed prairie where it wasn’t outright abandoned these days, with planted fields only around the widely scattered ranch-houses and little hamlet-towns. The dirt roads that had marked it into square-mile sections had long since grown over in grass and brush, the telephone poles burned and fallen, plowland gone back to green wildness.

  Like Eriador in the Third Age, and I saw the beginnings here back right after the Change, she thought, with a complex mix of emotions. Remembering myself at fourteen is like remembering being someone else, almost. Then I was only beginning to know what my fate was, and what I must do in the Fifth Age.

  Man’s hand lay lightly enough on the Camas Prairie now that she could see a lobo pack in the middle distance, trotting from north to south in single file. She smiled to herself as she watched them moving confidently with their heads high to keep them above the tips of the thigh-high grass, eight big shaggy gray adults a yard high at the shoulders and four youngsters, gawky adolescent one-and two-yearolds. Then they caught her party’s scent; the wind was light, but from the west. She saw them halt and look her way, then give the canine equivalent of shrugs and head on their journey once more, wary of humans but not particularly frightened. A few bison cows and their calves an hour later were more cautious, veering away before they became more than dots to the naked eye.

  Ohtar—warrior-squires—came by with water for humans and horses, and carrying the last of the cracked grain to feed the mounts. They were well-trained beasts, but it tugged at her heart to see them yearning towards that rich tender grazing when she had to deny them.

  “You can graze tonight to your heart’s content, my darlings,” she murmured beneath her breath. “I know war is hard on horses.”

  The sun crept across the sky and moved behind her; she ate another stick of jerky and some raisins and ignored the way her stomach gurgled. She even tried to ignore the thought of how Diorn and Hinluin and Fimalen would be missing her, back at Stardell Hall. Children grew so fast . . . Diorn was past ten now and tried to hide his fears, but the twins cried whenever they saw her getting her war-gear together, though Míresgaliel was an excellent nanny.

  Though I’ d be even more upset if they didn’t miss me. And I’ d like to have at least one more. Another boy, say, though a third girl would be welcome too. I’m thirty-eight, time’s getting a little tight . . . maybe it would be another pair of twins if we’re lucky? My family always ran to them and so does Alleyne’s. Uncomfortable but it saves time. If we live through this war, perhaps we should let the younger generation have the active tasks and settle down to teaching and policy all the time.

  A herd of fawn-colored pronghorns with white bellies and rumps came from the south, pronking and stotting as they went—bouncing along like rubber balls or hopping straight up, apparently for the sheer joy of it, and she saw Alleyne grin as he watched. A few whitetailed deer wandered along the edge of the woods, darting away when they got within a few-score paces of
the silent humans and finally realized predators were about; some feral alpacas grazed. A blaring sound in the sky made her look up and see a brace of massive snowy trumpeter swans going by. Other birds swept through northward towards the lakes that lay there, V-shapes of duck and geese and tern; a golden eagle cruised along the forest edge for a while, a seven-foot wingspan of savage majesty hoping to scare up something edible . . . which for that breed might be anything up to a pronghorn and certainly included the odd weakly lamb or fawn.

  I do like the wilderness, she thought. More than the tame lands. Though the forests of Mithrilwood are even more comely than this. Home is where your children are born.

  Then—

  “That’s them,” she said, seconds after the two observers whistled the first sighting from their treetop perches—for detail her optics trumped their elevation.

  Two groups of horsemen, riding along at a casual trot-canter-trot with remounts and pack beasts on leading reins, one coming from the east, the other from north and east.

  “Literally six of one and half a dozen of the other,” Alleyne said. “You’re sure?”

  “The blue scarves are the recognition signal, and they’re all wearing them. Either we’re blown, or it’s them.”

  It was possible they had been blown; this area had been part of the United States of Boise for over twenty years, though it was lightly governed, or had been until recently. It took only one traitor or a suspicious and conscientious officer making arrests and holding people’s heads underwater until they talked, which everyone did eventually. She reached over her shoulder for an arrow and tied a bit of blue ribbon just below the head. Her man did likewise, and they rose and trotted out into the open. When they’d been standing for ten minutes each of them drew to the ear and shot skywards, and riders stood in the stirrups and waved back at them.

  The Idahoans had a perfect right to be here on their home ranges, if anyone asked. They rode up boldly, and Astrid signed over her shoulder for the Sioux to come out beside the Dúnedain leaders. The two approaching parties traveled the last hundred yards side by side. One was commanded by a sixtyish man in rancher’s leather and denim and linsey-woolsey with a Stetson on his head, and a Sheriff’s star on his jacket. The other’s leader was fifty-something, dressed in fine fringed buckskins with a bar of white paint across his eyes; there was as much gray as raven black in his long hair, which was bound at the rear of his head with a fan-shaped spray of eagle feathers. The rancher’s troop had excellent horses of a nondescript quarter horse breed; the Indians rode striking-looking animals with almost metallic-golden forequarters and socks, fading to pale gray with patches on the rest of their bodies.