by SM Stirling
The railcar was on a barely perceptible upward slope. It coasted to a halt just before the long warehouse-style structure that flanked the right-of-way, and the noncom threw the brake lever to keep them from sliding backward. Silence swept in and the endless space stretched to the world’s edges. The wind’s sough around the car was the loudest sound, that and the endless hshshshshshshshs of the rippling grass and the ringing bell from the ranch. They all popped their doors and got out to stretch; Ritva joined in the knee bends and twists, then got her sheathed sword out of the rack and slid it back into the frog on her belt with a habit as automatic as breathing. It wasn’t much cooler, but the fresh wind made her feel as if it was.
Almost as soon as they stopped, a party rode out of the homeplace gates and along the rutted dirt road that led from there to the railway. There were fourteen saddles followed by a light two-wheel cart pulled by a single horse, and her brows rose a little as she examined the riders, especially the ten who looked like soldiers. Part of their equipment was just cowboy working gear—lariats, belt-knives, curved swords, round shields blazoned with the Anchor Bar Seven’s brand, quivers and recurve bows. But the warriors in the party were in mail hauberks as well, knee-length and split to the waist before and behind rather than the lighter, shorter versions common in ranch country, and helmets with horse-tail plumes, and steel forearm guards. They also all carried real lances at rest in tubular scabbards behind their right elbows, ten-foot weapons with pennants attached below the point. Their horses were a bit taller than the common quarter horse pattern as well.
“Is that gear usual?” she said.
Ian Kovalevsky spoke helpfully: “It’s what the Force uses for a stand-up fight. Most of the Ranchers train some of their men to use it as well.”
The corporal was grimmer: “Getting it out between maneuvers means the McGillverys are expecting trouble, taking men away from the herds this time of year. It’s when they put the stock out towards the edges of the property, now that calving and lambing and branding and shearing are over. And you can’t push cows in that stuff; it’s too heavy.”
The Rancher was a lean, fit-looking man in his thirties, black-haired and clean-shaven, with bright blue eyes and the ageless weathered and lined face born of a life outdoors in dry harsh summers and winters harder yet. The somewhat younger woman beside him with the auburn braids and the lovely palomino horse was probably his wife, to judge by the family resemblance in the boy and girl in their early teens riding behind. All four were in costly copper-riveted blue denim jeans, even more expensive cotton shirts and printed silk neckerchiefs, with broad Stetsons on their heads. The lancers spread out, mostly facing south.
“Damn it, Dudley,” the man began as he dismounted, then noticed her.
His horse stood stock-still, as if the dropped reins were tied to a post, and so did those of the others; he looked her over, evidently not recognizing the crowned tree and seven stars on her green jerkin.
“Ah . . .”
The noncom made an introductory gesture. “Ma’am, this is Avery McGillvery of the Anchor Bar Seven ranch, Captain in the South Alberta Light Horse Regiment, Member of the Legislative Assembly and Justice of the Peace. Mrs. Naomi McGillvery . . . Dirk and Amy McGillvery, their eldest. Sir, we’re escort for, ah, the lady here—”
Ritva removed her hat—it was a peaked Montero, the type Robin Hood was usually shown wearing, and had a peacock feather tucked into the band—and bowed slightly with her right hand on her heart and her left on the hilt of her longsword.
“Mae govannen, brannon, hiril,” she said. “Well-met, lord, lady. May a star shine on the hour of our meeting. I’m Ritva Havel, a roquen of the Dúnedain Rangers.”
Since Aunt Astrid just promoted us from ohtar by long-distance mail. Well deserved, if I do say so myself. It’s nice the Dominions are being so cooperative.
“Roquen means ‘knight.’ I’m from Montival in the far west. No, I’m not an Associate of the PPA, either. It’s a long story. We Dúnedain fought the PPA as well in the old days.”
And I know Drumheller had a nasty little indecisive war over the Peace River country with the Association before they split it between them, so I’d better make that clear. My, how the Armingers managed to make enemies! Matti isn’t like that, but it’s going to give her problems all her life.
She smiled benevolently and shook hands as the Rancher and his family struggled to take that in; or rather the parents did, and the children looked intrigued. There had probably been rumors about the Dúnedain here at least, but news took strange forms when it traveled far. Then she handed over her letters of introduction; from the governments of Iowa, Fargo, and Marshall, and from the Dominions as well. They had an impressive set of signatures and seals, and the border-lord gave her a brief nod as he returned them.
The “all possible assistance” they asked for carried an unspoken corollary: don’t ask questions, and he didn’t.
“Please, don’t let me interrupt,” she completed. “Since I’m just passing through.”
The commander of her escort cleared his throat. “How’s the old man, sir?”
A flicker of pain passed across the Rancher’s face.
“He’s failing,” he said, and nodded brusquely as the newcomers all murmured condolences. “Another stroke, Doctor Nirasha thinks. Well, seventy-five’s old, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir. He helped this area through the Change very well indeed. Any unusual activity along the border?”
“No,” the master of the Anchor Bar Seven said slowly. “Not a solitary peep.”
“Ah,” the corporal said noncommittally.
The Rancher nodded unhappily, showing he wasn’t a novice either, then went on more briskly:
“All right, Dudley, where’s my coal? It’s a week overdue, and we’re about to start burning cowflops and buffalo chips like a bunch of Cutter savages in Montana! Not that the blacksmith is going to get much use out of those.”
“And I had some sheet music on order from Lethbridge, Corporal Dudley,” the young girl said.
Her mother gave her a quelling look before she added: “And the spring shipment of linens and . . . well, what’s happening? Do we have to go back to doing everything ourselves?”
The noncom cleared his throat. “Priority traffic on the line, Mr. McGillvery, Mrs. McGillvery.”
“War,” the Rancher said, with something not quite a sigh. “It’s really going to happen, eh? I always thought we’d have to do something about the Prophet eventually. Premier Mah did send down a Warning notice to all the local spreads, which is why I have some of my men on active duty. They mean it this time? I always thought Emily spooked too easily. That’s why I didn’t vote for her.”
“I don’t think she does, and I did vote for her,” his wife said forthrightly.
“The Commissioner and the Commander of K Division are pretty sure, sir, and I understand Premier Mah concurs. And Premier Szakacs and Premier Wuthrich back east too. The Yanks are serious about settling Corwin once and for all and we’re going to help.”
“God knows they’ve given us reason over the years.”
“That they have, sir. Incidentally, A and B troops of the Force are moving into this area sometime soon to screen the border while we mobilize. Moose Jaw and Minnedosa are calling up the first-line battalions of their militia regiments too. It’ll take them longer than it will Drumheller, of course.”
The man looked grim, his wife anxious, and the children a little excited.
“I’ve stepped up our patrols, and pulled in some of the line camps,” he said. “Damn, but that’s going to waste grazing. Not that we’re short, but there’s the principle of the thing. Live like you’ll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you’ll live forever.”
Then his glance turned pawky. “And meanwhile we’re short on everything we don’t make ourselves, so do the right thing, Dudley, and get me that coal. If there’s going to be trouble, I’ll need it more
than ever.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but the Force is in charge of setting priorities and the line’s been cleared for military traffic. As a matter of fact, there’s a big contingent of the foreign troops coming through right behind us.”
“Yanks?” the Rancher asked.
Ritva cut in: “Some of them, but they’re led by my brother, Artos. Artos the First, High King of Montival. And they’ll be buying supplies. With Iowa’s money, good coined gold.”
That brought a sudden silence, and when the Rancher started arguing again it was in a much less sulky mood. While they spoke the two women who’d been driving the light cart pulled up and got out a picnic lunch that included beer, fresh bread, the promised barbecued beef ribs and an actual green salad with lettuce and tomatoes and spring onions and celery and radishes dressed with oil and vinegar. Ritva felt her stomach growling at the sight and smell; it seemed to remember far too much trail food, and winter fare at that. She chatted with the children as she ate; they had both read the Histories, though they’d thought them mere tales.
Ritva spoke regretfully as the railcar pulled out:
“They seem like very nice people, and extremely hospitable.”
Corporal Dudley grunted. “Nice enough, ma’am. Avery McGillvery’s no fool, but he gets to acting like a bit of a little tin god sometimes, the way a lot of the big Ranchers do down here in Palliser’s Triangle. He doesn’t meet anyone who can tell him ‘no’ from one month to the next, except his wife, and he starts thinking the Force is just another set of his ranch hands.”
“He’s right about part of it, though, Corporal,” Ian said. “They do carry a lot of the national-security weight down here. This is the dangerous border, now that the knights-and-castle freaks—sorry, ma’am—”
“No sorry needed, Ian. My father died fighting the Association. He killed Norman Arminger, in fact.”
“Oh, sorry about that, ah . . . well, now that the PPA have learned to keep on their side of the old BC border.”
“Which is why the Anchor Bar Seven and the other border ranches get tax exemptions and subsidies on their military equipment,” his corporal said.
The map crackled again: “And why we spend so much time around here, too. Let’s see, it’s about sixty miles to Bone Creek. That’s the last place with enough good water before we turn north for Crowsnest Pass. We can make it by about four and scout it out, and the main body will be in by sundown.”
Ritva nodded; they were making a loop southward before they approached the pass. Threading the steep route through the mountains would be the difficult part; once they were over the Rockies they’d be in the Okanogan country, Association territory and part of Montival now.
Say what you like about the Spider of the Silver Tower and Lady Death, and Count Renfrew for that matter, they’ll have everything organized to rush us south fast. By the Valar and Maiar, it will be good to see Montival again!
The ground grew more rolling, and the railroad crossed a few gullies or small rivers. Sometimes that was on the pre-Change embankments or bridges. Once or twice it was on more recently built and more flimsy timber trestles that made them sway and rattle alarmingly as the railcar shot across.
Something teased at her as they slowed down to take one of those. Nothing she could have put a name to, nothing heard, something felt. They were the advance party, after all.
Who scouts for the scouts? she thought.
Her father had used an expression, Polish Mine Detector, for the people he put on point—she could just barely remember him laughing about it when he’d come back from that duty himself, and not understanding at the time.
And . . . All right, Aunt Astrid, Uncle Alleyne and Aunt Eilir and Uncle John, a Ranger is supposed to pay attention to everything. What is it that’s nagging at me? Relax, take deep breaths, feel your legs moving, empty your mind . . .
“Do the birds usually shut up this time of day around here?” she asked suddenly.
Until a few minutes ago there had been yellow-breasted meadow-larks chattering and singing, bluebirds swooping after grasshoppers, and dozens more. Even the occasional red-tailed hawk or falcon or eagle only made them scatter for a little while. Also there had been more than a few prairie dogs, waddling about or sitting in the entrances of their burrows going eeek-eeek-eeek at the passing humans and their machinery. Now there was silence save for the ticking of insects.
“No, they don’t,” Corporal Dudley said suddenly, throwing her a respectful look. Then: “Squad, rest easy!”
The vehicle coasted to a halt. “I think it’s maybe too quiet,” Ritva murmured, and suppressed an inappropriate giggle as most of the redcoats nodded solemnly.
There were hatches on the roof of the railcar. She opened the one above her seat and got out her binoculars, and so did Corporal Dudley. There was nothing but the rolling swells of the prairie, though through the glasses the Rockies were definitely visible now.
“No game, either,” she said. “Nothing moving but the bugs and those ravens over by that ravine.”
Minutes ticked by. Kovalevsky jittered a little, but he was the youngest of his band; the others had stayed quiet after checking their fighting gear. Ritva smiled and glanced down at him, then quoted a training mantra of John Hordle’s:
“Who dares, wins. Who gets the wind up and buggers about like a headless pillock, loses. Know when to wait, know when to kick them in the goolies, and you’ll be the one telling lies over your beer.”
Corporal Dudley looked at her again. “You really aren’t just somebody’s relative, are you, ma’am?”
“No,” Ritva said flatly. “No, I’m not.”
Normally she’d have embroidered on the theme, but the sense of something wrong was building instead of fading. From the way his head swiveled back and forth with the binoculars, so was the corporal’s.
“I think we should turn the railcar around,” Ritva said after a longer wait. “Just in case.”
“My thought exact—”
The first horsemen came out of the ravine ahead of them before the word ended; evidently they’d decided that their prey wasn’t going to walk into the parlor. Corporal Dudley shifted in mid-syllable.
“—squad reverse railcar!”
The eight scarlet-clad men and one woman in gray-green flung themselves out of the vehicle and at the handgrips built into its sides. Ritva grunted as the weight came on her arms and back and the corrugated metal bit into her palms; there was a trick to throwing your whole body into an effort like this, like drawing a bow. The same lightweight construction that made the railcar fast also made it possible to lift, if you worked carefully and in coordination. They did, feet churning to avoid tripping on the rusty rail or splintered, obtruding ties where gravel had washed away.
Clung.
The flanged wheels came down on the pitted steel of the rails again.
“Hup!”
The redcoats threw their shoulders against the open doors of the car and pushed to get it going; a fractional second later so did she. It was a good idea, overcoming the inertia faster than they could have by pedaling alone. In a few seconds they were moving it at a pounding run.
“Middle seats in . . . now!” the corporal barked. “Outer seats in . . . now!”
She hadn’t practiced this maneuver the way the men of the Force had, but she was a Ranger, and she’d spent endless hours climbing and tumbling and doing gymnastics. Her body thumped down in the left front seat beside Constable Kovalevsky about the same time as the others, though it took her an instant longer to get the soles of her elf-boots on the pedals. They were all pumping hard in unison, and then the corporal’s voice barked as speed built:
“Shift gears . . . now. And shift gears . . . now. And shift gears . . . now!”
The sound of the wheels built to a thrumming whine, interspersed by the clickity-clack as they crossed the joints. Her eyes went to the mirror outside the window.
The helpful little objects in the rearview mirror are closer
than they appear printed on the convex surface was deeply unwelcome, because the onrushing horsemen were far, far closer than was comfortable in any case. More and more of them were pouring up out of the ravine as she watched as well, laboring over the steep lip or traveling north and south for shallower exits, then crowding back until they formed a reverse crescent behind the railcar. Was it her imagination, or could she already feel the earth shaking beneath the impact of hundreds of hooves?
“A thousand yards and gaining,” she said.
Corporal Dudley grunted agreement; he had a mirror too. “The lightest men on the fastest horses,” he said. “They’re getting strung out.”
She hadn’t had time to be afraid before; you didn’t, when you were scrambling to meet an emergency, or fighting. Now she was just running away, and she found her breath coming faster than the exertion would justify. She slowed it by a practiced effort of will; if you made yourself act brave, you were. That was what being brave meant. She’d met a few people—all of them men, which didn’t surprise her—who really didn’t feel fear. Every single one had been a dangerous lunatic, useful mainly to stop spears or arrows which might otherwise have hit a real human being.
Hrolf Homersson, for example, she thought snidely.
“Still gaining,” she said, in a dry matter-of-fact tone.
“They will for a while,” Dudley said in a bass version of the same tone, and she nodded.
A horse could gallop at over thirty-five miles an hour for about as long as a man could run at top speed, allowing for condition and feeding. A quarter horse could hit fifty or a little more for very short sprints. Bicycles had far more endurance but they weren’t as fast in a dash, though the lower rolling friction on steel and the low-drag housing of the railcar and the fact that they were going slightly downhill helped; this was a courier and mail vehicle and built for speed.
We’ll either get to the Anchor Bar Seven homeplace before they catch up with us, or we won’t . . .
There wasn’t any point in talking; they needed all their wind. The harsh sound of their deep breathing dominated the interior. Her eyes flicked to the speedometer, which thankfully was in miles and not the other system they sometimes used here. Thirty-two miles per hour and rising slightly, as fast as she’d ever gone for any length of time except in a glider. A trestle went by rattling beneath them, and she managed a wheeze of excitement as she looked in the mirror and saw the horsemen check as they guided their horses into the dry creek-bed it spanned and then up again. That slowed them, but less than trying to pick their way over the ties. Then she cursed silently as the rails stretched into a long shallow curve ahead; the pursuers cut across the cord and regained the lost ground. Eight hundred yards now between them and the foremost spray, with the rest stretching back to the original hiding place.
