BD sank back down, wincing a little. No need to watch. She'd grown used to what edged metal did to the godlike human form, but there was no point in looking at it if you didn't have to.
Hooves thudded up the slope, and Alleyne Loring and John Hordle stood to raise their blades in salute as Tiphaine d'Ath reined in. The Grand Constable had the stumps of three arrows in her shield, and another in the high cantle of her saddle; her sword glistened with a coat of liquid red so fresh it had not even begun to clot, and more spattered up her arm and across the articulated lames of her breastplate.
She used the edge of her shield to push up the visor, and her face showed framed in the mail coif, red and running with sweat as she drew in air through a wide-open mouth. Fighting in armor was brutal labor at best, worse than hauling a plow like an ox.
"We'd best get going," she said, timing the words to her breath. "They'll be here in strength soon; it's going to be a busy day. I've got ambulances."
The light well-sprung vehicles were bouncing up the slope behind her, two tall spoked wheels for each, and a pair of fast horses to draw them.
"We've got the Bossman," Hordle said, jerking his thumb at a man who lay bound hand and foot. "Wasn't 'alf a nuisance, dragging him through the tunnels."
"Then we got something out of this," Tiphaine said.
"Not as much as we thought," Alleyne said. "Thurston and the Prophet are both in Pendleton. And Estrellita Peters, too, for them to use as a puppet."
Alleyne turned and helped his wife to her feet. She blinked, squinted, and then raised one hand in acknowledgment.
"I commend the army to your care, Lady d'Ath," she said.
There was a lump the size of a robin's egg on her forehead just above her nose, and she squinted and blinked at the tall steel-clad figure.
"To both of you," she added owlishly, then swallowed and forced clarity on herself with a visible effort. "I've seen the new Dark Lord. This time he's the genuine article."
I'm a gardener, Chuck Barstow Mackenzie thought.
That had been his first love, growing things, though the Barstow family had already been two generations off the farm when he'd been born. One of his first memories was helping his father plant a Japanese cherry tree in the backyard, his small hands pressing the peat moss and potting soil down around the little sapling, and he'd checked it daily and laughed with delight at the first blossoms.
He'd been working in the city Parks Department in Eugene when the Change happened, and thirty years old.
How the hell did I end up a general? the First Armsman of Clan Mackenzie thought. OK, so I was in the Society…
"Halt!" he called, and his signaler-his younger son Rowan-unslung the cow-horn trumpet and sounded it: huuuuu-hu-hu!
The column braked to a stop, the dust of their trail-bikes falling ahead of them. He was on horseback, and a few others, but most Mackenzie crofts didn't run to a riding horse, and a bicycle didn't need to be fed or tended when you weren't using it. Their faces were glistening with sweat; it was no joke biking cross-country in thirty pounds of brigandine and helmet, with a quiver across your back and two more slung on either side of the rear wheel, but it beat marching for effort and speed both.
"The Grand Constable says you're to deploy there, my lord," the Portlander courier said, pointing to the low crest ahead of them. "The Bearkillers and the contingent from the Warm Springs tribes will be on your right."
"Very well," he said. "You may tell Lady d'Ath that we'll hold the position."
And I don't like taking Tiphaine d'Ath's orders, either, he thought.
She had killed his foster daughter Aoife in the War of the Eye-with her own hands during the abduction of Rudi, back when she'd been Sandra Arminger's personal black-body-stocking girl ninja.
OK, that was war and Aoife was armed and fighting back. And now we're all allies. It still sucks.
The rest of the Mackenzie contingent set their bicycles on the kickstands, lining them up with the front wheels pointing west. The carts and ambulances and the healers set up nearby; everyone else followed him a thousand yards eastward, loping along at a ground-eating trot. Chuck reined in and waited until they were all within range and then raised his voice to carry; there was a trick to doing it without screeching.
"Mackenzies," he said. "The Prophet's men came onto our land and killed our own folk in Sutterdown last Samhain, when we'd never harmed them. When our dead come visiting this Samhain night, what will we tell them?"
"Blood for blood!" someone shouted. "That we've taken the heads of them and nailed them up over the door!"
A long growl answered from the broad semicircle of snarling painted faces, fists or bows thrust into the air in a rippling wave.
OK, I like the old stories too, but let's not get ridiculous.
The problem was that you could never be quite sure what the younger generation would take from the ancient tales. Chuck continued:
"We came here because we thought the Prophet's men might come and use Pendleton as a base against us, and his friend the tyrant of Boise."
Which would have been a bit unfair to the old General, but fits his son Martin like a glove, he thought. And probably a lot of these kids volunteered because they were bored with working on their home-crofts and because Lady Juniper asked it. I'm glad I don't have Juney's job, by the Horned Lord!
He grinned at them and put his hands on the horn of his saddle.
"Well, it turns out they're both here-not just their men, but the leaders themselves, to be sure. Lady Juniper knew what she was talking about, eh? So there are more of the enemy than we hoped or expected, and that's war for you. Don't think of it as being outnumbered…"
"Think of it as having lots of targets!" someone finished the old joke, and there was a roar of laughter.
"That's not all we've learned," he went on. "We've had a letter from our tanist, Rudi Mackenzie-Artos himself himself, the very Sword of the Lady off on his quest to the sunrise lands."
That brought them all leaning forward, eyes intent.
"This prophet scabhteara attacked him, yes, and set evil magic against him and his friends, and took his anamchara Mathilda prisoner. They scorn all other men, and all gods save theirs. But Artos walked into their camp at night, and brought her out for all their sorcerers or swordsmen could do… and when he left there were a fair number of them making their accounting to the Guardians, for the Morrigu was with him, and his sword her scythe, reaping men."
He paused, and said with mock solemnity: "Earth must be fed."
That brought more laughter, some a little scandalized, and another long cheer, with shouts of Rudi! and Artos! all rising into the racking banshee shriek of the Mackenzie battle-yell, stunning-loud from a thousand throats at close quarters. Chuck raised a hand to quiet it.
"The Lord of the Long Spear is with us, and the Crow Goddess. We're fighting for our homes, our kin, our Clan, and the land your parents spent their blood and their sweat to win," he said, just quietly enough that they had to strain to hear him.
"But Earth must be fed. Not all of us will walk away from this field. And this war won't be ended with a single battle. So listen to your bow-captains, stand by your blade-mates, and shoot fast, straight and hard!"
Their pipers struck up, leading the contingents to their places, the skirling drones pealing out the jaunty menace of "The Ravens' Pibroch." Behind them there was a faint rat-tat-tat… And then a shattering BOOM! Even expecting it, he had to control a start.
He'd read somewhere before the Change that a big Lambeg drum had about the same decibel level as the engine of a Piper Cub. Nothing else in the world today came close to massed Lambegs, unless it was thunder or an avalanche of anvils falling on rock. That was something Juniper Mackenzie had taken from her father's people, who'd been Ulster-Scots before they began the long trek West. This was the music they'd used to shatter their enemies' hearts and lash their own folk into the blood-frenzy.
BOOM! Then Boom-boom… boom-boom-boom…
boom… BOOM! repeating over and over with a maddening irregularity. It wove through the piping until he could taste it at the back of his throat, like blood and hot brass.
He dismounted, handed off the reins, and walked a dozen paces eastward. That put him on the crest of a low ridge running north-south, with a long slope before them, a patchwork of stubble fields among the broader gray brown of bunchgrass and sage. It was good ground, as long as the sun wasn't in their eyes, and it was already too high above the horizon for that to be a real problem. It did gild the dust clouds that the feet and hooves of the advancing enemy raised, twinkling on spear-points like stars through mist. A long ripple of comment went down the ranks of the Clan's archers. All along the front the bow-captains plucked out tufts of the dry grass and tossed them into the air to test the breeze; it was faint, but directly from the west.
Rowan planted the green flag with the Crescent Moon between antlers beside him. The Mackenzies waited in their three-deep harrow formation, a long slightly curving line like a very shallow S that followed the crest, each dun's fighters by the neighbors who would take home the news of their honor or their shame. He waited until they were set before barking:
"Plant the swine-feathers!"
Spread out like this they couldn't all hear his voice, but Rowan put the horn to his mouth and blew a series of long-and-shorts, the blatting snarl cutting through the rumble of an army shaking itself out into battle formation. Each of the Clan's warriors reached over their backs to a bag slung beside their quivers and pulled out a pair of yard-long ashwood shafts, tied together with thongs. There was a flurry of purposeful movement, and a long snick-snick-clack! as the metal collar-and-tongue joints were fitted together. That left every Mackenzie holding a six-foot pole with a long spearhead on one end and a narrow-bladed shovel on the other.
They jammed the shovel blades into the ground and hammered them home with boot-heels. The shunk of steel in dry soil sounded over and over again for a few seconds; when it was done a forest of spear-points jutted forward, three ranks deep and slanted at just the right height to catch the chest of a horse. Then the whole formation took four steps back, and they had a barrier ahead of them that most horses would refuse to take-at least at a gallop.
He looked left and right while the clansfolk worked; northward was a battery of the Corvallan field artillery, their glaives stacked as they labored like maniacs with pick and shovel to pile up berms in front of their throwing engines. Beyond them the first of the Portlander infantry, leaning on their spears with their shields still slung across their backs.
In the distance there he could just make out Tiphaine d'Ath's banner, floating amid a forest of upright lances.
The First Armsman of the Mackenzies filled his lungs again:
"Make ready!"
The bows came out of their carrying loops beside the quivers. Here and there some of the clansfolk stretched and twisted or rotated their right arms. From each contingent one trotted out to the front, planting a red-painted stick every so often out to three hundred yards-extreme battle range-to help the archers judge distance.
"Good open ground," Oak called to his father, grinning; he was leading the Dun Juniper contingent, nearest the standard, which put him within conversational distance. "Fine weather, the wind at our backs, and downhill. Praise to the Long Spear and the Battle-Hag!"
Chuck nodded back, matching the smile-but it was a conscious gesture for him. He envied the youngsters their calm acceptance of it all; there was still a touch of unreality to this, for him. As if he'd wandered into a tale…
Hooves thudded behind him. He glanced back; the carts with the spare arrows were already trotting along behind the Mackenzie line. Youngsters like Rowan-just a year or two too young to stand in the battle line-grabbed bundles and rushed them forward, planting them point down by the warriors' feet until each had three or four, and then poising ready to bring more as needed. A Mackenzie war-quiver held forty-eight shafts, but those were the chosen handmade arrows that each bought or crafted to suit their own fancy for precision work. These were from the stored reserves, and making them to the standard pattern was winter work, done as a part of the Chief's Portion that every dun paid from its crops and labor for the Clan's common purposes. All the heads were alike, too-narrow bodkins shaped like a metalworker's punch, of hardened alloy steel.
When the work was complete the ground around the clan's warriors seemed to bristle like the hide of some monstrous boar, topped with the gray goose feathers of the fletching.
Chuck took a sip from his canteen and spat to clear the alkaline dust of this dry Eastern land. Some of the others did likewise; more were lifting their kilts and taking a last chance to empty their bladders downslope towards the enemy-that always happened, for you went tight when danger approached. The bawdy jokes were as traditional as the harsh ammonia smell.
Horsemen cantered up before him, led by Winnemuca of the Three Tribes, and Eric Larsson of the Bearkillers with the ostrich-feather plumes on his helm making him even more of a steel tower.
Winnemuca looked as if he'd already seen some action; there was a sheen of sweat on his broad features, making the paint on his face run a little below the eagle-plumed steel cap-the design was black, with circles of white around his eyes.
"Whoa, that's war- paint," he said, looking at the crimson-gold-black-green designs that swirled over the faces of the nearer Mackenzies. "You white-eyes always go overboard with an idea once you steal it."
A few of the archers who could hear elevated their middle fingers in neighborly wise. Chuck grinned at him.
"The woad was traditional long before we decided to relocate, sure an' it was," he said, exaggerating the Mackenzie lilt that had become second nature over the years. "Along with scalping and head-hunting."
"No accounting for taste," the Indian said. Then he went serious: "They're going to be here soon. Light cavalry-Ranchers-they've got a good screen, but I saw a lot of them massed farther back, nearly a thousand horse-archers. Then the Cutter mounted levies, and then the Sword of the Prophet behind them, they've got bow and lance both. The Boiseans are over north, opposite the Portlanders, horse and foot-mostly infantry. And the Pendleton city militia in the center. Pikemen mostly, it looks like. We can't hold the Pendleton Ranchers off you much longer. Too many. Most of their cavalry is on this flank, but it looks like they're concentrating their field artillery in the center and the northern wing."
The three leaders looked at one another. The northern edge of the allied army was anchored on steep ravines, but the country southward was open and rolling, ideal for a horseman's battle.
"Well," Eric said to his son and Mike Havel Jr., who rode behind him with the snarling bear's-head banner of the Outfit on a staff that was also a very practical lance. "Now you're going to see how a fighting retreat is managed-and that's a lot more difficult to pull off than a pursuit."
He nodded to Chuck. "We'll hold 'em off while you get out," he said. "But you'll have to rake them hard first."
"Sethaz is going to regret ordering the horse in there," General-President Martin Thurston said, leveling his binoculars.
The long glitter of the swine feathers showed close through the lenses, and behind them the archers leaning on their weapons or squatting, waiting patiently or talking to one another-a few were even napping, amid the furze of arrows stuck in the ground. God alone knew how anyone could sleep near the savage music of the pipes and drums.
God, I'd love to have those longbowmen on my side! And someday I will, he thought, and popped a piece of the tasteless twice-baked hardtack into his mouth; there hadn't been time for breakfast, or even much sleep, and he chewed doggedly at the compacted-sawdust taste of it.
No time after that cluster-fuck at the Bossman's house last night.
His memory shied away from that a little.
And Sethaz' people act damned odd, sometimes. Well, they're lunatics, but even so… I thought Sethaz was a cynic exploiting fanatics… maybe he's more sincere t
han that.
"You think it's a mistake to attack?" his aide said. "About even odds-a thousand or so each. And they're light infantry; if the Pendleton cavalry can unravel them, the whole enemy position goes into the pot and we could bag them all."
"I've seen Mackenzies shoot," Martin said. "Two of them, at least. If they were within a couple of miles of typical, rushing a thousand of them head-on is a bad idea. Or maybe Sethaz won't regret it. The holy Prophet is sending our glorious local allies in first over there, I notice."
The Boisean command group were on a slight rise behind the line. Thurston's brown face was considering as the mass of Pendleton light horse finished sweeping their CORA equivalents out of the way and charged towards the Mackenzie archers. He took a deep breath, full of the smell of war-acrid dust, sweat of humans and horses, dung, piss, oiled metal, leather, dirty socks, the musk of fear and tension.
"Yeah, the wogs'll do to soak up arrows," the aide said, and a chuckle ran through the men around Thurston. "And if they get killed by the shitload, then afterwards there are that many less around to cause trouble."
"Those Cutter maniacs are polygamists, aren't they?" another said. "Lots of widows…"
The line of kilted archers was silent, and then a chant began-too faint to hear at first, but building until it rang clear even over the hammer of the drums and the noise of the hooves:
"We are the point "We are the edge "We are the wolves that Hecate fed!"
Then a cow-horn trumpet snarled and blatted, and the chant stopped. Another call, and a thousand yew bows came up and drew, each arrowhead pointing halfway to the vertical as the yellow staves bent.
"Oh, notice the ranging stakes in front of each unit?" Thurston said. "That's clever, that's really quite clever."
The aide was from a prominent military family who'd supported his assumption of his father's power, and was beside Thurston because of it, but he was no fool. He blinked at the bristling unison of the movement, bringing up his own binoculars.
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