"They've got good fire discipline," he said. "I would have expected a fangs-out-hair-on-fire charge, what with the war-paint and the-"
He grimaced in a mime of ferocity, mock flapping his arms and making a movement that suggested jumping up and down; the traverse red crest on his helmet wobbled with the motion.
"- wudda-wudda-wudda stuff. It's like something out of ancient history."
"They had good instructors right at the beginning-British SAS men, and a Blues and Royals colonel, of all things. Right, the Pendleton horse are really starting to move."
The Pendleton men went forward in a body, calling out the name of their kidnapped Bossman as a war cry, not in any particular order but spreading out in loose clumps and clots around the banners of their ranches marked with brands. They rose in the stirrups as they came in range, loosing as they did-or possibly a little out of range, as the first shafts fell short of the glittering menace of the swine feathers. In every battle Martin had seen, someone overestimated how far he could shoot.
"Three hundred yards, two hundred and fifty-"
The first arrows from the Ranchers' bows were dropping on the Mackenzie warriors when an order ran down the harrow formation. It was too far to hear it, particularly with the drumming thunder of four thousand hooves an endless grumbling rumble between, but Martin had learned to read lips. His own followed what he saw through the binoculars, repeating softly:
" Let the gray geese fly! Wholly together- shoot! "
Despite his trained calm the General-President of Boise felt the tiny hairs along his spine crawl at the massed snap of waxed linen bow-strings striking the leather bracers on each left wrist. And beneath that a whickering, whistling sound. The arrows arched into the sky like a forest of rising threads, more and more, and still more-three more from each bow in the air before the first thousand struck. The whole Mackenzie line was a shiver of motion as the archers snatched shafts from the bundles at their feet, set them to the strings, drew and loosed in a single smooth wrench of arm and shoulder and body.
He focused on one bowman with a wolf's mask painted across his own face and mentally timed the sequence.
Three or four seconds per arrow. Christ, better than three hundred a second all up-call it twenty thousand a minute. Crossing the killing ground, even at a gallop… those saddle-bunnies are going to have to eat close to a hundred thousand of those arrows!
The narrow steel arrowheads blinked in a manifold ripple like sunlight on distant water as they reached the top of their arch and seemed to hang poised for a second. Then they turned and plunged. The whistle of their flight was much louder as they came down, and the air above was a continuous sparkling flicker as thousands more followed in wave after wave.
They can see and hear them coming, he thought. Glad I'm not there , by God! Nor my men.
The whole mass of charging horsemen faltered and shook as men sawed at the reins. Then the first volley struck. The noise was like a storm in the mountains driving hail or heavy rain on a shingle roof, but there was nothing in flesh or bone or the light armor of the range-country horsemen to stop the bodkins. The whole first swath went down, mounts dropping like limp puppets or tumbling or plunging and squealing and kicking in astonished agony, men falling out of the saddle or clawing at the iron in face or body or screaming as horses fell and rolled across them. The rising threnody of pain was loud even on a battlefield.
Those behind ran up against that wall of kicking flesh and halted, rearing, or slowed to pick their way between the bodies… and still the arrows fell out of the sky in a pulsing, hissing sleet. Three thousand of them in the time a man could count to ten…
The party around Martin was silent as the survivors turned and fled as fast as they could flog their horses; men followed them on foot, running or staggering or crawling. A mass of human and horseflesh lay where the arrowstorm had struck, some of it still twitching or writhing or screaming for its mothers… or simply screaming and moaning. Only when it stopped did you realize how loud the sheer rush of arrows had been.
"You know, sir, I'm sort of glad you wanted the northern part of the line," Thurston's aide said. "Even if the ravines are steep off there."
Martin Thurston grinned. "Courier! To the most holy Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant; I respectfully suggest that he try to work around their flank."
The party of Boisean officers chuckled. Martin went on: "Now, gentlemen, this allied army has three commanders-which means it's a disaster waiting to happen. But we do outnumber the enemy by two to one, so let's get to work. To your units!"
He looked to his front; there were the Portlander infantry, blocks of spearmen and crossbowmen, and beyond them the knights, sitting ready.
"Colonel Jacobson!" he said.
"Sir!"
The cavalryman was standing at the head of his horse. "You keep those lancers in play. I don't expect you to beat them, but keep them busy while we chew our way through their foot."
He saluted and vaulted into the saddle. Martin Thurston looked down at the solid disciplined ranks of Boise infantry, standing easy with the lower rims of their big curved oval shields resting on the ground. He raised his hand and then chopped it downward, and the signalers raised their tubae. The brass bellowed out the order ready ; the men picked up their shields by the central grips, each holding an extra heavy javelin there too. Their right hands hefted the first pila, the long iron shanks sloping forward.
Then: "Advance!"
Two thousand men stepped off, an audible thud through the hard ground as the hobnails struck. Ahead of them the Eagle standard swayed, carried by a man who wore a wolfskin over his helmet, and along the lines the upright hands on poles that marked the battalions.
"The game begins," Martin Thurston said. Then: "Courier!"
His brain was busy with distances and numbers and contingencies, but behind that was an image of his wife and the son just born to them.
My son, he thought. From sea to shining sea… and every bit of it will be yours!
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER TWELVE
Knowledge waits beneath the snows
As flowers wait the spring
Chance some call such meetings
That bear fate as women bear a child From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhinn Mackenzie, 1st century CY
CHENREZI MONASTERY, WESTERN WYOMING
NOVEMBER 15, CY 23/2021 AD
"The fever has broken," someone said.
Rudi Mackenzie opened his eyes, conscious of cleanliness and warmth and a faint odor of incense beneath the more familiar hint of woodsmoke… pine of some sort. He was lying in a bed with brown linen sheets and blankets of some lustrous fabric that had the warmth of wool but less weight. Father Ignatius was standing at the foot of his bed, looking less drawn than Rudi remembered and in his dark Benedictine robe; beside him was a shaven-headed man in a saffron-colored wrap that left one shoulder bare, lean and middle-aged and wearing a stethoscope as well. And another man in the same odd dress, but far older-his flat high-cheeked brown face was a mass of wrinkles that nearly swallowed his narrow black eyes when he smiled, which he looked to do often.
The younger shave-head lifted Rudi's head and trickled water into his mouth from a cup with a spout. The young Mackenzie recognized a healer's bedside manner; he felt weak, but clearheaded…
"I'm very hungry," he said, and was a little shocked at how faint his voice was.
When he tried to move the physician clucked at him, and Father Ignatius shook a finger-but he was smiling, obviously in relief. The shooting pain in Rudi's right shoulder was what stopped him; he looked down and saw that it was bandaged, and the wasted arm strapped across his chest. In a few moments another robed attendant came in, younger still than the physician, with jug ears on either side of his shaved white dome of skull and friendly blue eyes.
He carried a steaming bowl and a kettle and a cup on a tray, and Rudi gratefully accepted the smooth warmth
of the bean soup. The tea was stranger, with salty butter added to the herbal infusion, but it made a welcome warmth in his belly, and eased aches he hadn't noticed much until they were gone. When it was finished he felt stronger.
"My thanks for your hospitality," he said.
The room came into clearer focus; the walls were plastered fieldstone, he thought, and undoubtedly whitewashed. One bore a colorful circle of abstract designs, a mandala, but none that his folk used. A small tile stove in a corner kept it comfortable.
"Where am I?"
"You are in the Monastery of Chenrezi, in the Valley of the Sun," the old man said. "Or in the old terminology, in the Rocky Mountains of western Wyoming."
His voice had a trace of another accent under the plains-and-mountain English.
"I am Rimpoche… in your language, teacher… here and my name is Tsewang Dorje. You are our guests, and you must rest and grow well, and your sister likewise."
Rudi's brows went up. Ignatius answered: "Mary was seriously injured fighting the Cutter scouts, but she's on the mend now too, God be thanked. They are excellent physicians here, and we are safe from pursuit for now, thanks to her and Ritva. Everyone else is fine, although Edain and the Princess have been haunting your bedside! What you need most now is food and rest."
The physician spoke: "The infusion will help you sleep and lessen pain. You should sleep as much as possible for the next several days."
Rudi nodded. The abbot smiled again and made a gesture of blessing with the palms of his hands pressed together, and everyone left.
"Thank You for the shelter of your wings, Lady," Rudi said into the silence. "And you, Wanderer."
There were glass windows in the side of the room opposite the mandala; double-glazed and aluminum-framed, obviously salvaged. They gave on a courtyard, where flagstones had been swept clear of snow, and a few trees stood in pots. Folk were at exercise there, some monks or nuns of Chenrezi, others more ordinary-looking, though the older ones who gave instruction all had their heads shaved. All wore practical boots and trousers and jackets, and some had helmets and practice armor of boiled and molded leather.
Must be cold out there, Rudi thought; their breath showed in white plumes, and the bright sunlight had that pale look that went with a hard freeze. From the length of the shadows it was in the afternoon.
Some of them were using quarterstaffs, thrusting and sweeping in unison or sparring with a clatter of wood on wood; others practiced with spears, or halberds, or swords much like the Eastern shete, or arcane weapons that looked like bladed hooks on chains, or bows. A half-dozen pairs drilled in unarmed combat, their movements fluid and sure, throwing and grappling and striking. He recognized some of the techniques, but others were strange to him. The focusing shouts-the exhalation from your center-were loud enough to be heard faintly through the thick walls of his sickroom.
Then a bell sounded, not quite like any he'd heard before, like the birth of an age of bronze in the crisp still air. All the shave-heads bowed to their partners and filed out, two by two, their palms pressed together and their heads bowed as they chanted. The sound lulled Rudi as strongly as the herbs in the tea he'd drunk, and he leaned back against the pillow and let his eyelids droop.
"You're not hungry?" Ingolf said, worried; his spoon halted halfway to his mouth.
Mary Havel was prodding her spoon at the turned-wood bowl that held her soup. Even without the bandage covering her left eye there wouldn't have been a problem in telling her from her sister Ritva's blooming health now. She looked pale, paler than winter could account for even in someone so fair, and her face was gaunt, showing the elegant bones beneath. And she moved slowly, with only a shadow of the fluid grace her sister still had.
"What I need is a steak," she said fretfully. "We've been here for weeks, and I'm not a leaf-eating rabbit. I want a roast chicken! Or a rack of BBQ lamb ribs with a honey-mustard glaze! Or pork chops with sauteed onions… or even venison stew, Lady Varda help us!"
"Stop!" her sister Ritva said. "Venison stew is starting to make my mouth water too!"
She and her sister laughed; at the others' looks, Mary went on: "Back in Mithrilwood, it's the staple diet for winter. We Dunedain have a joke; when the sun rises in the east, it's an omen that we shall have venison stew for dinner. I never thought I'd get nostalgic for it!"
Ingolf laughed. Odard did as well; then his eyes narrowed, and he rose and left.
Mary smiled with them, but the tug at her eye wound must have hurt a little and the expression died. She'd been very patient with actual pain while she was really ill, but she wasn't a good convalescent.
"This will do," she said resignedly, and mopped up the last of the soup in her bowl with a heel of the loaf.
They were in the refectory the monastery kept for guests, non-novice students and the sick who were well enough to walk. It was a pleasant room, plain but comfortable, and well heated by the sealed stoves. Some of the older monks preferred to sit on cushions or mats, but the rest used benches and chairs, and nobody expected outsiders to do otherwise.
The food's actually pretty good, Ingolf thought, finishing his own. But yah, I could use some roast pork with crackling.
There was potato soup done with barley and onions, hard white cheese grated on it, warm dark bread and butter, pickled cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs and sauerkraut, and dried apples and berries. The young nun who had served it looked at Mary indignantly.
"Besides imposing a karmic burden, food which requires killing animals is unnecessary," she said loftily. Then: "And if you must, there are places in the town which serve it, when you are better. I admit that it is not wasteful, since we have abundant pasture."
"Prig," Mary muttered to herself as the girl moved away; she was about the Dunedain's own age. "Naeg nedh adel!"
Ingolf's eyes went upward and his lips moved slowly; he'd been learning some Sindarin. It was fiendishly complicated, and the only two people in this part of the world who could talk it were right beside him, but he'd kept at it doggedly. It would have helped if they had some books, but the only material they'd brought on the trip was a small-print section of the…
Histories, Ingolf thought. Think of them as the Histories, dammit. Mary takes that seriously.
"There is pain in the…" he began.
Ritva grinned. "Naeg nedh adel: Pain in the ass," she said. Then with concern as Mary pushed the bowl away: "You tired, sis?"
"Bored with being sick," Mary said. "I know I'm a lot better off than Rudi, but it's still a drag. We should be getting going!"
There were windows in the refectory, south-facing ones. It was getting dark already, and would have been even if the winter sun didn't set early. You could just see the powder snow the wind was driving at the glass, until one of the monastery staff went around cranking the shutters closed. Even when that was done the sound of the wind came through the stout log and fieldstone walls.
"This reminds me of winter at home," Ingolf said. "And that means we're not going anywhere for a good long while. You want to get caught in another blizzard?"
"It can be done," Mary said.
"Yah, and so can juggling sharp knives on horseback," Ingolf said. "A couple of hunters on snowshoes or skis, sure. Nine people? With horses? Big horses that need grain feed, some of them? We're lucky we didn't lose more getting here."
"I might as well go back to bed," Mary said with a martyred sigh.
"Something happened, didn't it?" Mathilda asked. "While we were in the cave."
"Well, I came close to dying," Rudi said, mock cheerfully.
Even that was hard when you felt as wretched as he did right now; in the daytime he was merely weak, but after dark like this, before sleep came, there were times when he felt as if the fever were back. An aching in every part of his body, not just the stabbing, itching ache of the healing wounds; as if he were utterly tired and at the same time too uncomfortable to rest. And when the simple comfort of the room was like a prison, wrapping him in tight band
s from head to toe like a corpse trussed for the funeral pyre.
And that's when it's a struggle not to snap at people, Rudi thought. Yet it's also when you don't want to be alone. The Mother's blessing on you, anamchara.
Mathilda raised his head with a hand and fed him more of the bitter-sweet herbal tea. The low gutter of the lamp on the bedside table underlit her face, bringing out the strong contours, and highlighting small green flecks in her hazel-brown eyes. The acrid scent and taste of the liquid were comforting, and the heat relaxed him a little as it made its way down to his grateful stomach.
"Your problem is you're used to being Lugh come again," she said severely, when she'd turned back from replacing the kettle on the stove. "And now you're not, for a while."
He rolled his head on the pillow and smiled a little at her. She looked a bit shocked, which meant he wasn't doing it as well as he'd hoped.
"I had a vision, anamchara," he said, and waited for a little, until the herbs took some of the ache away.
"Well, your family is prone to them!" she said, and smoothed a lock of hair back from his forehead.
"While we were in the cave," he said. "I thought I was dead for a moment, and on the trail to the Summerlands with the Dread Lord. Then I met-"
She swallowed and crossed herself when the tale was done.
"It might have been just a dream," she said.
His smile quirked a little. "I doubt it. But it made me realize something. Ignatius planted the thought in me, that night we rescued you, but now I know it's true."
"What?"
His eyes went to the shadowed rafters and planks of the ceiling. "That this journey's end is my own death," he said softly. "I am walking towards a sword indeed; and to take it up is to take up my own mortality. All our perils and struggle just bring the altar and the knife closer."
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