Evrouin stepped near and murmured, “And remember, Sire: if you die, we all have to face your mother. So don’t, eh?”
John chuckled. “I see your point, goodman. You’ve certainly done everything you could to keep me alive.”
Deor and Thora and Ruan were talking softly, their heads together.
“There’ll be room for you at Hraefnbeorg, Ruan, when we make our steading,” the scop said. “If you choose.”
The young Mackenzie grinned at him and laid a hand alongside his cheek for a moment. “Sure, and there’s Dun Barstow now only a few days’ journey away from your brother’s holding, my heart,” he said. “I could visit my own folk full often. If your oath-sister agrees, of course.”
“What, turn down another pair of hands around the place? Not likely!” she said. They all chuckled at that, having grown up as folk of the land. “If wyrd will have it so, then.”
Then she turned to Deor. They each laid a hand on the other’s shoulder, covered that hand with their own free one and spoke in unison:
“Lo, there do I see our Fathers . . .
Lo, there do I see our Mothers . . .
Lo, there do I see the line
Of all our people from their beginning . . .
They do bid us to take our place among them . . .
In the Halls of Valhalla,
Where the Brave may live forever!”
Pip came up with Toa, and a few of her followers. She’d changed into her white costume with the suspenders and what she’d said was called a bowler hat, her cane jauntily over one shoulder. The big Maori was scowling; first at her, and then at John. Two of the Silver Surfer sailors carried local shields, fairly large ones, and they were casting the odd apprehensive glance at the blade of the great spear in the older man’s hands.
Ah, John thought. He’s told them that if she stops an arrow, they might as well kill themselves and save him the trouble. And they believe him. So would I.
“Shouldn’t you be looking after the prang-prangs, Pip?” he asked.
She snorted, and used the serrated head of the cane to adjust the jaunty angle of her hat. John was glad of the secret—as a hidden steel cap was called—within, but he wished with all his heart that she was carrying more protection than a set of metal-capped boiled-leather knee and elbow pads. And he was glad Toa had had the idea for the men with shields.
“The prang-prangs? That’s technician’s work, darling,” she said airily.
Then, her face completely serious for once, without the usual edge of ironic mockery: “Leading . . . that’s what I was born for, John.”
He sighed, nodded, and made himself smile. There’s absolutely nothing I can say to that, he thought. Not without more hypocrisy than I could get away with.
“Well, you can certainly handle yourself in a fight, I’ve seen that,” he said. “But I’m better equipped for a slugging match, so I hope you don’t mind if I stick close? And perhaps make the point of the spear?”
“Wouldn’t dream of objecting, my dear,” she said. “Isn’t this where we came in, rather?”
“Ah . . . yes,” he said. “I won’t say we have to stop meeting like this, but . . .”
Tuan Anak finished his briefing and his officers saluted in local fashion and trotted off to their bands. He looked at the two parties of foreigners—three if you counted Ishikawa and his sailors—and nodded approvingly. His lancers were the only substantial group in the Baru Denpasaran force with much body armor, and they’d be following him straight in.
“Good,” he said, inclining his head to John. “We fight together, so friends do.”
Then he barked a command in Balinese. Half a dozen archers dipped the heads of arrows wrapped in cloth into clay pots full of embers and then shot skyward. Red smoke trailed behind them. John turned his head southward. The throwing arms of the trebuchets showed over the heaped earth surrounding them, since they were twenty feet in the air; those were the shorter ends, the ones with huge boxes of rock hinged to them. They trembled as the retaining hooks were knocked out of the eyelets and then began to fall—slowly at first, then with ever-gathering speed.
The parts on the other side of the axle that pivoted the arm were sixty feet long, and they had slings half that length attached to them to throw the loads. The netting around the great balls of rock was already wrapped in pale-blue flames as the slings dropped away at the top of the arc. The rushing passage of their high curving path through the air fanned the fire into a blaze, and they were trailing black smoke as they began to fall. Four of them burst apart before they struck behind the wall, spraying the courtyard of the fortress with scores of fast-moving chunks that weighed twenty pounds or so each. The others would disintegrate instantly on the ground, sending their loads out in circles almost as lethal.
Tuan Anak barked another order. This time the fire-arrows trailed green smoke, and a set of trumpeters raised their instruments as well—long straight things with flared mouths called Perérét, and they sounded a high, complex, modulated wail that his musician’s ear recognized as a repetitive tune.
With a roaring scream two thousand bowmen burst out of the Baru Denpasaran trenches and ran forward. Calling war-cries he didn’t know, or the name of their ruler, which he did recognize, but behind them would be . . .
Deor was close enough for John to hear him speak in quiet natural tones; those could carry better through loud noise than a shout, something any good musician knew.
“For the food our children eat,” the Hraefnbeorg man said. “There are few cries to make a man fight more fiercely.”
“Or a woman,” Thora said, working the fingers of her sword-hand.
The tumbled, smoking remains of the bastions on the wall stirred, as men pushed aside the charred remnants with poles and metal glinted behind. John felt a moment’s vindication; just as he’d thought they hadn’t managed to silence all the enemy machines. Then three roundshot snapped out into the gathered mass of archers as they raised their bows, skillfully aimed grazing shots that bounced and tumbled through the dense ranks shattering bone and flesh as they passed. He lowered his glasses and swallowed as he cased them.
Dozens died or fell screaming in instants. The rest drew their weapons and let fly. John whistled softly, impressed: he’d heard of men standing under catapult fire, but he’d never seen it before. Fayard had, since he’d fought in the tail-end of the Prophet’s War.
“Brave men,” he said.
The catapults from the Tarshish Queen cut loose in the same instant from their advanced positions, pushed forward from the main parallel along the Baru Denpasaran line; all of them aiming at the enemy machines. Then:
Prang-prang-prang-prang—
The ratcheting mechanical clamor of the Silver Surfer’s rapid-fire weapons sounded, as the grass-covered woven matting was thrown off. They were aiming at the Carcosan catapults too, but any of the glinting stream of projectiles that missed would rake the interior of the fortress as well. The Baru Denpasaran archers grouped in three rough battalions and shot, and they had extra quivers slung. Arrows flickered skyward in shoals, probably six hundred or better every second, and the target zone inside the fort’s walls was only about six hundred feet on a side. John rinsed out his mouth with water from his canteen, spat, and took a long drink before capping it and settling his helm on his head and his shield on his arm.
The forward edge of the trench had sturdy wood-and-bamboo staircases built into it at intervals, opposite the access paths stretching backward. Tuan Anak shouted again. The trumpets sounded their high wailing squeal, and banners swung upright—narrow flags of colorful silk secured to the poles along the long edge. As they waved a tearing scream sounded from thousands of throats, and the massed troops waiting in cover began to move forward. The first parties that thundered by carried long stout ladders, built with steps rather than merely rungs and each borne overhead
by twenty or thirty men. They had headbands tied tightly about their foreheads and crimson marks on their cheeks, and the glazed look of . . .
Men sworn to win or die, John thought, as they went up the steep access steps without breaking stride or faltering.
The Baru Denpasaran leader made a further gesture—words would have been impossible in the clamor—and led the way up the nearest flight of stairs himself, one reserved for the commander and his immediate followers. The raja’s armored lancers came after him carrying their horsemen’s weapons like pikes, and the Montivallans and their friends followed. John hadn’t drawn his sword yet, and was glad of it as he clutched at the railing to steady himself as he followed. The stair hadn’t been designed for a man his size in eighty pounds of gear, and the prospect of breaking it or just slipping and falling flat on his face didn’t bear thinking about.
The banners went forward in three groups towards the gaps between the blocks of bowmen, and the assault-parties with the scaling ladders. Behind them the roaring spearmen followed. John swept out his sword and shouted as he ran:
“Órlaith and Montival! Follow me!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FREE AND LOYAL CHARTERED CITY OF ASTORIA
PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
(FORMERLY WESTERN OREGON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
NOVEMBER 10TH
CHANGE YEAR 46/2044 AD
“Why do we have to have so many investitures?” Heuradys d’Ath muttered as the Crown Princess’ party halted outside the city’s eastern gate for the ceremonial entry.
She was in full armor with the visor raised. Her sword was in its scabbard, but her shield with the d’Ath arms—sable, a delta or on a V argent, quartered with Órlaith’s Crowned Mountain and Sword crossed with the baton of cadency—was on her arm, and if you knew her well she was bristling like an aggrieved cat.
Órlaith could tell she was also trying to look in all directions at once without being conspicuous about it, which was difficult even with your helmet still at the saddlebow and a faint mist of rain drifting down out of a lowering sky. There was a strong smell of the damp horses whose breath puffed out in gray snorts, woodsmoke from the town, and the brackish water of the Columbia’s tidal estuary northward.
Their escort waited patiently behind them, kilted archers standing by their bicycles, the lances of the men-at-arms shifting a little like a swaying leafless forest tipped with wet steel as the horses moved their weight from hoof to hoof as they stood. The light cavalry company were a little more casual, easterners on quarter horses who were ranch-hands in civil life, armed with curved sword and horn-backed saddlebow; only the mail shirts and helms and round shields were different from their ordinary working gear, and those were hidden under grease-wool cloaks and hoods right now.
Alan Thurston was their commander. Órlaith carefully did not look in their direction. Things with her mother were better now, and she didn’t want to risk another row just as the expeditionary force was leaving. She might have heard—Órlaith had been discreet, but not secretive—but at least they didn’t have to have a public fight about it.
Avert the omen, she thought, and made a protective sign with her left hand. But I really like Alan.
“Couldn’t we just have the proclamation you’re in charge read out, and get you and Reiko on the bloody ships and go?” Heuradys went on.
“Only three investitures,” Órlaith replied patiently; it was her liege knight’s job to fret, and there was plenty of stress floating around in this last whirlwind of effort. “If you count the informal one where Mother just told me. Then the formal announcement in Dún na Síochána in front of the Congress of Realms, and this time.”
“This one’s in a city. Not Dún na Síochána, a real city with a wall and thousands of people we don’t know.”
“Tsk, being prejudiced, are we the now?”
“I like cities. Well, I like visiting them occasionally. But it’s not a controlled environment like a castle . . .”
Then she chuckled ruefully. “I just realized I’m . . . what did Captain Feldman call it . . . kvetching . . . at taking you through a place full of your loyal subjects so I can hustle you off across thousands of miles of stormy ocean to battlefields full of demon-worshipping madmen . . . where you’d be safe, presumably. Athana witness, the human mind is a wonderful thing.”
Órlaith nodded; she was in plate too, and likewise helmless. The armor was fulfilling the other half of its miracle, being as miserably cold in chilly weather as it was unbearably hot in summer, and letting cold drops trickle down her neck into the arming doublet.
“And we’re doing it because Astoria is stuffed with troops and panjandrums from all over the kingdom. They need a chance to see it done,” she said.
“And there may be real enemies here,” Reiko said tactfully, her lacquered harness bright even in the chill gloom.
Her face was expressionless, but there was a slight smile in her tone, and Órlaith gave an equally slight wink to her as they reined in side-by-side. They both spent their days surrounded by loyal-to-the-death paranoid vassals convinced that assassins lurked behind every tree and barn.
Heuradys sighed, and Sir Droyn cleared his throat with a slight exasperated sound as he fell in behind the senior knight of the Household. Egawa Noboru was riding behind his Empress, and with him two samurai carrying the flagstaffs for the Hinomaru and the Tennō Heika’s personal banner. His face might have been carved from amber-colored stone as he looked up at the great gates.
Astoria had been a city before the Change, albeit a small one by the standards of the ancient world, and remote. Fish and grain from freighters drifting down the Columbia had brought it through the first few months, and Órlaith’s grandfather Norman had taken it early in the Foundation Wars. Either he or more likely Nonni Sandra had seen the long-term need for a window on the Mother Ocean.
The site of the city was shaped almost exactly like a clenched fist seen palm-down with the town on the thumb jutting out to the west. The city wall across the base of the thumb was typical of major works from the early Protectorate period, made of steel shipping containers filled with rubble and concrete and then cemented into a homogenous mass and stuccoed. It loomed sixty feet above a dry moat studded with sharpened angle-iron. The parapets were machicolated out over the edge and the whole wall studded with round towers half again as high at hundred-yard intervals, with steel shutters masking the catapult-ports. The gatehouse before them where the road and railroad ran through the wall was a castle in its own right, with a tower at each corner.
The whole was grossly in excess of any rational military need; even today something half the size would be impossible to storm. It was meant to crush an opponent’s heart before a blow was struck.
The flame-wreathed Lidless Eye of the Armingers flew from the staffs atop the towers’ conical witch’s-hat roofs, alternating with the City’s banner. That bore Saint Nicholas, patron of merchants, sailors and fishermen, shown as a bearded brown-skinned man with a Roman bishop’s crosier and mitered hat, standing in a boat with three children at his feet and three gold coins in his hand.
And from the center . . . the Crowned Mountain and Sword of the High Kingdom, green and black and silver.
Órlaith made a small gesture with her right hand, a flick of the fingers. Sir Droyn rode forward clattering across the bridge that spanned the moat, followed by two mounted trumpeters; his plumed helmet would have looked a little more impressive if it was less damp, but he was still a fine and martial sight in his polished plate. The knight ceremoniously thumped his gauntleted fist against the gates. Since the portal was closed by a solid slab of welded steel girders twenty feet high and six inches thick, the clunk was rather undramatic.
The trumpeters behind him in their colorful tabards raised their polished brass instruments an
d sounded a long descant. Then Droyn’s deep voice rang out in formal challenge:
“Her Highness Órlaith Arminger Mackenzie, Crown Princess and heir to the High Queenship of Montival, calls upon her loyal city of Astoria to open its gates and render homage!”
There was a moment of silence, just long enough for her to think how hideously embarrassing it would be if something had gone wrong with the machinery—normally the gates were closed only for drills—and then a dozen more trumpeters raised long oliphants and blew from the rampart above. A whirring rumble of gears and winches sounded, and the great steel slab of the gate slid sideways into the bulk of the gatehouse wall with a grind of steel on steel—several dozen railway wheels were set into the lower part of the mass on the inside, running on a solid smooth steel plate set into the roadway.
City militia double-timed out of the great arched tunnel of the gateway and formed up to either side, looking quite martial in their helms and breastplates and rapping their glaives down to stand at attention on either side. The Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and guildmasters—or guildmistresses—and the bishop came pacing out in robes and chains of office, faltering only a little as they realized it was going to rain on their finery and they couldn’t use umbrellas because that would make the ceremony impossible.
Well-to-do townsmen were among the few people in the modern world who weren’t used to getting wet to the skin fairly often.
Órlaith sighed as she set her face into a mask of stern courtesy. These folk had a right to it, and to know their contribution was valued, and that their city was paid due honor through their own leaders . . .
Twenty minutes later as they rode through the gate and the local notables fell in behind as part of the procession she whimpered almost inaudibly:
“The rest of my life! And I think the Syndics were a bit peeved that I cut their speeches as short as I did by jumping in at a pause!”
“It’s not all going to be like that,” Heuradys said. “Some of it will be worse!”
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