"Better than that. Write a letter to his father, telling what he did-and that he wouldn't take anything for it, either. I'll deliver it."
Edain stifled an impulse to shuffle his feet. His father wouldn't say much, just smile to himself and nod. He blushed again and fought not to grin.
"I will write, then," the baron said. He looked at the son of the Mackenzie chieftain, a long considering glance. "Your people don't have princes, Rudi, do they?"
Rudi looked a little impatient as he replied: "I'm not even really a lord, Juhel; just the Chief's tanist. My moth er's Chief, and I may be after her-if the Clan wants me, and for as long as they want me. No, no princes."
"That may be a great pity," Juhel said thoughtfully, then looked around. "Now, I'd better get to work."
****
Ingolf raised his brows as the story came to an end; si lence fell, save for the low crackle of the fire and the howl of the blizzard outside.
Well, I guess there is a reason Rudi picked the kid. Though from the sound of it, maybe his girlfriend would have been just as good a choice… no, too spooky.
Edain yawned enormously, breaking the quiet that had followed his tale.
"Yeah, even if we can sleep in late tomorrow, we'd better get some rest," Rudi said.
Edain nodded, mumbled something, and slept with sudden finality. Ingolf drifted off next; his last sight was Rudi dropping a careful handful of sticks on the coals.
****
Rudi Mackenzie knew that he dreamed. But the dream was different. .. this time he was a viewpoint, detached.
Same place, he thought.
The little overhang was still there. The trees weren't, though a few charred stumps still showed where they'd burned. Great gullies scarred the mountainside instead, the mark of torrential rains long gone; the only other vegetation he could see was a few stems of some thorny brush, and those were dead. A white-gray light pervaded everything, but he couldn't see all that far. The air held no haze-it was painfully clear-but somehow he had a sense that it was thick with a crushing weight. Thick and hot, very hot, like a sauna just at the edge of your ability to bear, so that rocks and clods glimmered in the middle distance.
A body lay under the overhang, dressed in a seamless overall of some odd silvery stuff that merged into boots and gloves of the same, and into the base of a helmet like a glass bowl. The face within was a sunken-eyed mummy's, desiccated into the texture of leather and an eternal snarl of yellow teeth, gray-white hair still stubbly on the scalp.
The dream seemed to last for a very long time. The slow heavy wind blew; now and then a piece of rock would flake off the barren mountainside and skitter downwards. Nothing else happened. Nothing else ever would.
"Huh!" He woke with a start.
"Last up, Chief," Edain said cheerfully, and handed him a bowl full of the oatmeal.
Cold sweat prickled under his arms and at the back of his neck where his hair lay on the skin. The horrors of the dream faded, leaving only an overwhelming sorrow; it was as if he felt another's grief, and that too large for a human mind and spirit to contain. Then that lifted too, as he shook his head to clear it. The little shelter was dark, just a little red glow from the fire… and a trace of cold grayish light down the improvised bark chimney.
"Storm's passed," Ingolf said, wolfing down the thick fruit studded gruel. "But it's four feet deep out there, I'd say."
"Higher with the drifts," Rudi agreed. "Best we make as much distance as we can. Snow's bad, but this time of year it could warm up and melt right up to the saddle of the pass-and that would be worse."
Chapter Twelve
Rover Territory, Eastern Oregon
April 15, CY23/2021 A.D.
Joseph Kuttner's single eye gleamed in the light of the fires as he sat in the folding canvas chair. The Rover chiefs squatted across from him, all hair and eyes and teeth and a strong outdoor stink of badly cured leather and horse and sweat, and of lanolin from the sheepskin cloaks some of them kept around their shoulders against the evening chill. Sparks flew upward into the huge star-flecked dome above, and the gnawed bones of a roasted sheep littered the ground.
"You want us to chop some CORA folks for you?" one of them said, grinning. "What for y'want that? We'd do for our own selves, if them western bastards come on our land."
He spit into the fire, a brief hissing sound. Kuttner nodded politely; he was very glad a dozen Cutters stood behind him, fully armed. These new nomads of the sage brush country weren't former Eaters like the savages you found east of the Mississippi… not quite. They were nearly as dangerous to outsiders; a little less likely to attack, but much more effective if they did.
"I want them dead because one of them gave me this," he replied, touching the scar that traversed his empty left eye socket.
That brought more grins, as he'd expected. It was motivation they could understand.
"And they're enemies of the Prophet and His Son, and so of the Ascended Masters and the Unseen Hierarchy."
A few of them nodded; the mission was going well here. The Rovers' extreme poverty was a major reason. It wasn't that the land here couldn't yield a reasonable living, given how few and thinly scattered the dwellers were. What they lacked were the tools and the skills to make them, or anything much to trade for them in more fortunate areas. The Church Universal and Triumphant was willing to supply them, for allegiance and fighting men rather than for profit. It wouldn't be the first time that readiness to seek out the folk who'd had the most trouble recovering from the Change had aided the sacred cause.
What was that old-world expression? He searched his memory. Ah, "rice-bowl Christians." But from that comes true faith, in time.
"They're soulless pagan idolaters, minions of the Nephilim," he amplified. "Nine of them, and they'll be traveling with a large wagon and many good horses."
They all nodded at that, with eager greed. This was a hard place to scratch a living, even by Montana standards. Men who didn't grasp at anything they could with both hands hadn't survived here.
"And there will be CORA men as well, probably-from Seffridge Ranch. Rancher Brown's cowboys."
That brought more scowls and muttered curses, but a little apprehension as well as anger; they recognized the name of the holding, and of its lord. Kuttner made a gesture with one hand, and a Cutter came forward with a bundle of shetes. The fine steel glittered in the fire light as he laid them out with their hilts towards the four chiefs, and the brass pommels glowed.
"Two dozen good shetes. And many fine bows, and many arrows for each. If you kill them, the Church promises two slaves who understand bowmaking… for the most deserving of you, of course."
The chiefs glanced at one another, calculating who would get the most, and how it would affect their own balance against one another. Making horn-and-sinew horseman's bows wasn't a skill that was common around here, and such weapons were precious beyond words, even more than fine forged swords. Many of their men made do with javelins, or carefully preserved pre Change hunting bows. Those were good of their kind, but they seldom had a draw weight sufficient for modern war. Deer didn't wear shirts of steel, or even cured bullhide.
They didn't kill you if you missed, either.
One of the ones who'd been stubborn about the Church's preaching leaned forward. "Tell me more about the Prophet," he said. "If'n he can hand out gear like that, maybe God does favor him."
****
Seffridge Ranch,
South-Central Oregon
May 7, CY23/2021 A.D.
"Well, that's a relief, Chief, and no mistake," Edain said, looking back at the mountain peaks.
It was the moment just before dawn, when a few stars still lingered in the western sky. That was cloudless, but the mountains there were snowcapped all along the horizon, like a jaw full of white fangs pointing at the heavens, high enough to catch the ruddy light before groundlings could see the sun rising. The great peaks of the Three Sisters were just visible at the northern edge of sight, eight
y miles away and more beneath the endless darkling blue.
"I'll not be arguing with you the now," Rudi Mackenzie said.
The younger Mackenzie was smiling as he grumbled, and his pride was obvious. They'd come through a crisis-not an earth shaking one, but they could have died if they hadn't acted swiftly, and it had been a hard slog afterwards.
"Still, it was interesting," Rudi went on.
Ingolf groaned: "Too much like nearly freezing to death again for my taste, and to hell with interesting."
"Where's your sense of adventure?" Rudi asked with a snort.
"It died with a Sioux arrow through the gut about seven years ago," Ingolf said, genially enough to take most of the sting out of it.
"It wasn't that cold," Rudi said aloud.
To himself: And I'm not that much younger than you, my friend. And I'm in charge. Then: And there was that dream… I don't know Who sent it or what it meant, but I do know it frightened the squeezings out of me.
"Cold enough to get you and your friend out of your kilts," the easterner went on. "For a while."
Rudi and Edain were back in the pleated skirtlike garments, and had their plaids pinned at their shoulders.
It isn't that I really mind wearing pants, Rudi thought. It's just that I'd rather not unless there's a good reason.
Garbh plodded at her master's heels with her tongue hanging out, occasionally raising her shaggy barrel-shaped head to sniff with interest.
About the way I feel, Rudi thought.
Not near the end of his tether, but it was good to be down out of the high country, and next time he went that way he intended to wait until June.
They walked on southeast down a gentle slope, through open forest of ponderosa and lodgepole and jack pine, tall straight trees but more slender and less close packed than the fir woodland on the western slope. It was inter spersed with grassy meadows bright with golden-orange blanket flowers and nodding lilac-colored mariposa lilies; pine and strong-scented sage filled the cool thin high-desert air, stronger than the scents of leather and sweat. The snow was gone, but at better than four thou sand feet May wasn't what you'd call warm; it got a little less chilly as the sun cleared the horizon and sent long fingers of light through the trees.
"At least our packs are a lot lighter," Rudi said cheerfully.
"That's because we're about out of food," Edain teased.
"Where's your sense of direction?" Ingolf asked Rudi. "Not as dead as my sense of adventure, I hope."
"It's been years since Mom and I visited out here, and we came over Highway 20 through the Santiam Pass and then down the railway from Bend," Rudi said. "But…"
He closed his eyes for an instant and called up the terrain, half maps he'd seen, partly his teenage memories of the visit, partly a picture those made in his head. They'd crossed the old Burlington Northern tracks yesterday evening, so…
"… that was Bedpan Burn back there, I'm pretty sure. Silver Lake Road should be a little east of here. That'll take us right south to the ranch."
They pushed on. Then Garbh stiffened, pointing her nose south and making a small muffled sound just as they reached the cracked and frost heaved pavement of the old road; the breeze was from that direction too. Rudi flung up a hand. Something was crashing through the brush ahead of them. They all melted behind trees and reached over their shoulders for arrows. Then they relaxed when they saw it was a red and white steer, gaunt with winter, all legs and horns. It faced them and snorted, then went back to grazing on the fresh new growth; the beast was a little thin, but too well conditioned and too used to humans to be feral stock.
"We're close," Rudi said, and the others nodded.
You couldn't leave stock wandering on their own for long, not with wolf and coyote, bear and tiger and mountain lion around, not to mention rustlers and horse thieves. This was the time of year ranchers started moving herds up towards the higher country, as the snow pulled back into the mountains. They passed more cattle and sheep as they walked, and saw riders pacing them on the edge of sight. Probably one had dashed on ahead to alert the camp, which was all to the good. You didn't want to surprise people, especially not people with bows and protective attitudes towards their livestock.
A little farther and they smelled woodsmoke, with an overtone of frying bacon and brewing chicory. Rudi cupped his hands around his mouth as they walked on through brush and onto the edge of a wide opening with only scattered trees.
"Hello! Hello, the camp!" he called.
Calling out like that was considered good manners hereabouts. He did it again:
"Hello! Hello, the camp!"
Dogs barked and voices rose; Garbh started to growl back, then quieted at Edain's whistle and stayed close to his heel, apprehensive and aggressive at the same time with the stress of being in a strange pack's terri tory-her kind weren't so different from human beings, in many ways.
There were a fair number of folk around the fires there, tending gear or getting ready for the day or striking tents; three covered buckboard wagons were parked nearby, and plenty of hobbled horses nosed at the ground. The humans included both sexes and all ages down to infants, all dressed in drab sensible leather and linsey-woolsey and sheepskin. A woman spun wool with a spindle and distaff as she watched a half dozen toddlers; that was less efficient than a spinning wheel, but you could do it on the move and do something else that didn't need hands at the same time.
Three men already in the saddle cantered over and pulled up with casual ease, leaving the reins lying loose on their mounts' necks. One wore a mail shirt, and the other two had breastplates of cowhide boiled in vine gar and strengthened with chevrons of thin steel splints painted brown; they all had curved swords at their belts, full quivers over their backs and round shields at their saddlebows marked with the intermingled S/R of their ranch. The man in the mail shirt had a horse tail mounted on the top of his helmet as a crest as well.
None of the three men had drawn swords, but they all had their short, powerful horn-and sinew recurve bows in their hands and a shaft on the string. They drew up a fair distance away, and kept their eyes moving to make sure there weren't more strangers hidden in the trees.
"Howdy," their leader-the one with the mail shirt and the horse-tail crest-said. "You folks know you're on Seffridge Ranch land? Mind tellin' where you're from, and where and what your business might be?"
Rudi nodded. "Hello. We two are Mackenzies from over the Cascades," he said. "And our friend here is from out east-far east, from beyond the mountains, not from Pendleton," he added. CORA and Pendleton don't mix well. "We're here to see Mr. Brown."
The cowboy's brows went up; he was a leathery man of about thirty, with sandy colored stubble on a sun-tanned face and blue eyes already cradled in a network of wrinkles.
" You want to see the Rancher his own self?" he said, sounding dubious. "I'm line boss here in this section. You got something to say, say it to me."
Behind him, one of the men muttered: "Not even saddle tramps."
Rudi nodded, concealing his amusement. People on this side of the mountains attached a lot of importance to your horses, and they looked down on men who traveled far afoot. He liked horses well enough himself and considered Epona one of his best friends, but he thought the attitude ridiculous.
"Mr. Brown is expecting us," he said. "Who we are is between him and us, sure, and our business likewise. No offense, but he wouldn't be thanking you for asking too many questions. If he thinks we're wasting his time… well, in his own house he'd be able to deal with that the way he thought best, wouldn't he?"
The cowboy gave a brisk nod, which set the horse tail on his helmet bobbing.
"He's had a good deal to do with Mackenzies before, I know that," he said thoughtfully, eyes narrowing. "And he's got a fair passel of guests to home right now, all of 'em foreign."
Then he came to a decision, and called over his shoulder: "Cody! Hank! Tommy! Git over here! Rest of you, there's plenty to do. We got eight hundred head
to move."
Cody looked enough like him to be his younger brother and probably was; Hank was even younger, but dark and thickset; Tommy was about sixteen, a slender redhead. They were armed and equipped like the first three; so was every man here and a fair number of the women.
"These folks are here to see the boss. Tommy, you get back to the homeplace and let him know. Cody, Hank, cut them out horses and take 'em on down to the house."
The three travelers stood and watched the ranch hands break camp. Most mounted up and moved out to get their herds moving north into the old national forest. The rest finished dousing their fires and policing up their gear, ready to resume their slow journey up to the sum mer pastures where they'd live until fall. One young girl came over shyly and gave them each a buttered biscuit with a piece of bacon in it. A few of the others looked dubious, and he caught a mutter of, "Witches."
Cody and Hank brought them saddled horses. They seemed to be watching as the three mounted, and half hoping they'd do so with a clumsy scramble. Rudi smiled, put a hand on the cantle and vaulted easily into the sad dle, feet finding the stirrups. They followed the old road, riding off the broken pavement to spare the hooves; the potholes had been filled in roughly to keep it passable to wagons, but dirt was easier on the horses' feet.
After an hour or two the two young cowboys were chattering merrily, and asking questions about the strangers' gear.
"Them longbows don't look too handy," Cody said dubiously.
"The dead pine," Rudi replied conversationally, nocked a shaft, drew and shot in one supple motion, before the cowpony he was riding had time to crab.
You could use a longbow from horseback, particularly when the target was directly to the left; it just wasn't easy. Snap, and then an instant later the shaft was quivering like an angry wasp in the trunk of the dead ponderosa pine a hundred and twenty yards away, while birds flung themselves skyward from it in alarm.
Cody gave him a look and cantered his horse across the slope to retrieve the shaft. He tried tugging it out, then gave up and dug at it with the point of his knife. When he came back he was shaking his head ruefully.
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