Sunrise Lands c-1

by S. M. Stirling

  After that the Browns tactfully left. Rudi looked around the knot of his relatives and friends and almost-friends and sighed.

  "All right, first things first, then," he said. "You all want to come with me?"

  A chorus of nods. Rudi went on:

  "We'll be going a long hard dangerous way, then. Someone has to be in charge, and that one is me. This is not some game; I have to get to this Nantucket place. Ingolf I need for a guide, and because he's got the expe rience, sure. Everyone else is there to help us get there and back again. All that means I'm in command, and Ingolf is my number two. Do you understand what I'm saying, now?"

  "Yah," Ingolf said. "In rough country, there's got to be discipline, by God." A grin. "And besides, you're young but you learn quick."

  The twins nodded-in chorus. By the Threefold Morrigu, am I going to be able to take having them in my sporran for a whole year? Rudi thought ruefully.

  Odard shrugged. "You're better qualified for it than me," he said cheerfully. "Ingolf is too. If I'm going to do something this crazy, I want it to work, by Mary and all the saints."

  "Good," Rudi said, ignoring his own doubts-half the battle was sounding confident. "The next thing to re member is that everyone pitches in. Nobody's a nobleman on this trip… or we all are, whichever. Right?"

  Odard's nod was a little slower still this time; Rudi judged that he hadn't considered all the implications of Adventure, particularly the part about scrubbing out pots with sand and latrine detail.

  "And Odard, your man there isn't going to do your share of the chores, either."

  The slanted blue eyes blinked at him. "But of course, Rudi."

  ****

  Castle Todenangst,

  Willamette Valley Near Newberg,

  Oregon May 6, CY23/2021 A.D.

  Juniper Mackenzie spread her hands. "Your message was the first I knew of it, Sandra."

  They weren't exactly friends, but then they weren't exactly enemies anymore either, and they had known each other a long time now. She made a gesture.

  "By the Ever-Changing One, by the Maiden, the Mother and the Hag, I swear it. May She turn her face and heart from me if I lie. I didn't even suspect it. Nei ther did Rudi, as far as I know-and he doesn't lie to me. According to the message John Brown sent me, Rudi was surprised himself when he showed up at Seffridge Ranch and found Mathilda there, the creature."

  Across the polished malachite of the table, the shoulders of Portland's ruler slumped a touch.

  "I believe you," she said quietly, and laid her fingers on an open letter. "That's what Mathilda says… and she doesn't lie to me. I almost wish I didn't believe you. Then I'd have someone to be angry with. Besides that little idiot herself!"

  Her fist tightened on the lustrous green stone. It was a small fist; they were both petite women. The force behind it was nothing to sneer at, though; Tiphaine d'Ath and Conrad Renfrew flanked her on either side, symbols of the power that awaited that subtle mind's orders.

  "And I can't even send an army to bring her back," Sandra said bitterly. "It's too late. Any force big enough would be too slow, and any fast enough would just make her conspicuous without being big enough to protect her."

  Juniper had brought nobody with her except her man Nigel, and that partly because she'd known he would simply refuse to stay behind when she put her head in the lioness's mouth.

  And sure, she might have believed a written message. But coming here makes it certain.

  "I'm worried for Rudi, too," the Mackenzie chieftain said gently. "Worried sick. And I love Mathilda as if she were my own. If it's any consolation, I fear for her as well."

  Sandra's brown eyes met her green. "He isn't your only child."

  Juniper's brows went up. "Sandra, do you think that I would mourn Rudi less because I have Eilir and Maude and Fiorbhinn? That they're. .." She hunted for a word. "Spares?"

  "No," Sandra said softly. "But your whole life wouldn't be a waste if you lost him. Mathilda is the one thing I can be entirely proud of. What have I worked for, if not for her?"

  Then she shook herself and put on briskness. "What can we do?"

  Juniper nodded respectfully. "Not a great deal, except keep this as quiet as possible. But news will get out, es pecially now. Mathilda

  … I'm afraid Mathilda has made this considerably more dangerous. She is conspicuous all by herself, and even more so when she's not here, if you take my meaning. People are used to Rudi disappearing about his own business for a while, and Dun Juniper is more out of the way to start with."

  "We will keep it as quiet as we can," Sandra said. "And there's something else we can do."

  At Juniper's inquiring look, she went on: "Get ready for the war."

  Juniper nodded soberly, then looked east. "And pray for our children, Sandra," she said. "We can do that, too."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Southeastern Oregon

  May 14, CY23/2021 A.D.

  Rudi Mackenzie opened his eyes and poked his head out into the dry chill. The sun threw a crimson band along the eastern horizon even before it rose. A rim of purple rose above that; stars faded there, but they still glittered in a frosted band towards the west. The camp was stirring. He made himself swing out of his sleeping bag, despite the cold rime on its glazed leather covering. Quickly he pulled out the coat and boots he'd stuffed down in it, and drew his plaid around his shoulders blanket-wise. From what he'd heard, this country east of Picture Rock Pass got very hot indeed in summer. But it was nearly five thousand feet up here; winter hit hard too, and relinquished its hold reluctantly.

  Once he had the boots and sheepskin jacket on, the twins and Edain joined him, and one of the cowboys who was a dedicant. They crossed their arms and bowed heads to the sun as it rose over the eastern horizon, turning the crimson band to gold. Then they raised their hands with palms to the sky and chanted together:

  Rising with the Sun

  Spirits of Air

  My soul follows Hawk on the ghost of the wind

  I find my voice and speak truth;

  All-Father, wise Lord

  All Mother, gentle and strong

  Guide me and guard me this day and all days

  By Your grace, with harm to none;

  Blessed be!

  He smiled as he spoke the familiar words. Partly that was because they were familiar, and always brought a feeling of comforting contact with the Powers. More of it was the sight of the vast land opening out to the east ward, rolling like the waves of some great frozen sea or rising here and there into a flat-topped mesa. Sagebrush covered it, silvery gray and coated with hoarfrost; the crystals sparkled for a single instant as the sun cleared the far ridges, turning the whole expanse to a field of diamonds.

  Thank You for this, he added within himself in the moment of silence that followed.

  Beside him Edain sighed and murmured, "Now that's the Spirit of Air, and no mistake."

  The twins nodded, and they all glanced at one an other, brought back to the light of common day. Over a little way Father Ignatius and Mathilda and their core ligionists-who included Ingolf and a half dozen of the Seffridge Ranch folk-were finishing their own morning devotions:

  Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.

  For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia…

  Greasewood crackled as the fires were stoked up, and the companionable smells of scorched frying pan and sizzling bacon filled the air.

  The party from the Willamette ate together, a little apart from the rancher's men. It was Odard's turn to cook breakfast, though Rudi had put the flat iron pot with the biscuit dough into the ashes when he finished his turn on watch late last night. The tops were nicely brown when he wrapped a corner of his plaid around his hand-it was a useful garment-and lifted the lid.

  Everyone in their group crowded around to get their share. They had fresh butter-the ranch folk had a cou ple of milch cows along with them. They were scrawny looking by Willamette Valley standards, and didn't give much milk, but t
hey did produce enough for the ingenious little wheel-powered barrel churn in their chuck wagon to work. Odard added passable hash browns, beans that had also cooked overnight with some dried onion, and bacon. As they settled down around the fire Bob Brown came over and squatted on his heels.

  The rancher's son was taller than his father, a lanky man in his thirties with hair somewhere between brown and sandy and dark blue eyes, holding a tin mug of the chicory-root brew people east of the mountains insisted on calling coffee; it smelled delicious and tasted vile, in Rudi's opinion. Bob accepted a biscuit and bit into it appreciatively.

  "Not bad," he said. Then he looked at Rudi and shrugged a little. "And you were right: all your friends here are good enough to stand a watch."

  Ingolf shrugged. "Only natural for you to want to see what we could do before you relied on us," he said.

  Rudi shrugged in turn and finished the last piece of his bacon, fighting down a slight resentment; he'd come close to quarreling with Bob Brown about it, before Vogeler stepped in.

  He's right… they were both right, he thought. Just be cause I knew doesn't mean he knew, and it's not some thing you take chances on. I should have realized that right away and not gotten my back up over it. All right, Mackenzie, make a note.

  Aloud he went on: "It makes the math easier anyway. Glad you're happy with our performance."

  Bob stirred his sugar and cream-laced chicory with a twig, sipped at it and gave Rudi a shrewd slanticular glance before he squinted out at the plain to the east. His eyes had more lines beside them than a man of his age from the Willamette, a face that spent a lot of time looking into dry winds full of grit and alkali dust.

  "I'm not what you'd call real joyful about anything right now," he said. "This is the last of the CORA ranches we're riding over now-and the rancher here doesn't use this pasture much; too many rustlers, even when there's water."

  He pointed his chin towards the small creek and pond at the base of the rise they had camped on. The horse herd was around its edge now, switching their tails and drinking, and it looked pretty and pastoral. There were even a few Russian olive trees trailing branches over the water. The little waterway filled only seasonally, and the water had a slight but unpleasant soapy taste. It was drinkable… sort of. You could wash in it, if you didn't mind an itchy film on your skin afterwards. They all had; it was likely to be the last opportunity for a while.

  Bob went on: "Folks east of here, the Rovers, the best you can say is that there aren't many of them. Well, that and that they fight one another a lot. What else you can say is they're mighty poor, and they're thieves and cut throats. Taking a hundred twenty prime head of horses through is like waving a lamb chop in front of a hungry kai-ote. It's like to take the chop and your hand too-and be gone before you've really noticed."

  It took a moment for Rudi to realize that the rancher's son meant coyote. He'd always rather liked the clever little song dogs, but he could see his point-they did go after sheep, and they'd be a much bigger problem out here than they were in Mackenzie territory.

  "Why are the people here out-of the-ordinary dan gerous?" Odard said curiously. "Aren't they ranchers like you?"

  Bob bridled at that, like a Bearkiller A-lister mistaken for an Association baron by someone from too far away to know the difference.

  Mary-or Ritva-cut in hastily: "Water," she said. "There just isn't much dry season water here you can get at without deep pumps. No hay either, so you can't keep more stock than the winter pastures will support. We Dunedain have had problems escorting caravans around here-but most trade with the east goes up the Columbia and Snake, or right across on the old Highway 20 through Burns, well north of this part. It's worse here."

  Bob nodded. "We CORA folk bounced back fast, but they kept on going down a lot longer 'round here before they hit bottom, what with their pumps and such gone. Mostly they don't even have homeplaces anymore; they just follow their herds from one patch of grazing to an other and pray there's water. Roving around, that's why we call 'em Rovers."

  Unexpectedly, Father Ignatius spoke.

  "My Order has had some missions out here, bringing windmill pumps and doctors. Not with any great success. The… wandering bands.. . are still very bitter. Not entirely without reason. Nobody shared much with them in the bad years. What they really want now is weapons."

  Bob looked a little uneasy. Ranches like his father's had snaffled off the best of the refugees from Bend and Sisters and Madras, men and women with skills that had been hobbies or luxuries before the Change and were suddenly very important indeed. They'd also done very well out of their contacts with the Mackenzies and the other Willamette communities-Juniper had reminisced about that to her son, how she'd traded bows and arrows for cattle the very first Change Year, and for providing bowyer training later.

  "Someone should put this area in order, then," Mathilda said decisively. "It's wasteful and breeds trou ble to have lawless zones like this-or like Pendleton, come to that. CORA is part of the Meeting, so we should all do something about it."

  She sounds very sure of herself, Rudi thought with a quirk of his lips as he wiped his fingers on the gritty soil and then dusted them off. But then, she always does.

  And she was usually right. The problem was that she was just as convinced on the rarer occasions when she was wrong. That was annoying but tolerable in a friend. Rudi suspected it would be much more of a problem in a ruler who wasn't really accountable to anyone else except God and, theoretically, the pope.

  The rancher's son cleared his throat. "Be that as it may, we still got to get the herd through here, so nobody up to Bend or Burns will notice and tell General Thurston in Boise. Bet that Prophet fella has spies there too."

  Father Ignatius smiled wryly. "He does, my son. Unfortunately the Order's information is that he has had missionaries preaching to the wanderers east of here, as well."

  Bob finished his chicory and turned the cup upside down. "Yup. Which means we should all suit up from here on out. Riding in armor ain't what you'd call comfy but it beats getting an arrow through the gizzard all to hell and gone."

  ****

  "Annwyn take it!" Edain said. "Fetch, girl! Fetch the sodding thing!"

  He sounded frustrated enough to cry. Garbh cantered over and bent her head to gently draw the practice arrow out of the gritty, rocky dirt beside the sagebrush and trotted back proudly with it held in her mouth. Edain bent in the saddle to retrieve it. He wouldn't cry, of course, but his face was red and angry; that showed easily, with his fair complexion.

  It was probably even more embarrassing that he had to practice near the CORA men, who'd grown up shooting recurves from horseback.

  "Better this time," Ingolf said.

  Rudi nodded to himself, sitting his horse nearby. It had been: a near miss. Which was surprising; Edain was a champion shot with the longbow, and this last year he'd given Rudi hard competition at the butts. Only to be expected from Sam Aylward's son, of course, which made it the more puzzling he was having so much trouble learning this.

  Ingolf went on patiently-he made an excellent teacher, and he was at least Rudi's equal with the shorter recurve horseman's weapon.

  "Look, you're first-rate with that yew pole of yours, but this is different. You've been practicing shooting on foot all your life, right?"

  "Since I was about six," Edain said proudly, the flush dying away. Awkwardly: "I'm just not used to missing all the time, is what."

  "Yeah, you're scary with that longbow on foot, kid. But what you know is getting in the way of what you've got to learn-I've been doing this since I was six. You're not going to get it in a day or a week."

  The sagebrush clothed plain stretched around them, but the silver-gray brushes were thinner than any they'd seen before, interspersed with patches of glittering alkali salts, some of them still muddy. A few miles behind them were the steep canyon-scored eastern escarpments of the Steens Mountains, green with aspen and juniper higher up. The rocky slopes of the Bowden
Hills were growing-slowly-on the eastern horizon. High over head a red-tailed hawk folded its wings and stooped at a rabbit flushed out of cover by the oncoming caravan. Plumes of dust rose towards the arching blue dome of the sky, kicked up by hundreds of hooves and the wheels of the two wagons.

  "Take a minute and watch," the easterner went on, lifting his own saddlebow. "Look, from what I've seen with a longbow you draw like this, past the angle of your jaw and below it."

  The long draw was the way to get the best out of a yew stave. He shifted his string hand upward three inches and slightly forward.

  "Now, with these short recurves you have to draw to your ear. The limbs come back and the string lifts off the section towards the tips as they straighten out and then bend the other way-a nice sharp C, not a shallow curve like your bows. Believe it or not, the bowstave gets longer that way; that's how you can shoot a long arrow from a short bow. Try it."

  Edain did, and sweat burst out on his forehead as he forced himself to overcome training that went far below the conscious level.

  "I feel awkward as a hog on ice," he grumbled.

  "Again," Ingolf said. "You just have to get used to shifting methods back and forth."

  Edain did it again. As he did, he tried to set his feet as he would shooting a longbow from the ground. The problem with that was that the horse he was on inter preted it as a command and wheeled sharply to the right, dust and bits of gritty yellow-brown rock spurting from under its hooves. It also snorted and looked back at him, as if to say, What do you think you're doing?

  Ah, I see the problem, Rudi thought.

  The young Mackenzie was a fair horseman; the Ayl wards could afford to keep a riding horse, being well to-do by the Clan's standards. But those standards didn't include a class of landowners with dependents to do the work and the leisure to master mounted combat, the way Bearkillers or Ingolf's folk did. Mac kenzies were smallholders, farmers who might ride horse or bicycle to battle but who got down and fought on foot.