Sunrise Lands c-1

by S. M. Stirling

  I hadn't thought about it till recently, but it does look like this is going to be a mostly celibate trip. Lady of the Blossom Time, have mercy!

  On her other side, Odard smiled thinly with his helmet under his arm; then his blue eyes narrowed over Rudi's head, and his handsome dark face stiffened slightly.

  "I think I saw something move," he said softly.

  Rudi saw something else; the heads of officers beginning to turn, and then carefully not doing so.

  "Yeah," he said. "Nice one, Odard."

  Ingolf gave a sigh."You know," he said,"I usually don't go looking for a fight. But I would really like to meet Mr. Kuttner again. Maybe deal with his other eye…"

  When the attack came, it was a surprise even though expected. The first arrow went thock into a shield even before the rattle of steel horseshoes on gravel reached them. A trumpeter went down, in the clump of men around the flag of the Republic; a few more fell along the line.

  Then the whole formation turned left in unison, going from a column headed south to a three deep line fac ing east with a deep shout of "Oooh rah!" The big oval shields snapped up, the first rank vertical, the next slanted back, and the rest raised in an overlapping roof. Rudi blinked in amazement even as he ducked behind the corner of the wagon, with more arrows whistling over head or going thunk into the vehicle's body and cargo or punk into the drum-taut canvas of the tilt or bouncing off the steel frame like ringing metallic rain. He'd never seen anything like that dragon scale maneuver.

  Like the unfolding of a tree into leaf but a thousand times faster, or a bird's feathers bristling, he thought.

  At close range some of the arrows punched through the thick leather and plywood of the shields, and a few more men fell. One went between Ingolf and him as they peered around the wagon, and they both drew back.

  "Something smells," Ingolf said tensely. "That's a goddamned stupid move, and the Cutters aren't that kind of stupid."

  Rudi nodded. The horsemen in the russet-colored armor weren't trying to turn the formation's flanks; they were coming straight down the rough slope at the part of the Boise line ahead of the command group, shoot ing as fast as they could. Then they switched bows for lances-done with formidable speed-and bored right in, their formation a blunt wedge.

  The knights of the Protector's Guard couldn't break that line with a balls-out hair on fire charge, Rudi thought. Not even Bearkiller A-listers. Not without artillery in support or something.

  And the Boise field pieces were going off now with a series of loud metallic tunnnngggg sounds. Four foot arrows punched out in blurring streaks, nailing men to horses or smashing through two and three at a time, ignoring armor as if it were linen, ripping off limbs or slicing open bodies. Then a globe of stickfire hit, turning one rider and his mount into a pillar of flame and splash ing burning napalm in all directions. Horses screamed, but the men never broke their chant:

  "Cut! Cut! Cut!"

  The Boise officers shouted all together: "Ready… first rank pick your man… pilaaaaa- throw!"

  The formation opened out a little as the front rank cocked their heavy javelins back. Then a hundred mus cular arms did throw, at point-blank range and within a second of one another. The Cutter charge stopped as if it had slammed into a massive glass wall, invisible but hard. Horses went over, pitching forward in complete somersaults or tripping, and more behind them reared screaming as they tried to avoid the gruesome pileup. Rudi winced as he heard leg bones snap; he always hated the uncomprehending agony of the poor beasts. They had more sense when men left them alone…

  "Ready… second… throw!"

  The second rank lofted their throwing spears into the heaving mass, and then the third, and then the first rank used their second javelin. The volleys kept punching out until the spears were gone.

  "Companies… charge!"

  The Boise soldiers moved in unison again, to a huge crashing bark of: "USA! USA!"

  Each sword hand snapped down to the hilt of the stabbing blade slung at each right hip, and then flicked it out and forward in a movement beautiful and deadly and swift. Then they smashed forward into the Prophet's men, swarming at them like ants-punching with the bosses of their heavy shields at the horses' faces, club bing with the edges at the legs of mount and rider, holding them up to turn the strokes of the long shetes. And stabbing, stabbing…

  The Cutters' trumpet wailed from higher up the slope. Every horseman who could turned his mount and spurred out of the melee, while the Boise infantry slaughtered those who couldn't.

  "The Prophet's Guard don't run like that," Ingolf said.

  Rudi's skin prickled, with a nervousness that had only a little to do with the edged iron flying about. Then something caught the corner of his eye. Pure instinct moved him: he turned on his heel even as he drew the clothyard shaft past the angle of his jaw and shot. One of Thurston's guard threw himself aside with a yell as the fletching brushed his neck.

  The general wheeled just in time to see the spear drop from another's hand where it had been driving for his back. Surprise froze him an instant, and then he snatched at his own sword as the would-be assassin plowed into the ground face first in a clatter of strip armor with an arrow driven up under the flare of his helmet. Sergeant Anderson was already between them, sword and shield ready; Rudi could see his mouth working in soundless curses as he looked around at the other guards.

  Rudi had drawn and loosed again before the first man struck the ground, conscious that Edain had gotten off his first shaft less than a second later than his. Another man among the guards pitched backward with a Mac kenzie arrow standing in his face, and then a third went down-the bodkin points of two arrows driven through his armor and into gut and chest. His target had been a man near the general; that one struck as he spun, slashing open the assassin's throat to make three death wounds before he had time to collapse.

  Then Rudi threw down his longbow and flung his hands in the air; barely twenty seconds had passed since the first shaft left his string.

  "Peace!" he cried, pitching his voice to cut through the roar of noise around him. "They were trying to kill your general! Peace!"

  An instant later Edain did the same, and the others of their band froze very still; there were probably a dozen weapons trained on them, and fingers trembling on triggers or ready to loose strings. Rudi felt a wash of cold liquid fear in his gut until Thurston himself bellowed,

  "Hold!"

  The last of the Cutters were out of range, sped on their way by bolts from the Boise fieldpieces. Thurston stared down at the body lying so close to his feet and then clashed his unmarked sword back into the scabbard. Men were beginning to shout and turn as word spread from one individual to the next-most had had their eyes fixed firmly on the retreating enemy.

  "Silence in the ranks!" Thurston bellowed.

  And a sort of silence did fall; even through his own fear Rudi admired the discipline of it.

  "Officers, get your men in hand. Now! "

  The beginnings of chaos died. A long moment later Thurston waved a couple of aides aside and walked over to Rudi; they'd been only a hundred feet apart. Two men followed him, the others who'd been saved from blades in the back by a ripple of Mackenzie archery. Rudi's eyes skipped over them; both had transverse crests on their helmets, and as they took them off…

  Yes, they're his close kin, from the looks. Their skin was lighter, toast-brown rather than near black, and their short hair loose curled rather than woolly, but oth erwise the cast of features was the same. Sons, from their years-one's a bit more than my age and the other's about Edain's.

  Thurston halted within arm's reach. Their eyes met for half a minute or so, and then he extended his hand. Rudi shook it.

  "That was damned quick work," the Boise ruler said. "You saved my life there, you and your man… and saved my sons, too," he went on, confirming Rudi's guess. He glanced at them. "Martin, Frederick. .. Captain Thurston and Lieutenant Thurston, respectively."

  Martin was t
he older; he extended his hand too, and then Frederick did as well. The younger son was grinning.

  "Pretty fancy shooting," he said, and touched Edain's longbow with a finger. "That yew tree didn't die in vain!"

  His older brother was more sober. "And how the hell did the Prophet get men into the presidential guard detail?" he snapped.

  His father made a quelling gesture. "We'll have to find out. They were ready to strike without a chance in hell of escaping, too… and at a guess, this whole attack was aimed at giving them an opportunity. Goddamn, I thought the Change at least got rid of suicide killers. Wish we'd taken one alive."

  He turned back to Rudi: "I now owe you two a considerable debt," he said. "Enough for an escort to the New Deseret border, no questions asked-but this area's not safe, with the Prophet's cavalry loose in it. We'll return to Boise. You need to do some planning and I need to do some investigating. Maybe some of the Cutters know what's going on."

  A glance back at his frozen command group. "And that was some fancy shootin', given the angles and the time you had."

  A few yards away, a Boise officer who'd been question ing a wounded Cutter swore and jerked his head back. The man had bitten off his own tongue, and spit it at the questioner in a spray of blood as he bent to hear an answer. He was laughing with a thick gobbling sound when a soldier jammed a spearhead through his throat; then he choked, kicked and died.

  "What shall we do with the others, Mr. President?" an officer said, white faced with shock at the assassination attempt but too disciplined to babble.

  Thurston removed his helmet and sighed, rubbing a hand across his dense cap of tight kinked hair; he looked his age then. "We're heading back to Boise. We'll take them along. They can talk, or they can join the infrastructure maintenance battalions. Have their wounded treated as soon as ours are OK."

  Then he looked over at Rudi and Edain. "I've got some good archers," he said, to the younger Mackenzie this time. "But none like that. I could use a longbow corps; maybe you could teach some of my men if you're interested in a job… What's so funny?"

  The last was a snap that dampened the smile on Edain's face. Still, he was a free clansman of the Mackenzies, and he spoke boldly.

  "I was just thinking of how my father trained me, General."

  At his raised brow, the young man went on: "When I was six, he gave me a stave cut to my size. I'd hold it out until my arm ached.. . and if I let it droop then he'd wal lop my backside. I learned to hold it as long as he liked… so then he gave me a thicker stave. When I got a real bow, I practiced an hour a day and longer on weekends, and that's not counting archery classes at school; I learned to care for my string, my bow, my arrows, to cut my own feathers and fletch my own shafts. I practiced shooting in calm, breeze, and strong wind, at still marks, moving marks, targets on the flat and in the air, and dropping fire on hidden ones, and all of them while I was standing… or kneeling… or running… or jumping."

  Thurston looked as if he'd like to interrupt, but Edain continued: "Even shooting blindfolded at a target that rattled! Not to mention hunting. I dropped a running buck through thick brush at a hundred paces the year I turned thirteen, and he said I just might make a bowman worthy of the name. At sixteen I nailed a squirrel to a tree at the same range and he allowed that sure, I'd gone and done it. And that, General Thurston, sir, is how you make a Mackenzie archer!"

  A couple of Thurston's soldiers looked alarmed at his insolence, even busy as they were. The general's own frown gave way to an unwilling grin, and his younger son matched the expression.

  "Well, that put me in my place. Sometimes I'm still not used to the way some things take so long to learn these days."

  Rudi nodded to himself. He'd noticed that about people who'd been fighting men before the Change. Evidently guns had been easy to learn well, easier even than a crossbow.

  "Wait a minute," Thurston went on. "What's your last name, son? The real one, not the Mackenzie part."

  "Aylward."

  "You're Sam Aylward's kid?" Thurston said. "Well, no wonder."

  "You know my father, sir?"

  Edain sounded half-glad, half disappointed-he'd been living in that shadow all his life, and here it was a month's travel from home. Rudi sympathized; he knew what it was like to have famous parents. In his case it was worse; his were legends on both the spear and cauldron side.

  "I met him in 'ninety-one," Thurston said, animated for a moment. "On a mission in the Gulf. And then he dropped in to Fort Lewis back in 'ninety-eight, just be fore the Change… and I heard of him afterward. Ayl ward the Archer, eh? No wonder, then. Wish to hell he'd ended up with me and not the flakes… er, the Mackenzies."

  "You know, I love my dad," Edain muttered, as the lord of Boise turned away and began a rattle of orders to his waiting subordinates. "But there are times I get bloody sick of hearing about Aylward the Archer."

  "Cheer up," Rudi said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Think of all the years you'll be Aylward the Archer."

  From his expression, Edain was-and then suddenly his face fell as he realized that would mean his father wasn't around anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Approaching Boise,

  Idaho Provisional Capital,

  United States Of America

  June 10, CY23/2021 A.D.

  It was an hour or so until sunset and the Boise road still headed northwest, though they'd turn east to enter the city itself. Shadows were beginning to fall around them, though the upper parts of the town walls and their towers were still brightly lit in the middle dis tance, and the white and scarlet fabric of the three teth ered hot-air balloons that hung several thousand feet above was even brighter. Higher still light flashed briefly from the canopy of a glider.

  "It's all so… tidy," Rudi said, looking around and blinking in the bright summer sun. "Not a board loose or a building unpainted or one poor gasping weed left to propagate its kind."

  Truck gardens occupied most of the land this close to the city, watered by canals and spinning windmills. There was a scattering of barns and sheds, and things like chicken coops and pigpens adding their pungencies to turned wet earth and compost, but not many houses close to the city proper-as usual, people close enough to walk out from the walls lived inside them. The pleasant tinkle and chug of running water sounded, and plenty of folk were out tending the vegetables and berry bushes and small orchards of apples and peach and cherry with hand tools and horse-drawn machines, or harvesting greens and early roots.

  Many stopped to wave or shout greetings as the sol diers went by, and some of the closer ones stared at the obvious foreigners.

  "So very, very, very tidy."

  Rudi spoke with a mixture of mild scorn and grudging admiration. Mackenzies were farmers, and good ones, and that meant that they worked very hard indeed and admired hard workers and a neat job. But they stopped when they'd done enough to get the job done; it wasn't as if there was ever a scarcity of things that needed doing about a croft, and if you had any time to spare you spent it on dancing or a festival or a little fancywork like carving a god-post. Around here. ..

  "You noticed?" one of his half sisters said dryly.

  "Who could be missing it?" Rudi replied, his tone equally pawky.

  "Yeah, you're riding along a road and you drop an apple core here and three people scold you and point to the waste bin," Ingolf confirmed.

  "They don't feed apple cores to their pigs?" Edain said, puzzled.

  "Yeah, but you've got to put it in the waste bin first. The official waste bin. That's the Approved Procedure. And if you think this is neat and tidy, wait until we get into town. The punishment for drunk-and disorderly is going around sweeping the streets up after the horses and oxen, with some sergeant kicking your ass while you do it."

  The suburbs here around the modern city had been torn down with a thoroughness Rudi had never seen anywhere, even the foundation pads of the houses bro ken up; a last few metal frame buildings were being disassembled as th
ey passed through, with bundles of girders lowered to the ground by cables and stacked on big ox-wagons to be hauled away for smithies and forges and fortress construction. The manicured look of the gardens was a little unusual. The walls ahead, though…

  "Mount Angel is stronger," Father Ignatius said stoutly.

  "It is that. On the other hand, it's also on the top of a four-hundred-foot hill," Rudi pointed out. "The which is a pimple in a plain of exceeding flatness. This is not."

  Boise was on the east bank of its river; that ran in a blue band north-south, with three bridges crossing it and mountains rising not far beyond. The walls weren't just tall. Old high-rises had been built into them and infilled with concrete as well. Rudi was used to the giant struc tures of the ancients, but most of them were dead. Seeing them worked into something as natural and modern as the outer curtain wall of a fortress-town was eerie, and it gave the defenses an odd alien angular look.

  Traffic was thick on the road; carts with farm produce, everything from baskets of eggs cradled in straw to bur lap sacks of potatoes and casks of wine and flats of early lettuce and green onions and radishes; bigger wagon trains with trade goods in bales and bundles and barrels; people on foot and horseback and an occasional flock of sheep or herd of cattle. They all pulled aside for the general's party; news of their coming had been flashed ahead by heliograph and semaphore-telegraph stations, running from hilltop to hilltop.

  "Yeah, I wouldn't like to try to storm it," Ingolf said.

  Rudi's eyes flicked ahead to Thurston. There wasn't much of a fuss over the ruler's arrival; he'd seen that the man didn't like pomp. As he watched, two riders came out of the gate and down the cleared lane to meet them, saluting briskly.

  "Mr. President," the first said.

  He was in uniform too, but a blue one with NATIONAL POLICE sewn on the shoulder, a plain-looking man in his thirties with a short-clipped mustache. The younger man beside him was in the camouflage cloth of Boise's army; his helmet hid his hair, but from the freckles and pale complexion Rudi thought it must be as red as his own mother's. The first man looked at Thurston, his eyes flicking to Rudi and the others.