“You know what I mean. That lady with the braids and the staff did something to me, didn’t she?”
“Meadhbh Beauregard Mackenzie is a priestess of the triple cords and the first degree, right enough,” Talyn said, more solemnly than his usual bantering tone. “But for the most part she’s our healer back in Dun Tàirneanach. That’s her trade.”
“Doctor at home, field medic with the levy,” Alyssa amplified.
“She said she felt the need to come along on this patrol,” Talyn said. “She’s a fiosaiche as well-”
“Seer,” Alyssa said, or translated. “Prophet, sorta. Irritating, all those odd words, aren’t they?”
“Says the sisu lady. And the kettle cried out awa’ with yer grimy arse to the pot,” Talyn said pointedly, then continued: “Meadhbh is a fiosache of note, and it’s bad luck to disregard the feelings that come to such. And she found you, right enough!”
“She didn’t just find me.”
Caillech nodded. “She cast a slumber on you,” she said. “I’ve heard of such things-Lady Juniper, the Mackenzie, the Chief herself herself, did it to a whole warband of your folk two years ago. There was a High Seeker of the CUT with them.”
Cole had heard rumors about that; he’d figured it was a cover story for a defection. There had been a lot of those, especially recently.
But maybe not. .
“But I’ve never seen such with my own eyes,” the Clanswoman said. “It was. . just a wee bit alarming.”
“Yah think?” Cole said with feeling.
“And not in the usual run of things at all, at all,” Talyn said.
Caillech nodded again, her face absolutely serious for a moment.
“It would recoil on the doer, so, unless there was a. . a provocation of the same sort,” she said. “So that it was in self-defense, you see? Even then it’s not something to be done lightly. When a fiosaiche. . a seeress or a priestess. . calls upon the Powers, then They’re all too likely to answer. . but you’re never quite sure how, for They are greater and other than we and Their minds are not as ours. Whether the glass bottle hits the iron cauldron, or the cauldron hits the bottle, it’s often bad news for the bottle. Hence not something to be done lightly.”
“Best not speak too much of it now,” Talyn said warningly, and made a sign in the air.
Yeah. It’s creepy.
The walk took most of the day and by the end of it they were treating him like an old friend-albeit one they were ready to shoot on the instant if he tried to run or make trouble, and one they never let into a position where he might seize a hostage. Which was flattering, if you looked at it right.
The sun was sinking behind the white peaks to the west before the first challenge came from behind a rock. Well-camouflaged sentries passed them through to a camp not far from a mountain lake. The heart of it was a long sloping flower-starred meadow of twenty or thirty acres that dropped off even more steeply southward.
A curved launching ramp of lodgepole trunks had been built down the center of the open space, with a counterweighted catapult system for throwing gliders into the air along it; it was a neat, solid piece of field engineering and differed only in detail from the ones the USAF used. As he watched a lever was tripped, the boxcar full of rocks slid down the short section of wooden rails below the ramp, gears and winches whined, and a glider swooped down and then soared into the air with a throw just short of the speed that would have ripped its wings off. It banked back in, came into the breeze and landed, probably testing the launcher after some repairs.
Alyssa followed the brief flight with her eyes and sighed. “No chance for me to break my neck again for a while,” she muttered.
Four of the slender-winged tadpole shapes of sailplanes were staked out with technicians working around them, and flags and a wind sock marked the landing area. He even recognized the type; pre-Change Glaser-Dirk 100s, one of the Air Force favorites, or modern copies so close to the original that a nonexpert like him couldn’t tell the difference. A set of big tents flew a banner that showed a snarling bear’s-head, face-on in black and red and white on a brown background, and they contained a portable forge and workshops with treadle-powered lathes and presses.
The rest of the encampment included a corral for draught animals, mainly big mules, and a thick scattering of bell-tents grouped in threes around a somewhat larger one; the flag there was the moon and antlers of the Mackenzies. A taller pole in the center bore the Crowned Mountain and Sword-what the new “kingdom” of Montival used.
Folk gathered around, about half in pants and the rest in the Clan’s kilt. There must be more than two hundred here all up, but he’d gotten used to crowds since he started his military service. Though so many strange faces still seemed slightly unnatural, to someone who’d grown up on a little family ranch where you could go a month or more at a time without seeing a single outsider and a year without meeting someone from out of the neighborhood.
Alyssa exchanged salutes just like the one he’d learned in school with a hawk-faced woman in her thirties with brown hair in the same shortish bob cut.
He looked around. OK, Bearkiller women in the army wear it that way, like our high-and-tight.
She was dressed in a practical-looking brown uniform that included a basket-hilted single-edged sword. There was a small blue scar like Alyssa’s between her brows and what would have been a Captain’s bars in the US Army on her shoulders.
“Don’t tell me. A write-off, right?” the officer said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you see any sign of the enemy before you totaled it?”
“Nothing, ma’am. I didn’t get that far.”
“How did you manage to pile up your ship?”
“I relied on getting lift somewhere it wasn’t and then I was lower than the terrain all around me. Then I was lower than the terrain under me.”
The officer sighed. “If you had a sane approach to risk management you wouldn’t be a pilot, Larsson.”
“No excuses, Captain Sanders. Nothing salvageable in my estimation, the terrain’s not suitable even for mules, you’d have to backpack the wreck out in pieces. Plus there’s a really big dead bear lying next to it.”
A shrug. “It might be worthwhile going after the instruments, later. You’re a good pilot, Larsson, and they’re harder to produce than gliders. Don’t make a habit of it, but combat-lossing these things occasionally is a cost of doing business. We’ll just show some sisu and suck it up. Written report including map data by fourteen hundred hours tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am. Haakaa päälle!”
“Hack ’em down! The arm?”
“Hairline fracture of the ulna, according to the Mackenzie fiosaiche.”
“She’s a qualified field medic,” the officer said-a little reluctantly, Cole thought.
Alyssa nodded. “No need for a plaster cast, just time. I don’t think there was much of a concussion, none of the symptoms, except that I was woozy for a while. No recurrence of headaches, or blurred vision or loss of balance. Didn’t even lose any teeth.”
“Right, have our doc take a look when he’s got time but you’re on restricted duty until the arm heals anyway, four to six weeks if nothing goes wrong. I’ll unload some of my paperwork on you.”
Alyssa gave an almost imperceptible wince, and the officer returned a slightly disquieting grin. “I know, you can interrogate your cutie of a POW here. You are now in charge of that, seconded to Intelligence until you’re fit for unrestricted duty again.”
I’m a cutie? Cole thought, torn between feeling flattered and insulted.
“He’s technically the Mackenzies’ prisoner, ma’am.”
“I doubt they’ll be competing for the privilege of talking to him.”
“That we will not,” Caillech said. “No offense, Cole Salander.”
Alyssa chuckled. “He’s not going to talk much anyway. Not at first, at least.”
“SOP, we have to jump through the hoops.” She
looked at Cole. “Interested in switching sides? We’ve got a lot of Boiseans on our side now, and Frederick Thurston leads them, your first ruler’s son.”
Cole shook his head, keeping private doubts off his face. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Captain Wellman’s always been straight with me, and as long as he says it’s the right side I’m on it.”
“Fair enough, private. A man’s obligations are his own to judge. You’re between a rock and a hard place and I don’t envy you that position one little bit. You may change your mind when you’re further back and get a chance to talk to more of your own folk who’ve come to different conclusions. Larsson, ask the usual questions, write ’em down, and we’ll send the report on with him when we have time and personnel to spare to move him out. Carry on.”
A swatch of Mackenzies had gathered around, along with some of their enormous dogs. Apart from the haircuts and whether or not they’d painted their faces they looked more uniform than he’d expected, given their wild neobarb reputation. . but then, according to the briefing they wore the kilt and plaid all the time anyway, so this was probably their ordinary clothes apart from the war-gear. Alter the clothes and such and keep their mouths shut and they’d pass for his neighbors easily. Nearly all of them were Changelings of around his age give or take a few years. There were some adolescents doing chores and standing in back, and a few slightly older ones were officers, most of whom wore a neck-torc of thin twisted gold.
Right, that’s the Mackenzie equivalent of a wedding ring, only they wear it around the neck. And there are so many women! he thought.
Then, after he did a deliberate count: No, not as many as all that. Well under half the total. It just looks like more to my eye, I guess. What the lecture called perception bias. Got to watch that if you want to make an accurate report.
Talyn and his comrade made their report to a big scarred man pushing thirty, with freckles on a ruddy pale face, rust-colored hair in a queue and one of the torcs around his bull neck. After drawing them aside out of earshot for a few sharp questions he gave Cole a long look, then turned to Alyssa.
“Is this one’s word good, Lady?”
Alyssa looked at Cole herself. “Is it?” she said.
He scowled and nodded. A man whose word wasn’t good was a toad-no, a worm-and he instinctively resented the question. But to be fair she wasn’t a neighbor who’d grown up knowing him down to the bootlaces in the usual way. Dealing with strangers could be hard, without reputation to guide you. Nobody trusted people they didn’t know the way they did kin and the folks from over the next creek.
“I break any promises to you, ma’am?” he said.
“No.” She turned to the Mackenzie. “And our acquaintance was brief, but intense, Bow-captain Luag. I’d say he was honorable but I can’t take oath on it.”
Luag looked to Cole for a long green-eyed moment. “Give us your oath not to fight nor to try escaping while you’re in this war-camp, and we’ll let you walk free, though watched. Deny it, and we must keep you bound save when you’re on the latrine, the which would be uncomfortable and would do your cause no good at all or whatsoever. Suffer uselessly or not, as you please.”
A pause, and he went on flatly: “If you give your word and break it, then we’ll kill you sure. As an offering to Lugh Longspear.”
Cole thought carefully while the Clan warriors leaned on their great bows and watched him, moistening his lips a little as he did. On the one hand, standing orders said if you were captured you had to escape if possible. On the other, the New UCMJ said you had to escape if possible not get yourself killed trying when it wasn’t possible; his chances of that were much better when he was being moved and was far away from an enemy encampment.
OK, giving a general parole is out, but a temporary one. . possible.
Especially if he stayed here a couple of days with liberty to walk around he could probably learn something valuable, and he was specifically tasked with getting information about bases like this, so it was aiding his mission to be able to ask questions and watch things. He could try for a break when they moved him-they couldn’t spare much effort to guard one prisoner, and in any army things got looser as you moved away from the sharp end. On the third hand-
“Unless US forces attack this camp,” he said. “If they do, all bets are off.”
There were grins and chuckles at that. Such a lot of merry lighthearted jokester bastards, he thought. Goddammit. It was probably a lot easier to laugh when you were winning.
The redhead raised an eyebrow. “Or unless the sky fall and crush us, or the sea rise and drown us, or the world end,” he said sardonically.
“And my parole to last three days from sunset today and no more. After that I’m free to escape and to do anything necessary to carrying out my duties. And you’re free to shoot me if I try and if you can.”
A short, crisp but somehow respectful nod. “Good. A man careless of his oath would likely make fewer conditions, so. Swear then, in the sight of whatever Gods you follow and on a fighting-man’s honor.”
“I’m a Methodist, I guess. .” He thought for a moment, then raised his right hand and swore so help me God.
Luag listed the specifics carefully, and drew a sign in the air before finishing:
“So witness all the Gods of my people, and the Mother-of-All in Her form as the Threefold Morrigú, who loves a warrior’s faithfulness, and the Lord Her consort as Lugh of the Oaths. You’re free of our camp, but don’t go beyond its bounds-those white wands you see planted about.”
He hadn’t noticed the peeled sticks, but they were obvious once the bowman’s thick finger pointed them out.
Luag went on: “What the Bearkillers do is their affair, but I wouldn’t go among them alone either, if I were you, for all that they’re blood brothers of ours, so to speak. They’re a suspicious lot about outsiders and quickly fierce with their blades.”
Raising his voice slightly:
“To harm this man is geasa so long as he keeps his oath. Watch him close, but put no slight nor insolence on him while he’s bound helpless by his pledge. Or I will most assuredly kick your arse until your teeth march out of your mouth like little Bearkiller pikemen on parade, and you will be mocked by all and the bards will make a tale of it at the next festival and ill-luck will dog your tracks. This is a war, not a blood feud. Treat him as you would wish on one of our own if they had the misfortune to fall captive. Understood?”
There was a murmur of assent.
“Then spread the word. About your work the now, Mackenzies.”
“Ah. . that’s it?” Cole said.
“Is anything more needful?” Talyn said. “Ah, here’s our tent, the which you are welcome to share. Though we usually sleep under the stars unless it’s raining or much colder than this. Stow your gear.”
He and Caillech spent a few moments removing each other’s war paint, with a mixture of flaxseed oil and goose grease that smelled of herbs-sage and rosemary, Cole thought-and then soap and water. Most of the Mackenzies just nodded at the prisoner and walked away, going back to working on their gear or shooting at wooden targets and flinging disks with truly alarming dexterity or sparring or towards some cooking pits where an agonizingly good smell was drifting with wafts of bluish smoke to remind him that he’d been working hard on light rations. Others simply napped, played flutes or guitars, read or wrote letters, played games with dice or cards, or. .
He blinked, and blushed a little. Soldiering tended to erode your sense of privacy, but he was used to it being all guys. His army had stopped recruiting women after the old General died a couple of years ago, and hadn’t had many even then. Cole averted his eyes.
Bearkillers seemed to do things more or less the way he was used to. The Mackenzies. .
“They’re sort of informal, aren’t they? But it works for them,” Alyssa said. “God knows why.”
“Hup-one-two, and a lance up the arse to keep your back braced straight,” Caillech said. “The Bearkiller way.”
The two young women stuck out their tongues at each other, and Talyn rolled his eyes.
“I smell that a sounder of wild pig were guided our way by Cernunnos,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Rather than the over-stewed muck of infamous memory we get nine days in ten, when it isn’t jerky and trail mix and dog biscuit instead, ochone, the sorrow and black pity of it. Let us prepare for the sacred rite of eating ourselves full and drinking what’s to be had while we have the chance, for it won’t happen often.”
Cole smiled a little. The general awfulness of military food was something everyone seemed to have in common, weird or not.
CHAPTER SIX
Castle Todenangst, Crown demesne
Portland Protective Association
Willamette Valley near Newburg
High Kingdom of Montival
(formerly western Oregon)
June 15th, Change Year 26/2024 AD
The last series of windows came down to the floor, opening out in French doors. Beyond was a fan-shaped open platform the size of a largish room, held by curved girders of cast aluminum alloy whose ends reared up into stylized eagle’s heads all around its rim. Between them along the edge was a border of waist-high marble sheets carved into fretwork. Not at all coincidentally, they were exactly the right height to lean on comfortably for a rather short someone named Sandra Arminger.
Most of the balcony was covered by an arched pergola of thin wrought bronze rods thickly grown with vines, the last of the late-blooming violet-blue Shiro Noda wisteria hanging in foot-long clusters interwoven with golden Rêve d’Or roses. The heady Noisette perfume of the roses mingled with the fainter, more delicate scent of the Japanese wisteria. Hummingbirds flitted among the blossoms like living jewels of ruby and malachite, and the eyes of several of Sandra’s Persians tracked them with bright wistful interest.
And a low feline chittering of teeth accompanied by a murmur of ah ahnt ahnt ahnt, which meant something like: Chew toy! Chew toy!
“I wonder, was that excessive?” Sandra murmured, looking up. “Roses and wisteria? Did I do it just because suddenly I could? I’m afraid that happened a fair bit back then. It was as if we were both a little drunk with possibilities, your father and I. From impecunious academics to gaming with kingdoms.”
The Given Sacrifice c-7 Page 10
