“—and, uh, I’m from Cottonwood Ranch, about half a day’s walk from a town called Bruneau. Which is a little pimple of a place with thirty, forty people a hundred-odd miles west of Boise City. My folks run a few cattle and sheep and crop a little bit, they and my brothers . . . before the war . . . and sisters and a hand or two.”
They were probably having a hell of a time just getting by, with his elder brothers missing in action and him away in the Army, but he tried not to think about that too much. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, anyway, except try to keep foreign armies away from them.
“You might say the same of us, in reverse,” Talyn said cheerfully. “Adding in a bit of smithing and weaving and the like. Save that her ladyship here is by way of being a princess and above such low and mean pursuits.”
Alyssa snorted. “What he means is that my dad is Eric Larsson. And we’re Bearkillers, not Associates, Talyn; I’ve done chores all my life and I made the A-list on merit, not birth.”
After a moment Cole missed half a step. Eric Larsson was the military commander of one of the western outfits in the enemy alliance. They were from the Willamette valley near the Mackenzies and called themselves the Bearkillers. His sister Signe Havel—née Larsson—was their civilian leader. Though from the briefings, they didn’t make much of a distinction that way, they’d been founded by a former Marine right after the Change. And Eric Larsson was related by blood or marriage to a whole clutch of other VIPs including the enemy’s big bossman, the one calling himself High King Artos these days.
I am a toad, Cole thought mournfully. I am one dead toad. I didn’t just miss handing over an intelligence asset, this is high-up political stuff. I am a dead toad that got run under a road-roller and left in the hot sun. Oh, I am such a dead, flat toad.
“And my mom is Luanne Larsson,” the glider pilot went on gloomily. “Who is going to have an absolute cow when she hears I crashed and got banged up. She didn’t want me to be a pilot.”
“Instead of a lancer so shiny in armor and all?” Talyn asked innocently. “Your mother being Horsemistress of the Bearkillers.”
That got him a scowl from Alyssa and a laugh from Caillech; the Bearkiller woman was obviously much too slight for fighting in plate armor on horseback, though quick and very strong for her size. The briefings said the Bearkiller elite force were most of them cavalry, as good as the knights of the Portland Protective Association and more versatile and better disciplined. They called them the A-List.
“Mom thought I’d be more useful to the war effort helping with the remount program. But I took the Gunpowder Day barrel-riding cup,” Alyssa snapped. “And the mounted archery prize for the under-eighteens, one year. I could have made cavalry scout, easy. I just . . . like flying.”
Being a shrimp wasn’t a handicap for a glider pilot, of course; the opposite, if anything. Cole was a bit above medium-sized. He’d asked about pilot training himself when he turned eighteen back just before the war started, in the old General’s day, and had been told that the only way to make the weight limit would be to amputate both his legs above the knee. Or his head.
“And if I was stuck-up, would I hang out with lowlifes like you two?” Alyssa said.
“Ah, it’s the bonny long curling golden locks, the lassies can’t resist ’em,” Talyn said.
He took off his Scots bonnet for a moment to run a hand over his shaven head and waggle the ordinary brown pigtail at the back.
“Beating them off with sticks I am three days in four, a trial and a troublement and a weariness.”
The women looked at each other and mock-kicked in unison towards the bowman’s backside. Cole stepped unobtrusively forward to let Alyssa steady herself against his shoulder. Having an arm in a sling interfered with your balance; he remembered that from his own experience with cracked bones.
“Wait ’til we get back,” Caillech said. “I’ll punish you good and proper then.”
“Something to look forward to! Or I might be the one making you beg for mercy, eh?”
Caillech laughed and winked. Cole reflected gloomily that all he had to look forward to now was a POW camp. He supposed it was easier to be cheerful when your side was winning. Talyn might be a friendly sort, but he didn’t relax his vigilance one iota; neither did his companion, or their dogs, and Alyssa was keeping an eye peeled too. Cole hadn’t given any parole, so he kept his eyes open without being too conspicuous about it, and—
I am a skilled wilderness scout. It says so right there in my paybook that they took away from me after I fell asleep.
That meant he could expertly evaluate his chances of making a break, and the probability of getting anything but an arrow in the back and/or two sets of really large fangs ripping bleeding chunks out of his ass were somewhere between absolutely nothing and fucking zip right now.
And the fact that I’m feeling a little relieved at that analysis is neither here nor there. Or that I don’t want to be the last man to die in a lost war.
Surrendering on your own was risky—everyone knew that even if both sides were playing by the official rules you were as likely as not to be finished off if you just put up your hands one-on-one at the point of the spear. When the other guy’s blood was up or he’d just lost a buddy rules were a thin way to avoid becoming another anonymous body.
But Cole had made it past that stage, and the grapevine, as opposed to official propaganda, said the enemy treated POWs pretty well. Better than his own side did, these days. He was prepared to risk his life for the mission. But there was a distinct difference between a hero’s honored grave and a hole in the dirt for a damned fool.
Mrs. Salander hadn’t raised any fools.
“Ah . . . OK if I ask a question?” he said.
The three looked at each other. “Ask away,” Talyn said. “I won’t promise to answer, mind.”
“That lady with the staff . . . she’s a witch, right?”
Unexpectedly they all laughed. “They’re all witches, Cole,” Alyssa said.
“That we are,” Caillech said, striking a mock-spooky pose and making passes through the air for a moment with her free hand. “My other horse is a broomstick!”
He absently noted that Alyssa had used his first name instead of private or soldier or Salander or combinations thereof; evidently shaking hands made it all right. He shook his head.
“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.
&nbs
p; 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.
The Given Sacrifice Page 10
