The Given Sacrifice

by S. M. Stirling

  “No trouble?”

  “Routine, just routine.”

  Fred walked over to a man in a mottled camouflage uniform with Captain’s insignia.

  “Wellman, I know you’re thinking have I done the right thing?” he said quietly. “That’s something I can only demonstrate by actions, not promises.”

  “Sir,” the man said, saluting in Boise’s fashion.

  Fred returned the gesture and stepped aside. Captain Wellman’s eyes went wider than the darkness would account for. Rudi was in plain gear, a brigandine with the rivet-heads dulled to the same green color as the outer leather, a visored sallet and vambraces of browned steel, boots and leather pants; just enough battle armor to let him fight in a melee while leaving him maximum agility. Evidently Wellman recognized him anyway . . . or the Sword.

  “I understand that I owe you my thanks, Captain Wellman,” Rudi said soberly.

  “For what?”

  “For deciding I’m the least bad choice of a short and unpleasant list, wouldn’t it be?”

  The older man met his eyes steadily. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said, his voice flat. “I did it for my country and my people, and to save the city my family lives in.”

  “Good reasons, and all the better to hear them from an honest man,” Rudi said, equally matter-of-fact.

  The Boisean’s words had rung with truth like a bronze bell. He went on:

  “Having, as you might expect, to deal with a good many of the other sort. You have my thanks anyway, if you’ll take them. And as a reward, Fred here will be giving you more work.”

  They shook hands. “You’re . . . ah . . . not quite what I expected,” Wellman said.

  Rudi inclined his head to the poster; it wasn’t the first he’d seen since they crossed into former Boisean territory.

  “Ah, well, the serfs absconded with my glass carriage, and took the gilded armor and second-best crown of ruby and massy gold with them as they danced away clicking their heels and snapping their fingers. And stole the very last bag of honeyed filberts in the pantry to boot, the spalpeens,” he said lightly, startling a smile out of the other man.

  “Ah . . . Your Majesty?”

  Rudi raised an eyebrow, and the Boisean continued: “Why are you here? Personally, I mean.”

  “Ah. Well, fair enough. Two reasons. First, I don’t like to send men into danger I haven’t shared. Mind, I’ll do it, needs must, for I’ve found my likings have little to do with this job. And second . . .”

  He drew the Sword. Here was a slight hiss from the assembled troops, and for an instant everything about them seemed washed-out, as if there was a light so bright, so real, that the world faded next to it . . . yet the room was still shadowed-dark. Wellman blinked openmouthed for an instant, and Rudi judged him a man who wasn’t used to being disconcerted. The hard-faced noncom next to him swore softly.

  “And there is this, which I alone among men can bear,” Rudi said gently.

  Matti can, among women, but she doesn’t like to and I don’t blame her, he thought to himself. As I told the man, likings have little to do with necessity.

  Wellman swallowed, visibly forced his mind to work, and then began to smile in a considering fashion, which said volumes about the man.

  “The High Seeker?”

  Rudi nodded. “Locked within this is a power against which their demon lords cannot stand, and which blinds their seekings and the harm they can do the minds of humankind.”

  Wellman winced slightly. “I’d rather there wasn’t any of this sort of stuff around. But if there has to be, it’s nice to have some that doesn’t actively creep me out even when it scares me shitless.”

  “I can see your point,” Rudi said. “The Sword can even free such men as the Seekers from their dominion, though sometimes there’s little enough left. Mind, it won’t stop an arrow. But just as a sword—”

  Rudi flicked the Sword against a concrete pillar, a hard swift cut from the wrist. Wellman cried out involuntarily in alarm—that would wreck the edge of any common weapon. The Sword of the Lady was different even simply taken as a blade with a handle; it had an edge better than the finest razor could take, fit to part a drifting hair and therefore far sharper than any battle sword was ever honed. Normally the thinner the edge the more fragile, but as far as he could tell it was utterly impervious to any harm. It never needed to be oiled, or wiped down . . . or taken to a sharpening stone.

  He suspected that it could be dropped into the hottest furnace, or the heart of the Sun for that matter, and not even grow warm to the touch. He wasn’t altogether sure it was physical matter at all as humankind understood the term, perhaps instead an embodied concept, a thought that could be touched. Most of the time he treated it with the same care as he would any fine weapon, from reverence and lifelong habit, but the demonstration was a legitimate use.

  The edge struck the pillar with a crack, and a fist-sized divot of the stone-hard material came free with a puff of dust.

  For the Triple One has given it into my hands not least to hearten my folk.

  Wellman leaned forward, peering. Within the shattered concrete a piece of rebar gleamed, severed clean and smooth. A full swing of a heavy axe in the hands of a very strong man—John Hordle, say—might have done nearly as much . . . once . . . nearly, but not so neatly. His eyes went back to the supernal blade. Even the shower of dust left the Sword unmarked, sliding off the surface in a little stream.

  “This is not just a war of men,” Rudi said. “So the Powers who gifted me with this, and Who are well-wishers to humankind, have told me.”

  “Jesus,” Wellman said softly.

  “Jesus too, though Him I’ve never met. For They wear many faces, all true and none complete. It’s an hour to dawn, the hour when dreams grow brighter and winds blow colder. We’d best be about it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  City of Boise

  (formerly southern Idaho)

  High Kingdom of Montival

  (Formerly western North America)

  June 26th, Change Year 26/2024 AD

  West River Street still existed; along the section facing the river it was the pomerium, the interior cleared strip just within the city wall where no buildings were allowed. It was even called by that name, since Boise under the Thurston family’s rule had always had a weakness for things Roman. Where it met South Capitol a triangular fortress rose sixty feet to cover the gates and the two bridges; the core of it had been, oddly enough, a library building and the whole had an angular, lumpy, improvised but highly functional appearance even now. The ramparts were black against the western sky, though the stars had begun to fade behind them where the mountains a few miles away eastward were outlined against the first gleams of sunlight.

  Two hundred hobnailed boots crashed down in unison with each regulation thirty-inch stride, a harsh martial sound echoing back from the walls on either side of the road. Every forty paces the trumpeter up at the maniple standard in the lead blew a short blast on his curled tubae, a signal to make way—unnecessary now just before dawn, but standard procedure and something everyone would be used to. The company—century—guidons swayed at the head of each unit, each a gilt upright hand on an eight-foot pole, garlanded with the actions the unit had fought.

  Rudi strode along beside Fred Thurston, about three-quarters of the way along the column of Boisean troops in his friend’s service; the Dúnedain and the detachment of the High King’s Archers brought up the rear amid the baggage carts, giving a fair imitation of the varied auxiliaries that accompanied the Boisean army’s heavy infantry, at least with the streets so dark.

  “This is the loudest clandestine approach I’ve ever made, that it is,” Rudi observed.

  “Yeah, it’s not every day you try to sneak up on someone with most of a battalion in close order, while blowing a trumpet,” Fred agreed.

  Rudi breathed deeply; they were both being elaborately casual, not least to fool themselves into dismissing the possibility of d
ying in the next few minutes, which was a useful trick. Courage in combat was mostly training and sheer animal reflex. It was much harder to walk towards a fight than it was to fight it, because that required a continuous effort of the soul.

  Be as you wish to seem, an ancient had said. It was good advice. Because acting brave and being so are very much the same thing.

  Two long blocks wasn’t very far, though they’d mustered on West Myrtle so that they could do a right wheel onto South Capitol and not look as if they’d popped up from under the earth . . . which of course they had done. It was working well so far. Who could imagine so many men appearing within walls so strong and closely guarded?

  Unless someone detected the movement when we came over the river . . . in which case we’d all be dead because they would have fired up the searchlights and catapults. So far, so good.

  “Wellman is going to be very useful here,” the last of the Thurston sons said. “It’s a hell of a lot better than fighting our way up the escalade stairs of some random section of the riverwall, and we’ll lose a hell of a lot less men in the assault force if they can come through a gate. Not as much time under fire on the approach.”

  “That’s if this works as smoothly as Wellman hopes, of course.”

  “He has the password of the day, and the gate commander will recognize him.”

  “Sure, and he’d recognize you, Fred,” Rudi observed.

  “Oh, go ahead, joke about it.”

  Fred wasn’t at the head essentially because of his appearance. Every second street corner still had ragged posters of his father Lawrence and elder brother Martin side by side in armor, both holding their helmets in the crook of an arm as they stared heroically into a space occupied by a shining, waving flag, with the elder’s hand on the younger’s shoulder as if to push him forward into that radiant future. The family resemblance was striking; they were all three handsome men, in a commanding sort of fashion different from Rudi’s own sharp-cut features.

  Martin Thurston had started the poster campaign as soon as he took power, trading on his sire’s popularity in a way his father had never tolerated; the first time Rudi had been through Boise there had been plenty of posters, but they’d all been of personified abstractions—symbols of Work or Patriotism or whatever. And apart from Fred’s individual looks, his part-African coloring and cast of features were a little uncommon in Boise, enough to attract a fatal second glance even with the cheekpieces and overhanging brow-ridge of the Boisean helmet hiding most of his face.

  In this city that shade of skin would scream exiled prince.

  The inner gate didn’t have a drawbridge or portcullis; the original builders hadn’t been too worried about attack from within. It did have sheer massiveness, a rectangle of welded steel girders as wide as the street and three times a man’s height mounted on dozens of old railroad-car wheels built into its lower edge and running on a strip set into the pavement. It didn’t swing in or out, but slid instead into or out of the solid bulk of the flanking towers. The road to the bridges ran through the gate, through the thickness of the fort in a passageway like an arched tunnel, and into another slab of metal just as huge at the eastern wall; that did have a drawbridge just beyond it. The tunnel had murder-holes in the upper curve to give anyone who somehow got through the solid metal a very hot greeting—literally so, since they could pump streams of burning napalm down. The granite-faced concrete meant that nothing within could catch fire.

  Except the flesh of an attacker, and blackened brass spouts above the portals showed where more flame could be pumped down onto the road outside the gate too. The gate was blazoned across its width with the stylized eagle that Boise used as its main symbol, and the raptor eye seemed to regard them with a ferocious watchfulness.

  Peace between us, Eagle Spirit, Rudi thought. I come as Your friend, to aid Your people.

  Even with good high-geared winches, moving the main gate wasn’t something you’d want to do more often than you must. A more human-scaled door stood to one side in the right-hand tower; it was small only by comparison to the gate, being wide enough for two men to pass abreast when it was open. Like the gate it slid sideways rather than swinging on hinges, locking snugly into a matching slot on the left side, which made it immensely strong; it would be easier to knock a hole through the concrete than beat it in.

  Wellman’s voice barked an order and the century commanders and noncoms repeated it:

  “Vexillia—”

  “Century—”

  The warning command rang out, combined with a two-note call from the trumpet.

  “—halt!”

  A crash and stamp as the troops slammed down their right heels and the steel-shot butts of the pilae. They were as still as so many statutes afterwards, to a degree that had always seemed a bit unnatural to Rudi—he approved of discipline, of course, but there was something a little inhuman when you took it to this level. He’d once seen a housefly walk over the eyeball of a Boisean soldier, on guard outside Fred’s tent, and the man had only blinked, slowly.

  A slit window beside the postern door opened and someone looked out.

  “Who goes there?” a sharp voice asked. “Advance and be recognized.”

  “Vexillia of the Fourth, reporting to carry out relief,” Wellman’s voice said. “Cap . . . Centurion Wellman, commanding.”

  Lawrence Thurston had modeled much of Boise’s rebuilt military on that of Rome, but he’d kept the old American Army ranks. His parricide son had started replacing them before he died at Rudi’s hand in the Horse Heaven Hills, but intelligence said the change was still superficial. Fred, of course, had restored the old terms in his forces. As he said, he didn’t have a man-crush on Julius Caesar and the traditional system was just better than calling everyone a centurion.

  The voices dropped as they exchanged the sign and countersign, then the man inside almost yelped:

  “We didn’t get any orders about that!” the voice said, sounding a bit more natural in its startlement.

  “Well, I did,” Wellman snarled. “Look, is Major . . . Goddammit, Senior Centurion Betjeman there?”

  “Yes, sir,” the voice said. “But he’s asleep. . . .”

  “Well, then, wake him up! Or open the God-damned postern so I can deliver this detachment and get back to work! Tell him Cap . . . Centurion Wellman is here. Move it, straight-leg!”

  There was a tense wait, and then the postern rumbled open, showing the serrated edge on one side that locked into saw-shaped holes when closed. An officer stood there, impeccably turned out except that the morning’s stubble was still on his cheeks, and Wellman saluted and handed over a packet of documents. They’d been modified from ones already in Wellman’s possession, by a Dúnedain who was an artist in such matters. They wouldn’t take close scrutiny, but then they probably wouldn’t have to.

  “Wellman, what the hell’s going on? Where’s Gianelli? You’re not in the Fourth’s chain of command. Hell, you’re not even a Regular.”

  “Sir, don’t I know it, and I haven’t the faintest. I just got the order by runner to show up at Fort Boise and march this detachment here—something about enemy movement on the west bank of the river.”

  The other officer rubbed at his eyes; Rudi’s experience of war was that you went through most of it with your brain fogged from inadequate or interrupted sleep, or both. Particularly at those moments you most needed to be keenly alert.

  “Yeah, we have been seeing some of that, but I hoped it was the usual feinting, marching men back and forth in view to keep us guessing,” the man said. “What’s going on over east?”

  “Some incendiaries from their trebuchets aimed at the fort, and they’re pushing zigzag saps forward to get catapults closer to the wall. Straight-out Vauban. And they’re building more wheeled siege towers. I didn’t have time to observe much. You know how it is right now—”

  “Screwed,” Betjeman said. “All right, it’s irregular, but I’m glad to see the troops. It doesn’t feel rig
ht here. They’re going to try something, I can smell it, but we’ve got no air reconnaissance at all.”

  I hope we don’t have to kill this one, Rudi thought.

  It was illogical, but somehow you minded more if a man was good at his trade. War was a filthy business, but the qualities someone needed to do it really well were fine ones. The man seemed to be brave, stubborn, and to have an animal nose for trouble.

  This Betjeman could be a pillar of the realm, him and his children and children’s children.

  He and Fred made a smart right face and marched to the side of the road, as if in response to some order. Other commands were being barked out; file after eight-man file of men began trotting forward, through the postern and up the spiral stairs towards the ramparts. Rudi closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated. He could feel the men, in a way—they were part of Montival, part of the great living organism that stretched from the single-celled things that dwelt in the deep crevasses of Earth and fed on its heat to the golden eagles balancing the wind high above. Himself and Mathilda not the heads of it exactly . . . not so much the rulers as a . . . focus, or an embodiment.

  But of the High Seeker, nothing. Perhaps a coldness, an absence, but even that was weirdly nonspecific. As if the man’s presence—and the things that somehow used him as a portal into the world of matter they hated—was simply not inscribed in the story of existence as everything else was.

  For this war is but a single chapter in the story of how the universe is to unfold. Two rival versions of that, each seeking to overwrite the other, throughout all the cycles of the world, to make the other as if it had never been . . . never even been imagined to be.

  He and Fred were most of the way to the postern when the gate officer’s voice rose:

  “Wait a minute, I know that man! He was in the Third Brigade, they all got taken at the Horse Heaven Hills, their Eagle and all! You, soldier—guard, guard turn out the—”

  There was the sound of a blow and a grunt, but even for an expert it was very difficult to quickly disable a man in armor with your hands if you hadn’t taken him by surprise. They sprinted through the door, the moving column crowding over to make room. The tubae snarled and blatted again: at the double-quick and the entire snake of troops stepped up to two strides a second, a steady jog trot, without missing a beat.