The Sunrise Lands

by S. M. Stirling

  The Corwinite scouts were well placed, about ten yards apart and turned so each covered the other’s back, each lying behind a convenient rock with a leg drawn up so that they presented a smaller target but could spring erect quickly. And each had his recurved bow ready with an arrow on the string.

  Can’t shoot them, Ritva thought.

  An arrow made noise, not much but enough on a still quiet night like this, and it usually ended in a scream even if you hit something eventually fatal. Both the men were in three quarter armor, back-and-breast of overlapping plates of waxed leather edged with steel, leg guards like chaps, mail sleeves. That didn’t make them invulnerable to bodkin-point arrows from an eighty-pound bow, but it did make a quick kill even less likely.

  Certainly can’t run up to them and fence. Two swords now, two hundred in a couple of minutes after the first sound of steel. And I don’t like the way those two sit and wait—I’ll bet by Elbereth Gilthoniel that they know which end of the sharp pointy edgy cutty thing to pick up. Wild Hunter, give me a hand here, will you?

  Her hands moved in minimal gestures. Mary’s war cloak moved slightly as she worked underneath it, but no more than the slow cool breeze might ripple a bush. Then she crawled away, with the same stop-and-start rhythm as before, while Ritva waited, filling her mind with the image of a leaf drifting downward. Calm . . .

  They were close enough now to see the sentries turn their heads, and Mary stopped whenever their eyes started to swing around in her direction. If you timed it right that made you the next thing to invisible; when it was this dark, a good war cloak just couldn’t be told from a natural lump of dirt and vegetation. Ritva’s right hand went to her waist. Not to draw a blade; instead she slid out a weapon made of two lengths of ashwood, each two feet long, joined by a short length of fine alloy-steel chain.

  With deer, the stop and-start tactic could let you get close enough to touch them, or slit their throats, as long as they didn’t scent you. Human senses were less keen but they could make up for it with wits. A good lookout memorized all the bushes and outcrops near his post. When one turned up where it shouldn’t . . .

  Her sister was out beyond the two Cutter sentries now. One of them—the one farthest from Ritva’s motionless position—stopped his steady back-and-forth scanning and turned his head with a sharp snapping motion. The first time as if he didn’t quite know what he was looking for, the second in a whipping arc as he noticed something that shouldn’t be there.

  Mary came to her feet in a smooth twisting arc that spun her like a discus thrower. Her buckler was in her hand, gripped by the rim; she’d stripped the rubber gasket from around the rim a few moments ago and slipped the hand grip out of the hollow side.

  That left her with a shallowly concave steel disk a foot across, very much like what the old-timers called a Fris bee, two pounds of it with a knife-sharp edge all ’round. It flew from her hand in a long smooth arc that bisected the Cutter’s face below the brim of his helmet with an audible but not-too-loud crunch.

  You could cut through a two-inch sapling that way, or chop a horse’s leg out from under it. There were old practice stumps in Mithrilwood with a lot of crescent-shaped slots in their surfaces.

  As the man dropped, limp as a puppet with cut strings, some very distant part of Ritva’s mind knew she’d wince over that sound for a long time to come. The rest of her reacted automatically, hitting the quick release toggle of her war cloak and charging on soft-soled elf boots with a tigress precision that hardly rattled a rock. The other Cutter had whipped around to see his comrade die. He drew and shot with lightning speed; the arrow might even have hit Mary if she hadn’t thrown herself flat again the instant the buckler left her hand.

  He didn’t waste any time when he saw or heard or felt or sensed Ritva coming up behind him, either; he dropped the bow and turned the reach for an arrow to a snatch at the long hilt of his shete. That brought his hand down across his body to his left hip, which was convenient.

  Once you’d snuck up on a sentry, you had to do some thing with him. If he was stronger than you—which a man would be more often than not—it required something more than brute force to remove him. The weapon she carried gave her a five-foot reach; the quick flick of her right wrist and arm swung it in a blurring circle to wards his neck. The chain link struck flesh and the other handle swung around to go smack into her left palm. Her wrists crossed and wrenched apart with a savage economy of motion and all her shoulders and gut be hind the explosive power. The handles and chain multi plied it like a giant nutcracker . . . and back home they practiced this move by swatting flies out of the air on summer afternoons.

  There was a crackling, popping, yielding sound like stiff wet things giving way—which was exactly what it was, and which echoed up her hands and arms in a way that made her bare her teeth in distaste. The man’s eyes bulged for an instant, and then he col lapsed, not quite as limp as his companion but not doing more than kicking and gurgling a little before he went quiet.

  Aunt Astrid called it “using leverage.”

  Ritva frowned as she crouched beside the corpse and its heels drummed on the hard earth one last time. There were times . . . there were times when she wondered if there was something wrong with Aunt Astrid.

  She passed a hand over her eyes and over the dead Cutter’s, and touched a finger to the earth and to her lips. To take life was to understand your own death—that the Hour of the Huntsman also came for you; the sign ac knowledged that, and that they would all lay their bones in the Mother’s earth and be reborn through Her.

  Of course, there’s Uncle John, she thought, as she joined her sister in a quick silent dash downhill towards where they’d left the horses. He doesn’t use leverage, much.

  Little John Hordle’s idea of Sentry Removal was to sneak up—he was astonishingly quiet for such a big man—grab the sentry’s chin in one huge red-furred hand and the back of his head with the other and give a sharp twist so that the unfortunate was looking back between his own shoulder blades.

  Aunt Astrid called that “crude, just crude.”

  * * * *

  Two days later Ritva hid behind a hillside rock a hun dred and fifteen miles farther south and west, struggling to control the impulse to shoot.

  Why do they keep following us? she thought. It’s not reasonable!

  She could see six of the Cutters below them, trying to track the twins over an expanse of bare rock. It was ninety yards’ distance, and she could kill at least a couple of them. . . .

  The problem was that then they’d know they were on the right track; also they’d start shooting too, of course. She and Mary had doubled back on their own trail to see if they were still being tailed, and here the irritating pursuers were.

  Don’t be angry, she thought. Anger is first cousin to fear. If you make decisions because you’re scared, you’ll fuck up.

  Under her breath, a movement of lips rather than air, she recited one of Little John’s training mantras to herself:

  I must not lose my temper.

  Temper temper temper is the bum killer.

  Temper is the little mistake which leads to you lying

  On the ground wondering Oi! What’s with all this spreading pool of blood, then?

  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

  And when it has gone past the other bugger

  Will be the one bleeding.

  Only I will remain, wiping off me knife.

  Calm returned. One of the Cutters was on foot, quar tering back and forth over the gravel and sandstone, trying to find a place where hooves had scored it. He wouldn’t have much luck; they’d led their horses over this bit, then come back barefoot and wiped out every sign of their passage that they could detect—even sweeping up a lump of horse dung.

  The dart of her will beat on the men; she hoped they could feel it as she murmured a binding spell. At last one of them straightened up and looked around at the rocky hillsides. Then he threw his helmet down and kicked
it, shouted an order at another Cutter, who went and fetched it; and then they turned back on their own trail.

  She slumped behind the rock, breathing deeply, feeling her heart slowing down from its pounding roil.

  I was not scared, she told herself. I was just . . . peeved.

  * * * *

  And it’s weary by the Ullswater

  And the misty break fern way;

  Till through the crutch of the Kirkstane pass

  The winding water lay—

  The song seemed to soothe the little clump of horses, or at least make them less determined to browse among the thin scatter of green brush in the tumbled rocks at the base of the hill, where water collected beneath the dry gritty soil. Rudi waved his lariat and got them mov ing back towards the main herd, keeping an eye out for their wild kin—they’d had problems with mustang stallions trying to cut the mares out.

  These interior lands had an eerie emptiness to someone who’d grown to manhood in the lush valleys west of the Cascades. Life of hardy types adapted to the dryness and the alternation of savage heat and deep cold throve here, but sparsely; little handfuls of burro, mustang, big horn sheep, feral cattle scattered across endless miles, wolves and cougar less common still, with even jackrab bits and coyotes not something you saw every minute. They’d seen nothing of humankind besides the ashes of an old campfire near water now and then. This country had been thinly peopled before the Change, and most of the survivors had moved elsewhere in the generation since. The few who remained were wandering hunters, solitaries or single families or tiny groups who shunned outsiders.

  He grinned to himself as he took up the song again; one of the little feral mustang studs had tried to cut out Epona, and gotten kicked into next Tuesday for his trouble. The big black mare got along better with horses than with most human beings, but she wasn’t one to permit liberties either way.

  The horses were moving well back towards the main herd when he finished:

  And she sang: Ride with your brindled hounds to heel

  And your good gray hawk to hand;

  There’s none can harm the knight who’s lain

  With the Witch of the Westmoreland!

  He broke off as the head of the Mormon party rode up; he’d noticed that some of the old songs made the bishop a bit uneasy, grateful though he was.

  “Thank you again for helping us with the horses,” Nystrup said as he reined in by Rudi’s side. “That alone will mean a good deal to my people.”

  Neither of them talked about anything larger or more political, though Rudi knew the older man was nourish ing a desperate hope of aid from the free peoples of the far West. Rudi had advised him to send an embassy, and given a letter of introduction, but . . .

  I wish I could go back to arrange it, he thought. But I can’t. The Powers have given me a task. And Matti’s recommendation . . . her mother is probably so angry she’d string the messenger up rather than promise them help, sure.

  “A little honest work never hurt anyone,” the Mac kenzie replied politely, wiping at his face with a bandanna as he rode. “And we’re not there yet, to be sure.”

  The sun was strong but the air temperature only a lit tle on the warm side of comfortable—the part of northern Nevada they were passing through was six thousand feet up, and didn’t get really hot until August. Even then it would be a crisp, clear dry heat.

  Sparse grassland and silvery sagebrush rolled on every side, studded here and there with the darker green of dwarf juniper on a hillside. A golden eagle wheeled high overhead in majesty, across a pale blue sky that was clear from horizon to horizon. It was probably waiting for rabbits or other small game startled up by the horse herd. Insects buzzed and rattled, and a long-tailed spotted lizard stared at him with beady eyes for a second and then whipped off behind a sage.

  A herd of pronghorns had been edging closer most of the morning to get a look at the horses and wagons—the little beasts were incorrigibly curious—but now they took fright and fled at better than sixty miles an hour, white rumps flashing, faster than anything on earth ex cept a cheetah. Occasionally one would bounce up out of the herd’s dust cloud, rising as if it had landed on a trampoline.

  Maybe they’re just running and jumping because they like it, Rudi thought, watching them with pleasure. Well, I do occasionally myself, so why not them?

  They’d acquired that speed when there were cheetahs in North America, fifteen thousand years ago; to them the returning grizzlies and wolves and the spreading tigers weren’t anything they had to worry about except from ambush. But there were cheetahs again, rumor said, down on the southern plains, escaped from private hunting pre serves in the aftermath of the Change along with lions and a dozen other types of game. In time they’d work their way north, adjusting to the harsher winters as they went.

  And when the cheetahs arrive here, the pronghorns will be ready. As Mom says, that sort of thing shows how thrifty the Powers are at getting us to work their will, will we or no.

  Hills rose to the east and north, white stone scored by gullies and spattered with the wide-spaced green of ponderosa and pinyon pine on their higher slopes. There wasn’t much motion right now, apart from the fleeing antelope with the Y-shaped nose horns, and a fat desert tortoise calmly burying its eggs a little to the north. Then a flicker of something showed in a ravine, and a click and rattle of stones followed, faint with distance. His eyes narrowed, and his hand began a motion towards the bow cased at his knee.

  “Someone coming,” he said to the Mormon.

  “Where?” Nystrup said, startled.

  “Up there . . . ah, it’s my folk. My sisters, to be precise.”

  The twins came riding from the higher ground north eastward, their horses picking a way down the rocky slope. They were wearing war cloaks, which made them look like bushes on horseback with the tufts of greenish yellow grass and sprigs of sage and juniper stuck through the loops that studded the garments. That meant they’d been doing a sneak on foot somewhere to the eastward during their scouting mission. . . .

  And that they found something important.

  They drew up and nodded at the bishop and Rudi; the rest of the party from the Willamette drifted over as well.

  “There are people ahead of us,” one of the two said, her face dusty and drawn and tired. “Two different bunches of ’em, both about a day’s ride out northeast.”

  The other took up the tale: “One of them’s mostly on foot, heading south along the old gravel road. Say three hundred on foot, fifty on horseback, and packhorses and mule-drawn wagons for baggage. Over to you, Ritva.”

  Ritva—or possibly Mary—continued: “The others came in from the east a couple of days ago and they’ve been waiting since—camping cold, small fires for cooking and doused immediately, not much smoke and no noise. Two hundred, all mounted, with a remuda herd and some light wagons. They’re holed up in a canyon overlooking the trail heading south up this valley to that old lake. . . .”

  She pointed south. Bishop Nystrup nodded and supplied the name: “Wildhorse Reservoir.”

  “Right.”

  She pulled a map out of her saddlebag, and they all dismounted to look at it; the twin weighed the corners down with rocks, and drew her dagger to use as a pointer as they knelt around the square of waxed linen and held their horses’ reins.

  “They’re holed up here except for their scouts. They’ve got good scouts. The other bunch aren’t bad but these guys are good. We had to do some Sentry Removal—”

  He could hear the Dúnedain italics and capitals in the words.

  “—and they nearly caught us. Hiding is harder out here.”

  Rudi’s brows went up. “You’re sure they didn’t back-track you?”

  “We holed up for a whole day watching our trail, Rudi. No, we lost them in some lava country; we saw them turn back. But it was a bit hairy, and they’ll be on their toes even if they didn’t make us.”

  “They will?”

  “They’re short a cou
ple of sentries.”

  Mary—or possibly Ritva—broke in: “And then we found tracks, men and horses both, near here, just now. Three miles north of here, but that’s close enough to spot our dust trail, with binoculars. Maybe two days old. Shod horses, so they’re not locals. About six of them, I think.

  We waited in ambush on their trail, but they must have come out east a different way. Almost certainly more Cutter scouts. So they’ve made the main party here.”

  “Describe the ones you saw.”

  “The ones on foot’ve got the old American flag in front and they look like soldiers—infantry with some mounted archers for a screen, and a four piece battery of field artillery. Boise regulars, we’ve seen them before. We Rangers escort caravans that far east now and then.”

  In the terminology that Boise used, the men they were talking about were part of the Army of the United States. Everyone else called General-President Thur ston’s regime after its capital city; he preferred “USA.” In fact, he insisted on it. . . .

  “The ones hiding up are pretty much like the Proph et’s men from Ingolf’s descriptions, composite leather and metal armor, sort of reddish brown stuff. Medium horse—bows and swords and light lances. Flying a flag of dark red with a golden-rayed sunburst.”

  Ingolf nodded. “Not just Cutter soldiers. The Sword of the Prophet, out of Corwin—his personal troops. Well trained, and they all really believe the horseshit the Church Universal and Triumphant peddles. Very bad news.”

  Rudi pursed his lips. “That’s not a good sign, a unit of them all this way west of New Deseret,” he said to the bishop, who looked as if he were sucking on a green persimmon.

  “No,” he said shortly. “But we’re thinly spread out, most of our towns are on rivers or irrigation canals. If they came in from the south, or through one of the sparsely settled areas . . .”

  He shrugged. “But why should it concern us, Mr. Mackenzie? The others are clearly Thurston’s troops, and he’s no friend to us. We should try to avoid both.”