The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "Bad?" Rudi asked, frowning.

  He'd grown to like the big Easterner; he'd been a good comrade on the trail, a notable fighting man even by Rudi's exacting standards, and with a breadth of experience in many lands that the Mackenzie secretly envied. Also he'd been a captive of the Church Universal and Triumphant before, and escaped.

  "They've got him in a tight triple yoke, and chains on his ankles."

  Rudi hissed slightly. A triple yoke was a beam of wood with steel circles set in it for neck and wrists; they could be arranged so that it needed continuous effort to keep the collar from choking you and you were never able to take a full breath. Pendleton slavers and other people of low morals and no scruples used them to break the spirit of captives. They were excruciatingly uncomfortable to start with, quickly grew into outright agony, and they made it impossible to really sleep, while the victim could still walk… if you beat them with a whip. Still, Ingolf was a strong man in heart and body both, and he'd been in it for less than two full days. Their plan required all the captives to be fully mobile if it was going to work.

  "Chief?" Edain said.

  Rudi looked over at the younger man. Edain went on:

  "I can see why this Prophet scabhteara made war on Boise and Deseret. I can see why he conspired with Martin Thurston. What I can't see is why he's so very sodding eager to catch us "-by which they both knew he meant Rudi-"that he's willing to endanger all his plots and plans hereabouts to do it."

  "He knows," Rudi said.

  As he spoke he lifted the scabbard of his sword out of the sling at his belt and ran it through a set of loops on the quiver at his back, so that the long hilt ran up behind his right ear. That made drawing it just a hair more awkward, but it cut down on the chance of a betraying rattle; their plan also depended on going undetected as long as possible.

  "He knows what?" Edain said, puzzlement plain on his square young face even in the dimness.

  He's a smart one, Rudi thought.

  They put on their helmets; before Rudi did he pulled on his coif, a tight hood and collar of mail on padded leather. Most Mackenzies didn't bother with one, thinking their brigandines of little steel plates riveted together between layers of leather or canvas were enough. But while Rudi was an excellent archer, the sword was his favored weapon, and that meant coming within hand-stroke distance.

  But he's very… practical. Gets it from his father.

  "Knows what Ingolf found on Nantucket," Rudi said when they'd settled their gear, glancing eastward towards the Prophet and his armies. "And he knows what I am, and why I'm traveling there; knows it better than I do. And he'll do anything to stop me."

  "How does he know all that?" one of the twins said.

  "Because something… Someone… walks with him," Rudi said softly, as he picked up his strung bow. "I've seen it before, once at least, though not as strongly. Or possibly that Being wears him like a glove. And that One is no friend to us, or to any of humankind."

  The four of them went the last thousand yards on their bellies, their bows resting across the crooks of their elbows as they crawled through the dry bunchgrass. Whoever commanded the Cutters had been wise not to start a fire-besides attracting attention, it would have killed the night vision of anyone who looked at it, and the temptation was irresistible to most people. Rudi could feel the hoofbeats of the guards approaching through the ground; he drew a deep breath, wordlessly invoked the Crow Goddess and Lugh, and rose smoothly to his feet.

  Though it was dark and the kilt and plaid were fairly good camouflage, as was the dark green of their brigandines and helms, the sentries would spot them soon. And therefore…

  And I don't particularly like killing men, even bad ones. But it's

  … Necessary, sometimes, he thought, and let the thought flow away with his next breath.

  "You take the one with the bow," he said softly to Edain.

  The man was fifty yards away, riding with a shaft on the string and his reins knotted on the cantle of his saddle, controlling the beast effortlessly with thighs and balance. His head came up before Edain started to move, prompted by some warning sign, but the Mackenzie arrow was on its way before the Prophet's man could begin to bend the short thick recurve. The snap of the string on Edain's bracer came a tiny instant before the tooth-grating crunch of the bodkin as it smashed its way into the man's Adam's apple and out through his neck bone.

  That was showing off; they were the two best archers of their generation in Clan Mackenzie, and Edain was a bit touchy about it. Rudi's own shaft went through the second man's chest, the safer center of mass, even at the price of the harder, louder crack as it punched into the lacquered-leather armor.

  The Cutter went over the cantle of his saddle with lance and shield flying to either side. The horses reared and neighed at the scent of blood, and there were shouts from the dark camp of the Prophet's men. The twins broke to either side as hooves thundered in the dark, vanishing into a swifter version of their behind-the-lines crawl.

  Good, Rudi thought, lips skinning back from his teeth, as the enemy approached with a twinkle of starlight on edged metal and a thunder of hooves he could feel through the soles of his boots. Didn't occur to them to come on foot.

  War out here in the dry rangelands was mostly a quicksilver mounted snap-and-run, a wolfpack business. Western Oregon's country of forest and farm-field had developed different ways after the Change. The Cutters were about to learn why Mackenzie longbows were the terror of every battlefield that saw them.

  But there's only two of us, remember, Rudi thought. What I wouldn't give for a hundred, and a how-captain shouting to let the gray geese fly!

  He pulled the hundred-and-fifteen-pound draw past the angle of his jaw Clan-fashion, and loosed at the dim shape that was a rider brandishing a shete, aiming as much by instinct as by eye. The arrow vanished in the darkness with a whirrt and a flicker of gray vanes as the bow surged against his left hand. The right hand snapped back over his shoulder to the quiver, twitched out another shaft, put it to the string and drew with a smooth twist that was as much gut and torso as arms against the pressure of the yew stave, nock-draw-loose, as fast as a man counting aloud one-two-three. Beside him Edain did the same.

  The Cutters recoiled for a moment, shouting in confusion amidst the screams of wounded men and horses. Then their officer's voice overrode it; he was too far away to see and shoot, but Rudi and Edain both shifted aim to chance a dropping shaft at the sound. They were rewarded with a yelping curse, but the voice went on rallying his men, shouting that there couldn't be many of whoever it was and damning them for cowards. They weren't cowards, just jumpy and confused for an instant; they were veteran fighting men, and there were more than enough of them to overrun the two Mackenzies with numbers.

  If the other part of the plan didn't work, he was going to die in the next five minutes; it would either work very well, or not at all. If it failed he couldn't even run away, not on foot.

  He loosed at a flicker of movement; if the blade was there, then the man had to be here.

  Not that he intended to run, anyway.

  Knight-Brother Ignatius of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict said his rosary as he waited, patient beneath the weight of his long mail hauberk and visored sallet helm, coif and vambraces and greaves and steel-backed gloves. His tall destrier snorted quietly and tossed its head with a muted clatter of peytral and chamfron and crinet, scenting the Cutters' mounts in the darkness ahead, but too well trained to bugle a challenge.

  "So, so, Godfrey," the priest soothed it, thumping the leather palm of his gauntlet down on the big gelding's metal-covered neck. "Soon, soon, boy."

  Frederick Thurston sat his own mount beside the warrior-cleric; a dozen Boise cavalry formed a blunt wedge on either side of them, light horse in short mail-shirts, armed with saber and bow and small round shields. They'd remained loyal to the young man, believing his version of their ruler's death rather than his elder brother's. And because the travelers from the
West had saved his life in that massacre, the younger son was willing to risk all for them.

  Impulsive. Still, he is only eighteen, Father Ignatius thought, from the lofty height of his mid-twenties; but he had been trained to self-command in a hard school.

  Yet he is one who seeks the good, I think. In somebody who may have the ruling of men and lands, that is a pearl beyond price. Wisdom can be learned-able men are common, but good ones are far rarer.

  "Very soon now, my son," he said quietly.

  Frederick's nod was half seen in the night. Starlight glittered on honed metal as the Boiseans drew their curved swords. They left their bows cased in the boiled-leather scabbards at their knees; shooting in a nighttime melee was an invitation to friendly fire casualties. Ignatius pulled on the strap that slung his long kite-shaped shield over his back, shifting it around until he could run his arm through the loops, and then took the long ash lance in his right hand. A long deep breath, and one last prayer. It was too dark to make out the black cross and raven on its sheet-metal cover, but he knew they were there, and what those symbols stood for.

  Suddenly they could all hear horses neighing in fear, and a sudden brabble of shouting from the camp three long bowshots ahead of them, and then a scream of human pain. And the war cry of the Church Universal and Triumphant: "Cut! Cut! Cut!"

  Ignatius filled his chest and shouted, "Jesu-Maria!" from the bottom of his lungs.

  He swung the lance-point forward as he did, bracing his feet in the long stirrups. The curved top of the shield came up under his eyes, the blunt point at the other end reaching down to his foot in the stirrup. The light Eastern quarter horses on either side picked up speed faster than his charger, and they were carrying a lot less weight anyway. But the destrier was seventeen hands tall, and a great deal of that was leg; it caught up quickly and then gained a little with each stride. Riding at this speed over unknown ground in the dark was asking for your horse to break a leg and roll over you when it fell…

  But I'm riding towards men who want to kill me anyway, he thought. The Lord God has a sense of humor, eh?

  The Boiseans were shouting, USA! USA! as they rode. Figures loomed up out of the night, on foot and horseback, scattering or turning to fight, and the sabers slashed. The long point of the knight's lance took a mounted man in the belly; Ignatius could feel the double crunch-crunch up the ashwood as it speared through the front and back plates of the Cutter's armor.

  Impact slammed him back against the high cantle of his war-saddle. Black under starlight, blood shot out of the Cutter's mouth in a spray that wet the cleric's shield and face. The lance broke across in a hard crack; he clubbed the stub of the shaft on a footman's head and then let it drop, sweeping out his cross-hilted sword.

  "Jesu-Maria!" he yelled again. Then: "A rescue! A rescue!"

  Mathilda Arminger could see the Cutter leader-not the officer in charge of the fighting men, but the one-eyed man named Kuttner-start erect and put a hand on the hilt of his shete. She tensed silently; the troopers hadn't been gratuitously cruel, but they hit the captives if they tried to speak. Beside her Odard turned his head, blinking his eyes… or at least the one that wasn't swollen nearly shut. He'd kept trying to talk longer than she had. Her rage had been a slow-burning fire; now it swelled up, and hunger and thirst and aches dropped away, and even the maddening consciousness of her own filthy itchiness. She was suddenly very glad the enemy hadn't bothered to take her armor, instead of being driven nearly mad by the heat and constriction.

  That's arrows! she thought exultantly as she hear the distinctive whssst. Then: Careful. It might be rovers or deserters or bandits.

  The Cutters knew her hostage value. Ordinary desert scum wouldn't.

  Kuttner's mouth was open to shout when the noise came out of the west; horses in shocked fear, and then men.

  "See to it!" he snapped.

  The Cutter officer was already moving, whistling sharply for his horse. The superbly trained animal trotted over to its master; he grabbed the horn of the saddle and swung up with a skipping vault as it went by, his feet finding the stirrups. A part of her grudgingly admired the horsemanship; the man's leather-and-mail armor was lighter than a Western knight's panoply, but it was still a formidable display.

  Kuttner stayed on his feet, the heavy slightly curved sword that Easterners called a shete-derived from the tool, but lengthened in blade and hilt-in his hand. His one blue eye probed the darkness. From it came the officer's bark:

  "There can't be more than five or six of them! Ai! " That was pain, and the voice was tight when it went on: " Get them, you gutless sons of apostate whores! No, don't bother shooting, you idiot-you can't see them! Blades out, swing wide to either side and charge!"

  Kuttner's head whipped to the east; there was sound from that direction too, the rumble of hooves building to a gallop, and then a mingled crash and clatter of weapons and a cry of "Jesu-Maria!" and "USA!" And then, even better: "A rescue! A rescue!"

  "Kill the prisoners!" the Cutter leader barked, and ran towards the sound.

  Mathilda felt ice crawl up her spine and pool like water in her gut. She'd been lying with her legs curled up; now she lashed out with both her feet. They were bound at the ankle, but she had her boots on. They just barely touched the overlapping plates of leather armor that covered the guard's legs like chaps. He hissed in anger and drew his shete, raising it for a chop. Beside him his comrade did likewise.

  That was a mistake. Odard had managed to writhe around and get his feet beneath him. The young Baron of Gervais bounced forward like a jack-in-the-box, his mailed shoulder hitting the second man in the side like a football tackle and sending him lurching into the first. That delayed them an instant as they staggered and found their footing again, but they both turned to chop at the young nobleman as he sprawled before them with an involuntary grunt of pain as he crashed to the ground.

  That was a mistake, too. A patch of the night seemed to rise behind them, and something flashed through the starlight-a black hardwood dowel, linked to the one in Ritva Havel's right hand by a short length of chain. It whipped around one Cutter's neck with blurring speed; the free handle slapped into her other palm, and she wrenched her crossed wrists apart with explosive force.

  The Cutter spasmed as the huge leverage crushed his larynx and snapped his spine like a pecan in a pair of nutcrackers. The shete that flew out of his hand struck Mathilda in the stomach, edge-on, hard enough to hurt even through the titanium mail of her hauberk and the padded gambeson beneath. She grabbed it with both bound hands and cut the rawhide thongs around her boots with one quick upward jerk; it was good steel, and knife-sharp. Then she jammed the flat of the blade between her knees and slipped her wrists over to saw at those bonds.

  All that took seconds. That was time enough for the other guard to cut backhanded at Ritva. The broad point of the shete slashed sagebrush from her war cloak, but she was throwing herself backwards in a full summersault as the blow spent itself on air, hitting the toggle of the cloak, and drawing her slender longsword as she did.

  "Lacho Calad! Drego Morn!"

  The Dunedain war cry split the night: Flame light! Flee night! But half a dozen Cutters were closing in, on horse and on foot.

  Mathilda paused just long enough to slash through Odard's bonds; he was wheezing from the awkward impact of his fall, but doggedly trying to get back on his feet. Then she picked up one of the Cutter shields and stepped to put herself back-to-back with Ritva.

  "Haro, Portland!" she shouted. "Holy Mary for Portland!"

  And Mary help me, I'm as stiff as an arthritic old lady! she thought desperately.

  She raised the clumsy, point-heavy shete and tried to ignore the pins and needles in her arms; this one was far too heavy for her wrists, anyway. It wobbled a little despite her best effort, and she whipped it through a figure eight to loosen her cramped arm and shoulder.

  "Mary's over trying to save Ingolf's fool neck," Ritva said, and laughed.

  "Mor
rigu!" Rudi shouted, and thrust his bow through the carrying loops on the bandolier that held his quiver. "At them, Mackenzies!"

  All two of us, he thought. Three if you count the dog!

  He swept out his longsword in the same motion and snatched the buckler with his left hand, making a fist on the grip inside the hollow of the little soup-plate-sized steel shield.

  "I've got your back, Chief!" Edain called, and followed as he ran forward, Garbh at his heels growling like millstones.

  The Cutters were all looking back over their shoulders at the sound of a second attack from who-knew-where when Rudi ran out of the night, and he thought they were probably wondering whether to shit or go blind. The crucial thing was not to let them get their balance back and their wits about them…

  Then he was in among them, and time slowed. Vision flashed and blurred, expanding and shrinking at the same time-threats, blades and bows, and targets, joints and faces, everything else not really seen at all. It was the gift of the Crow Goddess, only to be called upon in extremity.

  A jarring thump as he dodged in under a lance-point and cut into the inside of a man's elbow, where there was a gap between the mail on his upper arm and the leather vambrace on his forearm. The man rode on, shrieking and looking in disbelief at the spouting stump where his arm had been.

  Rudi whirled away with dark drops spinning from the edge, and chopped into the hock of a horse. It screamed stunning-loud, rearing and pitching over backwards and bringing another down with it. A cloth-yard shaft went whirrt over his head and into a mounted archer's chest and the shaft he had meant for Rudi disappeared into the night. Another's arrow went wide as Garbh locked her fangs in the nose of the horse-archer's mount and sent it into a rearing, bucking frenzy.

  Two men coming at him on foot. A thrusting lunge as he ran, and his point went under the brim of a helmet and crunched through the thin bone at the bridge of a nose and crack into a brainpan. His buckler stopped a full-armed cut, the force of it jarring the little shield back until the edge of the shete just touched his shoulder; then the Cutter was staggering off balance and the boss punched back into his jaw, and bone crumbling under it like candy cane in a careless grip…