The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  A few birds sang, and the river ran slow beneath the willows, glimpsed through the big oaks of the old parkland, some tangled with green English ivy. They came to a clearing where green grass was starred with red paintbrush, green-sweet beneath the cooler forest smell; a bank of poison oak had been turned fire-red by last week's early frost. A doe and two fawns were grazing there, half a hundred yards away; the mother raised her head sharply, then bent again as she saw no movement. There was an added stillness as the humans withdrew their presence, a trick they all knew well.

  Judy nudged Juniper softly and leaned close to say quietly:

  "Left," she whispered, and Chuck and Nigel froze as well, with the smooth alertness of warriors and hunters.

  Juniper turned her head in that direction and almost started in surprise. Not far along the forest edge was Chuck and Judy's son Oak, and his wife, Devorgill, and their children, who'd come along to see him off. One was a baby at the breast, and there was his daughter Lutra and his son Laere. Oak was looking at his parents and grinning. As far as looks went he might have been Chuck's blood-child, a big rangy-muscular man a little past thirty, with long tawny mustaches that dropped past his shaven chin and a shaggy shoulder-length mane bleached by the harvest suns that had tanned his body to the color of his name-wood.

  That showed because he and Devorgill were wearing only their kilts and sandals and a little body paint-his was a badger's head on his chest-while the children went naked and barefoot, as young Mackenzies often did in warm weather. They had a basket on the ancient but well-maintained rustic picnic table and the remains of a meal set out on it, a chance to take one last supper together without the bustle of the camp or the strained formalities of the castle. The adults' longbows and quivers and sword belts leaned against an alder behind them, and a long-headed battle spear, though it would be a mad bandit indeed who dared to come here. Still, habits learned in the years of the great dying stuck hard and got passed down.

  Juniper nodded back. The children's gaze stayed fixed on the spotted coats of the June-born fawns, who peered about at the world big-eyed. She could hear the low whisper of Laere's five-year-old voice as he asked:

  "Are you going to hunt them, Dad? There are an awful lot of people here the now, they must need an awful lot of food too."

  "No, boyo, that I will not, and for two reasons," Oak said.

  Devorgill moved, laying a gentle finger on Lutra's mouth as the girl started to burst forth with the answer before her younger brother. Oak went on, in the same low voice:

  "When's it lawful to hunt, my little Laere?"

  The boy was his father in miniature and minus twenty-odd years; his hair was a mop of white tow and his eyes brilliant blue in his freckled, summer-darkened face as he frowned in thought.

  "For food… an'… an' when they try to eat our gardens?"

  His mother spoke: "That's true; but you must also never hunt a doe in fawn, or any deer less than a year old. That brings a curse, unless you're starving and make a special rite. The Mother's hand is over them."

  Young Lutra nodded, making the dark brown hair that fell in a thong-bound horsetail to the small of her back bounce. She spoke quietly:

  "And this is a place that's never hunted, like a Nemed, so they're not man-wary and it's geasa to kill here, sure and it is."

  Laere stuck his tongue out at her, and she replied in kind, being all of five years older herself.

  "But we can go and visit them in peace today," Oak said, smiling down at them with a warm delight on his rugged face. "The wind's from them to us. Come, and let's see if you can walk very quietly. Step when I do, and be as careful as mice!"

  He took each by the hand, winking at his wife-and at Juniper and Sir Nigel and his own parents.

  Father, son and daughter walked out into the dappled, darkening shade of the clearing, still lit by a few beams of the setting sun slanting like orange fire though the tall trees. Both children walked softly, but no more so than their woods-wise father's hundred-and-eighty pounds of bone and hard muscle. He kept the deer in focus but without meeting their eyes when their heads turned, avoiding a predator's fixed gaze. Each step flowed like slow water, and whenever their heads came up and scanned he stopped smoothly without the least betraying jerk, as natural as grass swaying in the wind. The children followed his movements intently.

  The doe walked a little away from the fawns, her tail quivering, her reddish brown coat fading to darkness as the light failed. Closer

  …

  Lutra dropped her father's hand and reached out. A fawn sniffed her fingers, began to dodge, then stopped as she gently ran her hand down its neck. It tilted its head and looked at her oddly as if wondering what she was. Laere tried to do the same with the other, but he moved a little too sharply. It shied, and a stick crackled beneath its hooves; the doe brought her head up and made a sharp bleating sound.

  Juniper chuckled a little then as the deer bounded away, in arcs that made them seem like weightless shadows that vanished under the trees. The two children stood waving and calling farewells for a moment, then came back to their blankets.

  "That's her saying- Great Goddess, foolish child, it's a human!" Juniper said, and the others laughed as her singer's voice made it sound very like the doe's bleat. " They'll eat you! Will you be friends with a wolf next?"

  "Grandma!" Laere said, and charged past Juniper to hug Judy around the waist and be lifted up on her hip and given a smacking kiss.

  "Merry met," Juniper said to Devorgill and her children and her man.

  That was a little formal for people who lived in Dun Juniper year-round, but Oak was off to war tomorrow. It would have been inconceivable for the son of the Clan's Chief Armsman not to march with the war-band, and Oak was bow-captain for Dun Juniper's own contingent.

  "Merry met, Lady Juniper," they replied.

  Lutra had hair as seal brown as her mother's and eyes the dark green of fir needles; she made a solemn reverence, bowing her head with hands pressed together and thumbs beneath her chin. That was a little too formal for the occasion, but the girl was obviously feeling very adult and knowledgeable today.

  "Dad says I can go hunting with him next year," Laere said proudly, trotting back to stand by the man.

  "To help with the camp chores," Oak said firmly; his hand ruffled the boy's head in a rough caress. "With your sister. Neither of you is old enough to hunt yet, not for years, not until you can make a kill quick and sure."

  Lutra nodded. "You know the song of the law, Laere," she said.

  Laere looked like he'd rather stick his tongue out at his sister once more for playing at old-and-wise again, or possibly pull her hair this time, but had too much in the way of manners to do so in front of the two awesome old women with their staffs. Juniper smiled at him and sang softly, just a snatch of it:

  "Let the death be clean as life's release

  So we show our honor to the beast

  For your own death you will understand

  When you hold life's blood within your hand-"

  The boy smiled back and continued in a pure treble:

  "Though we draw the bow an' we w-w… uh…"

  His father and mother came in to help him as he wobbled:

  "-and we wield the blade

  We respect the Law the Gods have made;

  For we know not when the shadows fall,

  And the Huntsman comes to claim us all."

  "And the shadows have fallen, and now we'd best go back to the camp, before it gets too dark and you two take a chill," Devorgill said, burping her youngest and wiping up the results with a cloth. "Merry part till later, mother Judy, Lady Juniper."

  They walked off. As they passed, Juniper could hear Laere talking to his father:

  "I wish I was old enough to go with you and Granddad to the war! I'd take a hundred heads, like the Hound did when Maeve invaded Ulster! Chop-chop-chop!"

  His sister's outraged tones faded through the forest: " Laere! You blood-thirsty little brute o
f a boy! That's just in the stories! It's geasa now!"

  Juniper looked up, and saw the first stars hovering over the snowpeaks of the Cascades.

  "And we must go back to the castle, and smile and look brave at the feast," she said. "What a fraud I feel!"

  Nigel faced her as she turned. "My dear," he said, putting a hand beneath her chin and kissing her. "You are without doubt the bravest of us all."

  "He is?" BD said, her weathered, wrinkled face blank for an instant. " Murdoch is a spy for Lady Sandra?"

  Astrid Larsson leaned back in the chair and nodded-not smugly, she hoped. The little chamber was very private, with only one narrow slit window high up on the curving outer wall; Castle Todenangst was full of places like that, nooks and crannies you could get to without anyone being the wiser and leave unnoticed.

  Unless someone's watching from a secret passage, of course. I think Sandra did a lot of the detail work on the plans for this castle.

  The light was good, gas-lamps with incandescent mantles, unaccustomed brilliance for an hour this late and reflecting off wainscoting of blond oak. There was a table of fine polished mahogany, a few chairs, a rug, and a bottle of wine and glasses by a bowl of raisins and walnuts and hazelnuts. Despite the charming little fireplace with its tiled surround of hummingbirds and meadowlarks it was a bit oppressive after a life spent mostly in the wilds or on the open roads, or at most in Stardell Hall with its loose scatter of homes through forest.

  She could feel the uncounted tons of steel and concrete above, almost smell them under the odors of wine and burning fir-wood. And imagine the dungeons below, and the great foundations where the Fortress of Death-Anguish gripped the soil of the land.

  But there are advantages, she thought. Privacy seems easier to come by amid many people. Odd.

  She sipped at her glass of wine and watched the older woman think.

  "He's good, then," BD said. "I've dealt with Murdoch and Sons every time I swung out that far East, and I'd never suspected he was her man in Pendleton."

  BD was from the Kyklos, a scatter of independent villages around Silverton, not far north of the main Dunedain holding in Mithrilwood. Besides being a High Priestess of the Old Religion she ran the Plodding Pony service, which delivered high-value freight over much of Oregon, and which had employed Rangers as escorts almost as long as there had been Rangers in this Age of the world. That sort of business led to the collection of information as naturally as breathing. It also made you a shrewd judge of character.

  Astrid went on: "Murdoch has been working for Sandra since before the War of the Eye. She planted him in Pendleton when we made the Protectorate withdraw from the area, after her husband was killed. And he's got… connections there. Sort of an underground."

  BD looked down at the map and her eyebrows shot up. " I'll say! But how are you going to use them?"

  Astrid shrugged. "I'm not altogether sure," she said. "But I'm a little uneasy about just marching up to Pendleton's walls and telling them to surrender so we can guard them against Boise and the CUT whether they like it or not. We can't even prove that either power is planning to move on them."

  "You don't think you can beat the Pendleton Round-Up?"

  "I don't want to beat them in a stand-up battle and I certainly don't want to burn down the city or lay the countryside waste. We Rangers generally don't go in for mass head butting. It's… crude. And Pendleton's just badly governed, not evil like the CUT and its Dark… Prophet. Every man we kill will be one who isn't on our side later, in the real war, when Rudi returns with the Sword. We ought to be able to make something of an asset like this Murdoch and his… connections."

  She leaned forward. "You've been there in person. Tell me about the Pendleton Bossman, Carl Peters. The things that don't get into written reports."

  TheScourgeofGod

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cold falls the night where nothing sounds

  Save weeping and the grief of the weak

  Hot his heart and ready his hand

  He and his companions sworn and trusty

  Blade and bow ready for avenging of wrongs

  Though wiser it were to think of the Sword

  That waited where the Lady had bidden From: The Song of Bear and Raven

  Attributed to Fiorbhinn Mackenzie, 1st century CY

  EASTERN IDAHO, NEAR PICABO SEPTEMBER 10, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD

  Caravan, Rudi Mackenzie thought. They're putting together a big one, for a place that size. Or a big one's passing through. Not about to leave just now, though.

  They were a lot farther north and closer to the edge of the mountains now; the stark foothills of the Pioneers were just ahead on the other side of Silver Creek, mostly summer-bleached grass up steep slopes, with shallow valleys leading northward. A little higher he could see groves of quaking aspen-and, alarmingly, some of them were beginning to turn, a hint of gold where none should shine. They had to get over the Rockies, and soon, if they weren't to risk being hit by bad snowstorms in the passes. The ones they could use, at least; the lower ones would be strongly garrisoned by the Prophet's men, or even fortified.

  Maybe we should have headed south through Nevada and tried the mountains there!

  The creek was about a mile away, flowing from west to east and flanked by a narrow band of fields watered through irrigation channels. Most of them were dun yellow reaped grain with dust smoking off the stubble at this time of year, but the alfalfa was so deep a green that it seemed to hum, and there were fields of potatoes and apple orchards as well. Split-rail fences marked off the cultivated land, an island in a huge rolling wilderness of lava beds and gritty sagebrush-dotted soil southward, mountains to the north.

  The settlement wasn't large, no bigger than a Mackenzie dun, room for twenty or thirty families if they didn't mind living tight. It had a well-kept fifteen-foot rammed-earth wall on a fieldstone base, topped with a sloping roof of timber and sheet metal, with one square tower beside a gate. Barns and sheds, corrals and vegetable gardens lay outside, but nothing higher than a man's knee rose within bowshot of the wall. The gate was open, and there were animals and people and wagons milling around before it, and herds of horses under the eye of mounted cowboys moving across pasture and stubble to the north and west.

  "Get me Nystrup," he said softly, lowering his binoculars and tapping them thoughtfully on the red-gold stubble on his chin. "I don't like this. There's something wrong."

  Ritva nodded. "Not enough people working. Too many horses. And where are their herds? And there should be more smoke from inside the town, too-more cookfires and a couple of smithies."

  She ghosted away. A sage grouse walked past Rudi a few minutes later, pecking at a grasshopper, and overhead two hummingbirds fought a dive-and-buzz duel like ill-tempered flying jewelry before flitting off towards the river. Some sort of black-and-white insects were a haze over the creek, almost like slow-motion snow; when he brought the glasses back up he could see the silver forms of trout leaping for them now and then. The banks of the stream were green with willows and dense with reeds, and blue herons stalked through them with their beaks cocked. Ducks swam on the waters as well, cinnamon teal and mallards.

  It would have been a remarkably pleasant-looking place after weeks of short rations and fear, but…

  Nystrup slid into place beside him. "It's one of our settlements," he said without preliminaries. "About two hundred and fifty people, and it was the center for some outlying ranches; the last big thing to happen here was moving a bunch of people up from Pocatello right after the Change, part of our resettlement program. I don't know how it's fared just recently."

  A warm breeze stirred across the land, raising dust devils. It fluttered out a flag from the pole atop the gate tower; a many-rayed sunburst, gold on crimson. The banner of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Below it was a smaller triangular flag, with three triangles outlined in white on blue-some Rancher's brand mark, the personal sigil of whoever commanded the CUT's forces here.

/>   "Well, that answers the question as to how they've fared," Rudi said. "Not well. Ritva, keep watch."

  His half sister settled in behind a clump of gray-green rabbitbrush, a tall shaggy plant that had clumps of yellow flowers and smelled like a sweaty saddle. She went still beneath her war cloak; even at only a few feet, and knowing where she was, Rudi found her hard to see.

  He eeled backwards on his belly until they were well out of sight before standing. Nystrup turned and made an arm signal; by the time they were back at their cold camp most of the Mormon guerillas were there too, leaving only the minimum perimeter of lookouts.

  Rudi glanced at Ingolf. The Easterner shook his head. "I passed a lot farther south than this, when I came west. Around Bear Lake."

  "We can swing around them," Mary said. "Move south, then back north to cut the road again."

  Rudi shook his head in turn. "We're out of food and we haven't been able to hunt much," he said. "I don't know how they've been able to press us so hard… but they have. We've spent more time covering our tracks than running, and we've been running farther north than east."

  Silence fell; they were hungry, in the way you could only get when you combined not enough food with working hard. Several of the wounded Mormons had died; the hale members of their band weren't weakened much… yet.

  But we don't have much time before we are, Rudi thought unhappily. And the horses are losing condition. I wouldn't like to have to rely on them if we had a running fight, or the enemy were in sight and we had to break contact. We need to get them good grazing and rest.

  They might have been able to make more progress if they'd kept all the food they'd had and cut the Mormons loose immediately. On the other hand, that would probably have been bad luck as well as wrong. .. if there was a difference.

  Ingolf rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, the cropped beard scritching under his callused fingers. The sight made Rudi's face itch slightly and he consciously stopped himself from imitating the gesture; he hadn't been able to shave for the past week, and the silky stubble was annoying. Plus the hairs came in white along the thin scar on his jaw, making him look ridiculously older than his real not-quite-twenty-three.