The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "I haven't yet," the Scout said.

  The man in the robe the color of dried blood shrugged and nodded, smiling.

  "Shit, shit! " Ingolf Vogeler said. "We can't stop, not here. It's bare as a politician's lie!"

  Mathilda looked at him wide-eyed. "He… those arrows have to come out. He's badly hurt. But-"

  Father Ignatius nodded without turning as his fingers worked. Ingolf looked around; the Mormons were getting ready to leave, turning north into the mountains or southward to the Snake River sagelands. Edain Mackenzie sat by Rudi, elbows on knees and face buried in his hands, his dog pressed against him and whining softly as she stared up into his face.

  Epona was a little distance off, giving soft snorts of equine distress. He'd thought for a moment he'd have to kill the mare before she'd let them pull Rudi off her back.

  "I'm sorry," Nystrup said, at his own horse's head. "You've done well by us, but I have to get my people out of here. We'll scatter, and that will draw some of them away."

  "Not if their scouts are as good as I'm afraid," Ingolf said, beating his right fist into his left palm. "Shit!"

  Nystrup winced. "Goodbye… and we'll pray for him. For you all."

  Ingolf took a deep breath as the guerilla leader mounted and legged his horse southward; the others were looking at him anxiously, and you had to show willing. Nothing broke men's morale faster than the leader showing the flibbertigibbets.

  The problem is that if this had happened during the Sioux War and he was one of my troopers, I'd give Rudi the mercy stroke and we'd run like hell to save the rest of the outfit, he thought. Not exactly an option here!

  "Father Ignatius?" he said.

  The cleric finished his examination. "I don't know how much damage the arrow in the shoulder did, but moving him will make it worse. The one in the small of the back is a more immediate danger. The point turned when it broke the mail-links. It is lodged at a slant and it is far too close to the liver and to several large blood vessels; motion may work it inward. And four ribs were broken, and there's soft-tissue damage. But if I operate now, he cannot be moved at all for some time or there will certainly be fatal bleeding."

  "He'll certainly die if we stay here until the Cutters arrive," Mathilda said; her face was drawn, but her mouth was firm and her brown eyes level. "Their guardsmen, the…"

  "Sword of the Prophet," Odard said neutrally; he was watching Rudi with an unreadable expression in his narrow blue eyes.

  "The Sword of the Prophet, they'll be slow, from the state their horses were in. But the other one, this Rancher Smith could come after us quickly."

  "If he wants to," Ingolf said. "He doesn't know we've split up. If he did want to chase us, he'd be here already. But someone will come after us, and sometime from the next fifteen minutes to the next couple of days."

  "We could move a little north and find a place to hole up, then tend Rudi," Odard said. "I don't like to risk moving him more than absolutely necessary."

  Mathilda nodded anxiously, and clasped his hand where he rested it for a moment on her shoulder.

  Ingolf looked around, drawing on the maps in his head. They were several days out of Picabo-call it a bit over a hundred miles eastward as the crow flew. The mountains had been closing in from the north for a while, but there was still open country to the east north of Idaho Falls. It would be crawling with Cutter patrols… but probably with Mormon guerillas, too, and if they could "No, we're going to head east, fast," he said. "This is too close, too easy to saturate with men once they get organized. We've got to break contact. The only part of Wyoming the CUT doesn't really control is thataway. And the mountains start well west of the old state line. We'll have to chance it. When we get to the mountains, we can tend to Rudi."

  They all looked at him, then at the wounded man, and most of them looked westward as well.

  "Cross-country," Mary-or Ritva…

  No, that's…

  "Right, Mary."

  Her troubled face gave a brief flash of pleasure as he used the right name.

  "You and your sister are going to have to cover our backtrail."

  TheScourgeofGod

  CHAPTER NINE

  PENDLETON, EASTERN OREGON

  SEPTEMBER 14, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD

  "And I though our political speeches were dull," BD said quietly. "Shhhh!" Murdoch said.

  They'd gone on for hours, in the great oval amphitheatre where the yearly Round-Up was held. At least they were over, and the VIPs and their families had shifted into the Bossman's house with the coming of sunset. She could hear the fiesta for the commons going on outside, a surf-roar of music and voices in the distance.

  The Bossman's residence was a compound rather than a single building, out at the northwestern corner of town at the edge of the river and surrounded by its own strong wall. Within were barracks and storehouses and workshops, as well as the patios and gardens around the actual house, a rambling two-story structure with a red-tile roof and arches upholding balconies with wrought-iron grills. Strong yellow light spilled through the tall windows of the house, and torches on the pillars and walls round about lit the brilliantly clad couples, the servants in their white jackets and bow ties, and the charro costumes of the mariachi bands who moved about.

  Long tables were set out buffet-style, with chefs in white hats waiting to carve the roasts and hams; whole yearling steers and pigs and lamb roasted over firepits behind them, the attendants slathering them with fiery sauce wielding their long-handled brushes like the forks of devils in the Christian hell. The rich scent of roasting meat drifted on the air, and the little spurts of blue smoke rose in the lantern light.

  Interesting assortment of costumes and uniforms, BD thought, accepting a glass of wine.

  She wasn't wearing a peplos tonight; no point in hanging out a notice. Instead she'd opted for a long denim skirt embroidered with geometric patterns around the hem, jacket, belt with silver-and-turquoise conchos and tooled-leather boots… what a Rancher's wife or mother would probably wear here. The owners of the big herding spreads were the most numerous element, many of them getting a little boisterous as they talked about what they'd do to any invaders of the sacred soil of Pendleton; those that weren't feuding with one another, of course.

  When the hour came, her job would be to stick close to Bossman Peters. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and with the beginning of a paunch straining at the buttons of his embroidered waistcoat. His dark brown hair was thinning on top, and his bushy muttonchop whiskers were going gray, but his laugh boomed hearty, and the little eyes were shrewd.

  Estrellita Peters was beside her husband, in an indigo dress with a belt of sequins, and ivory-and-turquoise combs in her high-piled raven hair. She was seven or eight years younger than her husband's mid-forties, slight and dark with a face like a ferret, albeit a pretty and extremely cunning one. Rumor said that she was rather more than half the political brains of the family business. Two sons in their teens followed dutifully behind their parents, one rather heavyset in a way that only the families of the rich could be nowadays, the other lean and quick.

  Not time to get close to them, BD noted, swallowing past a dry throat and covertly drying her palms on her skirt. Just keep an eye on them. And in the meantime, look for anything unusual.

  The foreigners were gathered together in two clumps, on the tiled veranda near the broad iron-strapped wooden doors of the house proper. BD sidled closer.

  One group was in blue, or long robes of a dark reddish brown color. The Church Universal and Triumphant, she thought.

  They all wore neat little chin-beards; the soldiers in blue-green had their hair cropped close, the robed priests-Seekers, she'd heard they were called-were shaven-pated. The priests were glaring at any number of things; some of the guests were smoking tobacco, which their faith forbade, and there were women with uncovered hair, or some wearing pants, and mechanical clocks. All of them maintained a disciplined quietness, except their leader.

&nbs
p; Could it be him, here? BD wondered. He's around thirty, that's the right age… medium height, brown beard, hazel eyes… Trouble is, that's a description of Every-man just as much as it is of the Prophet Sethaz!

  He was certainly more sociable than the others, smiling and chatting easily with a succession of Pendleton VIPs. Some of the Ranchers avoided him-the Mormon ones, in particular, who were a fair scattering of the total. And the smaller minority who'd taken up the Old Religion as it drifted eastward were even more frankly hostile.

  And that's Jenson's cowboy… George, she thought, puzzled.

  The young man was in one of the dull-red robes, his head newly shaven. Their eyes met just for an instant, and BD shivered. The rage she'd seen was still there, but it was transfigured, focused like light from the edge of a knife, a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun.

  The other clutch of outlanders were even more exotic. BD's lips quirked; they were exotic because they were so like things she'd seen in her youth. The green uniforms with the service ribbons, the berets, the polished black shoes, the archaic shirts with collar and tie, even the neat high and tight haircuts. The only thing different from the old Army of the United States was the swords at their belts; shortswords, or cavalry sabers for a few. Young men, mostly from their mid-twenties to their thirties, and notably hard-faced even by modern standards, with impassive rock-jawed features and wary, watchful eyes.

  Their commander turned, the four stars of a general on his shoulders. BD's eyes went wide in shock, and she turned naturally to place the wineglass on a tray.

  Martin Thurston himself! she thought; self-promoted since his father's excessively convenient death. Oh, Astrid, I think yo u 've let yourself in for more than you thought!

  "My Lady Grand Constable, there's a deserter," her squire Armand Georges said. "She's asking to see the commander, and she has documents."

  "She?"

  "It's a woman, my lady. A cavalry sergeant; Boisean army."

  Tiphaine d'Ath's brows went up; that was rare in the interior.. . and of course in the Association territories. And the Meeting had sent this army here because they were afraid the US of Boise and the Prophet might be intervening; apparently they hadn't been worrying without cause.

  "I'll see her here."

  She flipped the empty porridge bowl back to the scullion, yawned and finished coffee brewed snarling-strong to wash down the taste of the bland mush and dried fruit and the scorched bacon that had gone with it.

  At least coffee always smells good brewing, she thought. Even when it tastes like soap-boiler's lye.

  She was feeling a bit frowsty this morning, with wisps of her pale hair still escaping from the night's braid. The black arming doublet she wore-like a jacket made up of vertical tubes of padding-and the leather pants tucked into her boots both had the faint locker-room smell that never came out once they'd been worn under armor, with metal-and-oil from the patches of chain mail under the armpits that covered the weak points in a suit of plate. The leather laces that dangled from strategic spots to tie down the pieces of war-harness always made her feel like an undone boot at this stage, but there was no point in putting on sixty pounds of steel just to look spiffy. Not yet. It tired you fast enough when you had to wear it.

  That freedom and the coffee were about the only mark of rank, that and a private privy. You didn't take pages or hordes of servants or a pavilion on campaign-at least, she didn't, not even when they were operating along a railway-and her tent was barely big enough to serve as a map-room when her bedroll was tied up.

  The war-camp of the allied army was just waking, a growing brabble across the rolling plateau as light cleared the far-distant line of the Blue Mountains beyond Pendleton. The high cloud there caught the dawn in streaks of ruddy crimson that faded to pink froth at their edges. Fires smoked as embers were poked up and stoked with greasewood and fence-posts and brush. Faint and far to the south she could hear the Mackenzies making their greeting to the Sun:

  "… my soul follows Hawk on the ghost of the wind

  I find my voice and speak truth;

  All-Father, wise Lord

  All-Mother, gentle and strong…"

  Her mouth quirked. Some of her own troops were praying too- Queen of Angels, alleluia -more of them were just scratching and stretching and getting in line by the cookfires, or turning in and trying to sleep if they'd been on the last night-watch. A few were singing, a new song "He spoke to me of the sunrise lands

  And a shrine of secret power

  Where the sacred Sword of the Lady stands

  And awaits the appointed hour;

  The hero's right, Artos his name…"

  The quirk grew to a small cold smile. That was Lady Juniper's work, if she'd ever heard it. It didn't do to forget that the Chief of the Mackenzies had been a bard-a busker, they'd said in those days-back before the Change. For that matter, half the troubadours in the Association's territory trained down South, for all that it prompted rumors you were a witch. And that story about Rudi's secret name, Artos, had been circulating since the Protector's War. Sandra knew with the top part of her mind how powerful song-born tales could be, but Tiphaine thought the Lady Regent had trouble believing it down below the neck.

  Her squire made a signal. "Rodard has the deserter, my lady. Here are the documents she carried."

  Armand was a tall young black-haired blue-eyed man in his early twenties, ready for knighting and hoping for it during this campaign. He and his younger brother Rodard were also the nephews of Katrina Georges, who'd been Tiphaine's companion from the time the Change caught their Girl Scout troop in the woods until she was killed in the War of the Eye… by Astrid Larsson. It gave Tiphaine a little twinge to look at their boldly handsome faces, though the resemblance wasn't as strong nowadays.

  He was already in half armor, breastplate and mail-sleeves and vambraces on the forearms; his brother wore the older-style knee-length mail hauberk. She took the packet of sealed papers and turned back into the tent, and looked at the T-shaped stand that carried her war gear and shield.

  This will be my last war, I think, at least for leading from the front, she thought with cold calculation; she'd lost just a hair of her best speed, and it would get worse. Now, let's see if I can go out with a bang.

  The folding table had been set out, and canvas stools. She sat on one and waited; by reflex her fingers itched to open the report on the table, which was the one about reconditioning the railway to here from the Dalles. Keeping four thousand troops fed and supplied out here in the cow-country wasn't easy, and the Protectorate had agreed to take on the logistics as part of its share. But paperwork would eat every minute of your time if you got too obsessed with detail work, and questioning a valuable prisoner was also important.

  She liked to keep her hand on the pulse of intelligence; possibly because she'd been as much a spy as anything in the first years of her work for Lady Sandra.

  Not to mention a wet-work specialist, she thought wryly, and touched one of her knives-not the obvious one on her sword belt.

  Rodard had his sword out as he showed the prisoner in; his brother stood outside the tent flap to make sure nobody got within earshot without permission, even if they had the rank to muscle through the perimeter of spearmen. With the east-facing flap back there was good light and she was sitting to an angle to it so she'd be in shadow.

  Always an advantage, to see without being seen.

  The deserter had a square dark olive Hispano face and black eyes and coarse straight bobbed hair so dark there were iridescent highlights; around five foot six or seven, Tiphaine thought, and in her late twenties or early thirties-hard to be sure when someone spent their days outdoors in this dry interior climate. Lean, wiry and tough-looking, probably quick and very dangerous with a sword… Which was no surprise; in their line of work a woman had to be extremely good to compensate for the thicker bones and extra muscle men carried. She wore breeches and boots that had the indefinable look of uniform, dyed mottled sage gre
en, and a waist-length mail-shirt with chevrons on the short sleeve: light-cavalry outfit. The belt held laced frog-mounts for a saber and dagger, and there was a slightly shiny patch in the mail on her right shoulder where the baldric for a quiver would rest.

  She came to attention and started to salute, looked down at her bound hands, and shrugged.

  "Ma'am, I'm Sergeant Rosita Gonzalez-"

  "That's my lady d'Ath," the squire whose sword hovered near her back said.

  "Gently, Rodard, gently," Tiphaine said, her voice empty of all emotion, like water running over smooth rocks. "She came to us."

  "I'm looking for Grand Constable d'Ath," the prisoner said. "I've got messages from, ah, Princess Mathilda and-"

  Tiphaine didn't sit bolt upright. Rodard didn't raise the sword or swear; he and his brother had been trained in her household for more than a decade, as pages and squires. Instead the Grand Constable untied the bundle of letters and looked at the seal on the first. It wasn't the usual shapeless blob of tallow, but a crimson disk from a stack of premade blanks, the type the Chancellor's office used. And the seal-ring was one she recognized, the Lidless Eye crossed by the baton of cadency.

  "Seals can be duplicated, Sergeant," she said softly. "Or taken from prisoners."

  The other woman looked at her warily; not afraid, exactly, but obviously conscious of the sword behind her, and of the pale gaze on her. A poet had once described Tiphaine d'Ath's eyes as the color of berg-ice floating down the Inland Passage on a sunless winter's day.

  "The Princess said you'd say that. So she gave me a message that only you two would know, and nobody would think to ask her."

  Torture out of her, Tiphaine thought, and was slightly surprised at the surge of anger she felt. Well, I did help bring the girl up from her cradle…

  She nodded, and the prisoner approached. Rodard rested the needle point of his longsword over her kidneys, and Tiphaine leaned forward to hear the whisper:

  "She said that you met Delia at the party, when she was serving at your feast when you took seizin"-the woman from Idaho mispronounced the feudal term-"of Ath, and Delia asked if you wanted to look at the embroidery on something."