Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change

by S. M. Stirling

  The Corvallan bugles blared, and officers shouted:

  “Pikes will advance to contact! By the left—at the double-quick—charge!

  The pike-hedges charged at a controlled pace, stepping off in unison from their jog in place into instant motion despite the weight of the long weapons and their own armor. At the same instant, tubae snarled and men shouted in the enemy ranks, harder to hear. The order was instantly clear to see, though; every single man in the front rank of the enemy pivoted on his left heel and threw one of the heavy six-foot javelins he carried.

  A cloud of them rose and fell, seeming to accelerate as they sleeted down into the pikemen. Then the second rank threw, and the first again, and the third, and the second, and the first, in a continuous stuttering ripple until all of them had launched their three spears. Whole clumps fell across the front of the Corvallans, and here and there pikes crossed as files tangled. The rest continued, stamping over the bodies of the dead and the ones who screamed and writhed with whetted iron in their flesh, or picked themselves up and staggered forward again when the heavy spears bounced or slid from the hard overlapping plates of their armor, but sheer momentum knocked them down.

  Then a uniform crashing bark of:

  “U-S-A! U-S-A!” from the Boiseans.

  Hands snapped down to the short broad-bladed stabbing swords hung at their right hips and flipped them out, held angled up to thrust or hack down towards an ankle. They tucked their shoulders into their shields and charged towards the advancing bristle of pikes.

  The sound of impact was muffled but enormous when that many armored forms ran into each other, and it went on for seconds before it settled down into a roaring blurr. The Boiseans took the points of the pikes on their shields, shoving with their comrades pushing at their backs or lofting more pila overhead into the mass. Men pushed, grunting and heaving, hacking at the pikepoints and trying to cut them free of the shafts, the swordblades clanging and showering sparks as they struck the long lappets that protected the wood behind the heads. Here and there the Boisean line buckled where three or four pikes pushed against a single shield; more held overarm smashed forward in two-handed stabs into faces and shoulders and chests with all the wielder’s weight behind them. In other spots the Boiseans bashed and shoved and slid their way to closer quarters, swords busy.

  And the crossbows shot, and shot, and shot; the rear ranks of the Boiseans threw volley after volley of pila, and Rudi could see light two-wheel wagons coming up behind them and men passing out bundled spears. The artillery on both sides was arching its loads over the heads of the locked scrimmage in front, landing in the rear ranks with splashing fire or the snapping impact of heavy iron.

  He nodded grimly, measuring distances with his eyes. The two forces had simply run into each other and were locked like a pair of elk bulls in the mating season. Horns together, muscles rigid—nothing moving, but huge forces balanced in tension threatening to buckle through at any instant.

  And this is the most expensive type of fight there is, he thought. Equal forces of good soldiers head-to-head, neither willing to take a step back, hammering away and in spare moments pouring down some water and cursing the idiot who got them into this.

  As if to echo the thought, Brigadier Peter Jones rode up. He was in three-quarter armor himself, with the visor of his sallet raised like Rudi’s, looking like a very large billed cap; beneath it his face was lined and grizzled, that of a tough-fibered fit man in his fifties. His command staff were behind him, and a standard-bearer with a flag that showed an orange beaver’s head on brown, its vaguely anthropomorphic face locked in a scowl. Usually Corvallans took a squad of young women in sweaters and short skirts along on campaign, who performed arcane ritual acrobatics and chants before action started; it was some legacy of Oregon State University, a brotherhood of learning which had formed the seed-crystal of survival there. They’d skipped that this time—the girls were cross-trained as nurses or clerks or whatnot, of course, and would be busy anyway.

  “Sir. Ah, Your Majesty,” Jones said.

  Rudi suppressed an impulse to say, Ah, and it’s still Rudi, Pete.

  The man was an old friend of the family; Juniper Mackenzie had met him the day after Rudi was conceived, when he’d been a very junior officer in the newly-founded military of Corvallis, and he’d been a frequent visitor at Dun Juniper all Rudi’s life. But the situation required a certain formality.

  Jones went on: “We’re holding them for now. But if they put in further reserves, I’m going to need reinforcements myself. Most of my men are already in the line and it’s too damned early in the day to be fully committed.”

  From the look in his tired blue eyes he wasn’t expecting the help he needed; every senior commander knew how stretched they were. There was a certain brute arithmetic to war, all things being equal, and no prize at all for coming in second. Rudi nodded to him and returned his salute; Corvallis used the old American style…like Boise.

  Nothing wrong with that. Boise is not the enemy; the CUT and its agents are.

  “You’ll have reinforcements,” Rudi said. “I’m stationing the Queen of Angels Commonwealth contingent behind you here, and they’re to be under your command. That should do to plug any holes, and you’ve got the Bearkillers south of you.”

  Jones’ face split in a grin of pleasure for a moment. The Commonwealth wasn’t the largest contingent in the motley alliance that made up Montival’s host, but it was high-quality. And it included the Knight-Brothers of Mt. Angel, who were also not numerous but universally respected…or feared.

  “I’m glad you can spare them, Your Majesty!” he said.

  Rudi held up the crumpled dispatch. “Around ten thousand of Boise’s troops have decided they don’t want any part of this battle and are sittin’ it out,” he said.

  Jones swore in amazement, and Rudi raised a cautionary hand: “So are our three thousand Boiseans…but that was by design and the advantage is heavily to us. The sit-down means I can strip that part of our line naked at acceptable risk.”

  The Corvallan commander swore again, delightedly and fluently, then:

  “Lady Juniper’s Luck! Or High King Artos’, now.”

  “It evens the odds, no more. I’ll not take more of your time. Hold them for me, Peter. Just hold them.”

  Jones saluted and wheeled his horse about. Rudi cast another glance at the jammed mass below, then over his shoulder at the nearest observation balloon; messages were flickering up and down the line of them. Ignatius closed in at his side as they turned their horses north, along the roadway that paralleled the Montivalan position for most of its length.

  “Ah,” he said, grinning. “Now it’s my compatriots, Your Majesty.”

  A force was approaching from the east, out of the stop-zones where his all-too-scanty reserves were deployed, the foot marching beneath the banners of their guilds and confraternities. A column of horsemen in full armor led them, visors up but lances in rest and shields on their arms. The gear was much like that used by Association men-at-arms, but colored a plain medium brown, and all the long teardrop shields the same with a black raven and cross—the emblem of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict. They were singing and riding at a slow walk to keep pace with the infantry and spare their chargers; Rudi recognized the tune as a Christian hymn much used around Yule—“Good King Wenceslas,” he thought—but the words weren’t familiar:

  “Praise the Maker all ye Saints

  He with glory girt you

  He who skies and meadows paints

  Fashioned all your virtues

  Praise Him peasants, heroes, kings!

  Herald of perfection

  Brothers, praise Him for He brings

  All to resurrection!”

  “I like to see men go to a fight in good spirits,” Rudi said. “We’re all going to need spirit like that before the day’s over.”

  “I think many in your host have it, Your Majesty,” Ignatius said soberly. “They fight for love—
of people and family, a cause close to the heart, a dear familiar place—and that is stronger than hate.”

  He signed the air before him with the cross, and the bearded monk leading the approaching force with the banner hanging from the crosspiece of his staff gravely returned it, then smiled like a delighted child.

  “They’re all going to need it,” Rudi said. “It’s their battle, more than mine. And they must win it for me, and for us all, down to the lowliest crofter with a pike or most junior squire at his lord’s heel.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE HIGH KING’S HOST

  HORSE HEAVEN HILLS

  (FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  NOVEMBER 1ST, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  The High Queen’s party cantered forward, her banner of the Lidless Eye taking the breeze beside the triangle-and-delta of the Grand Constable’s; another lance carried the Crowned Mountain and Sword of Montival between them.

  Royal squire Huon Liu spat aside to get the harsh alkaline dust out of his mouth; tens of thousands of shod hooves and hobnailed boots had ripped the thin sere grass of late summer here on this stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills, and the few rains hadn’t been enough to lay the light volcanic soil beneath. Dust blew tawny about the fetlocks of the horses, and the rays of the westering sun behind them turned it to a mist of gold all along the front where the armies had met and clashed and parted since dawn.

  “Grit gets right into your teeth, doesn’t it?” Lioncel de Stafford said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Huon said.

  He gave his friend a look; the dust of a hard day made him seem older and Huon was struck again with how much he looked like the Grand Constable, which was sort of odd when you thought about the…

  Complex, Huon decided, pleased with his own sophistication. Complicated.

  …complex family arrangements. Though you never knew how much of the rumors were true…Thinking about some of them was enough to make you shift uneasily in the saddle at the sinful images. Rather intriguing sinful images, at that; he was dolefully sure that “impure thoughts” were going to figure in his next confession, which was sort of doubly embarrassing when they were sinful thoughts about your friend’s mother, of all people.

  It’s easier to be brave in company, though, he thought, and went on quietly:

  “This is it.”

  “Yup,” Lioncel said. “The jugglers and tumblers and dancing dogs have done their acts, the tables have been carried out, the floor swept, all the dancers are in place for the Grand Volta and the music’s about to start.”

  “Dust and Sweat Pavanne with Scrap-Metal Accompaniment,” Huon said, and Lioncel chuckled.

  Elsewhere the din of onset sounded where the great hosts came together in an embrace of desperate violence as they had all day, but in this space and moment on the northern flank the mutter was a far-off burr; Huon felt his brain stutter as he tried to take in how big this battle was. Half a continent was here, with edged metal in its hands and murder in its heart.

  Beneath the distant surf-roar was the creak of leather and clatter of metal from the royal party and the hard clopping thud of hooves bearing the weight of horse-barding and metal-sheathed rider, and beneath that the same sound from so many thousands more at a little distance, turned into an endless grumbling rumble that you felt up through your seat in the saddle as much as heard.

  The High Queen looked over her shoulder and grinned, her white teeth flashing in the shadow of her raised visor, the black ostrich plumes rippling above.

  “Mud’s worse than dust, squire,” she said lightly. “Much worse. This is a good day to fight, and the best of company to do it in! Even if it is thirsty work. A drink, if you please.”

  “Your Majesty,” he said.

  He grinned back as he said it and brought his courser forward, leaning across to put the canteen in her hand. She nodded at him and drank; he felt his heart lurch with a vassal’s love and loyalty, dread and a furious exhilaration like nothing he’d felt before in his fifteen years. His own swig afterwards at the water cut with cleansing wine seemed like a sacrament.

  Ahead of them, at right angles to their course, a long line of horsemen stretched north and south, twisting with the rippling curl of the land and far enough back that they were hidden from the enemy to the east by the crest ahead. More came up as he watched, trotting behind the ranks of the Montivalan host and falling in around the standards of Count and Baron as the heavy cavalry was withdrawn from the rest of the kingdom’s battle line and concentrated here.

  There was a ripple of movement as spare destriers were led up and men-at-arms and squires and varlets switched saddles and horse-barding to the fresh mounts. Destriers were trained and bred for aggression, and most of them were entire stallions; they knew exactly what the weight of padded leather and steel being buckled onto them meant. Squeals of rage sounded, and here and there one reared. More stamped and mouthed the heavy jointed bits, foam dripping from their jaws.

  A cheer went up as the High Queen’s party came through the line and trotted along it, banners fluttering; Huon saw men grinning as they thumped fist to chest or bowed in the saddle. Some shouted out:

  “For the Light of the North!”

  He felt a twinge at that; Odard had been a troubadour as well as a knight, and he’d made a song in Mathilda’s honor with that title. It had become very popular recently. Chaste and hopeless love by a lowly knight for a lady of impossibly exalted degree was a staple of the stories, but after recent experiences Huon suspected it was better in a chanson than in day-to-day life. It all seemed a lot less theoretical since that haystack.

  “What news, Your Majesty?” one baron called. “Do we charge?”

  Mathilda laughed back. “Do we charge? Is the Holy Father a Catholic? The High King brings you a great gift this day, chevaliers, esquires and men-at-arms of the Association. A cadeau beyond price. He will give you a chance to die with honor!”

  That produced a laugh and a cheer, and more up and down the line as the words were passed from man to man beyond immediate hearing. The chevaliers were in the first rank, a linear forest of bright steel lanceheads atop the twelve-foot ashwood shafts. The plate armor of the men and the articulated steel lames that covered the head and necks, shoulders and breasts of their mounts were often burnished until they glittered as well, and through it shone the bright colors of four-foot kite-shaped shields blazoned with the arms and quarterings of Count and Baron and Knight and the shining gold of their spurs.

  The lanceheads wavered a little as the men shifted and the horses stamped and tossed their heads, and the brisk wind caught the pennants and streamed them out behind. The second rank were household men-at-arms of the nobles and manor lords and those squires old enough to ride to battle armored cap-a-pie behind the knights they served; spaced along the line in back were clumps of mounted varlets and younger squires like him, ready to dash in with a spare horse or a new lance or to rescue a knight down and wounded and carry him across a saddlebow back to the field ambulances.

  Men were taking a final swig of water cut with rough wine, handing the skins down the rank, tugging to settle their sword belts one last time, touching the war hammers or maces strapped to their saddlebows. Making ready to die as each felt best, some silent, others passing one more foul joke, more crossing themselves and muttering a prayer, shaking hands with a sworn comrade or looking again at a photograph of wife or leman or child tucked into the inside curve of their shields. Men who could afford destrier and full armor could pay the high price of a camera and its operator.

  He’d thought he would be envious of the squires old enough to hope for their golden spurs this day, but now he knew they envied him his place by the Queen’s side.

  Lord Chancellor Ignatius said squire to the High Queen would be a post of honor and peril, and he was completely damned right, may Saint Benedict bless and keep him. I wouldn’t trade plac
es with anyone here, not for twenty manors and a Count’s blazons. Plus I don’t have to wait in ranks. I get to see everything and know what’s really going on! I’ll really have a story to tell Yseult…

  He spared a brief prayer for her, too; his older sister would be stuck helping the nuns and doctors in the field hospital well back, seeing only the wreckage of war and not feeling this driving excitement. The knowledge that destiny was at work, that you were part of the wheel of fate turning on the pivot of mighty deeds…

  St. Michael witness, I’ll have a story to tell my grandchildren when I’m an old man! There’s been nothing like this since the Change, nothing!

  Or he might die today, of course, and House Liu with him. He knew that, but the thought seemed remote, like a line sung in a romaunt in a hall after dinner.

  “Saints Valentin and Michael be with me,” he murmured very quietly. “I will burn a candle the length of my arm from wrist to elbows for them both when the war is done and I ride back to Castle Gervais.”

  At the middle of the long line the banner of House Renfrew and the Counts of Odell fell in beside the Lidless Eye of House Arminger. Others trotted to meet them, beneath the blazons of Chehalis and Tillamook, Molalla, Skagit, Dawson, Walla Walla and more and more, all the great families of the Protectorate. When they drew rein, not all the glances exchanged were friendly, and there was a little jockeying for position as horses were spurred accidentally-on-purpose.

  “My lords, there’s no time for precedence and state,” Mathilda said crisply. “Just your bannermen and signalers, please.”

  House Renfrew of County Odell was led by Viscount Érard, a square hard young face under the visor, blue-eyed and rough with dusty brown beard-stubble. His helmet looked a little incongruous, obviously a brand-new spare brought up during a lull in the action worn atop a suit of plate that had more than its share of fresh dings and nicks. He was probably on his second or third shield of the day; a sword might last a lifetime, but a shield was lucky to see out a few hours of strong men and heavy blows.