“Arrrtos! Arrrrtos!”
The High Queen swept her own hand up. “Artos and Montival!” she shouted, like a bronze bell pealing.
Now the ranks of the knights and men-at-arms were taking up the call, thunder-loud and close, like a chorus of trumpets. Some of them were hammering lance-shafts against their shields as well, a drumbeat to the chorus:
“Artos! Artos! ARTOS!”
The man in the lead of the approaching party reined in his great black horse, its hoofs beating the air for a moment; Epona was nearly as famous as her rider, like something from a chanson de geste. He drew his sword, his left hand reaching for the long blade hanging at his right hip, and thrust it high. Huon felt and heard himself grunt a little, as if something impalpable had punched him in the gut like a quarterstaff. It was the Sword of the Lady—
Obviously the Virgin Mother of God, though the poor pagans don’t realize it.
—forged in the world beyond the world like Curtana or Durendal or Joyeuse, and it shone. Not with light…
At least I don’t think so, he thought, blinking and taking a shaky breath; he’d seen it before, but you never got used to it, never. Not just like a bright light. As if it’s shining inside my head somehow.
In form it was a knight’s longsword, thirty-six inches of tapering blade; the guard was a shallow crescent like the new Moon, the double-lobed hilt of silver-inlaid black staghorn, the pommel a shaped crystal of something like opal gripped in branching antlers. If you were close enough the swirling patterns in the not-really-steel drew your eye, falling inward and inward through infinite shapes that were always the same and never repeated, until the universe seem to be opening outward—
But it glowed, as if it lit all about it and at the same time washed it out to a faded dream, too real for the world of common day. For a moment Huon Liu felt as if he were a figure in a tapestry or an illuminated missal. Then like a hero himself, simply because he was here and following the Sword’s bearer.
He tore his eyes away. The sound of the cheering cut off, falling to a murmur and then something like a collective intake of breath as the blade pointed high. Then the High King sheathed the sword, waving to the host and drawing rein beside the Queen with a friendly nod to Rick Three Bears and Ingolf and his kinswoman.
His suit of plate showed evidence of hard recent service, and the visor of his sallet had been torn away. Huon could see the ripped hole where one of the pivots had been, just in front of one of the two sprays of raven feathers that ornamented the helm; he blinked as he realized that Artos had probably simply gripped it with one hand and stripped it off when some foeman’s blow bent it out of shape, casually rending the tough alloy steel. The face beneath was a young man’s, in his mid-twenties and with a straight-nosed, high-cheeked look; the strong cleft chin was only a little concealed by a short-cropped beard as bright red-gold as the locks of hair that escaped the mail coif. Blood had trickled down from a cut across his forehead and dried, with smears showing where he’d wiped it out of his eyes with a palm.
Lord Chancellor Ignatius was with him, in the plain good armor of his Order; he nodded to Huon with a smile and then made an imperious gesture behind him, and someone passed forward a fresh helmet; its surface was beautifully worked in a feather design of black niello, but obviously battle gear and not for parade.
“Now, Your Majesty. We are not going to lose you to a stray arrow. Not from carelessness.”
“Arra, and I thought my mother behind the battlefield,” the High King said, in a strong pleasant Mackenzie lilt; but he unstrapped the damaged helmet, tossed it to the attendant and accepted the fresh one.
“And the best of the day to you, my lords, my lady wife and Queen,” he went on, trying the visor. “It’s time, I think.”
“If the other side thinks so too,” the Grand Constable said, in what wasn’t quite agreement. “It takes two.”
Artos—who had been Rudi Mackenzie—grinned. “They will. It’s breaking contact that the Prophet wants now, and for that he has to rock us back first, lest we wreck his host with our pursuit. Perhaps he still hopes to carry the day, the creature. It isn’t a favorable prospect they’re facing otherwise, retreating through hostile land they’ve already stripped bare of everything that isn’t behind fortress walls or hidden in the hills, and with winter looming.”
“Past my people, Your Majesty,” Count Felipe de Aguirre said.
He was Count of Walla Walla and the Eastermark; the city and the castles of the County Palatine still mostly held out behind the enemy’s lines and harried their outposts and foraging parties with slashing mounted raids and ambushes and arrows in the night. Not to mention the fact that he’d left his Countess to hold the chartered city of Walla Walla in his name when he joined the host of Montival; there was a hungry look in his dark eyes, and the squire was glad it wasn’t directed at him.
He’s a young man too, a Changeling like me, like the Queen and the High King, Huon thought. This is our time. It’s our world now, the Changelings’ world.
“Indeed, it’s bloody and useful work they’ve done and will do,” Artos said to the Count Palatine.
Then he went on to them all; the nobles leaned forward a little, tightly focused:
“See you, they’ve tried hard all day to hammer our right back and away from the Columbia to cut us off from supply and water, and it didn’t work…didn’t ever quite work, though they came close more than once. They tried to push at our center…and Fred Thurston stopped that, the luck and cleverness of the world. Now we’re going to hammer their right wing back. Against the river and its gorge if we can, and put those unforgiving cliffs under their backsides, the which will be profoundly discouraging to the omadhauns if we can pull it off. Or we may be able to chase them all the way to the lower Yakima and catch them at the bridges. To your men, then, my lords, and the Powers strengthen the arms of your knights, for the fate of the kingdom and all our folk rest on the points of their lances and the edges of their good swords this day.”
There was a thump of salutes and the noblemen turned their mounts and cantered back to their places, each taking his post at the head of his menie, his fighting-tail of household knights and men-at-arms and vassal barons and their followers.
The High King turned to Ingolf and his companions. “Ingolf, you carry the word to the CORA Sheriffs; and Mary, you to the lords of the Association light horse. If we can break the Sword of the Prophet the enemy will fall back as best they can. Don’t let them rally.”
He slapped a fist into a palm for emphasis, a flat smack of steel on leather.
“I want a merciless pursuit and a relentless one. It’s a profound shaking of their faith in the Prophet and the Ascended Masters I intend, and for that I want the survivors running shrieking in terror until they hit the Bitterroots and not stopping overmuch along the way. Harry them. Take whatever chances are necessary. See that the remount herds are well forward so our horse-archers can keep up the pace as long as needful. And give them my solemn word I will hang any man who stops to plunder anything but food, weapons and fresh horses while the enemy are still running.”
Ingolf raised an eyebrow. After a moment Huon understood; those spare horses were the main wealth left to most of the mounted bowmen who’d lost their lands and cattle to the enemy. Bringing the remounts forward would mean they could follow a beaten opponent for days if necessary. It also meant they could lose the herds entirely if they were the ones who had to fall back. Artos nodded acknowledgment before he went on:
“But that’s only risky if we lose, and I don’t intend to. Get them ready, brother-in-law; promise and threaten as necessary, but do it. And you, sister mine. Now.”
Ingolf nodded and made a casual salute. Lady Mary delivered a more formal one in Ranger style. Rick Three Bears just flicked the stub of his cigarette away.
“You should have more Lakota out here, if you want a merciless pursuit, Strong Raven,” he said. “But hey, we’ll do what we can.”
&nbs
p; “I’m sure you will. Farewell, and the Lady shield you and Lugh lend his spear to strike down your foes.”
They cantered off, skirting the rear of the Association lancers. Huon smiled to himself as Mathilda stretched out a gauntleted hand and Artos took it in his for a moment.
“Together, my heart,” he heard the High King say softly.
“Always.”
Mathilda chuckled. “How Odard would have loved this!”
“He’d have charged like William’s minstrel Taillefer at Hastings, tossing his sword up and catching it and singing the Chanson de Roland.”
Then the King’s smile died, and his head swung towards the enemy. He spoke again, more softly still, as if to himself or to something or Someone invisible to common sight:
“Peace to the sky
Sky to the earth
Earth beneath sky
Strength in all.”
Then: “Morrigú-Badb-Macha, hear me. Great Threefold Queen, Red Hag, Battle Crow, Dark Mother, She who is most terrible in majesty amid the shattering of spears, You claimed me long ago and ever have I walked with Your power. To Your black-wing host I pledge the harvest of the blood-watered field whose crop is the skulls of men. Grant me victory as I strike for the land I am sworn to guard, for my folk and their homes and their children yet unborn. Let that land fight for us, whose flesh and bone grew from this good earth we till. And know that if this is the day when the King must die for the people, then I go to You consenting, with open eyes, as to a joyful feast. So mote it be.”
Huon shivered, as for a moment great sable wings seemed to swirl around the High King’s form, caressing and enfolding. Then he shook off the pagan fancy. The King’s voice was hard and firm as it snapped out:
“Sound advance!”
Trumpets screamed as the signalers blew, and then others took them up behind, all down the line. Huon turned and felt his eyes grow wide; Lioncel swore softly by St. Michael. The lance-points showed first, then the pennants. Then all at once miles of ridgeline bristled like the scales of some great beast, like a dragon waking on its bed of gold in terror and majesty. Glittering steel and blazoned shield, plumes and banners and destriers rising in caracole, as men roared out the war cries of their Houses and tossed their lances in the air, more and more…
A savage blaze, an exultant splendor like a dream of glory come to earth.
“Face Gervais, face Death!” he shouted, his voice lost in the roar as he called the war cry of his barony and his bloodline. “Artos and Montival!”
“Lance!” Mathilda Arminger snapped, holding out her right hand without looking around in a gesture unmistakable even in the tumult.
Huon juggled reins and gave a grunt of effort as he levered the ashwood shaft into a position where she could slap her palm on it. Lioncel was doing likewise for the Grand Constable; then they dropped back together as the plate-armored leaders and guardsmen drew into a blunt wedge behind the banner of the High Kingdom. The world blurred into hammering sound and steel as the main body came up on either side.
“Blow prepare to charge!”
The long Portlander oliphants screamed, like silver in torment. The chivalry of the Association was riding to war, eight thousand lances strong, and the earth shook beneath the hooves of the destriers.
“À l’outrance—charge!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
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
Rudi took a last look to his right and left and right as the canter built to a gallop, then knocked his visor down with the edge of his shield; he needed no hand for the reins, not with Epona, who had known no bit or bridle in all their time together. There was the familiar sensation as the world went dark save for the long slit of brightness that framed his vision ahead. A darkness full of thunder, the thunder of eighty thousand hooves as the two great masses of horseman swept together over the sparse bunchgrass and hard dirt of the plain. The line stayed even enough, but grew slightly jagged as the faster horses drew a little ahead, like a huge jaw full of steel shark’s-teeth. Everything had shrunk to the point of the lance in his left hand where it angled over Epona’s plunging head and the men ahead.
The Sword of the Prophet were shooting as they charged; arrows went by with that grating malignant whirr, and here and there in the great line of lancers one found a target in man or horse and an image of martial glory suddenly turned to a tumbling mass of hideously vulnerable flesh. Their comrades opened out about them and closed up again without checking as the long lances slanted down in a bristling wall of steel points driven by ton-weights of armored destrier and man. Where necessary, a rear-rank man lifted his steed in a leap over the fallen. Most of the shafts broke or flicked from the curving surfaces of the plate, or stood quivering in the long shields.
Arrows from powerful recurves could be a deadly threat to knights, but only if the horse-archers could dodge about and strike from beyond reach for volley after volley. Here there would be no time or space for that. Behind the visor Rudi’s teeth were bared in a wolfish snarl; he could almost pity the commander of the Prophet’s elite troop. He’d hoped the Montivalans had been tied down throughout the day, set up for the final smashing blow…and now the tables had been turned, and he had no choice but to launch the death-grapple against much worse odds than he’d expected and hope and pray to his Ascended Masters that it worked.
I almost pity him, Rudi thought.
Far beyond the carnivore concentration of battle some distant part of him did pity the Prophet, Sethaz. He’d probably been an evil man, and certainly ruthless; but nobody deserved what had almost certainly befallen him when his father died and the mantle of the Masters descended on him. Rudi hoped that the Prophet was here leading his private regiments; the Sword of the Lady could deal with him, freeing the man into clean death…and possibly ending the war at a stroke, or most of it.
More shafts whined by, or glanced from his armor or thudded into the shield he kept up under his chin. The enemy swelled from a shape coming out of the dust into a great vision-swallowing line of men and animals with shocking abruptness, spired helmets with spikes and red ribbons streaming from them, dull-red armor of steel and cuir-bolli, good big horses but not destriers and not barded. The stinging clouds of arrows ceased as the Prophet’s men cased their bows, slid their round shields onto their arms and lifted the lances out of the scabbards behind each man’s right hip with a smooth coordination that was like one man acting, or a dance. The line of shields with the rayed sun on them were like some great beast opening its manifold eyes and glaring, and a harsh barking cry rose from nine thousand throats:
“CUT! CUT! CUT!”
Rudi’s snarl widened. The Sword of the Prophet was a weapon that had been forged for war in the far interior, in what had once been Montana. Against light cavalry with little or no armor they were supremely effective because they were far more flexible than the Association’s knighthood, able to shift instantly from missile fire to shock action with disciplined precision, like Bearkiller A-Listers though not as heavily armed. They couldn’t be pecked to death by a lighter opponent, and they could hit very hard at need.
All that the Associate nobles of the north-realm could do was one thing, really. Charge home with the lance and finish the matter, smashing away toe-to-toe with sword and war hammer.
But they do that one thing very, very well. And here the Prophet’s men have no choice but to meet them on my chosen ground. Trying to match that one thing on its own terms.
Seconds now. He jammed his feet hard into the long stirrups, brought the lance fully down and couched the weighted butt tightly beneath his left arm, the pennant behind the point streaming and flapping and popping as he clamped his hand behind the shallow metal bowl of the guard on the shaft. The big horses were stretching their legs a
ll-out now as the last hundred yards flashed by, fast as racing mounts when they had time to build their full shattering momentum.
Epona recognized the moment and gave it her last magnificent effort, drawing a little ahead despite the best efforts of the Protector’s Guard knights around Rudi and Mathilda.
A leveled spear faced him. His lance punched past it. Into and through a breastplate, with an impact that wrenched him out of a trance of concentration as the weight of man and armor and galloping horse on both sides all struck behind the point. His torso slammed back into the high chair-like cantle of the knight’s saddle, and harder still as the spear struck his own shield and glanced off it and bent him back. Epona stumbled for a single pace, and the Cutter went over his horse’s crupper with a violence that snapped the tough ashwood of the lance across and left him lying with four feet of it through his torso.
Rudi Mackenzie threw the broken stub aside and swept out the Sword of the Lady. The action felt like perfection in his own mind. Diving into the crest of an ocean wave and flying landward, riding forces huge and terrible like a sea-otter tumbling fearless and utterly alive within the storm-surge. Epona turned beneath him as nimble as a colt, though her sides were heaving against the barding like a great bellows. He could see her eye rolling wild behind the wrought steel of the chamfron, and there was blood splashed across it.
“Morrigú!” he shrieked, and cut, and ruin fell away.
Black wings enfolded him, bore him up. He danced with them, amid clouds and lightnings…
Dust hid his surroundings, a cloud of it from tens of thousands of hooves. Time had passed; he knew that somehow. Knew that the chevaliers had ridden through the enemy line, and that three times out of four it had been an Easterner who went hurtling to the ground wounded or killed by the longer spear and the greater skill and the heavier armor. There were knights with him, and Matti, the Protector’s Guard and some of her menie. And not far away a clump of men in armor the color of dried blood, the Sword of the Prophet, grouped around a great banner of the rayed Sun.
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