The Sword of the Lady c-3

by S. M. Stirling

  They both looked down at the line of sleds toiling northward over the riverside roadway. The river there wasn?t exactly small, but the humped white expanse of ice was already halfway out from each shore, leaving only a narrowing strip of dark moving water in the middle. Slushy lumps of snow-ice floated in it.

  Four of the sleds were pulled by a double hitch of horses each, and even with the burden of walking through snow it was less draught-power than pulling a similar weight on summer roads would require. A smaller sleigh hissed ahead with eight pairs of dogs drawing it, something Rudi hadn?t seen before. Pierre Walks Quiet managed that, breaking trail with a skill that could have left the rest behind any time he chose. He rode the rear of the sled half the time, then ran tirelessly beside it for a space. His voice was a barking yelp as he commanded the dogs, and they obeyed it like extensions of his will.

  The party had slimmed down to a manageable thirty-odd, now; the Readstown forester, the ten questers, and the rest the pick of the Southside Freedom Fighters. Most of them were between the vehicles, gliding forward with the swooping push their hosts in Ingolf?s birthplace had taught them. As if to give Ingolf the lie, one of them tangled his skis and pitched sideways; it was just barely visible a quarter-mile away, with the snow thickening between them by the minute. Two of his fellows stopped on either side and heaved him upright, dusting off the snow in a process that was half an exasperated drubbing as well. ?Surprised they all learned how to handle skis this quickly,? Ingolf said, unconcerned.

  Rudi shrugged.?We?re all in hard condition and supple,? he said; every physical skill you learned made the next one easier.?And there?s nothing else to do, sunrise to sunset!?

  Though even he had ached a bit the first few days. This way of travel used every muscle you had, and not in quite the same way as anything else. ?It?s easy enough to learn passably, though I?d be saying it?s a while before we?ll all do it really well.?

  He could tell that Ingolf grinned under the knit mask; bits of icicle condensed from his breath broke off the pale gray of the wool. ?Not as good at it as I once was myself, you betcha,? he said. ?Ah,? Rudi said with mock consideration.?And you?re an old man of thirty the now. Suffering from newlywed?s exhaustion, I shouldn?t wonder, too, eh??

  Ingolf threw a mock punch at Rudi?s head, and the Mackenzie rolled his head aside. He was feeling fairly good himself. They were up to about twice easy walking speed now, making up to forty miles a day and looking to do better; if they could keep that up, they?d reach the eastern ocean fast. There was an edge in the other man?s voice, though. ?Something the matter?? Rudi said.

  Ingolf rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his right glove, squinting into the rising weather. ?This isn?t even November yet, not quite, and it?s feeling more like February. Yah hey, we got weather here in wintertime, but this is earlier than I can ever remember it. Not so much the snow; that can happen, in a bad year. It?s the cold. We shouldn?t be getting ice yet, not real river-and-lake ice. That?s earlier than Pierre Walks Quiet can remember, and he was pushing fifty when the Change came. And lived up here in the North Country all his life till then. He was a guide, too. Spent most of his time in the woods, knew every trick the winter could throw.? ?Good luck for us, then, traveling so,? Rudi said.?Some of the small rivers are already frozen solid.? He nodded downslope:?That?ll be solid enough to bear weight in a week. I expected it to take longer, that I did.? ?Uff da, so did I! We wanted cold and snow, yah hey, but… too much is worse than not enough!?

  Rudi nodded.?A man can die of thirst, or drown,? he agreed.

  Then he pulled his goggles down, and they swooped off towards the others; it wasn?t steep enough to glide by gravity alone, but they could build up to something faster than a man could easily run. The rhythm was becoming as natural as walking, after the better part of two weeks; push -with-one-foot, slide with the other, then switch, always remembering the poles-though you could do it without them if you had to. Ingolf still had to hold back a little to let Rudi keep up; his boyhood was returning to him, and with it a skill that wasted no energy at all. The extra speed drove fingers of cold through every possible crevice in Rudi?s armor of cloth and leather and fur, tiny little daggers that only the heat his body generated could hold at bay. ?Hungry!? he said, though they?d eaten well at lunchtime.

  Ingolf laughed, pacing it to his breath.?Nothing in the whole world like a trek on skis to give a man an appetite! You go fast, but you have to pay for it.?

  The sandy plains they?d crossed lately had been going back to scrub woods, with farms and villages here and there like oases; most had been willing enough to swap a little, with harvest close past. Now it had been days since the last sign of human beings, and they were starting to come into real forest; white and red pine, darker green hemlocks, bare-limbed maple and beech and birch and oak. The ground was still flattish but with occasional low hills, and here and there a granite boulder. One loomed ahead, like a red and pink and speckled egg under a cap of white. They swung left and right around it, and came up alongside the dogsled. ?Pete!? Ingolf shouted.?Hold up!?

  The old Anishinabe called to his team and rested his mittens on the twin handles of his sled; the dogs laid themselves down, noses tucked under tails, and in seconds their pale fur looked like lumps in the snow. He turned before he pulled down the knit mask that covered most of his face; the wrinkled lips were drawn thin, and his eyes a little sunken. He was nearly seventy now, and though he had the endurance of a fit man a generation younger… that still made him the equivalent of middle-aged among a band whose next eldest were not quite thirty. ?I don?t like the smell of this merde,? the Indian said, nodding his head backward into the building wail.?It?s not right, not this early; snow, yah, but not this cold all the time. I think this one?s going to be worse. Goin? get cold, too much, you bet. We better look for some place to hole up, and fast.?

  Rudi nodded; when three experienced men all had the same bad feeling, you were well advised to listen. At need the sleds and dome-tents would take them through even a very bad blow, but he?d prefer something stouter to break the force of the wind if it was available. ?The twins should be reporting in soon,? he said.?Matti! Pass the word that we?ll be camping.?

  His half sisters did come in with the wind behind them, but in the interim the storm built from nasty to a low howl through the pines. Rudi felt an impulse to hunch as he faced into it; instead he just leaned a little. When the two Rangers came in sight, they were only twenty yards away. ?Old farmhouse, sheds and barns,? Ritva said, slapping snow off her ermine-trimmed hood and white face mask and pointing behind herself. ?The farmhouse is down,? Mary continued.?Looks like it was abandoned before the Change and collapsed a couple of years ago. Lots of nice dry wood.? ?One barn is still mostly up,? Ritva continued.?We didn?t check inside, but the roof?s on. It?s one of those potato barns. No tracks we could see, but that doesn?t mean much in this. It?s about a mile; up past that low rocky hill, right on an old laneway through some hemlocks.? ?Good!? Rudi said.

  They?d seen many of the potato barns in the sandy district behind them; they were three-quarters sunken in the earth to insulate the root crop for storage over winter. That would make it relatively snug. He thought for a moment, then: ?Matti, get the train moving. Fred, Virginia, rearguard. Ignatius, you?re point for the train with Jake. Mary, Ritva, Ingolf, Edain with me; we?ll break trail.? ?Me too,? Pierre Walks Quiet said. ?All right. Let?s be going. Faster we?re settled in, the faster we can cook supper!?

  The wind was hard enough to make skiing into it a chore now, even with pine and birch closing in around them; he was glad of the dogsled to hang on to sometimes, and they all gave a little collective grunt of relief as they came into the shelter of the hill. The laneway was probably a farm track by origin, invisible dirt taking off from equally invisible broken pavement in the growing white mist. Half the snow was fresh, slanting down from the low clouds, and half whipped off the ground by the snarling wind, hiding his own legs when he looked down. When they came through the hemlocks the impact w
as enough to snatch his breath away; even Garbh hesitated a little before bounding forward at Edain?s side, rising and falling in fresh spurts of snow.

  It got a little better when they reached the tumbled ruins; someone had planted windbreaks long ago, sugar maples mostly, and beeches. They were bare now, but they were big, towering eighty feet or better, and there were a lot of them with trunks nearly as thick as a man. The farmhouse had been substantial, and old-its remains didn?t have the matchstick look that structures from just before the Change displayed when they went down.

  Now it was a pile of board and beam slumped into its cellar, and so were most of the outbuildings; a silo had broken off and left jagged teeth standing upright like a shattered tooth. Nearby the rusted hulk of some machine of the ancient world-the type called tractor -stood forlorn, half buried. The potato barn was a low long rectangle, roofed in curved sheet metal and with ventilators rising from the top like pipes crowned with pointed conical hats. ?Seems perfect,? he said-or rather, shouted.?Let?s take a look.?

  They did; the boards of the building?s sides were mostly intact, and the glass in a couple of windows unsmashed. The entrance was double doors, sagging open, down a ramp that must have been for the passage of wagons. They approached, then kicked out of their skis and set those upright in the snow. It was nearly knee-deep on the humans when they put their feet down.

  Garbh stopped just outside the entranceway, and even over the wind?s keening he could hear the ratcheting menace of her snarl. Edain and he shouted as one: ?Watch out!?

  Warrior?s reflex overrode surprise; he could feel it happening, like a surge of fire through the cold sluggishness of his body. A great dark shape came out of the doors like something shot from a catapult; he could hear the dogsled team going wild in their traces. Garbh leapt for a throat and was batted aside like a rag doll, turning head-over-heels with a whining yelp of surprise. The bear had to rear on its hind legs to do that, though, roaring in gape-jawed rage. That gave Edain his single chance. The longbow spat an arrow, and the roar turned to a coughing gurgle for a moment as the cloth yard shaft transfixed the thick neck.

  Rudi had his sword out now, in the two-handed grip; not what he?d have chosen to fight an animal three times his weight, quick as a cat and stronger than a team of plow oxen, but it was a great deal better than nothing or a knife if you didn?t have a hunting spear to hand. The bruin hesitated only an instant, and then it was on him. Like a wall of dark fur it reared, and the paws swung like living maces fit to snap necks and spatter brains.

  Whippt.

  The claws passed half an inch from his face as he drove in and ducked; some part of him cursed the snow for hampering his feet. He twisted and hewed, and the yard of sharp steel raked a great forearm open to the bone and skidded off that. Blood spattered at him, striking his goggles, blinding him. He threw himself backward frantically, landing on his back in snow that hampered and clung as he tore them off. Only an instant, but the bear was looming over him like the shadow of incarnate Death, ready to fall in an avalanche of teeth and claws. Rudi snarled back at it, coming up to one knee and tensing for the last effort.

  A chain snaked out of the night and whipped around the bear?s forepaw. The sickle-blade at the end sank in as Mary set her feet and pulled. The bear?s stroke was thrown off, but at the end of her fighting iron the hundred and fifty-odd pounds of Dunedain woman and her gear traced an arc through the gathering darkness almost as spectacular as Garbh?s a moment earlier. She?d wrapped the end around her waist for leverage, and now it worked the other way.

  There was a wail of:?Oh, rrrrrrhaich!? and a thump. ?Firo, pen u-celeg!? Ritva screamed, and loosed an arrow from her recurve.?Firo, brog!?

  There was a wet thunk as it hammered into the beast?s hip bone.

  That wasn?t going to fulfill the cry of:?Die, foul beast! Die, bear!? But it would help.

  Rudi surged up while it was distracted, his whole body twisting into the two-handed drawing slash across its belly. Impact shocked up his wrists and arms, more like hitting an oak pell than a man. Fur and thick hide and fat and muscle parted under the desperate power of the blow, and intestines spilled out like writhing pink eels as he followed through. Something hit him, stunning-hard, and sent him through the air; he tasted blood and felt his face tingle and stars shoot through his vision.

  Rudi rolled through the snow, blinded by it. Someone landed across him as he did-Ingolf, he realized, as he heard the flat vowels of his curses. They struggled to get up without cutting each other open on longsword or shete, and then an arrow hissed between their heads. ?Be sodding careful!? he bellowed.

  Back on his feet he could barely see the beast through the horizontal wail of the snow, though its moaning bellow was loud. Pierre Walks Quiet had an actual hunting spear with him, lashed to the dogsled. Now he?d gotten it free, and he dashed in and thrust. The long point went home in the bear?s chest, but it charged even with its staggering feet tripping in its own guts. He ran backward through the snow, half falling, until the butt-cap of the spear rang on the side of the buried tractor. The machine rocked backward, but the impact drove the weapon deep into the charging animal as well.

  Rudi and Ingolf hobbled forward. Edain was already there; even Garbh was, limping but game. Her master shot twice, Ritva once, and then Rudi and Ingolf each slammed the edge of their long blades into its spine.

  The bear sank forward; Pete?s thin form wriggled out from beneath it, the arms and chest of his parka wet with its blood and fluids. The animal gave a last whimper, pawed at its neck, and went limp. ?Back! Let Brother Bear die!? Rudi snapped.?Is everyone all right? Sound off!?

  His folk did. Ritva returned with Mary?s arm over her shoulder; the one-eyed Ranger staggered over to Ingolf. ?Are you all right, honey? Bar melindo,? he added. ?I?m… just… thumped…? she wheezed, half collapsing against him.?Nothing… broken.?

  She grinned, though a little painfully.?I feel like I?ve been hit by a bear!?

  Rudi wiped the blood from his sword, feeling his pulse slow and the sweat that soaked his underclothing turn gelid. Controlling his breathing turned it deep and slow and took the tremor out of his hands. There were knocks that would be painful bruises, but that was no novelty. ?Now, that was more like a matter of excitement, anxiety and dread than I prefer before dinner!? he said lightly.

  He bent to touch the bear?s blood to his forehead and murmur the rite of passing; it had been a brave beast, and deserved honor. ?Why did it go for us?? Pierre Walks Quiet said.?They usually don?t, unless they?re real hungry, or you push them into a corner, or it?s a mother with cubs. We hadn?t gone in to its den… and it?s early for a bear to den up for the winter, even with the weather like this.?

  Ingolf bent to examine it; snow was collecting on its open eyes and on its mouth and nostrils, which meant it wasn?t going to get up again. He spoke thoughtfully, if you could when you had to shout: ?It wasn?t mean-sick either. Big healthy four-year-old male, I?d say. And see, nice und fat for winter. That makes them more peaceable, most times.?

  Mary nodded, shrugged, and then winced a little.?Bears are unpredictable,? she said.?Even black bears.?

  Rudi went on:?I don?t know. Perhaps we should have a rite for the Father of Bears. I do know one thing, though.? ?What?? Edain said.

  He was looking around for a place to haul the carcass up to drain, and testing the edge of his knife.

  Rudi grinned.?I know what we?ll be havin? for dinner!?

  Epona whickered at him, raising her head from a heap of feed pellets made of compressed alfalfa and cracked oats and sugar-beet molasses. Rudi whickered back in the horse-tongue; a sound that meant, Yes, I?m here, relax, as near as he could tell. The smell of bear was not calculated to make horses easy, even one as brave as Epona. Nor that of blood. ?Oft evil will will evil mar,? Mary muttered, leaning back against Ingolf?s chest.

  She was a little tiddly with the applejack they?d brought from Readstown. They had fires down the length of the potato barn, and it had heated up to the point where y
ou were reasonably comfortable without your parka-provided you kept everything else on. The body heat of the people and that from the horses down near the entrance helped, and the quick patches they?d made on holes in the walls, and the way the snow was piling up outside. It made good insulation.

  Bear meat roasted over the coals, sending up little fragrant spurts as drops of fat fell from the richly marbled flesh; a slight blue haze hung under the ceiling, until it drifted out the unblocked ventilators. The air smelled of cooking, and the dryish earth beneath them with its residues of old crops long rotted away to nothing, and less nameable things. They?d found human bones here too, but very old, and much scattered by small scavengers except for the skulls. He?d judged them to be a man, a woman and a young child by the size, and victims of the Change. You still found the like anywhere protected from quick decay, and not near living settlements.

  There had been a message in shaky hand scratched on the wall: Two weeks out of Green Bay. We?re all sick. I think from bad water. Please, God, someone, help us.

  I hope they?ve found peace in the Summerlands, Rudi thought. And better luck next time.

  They?d buried what remained. Father Ignatius had said the words and planted a cross, it being most likely that they were Christians. ?I said, oft evil will will evil mar,? Mary repeated a little louder.

  Her half brother raised a brow, sitting cross-legged with the small of his back against his rolled sleeping bag, gnawing mouthfuls off a rib; it was good if a little strong tasting, and much like pork.

  Much like wild boar, he thought. Gamy but not too much so.

  The rich taste of the meat and crisp fat filled his mouth pleasantly; the bear had been eating beechnuts and roots and berries that gave its flesh an aromatic tang. Garbh was lying on her back near Edain in an ecstatic daze, her belly rounded out to tautness and her tongue dangling over her fangs. ?And what would you be meanin? by that cryptic remark?? he asked Mary, a teasing light in his eyes.?And yes, I realize it?s from the Histories. You needn?t give chapter and verse.?