The Sword of the Lady c-3

by S. M. Stirling

  Then he took a bite of roast potato-they?d traded for some spuds several days ago at the last farmstead they passed-and a sip of hot spruce-tip tea. ?I mean that loathsome morn-curuni, that black wizard in the red robe,? she said owlishly.?Sending us storms like Saruman did to the Fellowship on Caradhras.?

  Ingolf looked over her head-she was leaning back against his chest with his thick arms wrapped around her-and said: ?Yah hey, that?s more sensible than I?d like to admit,? he said reluctantly. ?And maybe the bear,? Ritva said thoughtfully.?That would be canonical, too. Well, nearly. Sending wargs and crebain was.? ?Same thing,? Mary said. ?Is not.? ?Is! Well, yes, it was a clean bear. Anyway, the storms made it easier for us to move by ski and sled earlier, and now this bear has helped with our food supplies; so the evil will is marring evil. Pass me another skewer of the liver, would you?? ?Bad medicine, either way,? Pierre Walks Quiet said.

  He took some of the meat between his teeth, sliced it off near his lips with his curved skinning knife, then went on after he?d chewed and swallowed: ?I?m not happy about this place.? Just then the whole metal roof of it, that had survived a quarter-century of winters since the Change, thuttered as if the wind outside would rip it off. The sound had been growing more muffled as the snow built up; now it came louder again, and the south wall creaked a bit as much of the load above fell there with a muffled grumbling like distant thunder. One of the horses threw up its head and tried to pull its tether free. Epona mooched over to the gelding and shoved at it until it subsided, then stood leaning her head on its withers reassuringly.

  Virginia Kane shuddered.?You mean, that bear was… was sent to get us? Like some sort of hex??

  She made a sign against sorcery that Rudi had seen used among the Lakota. Fred Thurston waited a moment and signed the Hammer with his fist, a bit self-consciously, as if reminding himself. ?Father Ignatius?? Mathilda said from beside Rudi.

  His hand rubbed her back companionably; she was sitting with her sleeping bag around her shoulders like a blanket, and her arms wrapped around her knees. ?It?s a matter of dispute how much actual power the Adversary can give those who serve him,? the monk said soberly.?And why God permits it.?

  He finished wiping down his sword with an oily rag and sheathed it before winding the belt around the scabbard and setting it aside… where he could draw instantly. Then he gazed into the fire for a moment before signing himself and going on: ?I think the empirical evidence indicates that the answer to the first question is quite a bit, in this case. As for the other, He moves in mysterious ways, to make even evil serve His plan in the end. We can pray for protection, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints.? ?Please do!? Rudi said, and heaved himself upright.?The expedition,? he added to Matti as she looked a question at him.

  That was Portlander dialect for need to piss. He did make use of the area where they?d dug a pit and screened off with sections of board; that privacy was a luxury, of course. They?d put it by the entrance, on the other side of the horses, which meant he had to spend a few minutes with Epona as well, resting his head on her neck while she nibbled at his hair. The strong earthy-grassy smell of her was reassuring; he?d spend a lot of time as a boy with her, just drifting about and thinking in the meadows below Dun Juniper. That had been perfectly safe; for him, at least, if not for anyone or anything that tried to harm him while she was there.

  The doors had been roughly repaired and strongly braced, but they rattled and sent sprays of snow and cold at him through the slits and gaps and the blanket-covered gap where sentries went in and out.

  The sleds were arranged to shelter the ramp and tightly lashed together; the dogs were staked out on a line, sleeping easily beneath the snow but ready to wake at clues a human could never sense. Most of the gear was inside, along with as much firewood as all thirty-odd of them had been able to drag before the weather got too thick. On the other side of the entranceway to the building was a dark nook where they?d put the head of the bear, and buried the rent hide and such of the body as hadn?t gone to feed the folk or the sled dogs. Though Edain had kept the claws, to give to friends of his whose sept totem was Bear, when he got home.

  Rudi paused there on his way back and made reverence, clapping his palms twice and then pressing them together with his thumbs on his chin and fingers touching brow as he bowed from the waist. For a long moment he went down on one knee and stared into the dead eyes; shadows from the fires made them seem almost alive, coals in a mask of snarling ferocity.

  Then he spoke softly:?Horned Lord of the Beasts, witness that we killed from need, not wantonness; to protect ourselves and for food. This we do knowing that for us also the Hour of the Huntsman will come; for Earth must be fed and our bodies are but borrowed from Her for a little while. Brother Bear, fellow warrior, we praise the brave fight you made, and we thank you for your gift of life. Go in peace to the honey-meads beyond the Western Gate, where no evil comes and all hurts are healed. Speak well of us to the Guardians, and be reborn through Her who is Mother-of-All.?

  He thought for a moment, then drew the Invoking Pentacle and continued:?And You strong spirit of the forest, Father of Bears, if wrong was done to Your child, know that we are guiltless of it. We have given Your son his honor and seemly rites. My blood father was called the Bear Lord, and though my totem is Raven, we are kin, You and I. Let Your just wrath fall on those who broke the laws laid on humankind in their dealings with the other kindreds. So mote it be!?

  When he came back to the main fire the frozen blueberry turnovers were ready and sending out a toasty-sweet smell. He bit into one, relishing the buttery taste of the envelope and the tang of the filling. It took several before he felt replete, despite pounds of bears? flesh and potatoes and hard twice-baked rye bread. He?d always been a hearty eater; he was a big man, and his lean height was active beyond the common run even when he didn?t have to be, but this style of winter voyaging and the demands it made were something new to him. ?Wendigo weather,? Pierre Walks Quiet said, after they?d all spent a little time in song and tale-telling.?The colder it is, the more they walk.?

  Rudi nodded. It made sense that a spirit of hunger would grow stronger in this season when the body?s demands were so great.

  They?d agreed that the ones who?d fought the bear would be spared guard-watch duty for the night; the sled dogs helped with that, too. Sleeping out in the snow was no hardship for them, though they preferred a spot by the fire when they could get it. Matti finished her evening devotions, slipped off her boots and eeled into her sleeping bag. Rudi did the same, making sure his boots and sword belt were ready to hand. She cuddled against his back, a pleasant solidity even through the double thickness of bags and clothes. ?Nice,? she murmured sleepily. ?That it is,? he replied.

  And I?m being entirely truthful the now, which shows just how tired I am, mo chroi!

  The fire died down, skillfully banked. He let himself fall into the soft dark…

  … and the cave was deep and darker still. Red eyes moved within it, and a gathering wrath that prickled his skin like a summer thunderstorm, and a rank harsh scent and carnivore breath. An earthquake-deep growl spoke to him. A black wet nose explored his face; it was his own height or more, a bear but not quite a bear, longer-limbed and shorter of face and much, much larger than any he knew. The hairy bulk pushed past him, and he heard its feet falling heavy on the rocky floor…

  He woke with a little start. Something told him it was hours later, deep night, the hours when the blood ran sluggish. The dream faded, becoming fragments that spun into drowsy nothingness. Somewhere a little ways away a woman?s voice spoke, gasping softly: ?Garo nin, bar melindo, garo nin!?

  Rudi grinned in the dark. Somehow he didn?t think the Histories included quite that use of the Elvish words for have me, darling! but he supposed it marked it as a living language once more. And you couldn?t begrudge newlyweds.

  Let them have what pleasure they can. I suspect this is going to be a grim journey, and no mistake.

  Major G
raber looked down grimly at the rent and bloody carcass of the Bekwa sentry. Teeth grinned back at him where the face had been stripped away, and even in the cold there was a slight rusty-iron smell of death, and something musky beneath it. ?Tiger or bear,? he said.?Possibly a catamount. Not much eaten.?

  Though there was a great deal spattered, bits of flesh and hair up ten or twelve feet on the neighboring red spruces. One of his lieutenants bent over a patch of snow, fingers moving with steady delicacy. More was sifting down, but you could separate layers if you were skillful. ?Bear, Major,? he said. ?That?s the third one this week,? Graber said.?It?s delaying us. We?re not going to catch them at this rate. Especially if it keeps snowing.?

  He glared at the High Seeker for an instant, before self-control reasserted itself. The Bekwa dogsleds were far faster than he?d thought they would be, but snowshoes just weren?t as good as skis when you tried to make speed, and their scavenged horses were losing what condition they?d had. Soon they?d have to start eating them, which would slow them further.

  Dalan looked at him, then up at the low clouds, then to the north and east. Two of the savages? shamans were behind him. Their movements followed his exactly, as if they and his shadow were all linked by invisible cords. One of them was weeping from an expressionless face, tears freezing on the skin. ?We can gain on them if we go that way,? he said, and pointed.?We cut the cord of their arc. And… if we miss them there, another Seeker was sent this way last year. He will await us with supplies and help. On the river the ancients called Lawrence, near the ruined city of Royal Mount.?

  Graber nodded; he was well schooled in mathematics, which were one of the languages of the Ascended Masters, and useful besides, and in maps. ?As you command, High Seeker,? he said.

  The wind howled counterpoint as he gave his orders. He shivered a little; not with the cold, but with the gray sameness of it. Had there ever been anything but pursuit and fight and endless trudging? Had he ever ridden in the flower fields of spring, with the wind blowing keen pine-scented sweetness from the slopes of the Tetons? Or sat of an evening after dinner and watched his son take his first steps, laughing as he waved chubby arms?

  No weakness! he told himself sternly. The Prophet gave you this task himself, and you knew death in a foreign land was the most likely outcome. ?Bad, Chief,? Edain said succinctly.?They got hit less than a week ago, I?d say. More than a day. Hard to tell closer, in this icebox of a land.?

  Rudi looked over the little steading. Four or five families had dwelt there, in two long houses. They?d had a fishing boat for use on the northernmost of the great inland seas. That stretched northwards, frozen now, towards a little rocky islet half a mile away. The only remarkable thing in sight was the bow of a broken ship of the ancient world, towering in crumbling rust-eaten majesty where some storm had driven it on the rocks and broken its back.

  The shore bore some scratched-out fields in the rocky earth, with low pine and birch and aspen elsewhere. Shaggy stretches of bush marked ground which would be bog in the warm season, rich in berries and grass. The dwellers had probably hunted a good deal-the travelers had taken several deer they found in a winter yard not long ago themselves-and mined the wreck for metal to work up and trade elsewhere. A modest rectangular barn hinted at livestock, and a substantial smithy near it had two fieldstone chimneys. From the look of things he?d have guessed that the whole had been put up after the Change, but mostly of old-world materials salvaged from nearby.

  There was no smell of woodsmoke, and the cold was bitter. It had more moisture in it than usual, too, and that made it cut harder and sap the strength more. ?All dead,? Pete said, and spat.?I knew these people here. They were clean. My folks lived a bit east and south, and we traded with ?em. Whoever hit here, they call the Wendigo to themselves on purpose.?

  Edain nodded.?Parts of them are… gone. Like it was a rite.?

  He looked indignant at that, at the profanation of sacred things as much as the cruelty. ?They?re pinned to the walls, what?s left of them. It went hard for them, even the little ones.?

  The younger Mackenzie spat, to show what an honorable warrior thought of such dealings. He also held out a broken bit of arrow, just enough to show the black fletching and neatly made horn nock. ?This was in one of the bodies outside, where they tried to fight.?

  Rudi rolled it between his fingers, then made a gesture that brought the core of his questers gathered around him. ?Any fodder left?? he asked. ?No grain,? Edain said.?That was cleared out-oats and rye, it was, from the few kernels left, and spuds. Plenty of hay still, to be sure. No clover in it, looks like marsh grass, but lots of it and well cured.? ?Good. We?ll let the horses gorge; and we?ll have shelter.?

  Edain shook his head violently.?I?ll not be sleeping under that roof, Chief.?

  Rudi smiled mirthlessly.?I wouldn?t either. No, the houses we?ll burn, to make Earth clean of it. The barn will do for us and our beasts as well.? ?That?ll draw them,? Ritva warned.?It?ll tell them exactly where we are.? ?Sister of mine, I?m counting on it. Pete, what?s the ice like out there?? ?Thicker than it should be. More like Christmas, or even Janvier, maybe. But it?s spotty and don?t go too far out. Still too thin to carry any weight in some places, foot or better thick in others, so you could drive a sled or even ride horses over it.?

  Ingolf nodded.?Some places hard as rock, and then you hear a crackle. Seemed to me it?s thicker eastwards. Piled up by the current, maybe. Snow?s wind-packed on the surface, not too deep except drifts here and there. Like Pete says, it?s way, way ahead of time.?

  Rudi looked out over the lake, out to where white ice faded into the white-gray sky without a perceptible horizon. The surface wasn?t table smooth, as he?d imagined it would be; it was more as if waves themselves had frozen, with lumps like congealed porridge here and there, and it was covered with hard-packed snow driven by the wind into rippled patterns. The rocky islet was visible on the edge of sight, topped by a few twisted pines; only the shipwreck made it easy to spot now. Wisps of snow or ice crystal scudded over the surface, gusting up man-high now and then, ankle deep most of the time.

  He thought for a moment longer, then held up the stub of arrow:?I think this was done by our un-friends,? he said.?Not just the Sword of the Prophet-say what you like of the Cutters, they aren?t Eaters. They?ve picked up local allies, such as our friend Walks Quiet warned they might have.?

  Everyone nodded. The Indian?s hand fell unconsciously to the hilt of his bowie knife with its beaded sheath. ?And it?s also my thought that they?ve gotten ahead of us and are planning on an ambush, the creatures.?

  Jake sunna Jake grunted.?Bad,? he said succinctly.?Don?t like trap-inside.? Then he grinned.?Like when you and the Archer see us first, eh, Rudi-man??

  Everyone nodded. Fred said thoughtfully: ?Dad always said that you should force a fight when the enemy?s got the jump on you and can make you give battle anyway. Force it on your own terms.?

  Victoria pursed her lips thoughtfully.? My Dad always said if you know it?s a trap, it?s still a trap-for the other guy. You can bust it from the inside. He wrecked the Cutters good a couple of times that way,?fore they wore us Powder River folks down.?

  Rudi nodded respectfully.?That?s my thought exactly. The enemy will outnumber us, so we need to seize advantage. This will require careful scouting, but we have that heavy little surprise in the last sled of the four-?

  The pillar of smoke on the horizon turned to a tiny thread as Major Graber lowered his binoculars. ?That is the hamlet the Bekwa destroyed,? he said, his voice freighted with disgust.?Allowing that was… unwise. Bad tactics.? ?They are savages,? Dalan said, with a shrug.?Besides, it matters little what happens to the bodies of the soulless. They are as animals anyway.?

  Graber grunted noncommittally. That was perilously close to making apologies for abomination; the Dictations were clear that the form of humanity was sacred, even among the merely physical who lacked true men?s atman and who it was fully lawful to kill. In any case… ?It gave us away,? he said.

 
What was that ancient saying? Worse than a crime, a mistake. ?We cannot wait for them, then, if they are likely to be too wary,? Dalan said.?There are less than forty of them in all. Your troopers of the Sword of the Prophet alone outnumber them, and we have more than a hundred of the Bekwa and their allies.?

  Reluctantly, Graber nodded.

  I do not like to give battle when an enemy invites it, he thought. Even when I have the advantage of numbers. Especially with this enemy. Still, we do have the numbers, and there are no extraneous factors here. It?s a flat plain, in effect; hell for quartermasters, but a tactician?s paradise. I need only hit them with a hammer heavier than any they can lift.

  A brief brightness: And then… home? ?They?re coming in straight from the east,? Ritva panted.?About forty mounted men, the rest on foot.? ?How many of those?? ?Better than one hundred of them, less than two.? ?Ready, then,? Rudi said; he ignored the arrow standing in the cantle of her saddle, as did she.?Fall in.?

  Now, let?s either all get killed, or do something I?d be calling truly spectacular, he thought with a taut grin. Lady Morrigu, cover me with Your wings. Lugh of the Many Skills, be with me now!

  The little island and its wreck were not far to their rear; the shore was a line of gray and dark green off to the left. It had begun to snow again, a slow light drift of large fluffy flakes. He suppressed an impulse to catch one on his tongue, as he?d liked to do as a child. He?d been praying for a little extra snow, not too much, just enough to cover everything better than careful brushwork could do. And there were worse things to do than catch a snowflake, on what might be your last day in this turn of the Wheel of Life…

  Instead he looked behind himself and made sure that the guide marks were plainly visible but inconspicuous; he?d made himself unpopular by taking everyone through it over and over again. Even though they?d all known that more likely than not the plan would go south, or change unpredictably. A few crows went by overhead from the shore woods to the island, or perhaps ravens. Somehow they always knew when men were about to lay a feast for them. ?Forward, my friends,? he said quietly.?The Lord and Lady keep Their hand over you.?