The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

  Then he coughed, looked down at the arrowhead that jutted from his leather coat, coughed again in a spray of red, and slumped away. One high-heeled boot caught in a twisted stirrup as he fell, and the horse moved away dragging him and looking back over its shoulder, dancing sideways until the boot slid off the foot and the body dropped free. Then it galloped away.

  Mike Havel had given the Bearkillers many sayings. One was:

  Fair fights are for suckers.

  Another was:

  One for all, and all on one.

  ″Thanks,″ she wheezed to Will Larsson, wiping drops of blood off her eyelids with the leather on the palm of one gauntlet. ″Been a few years since I did this.″

  Long enough to forget how it can leave you feeling like a wet dishcloth in a few seconds, she thought, struggling to take steady deep breaths.

  ″De nada,″ he replied, his smile white.

  He came by the tag naturally; his mother Luanne′s mother was Tejano, and Angelica Hutton had been the Outfit′s quartermaster-general since that meant cooking dinner personally. His maternal grandfather had been a black horse-breaker from the Texas hills. The combination of that Afro-Anglo-Hispano-Indio mix with Eric′s Nordic heritage had given him exotic good looks, bluntly regular full-lipped features, skin the smooth pale light brown of a perfect soda biscuit, eyes midnight blue and hair curling from under the edge of his helmet in locks of darkest yellow.

  A look around the Sword of the Prophet were cantering forward a little as her A-listers pursued the fleeing ranchers′ men. The A-list lancers reined in at the very fringe of the area covered by the fort′s war engines, turned, and cantered back towards her. The Corwinites halted again when the CORA men started lofting arrows at them from extreme range, a bit over two hundred yards with a saddle bow. The survivors of the Pendleton force drew up behind the Prophet′s guardsmen—all but a few who kept going east as fast as they could quirt their horses.

  ″We beat ′em!″ Will said.

  ″Good as we can expect, dammit,″ she said.

  Mike Jr. was out of the saddle, pulling at the shaft of his lance with a foot braced on the body of the man it pierced, looking grim but not too wobbly. The lance was disposable, but the banner had to be retrieved. And bloodstains were nothing new on a Bearkiller battle flag.

  This was his second real fight, not his first, she reminded herself.

  ″Trooper,″ she said. Mike looked up. ″Put something white on the end of that, and ask the enemy commander whether he′s interested in a mutual half-hour truce, for each side to retrieve their wounded.″

  It took an effort to say; the enemy—even the Prophet′s fanatics—usually respected a flag of truce on the battlefield. About as often as her side did, for the same self-interested reasons. That still meant sending her son into talking distance of men for whom mercy was scarcely even a concept.

  I can′t treat Mike any different from the way I would any bannerman, she told herself.

  He grinned at her and saluted crisply. ″Yes, ma′am!″

  Signe slid her unmarked sword back into the scabbard and rested the palms of her gauntlets on the horn of her saddle for an instant, waiting tensely while her son cantered over the battlefield and picked his way between fallen men and horses. The sun had barely risen at all; the whole affair had taken less than half an hour. Mike waved at her after an instant′s conversation with the man beneath Corwin′s flag of golden-rayed sun on a bloodred ground before turning and galloping back. She kept her breath of relief behind her lips until he was out of arrow range.

  Will used his trumpet again, and the light two-wheel carts came forward to gather the hurt, with medics jumping down to administer first aid. For a moment there was little sound, except the sough of wind and the shrieks and moans and whimpers of humans and horses in pain. That became less, as the wounded animals were put down and the men given morphine.

  The Mackenzie commander came up, running afoot with one hand on the stirrup leather of his mounted opposite number from the CORA contingent, the longbow pumping in his left hand.

  ″Montival′s secret weapon strikes again, you might be after sayin′,″ the grinning leader of the Mackenzie archers said; he was an olive-skinned young man named Beech, after the tree. ″We′ve only a few hurt. They should all make it.″

  ″Stung ′em bad,″ the rancher said. ″We paid for it, but they′re busted for now. Bastards won′t have as many men to go raiding after our herds next time!″

  His name was McGinty, and he had a bullhide breastplate with his own Bar Z brand pyrographed on the boiled leather. The horsehair plume on his helmet bobbed as he chuckled.

  He′s younger than me, too. So many are these days. Forty′s not old! Well, forty-two.

  That thought marked her age itself. These days, forty was fairly well along. Not many people beyond their first youth had survived the generation since the Change; she′d been eighteen then, herself. It was some consolation that she looked a lot younger than her age by today′s standards, since she didn′t pass her days in field labor.

  ″Get your people heading east to camp,″ she said to the Mackenzie. ″Don′t get settled in there, either.″

  ″We′re leaving?″ he said. ″After this fine and glorious thrashing we gave them, and the kicking of their arse so hard their teeth came marching out like little pikemen on parade?″

  Signe nodded towards the fort; a century of Boise infantry were double-timing out of the gates . . . and they had a fieldpiece with them.

  ″With that as a base, this isn′t a healthy locality,″ she said grimly. ″Move. We′ll accompany and the Bar Z men will cover us both. Eat, get your gear packed, get on your bicycles and clear out to the next rally point. And could you get that so-called musician to stop torturing that poor agonized pig?″

  ″′Tis scarcely war at all without a piper!″

  The clansfolk moved in a ground-eating trot that made it easy for the cavalry to hang behind them. The allied force′s hasty encampment was four miles up the road—where another small bridge had spanned a gulch that scored the rolling plain, muddy save for patches of snow now, potentially a torrent. There was no glimpse of the Cascades on the western horizon . . . not quite, unless you used binoculars. Her horse picked its way across the streambed, hooves clotting with temporary boots of black sludge. The Mackenzies took the stretchers with the wounded on their shoulders, cheerfully trudged through the glop themselves, and manhandled the empty ambulance carts over.

  They even found energy to sing, as they strutted into camp with their piper sounding off, a rollicking tune with a chorus that went:

  ″Gather the sheaves of harvest-time lightly

  Many a day will they strengthen our kin;

  Gather the sheaves of arrow shafts tightly

  Many a battle their feathers will win!

  Call the names of the clansmen who′ve fallen;

  Let them be carried like seeds on the wind!″

  The bridge had been as thoroughly destroyed as thermite, metal saws and enthusiastic sledgehammers could manage in the time they′d had.

  ″That′ll delay them,″ Will said as their mounts surged up the low slope on the other side of the stream.

  Rock rattled down as hooves pushed them out of the damp sandy earth. His cousin snorted.

  ″Yah. Just as long as it takes Thurston′s engineers to bring up materials to build a replacement,″ Mike said. ″While they also bring up enough troops to hold us off.″

  His face turned to her. ″Moth—I mean, Ma′am, why aren′t we bringing up enough force to stop this? They′re nailing down Highway 20 like someone tacking down a strip of carpet. At this rate, they′ll be at the gates of Bend by springtime. After that there′s nothing to stop them short of the forts in the passes over the Cascades.″

  ″Trooper, we′re not doing that because they′re doing something like this in half a dozen other places as well. If we put more troops here, they′d push west faster somewhere else.″

 
Greasewood fires were burning under big aluminum kettles cut down from old trash barrels; the smell made spit run into her mouth as her stomach unclenched. Signe swung down from her horse, wondering where several suddenly painful incipient bruises and wrenched joints had come from—except for the ones under her shield arm, and the wrist of her sword hand, which she knew about full well. Military apprentices attended to the Bearkillers′ chores, taking the barding off the A-lister horses, packing it on mules, handing out food. They were young men and women of Will and Mike′s age, and this was part of their training.

  Was this really more exciting when I was campaigning with Mike? she wondered.

  She quickly spooned down thick barley-and-mutton soup, gnawing on a tasteless wheatcake with alternate bites from a raw onion and a lump of rocklike cheese that bit back at the inside of her mouth. Then she used the last of the flatbread to mop out the bowl before she tossed it back.

  Or am I just getting nostalgic? Nostalgic for a war, of all things. Frigga witness, I was a fucking vegetarian before the Change, and the next thing to a pacifist. Though that didn′t last long after I met Mike.

  ″Was this ever better, Aaron?″ she said aloud. ″I remember it as being . . . fresher back in the War of the Eye, and before that. Not as boring, not as uncomfortable, not as frightening either.″

  The slim sixtysomething physician didn′t look up from his work with splint and bandages, his hands moving with a swift, impersonal gentleness as the man whose leg had been pulped by a war hammer stirred and moaned beneath the drug. He hadn′t taken the field lately either, having been the Outfit′s chief doctor since before they arrived back in Oregon in the first Change Year. Supposedly his jobs were training and administration.

  ″No, it was mostly about like this,″ he said shortly. ″You′re just remembering being young and hormonally optimistic and in love, and retrospectively you know we won. More or less. So yes, you are just getting senile nostalgia. Enjoy the mild case now. It gets steadily worse as age and sagging bits and tits and those wrinkles at the corners of your blue, blue eyes accumulate.″

  ″Fuck you, Aaron,″ she said, smiling.

  ″I′m afraid not. You were never quite butch enough for me, Signe darling,″ he replied.

  ″And they call me a superbitch!″

  ″Unjustly. Women just can′t manage bitchery with any style, so I′ve got you outclassed. Besides, I was always madly jealous, which justifies it.″

  She laughed; that was a running joke between the two of them, and actually true. Aaron Rothman had been hopelessly in love with Mike Havel too, from the day he′d been rescued from a band of Eaters not long after the Change; not that that unrequited longing had ever kept him from a love life surprisingly varied for their staid little rural community at Larsdalen. He finished off, signaled to the stretcher-bearers and limped over to her—the cannibals had made a start on him by taking his left foot off a few days before the nascent Bearkillers arrived. He was looking over her shoulder.

  ″Oh, oh, oh,″ he murmured. ″It′s our stylishly brutal neofeudal friends, with their banners unfurled.″

  She turned, and recognized the colorful split-tailed pennant of a high PPA noble at the head of the party coming down from the northwest, almost before the outposts reported it. Her brows went up as she removed her helmet and tucked her armored gauntlets into her sword belt and waited. They went higher as she saw the blazon on the forked pennant and the quartering on the big kite-shaped shields northern knights used—the Portland Protective Association′s Lidless Eye with sable, a delta or over a V argent.

  The Grand Constable herself, she thought, keeping her lips from showing teeth. After the loathsome Sandra Machiavelli-in-a-skirt Arminger, my unfavoritist of all our dear Associate allies. A lance of bodyguards, Baroness Tiphaine d′Ath, some hangers-on, and two other nobles. Wait, no, that′s a knight-brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict with her. And I know the other guy′s face. He′s Sir Ivo Marks.

  ″Hell-o,″ she murmured. ″Ivo is seneschal of Castle Campscapell out east of Walla Walla these days,″ she said quietly to Aaron. ″That′s on the front lines, and Boise is pushing hard there. What the hell is he doing back in the West?″

  ″Lady d′Ath,″ she said courteously as they drew rein and dismounted, handing the reins to their followers.

  ″Lady Signe,″ came the reply in that water-over-ice voice.

  The four men-at-arms and eight mounted crossbowmen in half-armor looked as if they′d come far and fast; so did their horses, despite the short string of remounts and sumpter mules.

  D′Ath never shows much sign of wear; you have to give the bitch that.

  The knight-brother and Ivo looked like they′d come a lot farther, and they both had the fading bruises and minor cuts that told of a serious fight not long ago. Ivo Marks looked like he′d lost his fight, too; something about the eyes. He was a thick-built man of Tiphaine′s age, four years younger than Signe but with his brown hair just beginning to go gray at the temples and starting to recede a bit. There were a few red veins in his cheeks as well.

  Brawling thug with a veneer of manners, she thought again. Typical of that generation of Associates. Not quite a Changeling, but a lot closer than me. At fourteen you′re a kid; eighteen is a borderline adult. Or it was. He′s not stupid, though.

  ″I am Brother Jerome,″ the warrior-monk said. ″Currently assigned as a liaison to the Portland Protective Association forces in the northeast. We have not met, Lady Signe.″

  Though that didn′t matter much. Mt. Angel seemed to have developed some sort of injection-molding process for turning out its knight-brothers a little after the Change. They differed only in complexion, and even that was uniformly weathered. Jerome′s bowl-cut tonsured hair was medium brown and his eyes were hazel, and his face was long and lumpy and horse-like; the alert stance even when exhausted was the standard, and the expression of mild, calm attention.

  ″You′ve been in action?″ d′Ath said, looking around and at the spray of blood drops smeared on Signe′s face.

  The Lady of the Bearkillers bit back: No, we just had a really rough game of football.

  D′Ath always annoyed her, made her feel halfway between angry and off-balance. Part of it was the personal history. They′d crossed swords a few times during the wars against the Association, and there had been that business in Corvallis where Tiphaine had made them all look like complete idiots just before the final conflict. Part of it was just the woman herself. Signe Havel could be as ruthless as necessary when she had to be, but d′Ath just had something missing in there somewhere, as if being a human being day to day was something she did as a conscious decision.

  And be honest with yourself, Signe, gay people creep you out a bit, she thought. Then with a glance at Aaron. No, be even more honest. Gay men are restful. Gay women creep you out a bit.

  ″Skirmish at their latest roadside fort,″ Signe said aloud. ″We beat them, more or less. They pulled out part of their cavalry once their fort was finished so we tried drawing them into an ambush. We inflicted a lot more losses than we took but they can replace theirs and we can′t. Technically we won. And then had to retreat. Hurrah.″

  The Grand Constable nodded. ″They can match our numbers everywhere and still keep a central reserve to switch around,″ she said. ″That means they can outnumber us whenever and wherever they feel it′s important. It′s . . . difficult.″

  It′s a recipe for fucking disaster, Signe thought but did not say. Unless they start making a lot of big mistakes. Which so far they haven′t. Neither have we. Absent idiocy on either side or the Gods taking a hand, numbers win.

  ″Well, your castles are holding them up in the Columbia Valley and the Palouse,″ she said instead. ″Which goes a long way to compensate for their numbers.″

  That had the virtue of being true, as well as complimentary. The only way to hold the Corwin-Boise alliance out if this open plain would be a pitched battle . . . and they′d tried that a
t Pendleton last year and lost.

  D′Ath frowned; if possible, her pale gray eyes grew chillier.

  ″We need to speak in confidence,″ she said. ″That′s why I′m here in person. I′ll be moving on to Bend to consult with the CORA leaders next, then back west to stop in Corvallis and Dun Juniper.″

  Signe nodded. ″Did anyone say stop working?″ she asked the air, and the curious onlookers within eavesdropping range withdrew. ″I want us to be ready to pull out of here, soonest!″

  Tiphaine looked at the doctor, who showed no sign of retreating with the others.

  ″Aaron is one of my closest advisors,″ Signe said. ″You can tell him anything you tell me.″

  Nobody mentioned Will and Mike Jr.; they were family, and learning the family business. Signe looked at the Association commander′s followers in turn.

  ″Armand and Rodard are my squires,″ Tiphaine said. ″And confidential agents. Sir Ivo and Brother Jerome were involved with the matter personally.″

  She took a deep breath and paused before speaking; Signe was surprised, and felt a trickle of alarm.

  What could be upsetting the Ice Dyke of Castle d′Ath?

  It wasn′t like her to hesitate to spit the truth out, however disagreeable. They′d had as little as possible to do with each other, but she knew that much.

  ″Castle Campscapell fell six days ago,″ the Associate said bluntly.

  Signe managed to control her impulse to grunt as if belly punched; her sister, Astrid, was operating her Ranger deep-reconnaissance and sabotage teams out of there right now, and her brother, Eric, was backing her up. They′d been running weapons to the Mormon guerillas and harassing enemy logistics in occupied New Deseret, as well. Aaron whistled almost silently.

  ″That . . . was a very strong keep,″ Signe said, and glared at Ivo.