The Desert and the Blade

by S. M. Stirling

  Kwame’s face twisted. “Luck of the devil!”

  Reiko made a gesture with her fan and spoke dryly. “That is more true than you can possibly understand, Captain Tillman. Though we would say akuma rather than demon.”

  The younger Topangans were looking bewildered; Órlaith brought the discussion back to the present.

  “And now it would seem they’re helping your enemies.”

  The Topangans nodded; that certainly trumped any lingering habits from before the Change. Órlaith considered for a moment. Then:

  “Could you give me a brief summary of Chatsworth’s numbers and gear and yours, Mr. Tillman, Captain Curtis?”

  They did, and Órlaith felt a slight inward wince. The ratio was not good. On the other hand, the Topangans had maintained themselves this long, which argued for basic strengths in their position as well as craft of the type the dark-faced commander had explained.

  And best of all, they’re telling me the truth. Perhaps not all of it, but they haven’t lied . . . and I’ve finally come far enough that they don’t know or don’t credit the Sword’s powers in that regard. Like the sailor in the story who walked inland with an oar over his shoulder until someone asked why he was carrying that strange-looking winnowing fan.

  “We need to consult briefly, if you would excuse us, gentlemen.”

  When they’d left she looked around the table; Droyn, Feldman, Heuradys and Diarmuid of her folk, and Reiko with Egawa and Ishikawa.

  “We’ve two choices. Involve ourselves in this, or take ship again and try from . . . Long Beach, wasn’t it, Captain Feldman?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s up to you, your Highness, but central LA is . . . very dangerous. Worse than San Francisco, if anything. Quite considerable salvage expeditions have just disappeared there, presumably overrun and eaten.”

  Órlaith sighed. “Including a few sent by my Nonni Sandra, to salvage artworks. Now in putting this expedition together, my concern was to keep it light and nimble. And here we are, where a battalion’s worth of heavy foot, a few score men-at-arms and some artillery would be most welcome!”

  Feldman spread his hands. “I could dismount some of my catapults, Your Highness. The problem is that if another ship shows up while they’re gone . . . well . . .”

  Órlaith nodded. “And our legal position is questionable. Fighting Eaters in self-defense is one thing, but attacking a civilized state within the boundaries of Montival . . . questionable, even though they haven’t signed the Charter. For neither have the Topangans.”

  “The ones in our way are in league with enemies of the realm and technically in breach of the High Kingdom’s peace,” Heuradys pointed out, and Diarmuid and Droyn nodded vigorously. “You’ve reached your age of majority if not Crown age Orrey, so you have the rights of the High, Middle and Low Justice in provinces that are Crownland and not in obedience to the Throne. Westria is Crownland and obviously nobody here in this part of it is in vassalage. Technically these Chatsworth people are rebels if they don’t submit at summons for making unlawful war, and you could take their heads.”

  “There is that, though we’ve never pushed it. Still, it would be easier if . . .” She snapped her fingers. “Ah, I have an idea there!”

  Reiko frowned and spoke: “If we go south, these . . . Chatsworth Lancers might attack us anyway; there is nothing between them and that place, is there? They are in league with the enemy—and perhaps under their control. Also the kangshinmu of the enemy seem to have influence over the minds of other jinnikukaburi . . . Eaters.”

  “That they do,” Órlaith said.

  “So with time to gather them, they could bring overwhelming numbers against us before we crossed the ruined city. There would be many opportunities for ambush or night attack.”

  “Also, Majesty, your Highness, this means that at least one more bakachon ship is here. Many pr . . . places to hide south of here, neh?” Ishikawa Goru put in.

  Feldman nodded. “Any number, Captain Ishikawa. Not much water available I imagine, but if they have local help that wouldn’t be an impossible problem. Which means they could show up where we’re anchored at any moment.”

  Reiko moved her fan decisively. “Better to fight here,” she said.

  “Agreed,” Órlaith said. “Though I’m uneasy about turning this into a straight-up battle, that I am.”

  Reiko nodded, her eyes narrowing. “Better to split the . . . Chatsworth Lancers . . . from the bakachon, if possible, neh?”

  “It’ll require the talents of all us, in various capacities, and a few days delay at least, but needs must. First—”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY OF TOPANGA

  (FORMERLY TOPANGA CANYON)

  CROWN PROVINCE OF WESTRIA

  (FORMERLY CALIFORNIA)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  JULY/FUMIZUKI 25TH

  CHANGE YEAR 46/SHOHEI 1/2044 AD

  Sir Droyn Jones de Molalla squinted a little because the afternoon sun was bright and hot ahead as he looked up at either side of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

  Steep mostly, and then some of it’s very steep, he thought. Easy to defend, but hard to till! In most places this would be a hunting preserve or just another stretch of nothing-in-particular with a few goatherds and maybe one manor and a few farms.

  He was in half-armor right now, his back-and-breast and vambraces and the faulds protecting his groin and upper thighs, with the visor removed from his sallet. And he had half a dozen of the crossbowmen with him, as well as the locals’ war-captain and several of his men. Droyn had been glad to get astride a horse again, even this sorry little borrowed nag, and see something new, even if it was steep and rocky and scrubby and dry. Sweat was running down under his breastplate and arming doublet, a familiar experience, but the sun was fierce enough that he was glad he wasn’t a redhead like his mother.

  “So, you’re from the Portland part of Montival?” Kwame said, as the land rose to the crest northward.

  Droyn thought he should have entitled his guest Sir Droyn, or my lord, but he was an outlander . . . and a man of rank, in the rude backward fashion of this place. One had to make allowances for isolation; and he was old enough to have been adult and set in his ways before the Change, which meant more allowances still. Men that old were rare now, and women of those years only a little more numerous.

  “Yes, Captain, I’m from the Portland Protective Association’s territories,” Droyn said. “Part of the High Kingdom of Montival, and far from the least part.”

  He didn’t know how much Curtis knew about the north, and it would be tactless to assume he knew less than he did. Her Highness had stressed how important it was to be diplomatic right now. He went on:

  “From County Molalla, southeast of Portland and on the border with the Queen of Angels Commonwealth.”

  “That’s what the de Molalla part of your name means?” Kwame said.

  Droyn made a modest gesture with his free hand. “Yes, House Jones holds the county as vassals in capite of the Lords Protector of the PPA. And through them of the High Kingdom. But I’m my lord my father Count Chaka’s third son, and so can expect only a modest inheritance. In my own right I’m just a knight in the Royal Household and the Crown Princess’ personal vassal.”

  “Don’t be too humble, son,” Kwame said.

  Droyn nodded. “Yes, my confessor says that false humility is an insidious form of pride. I am proud of my House, of course, for these arms have ever been at the forefront.”

  He tapped the shield slung over his back which bore the Lion-and-Assegai of House Jones, quartered with the royal Sword and Crowned Mountain of House Artos.

  “That’s our family crest. Chaka is the name of a—”

  Kwame nodded; there was sweat on his dark craggy face too, but he was ig
noring heat and effort with commendable toughness in a man of his years.

  “I’ve heard of Chaka Zulu.”

  Droyn nodded back, relieved. “My grandfather’s line were lords and princes in Africa, until they were cruelly enslaved after ill-luck in war and ground down by oppression.”

  “Oppressed by who?” Kwame asked.

  Droyn hesitated and looked down. “By . . . Protestants,” he said reluctantly, then glanced up with a flush of anger when the older man burst into laughter.

  “Captain Curtis! These are weighty matters!”

  Kwame held up an apologetic hand.

  “Sorry. You’re not even completely wr . . . ah, there’s an element of tru . . . ah, you’re even somewhat right about that. First Church of Honkey, Metho-bapt-etyrian. How exactly did, ah, House Jones turn things around?”

  Droyn controlled his temper and went on: “After the Change my grandfather was a freelance man-at-arms with a fighting tail of his own, who threw his support to the first Lord Protector, performing great feats of arms in the Foundation Wars and becoming one of his right-hand men, so winning first knighthood, then lands and title and restoring the high and noble estate to which God has called our line.”

  “I can relate to that,” Kwame said, smiling rather oddly.

  Droyn felt very slightly guilty. That was the polite, official story, the one that got written down and taught in the chronicles at Castle Molalla and sung by the troubadours at feasts and tournaments. He didn’t doubt the broad outlines, but though nobody was going to tell him otherwise to his face, from hints and deductions about his grandfather Droyn suspected the family had fallen a long way by the time the ancient world perished, and that the old rogue had actually been some sort of petty bandit chief with a group of ruffians at his heels. And a rough one at that until Grandmother civilized him.

  Many noble houses skipped over the period just before the Change with a few vague generalities. Still, back in the Protector’s War Droyn’s grandfather had died sword in hand at the head of his men as a gentleman of the Association should, and noble blood would out even if circumstances eclipsed a line for a while. Droyn’s Grandmother Phillipa had run the County for a long time and raised his father; there had been many widows-regnant then.

  Kwame coughed into one hand, and Droyn controlled any offensive sympathy or offer to slow down. Old age came to those who didn’t die young, and you could see that the Topangan had led a life of honorable accomplishment in war.

  “Ah, Droyn isn’t exactly a Zulu name,” he observed.

  “No, it’s Old French,” Droyn said cheerfully, moving on to safer ground. Any Associate nobleman could recite family trees until the cows came home. Most would, too, at the first opportunity. “My grandmother Countess Phillipa was of the Society before the Change—”

  “The Society for Creative Anachronism?”

  “Ah, their fame has reached far Topanga?”

  Kwame coughed again, knuckled his brow as if in pain, and nodded. “You might say so. LA had most varieties of geek life. We heard that they were important up north after the Change.”

  Droyn frowned; he didn’t know that term geek life, and perhaps the Topangan soldier misunderstood. Two generations of isolation might well have distorted memories without the sort of meticulous chronicles the Association kept, and of course there was his age to consider.

  “The Society were a band of noble knights and their households, very learned in the arts and courtesie of gentlefolk and strong in arms. Hence they were ready to rescue and guide the commons when the world fell into ruin, and restore civilization as it had been under the great kings of old . . . Chaka, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Arthur of Britain. Well, I grant that others managed too after a fashion, but . . .”

  Captain Curtis made a small groaning sound, but shook his head when Droyn raised a brow; doubtless it was some small pain of age—he had to be at least threescore and ten—or from one of his many creditable wounds. The man looked like he’d been carved out of tough old vine-root and then hacked at until the axe got dull, but that was elderly in modern terms, past the age the Bible set as the span of man. That didn’t necessarily mean he was unusually favored of God, but it might. He decided to make the basics clear:

  “And my lady my mother’s kin were also of the Society; she is a daughter of the Dukes of Odell. Many Society families are of high birth and noble blood, mostly from the ancient aristocracy of Europe.”

  “They are?”

  “Oh, not all of them, but many. The knightly families and the nobility, of course, not the ordinary retainers—stout fellows those, though, and some have risen to rank and estate by worthy deeds. Our Society nobility is of the best blood of France and the Norman kingdoms; hence their traditional names. Though some are of Iberian descent, of the line of the fearless hidalgos who won Spain back for Christendom and then brought Holy Church to the Americas by their dauntless feats of arms.”

  He crossed himself. “Thus overthrowing demon-worship and saving many souls from the pangs of hellfire; or at least long eons in Purgatory. And many of them wed noble ladies of the Incan and Aztec realms. So you can see how the Associate nobility and gentry unite the glories of the past with the bright promise of our own age in Montival.”

  Kwame covered his face for a moment. “Yeah, I can see how that all hangs together.”

  “So it’s fitting that as House Jones unites the bloodlines of princely Africa and noble Europe, we should take our names from both traditions. My eldest brother is Viscount Mpande.”

  “Very sensible . . . You work directly for the Princess, though?”

  “Crown Princess, she’s the heir to the High King’s Throne under the Great Charter,” Droyn corrected politely. “Yes, I’m her vassal-at-arms. Liege knight.”

  Kwame frowned slightly. “I thought that, ummm, Lady d’Ath was her liege knight?”

  “Oh, yes. Her first—they’re childhood friends. I’m the second. Sir Aleaume de Grimmond was another when we started this Quest, but he fell in the north.”

  Droyn sighed sadly and crossed himself again. “We were like brothers; but he bore himself very valiantly against the wild men. So a knight must expect to fall.”

  “So, what’s she like to work for?” Kwame asked, focusing keenly. “The Crown Princess.”

  Droyn frowned, wondering how much it would be polite and politic to say. “Well, she bears the Sword of the Lady—the Lady being the Virgin Mother of God, of course, whatever the pagans say—and thus she’s the chosen of God, monarch by Divine Right, so it’s a privilege to follow her.”

  Kwame nodded tightly.

  “And she’s dauntlessly brave, a fine knight like her father before her even if they are clansfolk . . . and like her mother in her youth . . . and she is very, very smart, Captain Curtis. Also—”

  He made a spread-fingered gesture; how to convey the truth to someone cut off from the modern world for so long?

  “She does bear the Sword, which gives her many powers. To thwart evil magicians and break their fell enchantments, for example.”

  Kwame nodded. “I’m absolutely sure it’ll see off any evil magicians we run into, and demolish any of their, ummm, fell enchantments,” he said, his voice oddly neutral, though the sentiment was perfectly orthodox. “OK, we’re getting close to the Wall.”

  Droyn put up his fist to halt the column and dismounted in the fashion of a knight on active service, swinging his right leg over the horse’s neck and sliding down with his back to its body. That left you always ready to face a foe. One of the crossbowmen came forward to hold the reins, and Droyn nodded to him before he walked slowly and thoughtfully forward. The cracked, faded asphalt of the two-lane road was pointed more or less northwest here; there was a high rocky bluff to the left and the ground dropped off to the right very steeply indeed, and for several hundred feet.

&n
bsp; He went over to the verge; the Topangans had smoothed the slope below, covered it with a revetment of smooth dry-fitted rocks to keep it from eroding, melted asphalt and let it run down over the surface, and built a breastwork along the edge. None of the work was very neat or tidy, but all of it would get the job done. Just climbing up and down that slope on foot would be very slow and might require ropes and pitons. Doing it in armor and carrying a weapon would be even slower and make you more likely to fall.

  With defenders dropping rocks on you and shooting, impossible. A night attack? No, not if there were any defenders at all.

  And there was no position within range where archers or crossbowmen could rake the defenses here. Even for scorpions or catapults rigged for bolt it was at extreme range or just beyond.

  In the other direction they’d built a wall about twenty feet high across all but one lane of the road, and then back into the bluff, continuing up to parts that were very steep and rocky, with a fighting platform on the inside behind crenellations and staircases backward to allow forces to rush up—and to deny all cover against missile weapons for anyone who took the wall and came down it. The trebuchets were a bit farther back, but they were pre-registered and could drop their high-trajectory loads more or less where they wanted, which would be the road on the other side of the wall.

  “Yes, I wouldn’t want to have to storm this.”

  From the maps the road went in this direction for another half-mile, then bent back in a series of steep hairpin curves down into the valley to the north.

  The air was hot and still in the lee of the wall, full of the sounds of insects and jays screeching, dark-eyed juncos chipping and tweeting, and dry spicy scents as well as horse and man sweating. Nobody was going through the open gate right now, though from the dung oxen and horses went this way fairly often, and from the tracks in it bicycles did occasionally too. It was logs in a metal framework and covered with more sheet metal, from the looks what the ancients had called telephone poles, which made handy construction timbers. More lay ready to be rushed across to brace against the inside of the gate when it was swung closed, but however strong a gate it was always the weakest part of a wall.