A Meeting At Corvallis

by S. M. Stirling

  How Mike would scowl, she thought.

  The Dunedain slanted more directly east to avoid them, making a great show of urging their horses on without adding much speed.

  Celebroch tossed her head, as if to say: Don't you know what you're doing? Am I supposed to run all out, or not? Make up your mind, woman!

  There were two hundred in the band that pursued them. She could make out the numbers clearly enough once they'd fallen in behind the Rangers, despite their having no more order than a swarm of attacking bees. Arrows began to flick out from them, falling well short—two hundred yards was about the maximum you could really expect to hit someone when both were moving fast. Their mouths were all open too, probably howling curses—or just howling. Eilir left the knotted reins on Celebroch's neck and stood in the stirrups, slanting her longbow across the mare's rump as she turned and drew. A six-foot bow was awkward on horseback, but not impossible if you practiced enough. Aim high—

  There.

  The arrow plunged down among the very first of the mercenaries; two of them surged away from each other a bit as they galloped. It must have come down between them. Both of them shot back at her; one had a pre-Change compound bow, and the arrow came uncomfortably close to Celebroch's heels.

  Astrid fell back beside her and drew her recurve. The arrow struck. Eilir couldn't see exactly where but a horse went over as if it had been poleaxed, and the rider hit the ground rolling. He gathered himself into a ball and put his arms over his head; one of his friends jumped his mount right over him, and others swerved, with a couple of near collisions corrected with impressive skill. Then the Rangers were plunging down a bank into the shallow, gravelly expanse of Zollner Creek; they surged through in exploding sheets of cold spray, holding their bows high overhead to avoid wetting them, and then galloped in earnest. Something hit her between the shoulder blades—hard—and she gasped and lurched forward in the saddle for an instant, making her mount check its stride. Astrid reached over and pulled something free of her brigan-dine, showing it to her before tossing it aside; it was an arrow with a barbed head. There would be a spot on her back where the leather was scraped free of the little steel plates.

  Wow. Too close for comfort—-maybe we left it a little too long! They didn't have to shoot her to kill her, just cripple Celebroch. Probably they don't shoot at horses much 'cause they want to steal them. But sooner or later they'd get mad enough to ignore the niceties.

  The Dunedain were thundering over a stretch of rolling meadow now, towards an old country road and then a big orchard about a mile long and a quarter wide, the riders ahead throwing divots of turf and dirt at her. The trees were neatly tended, and the buds were just about to break, but she could only see the top halves though they were twenty feet tall or better. The northeast-southwest line of the road ran along a low ridge; the cherry trees were on the other side, and sloped down a little to a creek. Closer and closer, the white-painted fence along the roadway looming up and the first of the Dunedain taking it in flying leaps. One had his horse refuse and fought it to a standstill, forcing its head around until it went in a circle for a moment, then riding off southward along the line of the fence, probably hideously embarrassed.

  Asfaloth and Celebroch soared over it. She could see John Hordle there just beyond the other side of the road, lying flat as she had only a few moments before, grinning the way a Lughnasadh baked ham would if it had teeth. The twin Arab mares halted in a few strides; the rest of the Rangers continued for a few more paces, under the cherry trees, and among the CORA ranchers and their retainers waiting there. Those were all standing by their horses to keep out of sight from the meadow on the west side of the road; they grinned and gave her thumbs-up and worked their mouths.

  Astrid drew up beside Alleyne. Eilir kicked her feet out of the stirrups, vaulted to the ground, dropped the reins—that meant Celebroch would stay, unless her mistress blew the high-frequency whistle that dangled around her neck—and ran a dozen paces to kneel beside John Hordle.

  The big Englishman was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, helmet pushed forward over his eyes, chewing a grass stem and smiling around it at her. She scowled and thumped him on the top of his headpiece with the flat of her hand, driving it down until it covered everything above his nose. Since it was a good, solid steel sallet with a padded lining, his grimace and wince was undoubtedly put on.

  Get ready! she signed as he pushed it back and winked.

  "I am ready," he said, turning his head towards her.

  One of the many things she liked about him was that he always remembered to face her when he spoke; lip-reading was half guesswork at the best of times, though she was very good at it.

  "I'm just not rushing about getting hysterical, like some people I could name," he went on.

  Eilir would have thumped him again, except that he was rising to one knee and turning with a smooth ease astonishing in a man who stood six-foot-seven in his stocking feet. Then he took up his bow, and they raised their heads until they were looking head and shoulders over the much-patched asphalt of the roadway.

  The Pendleton men were reckless fighters, but not fools: they'd reined in at long bowshot rather than ride straight into territory they couldn't see, even in hot pursuit. Where they came from war was largely a matter of raid and skirmish; feigned retreats to draw pursuers into an ambush were standard operating procedure. Half a dozen came whooping forward to the road, where they could see into the orchard and warn the others if it was a trap.

  Eilir and Hordle came to their feet along with the rest of the Rangers. She drew again, sensibly aiming at one of the men in the vanguard only twenty yards away, and drove a bodkin point through his leather cuirass and chest and out the spine in a shower of blood and chipped bone. Hordle was grinning and he had a heavy four-ounce arrow to his bow, the type of four-to-a-pound shaft that his seven-foot stave with its hundred-and-fifty-pound draw-weight could throw. The muscles knotted in his arm as he pulled the shaft to the ear and loosed upward at a forty-five degree angle.

  Two hundred and fifty yards away the doll-tiny figure of the enemy standard-bearer looked up sharply. Then he dropped the flag and fell off his horse, scrabbling at the arrow that had slammed through his face from right cheek to left jaw.

  She gave him a glance that said as plainly as Sign: Showoff!

  "They always look up," he said, and fell into a steady rhythm of draw-aim-loose, once every four or five seconds. "Bloody odd, if you ask me. I mean, here you are, bits of pointed iron flying about in a roit frightening way, you 'ear this sssssss noise, like an arrow coming down at you, so what do you do … look up?"

  Eilir waggled her ears. Wouldn't happen to me, the gesture said.

  The loss of their standard-bearer enraged the mercenaries, and so did the sight of the same dozen enemies they'd been chasing making a stand and inflicting yet more losses. They surged forward in a mass; Eilir could feel the growing drumroll of their horses' hooves through the soles of her feet. Arrows flicked out, and heavy, curved slashing blades were swung in menacing circles.

  "Time to scarper," Hordle said cheerfully.

  They all turned and dashed back—which meant that the men from the eastern plains would see their prey escaping again, after killing yet more of their kinfolk.

  They must be frothing and drooling, she thought. From what I've been told and seen, they're very sensitive about being made to look foolish.

  Ahead in the orchard the CORA riders were swinging into the saddle. They rode the same type of ranch-country quarter horse that the Pendleton men did and were likewise lightly armed, although there were more with short mail shirts rather than boiled-leather cuirasses; a few had brigandines and their leader was resplendent in a steel breastplate painted brown. They all had bows and a long blade or light ax; most swords were stirrup-hilted sabers whose first models were the blades of the US cavalry of Old West times, salvaged from museums and antique stores after the Change; a few bore light lances, shorter and sl
immer than those of Protectorate knights or Bearkiller A-listers. Rancher John Brown did, and he waved it at her before he slapped his horse on the rump with the shaft. His followers moved forward in a rough double line, not a rigid formation but a lot more orderly than their enemies'.

  Quarter horses had good acceleration. The four hundred riders went from a stop to a walk to a canter in half a dozen paces. The board fence along the road went over with a thud she felt even through the hoofbeats, its uprights cut through and smeared with mud in the night—that had been her idea, and she felt a flush of pride as she swung around and led Celebroch forward. Astrid and Alleyne had snatched up lances left leaning against cherry trees and were off with the rest. Astrid held back a little; with a six-foot man clothed from head to toe in jointed alloy steel on its back, the big gelding her lover rode took a little longer to hit a hard gallop. When it did it was as fast as any of the horses there; Asfaloth had no trouble accelerating with Astrid wearing a Bearkiller-style hauberk and her raven helm.

  The mercenaries had checked only an instant when they saw the CORA force coming at them; more a matter of men leaning back in the saddle than of the horses actually slowing. Then they came on faster than ever; there wasn't room to switch and make a chase of it. A fast horse could make thirty miles an hour for short distances, and with their combined speeds the two groups were approaching each other at better than sixty. Arrows flew between them, but only for a few seconds. That was enough to empty a dozen saddles, but nobody wanted to be left with a bow when his enemy came within saber range. Then the two formations passed through each other in a mutual blur of speed and slashing steel, bright blades sparking on metal, or leaving trails of red through the damp air to glisten on the dew-wet grass. Astrid and Alleyne lifted their targets out of the saddle and discarded the lances, sweeping out their long swords as the battle turned into a wheeling melee. Eilir's eyebrows went up as she saw the swath the steel-clad figures cut through the plainsmen. She knew that Astrid was cold death with any weapon, but Alleyne was such a gentleman—

  He dodged the sweep of an eastern slashing sword, broke the man's jaw with the edge of his heater-shaped shield. In the same instant a backhand cut across the eyes left another mercenary lurching back with his hands pressed to his face, mouth an O beneath them …

  —that she sometimes forgot what he was like in a fight.

  "Seems like a shame to disturb them," John Hordle said calmly, reaching over his shoulder for an arrow. "Still one always 'as to do one's bit, as Sir Nigel used to say."

  Hordle was no more than passable at mounted combat. Eilir was far better than that, but she'd decided without thought to stand by him … and now she felt a sudden slight pang, as if she'd abandoned her anamchara.

  Don't be ridiculous, she thought stoutly. Didn't we swear to be goddess-mother to each other's children, all those years ago?

  Also she and Hordle were among the few present who could shoot into that whirling, slashing, hoof-milling chaos without much risk of friendly-fire accidents.

  "I'll take the one with the steel cap and feathers," the big man said, lifting his seven-foot bow. "You want the one with the fringed … what are those things called?"

  Chaps, Eilir signed shortly, and drew her own bow.

  "Got two chaps on 'is legs," Hordle chuckled, and let the string roll off his fingers.

  I don't like killing people, she thought, and shot. John doesn't either but he does like to fight—there's a difference. Me, I'd rather not do either. Odd. Alleyne's more like me that way, and John's more like Astrid—she doesn't like killing either but it's all the old stories to her while she's fighting, so she glories in that. I think she really means it when she says yrch.

  An arrow—almost certainly hers—nailed the man's thigh to his saddle through his fringed chaps. The horse must have been wounded too, for it suddenly went berserk, bucking and plunging while the man screamed and clawed at the steel and cedarwood that held him fast. A sweep from someone's sword put an end to that, and the body flopped and dangled and then fell as the horse bolted.

  I don't want to fight them, but if they take the Protector's silver and come here to fight, they have to expect what happens, she thought, arrow on string and looking for another target. May the Guardians help them choose a better way next time 'round. In the meantime, I'm not ready for the Summerlands yet!

  Outnumbered two to one, the mercenaries could not take the punishment for more than a few seconds. Then they broke like quicksilver and scattered, the largest clump of them running north, back towards the enemy camp. The CORA fighters hung on that group's flanks and rear, shooting and hacking with a ferocity born of feuds as old as the Change, which was either ten years or since the beginning of time, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

  Alleyne and Astrid cantered back, talking to each other in Sindarin; Eilir thought he was using it to bring her down from that scary-exalted place she went when she fought, and humanness was returning bit by bit to the blue-silver eyes. She and John Hordle swung into their saddles along with the rest of the Dunedain. They turned and trotted eastward, cross-country; that was the other big advantage of horses over most bicycles—you didn't need to stick to a road, or even a track. The gray clouds overhead had lightened a bit, but didn't look like either going away or raining. Ahead eastward the land rose, growing more rolling as it did; another ten miles and they'd be into the mountain foothills, trackless and densely forested.

  They weren't going quite that far.

  Now we find out whether that idea of yours works, me girl, Hordle signed.

  Don't remind me, Eilir replied with a shudder. I'll be so embarrassed if it doesn't.

  No, love, you won't be embarrassed, not likely, Hordle answered, his usually good-natured face gone more sober.

  She nodded unwillingly. The chances were that if it didn't work, she'd be too dead to be embarrassed, along with her kinfolk and friends and all their hopes.

  * * * *

  Boom.

  "Sound halt," Baron Emiliano said.

  The curled trumpets screamed. The long column of men on bicycles clamped on their brakes, skidding to a halt and resting on one booted foot; they'd just turned east at what the old maps said was a Lutheran church and what looks said was a Catholic one now. The long, crunching rumble of the cavalry moving up on the graveled verges stopped a little more slowly. For a moment, the Marchwarden of the South idly thanked the monks for keeping the roadways in their territories so well; the surface was smooth, the potholes patched not just with gravel but fresh melted asphalt, and the fields on either side were neatly trimmed.

  Silence fell, or as much silence as a force of twelve hundred men could make; even their breathing was a susurrus under the sough of the wind, shifting of horse hooves, snap of banners, chink and jingle of chain mail and bridle-fittings, the occasional thud of a noncom's fist and silence in the ranks! The air was wet and close otherwise, leaving the sweat undried on his face despite its coolness. He sniffed at the breeze as if it could tell him what he wanted to know, and peered eastward down the road, at the empty fields on either side where only the distant cantering dots of his scouts and the odd drift of wildfowl feasting undisturbed on new-sown grain showed movement.

  Boom.

  The sound was deep and resonant, even in the muffling dankness, traveling as if it would echo across miles.

  Boom. Boom. Boom … boom-boom-boom—

  The thudding continued, building to a continuous thudding crash. Beside him, Lord Jabar stirred in the saddle. "Drums," he said unnecessarily, and then more precisely: "Lambegs. Mackenzies."

  As to confirm his guess a raw, squealing drone started underneath the deep hammering, weaving around it with a sound at once jaunty and menacing; the war-pipes of the Clan.

  "That's Mackenzies all right," Emiliano said with a grin. "But not close. From the sound, say two, three miles."

  He started to raise his hand to shade his eyes, then stopped, feeling faintly foolish for a moment. For
one thing it was very cloudy, for another he was wearing a new type of helmet, with a hinged visor like a pierced mask of flat steel. It was swung up at the moment, sticking out like the bill of a cap. Instead he glanced skyward, cocking his head as he judged where the bright patch was.

  "Not ten o'clock yet," he said happily. "We got time."

  Hails came from ahead, and he watched a figure approach at a canter. When he drew rein, it was one of Emiliano's own mounted scouts; the Pendleton cowboys weren't what you could call organized right now, though they were mad enough to get into a chewing match with a bear.

  "Hey, my lord," the Association commander said to Jabar. "Remind me, next time we see the Grand Constable, if we hire any of those cow-country clowns next time, we put them under our officers. They make my old gangers look like fucking Marines."

  The scout saluted. "My lord Marchwarden," he said. "We've located the enemy."

  "How many, and where?" Emiliano asked, unfolding a map glued on stiff leather from his saddlebag; it was pleated accordion-style, and he held it open across the saddlebow.

  The scout brought his horse close and sketched with a fingertip. "This road we're on, South Drake, it goes right east past the orchard where the cowboys got suckered this morning, till it hits Cascade Highway about three miles from here at this little town—town called Marquam. The town's empty, looks like the people ran for Mount Angel. Cascade Highway runs south from there, angling back west a bit too, down to Butte Creek, about a mile and a quarter. The Mackenzies and the cora-boys are there at the southern end—they've got their left anchored on the bridge there where Cascade Highway crosses the creek, Jacks Bridge, and then up the road north and east."