The Given Sacrifice c-7

by S. M. Stirling

  “Merry meet, Edain,” Rudi said to his guard-captain.

  Edain Aylward Mackenzie put down the trays of food he was carrying. They looked a little incongruous with the outfit of the High King’s Archers anyway. That was the Mackenzie kilt and plaid and the green brigandine the Clan’s warriors usually wore, though the outer layer of leather bore the Crowned Mountain of Montival rather than the Mackenzie crescent moon cradled in antlers. He had shortsword and buckler at his belt, a dirk, and a sgian-dubh tucked into his knee-hose.

  Across his back was a quiver of gray-fletched arrows, with a great yellow yew longbow thrust through the carrying loops on its side. The Mackenzies were a people of the bow, and old Sam Aylward their first teacher had been known as Aylward the Archer in his time. His son bore that nickname these days, for very good reason.

  Right now he prodded a thick callused finger at the food. “Merry meet, and merry part, Chief; and you, Fred. Now eat, both of you.”

  Rudi blinked in surprise. “Arra, and is it that time already?”

  “It’s sunset,” Edain said.

  Then with a show of thought, tapping a thumb on his chin: “It happens nearly every day in these parts, and then most often it grows dark!”

  “And how would I remember such things without you to remind me, blood-brother?” Rudi grinned.

  Edain snorted. “The Lord and Lady may know, but I don’t even ken how I got you to Nantucket and back alive. I’m here because Fred’s batman came to me near weeping, Not now they tell me, not now, we’re too busy. . and to think a crew of fancy cooks have toiled and moiled all the day to whip up this feast for you, sure and they did like Lughnasadh come early, what with the well-basted roast suckling pig with the honey-garlic glaze and the spiced meat pies with their fragrant flaky crusts and the succulent fresh-picked asparagus and steamed sweet peas and glazed carrots and stuffed eggplant and four types of bread hot from the oven and sweet butter and the cakes and ices and whipped cream and all!”

  Rudi chuckled; the food consisted of two bowls containing chunks of mutton stewed with dried beans and desiccated vegetables, a stack of tortillas and a block of ration-issue cheese the size, shape and consistency of a cake of soap. It was the same food anyone in the US of Boise contingent would be eating tonight, officer or enlisted.

  “Sit, man,” he said to Edain, as he pulled the little knife out of his sock-hose and shaved rock-hard dry cheese onto the bowls of stew. “There’s work to be done and I’ll need you to hear and speak. You’ve eaten?”

  “Aye, Chief. Asgerd saw to it.”

  Fred uncorked a wine bottle and poured three glasses as Edain unhooked his baldric and hung the longbow and quiver from a peg on one of the tent poles.

  “You should have gotten Asgerd pregnant, the way Rudi and I did our wives,” the Boisean said, then looked at his King.

  “And I won’t have to envy you much longer, Rudi. I wouldn’t have your job on a bet, but that, yeah. To hold our daughter-”

  The longing was naked in his face for an instant, and the remembered joy in Rudi’s own.

  “Son,” Rudi said absently. “For you two it’ll be a son, first.”

  All three men looked at his hand on the pommel of the Sword.

  “You’re going to name him Lawrence,” Rudi went on. “And Dirk after Virginia’s grandfather. He’ll go by Dirk, mostly. . sorry! I should have left you to find that out; it comes on me unawares, betimes.”

  Fred’s face unfroze. “Well, in the old days they had machines. . x-sounds, did they call them? To tell you ahead of time.” His smile grew wide. “A son! Our son!”

  Then he laughed. There was a silver hammer on a chain around his neck; he touched his jacket over the spot where it lay.

  “Son or daughter, Freya knows it’s the only way I was going to stop Virginia coming on campaign with me,” he said. “Freya keep her and our kid both safe, too.”

  “They’re a fierce lot in the Powder River country,” Rudi acknowledged, drawing the Invoking pentagram over his bowl of stew. “Hail and thanks to the Mother-of-All who births the harvest, to the Lord who dies for the ripened corn, and thanks to the mortals who toiled with Them,” he went on, before taking up the first spoonful.

  The Powder River plains in old Wyoming were where Fred had first met his spouse, when she stumbled into their camp on the run from the followers of the Church Universal and Triumphant who’d taken her family’s ranch. She’d ended going to Nantucket and back with the Quest.

  Fred hammer-signed his bowl, murmured: “Hail, all-giving Earth,” and went on: “And Mathilda’s meek and retiring, Rudi, yeah, right, she certainly wouldn’t be here even if she hadn’t gotten knocked up. And I’ve never seen her charging over a barricade into a mess of Saloum corsairs right beside you, shield up, visor down and sword swinging and screaming Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland! at the top of her lungs.”

  He tasted the stew. “Damn you, Edain, you actually made me hungry as hell with that description and now I have to eat this.”

  Rudi chewed and swallowed. It was. . fuel, slightly enlivened by the chilies some camp cook had dropped in to disguise the fact that the contributing sheep had probably died of old age. He’d eaten much worse, and the tortillas were even palatable when fresh; he rolled one, dipped it in the stew to spoon some up, and took a bite before he spoke:

  “Matti fights from duty and necessity. Virginia actually likes it. The fighting, I should be saying, not the killing as such, though to be frank she also minds that less than you or I.”

  “Yeah,” Fred acknowledged. “And she’s got a powerful hate on for the Cutters, and just between me and thee, Rudi, sometimes she doesn’t grasp the difference between leading a country and owning a ranch, not deep down. At least this way she’s got a chance to get to know Mom and my sisters better. And Mom will do anything she has to with a grandchild to protect, even keep Virginia in line.”

  “And if Asgerd’s not blessed by the Mother-of-All yet, it’s not for want of trying on our part,” Edain said cheerfully. “And there’ll be time enough.”

  Like Fred he’d met his wife on the Quest. Asgerd Karlsdottir had been born in what was once northern Maine, and was now the Kingdom of Norrheim. Edain had come away from their time there with a new wife. Fred had found a faith, one that spoke to his soul as his family’s nominal Methodism never had.

  Rudi used the half-eaten tortilla to gesture. “Look you, we just took. . what, a tenth of Boise’s remaining strength this last hour? And without an arrow or swordstroke, and it was the fraction of it blocking our way at that. Took it from their line of battle and added it to ours.”

  “Yeah,” Fred nodded, soberly. “I’ve got as many men as the junta has now, infantry at least, and mine want to fight. Or at least to get the job done so they can go back to their farms without worrying about the Cutters threatening their families.”

  Rudi nodded, but it wasn’t completely a gesture of agreement. “I want to pick up the pieces without killing any more of your people. Corwin is the real enemy.”

  “Damn right. It’s not their fault Martin screwed them over and got them on the CUT’s side.”

  “True, but morals aside. . two things a king can never have enough of: one is money, and the other is good troops. And good soldiers will get you gold more often than gold will get you good soldiers, as my foster-father Sir Nigel is fond of saying. I want those men fighting for us.”

  “But we have to hammer past Boise as fast as we can,” Fred said; he’d been trained in Boise’s staff schools, where playing devil’s advocate was a standard technique. “Before the passes are snowed in again and while there’s still grazing. Otherwise the League of Des Moines and the Canuks will get to Corwin before we do. And you. . we. . Montival. . don’t want that.”

  “No, though the Lakota will be with them, and they’re part of Montival now, keeping our spoon in that stewpot across the Rockies. Also our allies may not get to Corwin this year, being naturally less eager than we; if they
tie down the bulk of the Prophet’s men on the high plains, I’ll be satisfied. But when Corwin falls, the war is over bar the mopping up.”

  “When being the operative word,” Fred observed dryly.

  “Exactly. Fighting into next year means fields unplanted or unharvested, and there’s been too much of that already.”

  “So. . ‘if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’” Fred quoted.

  Rudi nodded, barring his teeth in what was not quite a smile. That was from Macbeth, and that tale of ambition and treachery and death seasoned with ill-wreaking magic was all too apposite.

  “The city of Boise itself. . that may be tricky. Your father built strong walls and gates.”

  “Not if they’re opened from the inside.”

  “That would be. . difficult.”

  Fred hesitated, obviously reluctant. “There’s. . a way. Dad told me about it. I’m pretty certain that he told Martin, too. . but I don’t know who Martin told.”

  “Ah, so?” Rudi said softly. “Now that is most interesting. If. . those Powers. . thought to ask him, he would have told. Told anything. But they have a weakness; they don’t like the world of matter. They might not have.”

  “And anyway, the fortifications. . it’s the men that count, in the end. But the number of officers coming over to us is slowing down. Even though the writing’s on the wall.”

  Rudi nodded grimly. “The Cutters can compel men’s minds, if given even the slightest opening. Notice how bitter Roberts was against the CUT? Somethin’ they did frightened him badly, and he’s a bold bad man. We need to bring as many waverers to our side as we can while they still own their own souls. That’ll be easiest if they’re facing you in particular rather than Montival in general, not least because they know the common soldiers will hesitate to fight their own. That may well have turned the Horse Heaven Hills fight in our favor.”

  Fred mopped his bowl with a tortilla and chewed on it thoughtfully. When his mouth was clear:

  “There are a lot of Cutter horse-archers still loose; if I run into them. . there’s nothing like some plate-armored lancers riding barded destriers on your flanks to give you peace of mind. Say what you like about the Associates, they can fight. I won’t be sorry to have the Grand Constable leading them either, she may not be the most charming person on earth-”

  “An acquired taste, yet worth the effort.”

  “-but she knows her trade and then some.”

  “Very true indeed, and I’ll be glad when she’s back. But the propaganda the enemy is putting out paints me as lusting to divide Idaho into fiefs for my supporters and build castles on it, the way my black spalpeen of a dead father-in-law did with the lands he took in his day. . which admittedly was a great whacking amount of territory, which now sprouts noblemen and castles like toadstools after rain.”

  “Yeah, if I ride in trailing a menie of armored Associate lancers with pennants streaming and gold spurs gleaming it’ll make that look sorta convincing,” Fred acknowledged. “Dad never slugged it out with Portland, but for a long time everyone expected that to happen, and there were some pretty bloody skirmishes before we split the Palouse with them. What’s your plan?”

  “I’ll use them at need, but I’d like to keep the chivalry of the PPA in reserve as far as I can, until we’re east of Boise into lands where there’s no memory of the wars against the Association. Or of the days when Norman Arminger was the. . what was the phrase. . the big bad.”

  Fred frowned. “I see your point. And they can be an arrogant bunch, and come across as even more arrogant than they are, to people who aren’t used to their, ah, ways. But from a strictly military point of view-”

  “War is the means, Fred. Victory is the end, and that’s always about politics. We need to separate the remaining Boise troops in the field against us from the Cutters; the Grand Constable and the barons can trample them underhoof in finest feudal style with my hearty cheers. So I want air reconnaissance as far as Boise itself. For that we need good launching sites, say in those mountains southeast of here for a start-”

  “The Seven Devils. Hmmm. There were old airstrips up there before the Change. . probably a lot of thermals and updrafts. . I suppose you want me to turn my field engineers loose on the approach roads? ’Cause I don’t have any glider squadrons to spare, to put it mildly. It’s harder for the Air Force to defect, oddly enough. As units, at least.”

  “Right you are. Forbye we can use Bearkiller pilots and ground crew, and Mackenzies to guard and skirmish down towards the lowlands, if you supply the transport. With luck we can draw some of the Cutter cavalry off, too, and make them fight us in terrain that gives us the advantage.”

  Edain stirred from where he’d been holding his glass between two palms and listening silently.

  “And you’d be wanting to go up and supervise yourself, Chief,” he said wearily. “Not leaving it to those whose proper business it is. That’s the ill news you had for me.”

  “How well you know me!” Rudi said. “Get the Archers ready. I’ll not try to go alone, lest you sicken with worry and do yourself an injury.”

  “Or put the toe of me boot to the stony arse of you, that being the way to get sense into your thinking parts, Chief,” Edain said. “Now you’ve eaten, I suggest you seek your tent, unless you’ve decided to do without sleep as well. Something is making your judgment worse than it might be.”

  Rudi nodded good-bye to Fred and rose. “You try presiding at meetin’s and reading reports all day, Edain, and see if you don’t seize any excuse to get away!”

  More soberly, and looking out into the fire-starred darkness beyond the tent: “And I’ll be sending those pilots into peril. They can at least see the face of the man who’s asking them to do it.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seven Devils Mountains

  (Formerly western Idaho)

  High Kingdom of Montival

  (Formerly western North America)

  June 12th, Change Year 26/2024 AD

  Private Cole Salander (1st Special Forces Battalion, Army of the United States) suppressed an impulse to dive for cover as the glider whipped by close overhead, just beyond the tips of the firs. He hadn’t had any warning; walking in tall conifer woods meant the only sky he could see was right overhead and the flying machines were as quiet as a ghost.

  Instead of moving he froze, just turning his head down towards the ground to hide his face. Jumping for concealment made you more conspicuous. He’d had that well enough drilled in during the last couple of years for it to be reflex; he was a solidly built and broad-shouldered young man, with a snub-nosed face, pale eyes and sandy hair cropped in the Army’s high-and-tight, now still as a statue.

  In the old General’s day you had to spend several years in the ranks with superior fitness reports and then qualify for the Rangers before they let you volunteer for the Special Forces, and they washed out most of the applicants even so. He knew standards had probably slipped and training had certainly gotten compressed since the war against the western powers started, and over the last eight months since President-General Martin Thurston was killed at the great and bloody cluster-fuck known as the Battle of the Horse Heaven Hills everything had started unraveling for sure.

  I wouldn’t be pulling this mission on my own otherwise, and me just out of training. This is a job for a four-man team with at least an experienced leader.

  But he was stubbornly determined to prove that he was as good as any of the old-timers.

  Once the glider was out of sight he dropped his field pack, slung his crossbow so that it lay right down his back and deployed his climbing rope in a loop around the rough barked trunk of a big column-straight pine that must have been growing here when his great-grandfather left Värmland still in his mother’s womb. That and a scramble from branch to branch above the clear section got him sixty feet up in less than a minute, amid a spicy sweet sap-scent.

  From there he had a magnificent view through hi
s binoculars, though he made a note to rub the sticky residue off his fingerless gloves before touching his crossbow again. Forest, a slice of green meadow starred with red Indian paintbrush, even a herd of elk grouping together on a ridgeline against the menace of wolf-packs. What he couldn’t see was the glider, which meant. .

  Which means it crashed, and probably pretty hard.

  He grinned as he half-slid and half-fell down the big tree and hit the ground with a grunt and a squat. There wasn’t much in the way of landing sites around here; mountains had lots of updrafts, but not many flat smooth places. Gliders were useful, but they had short working lives. So did their pilots.

  Cole had noted the bearing of the aircraft against three landmarks, one of them a high snow-topped peak to the west. He got out his compass, checked against the map and his memory of how the terrain lay, and started through the woods at a trot.

  • • •

  “Bearkiller is sort of symbolic. There’s no need to take it personally,” Alyssa Larsson said, her voice a feeble rasp in her ears. “It was a black bear Uncle Mike killed, anyway. I’ve seen the head on the Bear Helm. Big, but not a grizzly like you, no sir.”

  The bear beneath her didn’t respond, except to sniff more energetically. She reached for the clasp of the seat belt and whimpered slightly at the jagged rasp of pain through her left forearm. Then she shook her head-which itself hurt badly enough to notice any other time-and decided that would have been a lousy idea anyway. This wasn’t the time to operate on pure reflex, no matter how bad the hurting was or how dizzy and nauseous she felt.

  The glider had snapped off one wing and come to rest more or less upside-down, twisted to the side just enough to make her position the most awkward possible. The bubble canopy was about seven or eight feet above the ground, and spotted with the blood that was still dripping from cuts and a squashed nose. She didn’t think that was broken, and none of her teeth felt loose despite the way her lips had been mashed against them, but it was unfortunate that she was bleeding. The boar grizzly sniffing around under the crashed aircraft probably found the scent far, far too appetizing.