The Sky-Blue Wolves

by S. M. Stirling

  They walked down the girl’s back trail, and Órlaith nodded at a particular spot. “Did you set out leaves there?”

  “Yes. I read about how you could mark your own trail and not get lost. But they’re gone!”

  “No, disarranged. Maybe by your own foot, or a gust of wind, or a passing fox. To leave a marker, leave one that can’t be easily moved. Like this.”

  She took a gray strip of bark from a hemlock and thrust it under a root. “See? Yet it looks natural enough.”

  “And I put a hair ribbon on a branch, but that was gone too.”

  Órlaith laughed. “Like those?” she said; the ribbons holding Juniper’s fiery braids were sparkly with some odd kind of flecks. When the youngster nodded, she went on:

  “Oh, the crows do love bright things, and they’re thieves by nature, pirates of the winds. Likely your ribbon is the pride of a crow’s nest now, and the envy of its flock!”

  The sun was low when they came to a shoulder of land not far above the cabin that would one day be Dun Juniper; you could get glimpses of the patterned green and brown of crops in the valley-land to the west, when the trees were right. There was a circle of oaks here, plainly planted or transplanted by the hand of man, and they were already towering tall, with their branches touching far overhead.

  Though not as much so as she remembered, and without the shaped boulder of the altar within.

  And it feels . . . more free. Not so flat as most of this place . . . this time, rather.

  Órlaith made the sign of the Horns, touching it to her heart and bowing. Juniper looked at her curiously.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ah, that’s the Horns. This is a place . . .” she thought before she went on, and decided on simple truth.

  “This is a place of magic. And that magic is yours, for your kin planted these trees, did they not?”

  “Yup. My great-uncle’s granddad. I really like it here—I come and read stories and think and stuff.”

  Órlaith nodded. “And planted in a circle, and of the holy oak. So your kin brought into the woods something of human kind, a meeting-place between our world of common day and the Otherworlds. And by their toil and sweat, the joy and tears upon it, the songs they sang and the children they bore, and by their bones buried beneath the ground they made themselves part of the land’s long story forever.”

  “Oh,” Juniper said softly, and looked up into the rustling tops of the trees.

  They walked on down the steep switchback trail; it was more overgrown than Órlaith remembered, to the big cabin that would one day be the kernel of a steading, a Dun, and a clan. That structure of great squared logs surrounded by a verandah stood strong in a broad stretch of nearly level meadow, thick grass and clumps of trees that included exotics like black walnut. There was a small stable, and rosebushes and a substantial neatly-tended kitchen garden showing lines of cabbage and carrot, tomato and strawberry beds and trellised beans in rich brown earth mulched with straw.

  Smoke came from the stone chimney and a savory smell was in the air, but an elderly man in a plaid shirt and jeans was just setting out with a lantern and a walking stick, an almost equally elderly-looking gray-muzzled hound at his heels. His wrinkled face relaxed as he saw the child, who took off whooping and flew into his arms.

  He hugged her and scolded at the same time: “You gave me a fright, girl! Didn’t I tell you to be careful?”

  Then he rose upright again, still holding her hand. “I’m very much obliged to you . . .”

  “Órlaith Mackenzie,” she said, shaking his offered hand; his eyes went over her bow and quiver without comment.

  “Maybe we’re relatives!” he said. “Frank Mackenzie; this is my place . . . our family’s farm, once. They say my great-great grandfather claimed it because it reminded him of East Tennessee . . . forgetting why he didn’t want to farm in East Tennessee anymore.”

  “We may well be kin, though it’s a common enough name,” Órlaith said with a smile. “I found this wee adventurous slip of a girl a bit unsure of her way, so I brought her back. I’m sorry for your worry.”

  “I was worried! You’re welcome to say for dinner, Miss Mackenzie; just some venison stew and a salad, and biscuits. Though I am proud of my biscuits”

  He cocked an eye at Juniper. “And some ice cream for dessert.”

  Órlaith laughed at the brightening of the child’s face. “No, I wouldn’t want to take ice cream from little Juniper’s mouth,” she said.

  “Juniper?” he said.

  “Órlaith said I could use that for a name because it suited me,” the girl said.

  “And thank you for your hospitality, but I have places to be and promises I must keep,” Órlaith said. “Good fortune go with you, Mr. Mackenzie. That’s a lively little girl you’ve got there, your niece—but better too much energy than too little, and too little fear than too much, eh?”

  “Right! Thank you again, and drop by anytime.”

  “Órlaith means Golden Princess!” Juniper informed him. “You spell it Ó-r-l-a-i-t-h but say it Ooorla.”

  “It does,” Órlaith said. She bent to take a final embrace, and whispered in her ear:

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  There was a quick nod.

  “And the secret is that I am a princess of a far kingdom, with tall castles and witches who cast spells, and shining knights and ships under sail, and that you’ll see it all yourself one day!”

  The pair waved until she disappeared among the trees.

  * * *

  • • •

  Órlaith walked up the trail, and it was the trail up from Lost Lake. The Sword of the Lady hung at her side, and the fringe of her plaid brushed the calf of her leg where it hung down behind her, and it was a chill fall day.

  “It’s over,” she said to herself. “Or . . . perhaps not.”

  There were tents and pavilions in the clearing, the sound of horses, a trumpet blowing briefly . . . but they weren’t the ones she remembered. She didn’t recognize any of the people at first glance either, and especially not the young woman walking down towards her . . . with the Sword of the Lady at her side. She turned and waved to another woman of her own age, one with long blond hair . . . and with Deor Godulfson’s harp slung over her back, or at least the unmistakable tooled-leather carrying case he used.

  Órlaith retreated a few yards, until the others were out of sight. That gave her more time to study the newcomer. About her own age and with something familiar in her face, something of Órlaith or of her father and mother and grandparents.

  But differences, as well. She was shorter, about five-eight or nine to Órlaith’s five-eleven, and a bit broader in shoulder and hip. A little broader in the face, too, with high cheekbones and a shorter nose; there was a small scar on one cheek and a tiny continuation on the tip of her nose, looking healed as if they’d been suffered several years ago. Her eyes were narrow and a little tilted, somewhere between gray and green, and the hair drawn back in a ponytail was very dark-brown, with reddish highlights that looked as if they’d been brought out by the sun.

  She was dressed in a fashion not quite familiar either, with half boots and cross-gartered loose gray trousers and a knee-length tunic of gray-green with a little blue embroidery about the hems, and a forest-green cloak hanging off one shoulder held by a broach that was worked in the Crowned Mountain and Sword in silver and niello. A broad-brimmed hat with an osprey feather in its band hung down her back.

  She’s mine, Órlaith thought, and felt herself stagger a little; a few deep breaths cured that. My blood and . . . whose? Going on down the years . . . our ancestors and our children’s children, all one here . . .

  “Hello, and well-met,” she said.

  The other woman started and dropped into a fighter’s crouch, her hands going to the hilts of sword and dagger in a fluent cross-d
raw motion. Then she froze, her eyes going wide, and stood.

  “Mother?” she said, wonderingly. “Mother?”

  Órlaith laughed and held up a hand. It was strange, to feel this sudden rush of overwhelming love for someone she’d never met.

  “No,” the stranger said. “You’re—you’re my mother when she became High Queen, aren’t you? Oh . . . Mom . . .”

  Grief marked her face. Órlaith shook her head. “We of House Artos are not a long-lived breed, my darling,” she said.

  They embraced. Órlaith drew back, her hands on the other’s strong shoulders.

  “And this is just a wee bit of a surprise to me too, you know,” she said, and grinned. “To quote what my own father said to me in just these circumstances . . . let me guess, the realm’s in danger and you face a great trial. . . .”

  Laughter greeted that, though her daughter looked a little more grave by nature than she thought herself.

  “Oh, Herry—Grand Constable d’Ath—said that you’d say that! You never said a word to me about it! And . . . if you’re newly Queen, then you’re off overseas to face—”

  “Nor must you tell a word to me, child . . . except perhaps your name?”

  “Darya . . . from my father’s mother . . . Oh. . . .”

  “Welcome Darya; welcome and farewell, fare ever well. Now listen. This is what we must do, and something of what you’ll face. This is more than a ceremony. This is a rite, a mystery, that weaves our blood into the history of the land, through time and space, and we into it. . . .”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHOSŎN MINJUJUŬI INMIN KONGHWAGUK

  (KOREA)

  NOVEMBER 25TH

  CHANGE YEAR 47/2045 AD

  “We can’t force our way past those forts,” Admiral Naysmith said, lowering her binoculars from their latest scan of Pusan. “And the landward approaches to the port are heavily fortified as well.”

  Órlaith nodded, feeling the long slow heel of the warship’s hull as it moved across the wind hard enough to throw foam down its flanks. She could see one massive low-slung castle with a pagoda roof on its citadel from here, crowning a mountain blue with distance, and there were more of the grim-looking piles she couldn’t. The morning breeze from the shore carried more than the usual city stinks; there was something cold and dry about it, though the temperature was no more than brisk by the standards of the Columbia Valley near the winter solstice. Something like a tomb.

  “This is the warmest part of Korea,” Reiko warned. “At this time of year, much of the rest of it is very cold. The northern parts are very, very cold.”

  And there was a hint of sour rot, though that might be the way her mind was interpreting what the Sword was telling her.

  Usually I get a sense of the life of a land and the Powers that ward it when I first see it, she thought. Japan was like that—as if every tree and rock were greeting us, as well as the people . . . I didn’t think you could kneel and press your forehead to the ground and radiate dancing joy at the same time, but they did. And greeting Reiko even more, which was just and right, especially when she brought the Grasscutter back to the Land of the Gods; I could sense the kami themselves paying her homage. Her name will live forever in their histories as my da’s will in ours, and in their songs and stories—Reiko the Great, who quested far for the great treasure, rescued her people and brought them strong aid to end the terror from the sea. But this place . . . it’s not only darkened, it’s dead, as if something had driven the very life and memories of the land downward into the core.

  “Crawling with troops, too, according to the Dúnedain Ranger and Yellowstone Scout parties we inserted ashore,” General Thurston said thoughtfully.

  The quarterdeck of the Sea-Leopard was an improvised conference room again, which was less trouble now that the ship wasn’t doing anything more active than beating back and forth southwest of the harbor entrance and most of the Guard troops were on a separate transport.

  “I didn’t expect that we could force the harbor, General,” Órlaith said. “But we did bottle up their remaining warships.”

  Reiko nodded. “According to the best intelligence my naval service has, this is all or nearly all of their remaining keels, after their losses in Hawaiʻi and today. No more than two or three ships of any size remain at large.”

  The Japanese naval commander Captain Ishikawa, and Egawa of the Imperial Guard—the standing army of Dai-Nippon—looked grimly satisfied in their businesslike but colorful Nihonjin armor.

  “Look at the map,” Órlaith said; there was one on an easel and she used a finger to trace a course. “We might keep Pusan under blockade and then send a landing force around to the other side of the peninsula . . . this Inchon place. Then they’d have to divide their forces and we’d be across their line of retreat and near their capital . . . did I say something funny, General?”

  General Thurston bowed slightly, still smiling. “My apologies, Your H— I mean, Your Majesty. It’s just that the forces of the old American Republic did exactly that in a war here, and very nearly a full century ago. It was considered a brilliant move, and let them advance quickly to the Yalu—then things went south because the Chinese became involved.”

  Órlaith sighed. “No offense taken, General. My military education didn’t emphasize the period in the century or two before the Change.”

  He nodded. “Only logical, Your Majesty. Neither did mine, formally. But my great-grandfather landed at Inchon, part of the Marine storming parties. Weapons have Changed back to the traditional forms, but the terrain is the same as it was in his day. I suspect the enemy would be waiting for something like that; they’re much more likely to remember it than we are.”

  “I wish we had more information from the land side,” Órlaith said. “Will they stand and fight, or withdraw northward? And we can’t keep the horses on the transports indefinitely—if there’s a bad storm, we could lose half of them, panicking in their stalls if nothing else.”

  “This is a stormy sea this time of year, Your Majesty,” Ishikawa confirmed, with a bow.

  Thurston had his helmet with its stiff transverse crest of red-, white- and blue-dyed horsehair under one arm. He ran his sword-hand over the short crisp mat of graying black curls on his head.

  “Their fodder’s more than half our shipping needs, too,” he said. “Especially the destriers for the men-at-arms. The damned things eat their heads off and they need grain every day.”

  Her brother John shrugged easily; it clattered a little, since like her he was in half-armor, with plain dark padded arming doublet and breeks beneath it.

  “They are heavy cavalry, General,” he said.

  “If I might add something?” Pip said from beside him.

  She was in an Association lady’s riding dress . . . which happened to be nearly identical to the hakama and short kimono that Reiko’s samurai wore, an old joke of Delia de Stafford’s from the days a generation ago when she’d been the Association’s premier fashionista. Pip’s were pinstriped and dark maroon respectively, with the Balwyn arms—a Wyvern—on the shoulders, two kukri-knives slung at the rear with the handles jutting out conveniently, a folding slingshot, and a black hat on her tawny locks she called a bowler; it was certainly very round.

  She also had a document case slung over one shoulder, and now she pulled something out of it.

  “If I might, General, Admiral, Your Majesty?” she said.

  Pip was smiling as she said it, and the envelope was blazoned with the emblem of the Kingdom of Capricornia—a red flag with a stylized Desert Rose on it, seven white lobe-shaped petals around a black core, and the Southern Cross to the left.

  “My mother’s old friend King Birmo of Capricornia has a message for you.”

  “From that Aussie messenger boat that came in this morning?” Naysmith asked, and got a broad grin of agreement.

  S
he handed it to Órlaith, who opened it—the seal was already broken—and pulled out the documents, turning her back to the shore to break the wind. The realm King Birmo ruled from Darwin was remote from her perspective, but fairly important. About as heavy a weight in the scales of power as one of Montival’s more important constituent realms. Say to Boise, with the addition that Capricornia’s capital, Darwin, was a major entrepôt and shipping center and was home base to a fairly considerable navy. That meant it could quickly mobilize a lot of liquid wealth from its rich trading companies and banks, without the slow process of hypothecating landed revenues that purely agrarian countries faced. In that respect it was comparable to Corvallis and its oceanic extension at Newport, but with a much bigger hinterland.

  “Well, well, well!” Órlaith said, feeling her brows rise and a smile struggle to break free as she read. “Capricornia has declared war on Korea . . . and so have . . . it’s quite a list . . . let’s see, the Colonelcy of Townsville . . .”

  “They’ll have something useful. Wouldn’t be surprised if Daddy showed up,” Pip said. “You can ask him for my hand retrospectively, darling.”

  “The Royal Democracy of Cairns . . .”

  “The democracy thing is a bit of a joke. The Joh dynasty is tyranny mitigated by gross incompetence. Nothing wrong with their troops, though.”

  “The Bloody Miracle of Bundaberg . . . that’s the name of a country?”

  “Don’t ask. Just don’t.”

  “The Republic of Goorangoola . . .”

  “All four of them, and their little sheepdog too,” Pip observed. “Though if what you need for the war effort is a really good Shiraz-Viognier blend that develops fruit and apricot overtones after a few years in the barrel, their contribution will drive you on to victory.”

  “Eden . . . Eden?”

  “Really. Wonderful place for tuna sashimi.”

  “The Federated Abalone Cooperative of Mallaboota and Stationmasters’ Association of Traralgon and Greater Gippsland . . .”