The tall girl with the silver-streaked eyes pouted slightly, but nodded. Cynthia nodded as well, and Rowan raised his mug: "Well, we'll need Working for what we have in mind, too, Archer," he said, and winked as Aylward scowled. "The Lord of the Spears and the Lady of the Crows…"
Eilir and Astrid both looked as if they were suppressing a grave excitement. The pair from Dun Carson were openly eager. Juniper sighed. This too was the work of a leader in the Changed world.
Or perhaps any other.
Chapter Fourteen
Crossing Tavern, Willamette Valley, Oregon
May 13th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine
I thought you had some direct action in mind, back on Gunpowder Day," Mike Havel said. "Good for you. If Arminger's barons think they can violate the truce on the quiet whenever they like, I'll be damned if we can't do likewise."
He grinned. "And each of us can blame it on the others."
Juniper nodded. "It's a cunning fellow you are, Mike. We left Chuck and Judy in charge at Dun Juniper, and the fair at Sutterdown this Beltane was a good cover for what we had to do. No better time to gather the right people secretly, and to leave unnoticed."
What a wealth of living that packs into a couple of sentences, Juniper thought, looking around the Crossing Tavern's private room at them. Mike's eyes, friendly and shrewd and as ruthless as a wolf in winter as his strong white teeth ripped the meat off a pork rib; his Signe's blue gaze, intelligent and not in the least friendly; the calm strength of Will Hutton that always reminded her of Sam, and the polite curiosity of the English group.
"Arminger has been nipping at us for years, and we've been nipping right back," she said, taking a sip of her ale. "It was time to sink some real fangs right in his arse. And while there may or may not have been an underground of Witches in Europe in the old days, there most certainly is in the Protectorate this ninth year of the Change, and other folk Who're friendly to us and not him—secretly, of course. Relatives of those who've made it out and settled among us, for starters. First our people gathered by twos and threes, slipping away and eastward, up into the mountains on the old tracks."
"Safer than trying to sneak over the border around Salem, say?" Mike asked.
"Less conspicuous, certainly," Juniper said. "Except for the odd hunter not many go up into the high country these days, and most of those stick to the lower levels; the game's thicker there, and it's safer. We've never been able to scour the mountains completely clean of bandits and Eaters, not north of Route 20 at least. Too big, and too far from our duns. We can't spare the people for constant patrols. Plus there are too many ways to slip over the mountains."
"Yeah," Will Hutton growled. "Them CORA folks, they don't watch any of their side as close as they should, 'cept maybe the main passes. Lots of wanderin' folk and broken men east of the mountains, always a few coming on to the west. Worse these last two years, with the war in the Pendleton country."
Juniper nodded. "But nothing that's a threat to a big well-armed party, so we drew together at Elk Lake, and worked our way north to Table Rock in three separate groups, not too far apart. Forest country, still a bit chilly and wet in May, but tolerable if you know how. The Protector doesn't entirely ignore that area, though. It's where runaway serfs head for, to begin with…"
Table Rock Wilderness, Willamette Valley, Oregon May 6th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine
Not enough birds, Juniper thought suddenly.
This land near Table Rock was home to many; she'd been listening to a golden-crowned kinglet until just a second ago. All at once they were silent, on both steep slopes above and below the trail…
"Whoa!" someone exclaimed, up near the head of the column.
The Mackenzies halted; it was eight, just two hours after sunrise, and May was still chilly enough in the mountains for the horse's breath to show as white plumes of steam in air crystal-clear and scented with fir sap and pine. Juniper could see over the heads of the dozen or so on foot ahead of her. She went mounted as a concession to age and rank; there wasn't enough grass on these upland trails for more to ride, unless you wanted to get into a circular-argument trap where more horses carried fodder so you could have more horses carrying fodder. She still didn't see what was ahead for a moment, because her mount was forgetting its training, snorting and trying to rear on the narrow forest track. From the sound of it, so were the four packhorses behind her. Where they thought they could go was a mystery, since the land was forty-five degrees from vertical in all directions and densely covered in big trees and underbrush.
Bear was her first thought, when she saw what blocked the trail, along with minor irritation; they were common here in the western Cascades and most likely it would trundle off soon enough. Then she got a better look; brown, higher at the shoulders than the rump, dished face, and big—very, very big.
Grizzly! What did the man say? "I expected this, but not so soon!"
There had been rumors of grizzly sightings in the last couple of years, but nothing confirmed—like wolves and buffalo, they'd been half wishful tale rather than fact. This was Old Eph right enough, an adult male with the beginnings of the whitening on his hump hairs. Probably he'd been born right after the Change, and wandered in westward from the Montana-Wyoming mountains, or down from British Columbia, looking to stake out his own feeding ground. Grizzlies needed big territories to support their bulk, and with guns gone and humans scarce again they were spreading fast throughout their historic range. In Oregon that meant everywhere except some of the southeastern deserts, but she hadn't thought they'd make it this far in only nine years. A jolt of excitement went through her as she watched the majestic beast move its long neck back and forth enquiringly.
At least Earth is healing Herself. Thanks and praise, Lord Cernunnos of the Forests, Lady Artemis of the Beasts!
Then she decided it was perhaps more pleasant to contemplate the bear's majesty at a distance; say, viewed through binoculars across a valley and a nice swift creek. And that up close like this it was perhaps more exciting than she wished; grizzlies were a lot more temperamental than ordinary black bears. This one looked to be still slightly gaunt from winter, and hungry. It also seemed to be sniffing the air with mounting interest, which was unfortunate—it could smell the horses. And even more, the blood-and-meat scent of the butchered mule deer carcass slung over one of them.
They'd split the Mackenzie war band into three to work their way through these mountains, with the Rangers scouting on ahead and carrying messages between the columns. Sam was with one group, Cynthia led another, and Juniper presided over this, with Rowan handling most of the actual leading. He was near the head of the column, and flung up a hand to freeze everyone in place. Two in the lead leveled battle spears; the rest put arrow to string and made ready to draw; the movements were quick, fluid. The razor edges of the broadheads glinted in the olive-green gloom of the morning forest as light flickered through the needles of the Douglas firs and hemlocks.
"Shall I shoot?" someone said.
The archers sidled out to get a clear field of fire; that wasn't easy given the footing, but the path did curve a little towards the west. Between them they could probably put a dozen shafts into the beast inside a second, but…
"Don't be a fool," Rowan said, his voice steady but pitched low. "There aren't enough of us to use the meat and we can't pack the hide out, and he might get through to us anyway. Shoot if he charges or I say so. And get those horses under control!"
Juniper did; she was riding Eilir's Celelroch, and the well-trained beast quickly subsided into tense quiet. Between her daughter's knees the Arab mare probably wouldn't have started acting up at all; Juniper was a good rider, Eilir a superb one. The people tending the pack ani-mals took a little longer, and the bear was getting more curious about the smells of blood and meat.
Rowan stepped up between the spearmen—although one of them was a spearwoman, if you wanted to get picky. His shaggy hooded war cloak made the big blond man look even larger—i
t was loose-meshed cloth mottled in shades of green-brown, and sewn thickly with narrow dangling loops. This last day, they'd all taken the time to stick twigs and vegetation in the loops, which made you look bulkier except when you were keeping very still, in which case it made you near-as-no-matter invisible. Rowan faced the bear and slid his bow into the crook of his arm. His right hand reached out, and effortlessly snapped off a thumb-thick, arm-long branch from a hemlock that rose from lower down the slope to stand beside the trail.
"Peace between us today, brother bear," he said. "You go your way, and we'll go ours. Everyone get ready!"
Juniper echoed the thought in her head, her hand making a sign, concentrating her will like a dart. So mote it be!
Rowan took the branch in his left hand; now his right moved to his belt, slowly and carefully, and brought out a lighter. The alcohol-soaked wick caught immediately as his thumb spun flint against steel in a shower of sparks, and the hemlock needles went up with a woosh as he touched the flame to them. Then he waved it overhead, yelling; to the bear's senses a twelve-foot figure tipped with the terror of fire. The rest of the party raised their arms and waved them as well, shouting nonsense—or in a couple of cases, prayers. The bear half reared, nostrils wrinkling, and let out a deep moaning grunt of protest that showed its long yellow teeth.
Juniper had noticed years ago that predators were less afraid of humans since the Change; even before that they'd known the difference between a man with a gun and one without quite well, and they'd quickly realized that the dangerous noisemakers were gone. They were still wary of fire, though, and by now the bear's weak eyes and keen ears must have noticed that there were a good many of the irritating, noisy bipeds as well as the tempting smell of food. Hunger and aggravation warred with caution, and then the great beast turned and crashed off into the rhododendron thickets. The noise of its passage gradually dwindled, and the normal forest sounds replaced it.
Phew! she thought, shaken. That could have been unfortunate!
The clansfolk waited until the bear was obviously gone; a member of the sept named for him gathered tufts of cinnamon fur from the bushes, chuckling with delight as he wrapped them in a rag and tucked them into a pouch—they would make much-admired marks for his bonnet clasp, and fine gifts for friends who were of his totem. The rest kept their eyes busy, then calmly resumed their steady ground-eating pace; a few discussed the meeting in low tones for a while, then went quiet again. She knew that was mostly simple prudence; they weren't very near enemy-controlled territory yet, but they were well north of any area the Mackenzies controlled or made safe. Yet most of it was that they simply didn't care much, beyond having an interesting story to tell when they got home.
I do not understand the younger generation of our Clan, she thought, shaking her head a little. I love them, but I do not understand them, even my own dear son. And even Eilir is stranger to me than she would have been, in the old world.
Most of those here were younger than her daughter, who'd been fourteen nine years ago; Rowan was the eldest at twenty-six. Only blurred childhood memories of the time before the Change remained to the youngsters, and that had left its mark. It was more obvious on this venture, days alone with her juniors.
What is it exactly? she thought. It's not just that they're hardy and tough. So are Sam or Chuck…or myself myself, to be sure. Or that they're devout Witches; so am I, and a legion of our converts are wildly so, like drowning folk clutching at a sturdy log. I think it's that they just… take it all for granted. They're not haunted by the Change, this is their world. And it's not that they believe in the Craft; it's the way they do. It's not an affirmation with them; they believe the way we believed in atoms.
Plus they didn't hold themselves quite like late-twentieth-century Americans, or walk like them, or sit like them… and there was an indefinable something in their speech, too. And in the way they treat me. It wasn't the sometimes embarrassing reverence of those who'd joined the Clan in the Dying Time and lived because of it, although there was a deep respect. They were ready enough to banter with her, or argue for that matter, but underlying it…
The fact of the matter is they really do think of me as the Goddess-on-Earth, and they're easy with that, too—a lot easier than I! They've grown up foreign to me and their parents, and that's the long and short of it. Their children will be more alien still. Juniper shook her head. Later, she decided. Time to think of such things later.
The season was less advanced than down in the warmer lowlands to the west, earth wet underfoot, a damp chill in the air whenever they were out of the sun, but the effort kept them all warm. The path wound through forest still as the long day wore on into midafternoon; they were pushing to reach their destination well before nightfall, and merely gnawed biscuit or other trail food as they walked, and swigged from canteens. This had been private land, mostly regularly harvested for timber and replanted. Nine years hadn't changed it all that much, although fires had left patches of open ground where bushy thin-leaf huckleberry grew thickly in a profusion of small yellow flowers, mixed with manzanita pink. Wildlife and birds were thicker too, in this rich edge habitat without many human hunters; the paths and trails more overgrown, kept open more by paw and hoof than boot or wheel.
The peaks about weren't tall, even their destination was a bit under five thousand feet, but they made a tangle of sharp ridges and deep V-shaped valleys, mostly densely covered in trees right to their summits, woven with a net of creeks and small lakes. Now and then a view opened up to the east and showed the white cone of Mt. Jefferson, and sometimes the Three Sisters farther southward, less often Mt. Hood far to the northeast. Mostly the land reared in close about them. Then they passed an old fallen park sign, deep in a swale, and angled east behind a tall butte.
A sound not quite like a chickadee greeted them. Using the signal was wise; when the war-cloaked figure rose from the side of the trail nobody sank an arrow through the body beneath. A hand in an archer's glove threw the hood back above a Mackenzie helmet covered in the same fabric, and an implausibly young face grinned at them. Black eyes snapped in a brown face beneath a shock of raven hair that showed around the edge of his bowl helmet—it was Sanjay Barstow Mackenzie, one of the adoptees Chuck and Judy had rescued from a stalled schoolbus just after the Change, while they were on their own journey from Eugene to Juniper's cabin.
"The Archer sends greeting, and you're where you were supposed to be," the young man said; he was just turned nineteen. His voice held a slight sardonic edge, as if he was surprised to find them there. "He says Nohorn Butte there will hide you from Table Rock if you're careful with your fires."
"Tell Sam to teach his grannie how to suck eggs," Rowan growled. "What sort of idiot does he take me for?"
Sanjay's grin grew wider: "Well, he didn't specify what sort exactly, but if you want me to guess I could come up with a few—" He cut off at Rowan's snort, and went back to business: "The Dunedain say it's just as our secret Witch-kin in Molalla said: a launcher, and a lookout station there. They'll lead us into position before dawn, and you're to be ready for the frontal attack on the signal—three fire arrows, out over the gate."
Juniper nodded. "We'll be ready," she said.
Sanjay took in the disassembled mule deer slung across one packsaddle; they'd done a rough job of draining and butchering, then packed the meat and edible organs back into the hide in a shapeless blood-wet bundle.
"Ah, you were lucky, by Cernunnos!" he said.
"Ah, you mean we were quiet," Rowan boasted. "He crossed the path not a hundred feet ahead of me. One shaft—the heart—ten paces and he dropped."
To be sure, he's still a young man, Juniper thought, smiling to herself.
"Lucky I said; lucky I meant," Sanjay jibed.
"Ah, you mean we can shoot," another of the party chuckled. "And Cernunnos rewarded us for it."
"Well, the Horned Lord may have taken pity on you," Sanjay returned.
Even as they joked, two of the Mack
enzies were lifting the hundred-odd pounds of meat to the ground; they opened the hide, cut some of the raw leather loose and rewrapped a thigh and half the ribs in it. Others helped Sanjay load it into his oiled-leather backpack. The slender fine-boned young man's step didn't falter when another forty pounds went on his back, along with the weight of his brigandine and weapons and gear. He touched the stave of his longbow to his helmet brow in salute to Juniper and disappeared into the woods upslope, climbing the hillside in a series of springy elastic bounds without touching his hands to ground or trunk, kilt swirling around his thighs, the dandy-gaudy peacock fletchings of his arrows bobbing.
"This is a good place," Rowan said, looking around. "Aidan, Donnal, Susie, get water. Tom, Ed, Silvermoon, you're first watch. The rest of you, set up camp here. I'll make the fire."
Juniper rubbed her jaw to hide a smile; evidently he'd taken Sam's warning to heart. She went to help those setting up a picket line to hold the horses; that was a rope stretched between two trees, and a pile of oats and alfalfa pellets from the sacks for each beast. They were out of the logged-over section here, into what had been National Wilderness territory; the trees were tall, a hundred feet or better in mixed stands of hemlocks and firs—Douglas, silver and grand—mostly grown up since the last wildfire went through here over a century ago. By the side of the stream a little southeast were some Douglas firs that looked to be four or five times that age, towering living columns near two hundred feet high and twelve through at the base.
All these mountains will look like this, when Eilir's grand-thildren walk them, Juniper thought, looking up into that majesty.
Undergrowth was sparser under the shade of the canopy, save where the steep rock just north kept out the roots of the big firs; the crest was five hundred feet above them, and Aylward was right—it would hide anything but a pillar of smoke nicely.
The Protector's War Page 40