The Protector's War

by S. M. Stirling

  "Sunset's in about five hours," she said.

  Rowan put the lower tip of his bowstave to the earth, looked at the length of the shadow it cast and nodded; then he glanced up at the three-quarter moon—up since two hours past noon, and it wouldn't set until about the same before dawn.

  "Hmmm," he said. "Rendezvous on the way with Cynthia at two hours past midnight. Call it four and half miles to Table Rock as the raven flies, another three on foot… three hours' travel, and the pace to leave us fresh at the end. Plenty of time if we leave at sunset, and we'll all be the better for a meal and some rest."

  She opened herself to the weather, looked at the sky, sniffed deeply. "More cloud later, though not soon. Perhaps a little rain. Damp and heavy dew, certainly. That'll lay scent and muffle sound."

  Rowan nodded again; he broke the deadwood for the fire himself, feeling to make sure it was bone-dry all the way through, to burn without smoke. Then he set up a screen of woven branches before he kindled it with his lighter, making a fire that quickly turned to embers low and hot. The meat of the deer was cut into chunks and strung on sticks, with no seasoning but salt as it sizzled at the edges of the fire. Soon he was saying over and over again:

  "Keep that back there, the Dagda club you dead, don't drip more grease on the coals, keep it off to the side, it makes less smoke that way!"

  To go with it two thin griddle plates were set over the coals; onto them went a batter made from stream water and the coarse meal everyone carried in their haversacks. It had baking powder and salt already mixed with the stone-ground flour, and it quickly rose and bubbled and browned into a thick biscuitlike wheat cake that went well with the last of the strong-tasting sour-cream butter in its Tupperware container. Despite the packhorses, they had only the most basic foodstuffs along; the bulk of the loads were weapons and tools to make them—bowstaves, strings, arrowheads, bowyer's draw knives and little printed booklets on the art of turning Pacific yew into longbows.

  Gifts, so to speak, Juniper thought a little grimly. To the Protectorate's common folk.

  She juggled a hot gobbet of deer's liver from hand to hand until she could bite into it and lick the delicious juices from her fingers. Someone made an inarticulate sound of pleasure, then said:

  "Venison always tastes better like this."

  "When you're famished?" Juniper said. "Of course! Is maith an't-anlann an't-ocras. Hunger is a good sauce."

  A small cauldron boiled water for herb tea—they had some water-purification powder along, but it tasted bad and the folk in Corvallis charged the earth for it. Bringing creek water to a hard rolling boil for fifteen minutes killed the giardia parasites just as dead, and a few handfuls of herbs were easy enough to carry. Cold, the excess would go into their canteens.

  One of the watch came in to report, and to take food back to his companions. "Silvermoon's up on the crest," he said, jerking a thumb in that direction. "And yes, I reminded her not to let the binoculars flash when she had them pointing west. Nothing between here and there that she can see."

  He made a wide circling gesture. "No man-sign on any side, either; not recent enough to see, at least. I don't think they patrol this far."

  Juniper nodded. "That post is there to watch for people trying to get out of the Protector's territory," she said. "There's nothing east of here for a hundred miles except the Cascades, and he holds Highway 25 and 26. And Hood River northeast, but he has that too."

  When Tom had gone off with two bark plates loaded with food for his friends there was nothing much to do but smother the fire with shovelfuls of dirt—and only then with a bucket of water. They all made a murmured apology for disturbing the earth here, laid out their crumbs as an offering for the birds and the spirit of the crag, and settled in to wait. Some went over their gear again, checking the fletching on their arrows, flexing their brigandines to make sure all the rivets that held the metal plates between the layers of canvas or leather were sound, scanning every inch of their longbows for cracks and the horn tips to make sure they were still tightly glued.

  The veeep… veeep … of steel on hone sounded quietly, as the blades of swords and spears and dirks, the edges of arrowheads, were ground a little sharper. It was the sort of obsessive detail-work you did on tools that might mean the difference between life and death; then everyone went over the maps one last time. When that was done, many of the young warriors sat in facing pairs, painting each other's faces and hands with triskeles, spirals, abstract patterns, or the forms of their totems. Sam disapproved of the fashion for painting up before a fight—he claimed it reminded him too much of football hooligans in the old days back in England—but even the First Armsman hadn't been able to forbid it. When it was finished Rowan's face was overlain with a dragon's in gold and black and scarlet, with the tail curving around his neck.

  And to think I once thought I was joking when I told Dennie that he'd have them all painting their faces blue if he kept up with the Celticity, she thought. Little did I imagine! Here I'm to blame, though. The patterns are all from my library. Who knew just loaning books would… well, there's not much else to do in wintertime, at that.

  Those who'd finished set gear by and rested quietly; a few lovers went aside—they might be dead this time tomorrow—and others played cards, tossed dice, or told stories. She heard a snatch of that:"… and then he said as the outlaw turned at bay: 'This is the most powerful war bow in the clan, and even I can't hold the draw forever. So tell me, punk, do you feel lucky?'"

  Rowan took extra care with his great war ax, rubbing a swatch of raw wool up and down the smooth ashwood shaft, checking the rawhide binding at the lower end, taking out a pocket hone to touch up the broad curved cutting surface. That had a blade of hard spring steel, welded with forge fire and hammer into the mass of a head made out of twisted bundles of softer low-carbon rebar; that let the rear face serve as a smashing hammer on targets that would shatter the cutting edge. When he was finally satisfied he rubbed the wool over the metal—the lanolin kept rust from starting—and slipped on a leather cover fastened with a snap.

  It was a trifle cruder than Dennie's weapon, but skillfully made, and graven with runes and symbols that had made her blink a little the first time she'd seen it bare and close enough to read them.

  And made me wonder where he dug those up. They weren't in any book I lent to Dun Carson! Bane and blight and ruin were worked into that metal with every hammer stroke. I'd as soon go into battle with a rattlesnake in my naked hand! Yes, it's a terrible weapon, but it will betray him in the end; doesn't he realize that?

  Quiet fell. Juniper Mackenzie set herself cross-legged, controlled breathing, brought up the image of a still pond reflecting the crescent moon and sank inward. More and more of the others followed her, unless they had immediate tasks to do. When she stirred it was just short of the time for leaving; the westering sun touched the distant Coast Range, and eastward the high Cascade snows burned crimson along the horizon of encroaching night. Overhead the moon shone through patches of clear sky and glowed when streamers of white haze covered it; the air smelled moist.

  "Come," she said, and they knelt in a Circle around symbols scratched into the dirt with a dirk for an athame—but the best symbol for a sharp knife was still a sharp knife.

  Here could be no elaborate rite; nor was this one she would have chosen to lead, except from hard necessity. The quiet words still rang in her mouth and in the cold wind that blew along her spine and into mind and heart. And at last:

  "… so come to us, Lugh of the Shining Spear, Dread Lord, mighty Warrior, All-Conquering Sun; come to us, Badb-Macha-Neman called the Morrigan, Great Queen of Battles, raven-winged and strong, Chooser of the Slain! Your own faithful people call upon You, and to You we dedicate the acorn harvest of the red field. Arise and come with storm and terror, in blood and in wrath! So mote it be!"

  Then they clasped hands, chanting:

  "I am the wind that breathes on the sea I am the wave, wave on the ocean I am the r
ay, the eye of the Sun I am the tomb, cold in the darkness I am a star, the tear of the Sun I am a wonder, a wonder in flower

  Who but I can sing the meeting of the mountains? Who but I will cry aloud the changes in the moon? Who but I can find a place that hides away the sun?

  Through a word of great power,

  I am the depths of a frozen pool

  I am the song of the Raven black

  I am the spear that cries out for blood!"

  They rose with the last words and set out, all but the pair watching the horses, filing into the shadows of the trees.

  A figure came ghosting up the pathway behind the Rangers, where it wound below Table Rock. Eilir stepped into the shadows of the trees with the rest, but Astrid made the Safe gesture; it must be Kevin, their rear guard, the one who wielded brushwood to wipe out their tracks. He was panting a little, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  We're being followed. The hands moved in starlight and moonlight; that washed his freckled face pale, or perhaps tension did. They're a half mile behind me. Six of them.

  And there were six Rangers in the nighted woods below the mountain. The Protector's men evidently did patrol this close to home. She watched Astrid bite her lip, then sign swiftly: Upslope, then back along our tracks. Linear ambush. Quick and quiet, Dunedain!

  They'd been moving north along an overgrown old dirt road, upslope from a creek brawling with snowmelt and about a mile east of Table Rock. The water would cover most noise. A lifetime among the hearing had taught her how to calculate such things; the vibration was perceptible beneath her feet, and it was only a few hundred feet to the water—the pitch was at least a foot of descent for every three or four laterally. The woods upslope were thicker than those towards the creek, but neither was thin, and it was a mile or better to the enemy lookout; as long as they stayed under the branches, at night they might have been ten miles away, or a hundred. Tattered wisps of mist trailed from the treetops above, drifting down the slope towards the water and half covering it as they thickened.

  They eeled through the woods east of the road, racing back along the direction of their own travel and trying not to break the brushwood in their paths; it grew darker, and she drank in her surroundings through her fingertips and the movement of air on her face and arms. It was cold and damp now, dew beading on grasses and ferns and moss, dropping down her neck and wetting her kilt and legs. The scent of needles and leaves decaying under her feet was strong, though the fog gave a muffled feel to everything, as if her nose was stuffed with soft cloth.

  Here, Astrid signed. We can't stop and swap arrows with them. Too much chance one might get away and warn the lookout station—it's only a mile upslope from here. Eilir and I will shoot at the leader, and so on down the line; everyone shoot twice at the same first target as your anamchara, move down one, then out blades and at them. No prisoners, no battle cries, and do it fast. We can't let any get away.

  She disposed them along twenty yards of the road, each in a position with a clear sight of the trackway. Each stood where they would shoot, drew four arrows from their quivers and stuck them lightly in the ground at their feet, then stepped back behind the chosen tree. It wasn't hard to find ones that offered complete concealment; they folded their shaggy twig-woven war cloaks around them and drew up the hoods, looking through the wide mesh of the gauze masks. From the moonlit road, the space beneath the trees would be caverns of blackness.

  Eilir turned her eyes to Astrid, got a grin, and gave one in reply. It wasn't a fake, but not as easy as her soul sister's either. That's the thing about playing a role all the time, she thought, with tender exasperation. After a while, you are what you pretend. And Astrid's been pretending to be utterly fearless so long she really is.

  Then they settled in with their backs to each other, ready to step around the tree in opposite directions. Calm was a little harder for Juniper Mackenzie's daughter. She controlled her breathing, drawing the chill wetness slowly in through her nose down into the bottom of her lungs, and sought through open eyes the image of a single star appearing on the horizon of morning. After a moment thought died down, and with it flashes of memory, of sights and smells and horrors. Instead the awareness of the night flowed into her, drops trickling on her skin, the bite of an insect. Time seemed to slow and lose the herky-jerky quality of tension. A moth went by heedless of her, less than hand's-breadth from her face. Then there was a flash of pointed leathery eight-inch wings behind a yellowish brown furry head, and the moth was gone save for head and wings tumbling towards the forest floor in the departing killer's wake.

  Hoary bat, she thought with mild detachment. Then: Here they come.

  Five men, walking in a long staggered line down the brush-grown dirt road below, with the gathering fog reaching to their knees in patches where it lay thick. Two had floppy-eared hounds on chain leads, and the animals pulled forward eagerly, noses to the ground. They wore uniforms of a sort—much like pre-Change camouflage hunting garb—and carried crossbows; they didn't seem to be wearing armor, though they might have light mail under the loose jackets. Besides that they wore small backpacks, with knives at their waists and machetes in place of swords—what the Protector insisted be called "falchions" in his domain.

  In a way Arminger is Astrid's evil twin, she thought with a distant corner of her mind. . The rest of her was focused on the… targets. Just targets.

  They walked fast, their eyes raking the sides of the road upslope and down. The man in the lead drew closer, clearer in the bright moonlight that washed the road at intervals. He walked gracefully, though he looked to be older than his followers; he had a pointed beard that was gray-streaked brown, and a silver badge pinned to the turned^

  up brow of his floppy hat. That was in the shape of a rampant lion holding a broad-bladed spear.

  Lord Molalla's sigil. They must be his foresters. And that one, he was a soldier before the Change, or a hunter, or both. Probably both.

  Foresters were huntsmen—of runaway peons and serfs not least—and border guardians; the town of Molalla was down in the center of the barony, although the river it stood on had its source in these mountains. Their leader was scanning the ground, not entirely trusting to his dogs but following the Rangers' tracks; that was no easy feat, at night and after a skillful attempt to disguise them, and through the rampant brush and grass that had hidden most of the bare ground. Occasionally he would stop and toe aside some vegetation to get a better look at the damp earth.

  At last he came level with them. Eilir felt a nudge from Astrid behind her, and each hit the quick-release toggle on their war cloaks, letting them fall as they took a stride forward, pivoting and bringing up their bows in the same motion.

  Loose. A sharp quick rap as the bowstring slapped against her bracer, and the hum of recoil in her bow hand.

  The arrow had only a hundred feet to go, but it was downhill, and the man with the pointed beard was already diving forward towards the Rangers' side of the road, going under the trajectory of the shafts. The dogs went down, and several of the huntsmen; a spatter of crossbow bolts came back from the rest. Eilir's hand went down for one of the arrows she'd stuck in a moss-grown root and the lead huntsman popped back up again; he hadn't wasted the one quarrel of his slow-loading weapon on a reflexive shot at an invisible target. He aimed with careful speed and then fired, dodging back behind the roadside growth at once. The bolt didn't come anywhere near the two young women; instead another figure toppled down the slope towards the track, clawing at stems and branches.

  No time to think which of her friends it had been. The bearded huntsman was out of sight even as the two return arrows hissed down and thumped into the place he'd been.

  Another was fleeing down the road but he dropped with limp sack-of-grain finality and two long arrows in his back.

  Astrid dropped her bow and swept out the long Bear-killer sword she wore slung with the hilt jutting beyond her left shoulder. Eilir drew her short sword; in the same motion her left
hand snatched the buckler from its hook on the weapon's sheath. Then they leapt down the steep rocky mountainside, their boots kicking up black basalt gravel and clods of dark wet earth. Steel glimmered under the moon, almost matching the sheen of the fog…

  And Astrid's probably busting a gut not shouting A El-bereth Gilthoniel! as loud as she can, Eilir knew.

  Since Juniper's daughter couldn't talk without using her hands she contented herself with a wide carnivore smile; opponents often found her silence disconcerting.

  Come on, soul sister, you may be a goof but you're a swordswoman goof!

  They both jinked and dodged as they came down the slope, the rest of the Rangers on their heels; not too difficult, when you were running at speed down an unfamiliar steep slope in darkness, caroming off trees and trying as hard as you could not to trip on the things that snatched at your feet and wanted to throw you helpless at the feet of men with hungry swords. By unspoken agreement they were both headed for the leader with the pointed beard; he was far too deadly skilled to be granted even a few seconds to draw his band together or take thought, and there were no points for fighting fair.

  Both thought he might be waiting as they burst through the brush with a quarrel in the groove. Instead he'd done something even smarter, realizing that this fight was lost; they caught the sway of weeds and saplings on the other side of the road, as he headed quick-foot for the stream below. There he could break his trail, get around them and warn the lookout station on Table Rock.

  A buckler was useful for running through a forest at night. You could hold it up to protect your eyes from things that would otherwise poke them out. Their legs were long and they were young; the man was only halfway across the brawling snow-swollen creek when they crashed onto the gravel on its bank. Fog came to his waist over the water, ripped aside now and then for an instant as the current pulled eddies through the air.

  Mustn't let him out of sight. He'd disappear too well.

  None of the three had a distance weapon. Or at least, none had a bow—the man stooped instantly, came up with a fist-sized rock and threw with a motion that said he'd played baseball once, whatever his other lifeways. Astrid ducked in her headlong charge, but not quite quickly enough; the rock slammed into the front of her helmet instead of her face, and ricocheted up into the darkness. The young woman's head slapped backward and her heels shot out from under her as she pitched flat on her back, disappearing in the ground mist.