Juniper felt her mind whirl. "Mathilda!" she said. "That must be it, why he sent that lady in so-called waiting!"
She whirled; Nigel's hand fell on her shoulder. He'd managed to get most of his armor on, somehow.
"They may still have some of it left," he said. "Don't go running in blind."
More and more of her folk were boiling out of their tents. "Rudi," she snapped; that was in the same direction anyway. "Now!"
A dozen of them formed up on her, and they trotted forward. Her back was to the campfires, but there was light ahead too, a sullen red glow mingled with black smoke that smelled rank and hot; burning canvas. Horses neighed, stark fear in the night, and her heart hammered at her ribs.
Then a great calm descended as she saw that it was Rudi's tent that burned. Katrina Georges was there, armed, with Mathilda against her side. The towering form of Mack, several of the knights she'd seen in Sutterdown, out of their disguises now and back in their hauberks… and Eddie Liu, with her son's neck in his hand, and the other gripping some sort of pistollike contraption… no, more like an old-fashioned water pistol but heavy and bulky. The boy's hands were bound behind his back, and there was a rising bruise on the side of his face.
"Hold!" Juniper cried. "Hold, everyone!"
Liu's smile was white in the dimness, framed by his darkened helmet. "Yeah, Ms. Witch, hold it. 'Cause I brought some Raid on this raid." He flourished the pistollike apparatus. "We've all got the antidote. But funny, we didn't give any to Junior here. So if I start spraying this stuff, chances are he may catch some. And it doesn't take much, you know? I got some friends arriving soon, like in minutes, and then we'll all take a ride. And you can send an ambassador to see how your kid is getting on, hey?"
Juniper cast desperate eyes aside at Nigel Loring. He spoke without moving his lips. "Probably not. There wasn't much of the real agent left. But he may have it in that."
But Arminger would never let my child go, no matter what I did. And he would torment him from spite.
Rudi's eyes met hers; there was no fear in them, only a clear anger, his lips braced tight. Eddie Liu grinned at her.
"Told you I'd make you pay, bitch," he said softly. "Do you like your choices now?"
Hooves sounded in the night, galloping horses pressed to desperate haste. One of the Protectorate knights stooped to take a burning tent pole from the ruins of Rudi's tent, waving it aloft in signal.
Whatever he expected, it wasn't the shaft that hissed out of the night and struck him full in the chest, sinking through the mail and halfway to the feathers. The others shouted and jumped to surround their leaders and the children, raising their shields in a protective fence; Mack swept out the huge blade of his greatsword and poised, growling. Firelight shone on the edges of the hungry swords; then she saw Eilir sitting her Arab behind the attackers, and more of her Dunedain on either side.
Liu jerked Rudi closer and poised the water gun. "One more arrow and he dies!"
"You won't harm my son," Juniper said, amazed at the calm strength of her own voice. "You know what would happen to you if you did."
"If I go down, I take your kid with me," Liu said. "I figure that'll hurt you worse than killing you would, and bitch, I've wanted to do that for a long time."
Juniper sheathed her sword and raised her hands, and her voice tolled in the flame-shot night: "Eddie Liu, Kat-rina Georges. I curse you, now; in the name of the Dark Goddess, by the power of the Dread Lord. I curse you in their names and mine, and that curse is this: Death not long delayed. So mote it be!"
Rudi's eyes went wide. One of the knights licked his lips and his sword moved as he crossed himself, but Liu bared his teeth again. "Sorry, Witch Queen, that mojo only works on people stupid enough to believe it. Now we're going to back away, real careful, and if any of your folks get in our way… well, I've got me a real good shield, right here."
More hooves moved in the darkness, not close, but moving fast; Liu grinned. Then it died as there was a sudden ringing clash of steel, a brabble of voices, a stamping and thudding and iron clangor.
"Hakkaa paalle!"
Liu looked over his shoulder. "OK, those are big boys, and they can take care of themselves. Let's go!"
Please, Mother-of-All, Juniper thought, drawing a great breath. Hear me, for I'm a mother too. Not him! Anyone, but not him!
Then, in a high clear shout: "Take them!"
Hanging back was the hardest thing she had ever forced herself to do, but she was no more than a middling hand with a sword, and this was far too dangerous for bows. All she could do would be get in the way of those who might save her son. Liu's hand moved, and a stream struck Rudi's neck and the side of his face; he cried out and twisted in the man's hands. Liu shot again, quick as a striking snake, and droplets of the same heavy, oily liquid landed on her face; it had a nasty chemical stink, and the drops itched and burned… and the night did not darken, and her chest continued to pump in hard quick breaths. Then he screamed a curse and used the heavy glass-and-metal pistol to club Rudi down; the boy went to the ground, writhing.
"A Loring! A Loring!" Nigel shouted as he went forward with darting speed.
Not quite in time, for Mack's first stroke was straight down at Rudi's young body. A desperate leap put Nigel's shield above the boy, but the four-foot blade of the greatsword cut three-quarters of the way through the tough laminate of wood and metal, and broke the arm below it. Mack's steel-splinted boot stamped on the blade of the Englishman's sword and snapped it across, and the next blow sent his sallet helm spinning off into the darkness. Nigel Loring slumped backward, blood running from nose and eyes and mouth, motionless.
The Mackenzies were throwing themselves desperately at the ring of swords now, shrieking and sheerly mad, but many hadn't had time to don their brigandines, and the knights were sheathed in mail and splints of hard metal from ankle to head, armored cap-a-pie. Arminger's men stood shield-to-shield and cast back their rush. Rowan led the next, making for the Marchwarden's giant bodyguard, his long ax spinning, crashing at head and hip and leg.
Crack. The greatsword struck the tough ashwood and broke it in half. The head flipped up into its master's face and laid it open to the bone; he staggered, blinded by his own blood, blinking it clear just in time to see the second stroke that took him between neck and shoulder.
"Father!" Alleyne Loring cried.
"No! Mine!" a deep bass voice bellowed, and John Hor-dle's bastard sword hammered its way past a shield and sent a man reeling, then turned the stroke of Mack's blade with a grunt of effort, a harsh clangor in the night and a stream of sparks. Alleyne tried to use the moment to take the troll-man from behind, but Katrina Georges was suddenly between them, a sword in one hand, a long knife in the other. The circle of shields was breaking up into combats that raged through the flame-shot darkness, two against one, a pair against three.
Eilir was there too, light glittering from eyes gone huge in a face bone-white pale, shining ruddy-bright on teeth bared in a silent gape as she turned the stroke of Liu's bao on her buckler and struck, struck…
Juniper ignored all of it. Instead she saw her moment and darted in, dragging her son free of the melee. His face was a mask of blood, but it was the wound under his short ribs that pulsed red, where the tip of the greatsword had passed after it punched through Nigel's shield. She staunched it with her hands, leaning to put pressure on it.
"Healer!" she shouted. "A healer here! Now!"
Her eyes swiveled, through chaos and death. Glimpses struck her vision and slid from the focus of her mind: Mack sinking to his knees, with Alleyne's sword and a spear through his gut, and Little John Hordle's sword sweeping through a horizontal arc towards his neck; Eddie Liu shrieking as Eilir's short sword punched up under the skirt of his mail and sank home; the lance points of Bear-killer A-listers flickering as they rode into the circle of firelight.
Suddenly Kevin of the Rangers threw himself on his knees beside her. "Let me see… Oh, sweet Goddess, there's to
o much blood lost—"
He shouted, and the sound carried; battle was dying down, save for someone who shrieked for his mother in a long gurgle that cut off sharply. "I need a donor here! Emergency!"
Shadows fell across them. Juniper looked up, with her son's lifeblood on her hands. Mike Havel stood there, blood on his sword and his face twisted with raging grief; Astrid, supporting Alleyne Loring as he slumped with both hands clapped to a wounded face. And Signe Havel, calm as she stripped the vambrace of her right forearm and pushed the mail sleeve of her hauberk back, lying down beside the wounded boy.
"I'm type O," she said. "Universal donor. As much as he needs, Juney. As much as he needs."
Mathilda Arminger had to call her name several times before Juniper Mackenzie heard the words. The cold light of dawn made the tumbled filth of the battlefield bleaker and more lost; somewhere a raven croaked, and tatters of mist lay along the ground. She could taste something old and dead in her mouth as she leaned back against the wagon wheel, but it was too distant to make her move her hand towards the water bottle someone had put there.
I should sleep. Fear and grief and raw magic have hollowed me, and I should sleep.
"Lady Juniper?"
Juniper looked up; tears made runnels down the girl's face, melting a track through a spray of dried blood.
"Will Rudi be OK? Please, can't you, I don't know, make magic about it?"
"I have, girl. I don't know if he'll be all right. He's lost a very great deal of blood, and they're doing what they can. He may get well."
"I'm so sorry. It's because of me."
I should tell her it isn't, but I'm too tired, the Chief of the Mackenzies thought.
"It's because I lent Rudi the book," Mathilda sobbed. "I
lent him the book and Baron Liu went to get it. Katrina didn't want him to but he wouldn't leave without the book!"
That pierced the gray chill that swaddled her mind. "Your book, child?"
A shaking hand held a blue-tinted paperback. "I got it out of Baron Liu's belt pouch after he… when I could. It's not my copy. Kat said she got it at Castle Gervais, and the baron got so angry, and he went for it—"
Memory stabbed her. Eddie Liu's face in that room at Sutterdown… Goddess gentle and strong, was it only yesterday?
"Altendorf substitution codes," she whispered, looking northward—to where Arminger brewed his plots.
She rose. Eilir was close, and she looked up sharply, a tentative wisp of smile curling her lips at the sight of her mother moving.
Get me Mike Havel, she signed. Now, girl! Run!
To herself: The Protector wants war. He'll have it, and not only with the Mackenzies… but we'll need more than talk to do it. When his plans are laid bare… but we'll have to do it at the right time and place. A meeting of all the communities, yes, but not at Larsdalen or Dun Juniper or Mt. Angel. It will have to be a blow to the heart—the heart of the Valley. A meeting at Corvallis.
"Goddess of the raven wings," she whispered, gathering herself. "Strong avenger, give me Your strength."
Epilogue
The path that led upward from Dun Juniper to the mountainside nemed was steep; it wove back and forth beneath tall trees, turning on itself like a serpent in a bed of reeds or the words of an oracle. She had walked it in daylight under summer leaves, and when moonlight shone on snow white as salt beneath stars uncountable. Today gray skies pressed down like the grief of gods, hiding the mountain peaks eastward and the valley to the west alike, and sending drifts of mist through the tops of the great dark-green firs. A wet wind tossed their limbs with an edge of ice; the air soughed around them with the prickling smell of cold snow heavy in it, and the darkness was coming before the cusp of day and night.
Juniper shivered a little, despite the heavy wool of her black ritual robe; the hood was drawn forward shadowing her face and the crescent moon on her brows. It was her folk's custom to sing as they walked to the sacred Wood, but today…
She stilled her mind and raised her voice:
"As the sun bleeds through the murk
'tis the last day we shall work
For the Veil is thin and the spirit wild
And the Crone is carrying Harvest's child!"
The Initiates and Dedicants were robed as she, though only the High Priests and Priestesses wore the tricolored cord belts. Many were masked on this day; some danced with spears flashing dully in the gray light, enacting the Wild Hunt. A harp played, and a flute, and the eerie sweetness of the Uilleann pipes; the beat of the bodhran was like the pulse of blood in her ears. Threescore voices rose in the chorus:
"Samhain! Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day Samhain! Hope and pray All ye meet are the gentle Fae."
Leaves from oak and maple blew past in a cloud of old gold and dark crimson.
"Burn the fields and dry the com Feel the breath of winter born Stow the grain 'gainst season's flood Spill the last of the livestock's blood!"
They came to the Wood, with its great circle of oaks. The trunks were closely placed on a nearly level knee that thrust out from the mountainside; each tree was forty feet and more to the first branch, candle-straight, thicker through than her body. Her great-uncle had planted many trees on his land, three generations ago. What had prompted him to plant this he had never said, but she could guess.
"Let the feasting now begin Careful who you welcome in The table's set with a stranger's place Don't stare openly at his face!"
Iceplant still grew beside the spring that bubbled outside the circle. Juniper led the weaving passage around it, as the song went through heart and bone:
"Stranger, do you have a name? Tell us all from whence you came You seem more like god than man Has curse or blessing come to this clan?"
Then all together, gathering strength:
"Samhain! Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day Samhain! Hope and pray All ye meet are the gentle Fae."
And one last great shout: "SAMHAIN!"
Silence fell as she approached the opening in the northeast corner of the nemed to begin the ritual. Motion and word flowed through her as she cut with the sword to close the Circle. Leafless with new-come winter, twigs grated and squeaked as they swayed and rubbed eighty feet above; the fire that boomed and crackled in the stone-lined pit in the center of the sacred space seemed as if it were the only color and warmth left in the world. Winter was coming early to the high Cascades this year, and the edge of its cloak brushed them here.
Robed in black, the coven of the Singing Moon waited while the High Priestess turned at last to the black veil that today covered the Eastern gate. Behind her on the shaped boulder that made the Altar of Earth were the cauldron and sword, dish of salt, censer, incense… and today, a skull for the Aspect that was called.
The ceremony made its way, and as Juniper faced the Veil of Death she chanted:
"The Year dies, as all things must. The Moon Herself wanes—mourning—in the sign of the Sacrificial Bull. Samhain comes and we greet our beloved dead! Great
One, I now call upon Thee to put on Thy dark cloak. I invoke the Utter Night!"
She raised the athame: "Akare Bal Krithe! The Circle is cast. The Altar is made. Way has been prepared for the coming of the Dark Lady and Dark Lord. In the name of our dead sent untimely to You, we invoke Your power as your people march to war…"
The world faded from around her, even as her body moved through ritual. She had experienced such before, as a communion with a universe of singing light, when all creation swirled around her and she was dancer and the dance, the singer and the song. Now she was… nowhere. Now she spoke, but not in words. Somehow she knew that later there would be words in her memories, but for now there was only Meaning, stripped of symbol.
Do you ask? Something asked of her. Beloved daughter, do you ask this of Us?
Her mind creaked beneath the weight of the contact, struggling to turn away from the task her will compelled; it was like gasping for bre
ath at an effort beyond you yet utterly needful, or like the day when you first felt how tiny the span of your life was in the depths of time. She remembered that day, holding the lump of rock with the fossil shell, and knowing…
For if you ask, daughter, it will be given.
Why do You question me? Isn't this the road that You have laid before me, step by step, whether I will or no?
Images cascaded through her mind; a wheel of fire in darkness, like a galaxy turning through a billion years against a well of night; a man cloaked in blue; a spear, a horse and a single eye; a woman with many arms who danced creation and destruction across the dust of stars beneath her feet; the tormented birth of suns and the death of worlds that foundered in slow fire; ash leaves blowing across a heath; a ship built of bones and dead men's nails on a frozen sea.
There is Fate, and yet there is also Choice. We will not end untimely the tale We sing through you.
Like a flash of fire it went through her.
Then give me my desire, Victory-Father, Dreadful Bride!
Be with me, become me now. Enter, where I have opened the Door, and do all Your will!
And as suddenly she was within the sunless circle again, her skin roughening beneath the coarse fabric of her robe. A raven flew about the tall trees, deasil, and departed northward, its voice a harsh gruk-gruk-gruk in the gathering night.
"So mote it be," she whispered.
The Protector's War Page 62