Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change (23 page)

The answer was a wordless growl, and then a thudding hammer as men beat the shafts of their spears on the metal bosses of their shields, the
umbo
. When three thousand men did that, it struck you in the face like a huge diffuse blow as much as a sound in your ears.

“Sound
execute special orders
,” he rapped out.

The tubae sounded again. Every man in his line laid down his shield with the face to the ground and the back and its handgrip uppermost,
then went down on his left knee and planted his three pilae point-down at his right side—the two heavy short-range ones with the iron ball just ahead of the handgrip, and the lighter long-range javelin as well.

Frederick nodded.
Right. That looks as peaceful as possible when you can get everything back and ready to use in a second or so.

A scatter of skirmishers came over the nearest ridges, trotting forward in loose groups, fast agile men with coyote-skins down their backs like cloaks, the heads mounted over their steel caps. They wore only light mail vests over their uniforms, and carried crossbows or bundles of short javelins rather than the heavy six-foot throwing spears of the line infantry. They halted at the odd spectacle before them, wavered, then fell back at a shouted command; they were tasked with giving the front-line commanders last minute intelligence in nearly real time, and with fighting only as needed to do that.

A stir behind him drew his eye; two coaches, halting amid the ambulances. He cursed in sudden recognition and heeled his horse over.

“Goddammit, I gave specific orders—” he began, then recognized the woman on horseback beside the coaches. “Virginia, what the
hell
is going on here? I thought
you
were watching them!”

His wife was in her early twenties, like him; she was in a less flamboyant version of her usual Powder River Rancher’s garb, jeans and boots and Stetson. There was a light mail shirt under the sheepskin jacket, though, as well as her usual saber at belt, bow and shield at her saddlebow. Her narrow face was troubled.

“Honey, I just couldn’t stop her! Short of layin’ hands on her or havin’ the guards do it. I’ll fight
for
your Mom, but I ain’t having a fist-fight
with
her.”

The door of the coach opened, and his mother stepped down. He’d wondered sometimes if there was truth to the old saw that men sought women for wives who reminded them of their mothers. Right now Cecile Thurston was looking grimly determined in a way that Virginia would need decades to achieve, but there
was
a certain likeness in coloring and build and basic strength. She was in the sweater, jacket, jeans and riding boots that well-to-do womenfolk in Boise’s territories usually wore when
they traveled in the cool season; and she looked older than her forty-seven years. As she had since his father died.

Since Martin murdered him.

His young sisters Jaine and Shawonda were with her, also dressed for travel—and
not
in the Protectorate styles they’d been affecting while stashed with the High Queen as his mother traveled and repeated her story to new audiences. His gaze swiveled to the other carriage. The woman who opened
its
door had been more than beautiful and was still very good-looking, her long blond hair up in a Psyche knot under her broad-brimmed hat. She was also pregnant enough to definitely show.

“Juliet,” he said flatly to his sister-in-law. “I’m glad you didn’t bring…your son.”

Then he blinked in surprise. The man with her was…

Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje stepped forward. He was ancient or ageless, his ruddy-brown face wrinkled and seamed like the Tibetan hills that had given him birth so many years ago. As usual except in deep freezing cold he wore only sandals and the shoulder-baring saffron robe. His body had a scrawny stripped-down look as ageless as his face.

He met Fred’s eyes and smiled; they’d become good friends while the Quest overwintered in Chenrezi Monastery on its way east, hiding and healing from wounds suffered in brushes with the CUT. The monk had arrived a while ago with twenty-five hundred horsemen from the Valley of the Sun, escorting Fred’s mother and sisters and Juliet after they’d been rescued by the Dúnedain. There hadn’t been much time to talk since, though he’d heard the Rimpoche had been spending a lot of time with Juliet.

Who, Freya knows, could use some spiritual guidance!

“Young man,” the monk said. “You are angry that these women endanger themselves; but have you not marched out this day to wager your life?”

“I’m a soldier,” he said shortly.

Uh-oh
, he thought.
We spent months in Chenrezi Monastery and I never once won an argument with this guy. Never even really
had
an argument, somehow. The only way
not
to end up agreeing with him is not to have the discussion at all and even then you start arguing with
yourself.

“Have you ordered your men to kneel and ground their spears in order to prepare for the clash of arms?” Dorje asked mildly.

“No,” Fred said. “I’m…hoping there won’t be a fight. Here, at least.”

“These ladies can aid your purpose, which is to prevent men from killing. Any fool can kill; it takes wisdom to prevent it, and there is never enough wisdom. As for the risk, they cannot be harmed any more than you can.”

“Rimpoche, that’s my
mother
you’re talking about! And my sisters. And…well, it’s my duty to protect Juliet too. I’m her children’s uncle.”

The abbot smiled, gentle and implacable. “This is part of your trial. If you have courage it shall certainly be tested; because in all this universe no quality lies latent forever. Do not shrink from your own test, and do not seek to deny theirs to others. Without trial, there is no growth.”

Fred took a deep breath. “Major Woburn!” His new-minted follower came up. “A platoon for guard, please, to accompany the ladies. Cap their spears.”

That meant putting a small wooden ball on the tip; it was more a symbol than anything else, since it could be flicked off in an instant, but symbols were important.

His mother smiled in a lopsided way. “I’m not going to let everything, Larry…everything your father…worked for be torn down, Fred.”

“I should have known,” he said resignedly. “All right. But only if you’re mounted.”

He paused to point at Virginia. “And
you
keep back here with some remounts. I’m counting on you to pull them out if things go bad.”

She wasn’t happy, but she nodded and gave him a smile and a thumbs-up gesture. Those arrangements would give them
some
chance to get out if it went into the pot. Eager hands brought horses forward and adjusted the girths. Heads were turned as they threaded their way forward. There wasn’t any sound—he’d have been shocked if they broke discipline that way—but Cecile smiled and nodded to the men, and Janice and Shawonda waved.

Juliet’s face might have been carved from bleached ivory, but the Rimpoche trotted unconcerned at her saddlebow. He had a knack of being
unobtrusive in plain sight when he wanted to be, which wasn’t all that easy for a Tibetan in Montival. Fred sent a glance to his mother that told her that he
was
surprised to see Juliet here, risking her own precious sleek skin. Cecile shrugged with an unreadable expression that wasn’t quite a smile. Her attitude towards her daughter-in-law wasn’t
quite
one of unmitigated contempt.

And
I
never thought Juliet was a coward. Other things, but not that.

His stomach was in a knot and he could taste acid at the back of his throat; but this
would
make success more likely; if Lawrence Thurston had been the stern hard father of the nation who’d kept the dream alive through the terrible years of hunger and plague and fear in a universe come loose from its moorings, Cecile had been the mother. And Juliet had a special status. Everyone knew that she’d been a lot of the political brains behind Martin’s rise.

It also raised the risks of failure. Counting Virginia, nearly everything he had of kin was riding with him right now, in sight of Odin and artillery.

He grasped the valknut that hung around his throat above his armor; he’d come to follow that path, and learned more of it in Norrheim, on the shores of the Atlantic. Heard the High One speak himself, through the seeress He possessed, and claim one Frederick Thurston as His own. The Lord of the Ravens had his own purposes in the world, and to be one of His favorites was a double-edged sword. He didn’t spare Himself…and wouldn’t spare you either.

Memory flitted through him, memories of things seen with the eye of the soul in a place very far away: upward across a bridge sparkling with color, beneath gigantic stars, towards roofs thatched with spears of glittering gold where auroras crackled. A path that could only be walked unflinching, the way a man locked shields with his oath-brothers and paced towards a line of spear points and glaring eyes.

Father of Victories, I am Your man. You gave an eye for wisdom and sacrificed Yourself unto Yourself. I am ready to fight on this battlefield, either with steel or with craft, and You are God of both. Aid me now that I may aid my folk and those who look to me and the King to whom I have plighted faith, and I will pay the price—be it what it may. I myself am the sacrifice I offer to You.

Steel stiffened him; a memory of his father, nodding as he surveyed some task everyone thought was impossible and calmly settling down to it.

“Let’s go,” he said, and walked his horse forward.

The Eagle standard and flag of the Republic went with him; the squad Woburn had peeled off trotted easily, keeping pace with the horses at a slow jog despite the weight of steel and wood and leather on their bodies. A thunder sounded ahead, a familiar
boom-
huff-huff-
boom
sound. His mouth tightened; he knew that all too well, and it was a lot less comforting coming at you than it was when you were part of it. Thousands of men walking in step and marking it not with drums but by slamming the inside of their curved
scutum
with the shaft of their spears at every step, each pace the long yard of Boise’s army. It was as if he could smell their approach, a rank scent of oiled leather and sweat and steel.

A great deal depended on which battalion came over that hill…

He squinted into the sun. It seemed to ripple and sparkle along the crest ahead of him; pila-points, the sharpened metal catching the sun behind and throwing it forward in eye-hurting blinks.

And did they hesitate just an instant when they saw who was ahead? I think so. I’m betting a whole lot that’s so.

Dave Woburn was walking beside Fred’s horse, shield slung and swagger stick in his hand. He missed a step, then half-skipped to make it up.

“That’s the Sixteenth, sir!” he blurted. “My boys!”

There was hope in his voice, and a tightly contained hurt. Fred nodded to himself. It couldn’t be easy, the thought of fighting the unit you’d sweated blood to train and lead, that was home and family to you. It would be like striking at your own flesh with your sword.

And it’s just now occurred to me that I’m walking towards this man’s own troops and that if he turned me over to them there’s almost nothing my brother…the man who used to be my brother…wouldn’t give him in reward. Well, I decided to trust him. Rudi vouched for him…and if I can’t pick who to trust, I’m not fit to command anything anyway.

Something similar seemed to have passed through the defector’s mind.

“Ah…thank you, sir,” he said. “I just hope…They’re good soldiers,
sir. The Sixteenth isn’t supposed to be a fancy elite unit, but I’d match them against any other outfit in Army in a straight-up slugging match.”

“Major Woburn?”

The man looked up; he was older than Fred, but not so very much. Fred went on:

“My father once said to me that a good officer has to love his troops and love the Army. But the Army exists not for its own sake but to serve the State by winning victories, so we have to be ready to destroy the thing we love.”

“That’s hard, sir.”

“He was a hard man, but for good reasons. And let’s hope we
don’t
have to do that. Because the best possible thing for those men over there and for the country would be if we can talk them ’round…oh,
hell
.”

He felt his stomach sink. “Sir?” Woburn said.

“Fred?” his mother enquired.

“The biter is bit. I just realized what I have to do, and charging with my sword in hand would be a
hell
of a lot easier.”

And a certain Person is answering me, I think. I said I’d give anything…and the first thing He asks is a part of my pride and a type of courage that’s a lot rarer than what you need for straightforward fighting. Maybe He
is
trying to tell me something.

At Woburn’s look he went on: “If I try to talk to them, it’s political—can’t help but be. Someone might well think that’s dirty pool and justifies throwing a spear even under a truce flag. You, not so much. You, with Mom and the others, not so much at all.”

His mother shot him a surprised glance. “You
have
learned a lot over the last few years, dear.”

“It’s the company I keep, Mom.” He looked at his sisters. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“You’re right, sir. I know my second-in-command…Jack Simmons…and my battalion sergeant major, Dan Lindquist. They’re not going to offer violence to your ladies. And I think…I really think they may listen.”

Shawonda was the elder sister; she moistened her lips and nodded
firmly. Her face was still round and unfortunately acne-spotted, but you could see the woman through the girl more now.

“He was our dad too, Fred. And they’re a lot less likely to throw spears at two mothers and some kids.”

There was no answer to that except a stray thought that Shawonda was a teenager now, and not young for her age—hanging out with Matti had probably been an education, too.

“I remember Dan Lindquist,” Cecile Thurston said thoughtfully. “Your father rescued him and his family on that mission to Lewiston, during the plague year. A good man, very solid. Quiet and not ambitious, he refused a commission, but nobody’s fool. His wife’s a doctor.”