The Given Sacrifice (31 page)

Rudi’s lips tightened in a snarl. A pile of scrap wood and straw had been piled against
one long low-set building that looked like a cross between a bunkhouse and a fort
and set alight, with parts of it still smoldering and reeking. From the look of the
shattered door someone inside had broken open the barred portal and then pushed through
the flames.

“The Cutters killed the male slaves and pushed the rest inside that building, it’s
only got one door, and then lit the fire,” Ingolf said, confirming his guess. “They
busted out—which took some presence of mind.”

“Not something the Cutters would expect of women,” Mathilda said, a little white around
the lips.

“Yah, well,
stupid
evil shits, fortunately. The Dúnedain came along about then, and signaled for us.
Though damned if I know what they expected us to do that they couldn’t, just at a
loss, I guess.”

There were other signs of haste as well. An X of stout timbers held the body of a
man; his throat had been cut recently enough that the blood pooled at his feet wasn’t
completely dry, but from the look of his body he’d been on the cross for some time.
Several other bodies lay about, all men with lash-marks, sprawled naked where they’d
been shot or cut down. They had arrow-stubs in their bodies, or just the wounds, and
slash-marks from shetes.

So much is bad, but I’ve seen as bad or worse, in war,
Rudi thought.

That wasn’t what made his escort swear until their officers’ barked commands for silence,
or make signs against ill luck, or cross themselves if they were Catholics. Nor even
the fact that all the dead men-slaves had been gelded, and had their right eyes burned
out.

One whole man in a rag loincloth crouched beside a cage of poles lashed together with
twists of iron-hard rawhide, a short but muscular fellow with bewildered eyes roaming
about and his face slack. Two Dúnedain with spear and shield were in front of him,
protecting him from a crowd of women. Most of them were naked too, and many were pregnant,
had burns on their legs and hands, or both. A round dozen were trying to get towards
the man, some of them with billets of firewood or rocks in hand. Others wandered about,
or sat and wept, or stared vacantly, several score in all. One dangled from an improvised
noose that ran out of a window, and he didn’t think that the Cutters had done it.
A team of medics, Rangers and from Ingolf’s volunteers, was tending to the burns and
other injuries of some of the women.

The sound the women-slaves all made was a thick gobbling, stammering through tears
and moans. You could see why there weren’t any words when one suddenly screamed; her
tongue had been trimmed and split. There was a hard stink in the air, manure and dried
human waste.

Huon Liu started forward with a shocked exclamation, reaching for a flask from his
saddlebags. Mathilda restrained him with a gentle gesture, her eyes the only things
moving in a stony face.

“Slave-breeding farm,” Ingolf said grimly. “That guy the Rangers are guarding—look,
you two, stop standing there with your thumbs up your asses and get that moron
out
of here before you have to hurt someone to stop them lynching him! Edain, get a detail
to give them a hand, would you?”

Ingolf took a deep breath as a squad of the High King’s Archers attended to it, and
went on to the monarchs:

“He’s the stud. Not really his fault, poor bastard, he’s just smart enough to know
what to put where. They were breeding for stupid, for people just barely smart enough
to do basic work and feed themselves.”

Rudi nodded soberly. He’d heard of this. Once you’d looked into the eyes of a High
Seeker, it didn’t even seem very . . . unexpected. Seeing it in person was different,
though.

“I know,” he said. “And”—he touched the hilt of the Sword—“I’ve seen what this would
end in, left unchecked. By themselves humans couldn’t do such a thing, if only because
we can’t maintain a set purpose long enough.”

Though that vision of a possible future was so alien it didn’t have as much . . .
impact . . . as this.

Mathilda crossed herself; for once she seemed at a loss. He could see
where do we start?
in her eyes. Lord Maugis was staring, blinking, looking away and then looking back.
His area had been occupied for a while, but mostly by Boiseans in Martin Thurston’s
service; the war there had been savage enough, but comprehensible. Young Mark Vogeler
abruptly rode his horse around a wall and dismounted. They could hear him vomiting,
then washing his mouth out from his canteen.

“What are your orders, Your Majesty?” Ingolf said formally.

He tactfully ignored his young kinsman when he returned, though a signaler wasn’t
supposed to leave his commander’s side.

“We’ll have to care for these people,” Rudi said, taking out his dispatch pad. “Messenger!
To Brigadier Nystrup, and would he please report here; and this to Lord Chancellor
Ignatius, would he have the quartermasters attend to the matter of clothing and basic
gear. Many of these ladies will be Nystrup’s people; he’ll want to see to identifying
as many as he can. For the rest . . . well, the Clan will take in any who wish, I
think. Certainly if my mother has anything to do with it, and she will. There may
be others who are willing.”

“The Sisters of Mercy,” Mathilda said. “I’ll . . . I’ll talk to Father Ignatius. The
Superior of their Mother House . . . they have a unit with the medical train. . . .”

“See to it, please, Matti,” Rudi said. “We’ll do what we can, but the first matter
is to overthrow the ones who planned . . . this.”

“Where are the children?” she said suddenly; there weren’t many, beyond some babes
at the breast.

“You really don’t want to know, Matti,” Ingolf said softly. “Creches, most of them,
but . . . you don’t want to know.”

“By God . . .” Maugis said, crossing himself with a hand that shook. “By God, I’d
heard that the Cutters kept slaves, but . . . is it all going to be like
this
, lord King?”

Rudi shook his head. “No. We’re close to their center, here. Elsewhere it’s bad, but
on a more . . . more human scale of wickedness. But it would have been all like this,
in time.”

The baron’s face worked. “They’re . . . they’re not
human
at all.”

Rudi felt his mouth twist wryly. There was a certain innocent vanity in that viewpoint,
but he had to prevent it from spreading. The former Cutters would be his subjects
too. He intended to see the headsman’s axe had some work, but a little of that went
a long way. The Cutters . . . former Cutters, they’d have to find a different term . . .
had to learn to live in peace with others. However, that implied just as much willingness
in the other direction.

I cannot have a disgust with the folk of these lands persisting down the generations.
That way would lay the groundwork for other wars—of less import to the Powers, perhaps,
but just as deadly to humankind and our hopes and our homes.

He spoke carefully: “Alas, would that were so. The Power behind all this, yes, in
a sense. But its instruments are all too human. At least most of them, and all of
them to start with; and they are what they are because they’ve been mistaught, not
because there’s any corruption in their blood, which is as ours. Do you understand
me, Lord Maugis? For your own confessor will tell you the same—in somewhat different
terms, but the same in the essence of it.”

The other man reluctantly nodded. “Yes. We’re all subject to Original Sin, that lets
Satan whisper in our ears.”

Mathilda spoke: “Original Sin, as a wise man once said, is among the few dogmas which
can be proven from experience.”

Rudi sighed agreement; occasionally Christians just had good points. Then he reined
around.

“And now . . . let’s go. Thank you, Ingolf . . . Colonel Vogeler. I
did
need to see this, and not myself alone. I suggest men from each battalion be brought
here. It’s a good thing to know why you’re far from home amongst angry strangers.”

“Yah.” Ingolf’s face lost a little of its pinched look, as if he was withdrawing his
memory from a very bad place. “That’s a good idea. I’ll look up Oak, and Eric Larsson,
and see to it.”

Another courier rode up as they cantered off. “Your Majesty!”

Rudi opened the dispatch. “Ah. Our blocking force caught the Cutters as they attempted
to withdraw. Several thousand surrendered.”

Everyone looked baffled. “What blocking force would that be?” Lord Maugis asked, transparently
glad to have something else to think about. “I didn’t think we could get troops much
farther north.”

“It’s a case of . . . how do you Christians put it . . .
bread upon the waters
.”

•   •   •

“Major Graber,” Rudi said.

The former officer of the Sword of the Prophet dismounted and came forward with a
brisk stride, a medium-tall man in his early middle years dressed in rough plainsman’s
garb, looking as if rawhide had been wrapped around his bones and covered in weathered
skin. The meeting was informal, but it still amounted to pacing between two rows of
the High King’s Archers with the commanders and contingent leaders from the High King’s
Host standing thickly behind them. Everyone who could had come flocking at the news.

There was a rattle and a small instinctive growl from the ranked Montivallan officers
as he approached. Rudi smiled at it; just so did dogs growl at a stranger in their
territory. Though Rick Three Bears was stone-faced and silent; Graber had personally
threatened his clan when they sheltered the Questers. The silence itself was a concession,
since it wasn’t in his people’s customs to forget such a thing.

The small group of Graber’s followers who followed behind him had a stiffness that
spoke of nervousness.

Though in fact this is Graber’s territory, in a sense. And though Nystrup is looking
pure murderous hate. Not that I blame him, but the needs of the Kingdom take precedence.
Not to mention those of humankind, in the long run.

He turned his head slightly and murmured to the Mormon commander: “Why am I angry
because of mine enemy? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart,
and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. Do not anger again because of mine
enemies.”

Nystrup glanced at him startled—that was from his people’s holy book—and angry. Then
he nodded slightly.

The last sunlight was dying on the Gallatin peaks to the westward. Rudi stepped forward,
pitching his voice to carry.

“This man was my enemy and hunted me and my comrades across the continent on the Quest.
He was like a burr on our tail, never giving up, faithful unto death to his pledged
word and his lords. Only when they betrayed him and he was shown that they were unworthy
of a brave man’s loyalty did he renounce them.”

He put the palm of his right hand on the pommel of the Sword for a moment, reminding
everyone present that he could detect any deceit.

“And when he did turn on them, he did so honestly and with a whole heart, for right’s
sake and not for advantage. He risked death by torture and worse to oppose them here
on their own ranges, when he might have returned to Montival with me and had a post
of honor, because these are his folk and he wished to set them free to live as humankind
should once more. Has any man or woman here done more?”

Silence, and the High King went on: “Not to mention he just removed . . . what, twenty-two
hundred riders from the enemy’s order of battle. Men we will not have to fight again
tomorrow, and some of
our
warriors will live, or see their homes again whole of limb because of it.”

The almost-grumbling died away. Graber’s face was a thing of slabs and angles. He
might have renounced his allegiance, but twelve years as cadet in the House of the
Prophet had effects he would never shed entirely, not to mention the years as a warrior
in Sethaz’ army afterwards. It wasn’t an accident that the Prophet had assigned him
the task of foiling the Quest. Despite that masklike impassiveness there was relief
and gratitude in the cold blue eyes. Graber showed unexpected tact when he reached
arm’s length from Rudi; he gave a military salute, and then sank down on both knees
with his hands held forward, palms together.

It didn’t surprise Rudi that the man had learned the etiquette used nearer the Pacific,
but it was a graceful gesture. The subordinates behind him, his company commanders
and staff, went to their knees as well; that meant they gave their assent through
their leader.

The High King drew the Sword and planted it in the earth between them. Graber took
the hilt between his palms, and Rudi enfolded the other man’s hands between his own;
that was a
new
custom, the way the High King took fealty, and a guarantee of sincerity on both sides.

Graber’s eyes widened a little; touching the Sword of the Lady was never easy, though
he had before when Rudi freed him from the bonds laid on his mind. His voice was steady
as he spoke, a little harsh but confident:

“I, Justin Graber, pledge my faith and honor to the High King of Montival and to the
heirs of his blood; I will be his sworn man in peace and war, with goods and with
counsel, with aid and with arms, taking his foes and friends as mine, though my life
be the price of this oath. This I swear on my honor as a fighting-man, and by whatever
Powers watch over me.”

The which he will find, I think. This is a man of faith, and he will hunger for one
to replace that which was broken.

“I, Artos, the first of that name, High King in Montival, Son of Raven, Son of Bear,
accept your oath, Justin Graber. From this day forth I am your liege-lord. In peace
you may hold secure all that is your own under my hand; in need you may appeal to
me for aid; in war we shall be comrades of the blade, and I shall ward your family
and children at need should you fall in my service. As you keep faith with me, so
I will with you: I promise good lordship and fair justice, to you and to those who
follow you—”