The Given Sacrifice (41 page)

The Archers were moving southward at a steady trot with their kilts swirling around
their knees, drawing a little ahead before the heavy horse followed. They all wore
Mackenzie war-gear, the brigantine of little plates riveted between two layers of
soft green leather, bow and quiver, short sword and buckler and dirk, though the blazon
on their chests was the Crowned Mountain, not the Moon-and-Antlers. Not every one
was actually of the Clan; to be accepted into that oldest of the Guard units all you
had to do was pass some stringent tests, be very good with the bow to begin with . . .
and swear fealty before the bearer of the Sword of the Lady, who could see into your
innermost soul as you pledged.

A few came from as far away as the kingdom called Norrheim on the far eastern ocean
where her father had paused and found allies during the Quest in his youth.

The plate-armored knights and squires and men-at-arms followed with their horses at
a quick walk, keeping in double column. The varlets brought up the rear, save for
a few left with the provisions and tents, sumpter-mules and remounts. They weren’t
fighters by trade, but they were armed and everyone in the High King’s train was expected
to turn their hand to what was needful. The healer and her two assistants came last.

Órlaith could hear a soft murmur from her father beside her, of prayer to his patron
and hers, the Goddess in Her form as the Lady of the Crows, the Dark Mother. It ended
with:

“
And if this be the day when the King must die for the people, then know that I go
to You most willing, as to a joyful feast.”

She knew that one, but she’d never heard him speak it before. It was the prayer before
battle, and the King’s prayer at that. When she spoke she tried for lightness:

“It’ll be a skirmish only, surely, Da? Compared to all the great battles you’ve fought.”

His grin was hard. “My heart, when men fight to kill, there’s no such thing as a
small
battle. Not for the ones killing and dying, at least. Nor is it the less hard afterwards
to tell a mother why the one she remembers as a child at her breast will not be coming
home, or a child why they’re an orphan.”

Abashed, she looked down at her horse’s head for a moment. His expression turned gentle,
and his voice soft.

“My treasure, Edain or Sir Aleaume could manage this fight as well as I. For that
matter, Father Ignatius could, even with his beard gone white—and for the rest of
the daily work, he’s a better administrator than I, or even than your mother is or
her mother was, and that is saying a very great deal.”

“But there’s more than either to being High King.” She’d known that, but right now
it felt as if she was learning it all over again. “That’s why you’re going yourself.”

“Aye. Your mother’s faith and ours share a deep truth: that from sacrifice springs
great power, and the greatest of all from the one who walks to it with open eyes,
knowing their fate and consenting. Didn’t their God’s only begotten Son give himself
to it? And that was a deed whose echo resounds down the ages; so also the One-Eyed
gave Himself to Himself to win the wisdom he needed. So it is with the very Lord,
who dies each year when the yellow corn falls before the reaper’s steel, that humankind
may eat and live.”

“And He rises again in the spring to wed the Maiden.”

“Aye; we rest, and we return, but that doesn’t make the dying any less real. Your
mother and I bound our very selves to this land and all its peoples and kindreds at
the Kingmaking on the shores of Lost Lake, with the Sword of the Lady and a drop of
our mingled blood. You were beneath her heart at that moment; through you we bound
all our descendants to the King’s fate. One day
my
day will come. And one day . . . may it be distant . . . so you too will walk to
the Dark Mother, your eyes open to the falling blade.”

“May it be distant for you too, Da!”

He laughed, and out of the corners of her eye she could see men in the column looking
at each other and grinning to see the High King merry before a fight. They were alone
enough to keep the conversation private if they spoke quietly, but in full view. Her
father went on:

“From your mouth to ears of the Three who spin Fate, my heart. But we must always
be ready for it. We of the royal kin are those whose blood renews the land.”

Seriously, with a brisk tone: “Now, you know what you’ll be about, girl, and take
my word for it that you’re a warrior born and have learned your lessons well. They’re
written in your bone and muscle now. Just listen to the wisdom of the body, and remember
this: when a man takes a spear in his hand and comes up against you, he accepts his
death and leaves you clean of it, just as you do for him. So strike hard and don’t
hesitate.”

He looked beyond her to Heuradys. “And as for you, knight, you bear proud arms on
your shield. Let’s just say I’m as happy to have you on my daughter’s shieldless side
as I would have been to have your second mother in her prime. Which is to say a great
deal.”

Captain Hellman trotted up and reined in, a rawboned man in his thirties with a weathered
face and short-cropped brown beard, followed by his troop. His birthplace was east
of the Rockies themselves in the kingdom’s farthest marches short of the Lakota lands,
and there was a sharp High-Line plainsman’s twang in his voice when he saluted and
spoke, pointing:

“They’ll be visible just beyond that clump of eucalyptus around the ruined farmhouse,
sire. The ones under attack are making a stand on a slight rise—it’s open to the east,
flanked by woods, and at the west end there are some low snags of brick wall they’re
using, I’d say they were making for the mountains and that was as far as they got
before the others caught them. There’s about thirty or forty of them left. Three times
that of the attackers. Four-score dead and wounded on both sides. They’re serious
about this, no prisoners I could see. Nobody else within an hour’s walk unless they’re
lying on their backs in the swamp breathing through reeds.”

“How much time?” the High King asked.

He’s thinking of Oak,
Órlaith knew.
With his Dun Barstow levy, we’d have the numbers on our side.

“None. The next rush will overrun them, sire,” Hellman said stolidly.

“What’s the ground like, just there?”

“Grass, mostly, leadin’ up to the ruins. Looks like it was open grazing land or what
did they call it, a lawn, and the snags of walls are long enough to have been a knight’s
manor or a fair-sized Rancher’s home-place, but nothing much above waist-high now.
None of these damned vine-stumps between those two tongues of woodland, and they’ve
trampled it pretty flat. It looks solid, I’d take it at a gallop. Even on them big
beasts you’re riding.”

“Gear?”

“Mixed. The foreigners on the hill all have pretty good armor and what looked like
longbows and curved swords like the Kyklos use. They’re in dense formation around
a banner but I couldn’t see what was on it. The Haida, the usual light gear. Looks
like the strangers with them have mail, mostly; and they all have helmets. Pole arms
and recurve bows, chopping swords. Some shields. They’re in fair order but it’s no
Bearkiller phalanx.”

The High King blew out a breath. “Hasty approach, then.” He cocked an eye at their
surroundings. “Not dry enough for much dust, they may not spot us until we’re upon
them. The which would be a
good
thing.”

He thought for a moment, right hand caressing the pommel of the Sword, then went on
calmly: “They’ll break for their ships if they can when they’re beaten . . . you lead
in on my signal, then extend our flank to the left, Captain Hellman. Block them when
they run, we’ll have none leaving to alert others who may be about. We can snap up
their ships afterwards. Sir Aleaume, we’ll let the light horse and the Archers soften
them a little, and then give them the lance when they’re on the back foot. Edain,
deploy on either side of the men-at-arms, riddle them, then follow us in when we charge.”

Edain grunted. “Where’s that battery of field catapults when you need them?” he said.

Rudi grinned. “Why not wish for that band of McClintocks we were offered when we guested
at their Chief’s hall south of Ashland? Likely lads and lasses they looked, if a bit . . .
rambunctious and independent
, as you might say.”

“Or
a pack of drunken fookin’ savages
 . . . as you might say. Covered in tattoos, as well. But I wish we had them, Chief,
that I do.”

High King Artos heeled his horse a little forward and turned as he stood in the stirrups
for a second, speaking to carry:

“Strangers have come with weapons in hand to make war on Montival’s land. It’s the
King’s work to ward his folk from such. Are you with me, brothers and sisters?”

“
Artos and Montival!”

Órlaith found herself shouting as loud as the rest, and echoing the growl within the
cry. Her father raised a hand, and silence fell.

“All right, let’s be about it. Hellman, move out. Edain, follow at fifty yards.”

The light cavalry reined about. Edain wet a finger and held it up, then called to
his command.

“The wind will be in our teeth and a little from the left, but not too bad. Remember
you’ll lose ten paces range and correct for drift. We’ll start dropping shafts on
their heads at ten-score and fifty paces and advance with walking fire; use your bodkins
first and we’ll clear a path for the lobsters. They need it, the puir darlin’s.”

Many of the High King’s Archers grinned, and some of the men-at-arms scowled.
Lobster
was Mackenzie slang for the plate-armored heavy cavalry of the Association, and not
a compliment.

Edain went on: “Shoot fast and listen for the word. Take surrenders if they’re offered
at the last but don’t take any risks about it. Now follow me.”

Coun
ty of Napa, Crown Province of Westria

(Formerly California)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

April 29th, Change Year 46/2044 AD

T
he High King’s force slid south. Time seemed to pass with shocking speed for Órlaith
though she was achingly conscious of every second; she made herself let her shield
drop a little so the guige-strap could take its fifteen-pound weight and keep that
arm limber for when she needed to move it swiftly. She could see a plume of smoke
now from ahead and to the left, dirty-brown wisps rising and blowing towards them;
that must be the burning ship the scout had mentioned.

“I wonder why it is that folk always set things on fire during a fight?” her father
mused calmly. “Because they do, so. Whether there’s a reason or not. I’ve seen horizons
afire from one edge to the other, rick and cot and tree, when armies passed through.”

Then they were past the last roll of land—even what looked like flat terrain could
be deceptive that way—and the clamor of voices and a hard banging clatter came on
the wind. She could see the strangers as they turned west, a cluster of tiny figures
at the end of a long alley of trampled tall grass no more than a bowshot across. A
chant was building amid a rhythmic clash of wood and metal, probably the attackers
nerving themselves for another rush . . . though she couldn’t be sure.

It’s confusing,
she thought.
Well, thank the Crone and the Keeper-of-Laws I’m not in charge. Twenty minutes ago
all I was looking forward to was a Beltane feast at Dun Barstow and findin’ out what
roast ostrich tastes like!

Órlaith thrust her right hand out.

“Lance!”

The squire who’d armed her father pushed the lance into her palm. She closed her hand
around the ashwood of the grip below the dish-shaped guard, the hide binding rough
even through the leather palm of her steel gauntlet, resting the butt on her thigh
with a
click
of metal on metal. The sound and the feel of the tapering twelve-foot shaft were
familiar, but everything was strange, as if she were seeing the world clear yet distant
through a sheet of salvaged glass.

“Noisy bastards,” Heuradys said quietly to her side, as Toad tossed his head and champed
at his bit until foam drooled from his jaws. “But this is good ground for a knight’s
battle. Very good. Auntie Tiph always said picking the right ground was half way to
winning.”

Her father made another gesture with his left hand and called: “
Now
, Hellman.”

The horse-archers all dropped their knotted reins on their horses’ necks, reached
over their shoulder for a shaft and leaned forward. Their mounts rocked up to a canter
and then a gallop, abruptly shrinking away forward. Another shout of
Artos and Montival!
went up from them, and then a chorus of yelping, yipping cries, like mad coyotes
or files on metal or both.

The High King hadn’t taken his lance yet, and used that hand to raise binoculars to
his eyes. He barked a laugh.

“Da?” she said, startled.

“They’re just now noticing us. There’s a Haida chief in a sealskin jacket sewn with
iron rings running up and down shouting at them to look to their rear . . . yes, and
kicking their backsides too, by way of getting their attention.”

Even Sir Aleaume, who was a bit stiff, chuckled at that.

“
So
sorry, are we
interrupting
something private and intimate?” Heuradys added, and there were more harsh barks
of amusement.

They were closer now, close enough to see the enemy formation writhe and shake as
the first flight of arrows from the horse-archers slashed into them, just as they
tried to turn their attention to the rear. The light horsemen rose in their stirrups
and went into a fast nock-draw-loose rhythm as they charged.

The war cries from the strangers were suddenly interspersed with shrieks of raw pain
as arrows driven by the springy horn-and-sinew bows slammed down out of the sky; and
the beleaguered group in the ruins rose and started shooting at their foemen again
too. The horse-archers broke to the right at fifty yards from the enemy front—you
could only aim ahead, behind and to the left from horseback—and raced down their ranks,
loosing with flat aimed shots at close range in a ripple that emptied their quivers.
Arrows came back at them, but few and hasty; then they were turning away, twisting
in the saddle to shoot a last shaft or two behind them. They thundered by the rest
of the Montivallan party to the right, whooping triumph and waving their bows in the
air, looping around to refill from the packhorses led by the varlets.

“Nicely done, almost like a drill,” her father said judiciously. “Hellman knows his
business.” A little louder: “When you think the range is right, Bow-Captain.”

Another dozen paces, and Edain’s voice cracked out:
“Draw!”

His command halted and the yew staves bent, the Archers sinking into the wide-braced,
whole-body, arse-down style that the Clan’s longbowmen practiced from the age of six,
what they called drawing
in the bow
. The points of the bodkins glittered as they rose to a forty-five-degree angle, and
the drawing-hands went back until they were behind the angle of the jaw. Behind the
Archers their piper cut loose with the keening menace of the “Ravens Pibroch”; bringing
along a battery of Lambeg drums would have been excessive with less than a tenth of
the guard-regiment here, but you wouldn’t find forty Mackenzies without at least one
set of bagpipes.

Edain’s voice punched through the savage wail of the
píob mhór
:

“Let the gray geese fly! Wholly together—shoot!”

There were twice twenty and one of the High King’s Archers here, counting their commander.
That wasn’t enough longbows to generate the sort of sky-darkening arrowstorm that
had smashed armies on the battlefields of the Prophet’s War. Though the target was
a lot smaller too, if nicely packed, and these were picked experts who could loose
a shaft every three or four seconds and put it exactly where they wished. Forty scythed
down into the foreigners in the first volley, then a flickering stream as each bowman
walked four paces, shot, walked, shot . . .

Órlaith swallowed; she was close enough now to see men screaming and staggering with
an arrow through the face or writhing on the ground trying to pull out one that had
punched through armor into chest or belly or groin, or just lying still with their
eyes open wide. With the wind in her face she thought she could smell that tang of
salt and iron too, like being in a garth in the autumn at pig-slaughtering time . . .
except that there was no one standing by with a bucket of oatmeal to catch the blood
for sausages.

When her father spoke his voice had the flat judiciousness of a landsman looking at
a yellow field of grain he’d plowed and sown and tended, rubbing a handful of ripe
ears between his hands before tasting the kernels and nodding satisfaction that it
was time to send in the reapers.

“We surprised them right enough. Now they’re dung for our pitchforks, the careless
bastards. Let’s not let them get their balance back.”

Even with her nerves thrumming-taut Órlaith shivered a little. Her father was a gentle
and forbearing man, slow to anger and quick to laugh and endlessly patient in composing
the quarrels of which Montival’s wildly varied peoples had an abundance.

One of her earliest memories was clinging to his back with a tiny fallen bird in her
free hand as they climbed a tree to put it back in the nest. He would make a three
weeks’ ride in the dead of winter to be sure of the facts in an appeal to the Crown’s
justice, when a death sentence was at stake. This was a side of him she hadn’t seen
much of before, and suddenly the tales of the man who’d broken the Prophet’s hordes
and forged a kingdom took on a new light.

It had been a
sword
that the Lady had given him on the magic isle, after all.

“Sir Aleaume!” he said crisply, as he extended his hand for his lance and a squire
leaned forward to fill it. “Advance to contact!”

The baron’s son nodded to his signaler. That young man raised the long Portlander
trumpet slung across his body and put the mouthpiece to his lips.

The men-at-arms knocked down their visors with the edge of their shields as he raised
the
oliphant
. Órlaith did the same; darkness fell with a
click
as the metal snapped into its catch, and the world shrank to a long narrow slit of
brightness, like a painting or a tapestry. Her father’s visor and hers were both drawn
down to points at chin level, suggesting a beak: his was scored and inlaid with black
niello like his helm, echoing the feathers of the Raven that was his sept totem. The
markings on hers were threads of pure burnished gold, for the great hunting eagle
that had come to her on her spirit-quest. Something of that raptor’s intensity seemed
to fill her, as if she were a vessel of movement and focus stooping from a great height.

“Chevaliers,
haro
!” Aleaume shouted. “For Artos and Montival . . .
à l’outrance
,
charge
!
”

The silver scream of the
oliphant
echoed the command, like a white flash in the mind. Their coursers were as well trained
as the men, and scarcely needed rein or spur or even the riders’ shift of balance.
The dozen armored men-at-arms spread out into a close-spaced line and their horses
moved up the pace. Walk . . . trot . . . a long rocking canter . . . and the pennants
began to snap and flutter in the speed of their hoof-drumming rush.

They passed where the archers had halted in easy range of the enemy, a score on either
side; the arrows were still going by overhead, focused now on the spot where the lanceheads
would go home. Apparently the foemen knew something about receiving a cavalry charge,
for they were trying to pack together and present a hedge of points to the horses;
trying and failing, falling or throwing up shields to stop the rain of gray-feathered
cloth-yard shafts.

Closer, a hundred yards, and then the trumpet shrieked again for the gallop—a close-held
controlled hand-gallop, not the wild dash that would scatter them like hailstones
on a roof. Her instructors had hammered home that the shock of a charge depended on
all the lances striking at the same moment. Her father’s lance came down, and she
couched her own; the rest followed in a ripple, the black-gold-silver of Heuradys’
pennant rattling and cracking a yard to the right and twelve inches behind her own.

The foot-long blades of the heads pointed down at breast-height on a standing man,
wavering only a little as the hooves pounded and the horses’ heads pumped up and down.
She raised her left fist to just below her chin, and that put the curved upper rim
of her shield right below the level of her eyes.

It didn’t feel heavy now, just comfortingly solid. Arrows shot by the men facing them
went by with a nasty
whpppt
sound, one glanced with a
tick
against the side of her helmet like a quick rap with a hammer, and then three smashed
into the shield
crack-crack-crack
, punching through the thin sheet-steel facing and into the bullhide and plywood beneath.

Someone is trying to
kill
me!
went through her mind.

She knew it was absurd even as she thought it, but that didn’t remove the sense of
indignation
, and it carried the faint memory of a scolding and swat on the bottom she’d gotten
when she was six and pointed a half-drawn bow at someone.

The impact of the arrows hammered against her, but the grip of the high-cantled war
saddle kept her firm and she braced her legs in the long stirrups. What was about
to happen would be much worse. Hitting things at speed with a lance she knew about.

Pick your man,
a harsh remembered voice spoke at the back of her mind
. Pick him the moment you couch the lance and your horse goes up to the gallop.

It had been an old knight from County Molalla, with a wrinkled brown face like a scar-map
of campaigns and lumpy with ancient badly healed bone-breaks. He lectured the young
squires in his charge with the combination of vehemence and boredom used for vital
truths told a thousand times, and he’d spared none of them an iota for birth or rank
or sex:

You can’t change your mind once you’re committed and you get only one chance with
a lance. Don’t waste it.

A mailed figure ahead of her with a spike atop a conical helmet that spread in a lobster-tail
fan over his neck was waving his square-tipped blade and screaming a war cry that
sounded something like
jew-che
as he tried to rally his men. She let the point dip towards him; a touch of the rein
to neck and the alignment of the lance itself brought the last ounce of effort from
Dancer. The man snarled with his eyes wide and swept the sword back, suddenly close
enough to see a mole beside his mouth—

Thud!

Impact, massive and somehow soft and heavy at the same time, wrenching savagely at
her arm and shoulder and slamming her lower torso against the curved cantle of the
saddle. Near two thousand pounds of horse and armored rider moving
fast
, all packed behind the hard steel point. You could knock yourself head over heels
off the horse if you did it wrong, but she came back upright as the lance broke across
and she made her hand unclench and toss away the stub. The man in the pointed helm
was down, with the lancehead driven right through his body and three feet of the shaft
standing out of his chest.

He’s dead,
she thought suddenly.
I killed him.
Then her father’s voice:
Don’t hesitate
.

Her hand pulled the war hammer loose from the straps at her saddlebow, a yard of steel
shaft with a serrated head on one side and a thick curved spike on the other. A Haida
warrior with an orca painted on his round shield tried to come in stooping low and
hack at the horse’s legs. Dancer came up in a perfect running
levade
and lashed out with both forehooves. Her body flexed again, and her teeth went
click
as the horse stamped on over the prostrate body.