The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change (12 page)

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Authors: S. M. Stirling

Tags: #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Alternative histories (Fiction), #American Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Alternative History, #General, #Regression (Civilization), #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Dystopias, #Fiction

BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
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“The enemy?”
“Less certain, but more than the
fyrd
by a quarter to a third. All the wild-man tribes of the north along the Great River from Royal Mountain to the Stone-Halls. We have a treaty with the Madawaska Republic—”
She pointed to a narrow strip shaded along the upper St. John to the north and east of the Norrheimer settlements, with a symbol that looked like a porcupine in a circle of stars beside it.
“—and we were expecting a thousand men, but we’ve heard nothing.”
Artos’ breath hissed between his teeth. “And your last word from Bjarni?”
“Two days ago. They were here,” she said, moving her finger westward. “Skirmishing with the troll-men’s outrunners, and the foe seems to be gathering all their gangs into one horde.”
“They’re going to accept battle, then,” Artos said thoughtfully.
Sure, and it can be surprisingly hard to make men stand and fight if they don’t want to come to the dancing-ground
, he mused.
Especially if neither side is cramped for room.
She nodded. “Bjarni said he’d try to have them come to him on his chosen ground, he knew the place he’d prefer to fight. Six-Hill Field, it’s called, used for summer pasture by the northernmost of our folk. The old roads run through there; it’s the only way to get large numbers into our farmlands quickly.”
Then Artos blinked. The map seemed to be . . . overlain somehow. As if he was hovering above the land like a raven, and the war bands were like little writhing lines of men coming together; and yet he could hear them, the murmur of voices, the shuffle of boots and skis and snowshoes. But at the same time they were like living numbers, swinging balances of supply and distance and time in his head, a consciousness of every factor in a dynamic balance. It was the way a God might see them . . .
And not the way I would choose to do so, at all. Useful, though!
The others were looking at him oddly, as if he’d gone away for a moment. He shook his head.
“Yes, that’s where the fight will be. Almost certainly. No word of Mary or Ritva?” he asked. “I sent them on a scout, and they were to rejoin here if they could.”
“Your half sisters?” Harberga said, frowning. “No, nothing.”
Ingolf moistened his lips, then visibly took command of himself. Rudi-Artos felt his mind stutter. One part was worried; the other was . . .
Not indifferent
, he thought, turning the eye of attention inward.
Not that. But as if I had ten thousand thousand sisters, and all were somehow equally dear to me. And that too is how a God might look on things, and no comfort to a man. But it’s perhaps a lesson to a King.
Then he regained his self’s balance, feeling as if he should be panting. But that was no calm center. It was more as if he rode a rushing wave, as a longboat does from a ship off the surf-beaten Pacific shore to land softly on the gravel beach that might have ground its bones to splinters if it wavered.
“We’ll take this path, cutting the cord of the circle,” he said. “That will give the best chance of catching up in time. The river ice is still hard?”
“For now,” Harberga said. “But the weather could turn warm anytime. The weather-wights are flighty in this season.”
Artos looked up, at a sky white with high thin cloud, felt the air through his skin and breathed the stinging cold. He folded the gift-map.
“Not for a week,” he said absently, watching the others get the war band ready to move; it went quickly. “Probably ten days. Time enough to find Bjarni, and fight a battle.”
Matti returned, giving him a quick report—full provision—and then checking her horse’s tack. The gray titanium-alloy mail of her hauberk and vambraces seemed to suck the pale light out of the day. Gudrun was with her, but carrying a young babe swaddled in one arm and leading Swanhild, Bjarni and Harberga’s three-year-old daughter. The little girl was much graver than Artos remembered her, great turquoise eyes sad and worried. Children that age could smell trouble like a puppy, though the words might be beyond them. Her gaze lit when she saw him, though.
“Little Swan-battle!” he said, and got a smile in response to his; then she went to cling to her mother’s skirt. “And this likely lad is—”
“Erik. Erik Bjarnisson,” Harberga said, taking the infant. Then, suddenly: “I wish I could be out there, fighting for them, beside my man. For our homes! Instead I have to . . . to sit here and fill stew pots and make bandages and
wait
.
”
Artos shrugged to settle the long kite-shaped shield across his back, hung the sallet helm on the saddle bow and handed Epona’s reins to Matti.
“Lady Harberga,” he said gently. “May I hold him for a moment?”
She looked puzzled, then handed over the bundled child. He cradled the small body expertly, looking down into the softly unformed face, just past the red and crumpled appearance of a newborn.
“Such a little thing,” he said softly. “Such a little thing, with such a greatness of might-be within!”
A tiny, perfect hand clutched at one long, calloused finger as he touched the baby’s chin, and it grinned toothlessly at him.
Now, there is perfect joy,
he thought happily.
With the glow of the Summerlands and the Cauldron still upon him.
Then he went down on one knee and held the child out in both hands.
“Lady,” he said as Harberga took him back, meeting her blue eyes steadily. “Haven’t you fought for your son already? Haven’t you gone under the shadow of the Dark Mother’s wings for him and his sister, walking the blade-thin bridge in blood and pain? If your man fights with weapons, and the rest of us beside him, it is for this . . . this wonder. Only for this.”
Slowly she nodded. He drew the Sword and held it up reversed, pommel uppermost; the pale winter sunlight caught in the crystal and broke back in flickers of colored fire. The baby’s chubby fist clutched it with a crow of delight, and the mother’s hand closed around both. A singing note rose within him; he didn’t think the Lady’s gift glowed, not to the eyes of the body at least, but there were gasps around him.
“Give us your blessing, Lady.”
She did, standing tall.
NORRHEIM, LAND OF THE WULFINGS
SIX-HILL FIELD (FORMERLY AROOSTOOK COUNTY, MAINE)
MARCH 25, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
 
 
Crack!
Bjarni Eriksson wheezed and took the ax-blow on his shield. Impact shocked through the battered, tattered round of plywood and sheet steel, through his aching hand on the central grip and into his shoulder.
“Yuk-hai-sa-sa!”
he screamed, and cut with a swooping arc.
The sword bit, though the edge was duller now; through the Bekwa’s leggings and thigh and into the bone. The foeman wailed and toppled backward down the hill, thrashing and spurting red against the gray trampled snow. Despite its chill the air stank of it: blood like rust and seawater, and the hard fetor of cut-open bodies and sweat. For a moment he blinked at the sight, then realized that the dying man
could
fall, without being held up by the press of living warriors behind him; the enemy were giving ground, fast until they were out of bow-range, then more slowly, then stopping in a way that spoke of sullen readiness to come again. The long slope was littered in clots and clumps and single shapes, mostly still, some yet moving and moaning. More Bekwa than Norrheimers, but too many of his people as well.
The mind-blanking surf-roar of battle died, thousandfold screams and shouts and the endless waterfall rattle and crash and drumming of steel on steel or wood or leather. Only the lighter threnody of pain from the mangled and dying remained, a shocking quasi silence under the cold wind. He put the point of his sword against a dead man’s moose-hide jacket and leaned forward with both hands on the hilt, heaving air in through an open mouth for a moment before he could stand on legs suddenly a little wobbly.
His face was nearly as red as the brick color of his short-cropped beard, and sweat dripped off his nose and soaked the padding under his knee-length mail byrnie. His body was strong—not overly tall, yet broad in the shoulders, thick in chest and arms—but he ached in every inch, though the morning sun was still low in the eastern sky and the battle was as young. The sweat stung in minor cuts he hadn’t noticed until that instant, and places where the mail coat had been hit hard enough to rasp skin raw even through the stiff quilted padding of the gambeson.
Healers and helpers dragged the wounded back towards the tents and surgeons’ tables at the center of the shield-wall circle. He saw one wisewoman in green with the
laguz
-rune on her chest, her own hand bandaged, helping along a warrior whose leg was drenched with blood and who cursed every time that foot touched the ground. Around him hale men were stepping back to the rear rank, letting the fresh second file move forward.
“Where’s Ingmar?” he said, asking after the guardsman who was assigned to ward his right side.
“Dead,” his uncle Ranulf said succinctly, and jerked his helmeted head back; there was a gilded boar on the crest. “I’m going to see to the rear of the shield-wall.”
He took off at a springy trot, despite his forty years and the weight of his gear. The whole array shook itself in the moment’s rest, passing canteens from hand to hand or taking spare weapons from the stacks behind the rear ranks. A few had the strength to hoot insults or jibes at the enemy, where they’d drawn off. His standard-bearer stood behind him to the left, a younger cousin holding the tall lance with the Bjorning war-flag—made by his long-dead mother of heavy black-edged white silk, straight along the upper rod-stiffened edge and the pole, but joined by a loose curve. Gold streamers edged it, and on the cloth was a black raven shaped of jet beads, with wings outspread and seeming to beat in the wind. Over its chest was the blazon of the pre-Change war band his father had served in, two letters—AA, but with the outer arm of each curved and the inner vertical so that they made a near-circle together.
The cousin set the point of the shaft in the ground and took Bjarni’s sword, wiping it down and giving it a quick touch-up with his hone. Someone else handed the chieftain a fresh shield; a sword would last a lifetime with luck, but a shield was lucky to endure an hour of sharp steel and strong men and heavy blows. Bjarni worked the strained fingers of his sword-hand inside the steerhide glove and shook out his wrist. On that side was Syfrid Jerrysson, the chief of the Hrossings, leading his fighting tail of
hirdmenn
and levied farmers, a tall lank man with a dark brown beard showing the first gray threads. His long-scale byrnie was made of polished washers riveted to a leather backing. The overlapping disks of stainless steel were spattered with the filth of battle, but enough metal still showed to give a cold glitter in the pale sunlight of earliest spring. Fresh scratches showed as well.
The fifteen-year-old who held the Hrossing banner of a stylized white horse on green looked pale and gulped down nausea; from disgust at the sights and stinks, Bjarni thought, not fear. The sword in his free hand wavered a little.
“Never seen death before, Halldor?” Syfrid gibed at his son; the boy flushed, took stance and braced his back and the pole that bore his tribe’s standard. “It’s time, then!”
“I haven’t seen this
much
death before either,” Bjarni said; he’d been in fights since he came to a man’s age, but not pitched battles. “Not all in one place.”
“I have,” Syfrid replied. For a moment his voice was remote. “In the year of the Change, yes . . .”
Then he went on briskly, but with a grudging note in it: “You chose the battlefield well.”
The Hrossing chief checked the broad blade of his ax for nicks as he spoke—the helve was four feet of reddish-brown hickory, and thick with blood and bits of hair and matter for most of its length. He scrubbed at it with a cloth to clear the grip and continued:
“And the array, that was clever too. You’ve that much of your father in you, at least, as well as his looks.”
Bjarni nodded. Syfrid and he had never been friends—the older chief had been a right-hand man to Bjarni’s father, and had wanted to be first man in Norrheim himself when Erik the Strong died. Most folk felt that Erik’s son, the chief of the Bjornings, should have that place. Young as he’d been then, only a little older than Halldor was now, he’d managed to keep it. That rivalry was a great part of the reason the talk of selecting a King for Norrheim had stayed just talk; that and the fact that Bjarni was of two minds about the matter himself.
Or I was
, he thought. Then:
Let that keep to sunset, if we’re still alive.
Syfrid grinned at him now, showing strong yellow teeth, as if he’d been reading his thoughts.
“So, we end up fighting side by side like brothers, youngster,” he said. “If we win, we can take up our disputes. If we don’t . . .”
“. . . we can fight each other to our hearts’ content every day in Valhöll, and then feast and drink together all night,” Bjarni completed dryly.
A canteen came his way and he took a long swig. It was one part apple brandy to four of water, just enough to make it safe to drink from unknown streams when you didn’t have time to boil. Then another draught, and the sweet liquid poured down his throat like new strength; he thought he could feel it running out through his body, making the parched tissues full again.

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