A Meeting at Corvallis (61 page)

“Ken, you said you punctured those turtle boats of theirs?”

“Some of them,” he said. “Burned a couple more.”

“Think they could make the armor much thicker?”

“Not much, not and keep them mobile. The reason we beat them was that they didn't have much room inside for weapons, with all the men on cut-down bicycles pedaling away in there. If you made the boats bigger, the armor problem would get worse—the inverse square law is still working fine! So if you increase the volume to fit in more men pedaling…well, human beings just aren't very efficient engines.”

He shook a fist skyward. “And we're not
allowed
to have efficient engines! God damn you, Alien Space Bats!”

“Maybe God did it,” someone said quietly.

“In that case, may God damn God!”

“Hey, gently, gently. Let's not discuss the Change, hey?” Havel said.

He got a quiet chuckle from most of those within earshot: that was a proverb for “utter waste of time.”

“You know that bit where there's a bluff near the west bank of the river, maybe a mile and a half north of here, maybe a little less?”

Ken nodded; so did Signe and a few of the other Bearkillers, and Major Jones; a good eye for terrain was an officer's trait.

“We put in a fort there—doesn't have to be too big, just big enough to hold out against a storming party until help arrives from the Spring Valley settlements, and we can tie it into the message relays easily enough. And in that fort we put in some of those big-ass throwing machines you built, with a nice view of the river and good thick earth berms in front, and overhead cover. With that, we can interdict the Willamette even at night; it's less than a tenth of a mile across there, even counting that big sandbar, the Darrow bar. We can put obstacles in the riverbed under cover from the engines; come to that, you can rig us up a diving suit, right?”

Smiles broke out around the circle. They became a little strained when Havel turned to the Corvallans. “And I'm sure our friends here would be glad to help with building the fort before they go home, eh?”

Edward Finney winced. “Well…look, I've got enough hands back home to get by at a pinch, but a lot of our people are smaller operators—”

“Won't take all that long, not with three thousand strong backs. We may not even have to finish it. I expect that when we show we can cut them off, Alexi will haul everyone back north; we can work some sort of truce-and-ransom thing, which is why I made sure to get some prisoners he'll value. He's probably just hoping we don't have the equipment or the smarts to block the river, and hoping to show the Lord Protector
something
besides a bloody nose and Corvallis involved on our side. We only need to keep a lid on this bunch here until they realize they can't stay.”

Jones cleared his throat. “Ed, we can do that. And if we have to keep people here more than a week, we can call for volunteers again and have a whip-round from the ones who
have
to go home to get the spring crop in. Everyone can chip in, oh, a couple of sacks of potatoes and some flour, or bacon or whatever. That way the weavers and blacksmiths and factory workers won't be out of pocket for their lost time.”

“Yeah, we can do that.” He looked at Havel, obviously thinking of asking the Bearkillers to chip in, then reconsidered.

Which is good. Because
we
just paid in blood. I lost two in every hundred of our militia today, and worse than that for the A-listers.

“And while we're digging, let's figure out how to make the
Protectorate
pay,” Havel said. “I am”—he paused to consider—“a bit peeved.”

The Corvallans blinked a bit at the ripple of wolfish laughter that went through the Bearkiller leaders.

Near Mount Angel, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 7th, 2008/Change Year 9

E
ilir Mackenzie flattened as the patrol rode nearer, peering
under
the branch of a bush with her bow across the crook of her elbows to keep it and the waxed string out of the damp. The damp, bedraggled mixture of twigs and grass in her war cloak's loops would hide her well on this gray spring day. Wetness soaked up into her brigandine and wicked into the padding underneath it, bringing chill and a stale-sweat smell to mingle with the damp earth and oiled metal. The patrol was more of the easterners, strung out along a road that ran between new hedges and old rows of beech trees planted by some nostalgic Swabian a long time ago—many Germans had settled around here, a century and a half past.

The sun was just up over the Cascades behind the ambushers, but that was merely a spot of brighter gray in the overcast sky; they were about a mile from the Abbey, as close in as the Protectorate forces and their hirelings patrolled in daytime for fear of the catapults. The huge white bulk of the fortified monastery and the red roofs above it seemed like a dream in the gloaming, like an illustration in one of Mom's books…

The books that Rudi loved to read. Stop that, girl! We're going to get him back, by the Dark Lady and the Dread Lord! Get your mind on business!

Her eyes flicked down the line of enemy horsemen; six of them, riding down towards the southern edge of Mount Angel's hill, before turning back around the other side towards the enemy camp north of Mount Angel town. She couldn't see fine detail, since they were a hundred yards away or better, but it was definitely easterners, not the Protector's own scouts. That was good—they'd let a patrol of those go by. The mercenaries were skilled at their trade, but they tended to be a bit more impulsive than the men who served the Protector and his barons. Plus they were all close relations, which made them hot for revenge when a man was hurt.

Closer, closer, and then they were in easy range.

This has to look good,
she thought, then fought down a sneeze as a grass stem tickled her nose, smelling spicy-sweet with new growth. Then:
Now!

She hit the quick-release toggle at her throat and shed the war cloak as she leapt to her feet. That was the signal, and the patrol's heads whipped around in horrified disbelief as a dozen archers appeared from the overgrown verge of the road by the orchard.

The last one was hers, by prearrangement. Tricky shooting at this range, but the air was millpond-still…

She let the breath go out between her teeth as she drew the eighty-pound longbow to the ear, pushing out with the left arm and twisting her body into the pull. It wouldn't be too hard to
kill
at this range, but precision was much more difficult. The broadhead came to the edge of the arrow-rest, and the bow moved up in a single curve as she exhaled. Watch the target, and let thousands of hours of practice tell you where the arrow would go, and hope no twitch of the man or the air threw it off. Let the string roll off the gloved draw-fingers, and you
were
the bow and the arrow and the target all in the same instant, driving it with your will like a spell.

The cord slapped at her bracer with a sharp impact felt up her left arm even through the metal and tough leather. The release felt
right,
smooth and sweet, the surge of recoil like a dance. She was so caught up in the moment that she almost ignored the arrows coming back towards
her;
then she ducked at the unpleasantly familiar feel of cloven air moving on her face. Then she drew and loosed again, and again, using bodkins designed to punch armor now. That startled volley was the only one the riders could fire, though, and that only because they'd been moving with their bows in hand and a shaft on each string. Five of the enemy were down almost at once; most of the Rangers loosed only two or three shafts.

Among the other qualifications, you had to be a
good
shot to be a Ranger.

Eilir grinned silently as the last enemy trooper galloped off northward, bent over his horse's neck with an arrow in his shoulder; from the look of it the broadhead had just barely punched through the stiff leather of his cuirass, enough to wound but not knock him off his horse. A bodkin would have sunk deeper and done more damage…

But that's the
point, she thought with a silent giggle. Then she thrust the bow back through its carrying loops.
And thank Luck that nobody got carried away and shot him for real.

Get the horses!
she signed. They had to make this look like an ordinary nuisance raid, and they
wanted
to be chased. No real raiders would pass up the opportunity to snaffle off three good quarter horses and their gear.

The Dúnedain ran onto the road, one or two grim but the rest grinning like children pulling off a prank.
Sometimes they all make me feel very old,
Eilir thought; she and Astrid were the senior Rangers in years as well as rank.
Except for Alleyne and John, of course. And John can be like a kid sometimes, too. Alleyne's too serious for my taste. Lovely package, but he and Astrid were meant for each other.

She could feel the wet gravel scrunch under their feet and see little milky spurts of mud come up under the horses' hooves; this was a road built after the Change. One of the enemy mounts had galloped away north after the wounded scout; another was down with an arrow through its ribs, breathing like a bellows and rolling an eye at her in piteous entreaty:
make it better
. She signed the air to ask its forgiveness and used her dirk to give it peace; Pilimór did likewise with a wounded mercenary with three shafts through his body who lay arching his back in a bow and spitting out wet bits of lung as he clawed at the stone with bloody fingers. Then they led the horses east at a trot through the orchard. Their own mounts and a dozen more Dúnedain waited there. Astrid slid down from the crown of a tall Douglas fir and dashed across the open ground. Alleyne was leading Asfaloth, with the mare's head already in the right direction, and the Dúnedain leader vaulted laughing into the Arab's saddle.

“Go!” she shouted. “They're coming! They had a force ready; two hundred riders or better. They probably think we're the ones who shot their chief yesterday, and they want vengeance.”

The score of Dúnedain turned their horses' noses towards the east and a little north and the band surged into motion. John Hordle wasn't with them; it wouldn't have been sensible, when a pursuit on horseback was in order. The half-Percheron they'd found for him could bear his weight easily enough, and it was even fairly fast given time to work up a gallop, but it couldn't keep the pace they expected for long. The ground ahead was open farmland with plank or wire fences, a few with new, low hedges, mostly wheatfields or pasture, or half-readied for the spring planting and abandoned when the northern foe arrived. They fell into a long lope, the sort of gait used when they expected to be running for a while, turning a little aside now and then to avoid plowed ground where the mud would suck speed and strength out of the hooves and legs of their mounts.

Eilir looked over her shoulder. Horses didn't raise dust this time of year in the Willamette and the easterners' gear was mostly dull-colored, hard to spot against the brown of plowland and the green of pasture. Another fence came up, and Celebroch took it without needing directions…yes, she could see a mass of horsemen boiling down from the northward, angling out from the enemy camp, with one in the lead carrying a banner with a mountain lion worked on the cloth, and another beside him wearing the tanned head of one on his helmet. Perhaps they'd copied that from descriptions of the Bear Lord's headgear.

How Mike would scowl!
she thought.

The Dúnedain slanted more directly east to avoid them, making a great show of urging their horses on without adding much speed.

Celebroch tossed her head, as if to say:
Don't you know what you're doing? Am I supposed to run all out, or not? Make up your mind, woman!

There were two hundred in the band that pursued them. She could make out the numbers clearly enough once they'd fallen in behind the Rangers, despite their having no more order than a swarm of attacking bees. Arrows began to flick out from them, falling well short—two hundred yards was about the maximum you could really expect to hit someone when both were moving fast. Their mouths were all open too, probably howling curses—or just howling. Eilir left the knotted reins on Celebroch's neck and stood in the stirrups, slanting her longbow across the mare's rump as she turned and drew. A six-foot bow was awkward on horseback, but not impossible if you practiced enough. Aim high—

There.

The arrow plunged down among the very first of the mercenaries; two of them surged away from each other a bit as they galloped. It must have come down between them. Both of them shot back at her; one had a pre-Change compound bow, and the arrow came uncomfortably close to Celebroch's heels.

Astrid fell back beside her and drew her recurve. The arrow struck. Eilir couldn't see exactly where but a horse went over as if it had been poleaxed, and the rider hit the ground rolling. He gathered himself into a ball and put his arms over his head; one of his friends jumped his mount right over him, and others swerved, with a couple of near collisions corrected with impressive skill. Then the Rangers were plunging down a bank into the shallow, gravelly expanse of Zollner Creek; they surged through in exploding sheets of cold spray, holding their bows high overhead to avoid wetting them, and then galloped in earnest. Something hit her between the shoulder blades—hard—and she gasped and lurched forward in the saddle for an instant, making her mount check its stride. Astrid reached over and pulled something free of her brigandine, showing it to her before tossing it aside; it was an arrow with a barbed head. There would be a spot on her back where the leather was scraped free of the little steel plates.

Wow. Too close for comfort—maybe we left it a little too long!
They didn't have to shoot
her
to kill her, just cripple Celebroch.
Probably they don't shoot at horses much 'cause they want to steal them
. But sooner or later they'd get mad enough to ignore the niceties.

The Dúnedain were thundering over a stretch of rolling meadow now, towards an old country road and then a big orchard about a mile long and a quarter wide, the riders ahead throwing divots of turf and dirt at her. The trees were neatly tended, and the buds were just about to break, but she could only see the top halves though they were twenty feet tall or better. The northeast-southwest line of the road ran along a low ridge; the cherry trees were on the other side, and sloped down a little to a creek. Closer and closer, the white-painted fence along the roadway looming up and the first of the Dúnedain taking it in flying leaps. One had his horse refuse and fought it to a standstill, forcing its head around until it went in a circle for a moment, then riding off southward along the line of the fence, probably hideously embarrassed.

Asfaloth and Celebroch soared over it. She could see John Hordle there just beyond the other side of the road, lying flat as she had only a few moments before, grinning the way a Lughnasadh baked ham would if it had teeth. The twin Arab mares halted in a few strides; the rest of the Rangers continued for a few more paces, under the cherry trees, and among the CORA ranchers and their retainers waiting there. Those were all standing by their horses to keep out of sight from the meadow on the west side of the road; they grinned and gave her thumbs-up and worked their mouths.

Astrid drew up beside Alleyne. Eilir kicked her feet out of the stirrups, vaulted to the ground, dropped the reins—that meant Celebroch would stay, unless her mistress blew the high-frequency whistle that dangled around her neck—and ran a dozen paces to kneel beside John Hordle.

The big Englishman was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, helmet pushed forward over his eyes, chewing a grass stem and smiling around it at her. She scowled and thumped him on the top of his headpiece with the flat of her hand, driving it down until it covered everything above his nose. Since it was a good, solid steel sallet with a padded lining, his grimace and wince was undoubtedly put on.

Get ready!
she signed as he pushed it back and winked.

“I
am
ready,” he said, turning his head towards her.

One of the many things she liked about him was that he always remembered to face her when he spoke; lip-reading was half guesswork at the best of times, though she was very good at it.

“I'm just not rushing about getting hysterical, like some people I could name,” he went on.

Eilir would have thumped him again, except that he was rising to one knee and turning with a smooth ease astonishing in a man who stood six-foot-seven in his stocking feet. Then he took up his bow, and they raised their heads until they were looking head and shoulders over the much-patched asphalt of the roadway.