The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) (18 page)

They were close enough now that Faramir could hear the sharp ringing sound, and his enemy’s slight grunt as the force of the blow staggered him a little. Swordsman’s reflex told him to step in with a lunge to the throat before the shaman could recover.

There seemed to be plenty of time to know what to do, but much less to actually do it. Faramir shoved his shield-arm across Malfind’s body and heaved him back in a half-stagger.

“Noro lim!”
he shouted.

That meant
run fast
; it was the order for hair-on-fire flight.

“Now! Do it!”

The three turned and bolted into the forest.

•   •   •

Behind them the
skaga
looked after the fleeing Dúnedain, sighed, and looked around as he sheathed his sword. Then he knelt beside the dying
Eater and grasped him by the back of the head with a hand that felt like a hydraulic grab.

“Look . . . at . . . me . . .” he said, and his voice seemed to stretch the world, like a heavy boot on taut canvas.
“Háws . . . hl . . . díi.”

Or like a very bright light, one that left everything washed-out and unreal. The flow of blood from the severed arteries slowed as muscles clamped involuntarily around them. The Eater obeyed, and then screamed like a rabbit caught in a wire snare as he met the
skaga
’s eyes.

“Just a moment, and you may die,” the shaman said soothingly. “And death is only the beginning. There is another we must speak to. Aid me, Orca-might . . .”

The Eater’s second scream was fainter only because there was less strength and breath behind it. The whimpers that followed continued for a little while after the man had died.

Dùthchas of the
Clan McClintock

(Formerly northern California and southern Oregon)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

May/Satsuki 17th, Change Year 46/2044 AD/Shohei 1

“T
hat looks like a training kata as much as a dance,” Reiko said to her guard commander the morning after their arrival at Diarmuid Tennart McClintock’s steading.

I must ground myself in practicalities for now,
she thought.
That dream . . . I wish I could remember more.

Heat and light, desolation, thirst, fear. Then the looming castle, and the knowledge that death or transfiguration awaited within.

Or do I wish to remember more? Father told me of his visions, but I also saw how they rode and drove him. Have I the strength to bear that burden without breaking? Because I must.

A drum thuttered and a flute played. Two of the McClintocks moved in perfect unison, the broad four-foot blades of their greatswords flashing in the early sun. Every dozen or so moves they would face each other, parrying with a hard clang of metal on metal as the flats met, then turning and slashing at arm-thick wooden posts with a great shout . . . and taking a section off with each blow. Reiko blinked at the hard
thock
sounds—when her people used live steel in practice like this, they struck at water-soaked mats of woven rice straw rolled up and tightly bound around a bamboo post.

“It
is
a kata, Majesty,” Egawa said, frowning intently. “And those things aren’t as clumsy as they look. Not as fast as a katana, of course, but then they are more than twice the weight—around five pounds, from the one I hefted. In a duel, I would be confident against either of those men, but in a melee . . . even in my armor, I would not like to be hit by one.”

This was evidently a slack season for the local people, whose way of life didn’t involve nearly as much steady grinding toil as that of the rice-growing peasants and sea fishermen she was familiar with. The fall-planted crops here wouldn’t be ready for harvest until later, and the spring crops were in the soil and needed only weeding. At home they would be planting the first early rice; this month was named for that.

Out in the river was a curious device like a waterwheel on an anchored boat, which operated a helix-like rotating wicker scoop that lifted salmon into holding pens. It wasn’t working now, though if you looked for a moment you could see the four-foot forms of the Chinook working their way upstream; a question had revealed there was a strict quota enforced by some religious taboo she couldn’t quite grasp on how many of the great fish could be taken in any one spot or time, to preserve the breeding stock. The allowable numbers taken from the first run were in brine-tubs and smoking-racks or waiting in wicker-fenced ponds to be eaten fresh. They did some hunting here all the year around—winter was the main trapping season for furs—but late fall was both the main salmon run and the time to hunt fat beasts migrating downward from the mountain pastures, and preserve them for the cold season by smoking and salting and pickling, in jars and in underground pits lined with ice. She couldn’t imagine wanting to live this way, but in the abstract it had its merits.

So this was a time for visiting and music and the arts, or dancing and sport of the sorts difficult in winter; sport mostly consisted of running, leaping, wrestling, shooting, tossing rocks and logs, and practicing with their arms.

“Individually some of them are not bad at all,” Egawa said. “Their coordination is elementary at most, though.”

A few of her Imperial Guards were shooting their
yumi
at the targets, weapons that looked very odd to the McClintocks because their grips were two-thirds down from the upper tip. So did the shooting style, which started with bow and arrow held high and then drawn as it was lowered. The results opened their eyes though, and produced some enthusiastic cheers.

“But there are many of them,” Koyama said, startling her a little; he’d been very silent since the . . . alarming incident with the shamaness yesterday. “Majesty, I think that book the Princess gave us speaks the truth. The
jinnikukaburi
outnumber
us
by about three to one. The Montivallans outnumber
them
around four to one . . . which means there are . . .

“Twenty of them for each of us?” Egawa said, sounding slightly alarmed.

“Somewhere between twelve and twenty,” Koyama said. “If we wish to involve them in our war—and yes, we do, we must—it would be well to keep in mind
all
the implications.”

She nodded at that, including the parts which would be tactless to speak aloud; she didn’t think anyone but Princess Órlaith spoke her language, but she wasn’t absolutely sure. According to the records, Japan had been more or less a client state of the old Americans between the end of the Pacific War in Showa 19 and the Change in Heisei 10, though it had been a gentle overlordship if you didn’t count the terrible destruction at the end of the struggle, the hand of power mostly kept hidden in the sleeve. Certainly Japan had achieved unimaginable heights in numbers and wealth during that period.

Nippon’s need for help against the
jinnikukaburi
was urgent . . . but it would be unfortunate if the price in the long term was a renewal of tributary status. On the other hand . . .

Egawa grunted. “The Montivallans are six thousand miles across the Pacific from our homeland,” he said. “While the
jinnikukaburi
are far too close across the Sea of Japan. It is good to think in the long term, Grand Steward Koyama-san, but first we must ensure that there
is
a long term for us, other than as
jinnikukaburi
night-soil fertilizing their paddies.”

“Hai, sore ha ichiri aru,”
Koyama said, acknowledging the point.

“And six thousand miles is much farther than it was before the Change,” Reiko said. “For good and ill. And as General Egawa says, the Americans . . . Montivallans, rather . . . do not wish to
literally
devour us.”

They looked over to the target range. The High King’s Archers were unlimbering
their
weapons, ready to make a contest of it. Órlaith was with them. She strung her bow by stepping through between string and belly, bracing the lower end against her left boot and bearing down with a thigh as she pushed up on the other limb with a twisting flex. That made the long hard muscles of her leg and arm stand out for a moment like living metal.

Odd style, but it works,
Reiko thought, fascinated.

At first glance the Mackenzie yew longbows looked unsophisticated next to the seven-foot
higoyumi
, with their complex laminations of bamboo and hard wood and rattan, their binding bands of silk cord and coats of lacquer. Órlaith put an arrow to the string; the nock point was marked by a lead ring crimped to the hemp cord, which Reiko thought was clever. The Montivallan flicked a glance at her target—a man-shape of wood about a hundred and fifty yards distant—then drew and shot in a single motion. The method also looked odd to Japanese eyes; it started with the bow held
down
and the arrow pointing at the ground and the torso leaning forward, and ended with the body slightly crouched and feet wide-braced. In between was a twisting, writhing motion that looked as if it threw the torso between string and bow.

A whirr of cloven air and a solid
thunk
an instant later. Two more shafts were in the air when the first struck, and they grouped tightly in the target’s chest.

“Those yew bows are more than they appear at first glance,” Egawa said thoughtfully. “I examined several. The handpiece is a solid block of hardwood, with a cut-out so that the arrow can shoot through the center. And the yew of the limbs is a natural lamination—heartwood for compression on the belly, sapwood on the back for tension. They shape each into a double curve, you cannot see it when they’re strung. Quite effective. I prefer ours, I think they have less vibration and hand-shock, and
we do not need a separate type for horseback use, but these are much quicker and cheaper to produce.”

Koyama nodded; his position as Grand Steward made him a connoisseur of costs and benefits. Reiko made a gesture of agreement as well, without taking her eyes away.

Edain came up to the archers. He was wearing only his bracer, kilt and knee-hose and ankle-boots, and the thin gold torc of a handfasted man; there was more gray in the disturbingly abundant hair on his chest and belly than in his oak-colored curls, and you could see the way the scars—mostly—stopped where his body-armor would cover his blocky thick-muscled torso. He spoke to Órlaith, and they both planted a dozen arrows in the short dense green turf at their feet. When they began to shoot the master-bowman moved with the unhurried precision of a hydraulic machine.

“Fetch my bow,” Reiko said over her shoulder.

One of the troopers hurried off; when he returned Reiko removed the
haori
she was wearing with her riding
hakama
. She tied on the black leather
muneate
plastron, slung a quiver with the golden chrysanthemum
mon
on its red lacquered surface, and donned the shooting gloves. Then she bound on a headband of white cloth with a single red dot in the middle of the forehead.

Egawa coughed discreetly. “Majesty, you are quite good with the sword and very good with the
naginata
, staff and spear. So sorry, but with the bow you are merely . . . good.”

Reiko nodded. “
Hai
, sensei,” she said.

Teacher
was both irony and truth; he’d overseen her martial education and administered much of it personally. When he had you under his thumb in a dojo or on the practice ground, there was neither deference nor mercy in Egawa Noboru.

“But I am good enough not to disgrace us, and I need the practice,” she said.

Egawa and Koyama watched as she adjusted her swords and walked off with bow in hand. After a moment Koyama spoke consideringly:

“The loss of Saisei Tenno was a terrible misfortune. But since then . . . we are lucky. So far,” he added when Egawa stirred.

“Don’t call anyone really lucky until their grandchildren are polishing their grave marker at Obon and lighting incense,” the soldier said dryly. “But, yes, so far we are . . . less unlucky than we might have been.”

•   •   •

“Now that’s interestin’,” Edain said with fascination in his voice, watching Reiko shoot. “Doesn’t seem natural, with the grip at the arse-end of the bow like that . . . but it doesn’t hurt either, eh? At seventh and last, it’s what the
arrow
does that counts.”

“Handy for horseback, too,” Órlaith said, moving her right arm in a circle to make sure the tendons were loose.

With the bow she was a bit above average even by Mackenzie standards, but unlike her father not even close to Edain’s level and she would probably have had trouble enlisting in the High King’s Archers. Mainly because she didn’t have the time to focus on it; Mackenzies were a people of the bow, and started around the age of six. The exercise today was welcome. She hadn’t lost any edge, but it had been harder than it should have been. Physical skills like shooting the bow were things that had to be continuously maintained, not learned and set aside.

And today felt better than yesterday, more like a real day.

She didn’t want to rest too long, though. When she stopped she could feel the loss catching up with her again. Part of her wanted to just stop and let it crush her. It was going to be like that, a climb with falls.

“You can’t really use a longbow for mounted work,” she went on.

“Aye, you can, that,” Edain objected stoutly; the Clan also tended to be a bit defensive about their preferred weapon’s limitations. “It’s not easy, granted.”

“Granted a dog can walk about on its hind legs; the which is neither pretty nor swift and the amazement of the thing is that it’s done at all,” Órlaith retorted. “But for all it’s longer than a longbow, that she’s using would be near as easy as a horse-archer’s recurve, mounted. The height of it being all above the gripping hand and so not likely to hit horse or saddle.”

“Heads up,” Heuradys cut in to the technical discussion.

A drum was booming somewhere distant. The McClintocks all tensed for a moment, then relaxed at the pattern.

“Traveler coming, no’ a McClintock, but nae danger either,” Diarmuid said. “Tha
gocaman
are aa’ at their work, forbye. Gocaman, watchers,” he added, out of courtesy to the guests.

Reiko shot, lowered her bow, and frowned—Órlaith thought because she was trying to follow what the tacksman had said. That turned to a sober nod of approval as she parsed it out and realized he meant that the sentries at the approaches were alert.

They’re a ceremonious lot, these Nihonjin,
the Montivallan princess thought.
But there’s a streak of hard common sense in most of what they do. Businesslike, you might say. And Reiko not least. They’ve all learned in a stringent school, with no holidays.

Diarmuid went on, slightly louder, as his household began to chatter and point northward: “No need to cluck aboot like chickens, twa guests from outside in twa days is nae the sea rising to crush the land, nor yet the sky fallin’!”

Though it’s certainly not usual,
Órlaith thought.
From what he’s told me over the years, four outsiders a
year
is normal here, counting tinkers and peddlers.

A rider with a remuda of remounts came into sight on the north bank of the river, which was steeper than this side on the stretch of the Rógaire that held Diarmuid’s holding. There was a ferry, a flat-bottomed scow linked to a cable rigged between two tall trees on either bank. The river wasn’t so wide here that a bridge would have been expensive beyond bearing, but the ferry was something that could be taken up quickly in an emergency without losing a capital asset.

The tiny figure dismounted, shoved the little craft into the water, and convinced all three of the horses onto it, not without what looked like some sharp argument involving tentative hooves and vigorous head-tossing at the insecure footing. That loaded it to full capacity or a bit more, and the passenger cautiously worked the crank that carried it across the swift current. On the south bank the rider vaulted easily back into the saddle and cantered in their direction.