Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

"Charming… And a thousand five-hundred more of them than we have here."

Richard nodded. "With the great advantage of standing on the defensive. Worth numbers in itself."

"And all Boston born, Baj," Patience said. "Officered by our best families. None Irish."

Baj took a deep breath. "So – we deal with those… then murder perhaps hundreds of women."

"We won't deal with them," Richard said. "We'll wait until their reserves march south to meet the Guard. Then, we go to the Pens – quickly, with the Shrikes."

"And to the Pens… how far?"

"Across part of the city, Baj." Patience reached to pat his knee. "Only two… three WT miles, but fast as we can. There won't be time for slow and secret going."

Silence… And useless to say an only-if, but Baj said it anyway. "If my Second-father, if the Achieving King were alive, the Rule's fleet might have come up the coast of Ocean Atlantic to strike with us."

"Yes… but even so, Baj," Richard leaned forward to draw a faint map through tundra lichen with a horny nail. "Even so, the sea is shrunk back from ancient WT Boston by a hard day's march at least. I'm no sea-fighter Marine – the Township has none – but even I can see what time it would take to get an army off the ships there, and organized to move inland over the ice… With that delay, they would find the city's gates carved free of steps, steps they'd need on steep, polished ice – and no other way to enter Boston-town but try to hack out their own, with the Constables waiting."

Baj sighed. "I can't picture well what I haven't seen. But so few of us – Shrikes with us or not – it seems… desperate."

"And so it is." Patience smiled at him.

"But you are with us!" Nancy, lisping us, gripped his arm.

"Oh, yes, I'm with you, sweetheart. My dead brother, my dead friends would never forgive me, otherwise." He tried a smile of his own. "And, of course, I'd miss the adventure of the thing."

Nancy hit him on the shoulder. The girl had a rough way about her. Biting, elbowing, hitting…

In late after-noon, as if to balance the earlier fortunate intervention by mess call, Baj was interrupted winning – with both knights and a surviving bishop, having made hacked meat of Richard's pieces, now pursuing his terrified queen – when a Wolf-blood Person came trotting to order them to the General's pavilion.

"No!"

"Yes," Richard said, smiling, "- and I have not lost."

"Leave the pieces; leave everything the way it is."

"Nooo…" Richard pulled the little pegged pieces free, dropped them into the set's tiny drawer. "Someone – some passing sergeants or saddlers, might try to complete the game."

"Unfair," Baj said.

And Nancy said, "Unfair."

"An echo?" Richard tucked the chess set into his possibles-sack. "Did I hear an echo on the tundra?"

"My coat's in rags," Patience said, as they went through camp, a bitter wind blowing as if to hurry them along. "Makes a poor impression."

"Nancy," Richard said, "- keep hold of that boy."

Errol was swinging this way and that in her grip on his hide-jacket's collar, tongue-clicking at soldiers as they passed.

Baj saw two or three Persons – Guards-soldiers sized and shaped by bear blood – stare unpleasantly as Richard went by.

Richard had noticed. "They don't care for an officer running – then returned and spared – when they'd be skinned alive and salted."

"To WT hell with them, then," Nancy said, turned and made the oldest gesture.

Baj turned her back. "No trouble."

"I'm not starting trouble."

Errol whimpered, yanked to get away, and Nancy hauled him back, thumped him on the head. "Behave."

… A guard mount – eight of the near-human cavalry, their sabers drawn – were stationed at the Wolf-General's pavilion, posted in twos at each of the four cardinal directions. Their officer, his blade bared, came to meet Richard, looked him up and down, looked each of them up and down, then said, "Your weapons – and the fool boy – stay here."

"Good news, Lieutenant," Nancy said, and pushed Errol to him. "Better hold fast – oh, and beside the knives, he bites."

The officer said, "Wonderful," took hold of Errol by the back of his neck, and gestured one of his men to collect swords, daggers, and an ax. "… Now, you others go in to the General, and respectfully."

At the pavilion's entrance, a Person, blunt-muzzled, pelted black – the same wide banner-bearer who'd ridden with the General to greet them – stood beside a grass-green standard.

He stared at Nancy as they went by, but said nothing.

As the entrance flap closed behind them, Baj saw four… five hulking wolf-bloods, their tufted fur gray as their armor, crowded at a long, folding camp table. Great sheets of southern paper lay spread across it.

"Make room." With that rip-saw voice – and after a brutal shove that clanked cuirass against cuirass – Sylvia Wolf-General came to stand central, smiling at them over the table. It seemed to Baj only perhaps a smile.

"I assume," she said, "that you are all familiar with our intentions, going north to the city."

"They know what we plan, Sylvia," Patience said. "I've told them."

"Very well, then – details, and review. In pursuit of this… correction… of Boston, of Cambridge Township, I intend to march north in the morning. You, and the Shrikes in camp, will march with us. March," she stared at Patience, slanted eyes blue as cornflowers, "- no sailing away in the air."

"I understand."

The others, her officers, relatives – her pack, Baj supposed – now stood a little back from the table on either side. The pavilion smelled of those Persons, as if their General's harsh voice had taken odor, and there were no pretty blue eyes among them… One, older, fur whitening, and – by the rows of bronze breasts molded down her muscle-cuirass – a woman, had only a single eye, squinting, intelligent, and merciless. The General's aunt?… Certainly the General's aunt.

"So, we march to the Wall." The General's sharp black nails tapped maps and papers before her. "And you people up and over it – where, I'm informed, a small tribal levy will meet you. The Shrikes had, I believe, originally planned a greater number, something unpleasant for my companies." She smiled. "But now, all friends."

"Friends," the probable-aunt echoed. The voice wavered with age, the single eye did not.

"Yes, dear," the General said, "- and are to be treated as such for this campaign. With, of course, your company always kept in reserve, in case of… a misunderstanding."

Her aunt nodded.

"- So, to continue, you people will then sled with the Shrikes the considerable distance north and east to Boston and then the city's north gate, and should arrive, burrow, and hide there until we – having gone up a different way to preserve our mounts and supplies – reach South Gate." A fingernail tapped a map. "There, we'll begin assaults likely in the end to achieve nothing – considering the numbers, the reinforcements they can call on – -nothing except to distract the Cambridge Constables, draw their regiments away from you and your sad duty." She smiled, showing fangs. "You will wait for us before attempting to enter the city. We'll arrive, though we move more slowly than tribesmen. Hurry is not the Guard's business."

"Inevitability," her aunt said, "- is our business."

"Yes." The Wolf-General nodded. "And for this campaign – for this task and this time only – I ally with a rebel Boston Talent, and allow a deserter to live, and permit a camp whore to serve as soldier… as well as a Sunriser supposedly once of importance elsewhere." She stared at them. "But not Lady Weather, not Lord Winter, not Frozen-Jesus will save you, if I am disappointed."