S. Stirling - A Meeting At Corvallis

"That's the sort of thing we should be exploring," Kowalski said. "Instead of wasting our slender substance on fighting each other."

"My sentiments exactly." Arminger beamed.

Everyone nodded and murmured agreement. Arminger grinned like a shark behind his smoothly noncommittal face. He'd spent the previous decade snapping up every surviving community too weak to stand him off, and claiming all the intervening wilderness.

Perhaps I was a little too enthusiastic reducing the surplus population back in the first Change Year, he thought. More labor would be very handy now, and dead bones are useful only for glue and fertilizer. On the other hand, I needed to ride the wave of chaos.

"Did you have anything more concrete to discuss, my lord?" Turner said.

"Oh, very much so," Arminger said. "As you know, I've been having : difficulties: with the cultists and bandits that lie between Portland and Corval-lis. Why, they've even kidnapped my daughter!"

"Terrible," Kowalski said; she even seemed sincere. "I have children of my own, and I can imagine how you feel, my lord Protector, Lady Sandra. Those people been very uncooperative with us, as well."

Sandra smiled, very slightly, under an ironically crooked eyebrow. She'd found out the way the Mackenzies had forced the pair into something like a fair deal for mill work-water-powered machinery to full and scutch and slub wool and flax-and markets for Mackenzie produce in their territory. The Clan and the Bearkillers had also gotten together to preserve the bridges in Salem, the old state capital, which gave a route across the Willamette that wasn't controlled by Corvallis.

"Ah: my lord: you do understand that there are plenty of people in Corvallis who feel that having, ah, buffers between us is a good idea. Particularly people on the Agriculture and Engineering Faculties."

"But of course," Arminger said.

That translated as the farmers and the craftsmen, more or less. Oregon State University had been the core that organized survival in the little city, and its Faculty Senate still governed the place-as much as anyone did. Everyone there affiliated with the Faculty closest to their daily occupation, though the town had gone to great lengths to keep the teaching functions active as well.

"Still," the lord of Portland went on, "I'm sure you can see that disunity-and especially the anarchy that bandit gangs like the Bearkillers and the so-called Clan Mackenzie spread-are bad for everyone. We're all Americans, after all! The Association has been the main core of survival and order on the West Coast-the only large one between Baja and Alaska. Its expansion throughout the central and southern Willamette could only benefit everyone, and then it would soon include the Bend country as well."

He smiled slightly at their hunted expressions; that was more than they'd bargained for. And while they were influential in Corvallis, they didn't rule it. A rumor that they'd sold the city out to him would be disastrous for their reputations.

His wife took up the tale: "But of course the Association is a decentralized organization. We've incorporated a number of independent communities through agreements with their own leadership."

Which translates as made deals with and gave titles to local warlords and strongmen, my love, Arminger thought.

She went on: "We realize that Corvallis has developed its own system, and a very successful one too. We don't want to incorporate the city directly, or even the lands it holds beyond the city walls."

"You don't?" Kowalski blurted in surprise. Turner glared at her and made a placating gesture to his hosts.

"Not directly," the Grand Constable said. "No fiefs, no castles, no bond-tenants. Besides, frankly, your militia is too well equipped and too numerous for us to be comfortable about fighting it head-on. Not while the Free Cities League in the Yakima is hostile, and we have the Pendleton area to pacify."

"Plus," Arminger said, "and quite commendably, you in Corvallis came through the bad years with much less damage than most areas. That means, however, that, ummm, the old habits of mind are still entrenched in your city's territories. It would be difficult to introduce new ones as we did up here during the chaos."

He made a spare gesture with one long-fingered hand. "As you know, I've drawn a good many precedents from my pre-Change studies in medieval European history; they suit our times, and they've generally worked well. Let me explain another medieval idea, the concept of the autonomous, self-governing chartered free city, that was a way of accommodating urban life within a rural world. You'd have a, as it were, constitution, guaranteed by the Association, confirming your autonomy and your own laws, but-"

When the Corvallans had left, Renfrew poured himself more of the brandy. The three of them lifted glasses in salute.

"Do you think they'll buy it?" the commander of Portland's armies said.

"Why not, Conrad?" Sandra replied, nibbling a flaky pastry centered on hazelnuts and honey and sweetened cream. "We actually mean it, for a wonder, this once."

"More or less," Arminger said. "More or less."

A maid came in to clear the table; she smiled at their laughter, glad to find the overlords in so merry a mood.

Larsdalen, Willamette Valley, Oregon

December 12th, 2007/Change Year 9

"Hold them!" Michael Havel shouted. "Hold them!"

The long pikes bristled out, a sixteen-foot barrier in front of the line. Horses reared and bugled as the charge stalled before that hedgehog menace, giant shapes in the gray misty light of the winter afternoon. Breath snorted white into the fog from the great red pits of the destriers' nostrils, and eyes rolled wild in the faces concealed by the spiked steel chamfrons. Mud flew from under their hooves, and squelched beneath the infantry's boots. Pikes stabbed for the horses' unprotected bellies; the peytrals of their barding only shielded the chests. There was a hard, sharp crack as a hoof shattered the ashwood haft of a pike, and curses as splinters flew and the foot-long spearhead pinwheeled away. Clods of earth flew into the air; riders leaned far over in the saddles, hacking at the points or thrusting with the lance. Wet, oiled chain mail gleamed with a liquid ripple.

"Now forward!" Havel shouted, when he saw that the charge was thoroughly stalled, and the lancers at their most vulnerable, tangled and unable to maneuver. "Push of pike! Hakkaa Paalle!"

"Hakkaa Paalle!"

Trumpets blared and drums thuttered in the wake of that huge, crashing shout. The line of pikes advanced, jabbing with two-handed thrusts at the mounts and riders; the wielders' faces were set and grim under the wide brims of their kettle helmets. A horse slipped on the treacherous footing and crashed over as it tried to turn, adding its high, enormous scream to the racket of voices and the scrap-metal-on-concrete din. The formation grew uneven as it surged forward, leaving wedges of open space between the files; Havel cursed as two riders pushed their mounts through a gap in the wall of weapons, striking down left and right at helmets and shoulders.

The fifth and sixth ranks had glaives rather than pikes; seven-foot shafts topped with heavy, pointed blades for stabbing and chopping, and a cruel hook on the reverse. Havel held one himself. He dodged a slash, and his weapon darted out. The hook caught on mail beneath an armpit; he braced his feet and hauled, and the rider came off with something halfway between a screech and a squawk, and then an almighty thump as armored body met sodden, muddy turf.

He reversed the glaive with a quick, expert flick and drove the point down to menace the rider's face. The fallen lancer wheezed and raised one fist, middle finger extended.

"OK!" he shouted. "Time out! Time out!"