John Ringo: Unto the Breach

“Much peace be it to you,” Father Devlich said, contemptuously. “Great honor, yes. The Goddess is so honored, no one will speak Her name. Her Priestess does not speak of Her except in the dark of the moon and the stillness of the cave.”

“She holds Her hand upon the Wheel,” Katrina said, smiling and looking into the distance. “It is She who brings the Spring.”

“Father Kulcyanov,” Mike said, bowing to the Elder.

Although not the oldest Keldara Father, that would be Father Ferani, Father Kulcyanov was the Elder held in the highest honor. A highly decorated war veteran of WWII, what the locals called the Great War, the man was tall and broad but much of what was clearly formerly great strength was wasted by age. He must once have been as huge as Oleg, Mike’s primary team leader, but age had shrunken him.

He still, when he summoned it, had a commanding majesty. He was currently wearing a black broad-cloth jacket and fine wool trousers but Mike suspected that later in the day, as ceremonies approached, he would don the tiger-skin mantle of the High Priest of the Keldara.

“Kildar,” Father Kulcyanov replied, raspily. “You honor us with your presence.”

“I am honored by the Keldara,” Mike said. “But I’ll admit I wasn’t briefed on this day. I hope I’m not chopping wood again.”

The first season ceremony Mike had participated in had been the Rites of Spring, a twenty-four hour long festival that was the most authentic Spring Rite that might be left in the world.

Part of that festival involved cutting several types of trees for a great bonfire. They had to be cut over one night, starting near dusk. Only a special axe could be used and it wasn’t well suited for the task, being one of the ancient battelaxes of the Keldara.

Mike had ended up, through a desire to bond as much as anything, one of the designated wood cutters. What was worse, after the wood cutting and moving the logs up to the ceremonial area he’d been expected to participate in feats of strength and agility.

It was an annual ceremony to determine who was the best of the Keldara. Mike had realized that too late but, unfortunately, his competitive streak, which any SEAL has in full measure, kicked in. He ended up, effectively, winning the contest, even the bull wrestling. He’d refused the honor of being the winner, though. The position, the Ondah, was one of high honor in the Keldara and Mike wasn’t about to take that from the, in all honesty, second place, Oleg.

His argument was that the Kildar should be the best of the best but that Ondah was a position reserved for the Keldara.

The entire ordeal, though, had been as exhausting as a day in Hell Week. He wasn’t interested in repeating his previous triumph. If he could. The Keldara were in high training at this point. Mike wasn’t sure he could win if he had to do it again.

The summer festival had been another day straight out of a storybook. Held on the longest day of the year it was straightforward Lammas festival with the exception that the Keldara held the “bringing of light” portion in spring.

“Not today, Kildar,” Father Ferani replied, grinning.

At “somewhere around seventy-five” Father Ferani was the eldest of the Fathers of the Keldara, short for his race and shrunken from age. But he was one of those men that, as they aged, seem to harden like old teak. Like Father Kulcyanov, he was a veteran of the Great War, one of the handful of Keldara to return alive. But unlike Kulcyanov, he had spent most of the war in a supply depot well behind the lines.

He was one of the Fathers that Mike got along with very well. Mahona was in that category as was Makanee. Father Shaynav still treated the new Kildar with caution, being a bit hide-bound when it came to change. Father Kulcyanov simply went along with the changes of the Kildar but was always cautious, always watching, always considering exactly where the line might be that impropriety set in. Strangely enough, from Mike’s perspective of “impropriety”, it was Father Kulcyanov who originally suggested the Rite of Cardane.

Father Devlich simply hated Mike’s guts. He was the first Father Mike had met the night Mike returned Katrina to her House in the middle of a blizzard. Whether from the impropriety of a man being alone with one of his “daughters” or just because he was a bloody-minded bastard, it was Father Devlich that always presented obstacles, that carped and worried about all the changes.

“During this morning we will simply gather and enjoy the fruits of the harvest,” Father Mahona said. Mahona was medium height and heft with short-cropped blonde hair shot with gray and a graying beard. “In the afternoon, the brewmistress will choose which crop of barley is suitable for the beers of the House. The young men will then cut the field. For this ceremony we prefer to do that by hand.”

“Of course,” Mike said, nodding. Mike fully recognized that this was as much a religious ceremony as a get-together. It was a hell of a windy day to harvest, though. He hoped that wouldn’t fuck things up. He was pretty sure that if the ceremonial harvest was screwed up, all the grain and fat livestock in the world wouldn’t make the Keldara happy.

“And there is the bonding of Gretchen and Kiril,” Father Mahona added, grinning.

“Of course,” Mike repeated, trying to smile politely. That damned Rite. “What’s that consist of, exactly?”

“The Mothers bring them to Father Kulcyanov,” Father Mahona said, shrugging. “In front of the Six Families. They are promised to each other formally in front of the Families. That is, really, it.”

“I don’t have to do anything, do I?” Mike asked.

“Not today,” Father Mahona said, grinning more broadly. Everyone knew of Mike’s ambivalent position on the Rite. “I believe that would be tomorrow, yes?”

“Wood has already been cut for the fires,” Father Makanee said, politely changing the subject and pointing to the dun. Father Makanee — just about the youngest of the Elders being in his low fifties — was medium height with brown hair and eyes and broad shoulders. “We will hold the Harvest Feast on the dun. Given the night, though, I suspect we will break up shortly after. Rain, maybe snow, is on the way.”

The dun of the Keldara, Mike was pretty sure, was a morraine, a remnant of the glacier that had carved the pass. When glaciers carve their way through mountains they dig up masses of rock. Much of it is then pulverized into soil called loess, a super fine soil that can form clays or, when plants get in it, becomes some of the richest soil in the world.

As the glaciers retreated, through, they dumped their loads of soil and rock. Rivers running through the melting glaciers tended to form it into humps that could be hundreds of feet high in places.

The dun was about a hundred feet high and three times that at the base. Not the largest morraine in the world by any stretch of the imagination but pretty darned big.

“I can smell it,” Mike said, nodding. “And the forecasts say the same. Hopefully, it will hold off until midnight. Are the winds going to interfere with the harvest?”

“It will be as the Father of All chooses,” Father Kulcyanov said. “But for now, Kildar, the Mothers request that you sample the fruits of the harvest. Be at ease.”

“I am, Father Kulcyanov,” Mike said. “I am among my people. And I see one that I should greet,” he added, looking past Kulcyanov at a bald head by the buffet table.

“Figure you’d be anywhere there was free food and beer,” Mike said, picking up a plate.

“Hey, Ass-Boy,” Adams said, taking a bite out of a lightly spiced chicken leg.