S. Stirling - The High King of Montival

The two Dunedain gave identical nods. “We can travel three times faster than this bunch,” Mary said.

“There and back again,” Ritva added, despite her sister’s glare.

Rudi signed agreement; a war band traveled at the speed of the slowest. And the Rangers trained hard in just that sort of scouting and endurance trek. He himself could keep up with his half sisters cross-country, but he didn’t know many others who could.

“Go, find out who’s where with what, and get back to me. Hopefully by the time I reach Eriksgarth.” Then he added: “Hortho le huil vaer, muinthel nin.”

That meant fair winds speed you on, sister . He’d never had the time to spare to learn the Rangers’ special tongue, but he had a fair assortment of stock phrases. Ritva and Mary both put their right hands to their hearts.

“Harthon cened le ennas, muindor nin ,” Ritva said solemnly: “I’ll see you there, my brother.”

Mary spoke to Ingolf: “Unad nuithatha i nir e-guren nalu aderthad vin.” When his lips began to move in silent translation, she leaned close and whispered:

“Nothing will stop the weeping of my heart until we are once more together.”

Ritva added a wink-he thought at Hrolf Homersson-and they picked up the skis that leaned against a pillar, put them over their shoulders and left at a tireless springy trot.

Artos took a deep breath and jumped to the top of a great hogs-head full of something heavy.

“Folk of Kalksthorpe,” he called.

His voice wasn’t pitched very loud, but absolute silence fell; he could hear the cold wind hooting around the logs of the walls.

“You’ve agreed to follow me to this war-muster,” he said; his glance went to Thorleif Heidhveigsson.

The man nodded soberly. “I did,” he said.

Kalksthorpe didn’t exactly have a chief, besides Kalk himself; they settled matters by a folkmoot where every adult had a voice, much like a Mackenzie dun. The settlement was small enough for that to work, just, if most were sensible. But the seeress’ son was a leading trader and craftsman, a respected man whose word carried weight. Hers carried even more, and the word of the Gods through her.

“I’m not going to quarrel with the High One’s opinions about war,” the householder said, confirming Artos’ thought. “Who here is fool enough to do that? He’s the Father of Victories.”

Nobody volunteered to put on the offered shoe; Artos held his grin within himself. He didn’t doubt for a moment the truth of Heidhveig’s vision, but it was politically convenient as well, and no mistake.

“Do you all swear to it?” he said.

A moment’s silence, then a crashing shout of agreement from the two-hundred-odd fighters; most of them hammered weapons on shields, a hollow booming thunder that turned into a roar as it echoed back from the rafters.

“We swear!”

“Then hear my word! You will obey my orders; a war band without a leader is like a ship at sea without a captain, food for the carrion eaters. And you will take those orders through those I appoint as if from my own mouth. Doubtless there are many men of mark among you, but we’ve no time for me to make their acquaintance. Frederick Thurston here is my chief of staff-”

The dark young man nodded. He had the specialist training for it. . and Fred had come to follow the same Gods as the Norrheimers, over the past year or so; the Lord of the Ravens had personally claimed him as a follower through Heidhveig. That would give him added authority.

“-and Ingolf the Wanderer is my second-in-command.”

Ingolf crossed his muscled arms on his chest over his mail hauberk. Even to someone who didn’t know him, he looked to be exactly what he was; a fighting-man vastly experienced, shrewd, and dangerous as an angry bear when the steel came out. And unlike Fred Thurston he was accustomed to making do with scratch bands of amateur warriors.

“Princess Mathilda is in charge of our logistics. . our supplies; she will set rations and give all orders concerning forage and shares. Virginia Thurston is horse-mistress.”

The rancher’s daughter nodded. She also snorted a little; to her way of thinking nobody here knew anything about the beasts.

“Father Ignatius is master of the making of camps, the setting of watches, and all matters concerning health and order. Edain Aylward is master-bowman and chief of archers. Don’t waste my time quarreling with any one of them. Understood?”

Sober nods. These Norrheimers were more stiff-necked than his clansmen at home, and almost as fond of argument and dispute, but also a bit more practical. Vastly more so than, say, nobles of the Association.

“Then let’s be off. March!”

He paused a half hour later, to look back over the cleared snow-covered fields to Kalksthorpe, squinting against the sun before they entered the shade of the low pines.

“What’s wrong, Rudi?” Mathilda said, snowplowing her skis to a stop beside him and thrusting down her poles.

He frowned and rubbed his left hand across his face. The right stroked the pommel of the Sword; he did that often now, a habit that felt ancient already.

“I. . I don’t know,” he said. “It’s. . as if I’m concentrating all the time.”

“You’re a King and running a war, Rudi!”

He shook his head. “It’s not just that. It’s like I’m concentrating all the time , sure. As if it stops only when I make it, instead of the other way around. Just now I found myself looking through the list of candidates for Chancellor of the Realm in Montival! Which is not only odd, but premature in the extreme!”

She smiled at him. “Oh, that’s easy. Father Ignatius.”

She’s right , he thought; something clicked in his mind in acknowledgment as she went on:

“Though you may have to hit him alongside the ear and throw the chain of office over his head while he’s dazed.”

Artos chuckled. He does take that humility business rather seriously , he thought.

Aloud: “And I feel like a pipe a lot of the time. Like a pipe with something rushing through it, and being worn away by it.”

Her thick brows frowned in concern. “What does that really mean?” she said.

“I don’t know!”

He made a gesture of apology as she flinched a little; he seldom raised his voice. Then he looked down at his clenched fist and forced the long sinewy fingers to unfold.

“You know that engine they have down in Corvallis, at the university? The one that can be set to do all sorts of calculations?”

She nodded, and he knew they were thinking of the same thing. The great room, and the cogs and gearwheels and cams, moving smoothly as the hydraulic turbine whined, and the white-coated attendants like priests of a mystery, or a glimpse of the ancient world.

“The Analytical Engine.”

His mouth quirked a little bitterly. “Thinking about what the Sword does. . I feel like a dog in that room with the Engine, looking at it and trying to understand it, with my nose going around in circles and my ears drooping!”

Forlornly, she tried a joke: “I didn’t understand it anyway, Rudi!”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead again. “And sometimes I can feel things happening through the Sword. As if it was carving a path from. . somewhere. . to somewhere. . to do. . something. But I haven’t the least idea what.”

COUNTY OF THE EASTERMARK

BARONY OF DAYTON

PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)

MARCH 16, CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD

Eilir ghosted through the chill darkness to where her mother waited beneath a big lodgepole pine. She slid the knife back into the sheath along her boot after she’d wiped it, and sank down beside the older woman. This was as far as they could get towards the encamped enemy convoy, even with Dunedain doing the Sentry Removal. The United States of Boise’s army was extremely disciplined and tended to operate by the book; the problem was that they used a good book, one that had definite things to say about putting out a wide net and checking on it often. The raiding party had a hundred Mackenzie archers along too, and they wouldn’t have gotten this far without open fighting, although they hid and skulked quite adequately once the way had been opened for them. There were five times that number of enemy troops camped down on the roadway.