S. Stirling - Lord of Mountains

It was on a slight rise, with stone steps leading up to the front doors and a big rose window over them.

“They didn’t burn that, looks like,” Brown observed. “Not like them to be respectful.”

“They were not,” Ignatius snapped, his eyes questing. “They took it for their own uses.”

“I’ll take a look, then,” Eric said, swinging down from the saddle.

Ignatius sighed and said: “Is that wise, Lord Eric?”

Eric shrugged. “It’s quick…don’t worry, I’m not going alone.”

His guards formed around him; Ignatius did too, and put his shield on his arm and drew his sword. Even then, Mike smiled a little to himself. If his uncle had a fault as a war-leader, it was the same headlong courage that made him so formidable and feared. He exchanged a grin with Will Larsson. He and Eric’s eldest son stayed mounted and ready behind.

Asking permission just gives someone the chance to say no, he reflected. One of the unofficial lessons.

The Bearkillers-and one Knight-Brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict-formed up and walked up the stairs into the church. The tall windows would provide enough light, even at this time of day. There was a pause, and then…

Eric Larsson, called Steel-Fist, stumbled out. The battle-hardened guard detail followed, backing frantically, their shields raised but the swords slack in their hands. Ignatius followed them; he had sheathed his blade and slung his long shield over his back, and he had his rosary and crucifix in his hands instead.

Appalled, several of the Bearkiller A-Listers started towards Eric. He waved them back. They could hear the clank of armor as the big man staggered around a snag of ruin and fell to his knees, retching noisily. Men and women were looking at each other. The war chief of the Bearkillers was notoriously a hard man; not cruel, but sometimes short on mercy, and the product of a generation’s fights.

“What was in there?” Will Larsson asked, and Mike nodded.

That is the question.

“What was in there that did that to Uncle Eric? ” he added thoughtfully.

Eric Larsson returned, accepted a canteen from one of his followers, rinsed and spat and then drank.

“No,” he barked when heads turned towards the entrance to the church. “Stay out. Christ have mercy…right after the Change, Mike and I-”

Even then, Mike Havel had the usual moment’s twinge at his father’s name. There were drawbacks to being the son of a legend, especially to one who’d died too early for you to remember him.

“-smoked out a nest of Eaters. That was almost as…but they were just crazy . This-”

The rayed sun had been painted across the doors there, and the cross that had stood above lay smashed some distance from it.

“No indeed, my sons,” Ignatius said slowly in agreement, walking over to push the doors closed. “There are things no man should have to see.”

“Yes,” Eric agreed. Very softly: “They’re too hard to forget. Twenty-five years won’t do it. Don’t anyone ask me. Ever. And burn this. Get some combat engineers in here and burn it now .”

He was silent as they rode back to the Bearkiller encampment. Ignatius excused himself with a simple: I must pray. Eric brooded until the camp cooks handed around their plates of salt pork stewed with beans and rolled wheat tortillas. Then he pushed his food around the plate for a moment before he looked up at his son and nephew.

“There’s one good thing about this,” he said quietly; the camp-fire underlit his face, showing how grooves had begun to seam it.

“Yes, sir?” Mike asked.

“It’s a good thing to know why you’re fighting,” Eric said. “And that it isn’t just because the other guy’s as big a son of a bitch as you are.”

COUNTY OF THE EASTERMARK

BARONY OF TUCANNON

(FORMERLY SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)

PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

DECEMBER 12TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

“I am sorry, my lord Tucannon,” Rudi Mackenzie said gently.

Castle Tucannon stood on its hilltop, a spur of land reaching out from the foothills of the Blue Mountains. There were scorch-marks on the dark walls, but looking at the slope-and the way the spur had been severed off into an island by a deep cut across the neck that connected it to the higher lands-Rudi wondered that anyone had been foolish enough to try. Only someone truly desperate, or utterly mad or both would have sent men against those frowning battlements. It was a fairly big castle, a doubled mirror-keep, and high enough that the catapults on its crenellated walls would have commanded every inch of the approach. A ponderosa-pine signal spire on the tallest tower had kept it connected to the heliograph net centered on Walla Walla all through the siege.

The manor of Grimmond-on-the-Wold below had suffered much more. Few roofs were left and the barns and winery and gristmill, sawmill and stables at the end of the long village street were wrecked. The Baron’s house in particular had been utterly demolished, its thick pise walls pushed in to make an irregular mound that the winter rains were turning into mud; the High King was surprised to see his sister Mary wiping at her one eye as she came out of the empty gates.

“The gardens were so beautiful,” she said. “When Ingolf and I were here in the tail-end of summer. Like something out of the Histories, gardens in Lothlorien or Dol Amroth.”

The Baron’s mother, Lady Roehis de Grimmond-who’d been born Jenny Fassbinder, more than sixty years before-smiled distantly and patted her shoulder. She was in a plain kirtle and wimple of brown and gray, her face gentle and thin.

“I started them, dear,” she said. “My lord Amauri and I, two years after the Change. I can do it again. The damage isn’t really as bad as it looks; remember, this is winter. Most of the roots and bulbs will have survived. The house was timber and soil and we have lots of both.”

“It can wait, Your Majesty,” Baron Maugis said, looking at the thick stumps of the oaks and maples that had lined the town square here in front of his dwelling. “We can live in the castle for a few years. My father did before he built the manor. He planted these trees for me; I can plant more, for my son’s sake. The war’s not over, for that matter, even if we’ve kicked them out of this district.”

He was a young man in his twenties, of medium height and gaunt now, but strong-looking, with a pleasantly ugly face, bowl-cut reddish hair and prominent ears. He and the fighting captains behind him were worn as the patched leather and wool of their gear, but they’d held out in the mountains for months, and their raids had made their occupier’s lives less than pleasant and the supply situation a nightmare. More folk crowded behind, retainers and ordinary craftsfolk and peasants down from the mountain refuges where they’d lived in tents and caves and old forest-ranger cabins in the heights that lay blue and jagged eastward. This was a fine spot for a town, though none had lain here before the Change; good water, shelter from the worst winter winds, and plowland and pasture and timber all available close at hand.

Not to mention a very bonny view, of the mountains…the dawn sun will be a fine sight there…and of the plains away to the east. I think this man’s father chose wisely, and his son seems of no less wit and of great heart besides. I’m usually easier with lords in the Protectorate who are Changelings. Though from what Mary said, this one’s father came here to get away from Matti’s sire, the which is a strong argument in his favor.

A wagon train was also curled up the main street; the drovers and the escort and the local folk were unloading crated hardtack, barrels of salt meat and dried fruit and sacks of beans and flour, bales of blankets and tools and sausages of tent-canvas. Some of the locals were wrapping themselves in blankets, or their children; it was a dry cold day, with the wind carrying particles of grit that made you blink if you faced into it.