S. Stirling - Lord of Mountains

Aleaume nodded in satisfaction. “And you won the great battle with it!”

“I did indeed,” Rudi said gravely. “With this and the aid of many brave men like your father.”

Cocking an eye at Mathilda and then his sister Mary: “And many a brave woman as well.”

“When I’m big I shall fight for you too, Your Majesty!” Aleaume said. “I’ll be your man, and slay dozens and dozens…and, and hundreds of cruel and wicked enemies for you!”

“You may indeed fight by my side someday,” Rudi answered him, putting a hand on the boy’s head for an instant before he rose and reseated the Sword. “Or by the side of my heir, who’s expected along in spring, and we’ll be well served if you prove as brave a knight and as good a lord as your father.”

The Baron of Tucannon and his lady offered congratulations. Rudi grinned at Mathilda, the wonder still on him.

“I thank you, my lord, my lady, though sincere as it is, you’re not half so happy as we! Now-”

There was a clatter of hooves, a challenge and response, and Ingolf swung down from his horse and came towards them with a look of intense predatory satisfaction on his battered face, slapping mud off his breeches with the gloves in his left hand.

“Good news?” Rudi asked, as Mary came over to lay an arm around the big man’s waist.

“Damned good! The Boise commander in Castle Campscapell just turned on the Prophet’s men there. Did it real neat and tidy in the middle of the night, too. A few of them are still holding out in the central keep, but they’re bottled up tight, and Hauken, that’s his name, he’s declared for Fred and opened the main gates and our men are inside.”

The news ran through the crowd and there was a rolling cheer; Aleaume was jumping up and down, certain that the foe’s doom was upon them.

The which is not so far from at least a local truth, Rudi thought, smiling with a slight show of teeth and tapping his right fist into his left palm in three slow strokes. His mind went on, weighing factors:

Campscapell is a great keep and in a notable bottleneck. Now the cork is in our hands and we can keep it closed or go east through there just as we choose. Losing the castle was a bad blow, and regaining it a wind at our back. I must…no, let Fred reward this Hauken. He’ll know how to do it properly.

Rudi raised a hand for silence after the cheers started to fade.

“Well, my friends, I’d been planning a feast of celebration here-for which we brought slaughter stock, cattle and sheep, doubly sweet for being doubly stolen as the saying goes-”

Another cheer rose on a different note, less carnivore glee and more straightforward hungry happiness; the local folk hadn’t actually starved, but they’d gone short and nobody either noble or commons had been eating their fill of roasted fresh meat lately.

“-and some most promising barrels. We’ll feast this night and drink to your homes reclaimed and to this news of a victory won without blood-”

None of ours, at least

“-as an omen of things to come.”

Maugis de Grimmond stepped back and drew his sword. “Artos and Montival!” he shouted, holding it high.

“ Artos and Montival! ”

LARSDALEN, BEARKILLER HQ

HALL OF REMEMBRANCE

(FORMERLY WEST-CENTRAL WILLAMETTE, OREGON)

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

DECEMBER 19TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

The Bearkillers held feast for their dead in the great hall of Larsdalen.

The long rectangular room fell silent, the buzz of conversation and laughter that had filled it during the feast dying as the ceremonial drinking-horns were set out in their wrought stands, rimmed and tipped with gold or silver and carved with running interlaced animal-patterns. The central hearth flickered and boomed beneath a hood of burnished copper that led the smoke upward; snow fell against the tall windows, whispers of cold white in the darkness, but within all was warmth and light-an image ancient in the poetry of their peoples.

A fair place, this Larsdalen , Bjarni Eriksson thought. No fairer than my mead-hall, but larger and richer…and strange, like its dwellers, full of things alien and familiar and mixtures of the two, like stories seen in dreams.

Firelight and lantern-light shone on the oak wainscoting between the tall windows, wrought in sinuous forms from tales he remembered and some he’d never known; he recognized Sigurd and Fafnir, Burnt Njal, Orm the Strong, Odhinn’s quest for wisdom and his old friend Thor wrestling with the World Snake. It was hung with weapons and shields as well-round concave ones marked with the Bear, backswords and lances and recurve bows, stands of plate armor and captured trophies and banners.

The fire scented the air with the subtly alien smell of burning Douglas fir, not quite like the pinewood blazes he knew, and the fine beeswax of candles from the wrought-iron chandeliers overhead; his folk used tallow mainly. Rather than young maidens, it was military apprentices who brought round the jugs, and they were full of wine from the local vineyards rather than the honey-mead that was the drink of ceremony back home, for those who could afford it.

Now wine, there’s a thing of which I approve, he thought, grinning to himself and smacking his lips a little. The vineyards are full of gnarled and ugly plants, but what they make…ah, that’s a different matter!

Back in Norrheim, wine was something they knew only from bottles Vikings salvaged from the dead cities-hardly familiar enough to really tell what was still good from what had spoiled in the long years since the Change. They called the tipples made from berries and herbs wines, but here in Montival he’d come to know the difference. The feast had been fine too, smoking platters of beef ribs, roast pork, made dishes more complex than they used in Norrheim and fantastical desserts of pastry and ice cream and fruits like cherries and apricots that were only names in the cold land that he ruled.

One thing that was the same was the roistering, roaring defiance in the face of death and grief. Even if some of these folk followed the White Christ, they knew the Nine Virtues, of which courage was the first.

He stayed quiet as the Bearkillers remembered their fallen, as was respectful, and kept an eye on young Halldor Syfridsson beside him to make sure he did as well.

“Easy, easy,” he said to him quietly, while Eric Larsson invoked the White Christ for those of the fallen who had followed Him. “This isn’t mead. It’s stronger. Drink it more like whiskey, not for thirst like beer.”

The young man’s grin was a little foolish. A woman at the table across the open space from theirs was giving him cool considering stares; she was a little older, which still made her young enough-Halldor was in his late teens yet, and had come at his father’s side on the great journey west. His father, Syfrid Jerrisson, had laid his bones fighting the CUT in Drumheller, and now the youngster was godhi of the Hrossings, though they didn’t know it yet.

If they hail him when he stands on their Thingstone, Bjarni thought. But they will; he’s his father’s son, and shrewd, and already a fell fighter. I’ll be glad of it, and of a strong ally as chieftain of another tribe, a man who’s seen the wider world and understands my thoughts. Syfrid and I were rivals more than friends; he never forgot seeing me as a child in my father’s hall when he was a man grown, and thought he should be king in Norrheim. Halldor will be no man’s puppet, but we’ll deal more easily, I think. Hmmm. Perhaps when my sister Gudrun is old enough to wed…better to wait on that, perhaps throw them in each other’s way and see how they suit. Still, a good thought. I’ll talk it over with Hallberga when I get back.