S. Stirling: Lord of Mountains

THE HIGH KING’S HOST

HORSE HEAVEN HILLS

(FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

OCTOBER 28TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

“He is coming!” Rudi whispered again.

Then he shook himself and let his hand fall from the crystal pommel of the Sword. His helmet was already slung from the high pommel of the war-saddle, and the wind cuffed at his long red-blond hair, giving an illusion of coolness as it dried the sweat bred in the rage and heat of battle.

“Where? When?” Mathilda said sharply, her strong-featured face frowning a little under the raised visor of her own sallet.

It was a bright autumn noon, and the rolling hills showed a ghostly tinge of green under their summer’s cloak of golden sun-dried grass; the first of the autumn rains had already fallen. It would have been a fair day, except for the thick drifts of dead men and horses on and around the hill where his rearguard had made their stand. Most of them were enemy-horse-archers from the wilds of Montana, men of the Church Universal and Triumphant. But more than enough were Montivalans; they’d held hard, the Yakima pike and crossbow regiments and the Association cavalry, and he’d arrived at just the right moment with another thousand lancers to be the hammer to their anvil.

“Soon,” he said to his High Queen looking eastward. “Not today; not tomorrow. But soon. The Prophet Sethaz will be here and ready.”

Above them a glider turned in a greater circle with a glitter of aluminum and Plexiglas; one of his, a pre-Change craft that needed no engine to fly, catapult-launched over the Columbia cliffs and riding the updrafts like a great-winged bird. His eyes turned grimly to the wheeling circle of living carrion-eaters below the human machine, ravens and buzzards tilting lower as the living humans withdrew. Comrade or foe, all the dead waited for them alike.

She nodded, following his thought. They’d been friends- anamchara , oath-bound kin of the soul-from the age of ten, though their parents had been at war then; and they’d been from Montival all across the continent to Nantucket and back together. Though they’d only been handfasted a bit more than a month, their minds operated with the sort of smooth unison he’d seen in couples forty years their senior.

Tiphaine d’Ath, Grand Constable of the Association, looked exhausted but grimly satisfied. He’d given her the task of delaying the enemy onset, and she’d managed a fighting retreat all the way from Walla Walla without letting the enemy trap her force.

And as is the usual case, I shall reward her good work with more work.

“Lady d’Ath, your field force is hereby dissolved with accolades for good service; I wanted you to screen us while we massed and you’ve done just that. The arrière-ban of the PPA has mustered and you’re in command of that, of course. You’ll deploy the Association foot to the right wing of our position and the chivalry will be part of our general reserve.”

“Forward base is at Goldendale, Your Majesty?” she said.

“Yes, and our field hospitals and supplies will stage out of there. Mathilda has been overseeing our buildup in the area. Matti, you’d better brief the Grand Constable.”

She nodded and d’Ath scrubbed at a spray of blood across her long stark-boned face.

“I’ll get there and see about slotting people in, then,” the Grand Constable said. “Her Majesty can brief me on the way back.”

Rudi nodded. “I’ll be there by dawn tomorrow; we’ll have everything up within two days except the rearguard. There’s enough forward to hold, but I don’t expect the onset until then.”

She nodded back. “They’ll want to have everything in place; they have the advantage of numbers, after all.”

The High King of Montival grinned starkly. “Yes. And we’ll see what we can do about that.”

COUNTY OF AUREA

(FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

OCTOBER 30TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

Rudi had been inclined to think the final ball a waste of time and resources, one of the peacocking Associate habits that he had to put up with for the sake of harmony and which the north-realm nobles insisted upon even on the eve of battle. And perhaps there was an element of sheer vanity in it.

But on second thought, who should say how a man prepares his innermost self to die? Or a woman, sure. They have to be here, and the most of their ladies too, for they’re working in the field hospitals or managing the supplies or something of that sort, waiting for their lovers and brothers to be brought back on their shields. The only real burden is that they’ve brought their party clothes…garb, they call it…along this far; and we’re close to the river. There’s a certain mad gallantry to it, a defiance of fate; my foster father says the Duke of Wellington’s officers did the same on the eve of Waterloo.

Torches and fires of pinewood in iron cages and strings of softly glowing paper lanterns lit the interior of Castle Goldendale’s bailey-court, the broad paved expanse at the heart of the inner keep. The Great Hall and the Chapel and the quarters of the seneschal and his officers surrounded it in an irregular circuit of roofs and balconies, spires and pointed-arch windows; candles glowed in the church, through the rich colors of stained glass wrought in saints and angels.

Mathilda and some others had had their Mass there, though most of the host had used household chaplains and field priests in the encampments. A lingering scent of incense mingled with burning conifer sap and the cool night air. Sparks drifted heavenward.

The narrower slits of the solars and guard-rooms in the high round towers of the keep were bars of yellow against the half-glimpsed soaring heights, as much sensed as seen where their dark bulk blocked out the stars. Folk more humble crowded some of them; the castle staff, maidservants and men-at-arms, watching the gaudy flower-petal brightness below as a show arranged for their entertainment.

Black-armored spearmen of the Protector’s Guard stood at intervals around the enclosure, motionless as statues of gleaming dark metal, with the visors of their sallet helms down and leaving nothing to be seen but an occasional glint of eyes behind the vision-slits, the gleam echoing the yellow and scarlet of the Lidless Eye on shields like four-foot elongated teardrops. Kilted longbowmen of the High King’s Archers shared the duty-and honor-with their great yew bows in the crooks of their arms.

The walls enclosed the sound of the players as well, shawm and lute and recorder and viol, the sweet tinkle and buzz and fluting notes of Portlander court music. The tune ended, and the dancers turned and bowed or curtsied to politely applaud the musicians on their dais; several of them had the jeweled dagger that denoted Associate status or even the golden spurs of chivalry on their heels, for a troubadour might be a gentleman by Protectorate standards. The tale of the dance would be woven into that of the battle to come, for they’d be fighting in it too.

“Five minutes,” the Mistress of the Revels said; she was Dame Lilianth of Kalama, who did something administrative for the Grand Constable most of the time. “Then The Knights of Portland , gentlemen, chevaliers, demoiselles and ladies.”

Her shrewd eyes took in the situation, and she made an almost imperceptible gesture; everyone except the two nobles with whom he’d been talking business withdrew enough to give a degree of privacy as Mathilda came up to him.