S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

A pause, and he went on flatly: “If you give your word and break it, then we’ll kill you sure. As an offering to Lugh Longspear.”

Cole thought carefully while the Clan warriors leaned on their great bows and watched him, moistening his lips a little as he did. On the one hand, standing orders said if you were captured you had to escape if possible. On the other, the New UCMJ said you had to escape if possible not get yourself killed trying when it wasn’t possible; his chances of that were much better when he was being moved and was far away from an enemy encampment.

OK, giving a general parole is out, but a temporary one. . possible.

Especially if he stayed here a couple of days with liberty to walk around he could probably learn something valuable, and he was specifically tasked with getting information about bases like this, so it was aiding his mission to be able to ask questions and watch things. He could try for a break when they moved him-they couldn’t spare much effort to guard one prisoner, and in any army things got looser as you moved away from the sharp end. On the third hand-

“Unless US forces attack this camp,” he said. “If they do, all bets are off.”

There were grins and chuckles at that. Such a lot of merry lighthearted jokester bastards, he thought. Goddammit. It was probably a lot easier to laugh when you were winning.

The redhead raised an eyebrow. “Or unless the sky fall and crush us, or the sea rise and drown us, or the world end,” he said sardonically.

“And my parole to last three days from sunset today and no more. After that I’m free to escape and to do anything necessary to carrying out my duties. And you’re free to shoot me if I try and if you can.”

A short, crisp but somehow respectful nod. “Good. A man careless of his oath would likely make fewer conditions, so. Swear then, in the sight of whatever Gods you follow and on a fighting-man’s honor.”

“I’m a Methodist, I guess. .” He thought for a moment, then raised his right hand and swore so help me God .

Luag listed the specifics carefully, and drew a sign in the air before finishing:

“So witness all the Gods of my people, and the Mother-of-All in Her form as the Threefold Morrigú, who loves a warrior’s faithfulness, and the Lord Her consort as Lugh of the Oaths. You’re free of our camp, but don’t go beyond its bounds-those white wands you see planted about.”

He hadn’t noticed the peeled sticks, but they were obvious once the bowman’s thick finger pointed them out.

Luag went on: “What the Bearkillers do is their affair, but I wouldn’t go among them alone either, if I were you, for all that they’re blood brothers of ours, so to speak. They’re a suspicious lot about outsiders and quickly fierce with their blades.”

Raising his voice slightly:

“To harm this man is geasa so long as he keeps his oath. Watch him close, but put no slight nor insolence on him while he’s bound helpless by his pledge. Or I will most assuredly kick your arse until your teeth march out of your mouth like little Bearkiller pikemen on parade, and you will be mocked by all and the bards will make a tale of it at the next festival and ill-luck will dog your tracks. This is a war, not a blood feud. Treat him as you would wish on one of our own if they had the misfortune to fall captive. Understood?”

There was a murmur of assent.

“Then spread the word. About your work the now, Mackenzies.”

“Ah. . that’s it?” Cole said.

“Is anything more needful?” Talyn said. “Ah, here’s our tent, the which you are welcome to share. Though we usually sleep under the stars unless it’s raining or much colder than this. Stow your gear.”

He and Caillech spent a few moments removing each other’s war paint, with a mixture of flaxseed oil and goose grease that smelled of herbs-sage and rosemary, Cole thought-and then soap and water. Most of the Mackenzies just nodded at the prisoner and walked away, going back to working on their gear or shooting at wooden targets and flinging disks with truly alarming dexterity or sparring or towards some cooking pits where an agonizingly good smell was drifting with wafts of bluish smoke to remind him that he’d been working hard on light rations. Others simply napped, played flutes or guitars, read or wrote letters, played games with dice or cards, or. .

He blinked, and blushed a little. Soldiering tended to erode your sense of privacy, but he was used to it being all guys. His army had stopped recruiting women after the old General died a couple of years ago, and hadn’t had many even then. Cole averted his eyes.

Bearkillers seemed to do things more or less the way he was used to. The Mackenzies. .

“They’re sort of informal, aren’t they? But it works for them,” Alyssa said. “ God knows why.”

“Hup-one-two, and a lance up the arse to keep your back braced straight,” Caillech said. “The Bearkiller way.”

The two young women stuck out their tongues at each other, and Talyn rolled his eyes.

“I smell that a sounder of wild pig were guided our way by Cernunnos,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Rather than the over-stewed muck of infamous memory we get nine days in ten, when it isn’t jerky and trail mix and dog biscuit instead, ochone , the sorrow and black pity of it. Let us prepare for the sacred rite of eating ourselves full and drinking what’s to be had while we have the chance, for it won’t happen often.”

Cole smiled a little. The general awfulness of military food was something everyone seemed to have in common, weird or not.

Castle Todenangst, Crown demesne

Portland Protective Association

Willamette Valley near Newburg

High Kingdom of Montival

(formerly western Oregon)

June 15th, Change Year 26/2024 AD

The last series of windows came down to the floor, opening out in French doors. Beyond was a fan-shaped open platform the size of a largish room, held by curved girders of cast aluminum alloy whose ends reared up into stylized eagle’s heads all around its rim. Between them along the edge was a border of waist-high marble sheets carved into fretwork. Not at all coincidentally, they were exactly the right height to lean on comfortably for a rather short someone named Sandra Arminger.

Most of the balcony was covered by an arched pergola of thin wrought bronze rods thickly grown with vines, the last of the late-blooming violet-blue Shiro Noda wisteria hanging in foot-long clusters interwoven with golden Rêve d’Or roses. The heady Noisette perfume of the roses mingled with the fainter, more delicate scent of the Japanese wisteria. Hummingbirds flitted among the blossoms like living jewels of ruby and malachite, and the eyes of several of Sandra’s Persians tracked them with bright wistful interest.

And a low feline chittering of teeth accompanied by a murmur of ah ahnt ahnt ahnt , which meant something like: Chew toy! Chew toy!

“I wonder, was that excessive?” Sandra murmured, looking up. “Roses and wisteria? Did I do it just because suddenly I could ? I’m afraid that happened a fair bit back then. It was as if we were both a little drunk with possibilities, your father and I. From impecunious academics to gaming with kingdoms.”

Laughter came from the space beyond the doors, and then the bright tinkle of a metal-strung cittern, and a woman’s voice raised in song:

“I waited for a sunny day to launch my grand design.

The clouds would loom-

The wind would turn-

It happened every time!

Until at last it struck me: