S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

“She cheated-”

“ I cheated?”

“-one or both of us cheated, so we did rock-paper-scissors,” Ritva said helpfully. “Nobody can cheat at that. . well, maybe Rudi could, but he wouldn’t.” Virtuously: “And we were really deciding who got a chance at you. I mean, twin sisters should share, but there are limits. Combs and pads yes, men no.”

“Sure, you were deciding who got a chance. And how much chance did I have?”

“None at all,” Mary said cheerfully. “I mean, we’re the Havel twins ? What man could resist us?”

“Rigobert de Stafford aside,” Ritva added, which Mary had to admit was true.

“All right,” she said. “No man who likes women.”

She saw a dangerous glint in her twin’s eyes; hair-splitting was a favorite sport of theirs, and Rigobert did like women. The baron of Forest Grove was delightful company, in fact, not to mention gorgeous in a rugged manly middle-aged way. He just didn’t consider women to be sexy.

“Correction: no man who desires women can resist us. But I got dibs, so there.”

“Hey, what does that make me?” Ian said. “The alternative menu selection?”

“It makes you younger and prettier,” Ritva said, giving his arm a squeeze.

“But mine has more character ,” Mary said.

“Character? You mean he’s grumpier in the morning and makes bad puns,” Ritva said.

“Honey-smooth skin and chiseled jaws aren’t everything.”

“Hey!” both men said, antiphonally.

Ingolf started dressing. He’d just finished cinching his sword belt over his mail shirt when two parties of mounted Dúnedain closed in from the north and south; one included John Hordle on his usual warmblood destrier and the other Alleyne on a more conventional dappled part-Arab. Alleyne was tall, around six feet, but if you put Uncle John on an ordinary horse. .

He looks like a man trying to ride a big dog.

Mary put her monocular to her good eye and looked eastward. The people she saw weren’t making any attempt to hide, but they ran through the tall grass with a smooth economy that made them look just at home there as the lobo packs.

“Here they are, three of them,” she said. Then: “Oh. It is our old friend with the badges, right? Not just the bunch he runs with?”

“Right,” Ritva confirmed when her sister passed her the optic.

The party of the Hîr Dúnedain , the Lord of the Rangers, pulled up and dismounted. The standard-bearers thrust the butt-spikes of their flagpoles into the ground-the silver-and-black tree, stars and crown of her people, and the green-and-silver Crowned Mountain of Montival.

Mary and Ritva stepped forward to greet the three emissaries; presumably they weren’t their people’s sovereigns, which meant proper etiquette would be for them to meet someone of rank, but not one of the lords of the Dúnedain. She recognized the tall lean redhead from her sister’s description; he looked a lot neater and cleaner now than in that tale, but then he was on his home territory and not leading a fast pursuit on the trail of nine Questers. And she wasn’t dazed with pain and horror, in a way that still gave her bad dreams occasionally. With him were a medium-tall man in his thirties with dark brown skin-several shades darker than Fred Thurston-and a pale freckled woman of around her age with braided black hair.

The two men both wore broad-brimmed hats with wings of eagle feathers attached; the woman had similar headgear, but sporting falcon feathers. All three had loose well-tanned leather britches that ended above the knee, moccasins, and long belted tunic-shirts sewn over with round badges bearing stylized symbols-bows and arrows, tents, knapsacks, various tools. There were kerchiefs around their necks, too, run through carved bone rings. They had knives at the belts, and tomahawks a lot like Ingolf’s; her old acquaintance and the woman had recurve bows and quivers over their backs, and the dark man had a broad-bladed spear taller than he was.

“Good G-. . by Manwë and Varda,” Alleyne Loring said quietly from behind her. “I thought you were exaggerating, Ritva.”

“Not in a report , Lord,” she said. “But they’re a bit. . fancier than the one I saw three years ago. I suppose because it’s a diplomatic mission.”

“I was one myself once,” he murmured. “Before the Change. I wonder if I should mention it or not? It seems another world.”

The three halted. The redhead smiled at Ritva. “We meet again, woman worthy of badges,” he said, then gave a broader smile and nod to Ian’s scowl.

The man with the spear frowned himself and stepped forward and grounded the weapon with a formal gesture, raising his right hand shoulder-high, three fingers up, thumb crooked and holding the little finger. The other two copied the movement and the spearman spoke:

“I am Andrew, called Swift, a Scout of thirty-one badges, a bearer of the Eagle, of the Keen Spear Patrol of the Snow Tiger Troop, and I speak for the Council of Troops of the Morrowland Pack,” he said.

“I am Sheila, called Dauntless, a Scout of twenty-eight badges, a bearer of the Falcon, of the Thrown Hatchet Patrol of the Otter Troop, and I speak for the House of Girls and the Council of Troops of the Morrowland Pack,” the freckled woman said.

“I am George, called Tracker, a Scout of thirty badges, a bearer of the Eagle, of the Bright Lightning Patrol of the Wolverine Troop, and I speak for the Council of Troops of the Morrowland Pack,” Ritva’s old acquaintance said.

The spearman went on: “You have come on the Pack’s land and hunted our game without our consent, game that we need to feed our cubs in the cold months. Who are you, to make free with what is ours?”

Alleyne bowed slightly, with hand over heart; the other Rangers copied the gesture, and the rest made salute in their own fashions.

“Mae l’ovannen,” he said, in the formal mode. “Well-met, Scouts of the Morrowland Pack. I am Alleyne Loring-Larsson, Lord of the Dúnedain Rangers, vassal and kin to Artos the First, High King of Montival. We have come onto your land as part of the Host of the High Kingdom, for we are enemies of the false Prophet of Corwin. High King Artos needs this meat for his army, and passage to the north. . and you have served the Prophet. Are you our enemies? Or our allies? Or will you stand aside and take no part in this war?”

The Morrowlanders. . whatever that meant. . looked at each other. Mary would have been very surprised indeed if they hadn’t been following events outside their bailiwick, and even more surprised than that if they didn’t know the approaching Montivallan army down to the nearest battalion.

“We have heard of your war and we have scouted your great army,” the spearman named Andrew said, confirming her guess. “But the Prophet’s men. . the red-robes. . can find us in the forests. Find our cubs and our dens. There are not enough of us to fight their soldiers, if the woods cannot hide us. Nor can we live entirely without trade; we need metal for tools, and salt and cloth. But we could hurt them badly, so they leave us be in return for Scout service.”

“We come to cast the Prophet down, destroy his city of Corwin, and free all his slaves,” Alleyne said. “Then this will be part of Montival, and under the High King’s peace none will trouble you in your own land if you keep his law.”

The three looked at each other again. “We must test your words,” their spokesman said. “Send us emissaries, and we will see if they are worthy to speak with the Last Eagle.”

The woman spoke: “Send us emissaries, and your she-wolves among them. We see that you are not as the Prophet’s men, who seek to turn Girls-”