S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

He raised his voice slightly: “We will throw down Corwin together, and then all this land will be the Morrowlander Pack’s, forever; to hold in trust for all the kindreds of fur and feather and scale, for the very grass and trees and the rock beneath, as guardians and helpers. None of humankind shall come on it without your permission, nor harm it, while the line of my blood lasts.”

The cheer rose to the carved rafters of the House. The Last Eagle rose to cheer with the rest of them, then staggered. Rudi frowned in concern, and the two young attendants stepped forward.

“Our father is tired. Akela should rest. He’s worked so hard.”

Rudi nodded. “Indeed he has,” he said softly. “Hard and well, and well he has earned rest from the Powers. Rest and blessing, in the land where no evil comes and all hurts are healed.”

Valley of Paradise, near Corwin

(Formerly western Montana)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

August 28th, Change Year 26/2024 AD

“Hold them off, by Our Lady of the Citadel!” Rudi heard Tiphaine d’Ath mutter. “ Don’t chase them, just hold them and look like it’s killing you with the effort.”

“They’ll do it long enough, Grand Constable, long enough,” he said. “And the effort is killing some, to be sure.”

Mathilda swept the horizon northward. “Nothing that the gliders missed. Everyone’s here, and the Volta can begin.”

They sat their horses on a slight rise about long catapult shot from the action, surrounded by the usual staff and couriers and guardsmen; and they were out of the woods, literally if not metaphorically. Well behind them lay the arched stone gate that had For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People on it-another of the old American ruler Roosevelt’s works, like Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood; the man had certainly left his mark on the world and usually in a way Rudi admired.

The Valley of Paradise opened out before them. As far as looks went, it lived up to its heavenly name. To the west were the Gallatin Mountains, to the east the Absarokas, blue in the distance and tipped with white. The lowland ran north-south, opening out in a broad diamond shape with the Yellowstone river running through it in a broad swath of gallery forest, aspen and willow and big cottonwoods. Up from the valley flats rose buffalo-hump foothills, dark where tongues of spruce and fir and pine thickened amid the grass, fading into the endless mountain forests. Even with the heights upon every hand it felt. .

Big, somehow, he thought. As if the sky were larger, somehow. And yet-is that sense of some menace just things working below the surface of what my waking mind thinks, or am I really feeling it?

“The League and the Dominions are on the other side of Bozeman Pass,” Rudi said aloud.

“The League’s siege-train was most impressive, what we saw in Iowa,” Mathilda said, her voice carefully neutral. “Now they’ll get a chance to use it.”

“Lucky it is that the CUT put their major forts there when they were thinking how to protect Corwin, is it not?” Rudi said, with just a little sarcasm.

“Because nobody would be crazy enough to come through Yellowstone,” d’Ath said dryly. “Always better to fight nature than men, when you can. They’re earning their corn, our gallant allies. . at last.”

Mathilda made a slight chiding sound; she’d never say anything so impolitic in public. Ruling folk were seldom really alone, and their words travelled. You had to remember that what you said casually could hit like a club.

Rudi glanced upward; sunlight flashed off his reconnaissance fliers, wheeling thousands of feet above. The High King’s host had direct communication with the League and Dominion forces now, by very daring glider pilots, which cut about a week off the closest land route. Coming through Yellowstone had been nerve-wracking, mainly because he had to cover both banks of the river, giving the enemy the chance to cut one half of the army off from the other and destroy it. . or it would have given them the chance, if the Scouts hadn’t given him a better grasp of the Cutters’ movements than their own commanders had.

Sure, and it’s the Threefold Law in operation.

“Not long now,” Mathilda put in. “A month or two, and we’ll be seeing Órlaith again.”

Rudi nodded agreement, putting aside a stab of longing that felt like a wound to speak judiciously:

“There’s no doubt about the outcome. Their last chance to preserve anything was to keep us from crossing into this valley. . and they failed at that, thanks to our Scout friends. We’re just seeing to the details the now.”

The details would mean an arrow through the gut for some, which would be unpleasantly final whether you were winning or losing. No point in mentioning that; it was a cost of doing business.

“About now, I think,” he said aloud instead.

The surface of the valley was open, with few buildings and those clustered inside palisades or earth berms. Much of it was tilled in big square fields colored brown or shades of green, planted with buckwheat and rye and potatoes and other hardy crops that could grow in a climate that consisted of an eight-month winter briefly interrupted by two months each of spring and autumn. Most of the harvest had been gathered, except for some rye that was cut but still standing with the sheaves in stooks. The rest was pasture and hay-meadow, and there was rarely anything tall enough to be much obstacle to a horse.

He leveled his binoculars. The skirmish-it would have been counted a battle in any war less huge-involved several thousand fighters on either side. There was a block in the reddish-brown armor of the Sword of the Prophet, about a regiment’s worth, six or seven hundred, hanging back to the north, waiting to punch at the right moment. That was more than he’d seen of them since the Horse Heaven Hills last year, and he hadn’t missed them at all; the Prophet’s guardsmen were as disciplined as any of his own troops, too disciplined by far, and fanatically dedicated to their cause and leader. They waited quietly with the thread-thin shafts of their lances standing upright topped by the bright slivers of the heads.

The main action was between the light horse on both sides, armed with bow and round shield and curved sword, few with more armor than a helmet and mail shirt. His CORA levies and some of the PPA’s eastern cavalry and the Boisean equivalents, along with the Richland volunteers under his brother-in-law Ingolf, and Rick Three Bear’s Lakota and the Dúnedain.

The Grand Constable was using her own binoculars, below the raised shelf of her visor. “Now, the question is, will the CORA-boys obey the signal to get the hell out of the way? They’ve got lots of motivation, but not much discipline.”

“Oh, I think so,” Rudi said. “We’ve all been working together for some time now. You have Baron Tucannon. . Lord Maugis de Grimmond. . in charge of your first detachment of men-at-arms, correct?”

She nodded. “I’ve been giving him more work, now that a lot of the Counts are out of the picture. He’s very able, and well-born enough he doesn’t have to kill anyone to get the others to pay attention. And he’s mentally flexible as well as intelligent.”

Which was not something you could say for every Associate baron; they were all brave, but many had about as much subtlety as a war hammer in the face. Maugis was a vassal of the Counts of Walla Walla, a smallish wiry young man with frizzy red hair and jug ears, and he was very clever indeed. Also. .

“Also the enemy burned his manor house and villages and those of his vassals, and chased him and his men like a wolf before hounds through the Blue Mountains for months while his lady held their castle against the besiegers.”