S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

“Wow,” Heuradys whispered to Órlaith. “Your mom is something . I’ve never seen anyone tell Lady Tiph off like that!”

“Mom and Dad are really something!” Órlaith said.

A voice whispered not far behind her in a Mackenzie lilt: “And the pair of you are little monkeys.”

The horn tip of a bowstave rapped her behind the ear, just enough to sting a little. Heuradys gave a small squeak, hastily stifled with a hand. Órlaith slowly turned her head. Edain Aylward Mackenzie was standing there, scowling; she hadn’t even noticed him slipping away from the table. Behind him was Dame Emelina, with her arms crossed and a foot beginning to tap.

“Ooops,” Heuradys said.

County of Sonoma, Province of Westria

(Formerly central California)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

May 10th, Change Year 39/2037 AD

“Dang, what a bargain!” Ingolf Vogeler said, looking out over the tall grass, brush and trees of the grant. “To think we got all this for free . Well, for free and a few years’. . twelve years’. . work.”

About a hundred yards away a wild gobbler stuck its head out of a berry thicket, a bit longer-legged and a bit more buff-colored than the variety he’d grown up around but with the same look of idiot turkey indignation. It cocked a suspicious eye at the tents and horses and people and then dashed back into cover. Birds were tweeting away in the giant oak overhead. . and a tiger-skin was tacked to it for scraping and drying preparatory to tanning. There were about a dozen arrow-holes in the skin, which detracted from its value as a rug or coat, but had made acquiring it a lot less nerve-wracking when kittie had tried to get into their horse-corral last night. They’d turned a lantern on the green eyes and then cut loose.

Some people liked hunting tigers with spears; but then some people thought the sound of bolts and roundshot going by their ears an inch away was invigorating. If he’d had a catapult handy he’d have used that . In a ravine not far from here some coyotes were probably happy, and he wished them a satisfying dinner.

“Ingolf, my esteemed brother-in-law, back where I was born there would still be snow this time of year,” Ian Kovalevsky said. “Whereas this land is green and pleasant and, pardon the expression, fucking green already. There are pomegranates growing here, and grapes and figs and apricots and olives. I think there are oranges around someplace. Stuff I’ve never seen before except in pictures. Some guys would complain if you hung them with a golden rope.”

Ingolf put his thumbs in his sword belt and chewed meditatively on a long stem of grass, enjoying the warm spring air and smells of wood smoke and horse and wilderness and the blue arch of the sky. They’d landed at Sausalito Marina from the Ark , a Corvallan merchantman out of Newport, one that usually worked the Hawaii run but came here occasionally. That had been more than enough room for the two-score Rangers and their equipment and stock, and though the horses had been no happier about ocean travel than usual they hadn’t lost any to equine hissy-fit hysterics during the week’s cruise.

They’d hurried the wagons and livestock north through the zone of ruins as fast as possible-there were Eaters there, though not many, the collapse in urban California had been very swift-and made tracks northward. It wasn’t his first glimpse of the grant, of course; the Dúnedain had been reconnoitering now for years, mostly in long overland treks. And with his salvage experience before the war, he’d been a natural to lead several of those expeditions. Those preparatory outings had updated the maps and cleared some of the obstacles, so the wagons could get straight through with a little effort. But this time they’d come to stay.

He had to admit it was a pretty spot. . one of the reasons he’d picked it for the Ranger station that would send out patrols to guard the road to the salvage fields around the Bay and help with resettling this area. There was actually a civilized holding a couple of days’ travel away, closer to the coast around Cape Mendocino, one of the very few that had managed to pull through the Change Year. It was tucked behind some low mountains and hard to get to, which helped account for its survival.

As far as he could tell from the signs, everyone had simply left this place in the hills east of the Sonoma valley within the first few months. If bands of savage wildmen had passed through since, they hadn’t left much trace.

“I’ve got to admit you picked it right, and not just for looks,” Ian said with farmboy practicality; his family were well-to-do yeomen up in their fertile but frigid homeland. “This stuff is going to save us a lot of work.”

Sonoma Mountain and the Mayacamas were behind them, with a few last wisps of sea-fog dissolving as the morning warmed up. The rolling land about was a mixture of flower-starred green-gold grass with scattered oaks and oak-groves-tanbark oak, live oak, black oak-and ancient overgrown vineyards and orchards, and dense woods on the steeper bits of everything from fir to eucalyptus to millennia-old redwoods in the west-facing ravines. Things wild and those run wild tumbled together in a happy mélange, including all the usual animals and some weird-looking African ones as well, beasts that had run from zoos and parks and survived in this mild climate. The flowers were dense, everything from California poppy to feral rosebushes that rioted over some thick ruined walls nearby to leave them just a shape beneath green leaf and crimson blossom.

Besides the vines and fruit-trees-the surviving ones could be reconditioned a lot faster than planting from scratch, and some were in flower now-the big plus had been the buildings. There was a fair-sized H-shaped house built of lava boulders cemented together, solid as the hills and even defensible against anything short of artillery, with a long portico running out from the front on arches at right angles to the main building. The roof was good baked tile, and had mostly held despite the years and storms; fortunately someone had boarded up the windows before the house was abandoned. The water damage inside was serious but not structural, and could be repaired before fall.

“The house is almost modern,” Ingolf said.

“Yeah, but I’d say it was probably built seventy, a hundred years before the Change,” Ian replied. “That was before they forgot how to do things properly. It’s a pity that other one burned down, from the looks it was even better built and huge . This one will do for now, though, until Ritva and I can put up something and stop crowding you. She’s talking about a multilevel flet in a redwood. Around a redwood, whatever.”

“That’ll keep you skinny in your old age!”

Whoever had built the stone house had liked books, too; unfortunately they’d all been ruined one way or another, mostly critters tearing them up for nests and bugs eating them. Whoever it had been that held this land had been called Jack and had probably been English, because the word London regularly appeared around the place, and he knew that city had been the capital of the British Empire before it perished in the Change. The King-Emperors of Greater Britain reigned from Winchester these days, which was supposed to be quite the town.

Which I have no desire to go see. Ingolf the Wanderer has wandered far enough, thanks very much. From now on I stay here and grow roots like a turnip, and leave only for visits to places I’ve already been. My kids can go on adventures, the poor ignorant little tykes .

Almost as much of a prize were the stone barns, of similar construction, and what Ingolf’s Kickapoo childhood had convinced him was what was left of an elaborate circular piggery with two tall concrete-block silos not far away. His father might have been a Sheriff, lord of broad acres with Farmers and their Refugees at his command, but he hadn’t believed in letting his sons loll around without chores.