The Given Sacrifice (40 page)

Da at least didn’t have to start with being the beloved father-to-the-land. He got
to be a wild youngster first, haring off into the back of beyond with his friends!
I’ll be expected to rule like him from the first day, but without the Baraka his deeds
brought with them. Lord and Lady pity me . . . hopefully I’ll be middle-aged by then.
I know he plans to give me more and more of the work, that’s started already.

“You’ll hear more of the old tales tonight,” Oak laughed. “There’s nothing like wine
to lubricate song and story, and Goibniu of the Sacred Vat be witness, we’ve plenty
of
that
to go with the roast venison and pastries. All we needed to do for grapes was prune,
pick and crush.”

“Chief,” Edain said abruptly, raising his binoculars for a moment; one of his dogs
had looked up and whined, then the other pair came to their feet and pointed southward.
“One of our scouts is headed back our way, and in bit of a hurry.”

County of Napa, Crown Province of Westria

(Formerly California)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

April 29th, Change Year 46/2044 AD

E
veryone went from genial to cold cat-alert at the tone. The Bow-Captain of the High
King’s Archers was two years younger than her father and looked a bit older, a broad-shouldered
weathered man of middle height who shaved his square chin, unlike most clansfol
k his age. He made a slight imperative gesture, and the Archers all slipped off their
horses and strung their great yellow yew bows with a brace and pull and flex; the
beasts were for getting them about where bicycles weren’t practical, but you needed
your feet on the ground to use the Mackenzie weapon.

The sound of a horse at a gallop came before the scout reappeared around a clump of
oaks, and the muffled thud of a saber-scabbard against a leather-clad thigh and then
the rattle of arrows in a quiver. Órlaith saw out of the corner of her eye that Heuradys
had leaned over and was giving sharp concise orders to a varlet, who ran for the pack-train,
but her main attention was concentrated on the messenger.

The quarter horse was lathered as she drew rein, with foam speckling her light mail
shirt. Órlaith recognized her; her father had always said you should know as many
names as possible. Nohemi Hierro, a wiry brown-skinned, black-haired young woman from
the CORA territories around Bend, on the dry side of the High Cascades. A Rancher’s
retainer by birth, with a hawk-nose and a small gold ring in one ear and a dandified
trio of coyote-tails at the back of her helmet, spending a few years in the Royal
service to see the world and build a stake.

“Your Majesty,” she said, raising her recurve bow in salute and offering a folded
message. She pronounced it more like
Yer Maj’sty
, in the manner of her folk.

“Give us the verbal précis,” he said as he opened it.

Órlaith could see a sketch-map on the paper. Her father gave it a single flickering
glance and handed it to her; he had an uncanny grasp of the terrain anywhere in the
High Kingdom, as if he could summon up maps in his head or see the living land from
a bird’s-eye view.

The sketch was concise enough, and everyone in the High Kingdom’s forces used the
same set of symbols for landscape features. There was the marshy strip of beaver-dams
and reeds and dense tangled willow-alder-sycamore-cottonwood forest along the river
laced together with wild vines, the ruins of ancient Napa town, which were now a wood
too, with bits of building sticking up through it, open country just to its north.
An X at the western end of two parallel stretches of woods, and an arrow pointing
towards it. She memorized and handed it back to Edain, and he to the rest.

The scout obeyed, raising her voice so all the officers and squad-leaders crowding
close could hear clearly:

“Captain Hellman reports two groups of outlanders are fighting each other to the south
of here, about three miles. There’s at least one beached ship, it’s burning, you’ll
be able to see the smoke soon. He thinks two more beyond it, no more than a light
watch on either.”

“How many blades?” her father said crisply.

“More than one hundred, less than two, both sides together, but one side outnumbers
the other two, three to one. Some of them are Haida—”

There was a growl and a hiss and a rattle from the High King’s party; seaborne raiders
from those northern isles had been a plague to the coasts of Montival since not long
after the Change, despite defenses and punitive expeditions. They had little enough
in common with the ancient tribe except the name, but they were pirates for certain,
and vicious enough and to spare, and their hit-and-run attacks were the one problem
Montival had never really been able to solve completely.

“But there are two other groups, different gear and banners, nothing we’ve ever seen
or heard of. One lot is fighting side by side with the Haida against the third bunch.”

“Well, that simplifies things, just a bit; we’ll judge each by the company they keep,
for the present.”

The scout nodded. “Captain Hellman is keeping them all under observation and holding
us out of sight; we went in on foot and stealthy to get the information, once we spotted
them on our way back from the Bay. They’re not paying much attention to anything but
each other. He says that if you want to intervene, you’d best be quick; the fight
won’t last much longer.”

“He’s wise to wait, with no more than a dozen scouts. Back with you, tell him I’m
following in your tracks and he’s to meet and brief me, screening as he does. Prepare
for action.”

He turned to Oak. “How many bows can Dun Barstow muster?”

“Who’re listed for the First Levy? Two-score and three; the folk here are mostly young
and fit. Except for me,” he added with a grim smile. “And I’m fit enough. We’ve bicycles
enough for them all. Like old times, eh?”

“If it’s all the same to you I’d rather watch sheep eat grass. Turn them out and follow
quick as you can, with the usual cautions.”

Oak nodded without bothering to speak, and he and his snatched up their weapons and
headed off westward at a run. Most Mackenzies were a loquacious folk by inclination,
and loved argument and debate, but they knew when to shut up as well.

The High King went on, writing on his own order pad, tearing off the sheet and holding
it out: “Sir Aleaume! A rider to Castle Rutherford. The commander to order a general
alert, word to all the settlements in the valley, and his ready company to move out
at once. And I want both his gliders in the air, I need reconnaissance of this whole
area.”

The knight barked an order, and a messenger in the leathers of a courier took the
paper, stuffed it under his helmet-lining and took off northward towards that half-completed
fortress, leading two remounts at a gallop. Edain put his bow in front of his monarch’s
horse as it turned to a shift of its rider’s balance.

“Arm up first, Chief. And the rest o’ the lobsters. We’re not in such a hurry you
can’t spare that much time.”

Her father snorted, said: “Yes, mother,” and slipped off his mount.

Órlaith did likewise, speaking before the guard-captain could:

“And if you say
the little princess had best stay behind
I’ll clout you, old wolf. I’ve taken valor”—which meant qualifying for the First
Levy, among the Clan—“and earned the golden spurs as well.”

Her mother Mathilda was Lady Protector of the Portland Protective Association as well
as High Queen, and the old north-realm was the home of chivalry.

“You were the age I am now when you went east on the Quest, too, that you were,” she
finished.

“Which is the truth, and I wouldn’t dream of saying anything like that,” Edain said,
with a wry twist of his mouth.

And patent untruth; he’d been guardian to her all her life, even more than to her
brothers and sisters. His own children had laughed to her more than once how glad
they were he wasn’t such a clucking mother hen with
them
.

Her father stood with arms outstretched, and the High King’s squires rushed forward
lugging heavy canvas sacks full of armor before they helped each other.

You couldn’t don full plate by yourself without time and contortions, and Órlaith
was too recently a knight herself to have a squire of her own. Heuradys didn’t either,
since her duties as junior household knight made it difficult; that was a substantial
responsibility, one they both took seriously. Instead they would help each other on
with the gear; that was nearly as fast as having a squire do it.

Heuradys’ eyes were shining. “This is it,” she whispered. “I told you back when we
were little girls that I’d be your liege-knight and fight by your side someday.”

“You called it, liegewoman,” Órlaith nodded.

They put their hands on each other’s shoulders. Heuradys closed her eyes for a moment
and spoke, with none of the usual hint of mockery in her voice:

“Shining war-maid, Gray-Eyed One of the piercing glance, I pray to you. Precision
and unmuddled thought grant to me, surety and conviction, quick wit and quick action
and unbaffled sight. Protector of the City, let me protect my King and her to whom
I have sworn my oath, though my life be the cost.”

Órlaith hesitated for a moment. Then: “Dark Mother, in whatever form I need You most,
come to me now, that I be worthy of my oaths and honor and the land that looks to
my blood for guardianship. And what price You ask, that I shall pay without withholding.”

Something seemed to pass across her eyes. She blinked and it was gone. The rest of
the lancers were on the ground too, assisting each other to complete the additions
to the half armor they usually rode in to spare the horses.

Oh, Powers,
she thought an instant later as they efficiently stripped the gear out of the padded
bags.
If Heuradys doesn’t make it, I’d have to go tell Lady Delia and her family!

It would be easier just to get killed yourself, but she pushed the thought aside.
The arming doublet went over her head in a brief moment of blindness and the smell
of stale sweat that never came out of the padding after the first use—cynics called
it the scent of chivalry. Deft fingers doubled her fighting braid and tied it around
her head; Heuradys just used a knitted cap for hers. Metal clattered and weight came
on shoulder and hip, calming and reassuring and familiar.

She shook herself to seat it all properly when it was finished, and she and Heuradys
touched the knuckles of their armored gauntlets and shook hand-to-wrist. Then she
took the flared sallet helm and settled it on her head with her palms on either side
of the low dome, making sure the six pads gripped firmly but not too tightly before
she fastened the chin-cup. She left the curved visor up, like the bill of a cap. You
didn’t want to view the world through a vision slit until you had to, the way it muffled
sound was bad enough.

The fan of Golden Eagle feathers on the crest caught the breeze with a faint rippling
sound. Heuradys wore a similar V-shaped wedge on hers, but it was fashioned from the
black-scalloped white feathers of the Harfang, the Great Snowy Owl. Somehow the act
of putting on your helm made you feel different. More
focused
, as if you were now
about
something more limited, more primal. Like the metal on the edge of a blade.

“What could this be about?” Órlaith said, looking south.

My first battle, perhaps, at the least,
she thought, swallowing a mixture of dry-mouthed eagerness and a sinking in the belly
as an involuntary flash of doubt over how she’d show went through her mind.

She’d been trained for it all her life that she could remember. Intensively so by
the finest teachers since it became obvious she had the inclination and would grow
into the heft for the business. Her own father was the foremost warrior of his day,
and that with his own hands as much as commanding armies. Her mother had been a knight,
a rare thing for a woman up in the Association territories, and a good one. Órlaith
had hunted boar and bear and tiger, of course, and flown gliders and gone rock climbing,
and tournaments weren’t exactly
safe
, not when a lancehead came at you travelling thirty miles an hour, even a blunt and
rebated one.

But how could you really know how you’d greet the Red Hag before you met Her?

“That’s what we should find out,” her father said, answering her last words and unintentionally
echoing her thought. “There are Haida this far south, which is bad, and foreigners
making free with their steel on our land, the which I will not have. And if the Haida
have made a foreign alliance, we must know of it.”

Varlets had switched their riding saddles for the heavier, longer-stirruped war type.
Órlaith checked the girths—some things you just didn’t leave to someone else, even
if you trusted them implicitly—took a skipping step and vaulted up. Doing that in
armor was one of the tests of knighthood among Associates; not as difficult as it
looked, since the fifty pounds of steel was well-distributed, but not easy either
and it made you look a proper fool if you missed. Her father got into his with a plain
businesslike lift and swing.

She settled into the saddle and accepted the four-foot kite-shaped shield. It was
blazoned with the undifferenced Crowned Mountain and Sword that only she and her father
could bear; she ducked her head beneath the strap and ran her left forearm through
the loop set on the inside. The grip for her hand was at the upper right corner and
she held it loosely for now, taking the reins around two fingers.

Riding in full plate was different, there was a lot less contact with the mount, but
their horses were well trained and of the tall muscular breed called coursers—what
knights rode in battle when they weren’t using the far more specialized and expensive
destriers.

“Forward,” her father said calmly when everyone was ready, slanting his left gauntlet
to the front for a moment.

Dancer fidgeted a little, sensing her nervousness. She made herself draw her breath
deep, holding it and then releasing slowly while thinking of a pond of still clear
water, a technique she’d been taught during a stay at Chenrezi Monastery far off eastward
in the Valley of the Sun. It worked just the way the monks of the Noble Eightfold
Path said, and she found herself taut but calmer. The Archers spread out in a double
line and loped off southwards along the scout’s track.

Heuradys reined her mount Toad in on her right, Órlaith’s vulnerable shieldless side,
and just a little back.

“I’ve got your flank here, Órry,” she said. “Just keep your eyes ahead.”

The High King spared his daughter a brief glance and a grim smile that was mostly
a narrowing of the eyes, accompanied by a small slight nod. Her heart swelled; she’d
imagined
going into battle by his side a thousand times, and a fierce determination not to
fail him or the others helped quell the butterflies that seemed to be nesting below
her breastbone.