The Protectors war

Chapter Twenty

Mithrilwood, Willamette Valley, Oregon

August 10th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

These foothills the Dunedain Rangers had christened Mithrilwood were a day's journey north and a little east of Dun Juniper; the area was a mix of tall Douglas fir and overgrown fields and abandoned clear-cuts, ideal for game; more steep rugged hills than true mountains and surrounded by empty ex-farmland on three sides. Outside this canyon you could see the snow peaks eastward-Mount Washington best of all, and sometimes Mount Hood tiny to the north-but down here where the stream had cut its way into walls of basalt the world closed in, with rock walls, falling water, and dense growth. The light filtered through conifer needles and big-leaf maple into a thick umbrous green shadow, like being underwater; moss dripped from tree limbs, and mushrooms grew thick beneath them. Behind him the stream chuckled over polished water-rounded rocks and poured down a basalt ledge in a torrent of spray.

Alleyne Loring waited, alert, the boar spear gripped in his hands. The scrub ahead of him shook, amid an enraged squealing. He smelled a new scent under the green sappi-ness of bruised vegetation; something hard and rank with musk. They hadn't seen anyone in a week save one pair of Mackenzie hunters. Nothing human, at least:

Astrid's weapon came up to his right; the head was broader than a war spear's blade, and had a steel crossbar welded to the base. Dogs barked farther into the brush that crowded from the cliff face up to the edge of the old trail, and the beaters made noise of their own; the wind was from the north, in his face. Fairly soon those pigs would discover they'd been tricked: There was a series of deep snuffling grunts, then an enraged squeal, loud and shrill.

"Jesus!" he shouted as he saw what came out of the woods, on the heels of Hordle's "Bugger me!"

Wild boar were increasingly common in England; they'd been reintroduced just before the Change in game parks, and enough had hidden successfully from the clumsy attentions of urban refugees. The survivors bred fast afterward, spreading through the burgeoning wilderness. He knew from experience they could be dangerous, but most of the people here had talked about feral swine, and he'd been expecting something more like a barnyard pig gone wrong.

This one was five hundred pounds if it was an ounce, a black low-slung torpedo of muscle and bone and little clever hating eyes, tusks like daggers on either side of its bristling snout, heavy shoulders and hump armoring its vitals. Someone had brought the real wild-boar article from Europe in days long past, and those genes had been doing very well indeed.

The boar hesitated when it saw the line of humans, its hindquarters switching from side to side in a rush of fallen leaves and duff while its heavier forequarters pivoted in place. Other shapes were moving beneath the trees, but he ignored them as he crouched and flourished the spear, drawing the beast's attention. He could see it taking him in as it turned its head to get a view from either eye as slobber drooled from its champing jaws and every coarse needlelike hair bristled erect; then the hindquarters hunched and it sprang. For an instant he could swear it was off the earth, and then all four split hooves were churning the forest floor like tank treads, throwing twigs and leaves head-high as it hurtled at him as fast as a good horse.

The boar's shoulders were sheathed in gristle, and it held its massive dished head low to protect its neck and set itself for the upward rip with its tusks. Alleyne skipped a half pace to the side just before it struck, going down on one knee and ramming the butt of the spear into the earth. The broad sharp head knifed in, and then there was a shock like being thrown headfirst into a stone wall. He skidded backward as the spear butt dug a trough through the earth, and the crossbar below the blade fulfilled its ancient function: keeping the self-impaled boar from shoving itself up the shaft of the spear to savage him in a dying frenzy.

Eeeeeeeeeeee The squealing was loud enough to hurt his ears, and the spear shaft jerked like a monstrous fishing rod in his hands with Leviathan on the hook as the boar twisted and heaved against the palm-wide foot of steel, trying to thrash him against the unyielding ground. Blood sprayed out over Al-leyne's boots as he jerked his feet aside and tried to set them, and a four-inch spike of ivory missed the soles by a fractional inch.

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel!"

The words were a hawk screech as a spear lunged at the boar's flank, with Astrid's white-blond mane trailing behind. Eilir's struck an instant later from the other side, and the boar went to its knees with blood pouring down from its mouth mixed with slaver. Then it surged erect again, impossibly moving against the weight of three strong humans bearing down on the shafts that impaled it, its long grisly head tossed high in agony and rage. Alleyne went down again, kicking a heel against its snout as the beast lunged to try to grab his foot in its jaws.

"Out of my bloody way!" Hordle bellowed.

All three of them rolled aside. The big man's sword swung, a yard and a half of steel with both hands on the long hilt. It struck the boar's neck just before the shoulder hump with a hard crack as if the edge had hammered into an oak. The squealing was cut off instantly, and the great beast slumped to the ground. Alleyne lay panting for an instant before he climbed to his feet. The four of them stood looking at each other, the sweat of fear and utmost effort running down their faces, and then they began to grin. Arms went about shoulders in a momentary grip, and then they broke apart, laughing.

"Anyone hurt?" Astrid called.

Voices answered; Alleyne saw that the others had made kills as well, mostly beasts much smaller and younger. One young man loosed a shaft from his longbow as he watched, and a retreating squeal was abruptly cut off.

Eilir's hands moved. Alleyne followed it without difficulty: the Rangers used sign as much as speech, and the summer had been an education in it-the last fortnight a lesson by total immersion. The main alternative was Sin-darin, not English.

Julie's sept totem is Boar, she signed. She should do the honors.

Astrid nodded and called. A girl in her late teens with black braids under her Scots bonnet came up.

"Wow!" she said, looking at the boar while she stabbed her spear into the earth to clean the blade. "I just got a little yearling! Man, that one looks mean! Must be ten feet long."

That yearling will taste a lot better, Eilir signed. But this was their chief.

The girl nodded and went down on one knee, leaning on her spear shaft as she touched a finger to the blood and marked her forehead.

"Go in peace to the Summerlands, brother boar," she said solemnly. "You fought well for your kin. We honor your courage, and we thank you for your gift of life."

Eilir raised her hands to the forest, then signed in a way that was half a dance:

Take this warrior's spirit home to rest, Lord Cernunnos of the Woods, Horned Master of the Beasts. Our thanks to You for Your bounty to us, who are Your people. We take in need, not wantonness, knowing we too shall walk with You the shadowed road, in our appointed hour. Let this brave boar be reborn through the Cauldron of the Goddess, the source of all things. So mote it be!

"OK, let's get to work," Astrid added. "The meat won't keep at all if we don't drain them fast. Hey, Crystal!"

A girl in her midteens brought up the packhorses; she was the Rangers' junior probationary member, and beaming with pride at being able to help with the chores. The beaters came down through the last of the brush, making a lot less noise than they had when they were driving the sounder of swine, and the dogs with them set up a joyful wuffing and leaping, roughly translatable from canine as: We killed something, hot damn, boss, that smells good, let's eat!"

"Can I have the tusks?" black-haired Julie asked Alleyne. "I know that they're yours, you're the first spear, but seeing as it's my totem and all: "

Alleyne nodded, a bit bemused. It would all seem a bit put-on, if I hadn't spent the past decade playing at knights-in-armor, he thought. Then: Well, no. I played at it before the Change, with lath swords and careful rules. With edged steel, it's all too real: and these Rangers are all younger than I.

He'd noticed that in England, too. Alleyne had been twenty when the Change struck; a young adult, but adult. Those who'd been in their early teens when the world went mad were different; almost as different as men his age or Hordle's were from his father's generation.

And I suppose children born since will be more different still.

He was working as he thought. They lashed the hogs' hind legs to sticks, tied ropes to those and then over convenient branches, hoisting the carcasses to drain and for ease of access. Besides the monster boar there was another of about two hundred pounds, a young sow of the same age, and half a dozen others down to near suckling size. Gutting and skinning were messy and smelly tasks, but familiar enough. The way the Rangers stripped to the buff to avoid getting blood on their clothes wasn't, but he had to admit it was practical-if a bit distracting at times. People in Britain had gotten a little more straitlaced since the Change; evidently things had gone the other way in this particular part of Oregon.

"I hate to lose the heads and guts," a red-haired boy said. "Wasting all that headcheese and sausage casing, it's not right."

"Be thankful we can salvage most of the meat, this time of year," Astrid said. It was mildly warm, in the seventies,

Alleyne estimated. "Lucky none of them are wormy. Besides, the coyotes and crows and ants have to eat, too. It'll cool well in the springhouse, though, and be all the better for hanging a little when we get it to Dun Laurel."

"Do you get many boar that size?" Alleyne asked, whetting a curve-bladed skinning knife on a pocket hone; the others were using their sgian dubh, and there were hatchets and saws with the packhorses.

"Christ, I hope not," Hordle added, as he slung the animal's head-minus the tusks-aside; half a dozen hounds squabbled a little over precedence; then the victors settled in for concentrated gnawing while the others went for lesser prizes. "This one was more excitement than I like when I'm standing up."

There are more and more of them every year, Eilir signed, pausing with the hilt of the knife in her teeth before she made the first anus-to-throat cut on one of the sows. And the big ones get bigger and bigger. There were so many hunters in the old days, with guns, that they could keep them down. We can't.

"Pigs like brushy country, right enough, after oak or beechwood," Hordle said, hauling the boar up hand-over-hand without perceptible strain; the huge muscles bunched and coiled under the pale skin of his shoulders and back. "Lots of roots and such. They're a bloody menace back in Blighty these days and getting worse. Not enough people to keep them down there either."

Eilir nodded; this time she stuck the knife into the tree trunk to speak for an instant-you had to be careful about the uncooked blood and flesh of pigs.

The things are getting to be a real pest here in the Valley too, and there's all the camas root and abandoned farmland for them. Nothing short of a tiger will tackle a grown boar, or a sounder of sows with piglets, and what they do to a garden or vineyard is just enough to make you cry, not to mention the way they rip up the woods. And they breed like rabbits.

"They might as well be people," Astrid said dryly, to general laughter; Eilir laughed too, a silent mirth with a toss of her head that made Alleyne chuckle himself.

They loaded the carcasses on the packhorses-the boar was quartered first, since it would be unfair to make any one horse carry quite that much. The canyon path ran beside a waterfall; then behind the falling water. A deep pool lay below; they all slid down a rope secured to a steel piton driven into the living rock and dove and swam in it, or stood under the fringes-but only the fringes, since the stream was narrow but the water fell from nearly two hundred feet above. After a moment-it was cold water-they hauled themselves out on the rocks and spread towels to dry off.

And I'm just as glad that it's cold water, Alleyne thought. Given the scenery, one doesn't wish to make one's interest too clear, eh? Free and easy is one thing, rampant another.

Astrid leaned back on her palms and looked up at the water falling down the green-mantled black rock, seeming to drift as it launched itself free from the cliff and then turning to swift-plunging silver lace farther down. She signed instead of speaking, clearer under the toning roar of the falls: That's why we call this area Mithrilwood. In the winter, when the mist freezes on everything it's like a world of silver.

I'd like to see it then, he replied. But not to wash in.

She laughed at his shiver, and then looked away with a flush that spread down from face to breasts.

Eilir leapt up: Let's get home!

Home in Mithrilwood had turned out to be, somewhat to his surprise, a log-cabin lodge with a stone kitchen attached, built in the 1930s by the CCC. Whoever that acronym belonged to had had high standards of craftsmanship. The low building was better than a hundred feet long and nearly forty wide, with a great fieldstone hearth set in one wall. The high-peaked shingle roofs were green with moss save where the Rangers had made repairs in recent years; outbuildings of the same construction were sleeping quarters, stables, storehouses, and a springhouse-diverting a cool stream through it provided a semblance of refrigeration, enough to keep meat and milk fresh a bit longer. The works of man hugged the earth amid tall Douglas firs, maples and oaks, scattered through a stretch of rolling hilly land; brush and saplings were reclaiming the road that had led here before the Change, save for a narrow path kept open by axes and hooves.

Once the meat was stowed and the horses stabled, the Rangers set to practice for the rest of the afternoon, except for a pair whose turn it was to cook. Alleyne saw Hordle's eyebrows rise as they shot at the mark; every one of them was a good archer, and some were very good even by the exacting standards Nigel Loring had set for the regulars. They joined in for the unarmed-combat practice, recognizing Sam Aylward's eclectic freeform, and then for sword drill:

"Give it a go?" Astrid asked.

"Ah: certainly," Alleyne said.

I'll have to be careful not to hurt her feelings, he reminded himself.

He had his own heater-shaped shield along, and there were plenty of the alderwood practice blades much like the longsword he customarily used; he took stance with his left foot advanced, shield up under his eyes and his sword over his head, hilt towards her. The protective bars across the face of the drill helmet they found for him might well be an advantage, since he was used to wearing a visored sallet rather than the open-faced helms favored in western Oregon. Astrid was using Bearkiller gear-a round shield two feet in diameter, and a long single-edged sword with a basket hilt, much like a Renaissance schiavone or a claymore.

"Kumite!" said the Ranger acting as referee. Fight!

The point of Astrid's sword flicked out at his eyes, seeming to float and then blur like a frog's tongue after a fly. Fast, he thought admiringly, and smacked it aside with a two-inch movement of his shield, whipping the longsword down in an overarm cut.

Crack!

The hard polished leather of the targe shed the edge, precisely angled to throw him off-balance and jar every bone in his body down to the small of his back. He recovered with a skipping hop like a child jumping rope as her blade hissed in from the side in a hocking cut at the side of his knee; she blocked his counterthrust with an upward flick of the practice blade, striking from the wrist:

Just under ten minutes later they stepped back by unspoken mutual agreement, both breathing deep and quick, sweat soaking their gambesons in huge fresh patches and making runnels down face and neck. A circle of Rangers gave an admiring cheer, and several of them clapped him on the back.

"That's a lot longer than any of us has ever gone with Astrid without her getting a touch home," someone said. "Except Eilir, of course."

Remind me not to think bloody nonsense, Alleyne thought, bringing his blade up in salute with a wry grin.

Astrid's face had been inhumanly calm during the bout, except for a disconcerting small smile. Now she grinned back, then quickly looked aside, her eyes fluttering unconsciously.

That's a good sign, Alleyne thought. Except that it might not be:

"Hey, let me try," a brash youngster named Kevin said. "Let's see how you handle short sword and buckler."

After a more few bouts of his own Alleyne found himself watching Eilir working with Crystal, the newcomer, who was grimly determined as she hefted the practice blade of alderwood, double the weight of the real thing.

No, Eilir signed, stepping back after a brief slow-time passage and letting her practice blade swing on its wrist-thong for a moment. Remember, keep the buckler towards me, not swinging behind you, slightly ahead of your sword point.

"Whenever I try to think of what I'm doing with it, I lose track!" Crystal grumbled.

Everyone starts that way. That's why we do it slow to start with. You practice until you don't have to think about it. Once more. You attack.

Crystal did, bringing the short broad-bladed sword up in a stab towards Eilir's stomach. The deaf girl's buckler came down in a sweep that knocked it out of line. In the same motion she stepped forward and continued the arc, ending up with the bowl-shaped boss of the little shield in front of Crystal's nose. Then she stepped back again.

You can punch the buckler, or strike with the edge of it. It's a weapon too-believe me, when you've whacked someone hard in the face with a two-pound steel weight, they lose all interest in hitting you. And don't block the opposing sword directly-bat it away as if the buckler were an extension of your hand. It's not like a man-at-arm's shield, or even a Bearkiller targe, it's supposed to redirect force, not absorb it. Now back to the basic position-crouch a little, left foot forward and knee bent. Sword: buckler: sword. One-two-three! Let's go!

They engaged again; even in slow motion, Eilir's darting grace was impressive. So was the gentle patience she showed in the face of the girl's clumsiness. He guessed that that was why Astrid worked with the more advanced students.

Better! Eilir signed, stepping back again when Crystal had turned puffing and red and the weapons started to quiver in her hands.

A dozen yards behind her Astrid smiled as she took a dare and went to one knee, her eyes closed; then they flared open as she rose, twisting and drawing and striking in a blur of speed. Her long blade hissed in a horizontal streak and she was extended in an impeccable follow-through. The severed dragonfly dropped, spiraling towards the ground in neat halves.

Alleyne caught it out of the corner of his eye. She's not human, he thought, with a slight inward quiver.

"This is a lot harder work than I thought it would be!" Crystal said to Eilir. "I thought I was used to hard work since I was a little girl!"

There's nothing harder than sword work, Eilir signed sympathetically. It uses different muscles from almost anything else. Let's go try you on the pells again. You've got to go full-out to build speed, and get used to the shock of hitting something. Remember, most of the people you fight will be stronger than you are. You have to be quicker, and you build speed like you build muscle.

A rock-fringed natural swimming pool not far from the buildings had been reconditioned-diverted stream water in at one end and out the other replacing the chlorine cycle. Nobody minded a few floating leaves anymore. Alleyne ambled down a flagstone path towards it, with the clatter and bang of combat fading behind him, stripped and dove in; the other Englishman joined him. Alleyne rested against the steps and spoke low-voiced to Hordle: "Having a good time, Little John?"

"Well, I'm not the one with the two best-looking girls panting after him," the big man said, grinning. "Seriously, I know you're the one who looks like a prince, and I make people think of fee fi fo fum and grinding the bones of an Englishman. Which is a bit hard, innit, seeing as I am an Englishman?"

"Luckily, women aren't as fixated on looks as we males," Alleyne pointed out.

Hordle's grin got wider. "No, but looking good doesn't hurt much, does it? Still, I reckon my charm and wit will win out in the end."

They both laughed; Hordle's voice was like a monstrous frog croaking. "That was quite a display you put on with little Astrid."

"Christ! But it's not that which makes me hesitate."

"Her relatives?"

"No: no. I like her brother-in-law and most of the others seem good sorts at heart, though Signe Havel is just a trifle too carnivorous for my taste; and that man Hutton is a magician with horses. Nor am I so noble and pure as to spurn the thought of being related to the local royalty. And she's good company, we've got a good many common interests, she's clever, and a stunner: well, you've got eyes, don't you, man?"

"She's not pretty, sir. Eilir is pretty, pretty as a man could want. Astrid is like something you'd see in a painting, the type you're not allowed to get close to because your breath might pollute it."

He ducked and came up blowing and rubbing at his thatch of dark red-brown hair. "Let me guess. It's the fact that she's bloody barking mad that's giving you the collywobbles?"

Alleyne made a gesture, and tried to keep the defensive tone out of his voice: "She's not mad. She couldn't have put this Ranger thing together if she was mad. She doesn't actually think she's living in the Third Age of Middle Earth, or that she's a warrior elf-maid fighting the Dark Lord, though when you think of what that man Arminger is like: But she is: obsessed. The problem is that I share her obsession: in a very, very much less intense fashion. And seeing how it might flower into full-blown form is rather frightening." He sighed. "I meet a beautiful American heiress, I like her, she likes me : and then she turns out to be a fundamentalist with a more literal interpretation of scripture than I feel comfortable with. Only our bible was written by an Oxford don about sixty years ago."

Hordle thought for a moment, his heavy brows knotted in thought. Alleyne waited; one of the advantages Little John Hordle had in life was the way people assumed his massive size and strength meant he was stupid. It wasn't so. "Well, I wouldn't be quite so frightened as all that, if I were you. I would if this were the old world, but it isn't."

Alleyne's fair eyebrows went up further. "What difference does that make?"

"Look at it this way, Mr. Loring. If this were the time before the Change, what use would it be to be obsessed with horses, and swords, and bows, and living in the woods like a poncing elf and fighting bandits and man-eating beasts and evil kings? As opposed to here and now, where she can actually do all those things- has to do most of them, in fact."

Alleyne opened his mouth, then closed it again; it was his turn to frown. "You know, Sergeant, that is a very acute observation. If it's madness, it's a very practical form of insanity. Now that I think of it, even if she's living a fantasy she's gone about it in a very practical way."

Hordle shrugged. "Think nothing of it. Sergeants are supposed to figure things out and let officers take the credit."

"Of course, the fact that if I were to make a play for Astrid, her friend might have time to think about someone else has no bearing on your advice."

Hordle rolled his eyes upward and put his hands together in an attitude of prayer: "Of course not, Mr. Loring! I deny everything! How could you think such a thing?" He clutched at his chest. "I'm wounded, wounded, I tell you!"

Alleyne laughed. "We'll see what develops. What do you think of settling here? Father's giving it serious consideration."

"And I know why," Hordle said with a wink. At Alleyne's blank look he chuckled and went on: "Seriously, it's pretty country, right enough, nice climate-a lot like Hampshire, only better-there's plenty of land for the asking, and the hunting's good. I could get myself a bit of a farm, or even a farm and a pub. Incidentally, they're not bad, themselves, this Ranger lot, even the girls. I thought they were a bit, mmmm: informal-like, but they know what they're doing and they don't waste time talking when it's important."

"Not surprising, when you consider that Sam had a say in training them early on. Not to mention Mr. Havel. And they've had real work to do here, with bandits and raiders and the prospects of a pukka war hanging over them. More than we did in England, when we weren't sent abroad. Being in the regulars back home was too much like being a policeman at times for my taste, this last little while."

"Right. Never did want to be a copper. Still, at first I thought:

"

Alleyne grinned at him. "Thought they were too given to playing dress-up here, like me, eh?"

Hordle shrugged his massive shoulders. "I deny everything!"

That evening was pleasantly cool, enough for the fire they lit in the big fireplace to be welcome for more than the leaping flames. Dinner was a whole young pig just past weaning, butterflied and grilled with a hot sauce, potatoes roasted in the ashes, and a heaping salad of wild greens. The interior of the lodge was big enough for the full score of Rangers; everyone lay around on cushions after the meal, facing the fire and sipping at wine or cider, singing and talking as the flames illuminated the corners of the room with flickering ruddy light. The warmth of the flames brought out the spicy scent of the heavy myrtlewood furniture. A chorus ended:

"I watch the deer and geese go by, fox-foot in the snow;

Climb the peak of Washington mountain, looking to the valley below-"

"Hey, people," Astrid said when the tune died down. "Business for a minute. Look, we've been using this place for years, but only on and off. What the Dunedain need is a base. Someplace we can train new members, store our goods, an armory, have a few people always on hand. I've talked to Lord Bear about it: "

And I've spoken to Lady Juniper, Eilir added. She thinks it's a good idea.

"We could claim this whole area-the old state park, and say another ten thousand acres around it, and manage the woods. Nobody's using it much and we did run those bandits out of here; Mark got killed doing it. And it's such a good hideout more would be sure to come here if we didn't patrol."

The Rangers looked at each other. The redhead- Kevin, Alleyne thought. The one with the medical training -raised a hand. "How would we live?" he said.

Partly by hunting, Eilir said. That's good here even in winter-animals come down from the high country. We could swap the surplus for things, and eventually sell some timber, and things like nuts. And we wouldn't be here all the time, not all of us. Plus we could contract for special jobs. We already get paid for tracking down man-eaters, and we could do more guarding caravans south past Eugene, or out east over-mountain. We already get top rate for road-guard work, a lot better than the scruffy thugs who usually get hired. They'd know we wouldn't rob them.

"And since what we do here in the Valley helps everyone, I think we can get a contribution from the Mackenzies and the Bearkillers both," Astrid said. "Maybe from Cor-vallis and Mt. Angel, too. You know, flour and cloth and spuds, horses, some cash, too, that's only fair. There's enough meadow near here for our horses, and we could have a few milch cows and a garden, if there were someone here to keep an eye on things. Shall we try it?"

The youngsters looked at each other. "Beats spending all your time farming," one said meditatively. "Beats it all to hell and gone."

"Rangering's the most fun I've ever done," another said, winding a braid around her finger. "It would be nice not to have to give it up. But what about kids and stuff?"

"Well, the original Dunedain were Rangers for generation after generation," Astrid pointed out. "It ran in families: I mean, most jobs do, these days, don't they? There's plenty of places like this we could have bases-call them Ranger-steadings, say. Like the hidden city of Gondolin, or Thingol's hidden kingdom, but on a smaller scale."

Like Imladris, Eilir signed.

The discussion went on into the night. The proposal passed on a show of hands; then Astrid went and stood by the mantelpiece with its load of books.

"What'll it be tonight?" she went on brightly. "Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, History of Middle-Earth, the Bestiary, or the trilogy itself?"

And here I was going to suggest a walk in the moonlight, Alleyne thought. Then he saw Eilir glancing at him. Of course, I hadn't quite decided whom to ask.

Dun Laurel, Willamette Valley, Oregon

August 14th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"Eilir!" Juniper Mackenzie called, waving broadly. "Astrid! Over here!"

The site of Dun-Laurel-to-be was swarming with workers under the bright August sun, filled with wagons, teams of oxen and horses, heaps of logs, timber, cement, and wheelbarrows, and loud with the sounds of saws and axes, shovels and hammers and ratcheting winches. Laurel Wilson's people were there, all eighty-nine of them, plus another forty who'd decided to join the new settlement, and a good three hundred from elsewhere in the Clan's territory, plus quite a few wanderers and gangrels come in to earn a little by casual labor. Three sides of the palisade were up, with blockhouses at the corners-a new refinement-and the rest of the great logs were ready, left down to make access easier for the work going on apace within. One old farmhouse was already there, now repaired and made weathertight again, and other buildings were already frames or sheathed in planks; houses, a meeting-hall-cum-bad-weather-covenstead, barns and sheds and smithy, weaving shops and granary. Enough space was left for small gardens, herbs and flowers; outside, below where the little creek broadened out into a pool, pegs marked out truck allotments.

Most of the fields about were shaggy-overgrown, or grew nothing but tents and temporary paddocks, but a start had been made on clearing a few, and they showed as neat squares of brown tilth, plowed and harrowed.

Near Juniper, Laurel Wilson, Alex Barstow and Nigel Loring bent over a table crowded with drawings, and weighted down with slide rules, compasses and set squares. Laurel frowned and hitched at her plaid as Nigel traced a line with one finger.

"And once the windmill has pumped the well water there, Ms. Wilson, you can lead it by gravity to all the houses and to your livestock as well. Then waste drains into this artificial-swamp system; first these covered pits full of chopped bark and sawdust-or straw and leaves, anything like that will do-to take the raw waste, then through the reed-bed, into the pond with willows around it, and at the downstream end of that you've got clean potable water you can use for stock, or irrigating your truck gardens. The reeds are very useful, the composting pits give you fertilizer when you dig them out every few months, and you can raise fish in the pond, as well."

"You'll be the envy of the Clan with that," Juniper put in. "We're putting one in at Dun Juniper ourselves, and it's a lot better than what we had. Sir Nigel gave us the idea."

"Not mine, not mine," he said modestly, smoothing his mustache with one finger. "His Majesty has a system like this at his country estate, Highgrove. I've overseen building dozens of them in England. All you need is a head of water for the flow."

Tom Brannigan of Sutterdown was there as well; a large contingent of the volunteers was from his settlement, with the experience of putting up their own town wall fresh in their minds and hands.

"Could we hire you to put one in for us?" he said hopefully. "Our present system is expensive as hell, and we're running out of those treatment chemicals."

"Possibly," Nigel Loring said, starting a little as Juniper trod on his foot.

"Don't do it for free!" she whispered in his ear. "Laurel needs all the help she can get without adding to her folk's debts, but Brannigan can afford to pay."

"Ah, perhaps we could discuss it later," he said. "At this horse fair you were telling me about, perhaps?"

The mayor of Sutterdown nodded. Just then Eilir and Astrid pushed through the crowd, blinking at the worksite, followed by the two young Englishmen.

Aha, thought Juniper, reading the signs. You could tune a harp to the tension there. No resolution to that little problem, yet.

Astrid whistled. "Lady bless, but you've made a lot of progress on that!"

Eilir nodded emphatically. What's with, excellent Mom? You've got twice as much up as I thought you would! At this rate, we'll be able to break a lot of land for the Dun Laurel folks before everyone has to go home to get their own crop in.

"Nigel here has been a wonderful help," Juniper said, squeezing his arm. "With tricks of the trade, and organizing."

Nigel Loring shrugged. "Experience, don't you know. Glad to be a bit of help. And I had basic engineering training."

"Speaking of helping," Astrid said, and pointed.

The Rangers were coming down the road, striding out beside a long train of horses with packsaddles loaded high.

We've got half a ton of meat, Eilir amplified. Wild hog, mostly, and some deer, and a feral cow. I don't suppose you could use any of it, Tom?

Tom Brannigan grinned; he was in charge of feeding the workforce. In theory it went towards the debts Dun Juniper would owe the Clan as a whole, but it would be years before those tallies were paid in full. Even if the first draft was Dun Laurel folk helping harvest his vineyard that Mabon season, and prune it over the winter.

"I'll say!" he said, enthusiastically. "Thanks for the contribution, Rangers."

Eilir put a hand on Astrid's sleeve and raised an eyebrow at Sutterdown's Mayor, High Priest and wealthiest resident.

Brannigan sighed and nodded. "OK, I'll throw in one hundred-gallon barrel: OK, two hundred-gallon barrels of the Special for your Rangers." A silence dragged. "OK, some wine too, and two hundred pounds of barreled salt pork this Yule, and sixty bushels of flour when you want to draw on the town mill. That enough?"

"We're both making goodwill gifts," Astrid said sweetly. "You'll have to be the judge of that."

Sutterdown, Willamette Valley, Oregon

August 21st, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"I can't tell you how much help this has been, Nigel," Juniper said.

"Oh, you've got some very capable chappies," the elder Loring said, self-depreciatingly. "You've accomplished a great deal. I've just given them a few ideas."

They sat their horses just east of Sutterdown; he nodded towards the tall walls that surrounded the town, shining in their white stucco.

"Those are quite remarkable. I'd never have thought of using the old Murus Gallicus, and me with the remnants of a classical education, at that."

"We've got a fair number of craftsmen and builders," she said. "And we've done larger projects mostly by brute force and rule of thumb. I never suspected how useful it would be to have someone who could calculate things."

She nodded towards the water-race before them. "This, for example," she said, and grinned. "I'd have missed some of the implications, if you hadn't pointed them out."

Sutterdown had tall hills just north of it, outliers of the Cascade foothills. The Suttee River ran south of town, but the pioneers who'd founded the settlement had dug a mile-long canal to take water from the river higher up. Now it provided power again; besides the tannery half a mile away-that was a smelly business-a big four-stone gristmill stood by the canal just outside the town, wood-built oh a stone foundation, with its twenty-foot overshot wheel turning briskly and water pouring off it in white foam. A wagon left as she watched, piled high with sacks and barrels of whole meal, and another sent bags of wheat up a rope hoist to the second story; under the creak of wood and rush of water went a burring rumble as the granite millstones worked.

The men walking towards the Mackenzie chieftain had more uses for the water in mind: Tom Brannigan, and two others in the brown jean trousers and four-pocket wool jackets common among the well-to-do in Corvallis, with businesslike short swords by their sides and broad-brimmed hats on their heads. One was a short, stocky dark man, and the other a tall lanky woman with her barley-colored hair gathered in a ponytail. They were sweating a little in the warm late-August sun; Juniper nodded politely, but kept to her saddle.

Height as a psychological advantage is not to be despised, she thought. And as one shorter than most for most of my life, don't I know it!

"You don't like them, do you?" Loring murmured.

She shot him a glance. Perceptive of you, Nigel, she thought. I'm not an easy person to read, when I don't wish to be. Aloud: "Not much, but we can do business with them, perhaps. Tom Brannigan likes to do well out of a bargain, which I don't grudge him. Those two might as well be adding machines in human form, and that I do not like. Besides which, they're also leaders of the faction in Corvallis that thinks it can do business with the Portland Protective Association. The which I do not like or sympathize with or agree with at all, so."

The Corvallis men cut the pleasantries shorter than most Mackenzies would have considered polite, and came to business sooner:

"It's a viable proposition," one said; his name was Turner, and he was as close as the Willamette Valley came to a banker these days, as well as half-owner of a big met-alworking shop and foundry. "Provided the contract is reasonable. Obviously, a project this big requires long-term guarantees for the amount of capital we'll have tied up. It's not like selling a load of anvils or sledgehammers."

"My thought exactly, Mr. Turner," she said. "And your papers were quite detailed. Ms. Kowalski, we've done business before."

She cast a sidelong glance at Nigel before she went on: "That's why I'm inclined to reject the deal as it stands. Or to recommend to the town's assembly that it be rejected, that is. Of course, if you can persuade them better than me, or refer it to the Clan as a whole:

"

Turner's eyes went wide; Brannigan's closed in a wince. The chance of Dun Sutterdown's adults voting the two-thirds majority required to override the Chief was somewhere between nil and nothing. Even a simple majority would be vanishingly unlikely without Lady Juniper's agreement.

"Why?" the Corvallan said. "Lady Juniper, breaking and scutching flax and slubbing and carding raw wool by hand are a lot of work, but they're easy and simple to do with powered machinery. Granted there isn't the market or population to support a full-blown mechanized spinning and weaving industry yet, but we could make a start. Cloth's getting more and more expensive."

Juniper nodded, smiling sweetly. "Yes, both those are sort of labor-intensive. I've done both myself, on many a long winter's day. And everyone needs to make more cloth, now that we're finally running out of the last of what was left from before the Change."

"Well, then," Turner said. "This is a perfect location for a slubbing and scutching mill. And there's plenty of wool and flax available, and more wool from the CORA country over the mountains."

"Processing it here makes sense-it cuts down on transport costs," Agnes Kowalski added. "The finished goods are a hell of a lot less bulky to ship. Particularly getting the fiber out of the raw flax, that's got to be done close to the point of production."

They'd known each other-slightly-before the Change; Kowalski had made and sold handlooms to hobbyist weavers like Juniper. After things stabilized in the Corvallis area, she'd taken up the trade again, then to renting looms to those who couldn't afford to buy them, buying wool as well in bulk, doling it out on credit to the weavers using her looms and taking the output in payment at a fixed, usually low, price. These days she had a dozen workmen building and repairing looms, and several score weavers and spinsters in and around Corvallis working for her on contract.

Ken Larsson had told Juniper once that had been known as the "putting-out system" in Europe in the old days, and Juniper disliked both it and the woman who'd reinvented the idea all on her own.

"Yes," Juniper said patiently once more. "But you two had best understand that we're not interested in a wonderful mill the wonderfulness of which benefits only you. Corvallis, in my opinion, is too given to falling in love with toys for their own sake. And you, Tom, but it's mostly Mr. Turner and Ms. Kowalski I'm concerned with. You see, most of the flax-breaking and wool-carding gets done in the winter, as I've said, when our crofters have little else to do, particularly now that most of our duns have threshing machines and they don't need to beat the grain out with flails in the off-season. If the slubbing and scutching's to be done in a mill instead, then the crofters have to sell their raw flax and wool, and buy them back for spinning and weaving."

"If it's still cheaper-" Kowalski said.

"Then yes, they'll benefit, because they can spin and weave the more, or make shoes, or whatever takes their fancy and suits their skills. But that depends on how much of their produce they have to pay to the owners of the mill for the processing of their materials, doesn't it?"

Turner closed his mouth with a comment unspoken. Didn't think I'd understand that, did you? Juniper thought. And thanks to Nigel I know just how much of the added productivity you were planning on keeping for yourselves.

"What's your objection to the contract, Lady Juniper?" he said.

"That you plan on renting us the millwork," she said. "And we end up paying you for it forever, the more so as you seem to feel we should take all responsibility for breakage, wear and replacement as needed. I've no objection to paying you a fair price for your contributions. Mr. Turner, you've got forges that can do castings on that scale and we don't and it would be expensive for us to duplicate them, and Ms. Kowalski, you've got useful outlets for our produce. That doesn't mean we're going to be your tenants. At seventh and last, we can do without you more easily than you can without us. You'd have built these mills in Corvallis territory if you could get the water-power as cheaply and a location as good, and that's just the start of why you want to locate here."

Turner was a short stocky man, with burn scars on the spade-shaped hands below his embroidered shirt cuffs. He took off his felt hat and slapped it against his thigh.

"What's your counteroffer, my lady?" he said, his voice clipped.

''Oh, it's not my place to tell Sutterdown and its people what to do with their own," Juniper said lightly, and watched Turner surreptitiously grind his teeth. "I would suggest to them that they keep full ownership, with a phased purchase arrangement: "

When the talk was over the short muscular Turner and his tall lanky companion walked away towards their tethered horses to give the matter further consideration.

Which means they'll take our terms, in the end, more or less, Juniper mused with satisfaction. I thought so.

"OK," Brannigan said. "I got too hungry and jumped at the fly without looking at the hook."

"Let that be a lesson to you, Tom," she said. "And thank Sir Nigel here, too. I smelled a rat, but it was he skinned the beast for me and read its entrails, sure."

When the mayor had gone, she let her hand rest on the pommel of her saddle and looked at the town, the checkerboard of small farms about it, and the tents and rope corrals of the folk arriving for the horse fair.

"This is what I should be doing, if I have to be Chief," she said after a moment, surprised at the passion in her own voice. "Helping my people better their lives! Instead I have to spend most of my time thinking about wars and threats. I hate it!"

"You should," Nigel Loring replied. "God preserve me from a leader who likes to fight; that's tolerable in a soldier, bad in an officer, and a disaster in a ruler. But it's all part of what a Chief has to do as well, and you know it." He nodded down the valley. "You're keeping their homes from the torch and their children from death."

"Thank you, Nigel," she said. "You understand."

His hand rested on hers; she turned her fingers and clasped his for an instant, worn and strong like her own. Then he cleared his throat and looked down at the town.

"I suppose we should go find ourselves some lunch."

"That we should," Juniper said, smiling as she neck-reined her horse about.

Sutterdown's horse fair had started modestly in Change Year Two with a group of ranchers bringing surplus stock over the mountains to swap, cutting down on the expense of guards and the risk of bandits by driving their herds together. Then it made sense for folk from other parts of the Willamette to come and buy horses here as well, this being the slack season after the grain harvest and Sutterdown being very well placed. Once the habit was established, it was also a fine chance for anyone with anything to sell to meet potential customers, which made a fine market for food and drink, so crofters from all over the Clan's territories brought their surpluses here.

"So you see, it's very much to our Clan's benefit, because it's to everyone else's as well," Juniper said to Eilir and Rudi. "People meet and exchange ideas and plans and news as well as goods and stock."

Astrid was walking with their party as well, Sam and his lady and their daughter Fand in a backpack, and the Lorings and Little John Hordle. They were all working on icecream cones; it was a fine bright late-summer day, comfortable shirtsleeve weather without being hot, and the morning sun shone from a sky azure from horizon to horizon.

"Beneficial even in small things," Juniper went on. "For instance, the stockbreeders need to rent pasture. Farmers for miles around get a fee for it-and also manure for the fields they plan to plow and plant this fall."

Rudi nodded gravely, but Mathilda wrinkled her nose. "Manure!" she muttered.

"Manure grew the fodder for the cow that made that ice cream and fertilized the beets that gave us the sugar, my girl," Juniper said sternly. "Earth must be fed or we all go hungry."

A horse fair was necessarily a sprawling affair; tents were pitched for miles in every direction, over pastures and harvested grain fields and in orchards still heavy with fruit. There were jugglers and singers as well, and vendors of everything from taffy to toasted nuts, and food stands, and sellers of salvaged books and silverware and jewelry-some new-made, these days-and traveling sword masters showing off their style and taking on all comers for a bet, and wrestlers and martial artists doing likewise, and games where you threw balls to win a prize, and even a few carousels and miniature Ferris wheels, all horse- or ox-powered, of course. The children were goggle-eyed, and Astrid and Eilir and the young Englishmen were enjoying themselves as well; you didn't see many strangers day-today in these years, or hear such a babble of voices talking and shouting and singing, or the mixture of music and neighs and shouts-there was even a table with a woman shifting a pea between three cups.

They came to a big paddock set up with a six-rail fence; there seemed to be a commotion there, and then Juniper saw a horse rearing and bugling its battle call, hooves flailing. "Make way, there!" she said quietly; she knew the difference between a horse venting and one in genuine fear and anger. I won't have cruelty here.

Sam filled his lungs and shouted: "Make way for the Chief!"

People did a double-take and let her and hers through to the fence. For a moment everyone was spellbound, watching tense black loveliness canter around the enclosure, forgetting even the bleeding groom being helped through the gate as hooves seemed to barely touch the ground beneath floating grace. The mare arched her neck and dodged back and forth as she saw the staring mass of humanity, then did another circuit, wedge-shaped head high and high-held tail streaming.

"Oh, my goodness," Nigel murmured. "Sixteen hands, would you say, AUeyne?"

"And a fraction. Warmblood with a fair bit of Arab folded into its family tree," he replied. "Looks a little like a hunter, but faster, I'd say. Fit for a destrier of the best. Have to see how her wind holds up over a long course, but I'd wager she'll run most things on four feet into the ground."

The horse chose that moment to hop in place, lashing out with its hooves behind in case anyone should be sneaking up in its blind spot, then landed and took up its canter without missing a beat.

"Look at her motion, would you, Father? That one has dressage in her genes," said Alleyne. "What a horse!"

Rudi wiggled forward and sprang onto the fence, standing on a rung and resting his hands on the top rail, his face shining. Nobody paid him mind; across the paddock was the party from Larsdalen, Mike Havel at their center. The murmuring died down until it was a background hum, quieter than the drum of shod hooves on packed dirt.

In the quiet, the voices of the men were easy to make out; and the desperation in the voice of the ranch-country wrangler talking to the Bearkiller bossman.

"My lord, you aren't going to see a better horse than Donner here. She's worth every penny of three hundred new silver dollars, but for you, I'll take two seventy-five."

Mike Havel's slanted eyes looked at him coldly; that was a lot of money in terms of the ninth Change Year in central Oregon, where barter was still more common than coin; easily twenty times the price of a good-quality riding horse.

Then he handed his sword to his wife and vaulted over the tall fence with fluid grace, approaching the horse slowly, speaking softly and soothingly. That turned to a curse and a catlike leap backward as it reared and milled its forefeet like lethal steelshod clubs, and then stood with its head cocked and ears forward, nostrils flaring red pits as it snorted warning and wrath.

"You'll never see a more intelligent four-year-old mare," the wrangler said. "See how she's looking at us right now, thinking!"

Havel gave a snort of laughter, almost as loud as the horse. "Mister, she's not looking at us that way because she loves us, and that's a fact, by Christ Jesus."

"You could easily train this one to rear up in battle and strike at the enemy!"

"Well, shit, yeah, and have her get a spear in her belly and leave me standing in front of someone's lance point with my thumb up my ass," Havel said dryly.

"Lord Bear, I've been raising horses all my life and-"

The man stumbled to a stop at a cold gray-eyed gaze. Havel spoke over his shoulder. "Will, how long have you been wrangling?"

The middle-aged ex-Texan. had been watching, squint-eyed. Now he spat into the dirt of the corral and scratched the back of his neck.

"Since my daddy put me on an old cow-pony, when my momma was still changing my diapers," he said. "I've seen that look in a horse's eye before. Back when I was riding roughstock."

Then he slipped between the bars and tried in his turn. "Whoa there, girl. Whoa, there, Donner. Easy, girl, easy, I don't mean you any harm 'tall."

He got two paces closer than Havel had, and had to dodge teeth after a warning snort; Hutton went forward, into the space by its shoulder where a horse has trouble kicking, then backpedaled as it turned and struck with its head extended like a snake.

"That horse is a man-killer!" he swore.

Hutton backed for a moment to be sure the horse wouldn't charge, but it seemed satisfied to have driven him off. Then he turned to the Bear Lord, keeping a weather eye cocked on the mare.

"Mike, this man's right. That's a fine horse; don't think I've ever seen a better, for a war mount; good legs, short back, deep chest; she'll go like a jackrabbit with those haunches and she moves right pretty, as pretty as sun on water. Only you'd have to say it was a good horse, before this damn fool ruint it, tryin' to break her spirit. Look there, see? She's been whipped up under the belly. He's got her afraid of her own shadow, and killing mad at the whole human race besides. This shitheel ain't fit to break a pig's head in with a hammer, much less wrangle a horse."

"My lord, for you, two hundred-"

He stopped and winced as Havel poked a finger like a steel rod into his chest; it hurt even through the leather jacket.

"Mister, I wouldn't get on that horse it you paid me to do it. When I go into a fight, I've got the enemy trying to kill me-I can't afford to worry about my own damn horse trying it too. I might give you fifty for her as breeding stock-no, I'm not going to risk my farm staff getting kicked into next Thursday. Not a penny, unless you want to trade a side of bacon for the hide and hooves."

He turned away. The wrangler took off his battered Stetson and threw it down and stamped his riding boot on it, then glared murder at the horse. It was easy enough to see his thought; any likelihood of a sale had just publicly evaporated, and he wasn't going to go to the trouble and danger of taking her back east over the mountains.

Rudi murmured, just loud enough for his mother to hear: "He'll kill her! Kill her and feed her to his dogs!" Then, aloud, calm and happy: "What a waste!"

Rudi's clear young voice sounded like a bell of crystal, cutting through the murmur of the crowd; kilted Macken-zies and leather-clad ranchers and Bearkiller A-listers alike fell silent. A few of the Corvallans and traders from the Protectorate pointed and told each other who he was.

"A horse in a million, going to waste, Uncle Mike! All she needs is the right hand!"

Havel turned back, grinning across the paddock at the boy with his face. Will Hutton smiled too, at the boy's display of spirit. The Bearkiller lord laughed and waved, ignoring the fresh hopeful babbling of the wrangler.

"She's a good horse, all right, but she's spoiled, Rudi," he called.

"I could ride her! Like an eagle on the wind!"

"Kid, if you can convince your mother to buy that horse, go ahead!" he called again, his voice warm and friendly. "I'll go halves on the price for a colt of hers, if Juney can magic her into not being crazy-mean."

Signe Havel's voice was coolly neutral as she called: "I'll pay the man's price myself and give her to you if you can ride her, Rudi!"

The boy was off the fence and out in the middle of the corral before Juniper's astonishment-slowed grab was halfway to his plaid. The crowd was shocked into silence.

Mike Havel's voice was soft and commanding, a controlled contrast to the throttled fury and fear in his eyes: "Get out of there, Rudi. Back off to the fence. Do it now."

The boy laughed. "Don't worry, Uncle," he said. "She knows me, you see."

"Rudi," Juniper called, her voice tight with urgency. "Do what Mike says. That's an order. I promise I won't be mad, just do it."

"It's all right, Mom," he said cheerfully, not three paces from half a ton of wild anger and lethal strength. "Really. Epona won't hurt me."

Behind Juniper Sam Aylward and John Hordle and Eilir strung their bows and nocked arrows with quick sure movements. The rest of the party used ruthless elbows and shoulders to give them a clear field of fire, and Astrid and the Lorings poised to leap the fence. Astrid slipped her sword free of its belt and unbuckled, wrapping a length of it around her right hand so that she could snap it like a whip in the mare's face to drive her back.

Juniper swallowed, watching the horse shake its head and stare at the small form before it. Time seemed to slow, as if the air was become thick amber honey and she imprisoned in it like an unwary insect. Her own breath roared in her ears, and her heartbeat was like a great slow Lambeg drum beating beneath her throat, and every particle of dust was crystal clear and etched in memory. Her mouth opened to call the archers to shoot the horse down, but a hand closed about it, vast and impalpable. Instead she spoke in a flat tone of command:

"Wait. Wait and watch. Don't let anyone startle the beast."

She could feel their incredulity, but the moment stretched, tighter and tighter like a rope hauling up some great weight, the only sound the very faint creak of the bowstaves. The honed razor edge of the broadheads glinted at the corner of her vision, etched with death.

"Epona," Rudi said, and his voice was like the wind itself. "Epona."

The horse shifted slightly, turning its head to watch him, small and unthreatening.

"Epona, you know me, my lady. You've always known me. From the days when we ran together in the country where the forever trees grow. I'm Artos."

Juniper felt a small electric jolt, flaring through the power points of her body. That's his Craft name! she thought; her own interior voice was infinitely distant, as if she was disconnected from her body, but she could feel everything so immediately, even the slight prickle of the plaid's wool against her neck above the brooch. Sweat ran down her flanks and slid into her eyes, although the day wasn't hot.

I haven't even told him his Craft name! Who did? Chuck heard at the Wiccanning, but he wouldn't tell "We know each other, lady. No fear, ever again. You know me."

Rudi took a single slow step forward, speaking in the voice of a harp, his small hands stroking the air to either side. Juniper felt as if those moments stretched into infinity, full of visions of the hooves hammering down on the small body, of the great square teeth sinking in and lifting him and shaking him like a rat. But the fear that choked her throat was nothing beside the greater power that held her motionless, as if a voice with the weight of worlds in it commanded.

Rudi spoke again: "Epona. We're together again, and it's all right."

The proud neck arched, the mare snuffling at his face and hair. Rudi stroked her nose, then ran a hand down her neck, eased the bit out of her mouth. He made a slight disgusted sound as he threw it down-it was a chain-curb with a barbed lever to press within-and breathed into her nose, urging her around until she was facing the sun over the Cascades.

Then he grabbed a handful of mane and vaulted onto the great animal's back, his legs clamping down on her barrel. The horse reared again, bugling a neigh, then came down with its forefeet stamping in the dust, raising puffs that drifted away like yellow-brown clouds.

"You're Epona!" Rudi said, and this time his voice sounded the way a trumpet might, if it was young and happy. "Epona and Artos. We run, but we don't run away 'cause we're scared. Wait!"

There was a single moment of electric tension, and then he clapped his heels to the mare's ribs and leaned forward over her neck. She shot ahead as if launched from a catapult, and the crowd at the corral's gate flung themselves flat. That was needless; the mare's hooves would have cleared their heads if they stood on tiptoe. She landed like dandelion fluff and pivoted down a lane between two paddocks full of draft oxen in the same motion, scattering folk to either side, and disappeared into the open fields beyond to the west, lifting over a hedge like a great black eagle. Boy and horse dwindled as he flew down the long meadows beside the Sutter River; from here they could see for miles into the valley, and they became a speck and then invisible faster than seemed possible.

Signe Havel came up beside her, milk white and trembling. "Oh, God, Juney, I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me-"

She jarred to a halt as Juniper touched her on the sleeve and gave her one quick glance. "I don't have time to be angry now, Signe. And besides: I think I do know what came over you. Us."

The blond woman clasped a hand over her own mouth.

The crowd waited, spilling into the corral but leaving a space near the gate where Mike Havel stood like a statue.

When Rudi returned he sat with back erect and one hand on his hip, the other resting lightly on the curve of the arched neck; Epona's hooves struck the ground with a ringing sound, like the cymbals of a conqueror. She stood silently as Rudi flung a leg over her neck and slid to the ground and into Mike Havel's arms.

The Bear Lord was weeping. His voice was hoarse as he folded the boy into an embrace and spoke: "My son, my son!"

And everyone heard that, too, she thought. Oh, Powers, what have You done to us? After a moment: And what song is it that You are playing this time, with us as Your instruments?

"OK, this time you fucked up, Signe. Bad. Really, really bad."

Signe's face was still pale under its honey tan, and she was silent for long moments.

The guesthouse had been a bed-and-breakfast before the Change; even within the new wall, Sutterdown still had plenty of room, and the four-poster bed and flock wallpaper were pretty enough. There wasn't room enough to pace, though, so he went and looked out the window ahead. There was plenty of light in the crowded streets below, even though it was an hour after the late summer sunset-lantern- and candlelight from windows, torches, and southward, on its hilltop, the balefire boomed and danced behind the black outlines of the covenstead's pillars, and he could see figures dance about it under a thutter of drums.

"Mike: Juney said: "

He turned. "Yeah. She thinks Big JuJu made you do it, though only because you wanted to at some level anyway. But you know something, Signe? Smart as she is other times, when that subject comes up Juney is fucking crazy. Like you hadn't noticed? I seem to remember you saying so yourself. And second thing, I don't believe in Big JuJu."

"I'm sorry," she said, in a small voice.

"Sorry doesn't cut it. You tried to kill a kid-my kid, specifically, but there's a matter of principle involved, and you should have noticed that too. I'm telling you now, Signe, that if you want us to stay together, you never, ever try anything even remotely like this again. Got it?"

She nodded, and he went on: "It's late. Let's sleep." A wry quirk of the lips. "The Protector's man is arriving tomorrow, to talk about Arminger's kid."