The Scourge of God

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The hero knows, with every step

The fate to which he walks

Heart-glad he wins release from fear

And with it ransom for his folk From: The Song of Bear and Raven

Attributed to Fiorbhinn Mackenzie, 1st century CY

The fifty-pound sack of wet sand across his shoulders seemed to be pushing Rudi Mackenzie into the ground like a nail as he ran up the steep south-facing hillside. Sweat ran down his bare flanks despite the cool spring day, and he gloried in the play of muscle as his legs pushed against turf and rock like powerful elastic springs. The air was thin but so clean it made him feel as if he were washing his lungs by breathing it, pushing out all the poisons in his body with his breath and sweat.

Last year's grass was still matted on the ground, but new growth was pushing through it-the pink-tinged white of spring beauties, yellowbells, sagebrush buttercups. When he reached the sloping meadow they made drifts of rose and gold through the new grass; there was a spring, and he set the bag down and used his hand to cup the icy mineral-tasting waters; the snows were still there, only a little higher up the hillside.

Master Hao was the next to the plateau; he found Rudi in a handstand, slowly lowering himself until his nose touched the earth and raising himself to full arm's length again. Sweat outlined the monk's lean ropy muscles, stripped to the same loose pants that Rudi wore. A pole rested across his shoulders, carrying practice weapons and shields on either end, but despite his fifty-odd years he ran with an easy, springy stride that defied the weight of wood and metal and leather. It was as if gravity were a game, and he obeyed its rules only out of courtesy.

Rudi joined him in untying the bundles while the others arrived. Ignatius followed, which surprised him a little, but the warrior-priest had seemed very focused since Yule, even for a knight-brother of the Order. Mathilda came after him, giving Rudi a grin and a thumbs-up; the cleric had been pushing her hard, too. Odard and Frederick Thurston came in the middle, and then Mary and Ritva and Ingolf in a clump-the big Sheriff's son was matching Mary's pace and Ritva was instinctively working the rearguard's position, checking behind her every few seconds.

Master Hao stood scowling with his arms crossed as they stretched and then went through the tumbling and leaping that he considered an indispensable preliminary to training. Rudi had always been agile, but he'd never worked as hard on gymnastics as he had this winter. At last they finished with a long series of running backflips across the wet uneven surface of the plateau.

At least he's teaching us himself, Rudi thought. That's a compliment, of sorts-he doesn't turn us over to the lesser instructors like beginners.

"This," Hao said, throwing twin shetes-what he called butterflylongswords-to Ingolf. "This-"

Rudi ended up with a longsword and buckler, to his relief; it was hard enough regaining skills with the hilt of his sword in his left hand, but learning an entirely new weapon like the sickle-blades on chains the monks favored was excruciating. Some of the group had taken to them like ducks to water, though; the twins loved them.

He faced off against Odard, raised his padded wooden blade in salute, and began. They both had round shields about two feet across-rather similar to what Bearkillers used, and calling for a quite different style from the four-foot-long kite shields Odard had trained on, and he wouldn't be used to facing a southpaw. Liu's sword was held above his head with the hilt forward, Protectorate fashion.

Rudi's blade looped out to strike at the knee, a hocking strike. Odard leapt straight up so that it hissed beneath his feet and smashed forward as he landed…

" Feel where your opponent's blade is to go!" Master Hao said ten minutes later when they backed away, panting.

His callused hand slapped the back of Odard's leather helmet.

"You think too much! You are clever, and you rely upon it. Then when your opponent does not do what your so-clever mind thinks, you are helpless-paralyzed!"

Now that was clever. That is Odard's great fault as a fighter, Rudi thought.

"And you!" Hao went on, turning on Rudi. "You are very fast again, you are very strong again, you have the instinct for the blade. On all this you rely-too much. You have pattern in your attack-too much. Even good instincts will betray you if you use them the same way all the time."

Odard's eyes went wide in apprehension as Hao picked up a quarterstaff and motioned him out into the open, flicking it back and forth.

"Come, clever man," the monk said, his face as impassive as carved beechwood. "Enlighten my stupidity."

Rudi grinned to himself and watched the others, rotating his shoulders and listening inwardly for the catch of pain in his right; it was fine… so far. Edain and Fred were in a shoving match, their shortswords locked at the guards and their shields tucked into their shoulders.

"Are you two men, or rutting buffalo?" Hao called, apparently not needing to look away from where he stalked in a circle around Odard. "Your aim is to hit your opponent, not to push him over like a dead tree!"

Edain let one leg relax and stabbed low. Fred almost caught it-he'd realized what the Mackenzie was about to do-but momentum drove him forward. The tip of the padded wooden sword struck him in the pit of the stomach; even with the tough rawhide of the practice armor the thud made Rudi wince slightly in sympathy, and the young man's brown face went gray behind the bars of the drill helm. He staggered backwards, whooping and desperately trying to cover himself; Edain slid forward, his face blankly intent…

"Enough!" Hao said.

The young Mackenzie stopped as if he'd run into an oak tree, shaking his head and blinking.

The staff spun in Hao's hands, and Odard was hopping and cursing and shaking his right hand as his practice sword flew free.

"The sword is not the weapon," Hao said to him. "The hand is the weapon; the sword merely extends it. Now you, Raven-man."

Rudi and the teacher bowed courteously to each other and faced off. Hao began turning the staff, hand over hand, the ends of the tough mountain ash blurring faster and faster as they made a figure eight in the air. After a moment he could hear the whsssst of cloven air as they moved. The Mackenzie tanist let his consciousness sink into the ground, grow into the air, knew the salt water in his blood and the fire in his nerves. Then he attacked, smooth and swift, aiming for the hands in the center of that blurring circle.

Crack.

The staff struck wood as it battered his sword away, flinging it high and wide; Rudi's eyes went wide even as he whipped his shield around to catch the other end of the six-foot length of wood with a hollow boom that jarred all the way into the muscles of his back. Only frantic effort brought his sword up in time to ward off a full attack.

"Think a little, Raven-man! Raw speed is less useful than anticipation. I am older and slower than you, but I block your attacks-by anticipation."

They circled again, blue-green eyes locked on brown. It's true, Rudi thought. He started his block before I moved, just a little.

Then, grimly: Raven-man he called me, eh? Well, so I am.

"Morrigu," he whispered. "Black-wing, Red Hag of Battles, be with me now!"

The world fell away from his vision; there was no pouring of something other into his self, but instead a focusing until there were only vectors, threats, targets-the ends of the staff, Master Hao's hands and face and feet. And the shadow of wings, bearing him up, and a huge joy in the play of weapon and muscle and nerve. He lunged again, long leg and long arm and long sword outstretched.

Crack.

This time the deflection was minimal, just enough, but the lunge left him overextended. He was moving with delicate precision, but so was Master Hao; the staff struck the wooden sword just forward of his fingers, nearly slamming it out of his hand.

Rudi drew on the certainty that flooded him, and turned the motion of the sword into a backhand slash. The same impulse drove his will forward like a spear's point. A shriek burst past his snarling lips, the Morrigu's own, the screaming that guided the birds of the Crow Goddess to their feasting upon the acorns of the unplowed fields of battle-whose yield was the heads of men. The blow might well have dished in a man's skull, even with the soft padding around the wooden practice weapon.

"Good!" Hao cried, and he was grinning now.

Only a blurring duck and whirl saved him, but more than the battering counterstrike of the staff made Rudi stagger. Then Hao struck again… and something struck with him, and the universe seemed to vanish in a blaze of white light. He backed, reeling, sword and shield moving in a desperate dance of defense.

"Good, good! But the hand is not the weapon-the mind is the weapon, and the hand only its extension!" Hao called, his words and breath in perfect unison with his motion. "Discipline your mind!"

Rudi did, baring his teeth and thrusting with his will. The sense that wood was flailing at him from every direction in a ceaseless cascade of motion died away, and he saw the staff floating towards the touch of his shield and sword, as if he and Hao danced in a dream. Now they were not fighting; they were priests of a ritual, all alone on a mountaintop, beneath a sky where ravens circled a single Eye…

A twinge brought him back to common day. He stepped back and looked around; the others were watching him, and blank-faced or wondering. Suddenly he felt a little tired, the good tiredness you felt after a day's work in the harvest fields. Hao looked at Rudi closely, then stepped closer and prodded at his right shoulder with a finger like a section of wrought-iron rod.

"Pain?" he said.

"A bit," Rudi replied-honestly.

"Then stop! Too much is worse than too little! The rest of you, continue."

Rudi sank back on knees and heels, hands resting on his thighs. Ingolf was sparring with the twins; Ritva was using her usual longsword-and-shield, but Mary had one of the local weapons, a length of chain with a ball on one end and a sickle-shape on the other-both wooden for this practice. In real combat, they'd be steel. The two young women spread farther apart than they usually had, too. The man from Wisconsin attacked first, using the twin dao-shetes in the whirling style the monks taught…

They're better balanced than shetes usually are, Rudi thought delightedly. And that will give him an advantage once we've left here; the appearance is so similar…

Ingolf attacked, pushing hard and circling around Mary's blind left side to maximize the disadvantage. Mary was turning her head regularly, and the chain slid out through her fingers to whip around one of the swords…

When they'd exhausted the possibilities of the match, Ingolf had been killed eleven times, Mary three, and Ritva only twice.

"You will run back to the monastery," Hao announced.

"You?" Rudi said; the monk usually did everything students did, backwards and carrying heavier weights.

"I will remain and give special instruction to that one," Hao said, pointing at Ingolf. "There is much to learn and he is not a particularly apt student."

Ingolf's ears flushed a little.

"Let's get on with it," he said grimly.

"Time to go," Rudi said a month later. "Although it's been like a dream here. A good dream, of peace and beauty and rest."

Dorje smiled. "Yet in leaving, you need not fear premature aging." At Rudi's bewilderment he added: "Classical reference."

The monastery had given them a tough light two-wheeled cart for their gear, and for the rest they were on horseback, with local ponies to replace the pack-animals and remounts they'd lost to hunger and accident and avalanche in the Tetons. The Rimpoche and several of the monastery's dignitaries were with them, and an escort of cavalry in the Oriental-style lamellar armor and flared helmets of the Valley of the Sun.

"You will find the people of the Wind River over the mountains"-Dorje nodded eastward-"friendly for the most part; they and the Shoshone and Arapahoe have been allies. Beyond that I cannot advise you directly; there are forces of the CUT in the Powder River basin, and many of the Ranchers there have submitted. Others still resist."

Rudi nodded, inhaling the scents of water, a sweetness of cut grass that Epona kept heading towards the side of the road to snatch a mouthful of, turned earth, horses sweating just a little in the spring's first really warm weather. The sound of hooves beating slowly on the damp earth of the roadway stirred his blood, but…

I'm a little sorry to leave, he thought, turning in the saddle for a moment to look up to the distant peaks of the Tetons, still snow-covered down to the tree line. It's beautiful here, and I've learned much.

"It's pretty, but sure and it would be a cruel hard place to farm," Edain said quietly as he rode beside him. "They'll have the spring planting finished by now, back home… and it's a lot longer to the first frost, there."

May was a season of beauty in this high valley; even the sagebrush looked fresh, and the leaves of the aspen groves were uncurling and trembling in the light breeze. The lakes along the almost-vertical granite wall of the Tetons had finally melted; they reflected the high snowpeaks in stretches of azure blue as pure as the sky, ringed with reeds where snowy herons waded, and strings of yellow goslings followed the Canada geese. Wings were thick above; the meadows were ablaze with bright dandelion and buttercups, yellowbell lilies, bright pink shooting stars, mauve violets and purple lupins.

Ox-teams pulled plows here and there as farmers readied the last of their fields for buckwheat and other crops hardy enough to yield in the short time of warmth, the soil brown and moist behind the steel of the shares. Water chuckled in irrigation ditches; cowboys and shepherdesses alike armed and mounted followed herds of yaks, cattle, sheep and llamas dotted over the green immensity. Many of the houses scattered here and there in sheltered spots had turf roofs as well, and their dense green surfaces were dotted with flowers.

Many of the folk waved to the travelers as they rode past, or made reverence to the abbot of Chenrezi. The monks and the escort stopped where the road began its rise towards Togwotee Pass. The nine travelers dismounted, and so did the abbot and several of his chief followers. Some of them were wearing feathered headdresses like crimson-plumed helmets, and crimson cloaks, but Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje had only his usual rather shabby robe, hiked up a bit for riding and showing his skinny knotted calves, and Master Hao was in his usual singlet and loose trousers.

Ignatius bowed to the Buddhist cleric. "My thanks and that of my Order for your hospitality and help," he said. "This valley is indeed a holy place."

Dorje bowed in return. "I can see that you have found a measure of enlightenment here," he said.

For a moment, joy shone from the priest's usually rather impassive face. "High is heaven, and holy," he said. "Mountains have always turned my thoughts towards God."

"And you, my child, seem to have achieved a measure of rest," Dorje said to Mathilda.

She nodded, smiling and making the palms-together gesture of greeting and farewell the monks used.

"It's been nice, being just Mathilda," she said. "And I also thank you for your hospitality-and for your care for our friends who were hurt."

Seriously: "If ever I can do anything for you and yours-"

Dorje made a gesture of mild dismissal. "Hospitality imposes no obligation but its return. We ask nothing for it."

"You can't stop me feeling an obligation, guru, or fulfilling it. That's between me and God."

The abbot smiled, the smile that showed every wrinkle and made him look like a boy again. "I shall not seek to dissuade you from doing a virtuous deed," he said.

Then he turned to Ingolf. "We have given you a shield. Your own wounds only you can heal, however."

The Richlander nodded soberly. "I know."

Mary and Ritva were standing at the heads of their dappled Arabs side by side; Mary wore a black eye patch with the trees-and-stars of the Dunedain embroidered on it. They bowed gravely to him, and he to them. Then he turned to Frederick Thurston.

"You, I think, were nearly of the opinion that justice was nowhere to be found among men save as a lie for fools, and that all was treachery in the pursuit of power," he said to him. "I hope you have learned better here."

Fred nodded soberly. "I wasn't really that bad, but I could feel the temptation. Thing is, I've seen… what that can lead to."

"Yes, and to only one place by many roads. But do not fall into an equal and opposite reaction. Though your path lead to a gallows or a throne, if you walk the Middle Way, you need not fear becoming that which you hate."

Then he moved on to Rudi. The Mackenzie extended his hand, and Dorje took it between both of his for a moment. They felt like sandpaper that had been worn very smooth, old and leathery and strong.

"You have been an excellent student… for a chiling with an eccentric theology," he said.

"I regret having to leave so soon," Rudi said. His eyes went to the snowpeaks on the western horizon. "This is a good place for thinking."

"Regret is vain, and leads to attachment, binding us to the Wheel," Dorje said. Then he laughed again. "But I too have regrets. That I will never see the peak of Kanchenjunga again, or smell the wind that blows from the Roof of the World. Yet this is a good place to lay my bones."

Then he turned to them all, and spoke:

"Three men set forth seeking fortune. All three went by the same road. And the one found gold; another came on good land, and he tilled it. But the third saw sunlight making jewels of the dew. Each one thought himself the richer. Farewell. We shall meet again."

Master Hao turned to follow him, then stopped. "And we shall, as well. Some of you showed considerable promise," he added.

His flat voice was harsh as ever, but several of the party blinked. That was more praise than any of them had gotten in their months here. He astonished them even more by smiling slightly as he continued:

"We shall see how you implement what you have learned."

TheScourgeofGod