The Scourge of God

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WEST OF PENDLETON, EASTERN OREGON

SEPTEMBER 15, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD

"Right face!" Martin Thurston shouted, as the Portlander knights loomed up again out of the dust to the northward; he'd learned their trumpet calls today. "Hold hard, the fighting Sixth! Prepare to receive cavalry!"

The battalion turned front and snapped its shields up as the Boisean tubae screamed, a motion like the bristling of a hawk's feathers.

"Oooo-rah!" the long guttural shout went up, as the soldiers of the Republic braced for contact. "USA! USA!"

"Haro! Portland! Holy Mary for Portland!" answered them from behind the couched lances and painted shields.

Even then, the war cry irritated him. They were fighting for their respective rulers, not for the putative mother of a hypothetical God. Though he supposed Sandra, the bitch! just didn't compare as a battle shout.

Centurions stalked between the ranks, and the optios in the rear braced their brass-tipped staffs against men's backs, firming the line and giving that little extra sense of solidity in the chaos and whirling terror that were a foot-soldier's view of combat. Pila jutted out between the locked shields, and the first rank knelt to brace the butts against the hard gritty soil.

Seconds later the lances struck, slamming through the hard plywood and sheet-steel with huge crack! sounds, bowling men over or punching through their body armor. Shafts cracked across, pinwheeling up in fragments through the mist of powdered soil. More pila arched forward over the front rank's heads, and men pushed forward to take the place of the fallen, punching at the metal-clad heads of the horses with the bosses and steel-rimmed edges of their great curved shields, stabbing with their swords, trying to swarm the horsemen under now that they were halted. Men and horses alike were armored animals who cursed and struggled and bled and screamed, killed and died, blind with sweat and blood and the dirt churned up by the hooves and boots all the long day, voices croaking with thirst.

The knights' long blades and spiked war-hammers slammed down, and the destriers reared and struck with feet like milling clubs; the ugly crunching sounds when they struck the bodies of men were audible even through the huge scrap-metal-and-riot blur of noise. Here and there a mount went down, or a man, with a pila-point sticking from a joint in the armor or from the horses' vulnerable bellies. Martin watched as a dismounted knight swung his longsword in both hands, and three Boise troopers struck in trained unison, one to block the blade, the other two stabbing with the flickering speed of a shrike snapping its beak forward, probing for the weak points in the armor. Steel sparked on steel, and then the plumed helmet wavered and went down…

The oliphants shrieked again, a higher note than the brass horns the Boise men used, and the men-at-arms backed their horses and turned, cantering out of catapult range and then walking their mounts; infantry couldn't force horsemen to fight if they didn't want to. When they were a thousand yards away they turned and waited; he could see ambulances coming forward for their wounded, and Remounts. Goddamn them, they've still got fresh destriers ready! They must have been breeding and training them ever since the Change; it'd cost a fortune.

Boise's light horse were trying to re-form their tattered screen between his flank and the Portlander lancers. His head swiveled eastward, ahead. There his men had been steadily chewing their way through the Portland Protective Association's infantry, like a saw through hard wood… but they'd had to halt while he refused the flank to take the attack of the heavy horse.

Now the enemy foot were backing, breaking contact, still with a disciplined bristle of spears over the kite-shaped shields; blocks of crossbowmen were between them, retreating by files. The men at the head of each rank of six fired their weapons and then turned and walked backwards to the end of the column, pumping the cocking lever set into the forestocks of their crossbows as they went. The man behind them shot and then followed, reloading as well… Thurston's men crouched behind their heavy shields against the continuous flickering ripple of bolts; the sound was a steady thock-thock-thock; mostly the big shields stopped the short heavy missiles. Mostly, but a steady trickle were falling limp or screaming or staggering backwards towards the medics, and the Portlanders were too far away now for his men to reply with thrown pila.

He looked southward, to the section of the allied line on his left: the pikes of the Pendleton city militia wavered as they advanced, and he suspected that the glaives of the Registered Refugee Regiment at their backs had a good deal to do with the fact that they were still moving forward. A trio of six-pound iron balls blurred into them from the enemy catapults, bouncing forward at knee-height, and a whole six-man file went down screaming, their eighteen-foot weapons collapsing like hay undercut by a mowing machine.

A heavy tung-tung-tung-tung sound came through the screams, as one of his own batteries replied with globes of napalm, the burning fuses drawing black smoke-trails through the air and then blossoming into blurred flowers of yellow gold as they landed and shattered. The pump teams behind the field pieces worked like maniacs to drive water through the armored hoses to the hydraulic jacks built into the frames, and the throwing arms bent back against the resistance of the heavy springs.

The enemy catapults were already moving back, though-he could see their crews trotting beside the wheels of the field pieces. They'd hitched their teams, and were stopping only when the auxiliary pumps attached to the axles had cocked the mechanisms. Then they'd let the trail fall from the limber, slap a bolt or ball into the groove and fire and snatch it up again to make another bound backwards. A four-foot javelin from one of them went over his head with a malignant whirrrt, making him duck involuntarily. There was an appalling wet smack behind him; he turned and saw that the bolt had pinned the body of his dead horse to the ground.

Hooves thudded behind him. The messenger from his cavalry commander had a crudely splinted left arm, and her dark olive skin was muddy with pain and the exhaustion that grooved her face. She saluted smartly, though:

"Sir! Colonel Jacobson reports that he regretfully cannot slow any further charges by the Portlander lances. Sir…" Her voice changed. "Sir, they just have too much weight of metal for us to stop them. Not face-to-face without room to maneuver."

Thurston nodded. "Get that arm seen to, Sergeant Gonzalez," he said. "No return message."

Then he looked up at the sun. It was three o'clock at least…

And I am not going to try to pursue in the dark, with the cavalry we probably have left.

Another pair of horsemen approached…

No, goddammit, it's Estrellita Peters and her spawn, come to waste time I don't have!

They were both in breastplates and helmets, at least, and there were a dozen of their slave-guardsmen around them. The boy was pale but determined, gulping at his first exposure to the atmosphere of a battlefield-a cross between a construction site, an open sewer, and a neglected butcher's shop on a really hot day, seasoned with men sobbing or shrieking or calling for their mommas as their ruins were dragged back to the aid stations. The Bossman's consort was as calm with edged steel whickering through the air as she'd been in her own parlor greeting her guests. At least she wasn't trying to play General.

"We are forcing them back, Senor Presidente!" she said.

Thurston nodded curtly. And paying far too much of a butcher's bill for it, he thought; the loss of every man hurt, and from his own ever-loyal Sixth doubly.

"We'll hold the field," he said, his voice a grim bark. "And they'll leave your territory. Now, if you'll pardon me-"

The boy spoke, and there was a disturbing flash in his brown eyes: "The Prophet has foretold victory!"

Thurston nodded curtly again. And I could do the same, he thought; for a wonder Estrellita showed some tact, and pulled the boy aside.

Martin went on: "Courier! Get south and find out what's the hell's happening on our left flank! And tell the Corwinite commander"- damned if I'll be polite at this late date! — "that unless he can turn their flank soon, a general pursuit is out of the question."

Then to his signalers: "Sound the advance!"

The tubae brayed like mules in agony, a long sustained note that meant get ready and then three sharp blats. With a unison that shook the earth the battalions stepped off, moving forward at a steady jog-trot, shields up and pila cocked back to throw. Astonishingly they began to sing as well, a raucous marching chant timed to the pounding beat of the advance:

"Yanks to the charge! cried Thurston

The foe begins to yield!

Strike-for hearth and nation

Strike-for the Eagle shield!-"

"By God, with men like these, I'll whip the Earth!" Thurston said, and drew his own blade.

It would come to that for the commanders, before the sun set.

"Plant the swine feathers!" Chuck Barstow Mackenzie rasped.

His voice was hoarse with the dust, raw with shouting. The signal blatted out, and the mass of kilted archers stopped their jog-trot to the rear. Each of them turned, jammed the shovel end of the weapon into the ground, backheeled it to plant it, and then took a few steps backwards as they reached over their shoulders for arrows-they were down to the quivers on their backs now, no time for spares to be brought forward. Westward the dimly seen ridge they'd abandoned suddenly quivered and sparkled; the sun was behind the Clan's warriors now, and it broke off the edged metal of the blades there, and on arrowheads.

"Let the gray geese fly- shoot! "

The yew bows bent and spat; this was close range, barely fifty yards. You could only just see an arrow from a heavy bow as a flicker through the air that close, and it was only a half second later that the first struck. Men and horses went down; and this time they reined around and fled, back below the swell of ground that would put them out of sight. Only a few kept coming towards the Mackenzie line, a handful of them screaming out:

"Cut! Cut! Cut!"

They galloped along the Mackenzie front, lofting arrows towards their foes and dying as picked shots stepped out of the Clan's ranks to take careful aim.

Chuck dismissed them from his mind. The ones who'd sensibly dodged back behind the protection of the ridgeline were the ones he was worried about; there were a lot more of them:

"Dropping shafts!" he shouted, and the bows went up.

Arrows glittered as they arched up and over the rise, discouraging any of the enemy from lingering. Off to the southward men were fighting and dying too-the Warm Springs tribes and the Bearkiller A-listers against the Sword of the Prophet and the Cutter irregulars as they lapped around the flank like a rising tide creeping up a beach, a bit higher with each wave.

"Get ready to-" he began.

The impact was like a punch in the chest, or a blow from a hammer. He grunted and took a step backwards. Then the pain started, and he looked down to see the arrow standing in his chest; it had broken the rivets between two of the little metal plates inside his brigandine, just over the left branch of the Horns that cradled the Crescent Moon.

He grunted again, and this time there was a hot wetness in his mouth when he did; it leaked out between his teeth, and he could feel a gurgling as he sank to his knees and tried to take a breath. The pain got worse, pulsing out in waves from the cold center where the iron had pierced rib and lung. He blinked; Rowan was holding him, and Oak was there, bending over him with a look of astonished fury.

Why's the boy mad at me? he thought for an instant.

Then he forced the black wings back from the corners of his eyes for a second.

Important, he thought.

That was hard. His mind was like a movie in the old days, but one all put together from bits and pieces; Dad holding him up on his shoulders as he came home from his mail route, his mother, children, grandchildren, the look on Judy's face the first time he called the Goddess down to her, the overwhelming need to scream. A long slow breath was the hardest thing he'd ever done, ignoring the blood pouring into his ravaged lung for the sake of air in the good one. Things were beginning to fade, graying around the edges, and he felt himself falling as if the ground beneath his back was a hole into infinity.

"Get-them-out!" he said distinctly, coughing blood across the faces of son and foster son. Then: "Judy-"

Oak Barstow stood, his face contorted like something carved from blood-spattered wood, and his arms went wide as he emptied his lungs in one long wailing shriek. Faces turned towards him, shocked and pale.

"Retreat!" he called. "In good order!"

The archers turned and trotted away, leaving the irregular rank of the swine feathers. The bicycles were near, now; the Clan's force threw their legs over the bars, set feet to pedals and turned northeast, following the dust of the ambulances and stores-wagons as they pumped away in a column three ranks across.

Rowan brought up his father's horse, blinking in astonishment at the face, willing the still form to rise and speak, to give an order, to say something.

"Get going," Oak grated, cuffing him sharply across the back of his helmet, and heaving the body over the saddle with one lift and wrench. "Now!"

That last charge was a mistake, Eric Larsson thought.

Men in the russet-brown armor of the Sword and the patchwork harness of the CUT's Rancher levies swarmed around him. Blades flickered, rippling in the dying sun as the melee boiled around the stalled Bearkiller wedge.

There's too fucking many of them and they do n 't give up for shit.

He smashed the broken stump of his lance over a man's head and swept the backsword out. Images strobed across his vision, targets and threats, everything else blurred. The sword lashed down on the junction of a man's neck and shoulder. Leather armor parted under the steel and the edge drove halfway to the man's breastbone; muscle and gristle locked around it. He wrenched it back with desperate strength and caught a shete on his shield in the same motion, the curved bullhide booming under the stroke as the horses circled and chopped with hooves and teeth, wild-eyed and as battle-mad as their riders. Something else hit his thigh, but the armor stopped it, and he stabbed into a familiar soft heavy resistance and heard an earsplitting shriek.

He wrenched his mount about and let that motion drag the steel free. Time to go… he looked for his signaler.

"Hakkaa Paalle!"

He didn't know if the war-shout of the Bearkillers came from his own throat or someone else's. A blow came at him out of the corner of his eye, and he whipped the shield around desperately. It was a man with a shaven head, leaking blood from a palm-sized graze where his helmet had been knocked off, his yellow goat-beard bound with golden rings and blue eyes glaring in a face inhuman with a rage beyond all bearing. A stylized wolf's head was painted across his lacquered hide breastplate, some Eastern Rancher's sigil.

"Cut!" he screamed, and struck with a war-pick whose haft was gripped in both hands, the horse moving beneath him as if it were part of his own body. "Cut!"

The long steel beak struck Eric's shield; the awkward angle of it hammered his arm back against him, and the spike punched through, through the shield and the armored gauntlet beneath and into flesh. He'd been wounded before, but the pain was enormous, a cold wash of astonishment that paralyzed him while the man wrenched the weapon free and stood in the stirrups for the killing blow. For a confused moment he saw something, a horse and a shield and a shining spear.

St. Michael- he thought. Warrior saint, aid "Hakkaa Paalle!"

This time he knew it wasn't him yelling; all he was capable of shouting right now was Jesus, that hurts! And thankful it wasn't Mother, help!

Bright metal speared across the side of the goat-bearded man's throat from behind; it carried the Outfit's banner, but the shaft below and the head above were an entirely practical lance. That was young Mike Havel Jr.; he recoiled desperately, bringing up the shaft of the banner to block the counterstrike of the war-pick. It worked, a little; the blunt back end of the terrible weapon smashed into the wood and bounced into the mail-shirt on the young man's side.

Eric let the ruined shield slide off his arm, but the jarring sent fresh waves up it and into his gut and balls, like a tooth being drilled but all over his body; the sword slipped from nerveless fingers. Then his own son Billy was there, an arrow drawn to the ear as he galloped past, perfect form with the recurve a single smooth C.

Thunk.

The bodkin punched into the side of the man with the war-pick, so deeply that the gray feathers were all that showed. Billy Larsson brought his horse up in a rearing halt; the beast pivoted like a cow pony despite the weight of an armored rider, and he snaked out the bow to catch at the reins of Eric's horse.

"The Mackenzies are out!" he shouted. "Let's go!"

"Sound retreat!" Eric snarled.

It was necessary. He still didn't like it.

Eric Larsson watched as the bodies were lifted onto the railcar. It was nearly dark, but flames underlit pillars of foul-tasting black smoke with flickering red where pyramids of boxed supplies had been torched to keep them out of enemy hands. A dozen Mackenzies were fitting their bicycles into the slots in the light-alloy car's surfaces, ready to pedal it up to speed, faster than anything a horse could do and far more enduring.

Others were already underway, stretching off towards the northeast along the rusty steel rails until they were moving dots against the flare of sunset. The CORA men and the bulk of the Bearkillers were a column of dust to the southwest, pulling back towards Bend and the passes of the Cascades.

"Mind if I hitch a ride?" Eric said, cradling the mass of bandages that was his left hand against his chest.

Every time he took a step, it was as if invisible cords inside the arm were stretched out and scraped with knives, all the way up his shoulder and into his chest. He knew a flicker of pride at the steadiness of his voice, but he certainly wasn't in any shape to get out of here on horseback.

Or anything else that requires more than lying on my back and whimpering.

The man overseeing the loading looked up; it was Chuck Barstow's foster son Oak. Smears of dried blood across his face looked black in the fading light, leaving his blue eyes like jewels of turquoise set in jet.

"Sure, and you're welcome, a hundred thousand welcomes," he said. "We'd none of us have made it out if you hadn't held them until we broke contact."

Eric waved the others forward; Billy was there, nothing but scrapes and bruises, memories of horror warring with the exhilaration of realizing By God, I'm alive! on his face. He was helping Mike Jr. along; the boy still had the broken shaft and the blood-clotted Bearkiller banner clutched to his chest. Getting onto the railcar without fainting occupied his next few moments. Then he realized whose body he was next to.

"Oh, shit," he said, looking down at Chuck Barstow's still face, relaxed into an inhuman calm beneath the blood; someone had closed his eyes. "I didn't realize-"

"He died well," Oak said, his voice harsh despite the musical lilt. "And he'll have company beyond the Western Gate before the last thread of this is woven!"

Chuck Barstow stood and breathed. For a long moment the sheer wonder of that was enough; and the air was like all the Willamette springs he'd ever loved, and warm scented summer nights amid the fields and the long wistful mornings of Indian Summer and a crisp autumn evening with the leaves blowing yellow about his feet thrown in. He was naked, but the feel of the grass on his bare feet was like a caress, and the forest floor was thick with white fawn lily and blue camas. Douglas fir towered over him, as majestic as redwoods, dropping their deep resinous scent into the still dim air. There was a thrill to it all, an eagerness for the day that he'd lost long ago bit by bit without even noticing it.

Motion drew his eyes. There was a meadow ahead, hints of color and greenness amid a sunlight whose brightness was almost painful. Two figures came out of it, shadows at first, and then a woman and a wolf-the great beast was chest-high on her, and she walked with a hand resting on its ruff. The animal cocked head and ears and dangled a tongue like a red flag across bone-white fangs, its amber eyes amused.

The woman was Judy; as he remembered her from that first meeting, solid in her festival robe and three-colored belt, and beautiful. His own eyes went wide with alarm.

"No," she said, smiling at him, that smile that had made him feel like a boy on his first date for thirty years of marriage. "Time's different here. You came first, but I've been waiting."

He nodded. Somehow that made sense. The wolf made an impatient wurrrff sound and jerked its nose towards the meadow where light shimmered on flowers of gold. Judy extended her hand.

"Breakfast's ready," she said, and grinned as his stomach rumbled. "And Aoife's eager to see you again-you wouldn't believe the argument we had over who got to meet you first. Fortunately Liath talked some sense into her."

He took the infinitely familiar hand and grinned back at her. "Will there be gardens?" he said.

She nodded as she turned to lead him into the brightness.

"There's everything."

LARSDALEN, BEARKILLER HQ,

HALL OF REMEMBRANCE

OCTOBER 31, CY 23/2021 AD

The great rectangular room fell silent as the food was cleared away from the long tables and the ceremonial drinking-horns set out, rimmed and tipped with gold and carved with running interlaced animal patterns. The central hearth beneath its copper smoke-hood flickered and boomed, for the night outside was cold and hissing with winter's rain. Light from that shone on the oak wainscoting between the tall windows, wrought in similar sinuous forms and hung with weapons and shields-round concave ones marked with the Bear, backswords and lances and recurve bows, and captured trophies and banners.

The fire scented the air, and the wax of candles from the wrought-iron chandeliers overhead, and the memory of the feast's fresh hot bread and the roast pigs and a dozen other dishes. Now military apprentices went their rounds with jugs of the wine from the Larsdalen vineyards and from elsewhere in the Outfit's territories, that the dead might be hailed in the drink grown on the land their blood had defended.

There had been a memorial mass in the Larsdalen church, and a blot in the Hoff that Signe had built years ago, and private rites in each family, but this was a ceremony they all had in common; both faiths accepted the arval, the grave-ale.

The feast hadn't been too somber despite the mourning; the Bearkillers remembered how their founder Mike Havel had joked with his comrades and his wife as he lay dying on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, scorning death. Most of those present believed that the spirit outlived the body, in Heaven or the halls of the High One or Hella's domain or by rebirth; and they and the minority of unbelievers all shared a faith that a man lived not one day longer than he lived, and that what mattered was how he met his end… or hers.

Strong bearded faces waited, and women no less fierce, many of them also with the brand of the A-list between their brows. Youngsters newly blooded were there, and the solid landholders of the A-list steadings, and representatives from the others of the Outfit; merchants of Rickreal, Larsdalen's craftsmen and engineers, and the commons from the Strategic Hamlets. The A-list's pride was that they were the first to fight, but they kept Mike Havel's law, that every member of the Outfit would defend the others at need, and to the death. The toasts ran up the tables; it was the custom for close kin to make them. Finally they reached the head table, the one that stood crossways to the others and centered about an empty chair.

No human sat in it tonight, but a sheathed backsword rested across the arms. The high back was draped with a bearskin cloak clasped with a gold broach, and above it was a helmet-the simple bowl with nasal-bar and mail aventail the Outfit had used in its earliest days, but with a snarling bear's head mounted on it so that the snout projected like a visor, and a fall of hide behind.

On either side were the seats for the war-leader Eric Larsson, and his sister Signe Havel who held the Bear Lord's power until his children were grown. They both stood, ending the toasts to the fallen with a collective tribute.

"I drink to our glorious dead!" Eric Larsson said, taking up his horn from its stand, and signing it with the Cross. "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; may the blessed Virgin intercede for them, and my patron, St. Michael, and all warrior saints welcome them to everlasting glory, they who fell fearlessly for home and kindred; in Jesus' holy name, amen!"

There was a long murmur of amen from those who followed his faith. Signe took up her horn in turn and used her right fist to sign it with the Hammer; it was one of the set her grandfather had commissioned in a fit of youthful ethnic self-rediscovery eighty years ago, much copied since the Change by the Outfit's makers. With innocent eclecticism the craftsmen of the 1930s had included Northwest Indian symbols along with the Norse, but that was appropriate-she had a little of that blood too, after all.

Her voice rang out:

"I drink to our glorious dead. May they feast with the High One this night. May His daughters bear them the mead of heroes, and greet the new-come einherjar thus at the gates of Vallhol:

Then together the siblings raised the horns high and shouted: " To our glorious dead! And to all the Brothers and Sisters of the A-list, always first to fight! Drink hail! "

A hundred and fifty voices roared reply:

"Wassail!"

Signe looked at her twin brother with critical appraisal as they sat again; the stump of his left wrist was neatly bandaged, and he looked gaunt and pale but strong in black boots and pants and high-collared jacket; the doctors said it had been healing well, and he'd certainly been bugging the craftsmen for a whole range of hooks, blades, gripping devices and even a steel fist for when it was ready to hold a prosthetic.

The military apprentices moved along the tables, refilling for those who'd drunk deep. She was pacing herself, and had taken only a long sip, but it glowed in her stomach after the feast. Just enough to give the great room a glow as well. Her mouth quirked as she thought what the ancestress who'd had it built as a ballroom back in Edwardian days with a splendor of white silk hangings and chandeliers would have thought of it now.

Probably great-great-grandfather Sven would like it better, the old pirate!

That had been the man who came from a bitter little farm in Smaland to the Pacific Northwest in the days when men like wolves snarling around an elk tore fortunes from the land with fangs of steel and steam. He'd started in a lumber camp and married the half-Tlingit woman who cooked for his bunkhouse; worked his way up to pay clerk, quit, made a minor silver strike in the Idaho mountains, parlayed that into a fortune, bought this country estate to complement his town mansion in Portland…

And his children went respectable in a major way, she thought.

His son married the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, his son the daughter of a Swedish-American engineering magnate, his son a Danish-German Milwaukee brewing fortune, and Signe's own father a Boston Brahmin of Mayflower pedigree so distinguished her teeth were permanently locked on her vowels.

And whose ancestors came from the Danelaw and were probably the descendants of Vikings themselves, she thought.

Luanne Larsson stood next, pride glowing on her dark comely Afro-mestizo face as she looked at her husband and eldest son and raised her horn.

"I drink to my son William Larsson, Brother of the A-List, who saved the life of his cousin Mike Havel Jr. on the field of battle!" she said, the Tejano-Texan accent still softening her voice. "Drink hail!"

"Wassail!"

Signe stood again, silent for a moment as she raised the horn, until all eyes were on her and the loudest sounds were breathing and the crackle of the fire on the central hearth. She inhaled the pleasant pungency of burning fir-wood.

"I drink to my son Mike Havel Jr., Brother of the A-list, who saved the life of my brother Eric Larsson on the field of battle at the risk of his life, shedding enemy blood and taking wounds. Drink hail!"

"Wassail!"

This time it was a roar. Mike Jr. flushed; he was seated at the high table for the first time, with the A-list brand between his brows still new enough to be raw.

He was too young for the standard Initiation, but there was an exception for valor in the field, and nobody had even whispered that he didn't deserve it, for saving Eric's life and for keeping the flag despite his broken ribs. They were still tight-bandaged beneath his jacket, but he grinned shyly and ducked his head. The banner hung on the carved oak wainscoting of the wall behind them, the snarling crimson bear on brown, the blood-stains on it just barely visible in the lantern light.

They cried the Wassail! again and again, until it turned into a chant: first "Hail! Hail! Hail!"

And then: "Lord… Bear… Lord… Bear!" amid fists pounding on oak until the holders that carried the horns shook and the red wine quivered over the gold-bound rims.

Signe felt the chant sing in her veins as it echoed through the great chamber. She leaned forward, suddenly quivering-tense. Would he take it? She'd given him advice on what to say, but the boy had a mind of his own. The formalities would come later, but if her son stretched out his hand now…

He stood, pale and looking older than his fifteen years. The noise died away to a breathing hush, like the tension in a great cat before it leapt.

"Brothers and Sisters of the A-list… free folk of the Outfit …" he said, and raised his horn.

"I drink to my father, Mike Havel, Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, Force Recon, who never turned his back on an enemy, or on a friend! My father, who stood between the Bear and his folk, who wrestled with Sky and Death itself on the day of the Change, who brought us from the far cold mountains to this good earth! My father, who built our walls and made our laws, who judged justly, who killed the tyrant Arminger with his own hands, whose blood was the sacrifice that renewed the land. Hear us, Founder, lawgiver, land-father! We keep faith with you, Bear Lord! Drink hail! "

"Wassail!" came in a quivering roar that shook the very chandeliers overhead, until shadows swung gigantic on the walls.

Her son lowered the horn from his lips. He waited until silence fell again, then walked to the empty chair and laid his free hand on the hilt of the great blade that rested across its arms. His face was very calm; and it looked so much like the one she remembered there..

"I'm proud to have shed my blood for the Outfit," he said, his voice steady and pure if still a little lighter than a grown man's.

He waited out the cheer that followed before he continued:

"And if our free folk hail me as Bear Lord when my time comes, I will take up my father's sword and the Bear Helm, and with it his drighten might and right. Then I will give you my oaths to render good lordship and take your freely plighted hold-oaths, that your might be mine and mine be yours. For the lord and the land and the folk are one."

Utter quiet fell, a tribute more complete than any roar; she could see tears on some faces, and slow nods of agreement from many more.

My son, my son! she thought, through a glitter of her own tears, and a pain that was also joy. Oh, Mike, if only you could be here to see him now!

The youth went on: "But first I must learn to fight like my uncle, Lord Eric, our war-leader-"

"Better than me, boy!" Eric said, grinning hugely. "I shouldn't have made that last charge-it was one too many. Your father always said I had to watch my temper."

"And I must learn to lead as wisely as my mother, Signe, Lady of the Bearkillers, whose forebears' blood won this land long ago. Until then, let them rule-and let me learn from them."

He turned to her: "I drink to Signe Havel, Sister of the A-list, whose wisdom saw the threat of the Prophet and the tyrant Thurston! Drink hail! "

"Wassail!"

Signe didn't drink the toast to herself, but the rush of pride was stronger than the wine could have been.

That's my boy! she thought. He wants it, yes… but he knows when to take it. High Lord, Lady Freya, all kindly alfar, you've gifted him with brains and guts both!

"I drink to our war-leader, Eric Larsson, who got us out of that cluster-fuck in Pendleton unreamed!" he went on. "And who gave his hand to smash down a wolf that ravened at our throats. Drink hail!"

"Wassail!"

Eric stood once more. "And I drink to my nephew, and my son, because without them you'd be drinking toasts to my ashes in a goddamned urn! Drink hail!"

As the shout of Wassail! rang out there was laughter in it, the high tension of the moments before gone.

It increased as the horn tilted back, and it became obvious that Eric was going to drain it or choke. Others did likewise; Mike and Eric's son William linked their arms each through the other's as they drank, laughing with the red wine on their chins. Fists and feet pounded in rhythm with the flutter of Eric's Adam's apple, dissolving in cheers as he pulled the horn away from his mouth, wiped the back of his great gold-furred hand across his bearded mouth and held it upside down to show that hardly a drop remained.

"And now… let's just drink!" he called.

DUN JUNIPER,

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS

OCTOBER 31, CY 23/2021 AD

Juniper Mackenzie had planted flowers here on the slopes below the plateau many years ago, when this had been her winter retreat between the festivals and tournaments at which she busked for her living. Her great-uncle's grandfather had planted the gnarled apple trees, when this had been a working farm and the Mackenzie kin fresh from the Oregon Trail and the hills of East Tennessee. Even in the hungry days right after the Change they'd tended it, and in the years since the place of beauty had grown.

Now the flower beds and rosebushes spread along the slope to either side of the Dun's gates, the flowering vines climbing the stucco halfway to the frieze of painted blossoms and half-hidden faces below the parapet. Most of the blossoms were past now; a few faded slashes of color clung amid careful mulch and pruning, brought out by the old gold light of sunset on a day that had dawned with rain and was ending with a clear sky. There was a silty smell of damp turned earth and the musky scent of leaves and straw undergoing the slow decay of autumn.

And so many of them Chuck did the planting of, and we planned it together, the Chief of the Mackenzies thought.

Chuck had been Lord of the Harvest long before he was First Armsman. She remembered his face, that first year, when they started to dig the potatoes he'd planted.

And he scoured the Valley for seeds and cuttings for this garden so that we might have beauty as well as food, when he had the time between the ten thousand thousand other things… Thirty-two years I knew you, Chuck; more than half my life. Even before you married Judy you were a friend, and afterwards like the brother I never had, and you were there at my hand in all we built.

The meadows below the flowers were crowded. The voices of her people rang out, ending the ceremony:

"We all come from the Wise One

And to her we shall return

Like a waning moon,

Shining on the winter snow;

We all come from the Maiden-"

Judy Barstow Mackenzie took the urn with her man's ashes as the song ended and walked down the rows of the garden, pouring them on the damp soil; her sons and daughters followed, spading the gray powder into the rich brown dirt. Beneath the hoodlike fold of the arsaid drawn over her head Judy's face looked…

Not older, Juniper thought; her friend was her age almost to the day, fifty-three. But as if she's moved through sorrow and beyond it. Well, that's why we keen the dead.

Her own throat was sore with it. There was a release in the cries, as if your spirit was walking partway with the dead, a last look at the beloved before you committed them to Earth's embrace.

A little life came back into Judy's face as she finished; and then she looked around, a question on her face. What now? was as plain as if she'd spoken aloud.

As if in answer, her daughter, Tamsin, and sons, Rowan and Oak, and their mates reached out to touch her, and the grandchildren crowded around with their small bodies leaning against hers.

Life is the answer to life, Juniper thought, and spoke formally:

"Who among his close kin will speak the last words for Chuck Barstow Mackenzie, our brother?"

She was a little surprised when Oak stood forward. He bowed to her and turned to the folk assembled below-everyone in Dun Juniper who wasn't helping prepare the feast for the dead, and many from elsewhere in the Clan's territories as well, and a few from beyond. Chuck had been a well-loved man.

"I was an orphan of the Change," he said. "Younger than my daughter Lutra here."

He touched her head, and the girl turned her tear-streaked face up to him; the fingers were infinitely gentle on her brown hair.

"I don't remember anything much before then-just bits and pieces, and the fear and hunger as we all waited on the school bus and the grown-ups were gone. Chuck took me and my sister Aoife and our foster brother Sanjay off that bus. He and Mother Judy raised us; they're the only parents I know. Chuck was the one who took me out and showed me the stars and told me their names, and the plants and their names and uses, and held me with Mother when I was sick or afraid. He taught me how to hunt, and the rites of the woodland Powers. He taught me how to tend the land, and many others-he was a man of the earth above all, and there are thousands alive today who walk the ridge of the world because he could show them how to coax Earth into yielding Her fruits. He stood by my side when I was made an Initiate of the Mysteries. If I'm a man at all, it's his doing."

There was a long murmur from the assembled crowd. Oak raised his head and went on; tears glistened in his yellow mustache.

"He taught me spear and blade and bow; he fought for us all, and now like my sister and brother before him he's given his body to the earth that feeds me and my children, and his blood to protect them. His last words were Get them out and my mother's name."

The murmur grew louder and then died away again. Oak's voice rose for a long moment into one long wail of grief; then he spoke in words again.

"Lady Juniper, Chief of the Clan, Goddess-on-Earth, hear my oath!"

"I will hear your oath, Oak son of Chuck, whose totem is Wolf," Juniper said steadily. "By what will you swear?"

"I swear by Earth beneath my feet, by Sky above, by the Water in my veins and the Fire that is my life; by Brigid and Lugh and all the gods of my people, by the spirits that watch over the house-hearth and the byre and the field and the forest, and by Father Wolf who walked in my dream. And I call to witness that part of my father's soul that is not in the Summerlands, and the Chief of the Clan, and the folk of the Clan."

He bent down and picked up a pinch of the mingled earth and ash, and drew it across his forehead. When he continued his voice had the raw challenge of a bull elk's:

"Once I keened my father on the field where he fell. Once I have keened him here where we returned his ashes to Earth the Mother. I swear that when I keen him for the third time, it will be when his vengeance is won!"

Then he drew the little Black Knife from his knee-hose, and held out his hand as he pressed the point to the fleshy ball below his thumb. A line of red appeared, and drops fell through the darkening air to fall on the dirt, and a sigh went through the crowd.

"And if I fail in my oath, may Earth shun me, and Sky fall and crush me, and Fire burn me, and the Water of life that is my blood be spilled!"

A long silence fell, as Chuck's other children held out their hands and joined their blood to his.

"So mote it be," Juniper said softly, into the echoing quiet.

TheScourgeofGod