Sunrise Lands

Chapter Nineteen

Boise, Idaho Provisional Capital,

United States Of America

June 11-15, CY23/2021 A.D.

The practice ground occupied the clear space just inside the city wall, paved with blocks of asphalt cut from old roads. It was mostly deserted with sunset only a half hour off. Mostly…

Edain unstrung his bow and held out his hand. Six of his arrows were neatly grouped in the bull's eye and one more had been pushed three inches out by a backdraft; none of the others had come close to matching that. The sight made him a little nostalgic; it had been years since he did much shooting at a begi

"Here!" the Boisean cavalryman who'd proposed the match said, and slapped green bills into his hand.

He did it hard enough to sting, if Edain's hand hadn't been covered with calluses as thick as his own. As it was, there was a dull thock sound.

"Many thanks," Edain said, as several of his comrades followed suit. "And sure, anytime you feel like shooting a few again…"

Garbh rose and came over, looking up in his face and wagging her tail slightly because she sensed his enjoy ment. He'd been raised to know the value of a dollar, mostly because it represented sweat and sore muscles, often his own, and partly because even near Dun Juni per clansfolk didn't use coined money much, still less the paper kind. Bets like this were just for fun, though; found money you could waste without being guilty about it, like a prize for wi

The infantrymen who'd been watching laughed, slapping one another on the back, which produced a series of tonk sounds as hard palms hit steel armor; then they started collecting their bets from the horsemen of the cavalry troop who'd shot against him, or who'd bet on those who did. It had been natural enough to fall in with them; they were all conscripts doing their term of service, and close enough to his own age.

Their grins were the reverse of the cavalry's sulks. The remaining cavalry woman smiled, though; she was Rosita Gonzales, the sergeant who'd greeted them back on the road. And she'd seen him shoot before, for real, at that.

"Notice I wasn't putting any money on you losing," she said.

"Why am I not surprised, Rosita?" he said, batting his eyelashes theatrically. "Would a lady as brave, beautiful and skilled as yourself be anything but wise? Now, if I could spend some of these fine wi

She snorted laughter. "Yeah, try to butter me up. I'm too old for what you've got in mind, kid! Or you're too young for me."

"Now, why would you be thinking I had something in mind?" he said.

" 'Cause I know guys your age are hard-ons with legs and you always have something in mind."

"Not more than every thirty heartbeats or so. And you're not too old for anything you choose," he said.

Sincerely, since she was short of thirty and comely if you liked women wiry and dark and muscular. Which he did; being nineteen, he liked them almost any way except elderly or unripe or wolverine trap ugly.

"Keep smiling like that and I'll lose my resolve to be good, so I'm off." She paused to rumple Garbh's ears, which the mastiff permitted, having been introduced. "See you later."

Edain shook his head and put the folded bills in his sporran, watching her depart-or at least the part working in her rather tight black leather riding breeches-and sighed.

"Christ, man, how'd you get Iron-ass Gonzales so friendly?" one of the foot soldiers said.

"Not iron, I'd say; just pleasantly squeezable, from the look of things," he said, strolling over to retrieve his ar rows. "Not that I've had the opportunity to test the notion, alas."

"Ah, I always thought she liked girls. Maybe it's your skirt she likes."

"Which would show good taste," Edain said. "For it's true I like both the wearing of the kilts and the kissing of the girls myself."

Which got him more laughs; he snorted and slid the unstrung longbow into the carrying loops.

"No, it's me winsome charm and the archery that wins the ladies, and I don't doubt it'll work here in the big city too."

"You wish. It's pretty good duty otherwise, being stationed here in the capital, but with all the goddamned army swinging dicks around you can't get laid without paying for it, and even that's expensive as fucking-you know what I mean-hell. Two-fifty a day and your keep is good money out in the sticks, someplace like Lewis-ton, but it doesn't go too far here in Boise."

There were half a dozen of the soldiers, and they were all friendly now.

Now that I've earned them all a week's pay or more, he thought.

Most of them came from little farms and villages that didn't sound all that much different from Dun Fairfax, if you allowed for the fact that they were Christians of various sorts-Protestants and Catholics and Mormons, he thought, though he wasn't altogether clear on the dif ferences and none of them seemed to be much bent out of shape about it either. He'd been nervous and out of place in General Thurston's house, but these lads he understood right off.

"Thanks for the tip on the bets," one of them said; he was a towhead named John Gottberg, and the file closer, which meant roughly a corporal. " I heard about the thing where you and your bossman saved the president's life, but most of those donkey dongs were just in from road patrol and hadn't got the word."

He extended his hand towards Garbh-cautiously, which wise men did, with a dog who weighed a hundred and twenty pounds and came up above their waist.

"Friend!" Edain said.

She sniffed politely but didn't radiate anything beyond tolerance.

"She's a bit of a one man dog," Edain said.

"Best kind. Hunting dog?"

"Hunting, guard… raised her from a pup, that I did."

"Nice to see the burro bangers taken down a bit," said a freckle-faced redhead called Kit Mullins, returning to the discomfiture of the cavalry. "Fuckers think they're hot shit 'cause they come from ranches and ride around. We're the backbone of the army, by God. It's us who stand and take it and dish it out when the metal hits the meat."

That made the first one thoughtful: "Maybe Iron-ass really likes your looks; she didn't tell them."

"And maybe she made a bit on side bets," another said.

Edain shook his head. "It's Rudi she'd really like to meet. The Chief has a way with the girls and that's a fact."

"So, this guy Rudi you're traveling with, he's your king or something out west? They say you've got kings and knights and weird shit like that out there."

"No, he's the Chief's tanist," Edain said. "Ummm… by Chief I mean the head of the clan, the Mackenzie herself herself. She presides over the Clan, and he's her… understudy."

"So it's like a king, or what do they call it, a crowned prince?"

"Not in the least! The Chief's the Chief because the clan assembled hailed her-many's the time over the years-at the Beltane festival. And we hailed Rudi, too, as tanist, just now. And we'll hail him as Chief too, when his mother dies or steps down, free and open for all to see, and any benighted ijeet who wants turnips and cowpats thrown at him could stand up and ask for the same."

"So hailing, that's like an election?"

"A bit. Everyone makes speeches and we all argue ourselves blue and we have a show of hands. And then there's games and a lovely great feed, and singing and dancing and music and drinking and sometimes a bit of a punch-up on the sidelines."

"Sounds like quite a party!"

"It is that. It's supposed to be very Celtic, which is what they called clansfolk in the old days. And Beltane bowers… the girls like the blossoms. Puts them in the mood to worship the Goddess, as it were. And speaking of parties, what do you say to a few beers?"