Sunrise Lands

Cavalry patrols made their own trickle plumes of dust at the limits of vision, with sometimes a blink of light off the edged iron of a lance head. A glider hovered high overhead, riding the summer thermals and occasionally heading northward to climb again on the updraft over the rugged country there; it bore Boise's USAF blazon. Nobody seemed to know if the Church Universal and Triumphant had any aerial scouts, and if they did they weren't here now.

Mounted couriers or ones on cross-country bicycles dashed up to the command party now and then. The refugees from New Deseret straggling along the sides of the road or off in the fields to either side told their own story, and had since the day's march began. Rudi felt his inwardness wince slightly as a mother sitting on the bundle that must be all her household's goods watched him pass with dull beaten blue eyes, mechanically jog ging the infant that cried against her breast. Two older children sat beside her, and a white-bearded man who was probably her father slept on the hard dry ground limp with utter exhaustion.

Rudi saw his fellow clansman's eyes skimming over the refugees.

"Worried about Rebecca, too, eh?" he said-not teasing, but a real question.

"Well, we were friends," Edain agreed. "I'm sorry for all these folk, true I am, but it's different if you know someone in particular."

Another courier drew up with a spurt of gravel and dust from under his mount's hooves.

"Mr. President!" he said, saluting and pointing south eastward."The Saints' command group is about half a mile that way, with a couple thousand troops following. They're in pretty rough shape, sir-a lot more of their civilians and a lot of wounded, and they say their rear guard pulled out of sight of Twin Falls three days ago. The enemy's snapping at their heels."

"Thank you, Corporal," Thurston said. "Please give my compliments to their commander-"

"Bishop Nystrup, sir. Civil official."

"To Bishop Nystrup, and tell him we'll be with him shortly."

Rudi saw Edain's ears prick up at the name. Ragged tent camps appeared, set up by the civilian refugees and the Red Cross from Boise, and shapeless masses of exhausted people lying where they could in pasture and fallow land. More crowded around a field hospital and the advance guard of the main Boise force, who were handing out buckets of water and big loaves of hard dark bread from wagons.

But they're not trampling the standing grain, Rudi thought with sympathetic approval. That takes a special type of decency, it does, when you're hungry and hurt and fleeing for your life.

Just then Edain's head came around, a swift move ment like a hunting wolf's. He reined his horse aside and heeled it up into a canter, over to the field hospital, then leaned from the saddle and spoke to one of the helpers. When he came back, he was gri

"That was Rebecca! The Mother's hand is over her, and that's the truth!"A scowl. "They have some bad en emies, Chief. Those people aren't just hurt and hungry. Some of them…" He shook his head.

"Regiments… halt!" Thurston called, in a flat unmusical tone like angle iron hit with a hammer, as a dark thread grew visible on the road ahead.

The trumpets brayed, relaying the order down the long snake of men and animals that filled the old inter state for miles behind them. The marching regiments did halt, from the back of the column forward and in a ripple that brought the whole to a stop in less than a minute, without any of the collisions or stop and-start you could have expected among ten thousand troops on foot and half as many horses and mules.

"Command group, follow me!"

They legged their horses into a canter, the flag beside the ruler of Boise flapping in the hot wind of their passage; nobody had complained at Thurston's whim of allowing the youngsters from the farthest west along, though they got the occasional glance. A group of mounted men sat their horses at the head of the troops ahead, beneath another ba

…

Terrible, he thought. And I don't think he recognizes me… just doesn't have the attention to spare.

The bishop sat his horse among several other soberly clad bearded men, and a clutch of what were certainly soldiers and from their years most probably officers. They all wore olive-green uniforms and steel breast plates, mail sleeves, armguards, and round bowl helmets fronted with the golden bee. The armor was dinted and worn, and the square shields some carried were hacked and splintered, a few showing the stubs of arrows. Several wore bandages as well, some seeping red. As he watched one had to scrabble out of his saddle as his horse col lapsed. The stink of dried sweat from them was powerful even by the standards of soldiers in the field, and their faces were thickly covered with sweat-ru

"Thank you… Mr. President," Bishop Nystrup said as Thurston drew up, his commanders and aides beside him and the golden eagle and Stars and Stripes lofting above.

He spoke humbly; and unless Rudi was wrong, it was a difficult task for a proud man.

The army behind him was still proud too, but it was beaten, even the unhurt. A ragged bristle of pikes stretched backward in clumps that were not really units, mingled with archers and crossbowmen and a single field catapult that he could see; you could sense the weary shuffle that had brought the broken companies this far.

There were wagons full of wounded interspersed among those still walking, their moans and cries a soft threnody of pain below the sound of hooves and wheels on the broken gravel-patched pavement of old US 84. Supply columns from Boise were doing their best to feed them and take care of the injured.

"We'll do whatever we can," Thurston said, swinging down from the saddle and taking the man's hand as Nystrup clambered down stiffly. "And we'll do our best to get your people what you need."

"Thank you," Nystrup said again. "We've already gotten the food and medical supplies you sent, and…"

He fought his face to stillness. Thurston turned his own gaze aside for an instant, to let the man recover his self-command.

Nystrup swallowed. "Our rear guard has broken contact with the Corwinites, but they're close behind us."

One of the Mormon officers spoke. "We'd have had to turn and fight to keep them off the civilians within a day or two."

His eyes met Thurston's, sharing the same thought: And been massacred to the last man.

"Then we'd better coordinate our efforts," Thurston said, his face like brown iron.

"We're willing to consider your terms-" the bishop began again.

"My only terms are that we fight together to put down this madman," Thurston said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Startled, Nystrup blurted: "That's a change!"

Thurston shrugged. "I've made mistakes, but I try not to make them twice… and three times is excessive. I do ask for the military command, but we'll leave the poli tics for when that's been done. I intend to restore your people to their homes, and the US government won't ask for any territory-for anything that your people don't freely grant by their own unforced vote."

He spoke firmly, and loudly enough that both his own officers and the party from the east could hear him. Some of the Mormon military officers behind the bishop blinked in surprise at that, startled out of their exhausted dejection. A few looked suspicious; many glanced at one another, and there was a murmur as the words were repeated backward down the line.

Well, I've never heard a man confess a fault quite that smoothly, Rudi thought, letting one corner of his mouth quirk up. Sure, and I'll have to make a note of that for future reference, unless the gods give me the gift of infallibility.