Sunrise Lands

But then, Ritva thought compassionately, he's got it worse than us. He's seen treachery by his own kin.

"Rudi?" Mary said sharply; he and the younger Mackenzie left the battlefield together.

Edain's sunburned face flushed. "We had a big clump of them on our heels so we split up. I managed to lose mine and get here." His lips thi

Father Ignatius nodded and glanced at the sun. "Anyone who is not here yet isn't going to arrive," he said.

Then he pointed north, to a tall hill. "And there is a dust trail heading in this direction. At least a score of men."

Ritva winced. That meant either the enemy, or Boise cavalry… who might well now be the enemy; she didn't have enough of a feel for the place or the politics to know how openly Martin Thurston could hunt the ones who knew he'd killed his father.

If it's the Cutters, they caught someone and made them talk, she thought.

"What do we do?"

Ignatius smiled; it was grim, but confident. "We need to find the others… Rudi most of all."

"Head back towards the Prophet's men?" Mary said. "And… well, if they've caught him, they'll either kill him or take him east. That's a big piece of flatland and then hills east of here. We can't search it all."

"Not on the ground," Ignatius said. "But I think there is an alternative, God willing."

Ignatius looked at the leveled crossbows and raised his empty hands in a sign of peace.

"Give me a moment to speak, my sons, and then do as you will," he said.

The great curved shape of the Curtis LeMay filled most of the emergency airfield; it was staked down to a dozen heavy steel posts sunk in the earth on either side. The gliders and their launching apparatus were scattered across a wide stretch of sparse pasture around about. Soldiers and ground crew stood about in clumps, their faces grim; many showed the marks of weeping. The air was warm and very still, and smelled of latrines and metal and crude cookery, and under that a chemi cal taint from the steel gas-generating boxes on a half dozen great six wheeled wagons.

"The couriers said you were wanted in co

The men and women behind him growled slightly, gripping their weapons and staring narrow eyed.

"We saved the president once," Ignatius pointed out. "You know that, and that it makes no sense for us to save him once to kill him a few weeks later. But don't take my word for it."

He urged his horse aside. A gasp broke out as Frederick Thurston's brown face came clear to their sight.

"And here's your own president's son to tell you the truth," Ignatius said, his trained voice rolling out clear.

"I know this place," Rudi Mackenzie said to himself and his horse, his voice hoarse with thirst.

Mountains rose before him, bare save for a scattering of silvery gray scrub, up great walls of rock and scree to the glaciers floating far above. The smell of cold rock and aromatic herbs and old sweat soaked into wool and leather filled his nostrils. The rattle of stone under shod hooves was loud, and far and faint came a baying like wolves that he knew was men. Ahead was the rest of the bare ridge, and over it another huge empty valley. The mountains were very far.

On the slopes of the ridge he could look far behind. Three separate plumes of dust headed towards him; he judged their speed and then ran his hand down Epo na's neck. She snorted and tossed her head, weary as she was.

"So, my girl, you've run well, it's splendid and brave and strong you are still," he said.

But there's only one of you, and I'm riding heavier than most of those even with only my helm and brigandine, I think, he mused. Soon you will be grazing the meads of the Land of Youth.

High above, black wings cruised through the air. He chuckled. "It's often I've said I'm ready to come when You call me, Lady of the Crows. If this is the time… well, I'll harvest a field as a bridal gift for You, so!"

He dismounted and took a careful swallow of his water, then poured the rest of it into his helmet and held that for Epona. She slobbered eagerly and her lips chased every drop into the padded lining.

"Now, don't be greedy, my fair one. That's all there is," he said gently, and put the sallet back on his head.

The raised visor acted as a sunshade; it was six hours past noon, and the long night of pursuit had tired them both.

"Sure, and they're a very determined lot, and have most impolitely kept between me and the rendezvous," he said. "Now let's see if I can break through them eastward and circle about beyond them."

He couldn't; that was obvious. He might be able to take some of them with him to the Summerlands, and give them a good talking-to there along with the Guard ians, to shame them for serving a bad cause even if they did it bravely.

"And Edain got away," he said. "Now, that's a comfort. If Mother must grieve, at least old Sam is spared that."

Then he laughed, full-bodied. "So much for my grand journey across the continent! Yet I don't regret that as much as never really trying to give Matti a sound kissing."

He mounted again, waiting, and working his sword arm to limber it. There was no fear now, and he thought he could hear voices singing-a deep humming, perhaps the bees making honey in the flowering clover meads of Tir-na nog.

"Perhaps my father lingers there yet," he murmured as he drew his sword. "I never knew him as a man. We could talk, eh, and perhaps ride together and hunt and yarn, before we return once more."

The Cutters approached with shocking speed. Their "Cut… cut!" sounded triumphant as they saw him, and his answering shout was as joyous. Epona belled chal lenge, rearing, and he stood in the stirrups to call: "Welcome, brothers, in the name of the Crow Goddess!"

He laughed to see their rage, brought his shield up be neath his eyes as his legs prepared to clamp the horse's barrel one last time. For one long instant he thought the humming and song behind him were Her train, and the shadow that suddenly fell Her wings.

Then the Cutters were stopping, pulling their horses up so sharply that some of them reared or crashed in a neighing tangle into their neighbors. Bows dropped from nerveless hands. One stood and fired into the air, but a shaft streaked down from behind Rudi's head and went crack into his armor, the gray fletching of the Mackenzie clothyard shaft blossoming against the red-brown leather. As he slid from the saddle his mates wheeled and fled, only the cursing of an officer trying in vain to rally them.

Silence filled the air, along with a vast creaking. Slowly, slowly Rudi turned his head to see the Curtis LeMay ris ing further from behind the ridge, a hundred yards in the sky. That was close enough to see the faces-Edain, his half sisters, Frederick Thurston, Father Ignatius.

"Where-" he began.

Two of the crew slid down from the fore and aft of the gondola, planted anchors against solid rock, and winches squealed. Soon his friends and kinfolk were around him.

"What took you so long?" Rudi mock-scolded. Then his face grew serious. "The others?"

"No sign," Ritva said, and her sister nodded somberly. "There were enemy approaching the rendezvous."

Which means someone was captured, and talked, Rudi thought grimly.

He turned to Ignatius. "It's a luck bearer you've been for me, my friend," he said formally, bowing his head a little.

"God's will," the other man said.

"And Hers," Rudi added with a grin. That died as he looked at the others.

"It's a good deal of work we have to do," he said.