Sunrise Lands

The brief flare of emotion had tired him, and the soup and bread were making him sleepy. He let his head fall back and slept once more.

Rudi Mackenzie bent and lifted the end of the Doug las fir onto the sledge, getting some of the sticky aromatic sap on his gloves as he heaved it up. Shouting and laughing, their breath puffing in the cold damp air amid the drifting snowflakes and the mealy scent of them, the others bent and heaved and the whole length was on it, and it was the work of a moment to lash it down.

He turned and bowed his head a last time to the stump while he rubbed the sap off the leather of his gauntlets; they'd made the usual apology and explanation when they cut it yesterday, which should satisfy Cernu

A tall glossy-black horse brought her head up sharply not far away, where she'd been nosing the snow, more for something to do than from hope of finding anything edible; he could tell she was bored by the whole business. Despite the winter her midnight coat shone, and when she trotted over she seemed to float, barely tapping the earth with her hooves.

The reins leading to her light hackamore bridle were looped up over the saddlebow. Nobody had used a bit on Epona since they met; Rudi didn't need one, and it would be futile for anyone else to try. He'd had the horse since she was just under four and he was ten-that made her sixteen now, middle-aged in horse years, but even experienced wranglers usually put her at seven or eight at first sight.

"Well, you asked to come along," he said, scolding af fectionately as he stroked her neck and she lipped at his hair. "You get all pissy about me taking someone else out, even your own get, and then I bring you and you sulk because it's boring."

She'd never liked seeing him working with other horses, not even her own daughters Macha Mongruad and Rhia

"We bring the Yule Tree!" he called. "On to the hall!"

That got him a cheer; everyone here was young, from his age down to six-year-olds ru

"Hey, watch that!" he called. "Not while I'm riding Epona!"

It wasn't that the big mare wasn't well trained. She'd spun under him in response to his shift of balance, mov ing as lightly as a deer. The problem was that she was trained for war, and fiercely protective of him besides, and didn't know the difference between a snowball and a rock meant to kill. He had to check rein her then, and she snorted and shook her head and showed her teeth.

Epona was a genius of horsekind, but their intelligence was of a different type and order. You had to understand how they saw the world. He gri

"Well, you were the one who was pining because I didn't take you out enough," he scolded her. "Be good!"

He kicked his right foot free of the stirrup, bent down and retrieved the bo

This forest had been Mackenzie land before the Mac kenzies were a Clan, back before the Change; way back, since the family came out from east Te

"This is where they died," Mathilda said quietly. "Nearly twelve years ago now."

Rudi nodded; that had been in March of the last year of the War of the Eye, when Mathilda had been captive here. Her parents had sent a team of warriors to get her back; they had, and taken Rudi too, and killed the two Clan fighters guarding him, Aoife Barstow and Liath Dunling. He made an offering here every year on the a

She crossed herself and brought out her crucifix to kiss. "They fought very bravely, I remember that," she said gravely. "Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven, intercede for them, and for us all, now and at the hour of our deaths."

Odard repeated the gesture; they all sat silent for a moment in respect, then touched their horses into a canter and followed the sled.

It was already out of the trees, out onto the long lens-shaped stretch of benchland meadow that held Dun Juniper on the south facing slope of the mountain. The snow was knee-deep, with more coming as the weather thickened. Mathilda tilted her head back and stuck out her tongue to catch the flakes on it. Laughing, Rudi did the same; even Odard joined in after a moment. They passed the ta

Dun Juniper lay at the middle of the oval, hard up against the flank of the mountain, halfway between the ta

Rudi chuckled under his breath as he looked up at the walls looming through the snow; they were as high and strong as Sutterdown's, albeit the circuit of them was a lot less. Snow stuck in patches to the rough stucco, hiding the swirling designs of vine and leaf and flowers under the battlements.

And whenever he saw them, something deep within him said home, wherever he'd been.

"What's the joke, Rudi?" Odard asked.

"I was just remembering something my mother said. She showed up here right after the Change, and met her coven-she'd been in Corvallis; they were in Eugene. And she gave them this little speech, you know, to buck them up because they were all at sea and scared witless with it."

The other two nodded; they were all the children of rulers, in one way or another, and they'd grown up with the necessities of leadership. Rudi went on:

"And she said, 'It's a clan we'll have to be, as it was in the old days…' "

Odard frowned. "What's fu

"Yeah," he said, laughing outright now. "But she didn't actually mean it, not really. She thought it was, what are they after calling it, a figure of speech. She just meant they'd have to pull together to get through. It was the others who decided to really do that, and she says she pretty well just had to go along with it whenever they came up with something, like calling her Chief or Uncle De