Sunrise Lands

The core of them broke only when the baron came with his knights and their menies behind them, their fighting tails of men whose trade was war; barded des triers, lances and men-at-arms and wet-gleaming gray chain-mail hauberks.

He remembered seeing Rudi racing down the beach with gobbets of mud flying out from under Epona's hooves, throwing torches into the Haida boats. Three of them were burning, black choking smoke as the oiled cedarwood caught. Then the last started to slide free, and there was a savage scrimmage around its bow. A Haida chieftain with a raven's wing on his helmet thrust a spear down at Rudi and Raen and Juhel de Netarts, and swords were scything up at men along the ship's side who clubbed back with oars and tried to row it out deeper. Raen fell back wounded and Rudi reached down to pull him out of the red stained water, throwing him across his horse's crupper, and Edain put the last arrow in his quiver through the Haida as he thrust downward at Rudi's face.

A few raiders jumped into the water and swam into the bay, but the others threw down their weapons…

Edain staggered as silence fell, suddenly aware of his chest heaving against his brigandine as he struggled to suck in air, and the stink of his own sweat mixed with the tacky iron smell of blood. Or what felt like silence fell; there was still the crackle of fire-and the shouts of men trying to put it out, and others from the wounded, and a great crowd of people. A Catholic priest came up with a wagon, the red cross on its side and a load of bandages and salves within, and a brace of women in plain dark dresses and wimples-nuns, they called them. They began setting up a field hospital. The baron's lady and his mother and a round dozen of others in cotte hardis and ordinary women in double tunics pitched in beside them.

The people cheered the Mackenzies, waving scythes and pitchforks and spades, some of them dripping red; people were pounding him on the back, harder than he'd been hit in the fight.

And they cheered Baron Juhel and his men as well, and harder, holding up their children to see the good lord who would not leave his people to the terror from the sea. Rudi looked around, visibly thought for a moment and then dropped back from where he'd been riding at the baron's side…

To leave the cheers for Juhel, Edain realized suddenly, blinking and feeling as if his mind were floating up from deep water into the sun. Well, that's the sort of thing a Chief has to think about, eh?

The sun was out now, burning away the last wisps of fog; he blinked against that, and the harsh smoke stung his eyes and made him cough, conscious of how dry his mouth was.

Juhel de Netarts had his plumed helmet off, hanging from his saddlebow, and pushed the mail coif to fall back on his shoulders. The smile he'd worn as he waved to his people slid off his face, and though he was well short of thirty he looked a lot older.

"God's curse on them," he swore, looking up at the burned ribs of the ship on the slipway. "I put money I couldn't afford into this, and borrowed more against Lady A

"Petition the Lady Regent," Rudi said promptly, dabbing at a long shallow slash on the angle of his jaw and holding a swatch of bandage to it. "Get Lady A

"Thanks to you for that," Juhel said, and looked at him dubiously. "They'd have gotten away otherwise, and taken a lot with them. But the Spider's awful tight with a coin. Happier taking it in than giving it out. Usually bleating about the tithes just gets you what the sheep gets at shearing time."

"Yeah, she's not what you'd call openhanded. But she knows you have to spend to get, believe me… and I know the Princess Mathilda, and that her mother listens to her."

Juhel gri

Ah, Edain thought. And the tanist doesn't even have to come right out and say he'll urge the princess to advise her mother. What a Chief he'll make for the Clan someday!

Rudi lowered his voice: "And if I were you, I'd be very careful. The Haida knew too much about just where and when to hit you. Something smells there, and not like attar of roses, either."

Juhel nodded, then walked his horse a few steps over to where the other Mackenzies were grouped. Raen's friends and kin from Sutterdown had laid out his body and those of three others; they weren't keening them, being among strangers, but they'd put the coins on their eyes and laid holly on their breasts, and were chanting softly:

We all come from the Mother

And to Her we shall return;

Like a stalk of wheat

Falling to the reaper's blade Otter and Ri

"Lord who holds this land," she broke in, her voice with an edge like sharpened silver. "What will you do with your captives?"

There were about a dozen of them, mostly wounded, bound and under guard. Juhel looked at her oddly, and shrugged.

"Take off their heads and send them to Portland, I suppose, mistress," he said. "Easier than sending all of them."

"No," she replied. She pointed with the spear.

The whole length of it still glistened dark red as the blood grew tacky. Juhel looked at her… but over her head, rather than in the face.

I wouldn't like to meet her eyes right now, either, Edain thought as she went on, giving orders like a queen:

"Is it that there's an ash tree there, not far from your castle, tall and great?"

The nobleman nodded, and his look grew odder still and more sidelong.

"Put your men about it-about it in a circle, wearing iron and carrying spears and the emblems of your god. Bring your dead and lay them beneath a cairn with the blessings of your Mass priest. Then hang the evildoers from the tree in sight of the dead and leave them for three days and nights. Do that, and you'll have… luck, luck for you and your land. Do that, or bury them living at a crossroads with a spear driven in the earth above."

"Ahhh…" Juhel swallowed, crossed himself and looked aside, shivering a little.

Rudi gave him a nod, short but sharp, and the baron drew a deep breath.

"I suppose we might as well hang them now. Sir Brandric! See to it! And the rest, as well."

"A pleasure, my lord. Very much a pleasure," the tall grizzled knight who commanded the garrison of Castle Tillamook said, and stalked off barking orders and gri

Eithne's knees buckled then, as if something-or Someone-withdrew a hand that had worn her like a glove. She shook her head as Edain tried to help her, then almost fell. When he caught her in his arms the eyes rolled up in her head and she went limp; somehow he'd been expecting her to be heavier, but it was the familiar slender form he picked up, though her head rolled against his shoulder. Cold fear worse than any he'd felt in the fight clawed at his gut as he bore her over to the aid station the nuns had set up, letting the spear fall to lie in the wet trampled grass.