Sunrise Lands

Ahead was open country, and they looked down onto a plain of sagebrush and bunchgrass green with spring and splashed by yellow bee plant. It was cut by a small river lined with cottonwoods, ru

"That's the homeplace," the cowboy said, waving at a clutch of buildings, toy-sized in the middle distance. "There aren't many so fine."

A little village clustered there around the low-slung fieldstone ranch house, amid a wider setting of corrals, bunkhouse, paddocks and big barns of old-style sheet metal and newer ones of sawn boards; the square stone tower at one corner of the big house was probably new, too. John Brown's holding had been a good sized spread even before the Change, and afterwards he became one of the movers and shakers of CORA, the Central Oregon Ranchers' Association. He'd a

Couple of hundred people, more or less, Rudi thought. Pretty much what one of our farming duns has, or a Bear killer strategic hamlet, or a knight's-fee manor up in the Protectorate. Though there may be nearly as many out at the line camps this time of year.

That wasn't many for tens of thousands of acres, but the bones of the earth were closer to the skin here than they were in his lush homeland west of the mountains, and Brown had taken in as many townsfolk as he could feed after the Change. The cowboy clucked to his mount and they all moved forward again. Half a dozen more riders were on guard; two came up to escort them in, one of them with a light lance bearing the rancher's sigil on the pe

"They say Bend is a lot bigger," Cody went on. "But I say you'd travel plenty and find nothing better than this!"

Ingolf blinked, caught Rudi's eye, and lifted a brow.

Yeah, it's not much of a muchness, the Mackenzie acknowledged with a slight shrug. But sure, if they want to get excited over it, let's not be a wet blanket about it, eh? And it's probably a nice enough place to live. I don't like big cities myself.

There was no wall around the settlement, but all the houses were stone, with fireproof tile or sheet metal roofs; all the windows could be closed with steel shut ters that had narrow slits for shooting arrows, and angle iron posts set in concrete stood ready to carry tangles of barbed wire if need be. You could see how the ma sonry improved from the earlier houses to the later ones as hands gained skill, but they were all built thick and strong. The snout of a Corvallis-made catapult peeked over the top of the tower.

People were finishing breakfast or already at work, but they stopped to watch the strangers ride in. The smith was a brawny brick-thick man in a leather apron and sweat stained shirt beneath; he and his assistants paused while he plunged a white-hot knife blade into a quenching bath before they came out to wave. Many of the other folk came out also, from saddlers' shops and bowyers' and a big open-sided shed where carpenters were putting together something complex-probably a pivoting hay lift.

"Mackenzies! " the smith called, sounding happy to see them, a white grin splitting his sweat- and soot-streaked face. The man went on: "I trained in Dun Carson!"

Rudi reined aside and leaned over to shake his hand; it was hard as something carved out of cured leather, and strong even by the young clansman's standards.

"Cernu

"Goibniu strengthen your hand," the smith replied; it sounded a little odd in the flat twanging range-country drawl.

Now that Rudi looked, there was a mask of the Lord of Iron over the hearth, together with the crossed spears and cow horns-not as conspicuous as the patron deity of smiths would have been in a Clan settlement, but there. He made a reverence to it before he rode on. Most of the people here were Christians-there was a small Protestant church, and an even smaller Catholic chapel. He hoped it didn't cause the smith any trouble, but it probably wouldn't. Even a generation after the Change, metalworker's skills were still rare enough to be very valuable, and the CORA charter allowed freedom of religion.

Along one enclosure paced a great black mare, looking like another species amid the rough coated ranch quarter horses. Epona whi

Rancher Brown stood to meet them on the veranda that wrapped around the old stone ranch house, a leathery man in his sixties with thi

"You fellas get on back to the herd," he called to Cody and Hank. "Tell Smitty I know these folks and was ex pectin' 'em. And don't any of you go flappin' your lips about it."

Then he beamed at Rudi and came forward to shake his hand after he dismounted.

"Not that it'll matter, seein' as Smitty and his crew aren't coming back down for quite some while. You're looking all growed up, boy," he said.

"This is Edain Aylward Mackenzie and Ingolf Vogeler, friends of mine," Rudi said. "And you're looking the same as ever, Uncle John."

He'd been sixteen the last time the rancher came west of the mountains on CORA's affairs, but Brown and Juniper Mackenzie had done business from the first Change Year, and they'd fought the Protector together even before the War of the Eye.

"And you're a liar," the older man said with a wry smile. "Mirrors still work, boy. Come on in, all of you. All your other friends are here."

All two of them? Rudi thought, a little puzzled. And they're my sisters… well, half sisters… what are the twins up to now?

The big living room held leather-upholstered furni ture, racked weapons on the walls and a bearskin rug and more sheepskins on the floor; there was a mounted cougar head over the wide stone hearth. The twins were there, gri

Yes, he was there that night… his name's Ignatius. That's nine, he thought, his mouth thi

He looked at his half sisters. They saw his face and did a creditable imitation of what he thought of as their aunt Astrid's elf-lord-with-a-pickle-up-the-ass expression of hauteur.

"Let me guess," he said heavily. "You didn't have to tell her "-he looked at Mathilda-"so you could get her in on it without technically breaking your promise. And Matti, you heard something from your mother, so you could tell them"-he nodded to Odard and his servant-"what you'd heard from her."

Mathilda smiled and mimed clapping. "And nine is traditional."

The twins nodded seriously at that.

Father Ignatius spoke before Rudi could ask: "The abbot guessed," he said succinctly.

Mathilda went on: "It will give you a better chance, Rudi. And this is important. The Prophet thinks so…"