Sunrise Lands

The rancher's son cleared his throat. "Be that as it may, we still got to get the herd through here, so nobody up to Bend or Burns will notice and tell General Thurston in Boise. Bet that Prophet fella has spies there too."

Father Ignatius smiled wryly. "He does, my son. Unfortunately the Order's information is that he has had missionaries preaching to the wanderers east of here, as well."

Bob finished his chicory and turned the cup upside down. "Yup. Which means we should all suit up from here on out. Riding in armor ain't what you'd call comfy but it beats getting an arrow through the gizzard all to hell and gone."

"A

He sounded frustrated enough to cry. Garbh cantered over and bent her head to gently draw the practice arrow out of the gritty, rocky dirt beside the sagebrush and trotted back proudly with it held in her mouth. Edain bent in the saddle to retrieve it. He wouldn't cry, of course, but his face was red and angry; that showed easily, with his fair complexion.

It was probably even more embarrassing that he had to practice near the CORA men, who'd grown up shooting recurves from horseback.

"Better this time," Ingolf said.

Rudi nodded to himself, sitting his horse nearby. It had been: a near miss. Which was surprising; Edain was a champion shot with the longbow, and this last year he'd given Rudi hard competition at the butts. Only to be expected from Sam Aylward's son, of course, which made it the more puzzling he was having so much trouble learning this.

Ingolf went on patiently-he made an excellent teacher, and he was at least Rudi's equal with the shorter recurve horseman's weapon.

"Look, you're first-rate with that yew pole of yours, but this is different. You've been practicing shooting on foot all your life, right?"

"Since I was about six," Edain said proudly, the flush dying away. Awkwardly: "I'm just not used to missing all the time, is what."

"Yeah, you're scary with that longbow on foot, kid. But what you know is getting in the way of what you've got to learn-I've been doing this since I was six. You're not going to get it in a day or a week."

The sagebrush clothed plain stretched around them, but the silver-gray brushes were thi

"Take a minute and watch," the easterner went on, lifting his own saddlebow. "Look, from what I've seen with a longbow you draw like this, past the angle of your jaw and below it."

The long draw was the way to get the best out of a yew stave. He shifted his string hand upward three inches and slightly forward.

"Now, with these short recurves you have to draw to your ear. The limbs come back and the string lifts off the section towards the tips as they straighten out and then bend the other way-a nice sharp C, not a shallow curve like your bows. Believe it or not, the bowstave gets longer that way; that's how you can shoot a long arrow from a short bow. Try it."

Edain did, and sweat burst out on his forehead as he forced himself to overcome training that went far below the conscious level.

"I feel awkward as a hog on ice," he grumbled.

"Again," Ingolf said. "You just have to get used to shifting methods back and forth."

Edain did it again. As he did, he tried to set his feet as he would shooting a longbow from the ground. The problem with that was that the horse he was on inter preted it as a command and wheeled sharply to the right, dust and bits of gritty yellow-brown rock spurting from under its hooves. It also snorted and looked back at him, as if to say, What do you think you're doing?

Ah, I see the problem, Rudi thought.

The young Mackenzie was a fair horseman; the Ayl wards could afford to keep a riding horse, being well to-do by the Clan's standards. But those standards didn't include a class of landowners with dependents to do the work and the leisure to master mounted combat, the way Bearkillers or Ingolf's folk did. Mac kenzies were smallholders, farmers who might ride horse or bicycle to battle but who got down and fought on foot.

Edain brought the animal under control and started to try again, his square face grimly intent. Sweat streaked the white dust and brown-yellow stubble on his face; two days ago they'd been taking an icy plunge in Mustang Lake, which memory was too pleasant to recall in this hot dry saltbox.

"Clamp down with both your thighs evenly," Ingolf said patiently. "Stand a little in the stirrups when you do it. That's a range-country horse and he's trained to it."

The lesson went on. There wasn't much else to do as the horse herd and Rudi's party made their way slowly eastward. Even in the spring flush the grazing here wasn't much, which meant a hundred and twenty horses-not counting the riding and draft animals-had to spread out and spend a lot of time eating. The cowboys told a joke about a jackrabbit that starved to death hereabouts because it forgot to run between one blade of grass and the next.

With excruciating care, Edain did everything the way Ingolf had told him to. This time the arrow went sh

"Keep practicing," Ingolf said.

"That I will," the younger man said. He waved a hand around at the arid emptiness. "It's not as if I had anything else that needs doing, eh?"

Rudi nodded, and gave him a smile and a slap on the shoulder as he legged his horse up to a canter. I'll make him self conscious if I practice around here, he thought.

He was giving Epona all the rest he could, so he was on her daughter Rhia

Hope he brought along a couple of extra crossbows, Rudi thought ironically. Not likely to find replacement parts out here.

Some of the score of Rancher Brown's hands along on the trek were practicing archery as well; it didn't take many to keep the horses moving. Rudi gave them a glance as he reined in next to the others.

"Not bad at all," he said.

Everyone nodded. They were all young, but they had been trained by professionals from childhood.

"Strange they're such good archers," Odard observed. "Most of them are barely even middling with the sword, and they're mere dubs as lancers."

"Not really strange," Rudi said. "It's the same reason they're such good riders. What they do to feed themselves in peace is training for war, you see. They spend most of their working lives in the saddle watching their stock. The bow's a tool for them too, for hunting or guarding the herds."

Mathilda spoke thoughtfully: "Mom and the Grand Constable are a bit worried about that," she said. "About the trouble it might cause in the long run. There's a lot of cowboys, not many in any one spot but a lot in total, because there's a lot of ranching country out there."

Mary and Ritva nodded silently. One of them took a small jar out of her saddlebag and they both applied the greasy looking lotion within to their faces and necks and hands. Mathilda took it with a sigh and began to do likewise.