Sunrise Lands

She always found confession comforting, and always tried to keep herself mindful of the importance, but it rarely struck her so strongly as it did this night, with the fallen of battle not a thousand yards away and the mem ory of the Death Angel's shadow, Azrael's wing brushing across her eyes.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm sorry for, but I sure feel better, she thought. Thank You, Lord.

Ignatius took his kit from his baggage and they walked a little way into the darkness; others didn't no tice, or looked politely aside if they did. He lifted out the white surplice and red stole and do

"Ecce Agnus Dei," he said three times. "Ecce qui tollis peccata mundi. Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takest away the sins of the world."

She took the wafer on her tongue.

"Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul for everlasting life."

Chapter Seventeen

Northern Nevada

June 1, CY23/2021 A.D.

"Yes," the scout commander of the detachment of the Sword of the Prophet said, sketching in the wet sand beside the pool. "The misbe lievers and their general are heading south and east, towards Goose Valley-you see, here, north of Wild horse Lake-they may push on into the hills south of the flats, to trace the old irrigation canal and repair it. The western pagans are keeping on eastward with the Mormon infidels; they should meet Thurston's force, or come very close."

The one-eyed man smiled, looking east and west over the encampment at the bottom of the canyon. There wasn't much to see; the horse lines were scattered up and down the rocky cleft wherever there was water within digging range, usually in clumps of cottonwood and willow. The men were even less conspicuous in the shadow cast by the narrow rock walls; a soft murmur of chanting came as some repeated the teachings in chorus, and the sound of oiled stone on steel as others touched up the edges of shete and lance and arrowhead. There was no smell of woodsmoke as there would have been with ordinary levies, no matter what the orders were; only rock and dust and the peppery-spicy scent of crushed sage and greasewood.

The commander of the detachment nodded eagerly at the scout's report; he was a youngish man, well short of thirty, shaven-headed and scar-faced.

"See how the Ascended Masters guide the lifestreams!" he said. "Your mission and mine, High Seeker, are now fully compatible."

Kuttner suppressed an impulse to grind his teeth. His authorization from the Prophet's son overrode ordinary military commands, or it should. There were times when he wished very much that the Prophet would establish clearer lines of authority below his own level, instead of letting disputes fester until they had to be referred to him… or to the Son.

And the Prophet speaks so seldom now, and so… oddly…

He shook his head. The Son has given you a mission. Let's get on with it. And when the Prophet discards his mortal envelope to rejoin the Masters, things will change.

Kuttner looked up again, and a man on the rim of the canyon waved down, stooping behind a boulder to be invisible from the outside.

Ritva Havel and her sister lay behind a ridge of rock. Their war cloaks covered and concealed them; perhaps not as thoroughly as elven ones woven in Lothlorien, but enough to make them effectively invisible beyond a few yards if they didn't move. The thin tough cloth with its loops full of grass and twigs and the gauze masks also provided welcome shade on what was turning into a hot day. In the high desert anything that broke the sun made a big difference.

There had been fresh horse dung down on the road that ran below and a mile west of this ridge. Someone had come by, even in this emptiness. Chances were they would again. Shod hooves, to boot. Which meant civi lized men, or at least the more capable and therefore dangerous type of savages.

The stretch of river valley ahead of her-the maps called it Goose Valley-ran from southeast to northwest, with an old graveled road down its center. It had been cultivated once; you could still see the outline of the square fields, and new marshes where the irriga tion canal had burst its banks, and a few small clumps of burnt out houses. She didn't know why whoever had lived here had left, but even this far into the interior things could have been very bad right after the Change. The thought was dispassionate; she'd grown up in a world where ruins were simply part of the backdrop of life. The death of the world that had built them was only a little more real to her than the Fall of Gondolin.

Insects buzzed and occasionally burrowed in and bit; conquering ants bore a beetle off in triumph across the ground in front of her face from right to left. Dry sage gave off its spice and-sneeze scent, to mingle with sweat she could feel trickling down her neck and flanks, and the smell of the dusty earth and pebbles beneath her. With the sun overhead there wasn't much danger of her binoculars giving them away either… though since there apparently wasn't anyone to see them, that was a bit moot. Still, they kept motionless as the sun crept up the sky behind them and then down westward ahead.

Think rock. Think root. Let the wind flow through you.

A maddening itch on the instep of her right foot came and went. A long eared desert hare hopped by, stopped for a moment to stand upright and wrinkle its nose at the dry air, then went on its way. A few minutes later a coy ote came trotting along its trail, then caught their scent when the wind changed. It shied violently sideways with a little spurt of dust before turning and loping away.

Ritva smiled to herself, a bit from the expression of bug eyed alarm on the beast's face and a bit smugly as well. When you could fool a song dog into coming within arm's reach, you were hiding, by Manwe and Varda!

That was how Aunt Astrid and the others insisted on training Rangers, and they were quite right, though some outsiders thought the Dunedain were too sneaky and patient to be real warriors.

Very faintly, she snorted and thought: Canuidhol lin. Rangers just didn't go in for the two masses of farmboys in-steel shirts-with-pikes style of head butting. She was sure the Fair Folk had never been quite that stupid; they'd had to contend with a much higher grade of Dark Lord than you found nowadays.

Though this Prophet guy seems to show some promise.

Antelope ran across the deserted fields; birds rose from the marshes and the dead trees. Then…

"Mmm-hmmm!" Mary said.

"Lots," Ritva replied; speaking quietly rather than whispering-whispers carried farther because of the sibilants.

There was dust coming from the north; individual trails, and behind it a plume-several dozen wagons or fifty or sixty horsemen, she estimated. And eagles and hawks, hanging in the air above them; they always did that out here when humans were on the move, hop ing for birds and small animals spooked into the open. One plunged as she watched, coming up with something wriggling in its claws.

And let that be a lesson to you, she thought. That's what comes of breaking cover 'cause you're nervous.

The trails of dust turned into horsemen. Ritva turned the binoculars with extreme care; the sun was getting lower and nothing gave you away at a distance like a glint. They looked like anyone's light horse-except that everything they wore was exactly the same; same short chain-mail shirt, same stirrup hilted saber, same model of saddle, same five pointed star tooled into the leather of the bow cases in front of their right knees.