The Protectors war

Hordle rolled his eyes upward and put his hands together in an attitude of prayer: "Of course not, Mr. Loring! I deny everything! How could you think such a thing?" He clutched at his chest. "I'm wounded, wounded, I tell you!"

Alleyne laughed. "We'll see what develops. What do you think of settling here? Father's giving it serious consideration."

"And I know why," Hordle said with a wink. At Alleyne's blank look he chuckled and went on: "Seriously, it's pretty country, right enough, nice climate-a lot like Hampshire, only better-there's plenty of land for the asking, and the hunting's good. I could get myself a bit of a farm, or even a farm and a pub. Incidentally, they're not bad, themselves, this Ranger lot, even the girls. I thought they were a bit, mmmm: informal-like, but they know what they're doing and they don't waste time talking when it's important."

"Not surprising, when you consider that Sam had a say in training them early on. Not to mention Mr. Havel. And they've had real work to do here, with bandits and raiders and the prospects of a pukka war hanging over them. More than we did in England, when we weren't sent abroad. Being in the regulars back home was too much like being a policeman at times for my taste, this last little while."

"Right. Never did want to be a copper. Still, at first I thought:

"

Alleyne gri

Hordle shrugged his massive shoulders. "I deny everything!"

That evening was pleasantly cool, enough for the fire they lit in the big fireplace to be welcome for more than the leaping flames. Di

"I watch the deer and geese go by, fox-foot in the snow;

Climb the peak of Washington mountain, looking to the valley below-"

"Hey, people," Astrid said when the tune died down. "Business for a minute. Look, we've been using this place for years, but only on and off. What the Dunedain need is a base. Someplace we can train new members, store our goods, an armory, have a few people always on hand. I've talked to Lord Bear about it: "

And I've spoken to Lady Juniper, Eilir added. She thinks it's a good idea.

"We could claim this whole area-the old state park, and say another ten thousand acres around it, and manage the woods. Nobody's using it much and we did run those bandits out of here; Mark got killed doing it. And it's such a good hideout more would be sure to come here if we didn't patrol."

The Rangers looked at each other. The redhead- Kevin, Alleyne thought. The one with the medical training -raised a hand. "How would we live?" he said.

Partly by hunting, Eilir said. That's good here even in winter-animals come down from the high country. We could swap the surplus for things, and eventually sell some timber, and things like nuts. And we wouldn't be here all the time, not all of us. Plus we could contract for special jobs. We already get paid for tracking down man-eaters, and we could do more guarding caravans south past Eugene, or out east over-mountain. We already get top rate for road-guard work, a lot better than the scruffy thugs who usually get hired. They'd know we wouldn't rob them.

"And since what we do here in the Valley helps everyone, I think we can get a contribution from the Mackenzies and the Bearkillers both," Astrid said. "Maybe from Cor-vallis and Mt. Angel, too. You know, flour and cloth and spuds, horses, some cash, too, that's only fair. There's enough meadow near here for our horses, and we could have a few milch cows and a garden, if there were someone here to keep an eye on things. Shall we try it?"

The youngsters looked at each other. "Beats spending all your time farming," one said meditatively. "Beats it all to hell and gone."

"Rangering's the most fun I've ever done," another said, winding a braid around her finger. "It would be nice not to have to give it up. But what about kids and stuff?"

"Well, the original Dunedain were Rangers for generation after generation," Astrid pointed out. "It ran in families: I mean, most jobs do, these days, don't they? There's plenty of places like this we could have bases-call them Ranger-steadings, say. Like the hidden city of Gondolin, or Thingol's hidden kingdom, but on a smaller scale."

Like Imladris, Eilir signed.

The discussion went on into the night. The proposal passed on a show of hands; then Astrid went and stood by the mantelpiece with its load of books.

"What'll it be tonight?" she went on brightly. "Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, History of Middle-Earth, the Bestiary, or the trilogy itself?"

And here I was going to suggest a walk in the moonlight, Alleyne thought. Then he saw Eilir glancing at him. Of course, I hadn't quite decided whom to ask.

Dun Laurel, Willamette Valley, Oregon

August 14th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"Eilir!" Juniper Mackenzie called, waving broadly. "Astrid! Over here!"

The site of Dun-Laurel-to-be was swarming with workers under the bright August sun, filled with wagons, teams of oxen and horses, heaps of logs, timber, cement, and wheelbarrows, and loud with the sounds of saws and axes, shovels and hammers and ratcheting winches. Laurel Wilson's people were there, all eighty-nine of them, plus another forty who'd decided to join the new settlement, and a good three hundred from elsewhere in the Clan's territory, plus quite a few wanderers and gangrels come in to earn a little by casual labor. Three sides of the palisade were up, with blockhouses at the corners-a new refinement-and the rest of the great logs were ready, left down to make access easier for the work going on apace within. One old farmhouse was already there, now repaired and made weathertight again, and other buildings were already frames or sheathed in planks; houses, a meeting-hall-cum-bad-weather-covenstead, barns and sheds and smithy, weaving shops and granary. Enough space was left for small gardens, herbs and flowers; outside, below where the little creek broadened out into a pool, pegs marked out truck allotments.

Most of the fields about were shaggy-overgrown, or grew nothing but tents and temporary paddocks, but a start had been made on clearing a few, and they showed as neat squares of brown tilth, plowed and harrowed.

Near Juniper, Laurel Wilson, Alex Barstow and Nigel Loring bent over a table crowded with drawings, and weighted down with slide rules, compasses and set squares. Laurel frowned and hitched at her plaid as Nigel traced a line with one finger.

"And once the windmill has pumped the well water there, Ms. Wilson, you can lead it by gravity to all the houses and to your livestock as well. Then waste drains into this artificial-swamp system; first these covered pits full of chopped bark and sawdust-or straw and leaves, anything like that will do-to take the raw waste, then through the reed-bed, into the pond with willows around it, and at the downstream end of that you've got clean potable water you can use for stock, or irrigating your truck gardens. The reeds are very useful, the composting pits give you fertilizer when you dig them out every few months, and you can raise fish in the pond, as well."

"You'll be the envy of the Clan with that," Juniper put in. "We're putting one in at Dun Juniper ourselves, and it's a lot better than what we had. Sir Nigel gave us the idea."