The Protectors war

Me dad didn't get a tractor until I was Tamar's age, either. The house never did have ru

That made him smile again; the same mix of stubborn conservatism and sheer poverty that doomed his father as a farmer had given the younger Aylward a set of archaic skills that were coming in very handy indeed, post-Change.

The laughingstocks of Crooksbury, we were: but this Aylward's laughing last.

A collie wagged its tail as they opened the gate, but stood alertly until they'd hitched the wire to close it again. A little further along the fence a man leaned against a post with resigned patience, his bow in his crossed arms and a spear propped beside him.

"G'night, Larry," Aylward called, while the dogs exchanged sniffs.

"A good night as long as it doesn't rain, Sam," the shepherd said with a brief wave, then turned back to his charges.

He had his supper in a cloth-tied bundle at his feet, and a good thick coat and rain slicker, but Aylward didn't envy him-the more so as a kilt was a bit drafty at times, even with drawers beneath. The fashion had taken strong hold, though. Everyone teased you if you didn't wear one most of the time, and teasing was no joke living close with the same faces every day.

"I'm shrammed already," Smith grumbled.

Got that word from me, Aylward thought, with a wave and a nod. At least he got it right. It was a cold and shivery night, at least by Willamette standards. And I'm headed back to a hot di

Dun Fairfax had been built around a century-old farmhouse left vacant by the Change-the owners been elderly Latter-Day Saints, and very, very diabetic-to be a base for those who worked this stretch of the clan's land. The graves of the Fairfaxes stood on a slight rise not far from the gate, well-fenced and with a stone marker. Juniper Mackenzie had gone to some trouble to get Mormon rites said for them; several of the residents also made small offerings now and then, from courtesy and because the supplies in the old couple's barn and basement had helped to keep the proto-clan going for crucial months. He didn't know what they'd think of becoming the tutelary spirits of a Wiccan farming hamlet:

The Mackenzies had added twelve more homes, ranging from log cabins to frame buildings built from salvaged materials to what the Yanks called a double-wide, that last hauled in by a four-hitch of Suffolk punch draft horses Then they'd enclosed it with a ditch, bank and log stockade, plus a square-set blockhouse over the gate. The circuit included the old Fairfax barn, a meetinghall-cum-covenstead, more sheds, storage and workshops, and room enough to drive all the livestock in come an emergency. The whole was in a west-tending valley with Dun Juniper perched up the slope to the north.

The high peaks to the northeast were touched with pink by the setting sun, and tall ranks of Douglas fir stood north and east and south where the rolling bottomland crinkled upward into high hills or low mountains. From here he could see down a swale in pasture, over a fence and a trickle of creek, up through an apple orchard with the buds just burst, and past the truck gardens that surrounded the dun to the pointed logs of the palisade itself.

The original farmhouse was his-he held sixty-four acres from the Clan, a good little bit of a farm, the biggest in this settlement-and it had been built on a rise; that and its own two-story-and-attic height left the top of it visible from here over the wall.

As he watched a lantern came on behind a window, showing soft yellow flame through glass and curtains, and then another and another. No other lights flickered within eyesight, though Dun Juniper was just up the slope to northward. The chuckle of Artemis Creek a little to his south was loud tonight, full with the spring rains and the begi

He laughed softly as he took a deep breath of the fir-scented air down from the mountains; it mixed with the damp grass, a whiff from the pigpens, woodsmoke and cooking from the dun. Edain's patience broke, and he ran on ahead; the dogs looked for permission before dashing off in pursuit.

"What's fu

"Well, girl, I was just thinking that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."

Or even an ill disaster-beyond-all-reckoning that didn't leave someone better off.

No fault of mine the Change happened-it came as near as bugger-all to killing me too, slow and nasty. But all I've ever liked doing is soldiering, hunting and farming; and here I get to do all three as much as suits me-with chick and child thrown in, which I never expected. None of that frabbling with the bank and the prices and regulations that broke Dad, either; we eat what we raise, or trade it straight-up for what else we need. And when I fight, I do it for my own family and friends and the land that feeds us.

He'd taken the queen's shilling before he was old enough to vote, gone where she sent him and fought whoever the officers told him to fight, and given it all he had. The whys and wherefores weren't rightly any of his business; he was a soldier, and it was his trade.

Defending his own was: Sort of: direct-feeling – more personal, like.

"Where does that song about the yew tree and the bows come from, Da?" Tamar asked as they walked along; she was getting old enough to be curious about the family history. "I mean, not just from England?"

"God"-he caught himself and added-"and the Goddess know, girl. I learned it from my grandfather. Tough old bugger-must've been eighty as I first remember him and still strong as an oak root; I was the youngest of four, the rest all girls, you see, and my dad married late. We Aylward men do. Granddad fought in World War One, he did. Came back limping."

She nodded understanding, walking along beside him in the gathering dusk. "Yes, I know, Dad. But the song?"

"Well, he said he'd got it from his grandfather, who got it from his-who fought bloody Napoleon if you can believe it-who got it from his, and I don't know how many more generations. Tell you the truth, it's what first got me interested in bows as a nipper. I liked to play at Hundred Years War."

She gave him a puzzled look: "You were a soldier over in England, Dad. Didn't you always shoot a bow?"

"That was before the Change, remember. We used guns."

"Oh," she said with a shrug, obviously dismissing a time that distant.

Never heard a firearm set off, probably, and doesn't remember cars or the telly much, he thought, shaking his head a little. And to Edain, they're fairy tales, like Robin Hood to me, or Jack and the Beanstalk.

"But that's cool about the song, though," she went on generously. Aylward hid a grin.

They walked up the graveled way to the blockhouse.

The gateway through the man-thick palisade logs was open; it was just wide enough for a two-horse wagon, built up of heavy timbers covered in bolted-on steel strapwork. The forging was crude-Aylward had turned his hand to smithing a little, but was no expert-yet immensely strong. The villager on gate-guard duty for the night was just lighting a lantern and hauling it up a flagpole before climbing the steep plank stairs to the platform under the parapet.

"Cheryl," Aylward said, nodding. "Seen a young boy go by, well-plastered?"

"Hi, Sam, Tamar. Edain went up the street in a rooster-tail of mud a couple of seconds ago," she replied, settling her steel cap with a sigh and going up with a lunchbox in one hand and her bow and quiver in the other. "Followed by two mud statues shaped roughly like dogs," she added over her shoulder.