The Protectors war

And finding out how to live in this new-old world. Odd how we elder folk can't stop thinking about the times before no matter how hard we try to forget, she thought. Maybe that's why so many have taken up the old ways or what they think were such; we Mackenzies, the Bearkillers, the monks at Mt. Angel-even Arminger, in his twisted dreams of a dark past.

She shook off the thought, taking deep breaths and calming her mind. Ground and center, she told herself. Live in the moment, for only the moment is real.

Someone had lent Laurel a kilt, though it was entirely too short-the hem was supposed to brush the upper edge of your kneecap when you were standing. Sally Martin was walking near and talking theology with her-which was a charitable way to describe it; Judy would have called it "Starting with the basics of Wicca 101."

"-so it's just as much a matter of becoming the God or Goddess as worshipping them; or both and neither; remember, they're not sitting outside the universe on a mountain looking at us in a magic mirror. They are the universe, that tree, that horse, me, you-"

She'd trained to be a schoolteacher before the Change, and was one these days; Mistress of Schools for the Clan now and Lore-Mistress of the Moon Schools as well, and she made as good a Maiden as Judy had, or better. Her knowledge was as broad, now; she loved the Craft as much; and she had endless kindly patience, which was a thing Judy's best friend Which I am, Juniper thought.

– wouldn't claim for her. Judy had been born to be a High Priestess. Melissa Aylward leaned out the window of the carriage, listening and offering her own observations now and then; some of her advice was more relevant, since Laurel was going to be living in a little farming dun like hers.

Someone in the straggling collection of Mackenzies began singing again, and everyone took it up. "Sweet Betsy from Pike" to start with, then "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," then-in honor of their destination-Juniper's own "Bra

Many of the teenagers and younger adults walked with arrows on their bowstrings, and shouts of Dropping shaft over the oak and into the stump! or The patch of poppies! told of impromptu games of rovers, punctuated by mothers calling shrilly for children to stick to the road and not wander into someone's field of fire. Astrid and Eilir and their Rangers played games of their own; mounted catch-me-who-can across the countryside, and hair-raising wrestling in the saddle at a gallop.

Which shows the strength of their arms and the strength of my character, Juniper thought. That I don't scream Stop before you break your necks to the young idiots!

Lunch was a huge chaotic picnic prolonged by an inter-sept softball game, and they made camp for the night in an open field near a tree-lined creek an hour before sunset. The distance from Dun Juniper to Sutterdown was about an hour in her old rattle-trap pickup; these days, three hours by bicycle, four on horseback pushing hard, one long serious day's walk, or one and a bit at the leisurely holiday pace. The nearest dun had contributed fresh milk and greens and an oxcart full of firewood to the camp; families and groups of friends or totem-brothers swapped things back and forth from their campfires; folk set up tents or just put their bedrolls in a likely looking spot, since it didn't seem likely to rain; everyone pitched in to dig slit trenches well away from the water, deal with the working stock and set the night watch.

After di

While the little ones clamored, she checked that her mug was easy to her hand on the boards of the wagon bed, and nicely full of De

"Toad and the gypsies!"

"Bilbo and the trolls!"

" Treasure Island!"

"Rob Roy and the Duke!"

"Pinocchio!"

"Robin Hood and the Sheriff!" her own son cried; Rudi had a weakness for hero-tales of derring-do.

That last one had special relevance. Motor cars and talking toads were equally the stuff of misty legend now, but oppressive kings and wicked sheriffs were unfortunately all too real-the word "sheriff' had already become a synonym for "lord" or "ruler" in many places. Especially so east of the Cascades, where deliberate archaisms of the sort favored by most of the Willamette communities weren't so common. Not all of them were that much of an improvement on Arminger or his new-made barons; you could be just as thorough a weasel-souled bastard of a man as John Lackland or the Sheriff of Nottingham without picking a fancy title out of a book.

"None of those!" Juniper said, dropping into her story-teller's voice-it had a bit more of the brogue in it-and laughed at the groans. Children wanting a favorite story over and over hadn't changed, either.

"No, it's a tale of Toad I'll be telling you, but a new one; how Toad and his friends fought off the wicked weasels who tried to seize Toad Hall. Now, you know Toad had a good heart, but he could be a foolish fellow when the mood took him-perhaps Robin Goodfellow had been about his cradle, eh? Like a little person I could name but won't, the one with the sunset-colored hair there."

Rudi gri

"Difficult Mr. Toad found it to remember that is mink a bhris beal duine a shron, it is often that a person's mouth broke their nose."

She could see lips moving as they memorized that. A few didn't get it, and their friends filled them in, miming a punch in the face.

"So long ago, when Toad and Mole and Ratty and Badger lived along the river in a land much like ours, and the people of feather and fur and stream spoke everyday with our heavy-footed kind: "

There was a mass sigh from the children, and they leaned forward, their eyes bright in the firelight.

Beneath the happiness, a small cold voice spoke at the back of Juniper's mind: Enjoy yourself while you can, Chief of the Mackenzies. Storm clouds fly, and ravens gather.

"Heave-ho!"

The cry rang out again, and a dozen hands hauled at the rope. The Lady's pillar swung erect, the base thumping down into its bedding, and more Sutterdowners with padded poles held it erect while the braces were fixed that would keep it so until the concrete dried. The tackle and pulleys were taken down from the arch above, and the ceremonial gate at the northeast quadrant of the circle was complete.

Juniper had to admit the folk of Sutterdown had spared nothing to make their covenstead splendid; in fact, seeing such a thing openly put the town's heart left her a little uneasy, after long years of discretion before the Change. She knew consciously that in the Mackenzie territories the Craft was the faith of the majority these days, had been for years in fact, and of a large and ever-growing majority at that. Unconsciously: