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"Well, perhaps they were wiser than I thought, the old Americans, to make this a monument," he murmured.
No light showed in the circuit of the horizon, and he could see for many miles from here. A few minutes, and an owl went by beneath the steep northern edge of the rock, a silent hunter's rush through the night that ignored him as if he was part of the landscape. Far and far a lobo howled, a sobbing sound deeper and more mournful than a song-dog. Its pack echoed the call, and Rudi nodded; he'd amused himself by counterfeiting that sound many a night when he was out in the woods and wilds, hunting or traveling, and having the fur-brothers answer him as if he were one of theirs.
What are our wars and our kingdoms to them? It makes you realize our littleness, and how everything has its own concerns, he thought. But the Lord and Lady have given us power to mar or mend the world beyond what the four-foot brethren have. So it's for the world and all Their children that the Powers are concerned with humankind's doings, as well as for our own sake.
He knelt and drew his sword, laying it on the sheath and sitting back on his heels, with his hands on his thighs and his vision centered on it. The forge marks in the damascened steel were like ripples in watered silk, dim and sinuous in the starlight; Mathilda had given this blade to him for his birthday when he turned eighteen and had his full height, though it had been a touch heavy for him then. The blade proper was just long enough to reach his hip bone with the point on the ground, tapering gradually from three fingers' width to a long point, and the cross-guard had been forged of a piece with it, something that took a master smith. The hilt was long enough for both single- and double-handed grips, wrapped with breyed leather cord and brass wire, and it had a plain fishtail pommel; you had to look closely to see the Triple Moon inlaid there, rose gold in silver.
Rudi Mackenzie had grasped the Sword of Art in his infant fingers, when Juniper had held him over the altar in the Nemed at his Wicca
"Sad Winter's child, in this leafless shaw Yet be Son, and Lover, and Horned Lord!
Guardian of My sacred Wood, and Law His people's strength-and the Lady's sword!"
A sword isn't like a spear or an ax or a knife. It's the tool that humankind make only for the slaying of our own breed, Rudi thought. So You have chosen me for the warrior's path. And as husband to the land, father to the folk, I must walk in the guise of the God, the strong One who wards Your people. But You know my mind. I don't fear death; when it's my time to walk with You, Dread Lord, and know rest and rebirth, I am ready. I don't fear battle, though I do not delight in it. It's… that others depend on me and look to me that harrows my heart; my friends, my kin, those I love, those whose need I must serve. I fear to fail them.
He'd made the usual evening devotion, but a sudden sharp need seized him; he wasn't one to be always bothering the Powers, like an importunate child tugging at his mother's kilt and whining for attention, but…
Rudi raised his hands above his head, palm pressed to palm:
"Bless me with your love, Lord and Lady, for I am Your child."
The hands moved to his forehead, thumbs on the center where the Third Eye rested:
"Bless my vision with the light of wisdom."
To the throat, and:
"Bless my voice, that it may speak truth."
To the heart:
"Bless my heart with perfect love, even for my foes, for each is also Your child."
To the spot below the breastbone:
"Bless my will with strength of purpose, that I may not falter on the red field of war."
To the loins:
"Bless my passions with balance, making even hate serve love."
To the root chakra, at the base of the spine:
"Bless my silent self with clarity, that I may shun error."
To the soles of the feet:
"Bless all my journey in this world, that my path be the path of honor, until my accounting to the Guardians."
Then he held his hands up, palms before his face:
"Bless my hands, that they may do Your work on this Your earth."
Finally pressed together above his head once more:
"Bless me and receive my love, Lord and Lady, for You are mine as I am Yours; you powerful God, you Goddess gentle and strong, hear your child."
Smiling to himself, he took up the sword and sheathed it, a quick flick and a hiss of steel on wood and leather greased with neatsfoot oil, and the ting as the guard met mount at the mouth of the scabbard. Suddenly a shooting star streaked across the dome of heaven, and he chuckled.
"Well, I can't say You don't have a sense of timing!"
Edain was waiting for him at the base of the rock. Garbh sat at his heel and gri
"Did you see the falling star?" the younger Mackenzie said.
They headed off to the northwest, which would be their watch-station.
"I did that," Rudi said, gri
"Huh?" Ingolf Vogeler said, startled out of an evil dream.
Someone was close, very close. He pretended to drop back into sleep, but his hand crept to the staghorn hilt of his bowie, beneath the folded blanket he was using as a cover for his saddlebag pillow. The rough horn slipped into his palm, and he prepared to coil up off the ground…
"Well, I'm not here to have a knife fight!" someone whispered.
"Oh," he said; it was a woman's voice.
The face of one of the twins was close to him as she knelt, smiling. "Though I could probably have killed you if I wanted to."
"Oh," he said. "Well, true enough. Ah, Ritva-"
"Mary," she said. "But I sort of like you, actually, Ingolf." A smile. "That was really pretty music."
The smile was expectant; that gradually turned to a slight frown as he shoved the bowie back into its scabbard and sat up, scrubbing at his face. That was a mistake, since the bruises were still fresh enough to make him wince. His wits returned, enough to realize that she was carrying her bedding and dressed only in her shirt… though she had her scabbarded sword in one hand with the belt wound around it, like a sensible person in the circumstances.
It was late; his eyes flicked automatically to the stars, and read them as past midnight. Nobody would be up now except the lookouts.
"Uh…" He flogged himself to full awareness as she sat beside him and put an arm around his waist. "Umm, I sort of like you too, Mary."
I must be older than I thought, ran through his mind. Or more depressed. A beautiful half-naked blonde is propositioning me, and I'm not actually leaping at the chance. Well, part of me is, but the rest isn't.
Her smile returned and got broader-the part that was leaping was sort of obvious through the blanket. He was suddenly aware of the su
"If you want me to get specific," she murmured into his ear, "you're brave and smart and you've got a good sense of humor when you're not depressed and you've got a really cute butt. And I've known you for months now, so that's not a snap judgment."
"Well, I was real sick for the first couple of months." Then he realized why he was oddly reluctant, enough that his mind was overriding the hammering of his pulse.
Saba. We'd only just met that night I rode into Sutterdown, and that was the last time I was with a woman.
The curved Cutter knife had been rising above him as he woke beside her. He swallowed as he remembered the way she'd shrieked as the Cutter's knife went in, and the way it had looked and smelled. Far too much like the sound and smell when the hog butcher put his spiked pincers on the beast's nose in the fall… and that lay over the memory of what had gone before.