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I'm a gardener, Chuck Barstow Mackenzie thought.
That had been his first love, growing things, though the Barstow family had already been two generations off the farm when he'd been born. One of his first memories was helping his father plant a Japanese cherry tree in the backyard, his small hands pressing the peat moss and potting soil down around the little sapling, and he'd checked it daily and laughed with delight at the first blossoms.
He'd been working in the city Parks Department in Eugene when the Change happened, and thirty years old.
How the hell did I end up a general? the First Armsman of Clan Mackenzie thought. OK, so I was in the Society…
"Halt!" he called, and his signaler-his younger son Rowan-unslung the cow-horn trumpet and sounded it: huuuuu-hu-hu!
The column braked to a stop, the dust of their trail-bikes falling ahead of them. He was on horseback, and a few others, but most Mackenzie crofts didn't run to a riding horse, and a bicycle didn't need to be fed or tended when you weren't using it. Their faces were glistening with sweat; it was no joke biking cross-country in thirty pounds of brigandine and helmet, with a quiver across your back and two more slung on either side of the rear wheel, but it beat marching for effort and speed both.
"The Grand Constable says you're to deploy there, my lord," the Portlander courier said, pointing to the low crest ahead of them. "The Bearkillers and the contingent from the Warm Springs tribes will be on your right."
"Very well," he said. "You may tell Lady d'Ath that we'll hold the position."
And I don't like taking Tiphaine d'Ath's orders, either, he thought.
She had killed his foster daughter Aoife in the War of the Eye-with her own hands during the abduction of Rudi, back when she'd been Sandra Arminger's personal black-body-stocking girl ninja.
OK, that was war and Aoife was armed and fighting back. And now we're all allies. It still sucks.
The rest of the Mackenzie contingent set their bicycles on the kickstands, lining them up with the front wheels pointing west. The carts and ambulances and the healers set up nearby; everyone else followed him a thousand yards eastward, loping along at a ground-eating trot. Chuck reined in and waited until they were all within range and then raised his voice to carry; there was a trick to doing it without screeching.
"Mackenzies," he said. "The Prophet's men came onto our land and killed our own folk in Sutterdown last Samhain, when we'd never harmed them. When our dead come visiting this Samhain night, what will we tell them?"
"Blood for blood!" someone shouted. "That we've taken the heads of them and nailed them up over the door!"
A long growl answered from the broad semicircle of snarling painted faces, fists or bows thrust into the air in a rippling wave.
OK, I like the old stories too, but let's not get ridiculous.
The problem was that you could never be quite sure what the younger generation would take from the ancient tales. Chuck continued:
"We came here because we thought the Prophet's men might come and use Pendleton as a base against us, and his friend the tyrant of Boise."
Which would have been a bit unfair to the old General, but fits his son Martin like a glove, he thought. And probably a lot of these kids volunteered because they were bored with working on their home-crofts and because Lady Juniper asked it. I'm glad I don't have Juney's job, by the Horned Lord!
He gri
"Well, it turns out they're both here-not just their men, but the leaders themselves, to be sure. Lady Juniper knew what she was talking about, eh? So there are more of the enemy than we hoped or expected, and that's war for you. Don't think of it as being outnumbered…"
"Think of it as having lots of targets!" someone finished the old joke, and there was a roar of laughter.
"That's not all we've learned," he went on. "We've had a letter from our tanist, Rudi Mackenzie-Artos himself himself, the very Sword of the Lady off on his quest to the sunrise lands."
That brought them all leaning forward, eyes intent.
"This prophet scabhteara attacked him, yes, and set evil magic against him and his friends, and took his anamchara Mathilda prisoner. They scorn all other men, and all gods save theirs. But Artos walked into their camp at night, and brought her out for all their sorcerers or swordsmen could do… and when he left there were a fair number of them making their accounting to the Guardians, for the Morrigu was with him, and his sword her scythe, reaping men."
He paused, and said with mock solemnity: "Earth must be fed."
That brought more laughter, some a little scandalized, and another long cheer, with shouts of Rudi! and Artos! all rising into the racking banshee shriek of the Mackenzie battle-yell, stu
"The Lord of the Long Spear is with us, and the Crow Goddess. We're fighting for our homes, our kin, our Clan, and the land your parents spent their blood and their sweat to win," he said, just quietly enough that they had to strain to hear him.
"But Earth must be fed. Not all of us will walk away from this field. And this war won't be ended with a single battle. So listen to your bow-captains, stand by your blade-mates, and shoot fast, straight and hard!"
Their pipers struck up, leading the contingents to their places, the skirling drones pealing out the jaunty menace of "The Ravens' Pibroch." Behind them there was a faint rat-tat-tat… And then a shattering BOOM! Even expecting it, he had to control a start.
He'd read somewhere before the Change that a big Lambeg drum had about the same decibel level as the engine of a Piper Cub. Nothing else in the world today came close to massed Lambegs, unless it was thunder or an avalanche of anvils falling on rock. That was something Juniper Mackenzie had taken from her father's people, who'd been Ulster-Scots before they began the long trek West. This was the music they'd used to shatter their enemies' hearts and lash their own folk into the blood-frenzy.
BOOM! Then Boom-boom… boom-boom-boom… boom… BOOM! repeating over and over with a maddening irregularity. It wove through the piping until he could taste it at the back of his throat, like blood and hot brass.
He dismounted, handed off the reins, and walked a dozen paces eastward. That put him on the crest of a low ridge ru
Rowan planted the green flag with the Crescent Moon between antlers beside him. The Mackenzies waited in their three-deep harrow formation, a long slightly curving line like a very shallow S that followed the crest, each dun's fighters by the neighbors who would take home the news of their honor or their shame. He waited until they were set before barking:
"Plant the swine-feathers!"
Spread out like this they couldn't all hear his voice, but Rowan put the horn to his mouth and blew a series of long-and-shorts, the blatting snarl cutting through the rumble of an army shaking itself out into battle formation. Each of the Clan's warriors reached over their backs to a bag slung beside their quivers and pulled out a pair of yard-long ashwood shafts, tied together with thongs. There was a flurry of purposeful movement, and a long snick-snick-clack! as the metal collar-and-tongue joints were fitted together. That left every Mackenzie holding a six-foot pole with a long spearhead on one end and a narrow-bladed shovel on the other.