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"Whoa, girl. Steady there: " In a slightly different tone: "By God, someone was riding her without a bit! That's just a hackamore! And that's a kid's saddle, look at the stirrup-leathers."
The horse snorted and tossed its head as he approached, turning three-quarters on and looking at him out of one eye. It tossed its head again as he ran a hand down its arched neck, and stamped one foot on the ground. That made a faint ringing sound, like a muted, far-off cymbal.
This is the first horse I've ever seen in all my life without a single fault I could find, he thought. What a pity if nobody could claim her!
"You're a good-natured lady too, I bet," he said. You'd have to be, if a kid was riding you. Even so, what a stupid risk – this is a warhorse if I've ever seen one. What the hell:
He eased the bridle off and gave it a look. It was a perfectly standard piece of harness, new-made but from well-ta
"Get me a hobble," he snapped over his shoulder, offering a piece of dried apple in one palm.
The horse took it, then turned away again; it twitched its skin when he tried to stroke its neck again. The head groom picked up the light pad saddle and turned it over in work-hardened hands.
"Sir James," he said suddenly. "Look at this!"
The knight drew himself out of a dream. It had been a very pleasant dream; nobody claimed the mare, he performed some heroic deed right where the right person could see it in the battles to come: title on the estate near Walla Walla he'd been half promised: the Protector gave him the stud services of his Salafin, and he bred him to this proud beauty to produce the perfect destrier:
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
"Look," the groom said simply, holding up the saddle.
There was a design on the flap, tooled into the fine-grained brown leather with an awl. A circle flanked by two crescents pointing out to left and right:
"Jesus!" he said, crossing himself and taking half a step back, scrubbing his hand against his side. "Hecate's moon. The Witch-mark!"
"Should I get a priest, my lord?" the groom said expressionlessly.
"Yes. And get the officer of the day-Lord Burton. And get me that hobble."
An under-groom came ru
"So, so, so, quietly there, girl-"
"Watch out!"
Sir James managed to get an arm up before the hoof hit his face. It was a forward flick with the forehoof, not a milling downward strike, and only the bone of his arm broke midway between elbow and wrist as the sheet steel of the vam-brace bent. His breath hissed out at the spike of shrill, cold agony up the nerves of his arm, and he curled around it. More pain as a stamp cracked ribs through mail and padding, and then the mare was away and took the fence in a floating leap that brought a gasp of wonder to him, even through the agony in arm and chest.
Hands lifted him a little, and he cursed breathlessly. "Carefully, oaf! It's a sprung rib and a broken arm. Get a doctor."
So much for my visible heroism, he thought. I'm not going anywhere except very carefully to the toilet for the rest of this campaigning season.
"That was one beautiful horse, though."
Tail and mane like flags, it paced away northward.
Near Mount Angel, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 6th, 2008/Change Year 9
"Nigel!" Juniper said, and seized him for a quick, fierce hug before stepping back.
"My dear," Nigel Loring said, slightly shocked at how haggard Juniper's face had grown. "I heard. I seriously don't think they'll hurt him, though. They'll want to make use of him."
Juniper nodded. "They'll expect fear for him to wear me down, the which I will not allow," she said stoutly. "And since there's nothing we can do about it now, let's attend to what we can do."
He nodded, keeping the admiration off his face. I worry enough about Alleyne now, and he's a man grown, he thought. I can't begin to imagine what it would have been like to have him carried off at nine. And I know full well she's thinking But I wasn't there! Over and over again.
Instead, he looked up at the sky. It wasn't raining anymore, this cold and windy afternoon, but it was wet enough, with wisps of fog drifting from the tops of the trees on the ridges about them. That would neutralize the enemy's air scouts, at least for a while.
Juniper took a deep breath and ducked back under the awning set up under an overhang of the gravel pit's wall. There was very little there, besides the shelter itself; a bedroll covered in hard-woven greased wool, and a small chest that mostly contained maps now spread out on a folding table. Sam Aylward was looking at one as they entered, standing side-by-side with John Brown; he dipped his head to Juniper, and then nodded to his old commander.
"Lady," he said. "Sir Nigel."
"What's the word?" the CORA leader said eagerly. "My guys' horses are get-tin' hungry. They can't eat fir needles."
"I had a very productive conversation with Abbot Dmwoski and his staff," Nigel said. "A most remarkable man. We all left safely-they have a remarkable collection of secret passages and posterns, too. And now we should really begin."
The rancher nodded. "Glad to get on with it," he said. "Our fodder's just about gone and there isn't enough grass up here. Wouldn't want to try this if my remuda lost its edge."
"Very well," Nigel said. He bent over the map, and everyone else followed suit. "The encampment is here, with ditch, bank and barbed wire on top, and a surveillance tower at each corner."
Juniper nodded, blinking her leaf green eyes. He admired the way she could put aside grief; even more, he admired the way she'd picked up the tricks of the fighter's trade without any formal training, simply by experience and by being around experts.
"First, let's poke them with a stick," she said.
Lord Emiliano Gutierrez, Baron Dayton, Marchwarden of the South, looked down at the commander of the eastern mercenaries attached to his force.
"Sumbitch shot me a clear two hundred yards away. Wouldn't a thought any of those Sisters from Sisters could do it," the man said. "Musta been usin' one of those fancy bows from before the Change, with the wheels at the ends. That's not fair nor right.'' Then: "Shitfire!"
Words came to Emiliano's mind, but it was a bit awkward to curse a man who was having an arrow extracted from his thigh and who'd refused painkillers so he could report clearheadedly, or to tell him he was being an idiot-the only reason compound bows weren't used more widely was that so many of their parts couldn't be duplicated without computer-controlled machine tools and synthetics. Instead he rubbed a hand across his beardless brown face and rose slightly on the balls of his feet; he was a short stocky man in his midthirties, but quick-moving, full of bouncy muscle. He glanced at the medic.
The doctor wasn't a cleric, but an older man who'd been trained before the Change. His voice was crisp: "He will recover, my lord. It isn't a complex wound and the bone was not split. It will keep him immobile for a number of weeks."