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Juniper saw Emiliano Gutierrez then, under his ba
The Marchwarden dropped his lance and shrieked as the arrow sprouted suddenly from his eyesocket:
"Blow the rally!" Jabar Jones shouted, reining in his horse.
He shook the blood out of his eyes; the helmet and coif had saved him from having his face transfixed, but not from a long gash on his forehead where a flap of skin hung down to show naked bone. The taste of his own blood was like tarnished copper in his mouth, the taste of defeat.
The curled trumpet screamed. Knights and men-at-arms pulled up their mounts, the horses panting and dribbling foam, those that weren't bucking or squealing from the pain of arrow wounds; one went over in a roar of metal as he watched, but the rider got free, staggered erect despite the weight of metal, and took the reins of a riderless horse that another led over to him.
Three hundred twenty, he rough-counted.
Back south by the road over which the charge had gone-both ways-the Mackenzies were coming forward again, each of them with their spear-shovel in hand. They planted them well forward, in their original position.
And then they stood, waiting. A murmur grew from them, then a chant, as they shook their bows overhead:
"We are the point-we are the edge
We are the wolves that Hecate fed!"
The baron of Molalla ground his teeth; pain and fury blended into an intolerable knot below his breastbone. Almost, he shouted charge!
"No," he muttered to himself.
A scout pulled up in a spurt of gravel. "My lord!" he shouted, pointing westward towards Mount Angel. "The monks-all of them, out of the city gates without warning! What should we do?"
Sutterdown, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 8th, 2008/Change Year 9
"The Lord Protector won't be happy," Sir Buzz Akers said, as the last of the officers left the tent.
"He's not the only one," Conrad Renfrew said, stepping out of the pavilion and pulling on his mail-backed gauntlets.
The camp had been full of desperate, disciplined motion since the courier arrived and Renfrew gave his orders; now the headquarters support staff threw themselves at the big command tent, knocking down poles and folding fabric. Little was left of the encampment that had held twenty-five hundred men, save the ditch and bank; the supply wagons waited drawn up in columns down the principal street, and the troops themselves in neat formations with their unit ba
"I thought Dick Furness was going to cry and cut out his own heart when I told him to torch the stores," Renfrew added, with a grim smile contorted further by the scars theft seamed his face. "But we're traveling light-west to the I-5, north to Oregon City. If we can, we'll cover whatever fugitives from Emiliano's force managed to make it out."
He looked at the sky again. The peach orchards would be at their peak in the Hood River country now, and from the tower of Castle Odell he could see them scattered like blocks of pink froth between the plowlands. And April would be even better, as the cherries and pears came into bloom; he could smell them a mile off. His wife Tina loved them, and had the place stuffed with flowering branches; the scent lingered for weeks afterwards.
"So, we lost despite our numbers, my lord?"
Renfrew shrugged and set the helmet on his head. "We haven't won," he said. "But neither have the enemy-they haven't knocked us out of the game, not if I can save this army. We still have more men, and we have the castles to fall back on. They've just pushed us back to the start-line and cost us a campaigning season."
And you're right. The Lord Protector will not be pleased. But Norman Arminger is going to get a piece of my mind.
Chapter Eighteen
Castle Todenangst, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 10th, 2008/Change Year 9
N orman Arminger had wanted to hold a full meeting of the War Council, in a presence room where he would sit on a throne of sable granite and gold. Sandra had talked him into using this chamber, high in the Dark Tower but much more informal, with a window that looked down over the gardens outside the keep, and plain except for the carpet, table and chairs: and the black stone of the walls. Those were partly covered in maps. Only three sat there; herself, the Lord Protector of the Association, and its Grand Constable. Fresh spring air poured through, smelling of cut grass; the scent mingled with that of the rhododendrons in their shallow bowl in the center of the table, but it was not enough to cut the curdled psychic stink of rage and fear under the arched groinwork of the chamber's ceiling.
"What I did," Conrad Renfrew said, "was bring my troops back intact and pick up a thousand or so of Emiliano's, including a lot of his knights and men-at-arms. Thus preventing a defeat from turning into an absolutely catastrophic defeat that would have left us open to invasion or revolt."
Arminger gripped the arms of his chair. "Conrad, you told me that you didn't think the Mackenzies could get around north of you."
"No, I didn't think they could do that," the Count of Odell said. "Not over those trails. Bold move. Very risky. It paid off, for them."
"Which means that while you were standing looking at Sutterdown they got around behind you and ass-fucked you!" Arminger snarled; his fist hit the table surface with a dull thudding sound-it was four inches of solid teak.
Renfrew's hideously scarred face was calm, the blue eyes impassive. "That's one way of looking at it," he said. "Or you could say that I'm the only commander you sent out this spring who didn't get his army either beaten up like Alexi or completely wrecked like Emiliano."
"That's my lord, when you address me," Arminger grated.
Ever so slightly, Sandra's eyes rolled towards the ceiling. Renfrew shook his shaven head.
"No, here with just us three it's Norman from me to you, Norman," he said. "Look, I've been carrying water for you since the day of the Change, when you and Sandra came bopping in and talked me around. You didn't make me Grand Constable because I was a complete fucking idiot, did you? So try listening to me for once. Try listening to this."
The Grand Constable was in military dress but not armor; black leather pants, shirt, and a black tunic with his own arms on it inside the outline of a heraldic shield-sable, a snow-topped mountain argent and vert. He reached inside the neck of the baggy woolen garment and produced a sheet of paper. The calluses on his fingers scratched on it as he spread it out.
"This is the minutes of the Council of War, back in February. We're leaving our left flank open for sixty miles, quote unquote. We're attacking three ways at once, thus carefully throwing away the advantage of superior numbers, quote unquote. We should have Alexi stand on the defensive and tie up the Bearkillers without getting the Corvallans hot and bothered, and invest Mount Angel with six thousand men, even if it takes a year, quote unquote. Because then it wouldn't matter what the God-damned kilties did. Instead you got greedy, and yeah, we got collectively ass-fucked. The above is the voice of the only man on the Council with the balls to tell you what you need to know, Norman."