A Meeting At Corvallis

"A bit more than that," the young Englishman said judiciously. "Still, there's no denying they can shrug off a loss like this more easily than we."

Astrid flung him a smile; the way he took everything so equably was one of the wonderful things about him. She knew her own nature was more changeable.

"Not much more. Even if Lady Juniper brings off what she's pla

Aha, Eilir signed, after she'd pushed her bow back through the loops on her quiver. You should remember that my most magical Mom's plans usually have a couple of little hidden wheels within the big obvious one.

Chapter Ten

Waldo Hills, Willamette Valley, Oregon

March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9

T he Grand Constable of the Portland Protective Association looked back at the tumbled wreckage of the bridge, and coughed slightly at the wafts of bitter smoke from the wagons that had borne the framework of his portable castle. The bodies lay about it; he gritted his teeth at the tumbled, naked corpses of his men-at-arms. Their commander still looked comically surprised as he sprawled on his side in a pool of congealed blood swarming with flies. The stump of the arrow that had killed him had broken off short when someone pulled the hauberk and gambeson off over his head; that someone now had a fine suit of mail, with only one small hole in it.

Conrad Renfrew repressed an urge to dismount and kick him in the face. It wouldn't do any good; it wasn't as if the idiot was still alive and able to feel it. Besides, right now his boots were full of water from fording the stream. The engineers were getting a temporary wooden bridge ready, but that would take at least eighteen hours, short as they were of grunt labor.

And I'm short a dozen men-at-arms and a knight, he thought sourly. The infantry weren't that much of a much, but losing skilled lancers hurt. Men-at-arms had scarcity value, and knights also had relatives and comrades who mattered at court.

"So I reckoned the only thing I could do was get the word to you," the mercenary said, tugging at his forked beard. "There were a few too many of 'em for my boys to tackle. They didn't lose more 'n four, five all up when they ambushed your folks.

"'Course, a lot of them peons got it where the chicken got the ax while they was swarmin' over your boys. We had a ringside seat over there on the other side of the water."

He jerked a thumb at a file of nearly fifty bodies laid out in a row, all of them with the iron collars still on their necks.

"You're not here just to drink and screw the peon girls, Sheriff Bauer," Renfrew rumbled.

He knew his face intimidated most men, which was some compensation for the memory of pain. The fact that they were surrounded by the household knights of the Constable's personal guard shouldn't have hurt either, but Bauer was smiling slightly: or that might just be his own scar, which was as spectacular as any of the Constable's, and stood out more for being alone. Renfrew tapped the serrated steel head of his mace on his stirrup-iron with a chink: chink: sound and stared at him; the other's green eyes blinked i

Aloud the Portland commander went on: "Or to sit in the saddle across a chest-deep creek and watch my men getting massacred while you pick lice out of your beards."

Bauer shrugged. "We ain't here to get kilt for no reason, neither. Your men weren't outnumbered much but they managed to lose that fight good and proper, the way them Rangers outsmarted 'em and took 'em by surprise; the only ones got out was the ones we took with us. Then I lost three good men chasin' the Rangers into the woods when they pulled out afterwards. You got too many woods around here for comfort. But that was fair business; like you say, we're here to fight, and I'm a man of my word. We're not here to get our asses kicked certain-sure."

Renfrew shrugged massive shoulders made more so by armor and padding. It was a fair point. The Pendleton area was theoretically under the Association now, but they couldn't afford to lean too hard on the men from there yet. They were volunteers from the wi

In fact, that little pursuit was well handled. At least thanks to Bauer I've got some idea which way they went, and he did save a dozen crossbowtnen.

"OK," he said, turning and looking at the wagons again. "We'll salvage the metal; they can rework it at the foundries up in Oregon City. And get someone to pull those oxen out of the river and hang them up to drain. No sense in letting good meat spoil."

"My boys already got one ready to barbeque," Bauer said. "We can handle the rest iff'n you want us to."

He gave a vague, sketchy salute and wandered off. Renfrew looked over at his clerk. "Do up a report and have it ready for dispatch to the Lord Protector inside twenty minutes," he said.

That got the man out of earshot. He was probably reporting to the Church and certainly to the Chancellery as well; it was amazing how a country with fewer people than a medium-sized city in the old days could develop layers of competing institutions and factions. Then he turned to the young knight beside him who commanded his guards.

"Buzz, get that idiot Melford's body packed up and send it on back to his kin with the usual nonsense about how bravely he died."

"Why not leave it for the buzzards and the coyotes?" Sir Buzz Akers said.

He was one of the Constable's own vassals, whose father had seizin of a manor near the castle at Odell; Renfrew had known the family in the Society before the Change, and arranged to get them the estate when he led the conquest of the Hood Valley for the Association, back in the second Change Year. The father stayed home these days and did his military service as castle garrison commander, since he had a leg that would never work very well again; that happened when they were smoking a lunatic archer in green out of the ruins of Seattle on a salvage mission five years ago. The son was here to learn, as well as serve.

And because my family will need loyal, able vassals if I kick off too early. He hadn't married until after the Change; his countess was a gentle soul and his children were all young.

"I won't leave the carrion where it belongs because it would piss off his family," Renfrew said. "Otherwise that's just what I'd do. Who cares if the coyotes choke on it?" He looked up at the sky; three hours to sunset. "That fool didn't scout carefully enough, and it's cost us a day and that fort, God damn it!"

Akers nodded. "Are we going to bring up more timber?"

"Not in time enough to do much good. Without the steel cladding and braces it's too vulnerable; we'll do what we can with earthworks for now and get fancy later. You take over here, Buzz; I've got to get back and make sure that Piotr doesn't screw things while I'm gone. Though how he could foul up a straight advance to the Santiam with three hundred troops, God only knows."

"Sir Ernaldo's a good man," the knight observed.

"And if Piotr would listen to him, I wouldn't worry so much. I wish he was over fighting the Bearkillers. He hates them but he doesn't underestimate them. I've tried to hammer into his head how dangerous the kilties can be if you let them call the tune for the dance, but it won't sink in. Sometimes-"