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Everyone relaxed slightly when the cleric left. Renfrew spoke formally: "My lords, I suggest you all get your liegemen and contingents settled in according to the plan in the briefing papers, and we'll invest the city and see what we shall see. The patrol schedule is included in the folders. Sheriff Bauer, please remain for a moment."
When he and the Pendleton man were alone-except for Renfrew's personal guard-he raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I got all my boys answering to my orders," Bauer said.
I hope so, Renfrew thought.
"Only had to kill a couple-three of 'em, too." He worked his left arm as if the shoulder were sore. "I'll be good as new in a couple of days my own self."
The Pendleton area's spontaneous, homegrown version of neo-feudalism made the variety the Association had built out of books and Society make-believe look like Prussian centralization. The light horse from east of the mountains had come in the train of several sheriffs and half a dozen ranchers, and though they'd all theoretically been on the same side in the last civil war there, and all-equally theoretically-now accepted the Protector's overlord-ship, half of them had blood feuds born of previous abrupt switches of allegiances or just from the general bloody-mindedness produced by a decade of mutual slaughter.
The easterner went on: "Still, my 'chete-swingers ain't too happy. Nothing useful or pretty to pick up for the home folks, no girls to screw, not even much fightin'."
"They're getting paid regularly, aren't they?" Renfrew said impatiently. "The usual camp followers and sutlers will arrive soon enough and they can buy amusement. Or presents for their families. We've even got the postal service working as far as Pendleton; they can mail packages home."
"Yeah, but what's the point of a fight if you don't get to cut no throats or lift no cattle?" Bauer said.
Talk about rapid reversion to savagery! Renfrew thought. He's too young to have hem more than a high school student, hut I wonder what this hack-country clod's father did before the Change?
Conrad Renfrew had been an accountant, himself, when he wasn't playing at knights.
"Where are the Mackenzies' cattle and sheep, then?" he asked aloud. If anyone can follow a cow, these bastards can. Particularly if they're feeling sexual frustration.
"Near as we can tell, they drove some into town-probably salting those down to eat later-and sent some of the rest south, and quite a few head up into the mountains," Bauer said. "Lot of their folks went up into the high country too, judgin' from the tracks. Woods're heavy up there. Bad country for riders, just right for hiding if they got supplies stockpiled."
And our gliders are nearly useless there too, Renfrew thought. He waved a hand; southward, east to the vast mountain forests that stretched up into the High Cascades, and then west towards the Willamette with its brush and swamp and prairie.
"They're out there somewhere, Bauer. Eight hundred to a thousand kilties, and too mobile by half. They showed that when they corncobbed Lord Piotr."
With bicycles, they could be anywhere in the Willamette Valley south of here in a day or two; they might be hiding in the brush-grown lands between here and Corvallis, for that matter. The only good thing was that they couldn't get past him, not in any numbers, although that would be a reckless move even if they could. The mountain tracks to the east were too narrow and rough. He'd know it if they tried to go north in open country to the westward, and then he could move quickly to force battle on his own terms. Also, they didn't have any cavalry to speak of. Those were the only consolations he had, and he clung to them hard.
"Find them for me, Sheriff. I don't like sitting here with my thumb up my ass and a blindfold on."
"Will do, boss," Bauer said cheerfully, and left in his turn.
Renfrew stood for long moments looking at his map, and then traced a thick finger down from Mount Angel, through the Waldo Hills and over the Santiam, past the ruins of Lebanon and down to Sutterdown and past it to the Mackenzie clachan at Dun Juniper. Somewhere out there the First Levy of Clan Mackenzie were hovering. Somehow he didn't think they were just waiting to react to what he did. Which meant they were pla
"Not thinking of going further south, my lord?" Sir Buzz Akers asked him, handing him a blue plastic plate heaped from the buffet. "Heading for Dun Juniper, on the hope that they'd come out and fight us if we attacked their holy place?"
Renfrew started slightly. "With an open left flank all the way from Molalla to here, sixty miles as the crow flies and half again as much on foot? Christ, no!" he said.
Then he smiled unwillingly as he realized his younger vassal was teasing him out of his brooding mood, took the plate, ate a spring roll and forked up a mouthful of potato salad. When he'd swallowed, he said: "We should be back up around Mount Angel, doing one thing at a time. It'd take a while, but we could do it, nice and safe, and our good Pope Leo could send the wicked abbot to the stake, he does love a nice cheerful blaze at an auto-da-f. Then we could move on the Mackenzies with Mount Angel as a base of operations, not a hoe handle stuck up our collective assholes."
Sir Buzz looked at him oddly. "Do you think this campaign is in danger of failure, my lord?" he asked.
"Hmm? Oh, no, we'll win all right, there's not much doubt of that. We outnumber them so heavily we can afford to make mistakes, and they can't. I just don't want it to cost us more than it has to. That's why we should have taken Mount Angel first. Then I'd have four thousand men here, and we'd be able to leave plenty west of the river to make sure the Bearkillers didn't interfere, as well. Alexi uses his brains instead of just his balls and his fists like that idiot son of his, but I'd be happier if he had more troops, too."
He pointed his white plastic fork at the symbol on the map that represented
Dun Juniper, less than a day's march away to the southeast, even going around the spurs of hill which thrust out into the flat valley; that would be even nastier to take than Sutterdown, although not as bad as Mount Angel. From the descriptions the terrain would be a nightmare for a large force, and ideal for the sort of sneaking-through-the-trees business the kilties delighted in.
"Besides," he went on thoughtfully, prodding at the map, "I don't think Juniper Mackenzie is home right now."
Near Dun Juniper, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9
De
Aoife lay with her head on Liath's chest; from the blood trail, she'd crawled there, though it was hard to imagine anyone having the strength to do so, with those wounds. A man lay not far away with his face cut open, and another with a spear standing up from his chest. The pale features of the dead looked very white in the dusk, but the blood was nearly black.
Poor kids. Too damn young – He'd seen a world die in the Change and its aftermath, but this was far too personal-he'd watched these two grow from childhood. A rising babble of talk cut across his thoughts.