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Dance skyclad in the gathering storm
In Solstice time blood runs to the rod!
It?s just the coming-?
Rudi-no, Artos -flung his arms high, the blade of the spear glinting like ruddy flame, and as if the gesture had called it forth the worshippers roared: ?-of the Horned God!?
He sprang onto the altar. ?He will call you out, make you sweat
Give you a blessing that you?ll never forget
So revel in the chase and let your hot blood run?For blessed are we children of the Horned One!
Blessed are we children of the Horned One!?
The Coven answered, swaying forward together, stretching out their hands to the tall shape of the Wild Huntsman: ?We call you forth as we make our way
Waking your power every day
Guide us true in the Hunt this night
And maybe even later-in the Great Rite!?
The masked figure threw back his head and bellowed laughter. ?You can wake to the sound of the hunting horn
Dance skyclad in the gathering storm
So revel in the chase and let your heartbeat run
But you best be ready, pretty-doe one
You best be ready when the Horned God comes!?
The spear lanced out again, as if it were pointing at her. It was impossible, but she knew it was true even if Rudi had no idea she was there; and from the point fire seemed to crinkle every tiny hair on her skin. ?He will call you out, make you sweat
Give you a blessing that you?ll never forget
So revel in the chase and let your heartbeat run ?For blessed are we children of the Horned One!
Blessed are we children of the Horned One!?
Even then she didn?t quite lose control of herself; she eeled backward with a lifetime?s skill before she ran blindly, half sobbing. And when folk about the work of the Sheriff?s steading stared at her she made herself walk into the lamplight, smile and nod.
Odard looked up in alarm as she came into the chamber the travelers had been given as their common room. His questions died as she sat. ?Just… play, would you, Odard? Remind me of home.? ?As your Highness commands.?
He bowed deeply and sat, taking up the lute. The clear notes rang in the night, drowning all the sounds of the wildwood where it rested like a great feral beast, beyond the walls and laws and rules of men. ?I wish we were home,? she said at last.
He kept his fingers moving on the lute, and his face averted. ?The problem is, your Highness… I think things may be going badly at home, too.?
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Signe Havel cursed quietly beneath her breath, and spat to clear the alkali dust from her mouth. It was futile; the cold morning wind that snapped the dark brown ba
She was a tall fair woman a little past forty; the face under the raised visor of her sallet helm was still beautiful, in a fashion now slightly harsh. The sixty pounds of Bearkiller cavalry armor-breastand backplate of articulated steel lames, similar cover for upper arms and thighs, vambraces and greaves-didn?t bother her.
It?s about the only thing about this cock-up that doesn?t bother me very much indeed, she thought. But Mike taught me a long time ago that you have to look positive for the troops.
She?d kept all her skills up, enough that she wasn?t a handicap on a battlefield where command was her primary job, but she hadn?t taken the field for years. Most of the time she ran the civil side of Bearkiller affairs from Larsdalen-the core of which had been her family?s summer home even before the Change-and left active military leadership to her twin brother, Eric Larsson.
But most of the time we?re not scraping the bottom of the barrel and holding on with our fingernails, she thought bleakly.
And then, as she watched the skirmish half a mile away:
I haven?t forgotten how to do this. I also haven?t forgotten how much I dislike watching men die. Even strangers who?ve never done me any personal harm; my friends, even less.
It was a chilly winter?s day here up on the high sagebrush plains east of the Cascades, which introduced yet another of the discomforts of wearing armor-in summertime she?d have been roasting like a pig after a blot in the suit of articulated plate, and now it made her sweat whenever she was active and then let the moisture in the padding beneath turn dank and greasy-chill as soon as she was still for more than a few moments.
Which right now is the least of my worries.
The enemy had thrown up the earthwork fort beside the old road bridge in less than a day; her own field engineers were lost in professional admiration at how swift and thorough it had been.
Damn them all, Signe thought. Hella eat them and spit the bones into Gi
The foursquare earth walls appeared as if dug by a race of giant prairie dogs, with four low thick towers of prefabricated timbers at the corners, sheathed in steel plates and a broad abatis covered in angle iron and barbed wire. The United States of Boise?s flag flew over it; since they considered themselves the United-States-of-America-full-stop they used the Stars and Stripes. Which her husband, Mike Havel, had always considered slightly blasphemous for any of the thousand-and-one successor states in the ruins of the world left by the Change.
At least Lawrence Thurston had really believed in restoring the United States. His parricide son, Martin, just wanted to be Emperor, as far as the reports could tell.
The cavalry deployed around it to protect the construction were mostly Pendleton rancher levies, light cavalry armed with bow and slashing-sword, few with any protection beyond a bowl helmet and steerhide jacket. And a platoon?s worth of the Sword of the Prophet, elite troops of the Church Universal and Triumphant out of Corwin. Boise?s theocratic allies were armored in lacquered leather and chain mail, and unlike the ranchers and their cowboys they used both lance and bow.
Which was supposed to be our Bearkiller A-list?s monopoly, she thought. There aren?t as many enemy horses as there were yesterday, when I decided we couldn?t take them on. That?s because the fort?s finished today. Do we get anything by wi
The Bearkillers had ranchers? retainers with them as well, men and the odd woman from the CORA, the Central Oregon Ranchers? Association. The two forces of light horse were skirmishing, loose knots of horsemen galloping and exchanging arrows that twinkled as they reached the top of their trajectories and plunged downward. Now and then a man would fall, or a horse. A clump of riders would drive in to the rescue, and light broke off the honed edges of the swords as little squads cut and stabbed at each other, saber against shete. One such rescue party got a little too close to the new fortlet, and there was a deep unmusical tu
The ball from the six-pounder scorpion was too fast to really see save as a streak until it was nearly to the target. Distance mercifully hid the details, but she thought it smashed a man?s head off; certainly he rode on for a dozen paces before toppling. The others exploded outward like a drop of water on a hot greased skillet; one of them paused a second to swing the unhorsed comrade they?d first come for up behind him. The dead man?s horse followed the rest of the war band with the stirrups bouncing loose. ?The High One receive him, and the valkyr bring him the mead of heroes,? she murmured, and signed the Hammer with her was. ?And that one who rescued his friend is a brave man too,? her son Michael Jr. said.