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They even found energy to sing, as they strutted into camp with their piper sounding off, a rollicking tune with a chorus that went: ?Gather the sheaves of harvest-time lightly
Many a day will they strengthen our kin;
Gather the sheaves of arrow shafts tightly
Many a battle their feathers will win!
Call the names of the clansmen who?ve fallen;
Let them be carried like seeds on the wind!?
The bridge had been as thoroughly destroyed as thermite, metal saws and enthusiastic sledgehammers could manage in the time they?d had. ?That?ll delay them,? Will said as their mounts surged up the low slope on the other side of the stream.
Rock rattled down as hooves pushed them out of the damp sandy earth. His cousin snorted. ?Yah. Just as long as it takes Thurston?s engineers to bring up materials to build a replacement,? Mike said.?While they also bring up enough troops to hold us off.?
His face turned to her.?Moth-I mean, Ma?am, why aren?t we bringing up enough force to stop this? They?re nailing down Highway 20 like someone tacking down a strip of carpet. At this rate, they?ll be at the gates of Bend by springtime. After that there?s nothing to stop them short of the forts in the passes over the Cascades.? ?Trooper, we?re not doing that because they?re doing something like this in half a dozen other places as well. If we put more troops here, they?d push west faster somewhere else.?
Greasewood fires were burning under big aluminum kettles cut down from old trash barrels; the smell made spit run into her mouth as her stomach unclenched. Signe swung down from her horse, wondering where several suddenly painful incipient bruises and wrenched joints had come from-except for the ones under her shield arm, and the wrist of her sword hand, which she knew about full well. Military apprentices attended to the Bearkillers? chores, taking the barding off the A-lister horses, packing it on mules, handing out food. They were young men and women of Will and Mike?s age, and this was part of their training.
Was this really more exciting when I was campaigning with Mike? she wondered.
She quickly spooned down thick barley-and-mutton soup, gnawing on a tasteless wheatcake with alternate bites from a raw onion and a lump of rocklike cheese that bit back at the inside of her mouth. Then she used the last of the flatbread to mop out the bowl before she tossed it back.
Or am I just getting nostalgic? Nostalgic for a war, of all things. Frigga witness, I was a fucking vegetarian before the Change, and the next thing to a pacifist. Though that didn?t last long after I met Mike. ?Was this ever better, Aaron?? she said aloud.?I remember it as being… fresher back in the War of the Eye, and before that. Not as boring, not as uncomfortable, not as frightening either.?
The slim sixtysomething physician didn?t look up from his work with splint and bandages, his hands moving with a swift, impersonal gentleness as the man whose leg had been pulped by a war hammer stirred and moaned beneath the drug. He hadn?t taken the field lately either, having been the Outfit?s chief doctor since before they arrived back in Oregon in the first Change Year. Supposedly his jobs were training and administration. ?No, it was mostly about like this,? he said shortly.?You?re just remembering being young and hormonally optimistic and in love, and retrospectively you know we won. More or less. So yes, you are just getting senile nostalgia. Enjoy the mild case now. It gets steadily worse as age and sagging bits and tits and those wrinkles at the corners of your blue, blue eyes accumulate.? ?Fuck you, Aaron,? she said, smiling. ?I?m afraid not. You were never quite butch enough for me, Signe darling,? he replied. ?And they call me a superbitch!? ?Unjustly. Women just can?t manage bitchery with any style, so I?ve got you outclassed. Besides, I was always madly jealous, which justifies it.?
She laughed; that was a ru
She turned, and recognized the colorful split-tailed pe
The Grand Constable herself, she thought, keeping her lips from showing teeth. After the loathsome Sandra Machiavelli-in-a-skirt Arminger, my unfavoritist of all our dear Associate allies. A lance of bodyguards, Baroness Tiphaine d?Ath, some hangers-on, and two other nobles. Wait, no, that?s a knight-brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict with her. And I know the other guy?s face. He?s Sir Ivo Marks. ? Hell -o,? she murmured.?Ivo is seneschal of Castle Campscapell out east of Walla Walla these days,? she said quietly to Aaron. ?That?s on the front lines, and Boise is pushing hard there. What the hell is he doing back in the West?? ?Lady d?Ath,? she said courteously as they drew rein and dismounted, handing the reins to their followers. ?Lady Signe,? came the reply in that water-over-ice voice.
The four men-at-arms and eight mounted crossbowmen in half-armor looked as if they?d come far and fast; so did their horses, despite the short string of remounts and sumpter mules.
D?Ath never shows much sign of wear; you have to give the bitch that.
The knight-brother and Ivo looked like they?d come a lot farther, and they both had the fading bruises and minor cuts that told of a serious fight not long ago. Ivo Marks looked like he?d lost his fight, too; something about the eyes. He was a thick-built man of Tiphaine?s age, four years younger than Signe but with his brown hair just begi
Brawling thug with a veneer of ma
Though that didn?t matter much. Mt. Angel seemed to have developed some sort of injection-molding process for turning out its knight-brothers a little after the Change. They differed only in complexion, and even that was uniformly weathered. Jerome?s bowl-cut tonsured hair was medium brown and his eyes were hazel, and his face was long and lumpy and horse-like; the alert stance even when exhausted was the standard, and the expression of mild, calm attention. ?You?ve been in action?? d?Ath said, looking around and at the spray of blood drops smeared on Signe?s face.
The Lady of the Bearkillers bit back: No, we just had a really rough game of football.
D?Ath always a