The Protector's War Page 13

  He put the horn to his lips again and blew, a dunting howl of jaunty defiance.

  "Ill-doers flee! Friends take heart! The Mackenzies are riding!" she called, a great high shout in her trained singer's voice, and the horses clattered down towards Center Street.

  Eilir Mackenzie rubbed the fingers of her right hand on the tooled leather scabbard of her dirk as she rode; tracing the intricate interwoven patterns was her equivalent of whistling idly. It was pleasant to ride out on a bright spring day after being pinned so long in the Hall at Dun Juniper by the wet gray gloom of a Willamette winter. Not that the Black Months were all bad: there were the great festivals of the Year's Wheel; and making things, sports and storytelling, visits and books and games to pass the time; raw chilly days hunting in dripping woods, and long drowsy evenings to follow, lying on sheepskins before the hearth, roasting nuts and sipping hot cider; and of course chores.

  So winter has its points, but spring's like throwing open a window when a room's gone fusty and stale.

  She looked over her shoulder at Salem for a moment as the dead city faded in the living horsemen's wake, then turned back with a slight shudder. It was good to get out of there, too. Her mare Celebroch kept to the same walk-trot-canter-walk cycle as the rest of the group, but she did it with a high-tailed, arch-necked Arab grace that only Astrid's As-faloth could match; the horses were twins, silky-maned and dapple gray. The feel of the great muscles between her thighs was like coils of living steel, longing to run…

  They'd needed less than an hour to clear the built-up section and reach open country southeast of the last outskirts, only the occasional vine and creeper-grown mound showing where a burnt-out farmhouse had stood, its flowers and rosebushes lost among weeds. The hearing members of the Mackenzie party—everyone except her—were probably having their ears numbed and attention distracted by the rumbling, clattering, clopping beat of hooves on the asphalt.

  She wasn't, and noticed something odd out of the corner of her eye—movements in the roadside thickets. They were level with a peach orchard gone wild; thin spindly volunteers sprung from fallen fruit, and a tangle of whiplike un-pruned branches starred with a first few pink blossoms. A streak of red fire blurred out of it…

  That fox broke cover and went across the road before the rabbits did. And none of them paid any attention to us. Game's gotten less wary, but not that much less wary. They were both running from something. Or somebody.

  Nobody honest lived around here; too close to foragers and Eaters in the early years and too solitary now; the only towns still living on the river itself were Corvallis and Portland. Her eyes probed the fields as she emptied her mind and let the patterns show themselves.

  The lush fruit of the Valley's rich soil and reliable rains gave the land a disheveled dryad beauty. The stretch east past the old orchard was bushy and overgrown: weeds and grass that rose stirrup-high or better, a new growth of yarrow rank and tall through last year's dead brown stalks, shrubby Oregon grape with spiny hollylike leaves and clusters of yellow flowers. The field had been cultivated for flower bulbs before the Change; amidst the strangling invaders early tulips and iris pushed up forlorn in crimson and blue; darting swarms of rufous hummingbirds hovered around their blossoms. Patches of waving reeds showed livid green amid a buzz of gnats and swift predatory drag-onflies; that was wetland returning as ditches were blocked and field drains silted up and the untended levees along the Willamette and its tributaries broke down.

  An abandoned tractor near the road was already a mound of blackberry vines and golden pea starred with pale gold blooms, with only the regular curve of the rear wheels and the shape of the square cab showing the hand of man. Patches of wood left along creeks and field boundaries before the Change now sprouted thick fringes of saplings, young trees as tall as her own five-eight or higher. There were red alder and black cottonwood, fir and pine and oak spreading out as the skirmishers of the triumphant forest's march. The fresh spring leaves fluttered like the banners of a conquering army; maroon trillium bloomed in the shade beneath their feet, bright orilachrium coins scattered beneath the victor's feet.

  More small animals ran across the road. Birds went by overhead. They'd bred back fast, but there were still a few too many to be chance; she spotted tree swallows flying in swooping curves, grebes, scruffy-looking jays… And everything going north to south.

  Eilir made a sharp clicking sound with her tongue. Astrid Larsson turned in the saddle. Her pale brows went up as Eilir's hands moved. Then her eyes narrowed, startling blue rimmed and veined with silver.

  Can you hear anything unusual that way? Eilir signed. North?

  Astrid's long, narrow head turned, flicking the rope of braided white-blond hair across her back. Nope, she signed. Too noisy right here. Come on!

  The two young women reined their horses aside, down through the roadside ditch and into the field north of the road. A skull hidden by rampant goldenrod crunched under an iron-shod hoof. Elessar and Undomiel were agile as cats and just as smart, and they could tell something a little unusual was up, their nostrils flaring and ears swivel-ing radarlike. Eilir kept her eyes busy. Her friend ostentatiously closed hers as she took off her helmet to rest on her saddlebow, frowning in a pose of concentration.

  Even under her gathering anxiety that made Eilir smile a little. Astrid was her oath-sworn anamchara—soul sister and best friend—and had been since they met when the Bearkillers came west over the Cascades late in the first Change Year. She was her own age to the month—fourteen then, twenty-three in a few days. And they'd put together the Rangers, who even the Bearkiller and Mackenzie elders had conceded were useful over the last year or two. She was just plain totally cool to hang with, too. But there was no denying…

  Astrid's a bit of a flaming goof at times. "Self-dramatizing" was the way her mother put it. Like that vest.

  It was good, supple, black leather, sleeveless and thigh-length, and lined with tough nylon, with a layer of fine chain mail between; so far, so practical, if she didn't want to wear the whole elaborate panoply of an A-list Bearkiller on a ride through—mostly—safe country, and the color went well with her dark brown pants and boots. But what she'd put on it wasn't the stylized, snarling bear's head of Mike's outfit or the moon-and-antlers of the Mackenzies; it was a white tree topped by a crown and seven white stars.

  Not to mention the helmet.

  It had a good steel pot underneath, but it was also covered with a raven built up from individual feathers of black-lacquered aluminum, the wings covering the cheek-pieces down to her chin, and the eyes were genuine rubies salvaged from a jeweler's shop. Yes, it looked even cooler than the white tree and stars and crown; she was a stylish goof even at her worst. And yes, Astrid had chosen the Raven sept when she was adopted into the Clan; Eilir and her mother were Ravens themselves. But Raven wasn't just the sept's totem and tutelary spirit. It was the bird of the Threefold Warrior Goddess Badb-Macha-Neman, the Morrigu Herself. Seriously big mojo, not to be invoked lightly; and the Gods had a tendency to show up in the aspect you called. As within, so without.

  Astrid had been the one who insisted on calling their gang the Dunedain Rangers, too.

  She really ought to find a boyfriend and get her nose out of the Tolkien. Yeah, it's a great story, none better, I love it too, but she needs to relate to the real world more. Plus she's still a virgin, sweet Lady Arianrhod witness and pity her.

  After a moment Astrid spoke and signed: "Yes. I do hear something, I think. Dogs—a lot of 'em."

  Feral pack? Eilir asked, following both—she read lips well. Then, since Astrid preferred the term: Wargs?

  There were a lot of dogs who'd managed to avoid going into the pot in the Dying Time, outliving their masters, or been turned loose before people got really hungry, and by now they'd had several generations of descendants, mingled with coyotes. There weren't any actual wolves this far south and west—yet—but the dog packs still in business were real survivor types, big and fierce, and
they'd gotten used to eating manflesh in the bad times. That made them a lot more dangerous than real wolves, though more to children or individuals caught alone than an armed group.

  "No," Astrid said and signed, her hands moving fluidly above the saddlebow. "No, they sound more… organized than a warg pack, sort of. And they're not just barking. It's more of a baying sound, like hounds. Like the ones Mike keeps for hunting."

  The rest of the Mackenzies had passed on another few hundred yards, long bowshot; heads were turning back to look at them. The two put their horses up to a hand gallop—Arabs had jackrabbit acceleration, too—then jumped them over a section of wire fence still standing, overgrown until it was like a shaggy hedge, landed in a spurt of gravel, and reined in beside Juniper. The Mackenzie chieftain smiled for a second at the casual display of horsemanship; then the smile died as she saw their faces.

  She frowned when Eilir explained, and flung up a hand. The loose column came to a halt, riders facing alternate directions, looking hard and listening as they fingered bowstrings. First one and then another waved and called that they'd heard the dogs too.

  "Should we push on southeast?" Juniper said thoughtfully, looking down at Rudi's excitement. Then: "No. The university and Mike and Mt. Angel all agreed this is Mackenzie land, even if we're not using it much at the moment."

  The extremely theoretical western border of the Clan's territories ran along the river and Highway 99W, 1-5, south from Salem to Eugene, and east to the crest of the Cascades—eastern Linn and Lane Counties, and a chunk of southern Marion. Most of it had been too close to the cities, and now it was empty and reverting to wilderness; the Clan's cultivated land and people were in the southeastern part tucked up against the foothills, ending at an outpost in the ruins of Lebanon.

  Grimly, the Chief of the Mackenzies went on: "That's someone's hunting pack. Let's see who's on our land without our leave, and what it is they're hunting. I suspect it isn't deer."

  We Rangers should scout it out, Eilir signed; Astrid nodded vigorously.

  Another hesitation, and then: "Be careful, mo chroi, and you too, Astrid dear. Don't be long, and come right back when you've learned something."

  I'm always careful, Mom, Eilir signed, and the Chief of the Mackenzies winced.

  "Rally the Dunedain!" Astrid called. "Lacho calad! Drego morn!"

  Four others fell out to join them—three young Mackenzies and Reuben Hutton. Astrid pulled her own bow from its saddle sheath and laid an arrow in the riser's cutout shelf; her weapon was in the Bearkiller style, shorter than the Mackenzie longbow—a recurve horse-archer's model built up of sinew and wood and horn, glossy with the lacquer that waterproofed it. You could carry one of those ready-strung and they were a lot easier to use from the saddle. She let the reins fall on Asfaloth's neck, turning the horse with knees and balance.

  "Check your gear," she said. None of the other Rangers was over twenty, and their faces were gravely attentive or excited or both. "Everyone check your anamcftara's, too."

  Besides her bow, Astrid wore a Bearkiller-style sword—single-edged, as long as her leg, and basket-hilted—and had a round shield about two feet across slung at her saddlebow over the bow case, with the bear's-head sigil on its elk-hide surface. Marcie and Donnal and Kevin were kitted out much as Eilir was. Reuben Hutton was a Bearkiller himself from an A-list family, with the blue mark between his brows and the full panoply on his back, armored from throat to ankle. In a minute or two they were ready.

  Astrid led the way; the others spread out behind her in a blunt wedge. The road vanished quickly behind them; field and meadow followed for half a swiftly cautious mile, with nothing more startling than the odd pheasant breaking out of the grass at their feet. Then they splashed through a flooded field with black muck and sparkling droplets flying up from the horses' hooves amid a yeasty smell of vegetable decay, over a deep creek by a small decrepit bridge with water flowing over its sagging middle, and into a ten-acre woodlot. Luckily it was mature timber, the lowest branches mostly higher than a rider's head if you ducked and wove a little; then they were up to the edge of a broader clear stretch, more than long bowshot across—four hundred yards or better.

  Eilir let her binoculars drop for a second. Careful, she signed. Let's take a look first.

  The Rangers all knew Sign; like Sindarin it was a requirement for initiation into the Dunedain, and many younger Mackenzies learned it anyway, useful as it was for war and the hunt. They stopped a horse's length inside the wood's edge; that way undergrowth hid you from anyone out in the light, but you could see out from the shadows. First Eilir scanned the tangled growth of the field for fence-posts and gaps—the chest-high growth could hide tangles of barbed wire or abandoned farm equipment, both mortal risks to a horse's legs. Then she did a broader sweep…

  A sounder of feral pigs headed towards them, making the tall grass and weeds sway against the westerly breeze. Luckily they split around the silent party of riders as soon as they scented them; swine had come back fast because they were clever as well as tough and prolific. Something else came bounding behind them, half glimpsed, also mainly a waving in the tall grass and reeds—

  Watch out, Astrid signed. That may be the boar.

  It wasn't. Eilir had only time enough to recognize the rushing black-striped golden deadliness before it was past, vanishing in the wood's depths. Bows were half drawn, and Reuben managed to get his ten-foot lance leveled with a strangled yell. Horses crow-hopped in belated panic…

  Before the Change, private American enthusiasts had owned more than half the tigers in all the world. After the Change a lot of the obsessed owners—and you had to be an obsessive in the first place to keep a cat that weighed three hundred pounds and up—freed the beloved pets they couldn't feed. It turned out that tigers were opportunists when feeding themselves—which in plain English meant they turned man-eater with ease and joy, almost unnoticed at first amid the Great Dying. The Willamette's burgeoning mix of swamp and prairie and forest was ideal country for tiger, too. Without firearms they were a standing menace to flocks, herds, isolated farms and anyone who traveled alone.

  Worse every year, too, Eilir thought disgustedly. They breed like… well, like cats.

  "If those guys with the hound pack are after Sher Khan there, more power to them," Reuben said. There was disgust in his expression too as he swung his lance back upright and checked his bow case. "Those things are fucking dangerous.''''

  Quiet! Sign only, and wait, Astrid signed. One tiger wouldn't have caused all the disturbance Eilir saw.

  They didn't have to wait long. Eilir stiffened as she scanned the opposite woodline.

  People coming, she signed, then made a broader pulling gesture that meant "bows ready" in their own code.

  The two Bearkillers stayed in the saddle, but edged their mounts a little farther back into the shade; they were equipped to shoot from the saddle, of course. The others slipped down and dropped their knotted reins—another requirement for the Rangers was the ability to train a horse to stand stock-still without being tethered. Eilir reached over her shoulder for an arrow and stepped behind a tree, checking to see that everyone else had too. Their gear was all green and brown save for their kilts and plaids, and the Mackenzie tartan was the same colors with dark blue and a very little orange added; it made excellent camouflage.

  Eilir bared her teeth as the newcomers darted out into the sunlight, running and stumbling and looking over their shoulders. There were four adults—two couples. Both women were carrying infants, and the men had older children piggyback; a teenaged girl ran with a burlap sack clutched to her chest. The youngsters limited their speed severely, and so did their staggering exhaustion, sweat runneling down the dust and dirt on their faces despite the cool fair day, chests heaving. The children were crying, but their mouths kept shut. They and the adults were ragged, their patched, pre-Change clothing torn anew by the brush they'd forced their way through, bleeding scratches adding to old scars.

  Al
l four of the adults had steel collars riveted around their scrawny necks, hastily wrapped in bits of cloth with rough raw spots and calluses beneath. Both couples looked enough alike to be peas in a pod, save that one pair and their children looked Anglo-fair and the other mixed, the man Hispanic of a darker kind, Guatemalan or Mexican.

  Eilir's eyes met Astrid's.

  Well, this is the sort of thing we made that oath about, she signed.

  "Yup. 'Protect the helpless' and I've never seen a clearer case," Astrid replied.

  Her dreamy eyes looked thoroughly alert now. "OK, I can hear the hunting horn too and it's not a Bearkiller or Mackenzie one. Those people are out of the Protectorate, or I'm an ore. So are the ones chasing them—who are ores."

  Eilir turned to Marcie. Get back to the Mackenzie and tell her we've got trouble. No estimate on their numbers, but we're going to have to cover these people one way or another.

  The younger girl nodded, sprang into the saddle and flicked her mount into motion, galloping with her head bent low over its neck.

  The refugees looked up; they'd probably heard the sound of the hooves that Eilir could feel as a fading vibration under the leaves and fir needles of the forest floor. They cried out in mindless despair and halted as Astrid rode out into the sunlight. The three clansfolk walked beside her horse, Eilir on her right, Donnal and Kevin on her left.

  "Look, it's OK!" Astrid called; she gestured broadly, calling them forward. "This is Clan Mackenzie land—keep going south, we Dunedain will hold them off!"

  The teenager looked more alert than the others. At the clear female voice she darted forward again, breasting the tall grass and weeds with difficulty. The others followed like water through a broken dam; Eilir could smell them when they came closer, a rank feral odor. The children were barefoot, the older girl wore some sort of light shoe and the others had only sneakers—cracked and worn and held together with thongs and rawhide patches—or bundled rags. The darker man had a woodchopping ax in his right hand; he kept it ready as he sidled around them, and his companion likewise gripped a hoe with the head bent forward and sharpened to make a crude spear. The children watched the armed and armored strangers with huge frightened eyes.