The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) Read online

  She shuddered and bent her head, holding the stiff rolls to her forehead until a stab of physical pain broke the moment. Then she took a long breath and looked up. Heuradys was standing ready, not pushing forward, just . . . there.

  Thank her Gray-Eyed Lady, Herry always will be there for me, all our lives.

  It made everything seem less . . . crushing. Not less painful, but less hopeless.

  “Herry, Mom wants me to join her at Todenangst. And . . .”

  She handed over the messages. “Family only,” Heuradys said, reading them quickly and nodding. “I completely understand, Orrey. Look, why don’t I put up Her Highness and the rest of her menie at Ath?”

  “Can you?” Órlaith asked, sighing a little with relief; that would be very convenient, since Barony Ath was close to Todenangst—not to mention being near a railway line and hooked into the heliograph net. “They’ll be there for a while, not just a day or two. They’re probably going to feel isolated enough without trying to split them up. But Mom and the Chancellor are right, it’ll be better to keep them out of town or Todenangst for now. Close but not right there.”

  “I think so . . .”

  She paused to consider. “Right, my lord my father is out at Campscapell being Count—there’s some vassal dispute that needs to be tamped down before the swords come out, barons being barons—and Lioncel is with him and so are Audiarda and the kids, by Hera of the Hearth it’s almost indecent how much my lord father loves being a granddad . . . Diomede is out on Barony Harfang with Ysabeau and the rest of my disgustingly numerous nieces and nephews.”

  “Who swarm like vermin upon the earth,” Órlaith said with a faint smile; that was an old joke between them—in fact, Heuradys delighted in being an aunt and was an adored presence in their lives.

  “Exactly. No rugrats in residence, so it’s just Mom and Yolande the Little Sister from Hell and Auntie Tiph at the manor house. Between Castle Ath and Montinore Manor there’s plenty of room and supplies for the whole Nihonjin party. We’ll put Reiko in the Royal Suite.”

  “Tell your lady mother to bill the Crown.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, she’s never shy about sending in receipts. And Mom will love having exotic guests, an Empress will be just nuts and cream to her, and Auntie Tiph will want to know what’s going on and take a look at their gear and methods, so it’s no problem at all. I can shuttle back and forth to Todenangst as needed, then bring them up when it’s time.”

  “Let’s do it, then,” Órlaith said. “I want to see Mother and John and Vuissance and Faolán . . . but I’m afraid of it, too. It’s going to tear everything open again.”

  Heuradys put a hand on her shoulder, and then they hugged.

  “It’s like pulling out an arrowhead,” she said. “You have to go through it to get to the other side.”

  “If there’s time,” she said. “Da . . . what happened to Da was just the beginning, I think. You know the saying: sometimes you just have to go on fighting with an arrow in you.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ithilien/Moon County, Crown Province of Westria

  (Formerly Marin and Sonoma Counties, California)

  High Kingdom of Montival

  (Formerly western North America)

  May 10–12th (Lothron 9–11th), Change Year (Fifth Age) 46/2044 AD

  Faramir leapt over a rock and ducked under a madrone limb as he ran, bow pumping in his left hand and right a little up to protect his face. You could run full-tilt along a rough trail you knew well, even if it was through thicker brush than this, if you didn’t care how much of a track you left. They’d all practiced that many times over the years, on paths all over Ithilien. You could even talk as you ducked and wove and leapt and sweat rolled down your face to sting in your eyes and in scratches and nicks.

  Of which he now had plenty. You couldn’t run this way and never get lashed across the face, not on this sort of narrow track. If he hadn’t been wearing a helm there would have been raw scrapes in his scalp too from times he’d ducked to save his eyes.

  “What . . . the . . . fuck . . . was . . . that?” Malfind gasped as he hurdled a log.

  Even with the effort of the run his teeth seemed to be chattering. Faramir understood how he felt, but they couldn’t stop to have hysterics now, strong as the impulse to gibber and beat his head on a rock was.

  They were gambling that the Eaters and Haida and whatever wouldn’t leave two ambush parties behind them. It also just felt good to be running away from what they’d seen, even if they were running straight towards more of the enemy.

  “Gollor,” Morfind said waspishly; that was the way she dealt with fear. “A magician, or didn’t you notice?”

  “Skaga,” Faramir agreed. “Slow down to sustained pace, you two. We may need our wind pretty soon.”

  There was just no time to be terrified right now, though some things were much more exciting in the Histories than when they happened in real life. Or more heroic in print and less . . . obscurely disgusting than they were in reality, somehow. The more he thought about it, the more he profoundly didn’t want what had just happened to have happened, or even be a possibility.

  “Malfind, when we get there, you and I will distract them. Morfind, fire the woodpile when you hear the horn. Then we all run for the Eryn Muir or a good hide, whichever you reach first.”

  That gave them some chance of living through this. Though not much.

  Morfind slid the arrow on the string of her bow back into her quiver and took out another to replace it, something that needed real agility to do without looking around, especially when you were moving along at a pace one step down from a dash. Then she took out a second just like it and held it between her index finger and the riser of her bow. Both were slightly longer than normal arrows, and they had heads that were pointed cylinders shaped like fat pencils as long as a man’s middle finger. From the point of each extended a stubby pin with a flattened end; you twisted that until it clicked, then shot.

  “Break left!” Faramir said to her.

  The trail forked here. She turned and dashed down the left-hand branch. Faramir and her brother took the right-hand way; the trees were larger and fewer here.

  Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, he thought. Come on, Ranger, just keep breathing.

  They were in deep shade, the crowns of the trees meeting high overhead, but he could see the diffuse golden afternoon gleam of an opening ahead. Three hundred yards, then two hundred—ten-score paces was long bowshot for him but doable. Hopefully just beyond long bowshot for the Eaters and not doable.

  How far . . . I’ve got to give Morfind a decent chance . . . closer . . .

  The underbrush got thicker as they neared the beams of light spearing down from above. There was a glitter of metal ahead, which there shouldn’t have been. Then he could see several dozen figures ahead and downslope, instants before they saw him. Eaters, more of the Cut-Noses, but also Mud Hairs and Sharp Teeth, squatting in separate clumps. No more Haida that he could catch at a glance—thank the Valar!—but at least four or five men in helmets and mail-coats.

  He jerked to a halt and raised the mouthpiece of the horn to his mouth. He had to work his lips and spit because his mouth was so dry, and then he took a deep breath and blew, the fingers of his right hand moving across the three holes.

  The sound that it gave was brighter than most trumpets made from the horns of beasts, higher and truer and with less of the deep braying note. Two long blasts, then three rising ones, and repeat. The echoes spread off through the forest, fading as they carried in every direction—mostly, he hoped, straight south to the Eryn Muir. The Eaters would most certainly know that call, though the Dúnedain changed the others now and then.

  It was: Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!

  Heads jerked around, yelps and snarls rose, metal blinked as blades and spearheads pointed towards him.

  “Lacho calad! Drego morn!” he and his cousin shouted in unison, the ancient Dúnedain war-cry
. “Flame Light! Flee Night!”

  Some deep corner of his mind gave an actual giggle, and the temptation to shout can’t catch me you poopy-heads was strong.

  The men in mail turned and would have started running towards him if the Eaters hadn’t thrown themselves in the way, yammering. That was notably altruistic of them, but it was probably simply reflex born of the long war: just chasing someone hell-for-leather was a good way to get ambushed. A squat but massive Cut-Nose led the effort, putting his hands against the mailed chests and pushing. Then he turned and snarled at the yrch, and instead dozens of bows were raised. All of them seemed to be aimed at Faramir . . . which was more or less true, if you included his cousin.

  As the big orch moved to shove his archers into position there was the slightest hint of a limp to his movements. This was the one whose twisted track beside the creek had drawn his eye. His hand chopped towards the Rangers.

  “Shoot!” Faramir shouted, and did; Malfind followed suit.

  The shafts from the recurves arched out. Two hundred yards wasn’t easy, but he could hit a man-sized target that far away about seven times in ten, if the air was still. Targets didn’t dodge, though; these did, and he couldn’t tell whether he’d hit anyone or not. It didn’t really matter, since two bows weren’t going to make much impression on that mob.

  There have to be at least—he began to think.

  Whrrt. Whrrrt. Whrrtt.

  Arrows started going by.

  —at least fifty of them, he completed.

  Some of the shafts went thock into the tree he jumped behind, but not very hard. Others were falling short. The ski-limb bows weren’t nearly as powerful as the weapons the Dúnedain crafters made, though even a minor wound now didn’t bear thinking of.

  He put a shaft to the string, dodged out again and shot, and there was a shriek of pain an instant later. The yrch were coming forward in short rushes, pausing to shoot betweentimes. They probably hadn’t coordinated it, but the fact that there were three separate bands of them meant that they were covering each other . . . and once they got close, their bows would be quite deadly.

  Then: crack.

  A shaft transfixed an oak sapling not ten feet to his right, the end emerging in a shower of blond splinters through a trunk over three inches thick. It was long and made of bamboo, with a narrow pile-shaped point of tempered steel—designed to pierce armor—and fletchings of pheasant feathers, four of them rather than the three vanes common in Montival. The strangers from over-sea had gotten into the act, and there was nothing at all wrong with their bows.

  A quick glance around the tree showed them starting forward with three men in the forefront holding up big strong-looking rectangular shields, with only their eyes and the peaked helmets showing behind them, crests of horsehair tossing from their tops. The second rank were the archers, though they also carried swords and wore the alien-looking armor of small plates held together with mail.

  He grinned tautly, because he also saw wisps of smoke starting up from the great pile of split timber under the roof of the storage shed that stood on the other side of the clearing, near the firepits and the tables where feasts were held in summertime. The wisps turned to streamers in seconds, and yellow flame showed. Morfind had been at work, two arrows that nobody noticed and then away. It must have been tricky shooting to get them in under the eaves of the roof, unless she got very close.

  When you turned the pin on a fire arrow, you aligned it with a groove inside the head. Then you shot, and the strike on impact drove the pin back and set a friction primer going, much like a match. That ignited the magnesium fuse, and that ignited the thermite packed inside the metal tube with a blaze of sputtering violence that was very hot indeed. At those temperatures steel would burn, much less the soft thin aluminum from salvaged beverage cans actually used. A bucket of water would just spread it faster. The Change hadn’t changed that reaction at all.

  Dúnedain used fire arrows for many purposes, though swailing was the most common, controlled wet-season burns to manage the vegetation in wild areas. Arrows could be precisely placed in spots hard to get to safely on foot. When you shot a couple into stacked dry timber, though, the result was dramatic.

  “Noro lim, Malfind!” he called, and ran himself.

  The danger was worse now, but he felt a curious sense of relief. Whatever happened, every Ranger in the area would see the pillar of smoke that was pulsing into the air. Gongs and horns would be sounding within seconds, bows would be strung and Rangers would assemble. And eventually the yrch and the foreigners and please the Valar, the terrifying skaga would all realize that their only hope was to get out of here as fast as they could.

  More arrows went past him as he ran and dodged and hurdled obstacles; they hadn’t gotten the message yet.

  “Look behind you, you Shadow-sucking idiots!” Malfind screamed as he ran not far away, spear held ahead of him like a plow. “Smoke! Stop chasing us and run away!”

  Maybe some of them were taking his advice, since the rain of arrows was less. One would do, of course, if it hit in the right place. A shaft banged painfully against the shield slung over Faramir’s back, and he stumbled and cursed and recovered in a flailing scramble. He didn’t see the shaft or pieces of it go pinwheeling past or hear it crack, so it had probably pierced the sheet metal and boiled leather and plywood. There was absolutely no way of telling whether six inches of it was pointing at his liver right now, ready to drive through his jerkin and its light mail lining if he fell the wrong way at speed. The only consolation was that they were almost certainly gaining on the pursuers, because they weren’t in heavy armor and knew where they were going.

  Correction. We’re gaining on those foreigners who are in heavy armor.

  He’d had only a brief long-distance glimpse, but it looked like little rectangular plates set into a knee-length mail coat; at least forty pounds, not counting shields and helmets and swords. That precisely matched the report of the equipment of the men who’d killed the High King.

  The Eaters aren’t wearing anything but loincloths or carrying anything but their weapons. On the other hand, at least we do know the path better than they do.

  Another arrow hit the shield that covered his back from his neck to the base of his spine, and he swayed in mid-stride and recovered again. This one definitely penetrated; he could feel the outer, leather surface of his jerkin catching on the point a little with every long stride. The breath was burning in his lungs now and his pulse was loud in his own ears; he was young and strong, but he’d been walking and running and fighting all afternoon. The sun was low on his right hand when he could see it, but that wasn’t often. The trees were higher now, and more and more were the king redwoods, ones that had been left to complete their natural cycle in a rare act of forbearance by the ancient world.

  And that arrow had hit at the very bottom edge of his shield. Which gave him a chill even with sweat soaking his clothes and running in drops off his chin, because an inch lower would have gone right into his pelvis. But it also meant the foreigners with the powerful bows were farther behind. The yelping of the yrch was a little fainter too, though he didn’t dare look over his shoulder.

  After you with the ambush, foreign allies, he thought with flash of grim humor. That’s what they’re saying. Or maybe it’s a promise to eat their bodies afterwards.

  He wanted to get out of this as soon as he could, but he couldn’t look back. He couldn’t run at this pace all the way to Eryn Muir, either. And if he slowed down, the Eaters would send their best sprinters after him, forcing him back to all-out effort and breaking his wind, leaving him exhausted and helpless when the main band caught up. That was standard hunting technique.

  He saw a streak to his left past some bushes, left and a bit ahead. For one throat-squeezing instant he thought it was a yrch, and then he recognized Morfind . . . or at least another Ranger, and there wasn’t likely to be anyone else in this chase. And Morfind could run down deer; he’d seen her do it,
and seen her outrun people with much longer legs over anything but a sprint course. About a hundred yards ahead she angled in to a two-hundred-foot giant with a body seven feet through at chest height.

  It was good they were getting bigger; it meant they were closer to home. It also meant the view would open out, because ancient redwoods shaded out most undergrowth, and it would make it impossible to run fast, because they bombed the ground beneath them with a constant litter of branches and chunks of bark. Close to the Ranger station the falls were policed up because they had dozens of uses of which fuel was only one, and they needed the floor free of obstacles. Out here, they weren’t.

  Morfind looked over her shoulder as she did what looked like a dance-step with her hands at her waist at the base of the tree. She gave him a grin for an instant before she turned, leapt and ran up the trunk nearly as fast as she’d been dashing through the undergrowth, only the motion of her cloak visible at all. Before they passed her chosen redwood she was out of sight in the crown.

  The dance had been unlatching and swinging out the climbing spurs on her elf-boots—you could do that with the toe of the opposite foot, with practice—and putting on her climbing gloves. You couldn’t wear them all the time because the claws on the palms meant you couldn’t carry anything else. Malfind gave a panting whoop of joy and relief as they passed the tree.

  “Go, Sis!”

  Faramir reached over his shoulder. Just beside the quiver was the haft of a short folding grapnel, and reeved through the loop at the end of the shaft was the end of a long rope of thin strong cord, knotted every yard. The blades of the grapnel were spring-loaded, rather like a fancy umbrella’s ribs, though there were only three and they were short and stout.

  He’d use the grapnel because redwood bark was up to a couple of feet thick, soft and dry and fibrous. That made it marvelous for everything from insulation to fishing floats, but it tore away far too easily for him to trust himself to a spur-and-claw climb like Morfind’s, not at speed, not when he couldn’t take the time to test each grip and foothold. She was lighter than he was; even so it had been odds-on a foot or hand would come loose fifty feet up, and big redwoods didn’t have branches to grab until just below their tops. Trying to do the same would be insanely risky for him, and outright impossible for Malfind.