Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Read online

  Juniper Mackenzie stopped, the hood of her robe flung back, and planted a staff that bore the Triple Moon itself on its top, waxing and full and waning. The celebrants halted behind her, the cold wind making a ripping sound when it fanned the torches. Sparks flowed past her into the darkness, flying on a scent of burning pine resin.

  A very slight smile quirked her lips. What she saw was a replica—and one built by a Quaker named Samuel Hill a bit more than a century ago, ludicrous myths about Stonehenge being a site of human sacrifice making him think the shape appropriate as a memorial for the dead of war; before the Change it had been a tourist attraction more than anything else. He’d had a great many plans for the area, very few of which had come to fruition…but Stonehenge remained, and was a center of ritual and rite and in all likelihood would be for uncounted generations.

  Juniper suspected that somewhere Someone was smiling a little at that, and perhaps Sam Hill himself, beyond the Gate where all things were made plain.

  Then she sobered completely and opened herself to the night and the place. Something like a keening touched her inwardly, a thread of lament leavened with pride.

  Yes, went through her. This is the proper ground. Here where the bones of the earth are laid bare and the names of the dead and the minds of mourners have rested for generations.

  Sacredness grew like a pearl, sometimes around the most unlikely bits of grit. That didn’t make its power any the less real. They were come to ask aid and guidance of the Powers; near the turning point of Samhain—and to make battle magic. They came to invoke the Dark Mother in Her most wrathful aspect: Scathach, the Devouring Shadow Beneath, She Who Brings Fear. And the God Who was storm and sky and war, the spear from heaven, the bright-maned Stallion who fought for the herd and sanctified the land with his blood in turn. All things were holy in their proper place and season, even the most terrible.

  “Let it begin,” she said, lifting the staff, until moonlight gleamed on silver.

  “Let it begin,” said the man beside her.

  His face was masked with the fox, and his tone solemn-stern. Nigel Loring never did anything unless he did it properly; some corner of her warmed with the settled love of middle age.

  Rudi—Artos in the Craft—drew the Sword of the Lady, and a slight gasp ran through the celebrants. He paced deosil, sunwise, around the perimeter of the standing stones, and initiates with torches took up positions at the Quarters. Others followed with salt and water.

  “I conjure you, O Circle of Power, that you may be a meeting-place of love and joy and truth, a shield against all wickedness and evil, a boundary between the world of humankind and the realms of the Mighty Ones…

  The Sword traced patterns against her eyes, or perhaps the eyes of her soul; patterns of light and darkness, veils huger than worlds falling endlessly through memory and time.

  “Hear you the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, whose body encircles the Universe…And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.

  Her voice rose in somber triumph: “For behold, I have been with you from the Beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire!”

  She lit the fire made ready before the altar-stone, and it cast shadows stark against the great menhirs. Sparks rose upward to join the starry Belt of the Goddess and the full Moon; the clean hot-sweet smell of the burning applewood joined the strong musk from the thurible and filled the clean emptiness of the desert night.

  Then the Calling. She had felt that as a oneness with all that was. Now it was storm and darkness and lightning and whips of ice.

  The robed figures behind her began to pace the circle, and their voices rose in turn, to the light plangent notes of a harp:

  Darksome Night and Shining Moon

  Balance of the dark and light,

  Hearken ye our Witch’s Rune,

  As we perform our sacred rite!

  Rudi laid the Sword of the Lady on the altar, beside the censor and the cauldron and the Book of Shadows. A white flash seemed to consume her, and instead of humankind pacing a circle it was as if the world and the universe beyond were pivoting on this spot of space and time.

  Her son’s strong voice called: “I am the Lady’s Sword, guardian of Her sacred wood, and Law. Let the Powers aid Their people now, as we defend them.”

  The covens replied, their voices in an eerie unison, not like a frightened mass of near-strangers that need had assembled. Some distant part of her knew that they were an instrument for a greater will to play upon this night:

  Mother of the harvest fields,

  Goddess of the silver moon,

  Join with us as power builds!

  Dance with us our witch’s rune!

  And it was a dance indeed, faster and faster about her, widdershins and sunwise they danced, crossing and braiding the power. She thrust the staff to the sky before the altar.

  Father of the ripened corn

  Hunter of the winter snows

  With open arms we welcome you!

  Dance with us as power grows!

  When she became herself once more the movement had slowed, as the shuttle of her loom did when she battened the last threads home. The cloth was whole now, the weaving tight and strong, the colors sliding into each other and blending.

  By all the light of moon and sun,

  By all the might of land and sea,

  Chant the rune and it is done.

  As we will, so mote it be!

  CHAPTER TWO

  COUNTY OF AUREA

  (FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  OCTOBER 30TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  The High Queen of Montival bent over a map table with the Grand Constable d’Ath and a clutch of lords and officers this morning. Huon Liu could see them, though it wasn’t polite to stare. Even if you were heir to a wealthy barony like Gervais, which he was, a squire was a very lowly form of military life. Though you didn’t realize it when you were looking at it from the worm’s-eye-view of a page, which he’d been until a couple of months ago.

  Even a royal squire was out in the cold—literally, since he was about twelve feet from the edge of the pavilion tent’s door, along with a gaggle of other squires and couriers and their horses. He could see the heads and hands moving, but nothing of the map. There were a pair of spearmen from the Protector’s Guard in black-enameled three-quarter armor standing by the entrance as well, their faces invisible behind the vision-slits of their visors, the butts of their glaives braced against their right boots and their four-foot kite-shaped shields blazoned with the crimson and gold Lidless Eye at the parade position. He didn’t envy them, though the guige strap over the shoulder took some of the weight, but they were as motionless as statues.

  Huon had been excited to finally make the step from page, and hence child, to squire, which made you a youth if not a man yet. At over fifteen he was past due for it; though he lacked an inch or so of what would probably be a medium final height. He was already broad-shouldered and lithe and active. His high-cheeked face, stubborn lack of beard and slightly tilted dark eyes—legacy of his father’s father—made him look a little younger than he was, and he was well-versed in all the weapons he had the size and strength of arm to use.

  But there was nearly as much standing and waiting involved in squiring as in page work, even if you didn’t serve at table as much.

  At least it’s a warm sort of cold to be out in.

  Dawn had been frosty, but now it was a fine day for the end of October, bright sunlight with a few white clouds, and warm enough that his light outfit of brigantine and mail sleeves was making Huon sweat a bit as he stood at parade rest by his horse’s head. Carrying messages was the likeliest duty. The rolling plain around them had mostly emptied of troops n
ow, but there were still a few encamped on the stubblefields; the man-stink of the great temporary city was gone, leaving only the smell of horses and dung, dust and woodsmoke and hay and greenery, the scents that were the common background of life. A group of varlets with a wagon were waiting to take down and pack the pavilion, feeding the mules from nose bags and currycombing them. There was a troop of the Protector’s Guard not far off too, men-at-arms in full armor and mounted crossbowmen, mostly standing by their horses; you didn’t burden them when it wasn’t essential.

  Dust smoked from the fields where the fall plowing was underway, teams of oxen or mules or big platter-hoofed horses pulling double-furrow riding plows and disk-harrows and seed-drills through stubble or clover-ley. It had rained hard yesterday, but there wasn’t the constant grey drizzle he was used to in the Black Months of his home in the northern Willamette, west of the Cascades on the wet side of the mountains. The clumps of elm and oak and beech around the villages and manors were streaks of brighter yellow against the dun-gold and brown and faded green, with only their size to show that the landscape was not much older than he. The straight lines of candle-shaped Lombardy poplars that outlined the great common fields with their villagers’ strips were bright as well. Vineyards scattered here and there had just finished yielding their last grapes to the harvesters, and the leaves drew notes of scarlet and orange.

  Huon gave a quiet chuckle as he glanced at the plow-teams. Next year…

  “What’s funny?” the squire next to him said quietly, as the horses stamped along the picket-line behind them.

  “Just thinking that the crops ought to be good around here next year, with all the crap the army left getting plowed in. You can follow the path of glory by the trail of shit it leaves.”

  The other boy chuckled. He was younger than Huon, about fourteen, but already slightly taller and with big hands and feet that promised six feet or better eventually; a little gangly, and you could tell that his white-blond hair had just recently been sheared from the pageboy’s bob to a squire’s bowl-cut. The surcoat over his light mail shirt had the arms of Barony Ath, a delta Or over a V argent, quartered with a blazon: Gules a domed Tower Argent surmounted by a Pennon Or in base a Lion passant guardant of the last. The arms of Forest Grove, the barony just north of Ath.

  “You’re one of the Grand Constable’s household?” Huon said, a polite statement of the obvious as a way to start.

  “I’m Lioncel de Stafford, heir to Forest Grove. Squire to the Grand Constable, Baroness d’Ath.”

  “Huon Liu, heir of Gervais,” Huon said quietly, blinking a little against the morning sun. “Squire to Her Majesty.”

  They fell silent again; it wouldn’t do to chatter too openly while they waited for orders. The Queen and the Grand Constable were consulting with men who commanded units assigned to protect the lines of communications, since the eastern enemy had lots of light cavalry for raiding around the flanks. It was essential work, but Huon didn’t envy them one bit. The great battle was coming, and they would be missing it.

  I’m going to be right in the middle of it. Right behind the High Queen, he thought, with a mixture of excitement and longing and a trace of fear. We’ll be moving up tomorrow morning. A day or two, no more, and then the biggest battle since the Change!

  A squire cantered up, one of the Grand Constable’s. He dismounted, threw the reins to a groom, and nodded to the two boys since they were formally more or less equals, though the squire in question was at least eighteen and in half-armor like the commanders. Then he passed the sentries with a clank of salutes, bent the knee to Mathilda and handed a dispatch to Tiphaine d’Ath.

  That gave them a little cover, and they exchanged a bow. Huon looked warily at the other boy and got the same in reply.

  They knew of each other, roughly, though with the way his own life had been disturbed the last couple of years with House Liu’s political troubles he wasn’t sure if they’d ever actually met beyond seeing each other about their duties. But there just weren’t all that many heirs to baronies south of the Columbia. Lioncel was the eldest son of Rigobert de Stafford, Baron Forest Grove, the Marchwarden of the South, and his wife, Lady Delia. His mother was Châtelaine of Barony Ath for the Grand Constable, too.

  According to almost-certainly-true rumor Lady Delia was also Tiphaine d’Ath’s girlfriend and had been for fifteen years, which the Baron of Forest Grove didn’t mind at all since he liked men himself. The three of them seemed to be the best of friends, too, insofar as the Grand Constable had any friends…Lady Delia’s modest tally of three children (with one on the way) all looked respectably like her husband or her own dark comeliness. Mother and children mostly lived in Barony Ath when the family wasn’t at court in Castle Todenangst or Portland, but visited Forest Grove frequently.

  They…all three of them…must have serious pull to keep the clergy from getting on their case, Huon thought.

  He supposed he disapproved himself, though it was really between them and God and none of his business; he hoped he was a good son of Holy Mother Church, but didn’t pretend to overmuch sanctity and he’d never seriously entertained the thought of a vocation.

  And judge not, lest ye be judged is really sort of scary when you think about it. I’m not that brave, or maybe not that self-confident.

  Lady Delia was beautiful in a lushly feminine way, and much admired as a leader of fashion; Huon had seen her a few times at Court or social events, and felt the same awed goggle-eyed lust as any boy his age. Baron de Stafford was ruggedly handsome, a noted champion in the lists, victor in two duels, and a respected leader in the field. Lady d’Ath was known as Lady Death; she’d been the Regent’s hatchetwoman for years before she became a commander, and she was victor in more than a dozen duels, about which rumor told equally credible and really, truly hideous details. Not many people liked her and a fair number hated her bitterly, but he’d never heard an Associate nobleman refer to her with anything but wary respect shading into outright fear.

  She certainly scares me, he thought. Of course, if things had gone a little differently, the Regent might have sent her to kill the rest of House Liu; I’m pretty sure she was the one who…executed…Mom.

  He grimaced slightly at the thought. His mother hadn’t really been herself that last year or two before things fell apart; it had been like living with a stranger who just looked like the mother he remembered. A dangerous and utterly unpredictable stranger. According to rumor, again, she’d been possessed, a thing of evil. He could believe it—though he very much didn’t want to—and a lot of his nightly prayers were for her soul. He couldn’t even really resent the way the Regent had dealt with her.

  On second thought, with the Spider of the Silver Tower behind them, it’s no wonder nobody makes trouble for d’Ath and de Stafford, even if they’re not scared of ending up in a dueling circle. Which I would be. But the Regent’s mind scares me even more than Lady Death’s sword, now that I’ve seen Lady Regent Sandra Arminger in action at close range.

  “Were you with the Grand Constable at Walla Walla?” Huon asked Lioncel, a little enviously.

  D’Ath had commanded the Montivalan vanguard there, the army screening the gathering of the High King’s host and turning to snap and slash at the eastern invaders as they advanced. The war-camp was full of the news of their deeds, and the way the High King had led a charge to rescue them when they were surrounded by the Prophet’s cavalry just before they reached safety a few days ago. Huon had been part of that, but you didn’t see much even if you were involved; it was all a whirling confusion, not the neat lines and duel-like blow-by-blow encounters of which the troubadours sang.

  “Yes,” Lioncel said; his face was sober as he replied, as if he were suddenly looking somewhere quite different. “My lord my father was too. It was…there were so many of them, the enemy, even when they split up to try and trap us. If we’d made one big mistake, none of us would have gotten away. It was…like dancing backward while someone really big tri
ed to hit you with a war hammer, but my lady d’Ath never let them get a grip on us. And we hurt them, hurt them badly.”

  Then he smiled. “At first the regiments from the Yakima League didn’t like serving under the Grand Constable.”

  “I suppose the Free Cities remember the old wars,” Huon said. “My father fought there, when we took the Tri-Cities; I’m too young to remember it.”

  “Mine too. And do they ever remember the old wars! Not the way we Associates do, either. But by the end, they were cheering her whenever she rode by. And the enemy got a lot more cautious, even with their numbers. I grew up with her, but that was the first time I knew, really knew, why so many people are so frightened of her.”

  Huon nodded respectfully; they both served warriors of note and of famous deeds, even if they were women.

  And running the Grand Constable’s messages or carrying her spare lances must have been pretty dangerous too. He’s younger than me, but he’s already well-blooded.

  He glanced through the door of the tent; Lady d’Ath was speaking, referring to a notebook in her left hand and tracing something on the map. Just to add to the puzzle, she looked a lot like Lioncel, enough to have actually been his mother herself; blond and regular-featured and tall. Not ladylike or feminine, but not really mannish, either—very female and very, very dangerous, like a she-tiger.

  “You’re Baron Odard’s younger brother, aren’t you?” Lioncel asked. “The late baron, of course. We’ve all heard about his deeds and how well he died.”

  Huon nodded. Lioncel was looking at him a little oddly, too, because the Barony of Gervais wasn’t exactly normal either. House Liu had produced his elder brother, Odard, who had been one of the Companions of the Quest with the High King and Queen, all the way east to Nantucket. He hadn’t come back.

  So far, so good, he thought. I miss Odard. He was a good guy and a good brother when he remembered me at all, but a knight has to expect to die by the sword—and he died like a hero from a chanson. He brought honor to our House and he saved Yseult and me. Without him, when Mother was arrested for treason…