“Not much,” Megan said. “As long as Ashly goes along, and she will or I’ll tear a strip off of her. I tried to put Mirta in charge but she’s not willing to put herself forward. Amber might, but she’s… that’s a long story. She’s having a hard enough time putting her head back together I guess. And Christel stayed behind. I suspect that was a bad choice on her part.” She frowned at a memory. “Who was that bird woman? Is she one of yours?”
“No,” Flora admitted. “She turned up here just a couple of days ago. She’s apparently a courier of some sort for the UFS. They couldn’t pick her up so they told her to come here and wait for a ship. We do have some contact with the UFS. Not much, and not much in the way of help. But they’ve dropped off supplies before.”
“I’ll see what I can do about getting you more support when I get to Norau,” Megan said, yawning. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been a long day for all of us,” Flora said. “And tomorrow’s probably going to be longer. Go get some rest.”
“I’ll do that,” Megan said. “Thanks for this talk. It helped.” She looked thoughtful and then shrugged. “Getting all my news from Paul sometimes I felt like despairing; everything seemed to be falling New Destiny’s way. I’m glad there are some people who aren’t willing to just roll over for them, no matter how bad it gets.”
“You’re welcome,” Flora chuckled. “We’ll beat these New Destiny bastards yet.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Megan patted the horse warily and nodded at it as it turned its head and snuffled at her. It already had a saddle and other bits attached. But getting up in the saddle was going to be difficult and she had no idea what to do after that. The horse turned again and blew into her hair.
“That’s a good horse,” she said, wiping at the moisture and then dodging as it lipped at her cloak. “Good… horse.”
“Don’t worry, mistress,” one of the grooms said, coming over to help her. “Ever ridden a horse before?”
“No,” Megan admitted.
“You know that thing about ‘men are from Mars, women from Venus?’ ” the groom asked, cupping his hands. “Just grab on the bottom of the mane, there, mistress, and pull yourself up. Well, this here’s a gelding, Broomy’s his name. Stallions are from Mars, sure enough, most of them will take your arm off just for a joke. And mares, they’re from Venus, except they’re not constant by any measure. Sweet as honey one day and throwing you in the air the next. But geldings, well, geldings they’re from Heaven, mistress. And Broomy’s the heavenliest one of them all.”
As he talked the groom had expertly heaved her onto the gelding’s back and adjusted the stirrups for her shorter legs. Then he showed her how to hold the reins.
“You’ll be following the others, mistress,” the groom continued, walking the horse out of the three-corner shed and into the cloudy dawn. “Broomy will follow right along. You’ll get the hang of it no time at all. The laird won’t be going fast. Might trot and that takes a bit of getting used to. Just lift up in the stirrups and hang on the mane, then. Canter, now, canter’s more comfortable than a trot but it can be scary. Seems fast to go so close to the ground and so far away if you get my drift.”
“I’m afraid I will,” Megan said as the other riders gathered. Most of them looked much more sure of themselves on horseback and all of them were armed. Megan suddenly realized that she didn’t have as much as a belt knife and wasn’t sure what they would say if she asked for a sword. Nor did she know what she would use it for. Her father had trained her in hand-to-hand combat, but he’d taught her nothing about projectile weapons or edged. For that matter, based on the motley collection of weapons McClure’s best carried, she was pretty sure there weren’t any to go around. Most of the group was armed with long spears that had the look of hasty craftsmanship. McClure had his big axe hanging from the saddle and a spear in his hand. His son bore a very long sword, immensely long with room for two hands on the pommel. He was a big guy but she wondered if he really could use something that size.
She counted the riders, fifteen, and realized that if the count the guard had given her the night before was right this was half the total fighting force of Clan McClure. If the castle was attacked in their absence it would be hard-pressed to hold the walls.
“Mistress,” McClure said, kneeing his horse over by hers. “You stay in the middle. I know you’re no rider but none of these boyos were before the Fall; you’ll learn as they did. Just grab onto the mane if you feel yourself falling and keep pressure on your feet in the stirrups.”
“What about Baradur?” she asked. He was standing by her horse. There wasn’t a horse saddled for him, she noticed.
“Oh, I don’t ride, mistress,” the Chudai said. “I’ll just trot along.”
“He’ll hold onto your saddle from time to time,” McClure answered her unvoiced question. “Other than that he’ll walk or trot along. It’s their way. We’ll take it at a walk as much as possible but we’ve a long ways to go.”
“I’ll keep up,” Megan said, grimly determined to do just that. “And so will Baradur I guess. You just set the pace you think is best.”
McClure didn’t say anything, just looked at her solemnly, nodded and turned his horse for the gate to the castle.
He kept the horses, who were fractious and obviously anxious to get moving, at a walk as they rode out of the castle and down the slope to the glen below. Megan hadn’t seen much of their surroundings and was surprised by the peaceful beauty of the scene. The glen below was heavily farmed, almost every square centimeter of flat ground plowed, some of it in winter wheat but most waiting for the spring to be used. It was covered in some sort of golden grass that bowed under a light snow cover. The mountains, hills really, rose sharp on every side. The glen was about six kilometers long, open at one end to the sea and narrowing down sharply at the far end, a faint path there ascended into the hills beyond. The castle was about two thirds of the way down the glen on the north side.
“That’s where Chansa’s forces hold,” McClure said, gesturing to where the glen necked down and headed up into the highlands. “T’ other side of yon hills is bandit country. We’ve a small fort up there that keeps an eye on them and a couple more,” he gestured to the south, “up in yon highlands. Easiest way into the glen’s through that pass, but they try to crawl up from the south from time to time as well. As well as landing down at the port.”
“Seems that that would be the easiest way,” she said, gesturing to the sea. There was a narrow tongue of water, covered by hills on both sides, that led out to the actual sea. She could see, as they turned into the hills to the north, the distant true ocean, tossed by wave and wind.
“They’ve got to sail up the loch, lassie,” McClure pointed out. “We get four, sometimes six hours warning. We can set up for them in half that time and by the time they get here we’ve called in help from other clans. Since we’re the only one with a decent port they send us help. We’re still hoping for help from Norau but if we’re without so much as a dock we don’t think we’ll get much.”
“I see,” Megan said, and grabbed at the mane as the horse scrambled up a narrow trail. The trail was paralleling a small stream that ran over mossy boulders towards the glen and was steep, half rocks and half thin soil. She had to concentrate on her riding as they passed through a defile and scrambled up a portion of fallen scree but she found that if she leaned upwards it was easier to stay on the horse. She was slowly finding her “seat” and didn’t find riding nearly as hard as she expected. She did notice that the inside of her thighs were beginning to burn, though, and her legs, which she had thought were in pretty good shape, were starting to tire. As they reached the top of the hills, she wondered how long the trip would take.