"A thousand?"
"Yes. All armored, all well-armed, and with abundant supplies. And-"
She gave a few details of what had happened in Lebanon, and even the tough cattlemen winced.
Hutton nodded: "That's the type he hires on. We've all done some killin' since the Change when we had to-"
Everyone nodded, matter-of-factly or regretfully.
"-but the Protector, this Arminger, he likes to kill for fun. Figures the Change means he can act like a weasel in a henhouse, and we have to swallow it."
Several men swore; the one with the cigarette just narrowed his eyes.
Juniper went on: "We and our neighbors got a fair number of refugees from there. The reason you didn't hear about it was that the Protector's men sent a big gang east on bicycles, up Route 20, what you might call a bicycle blitzkrieg. They went right through Sweet Home-not much left of it, anyway, between the fighting and the fires-and up the highway across the pass. They pushed as far as east as Echo Creek, not a day's travel from Springs."
A rancher stirred. "We heard about that, but not the details. Couldn't make head nor tail of what we did hear. Figured we'd look into it when things were less busy."
Juniper nodded to Hutton, and he gestured Astrid forward; he had to add a sharp word before she noticed.
"Now, we've been sending scouts through the Cascades since spring, talked with Ms. Juniper's folks here now and then. She asked us to see what we could see. Here's what the Protector's boys have put up at Echo Creek."
Astrid came forward with an artist's portfolio book, unzipping it and taking out a thick sheaf of drawings, done with pencil and charcoal. There were more amazed oaths.
"What is that?" the rancher asked.
Aylward and Chuck Barstow looked at each other, and Chuck made a gesture; the Englishman answered:
"It's a castle. Early type, Norman motte-and-bailey; there's one near where I was born, or at least the mound's still there if you look. You dig a moat, use the dirt for an earth wall, put a palisade on top of that, and you've a bailey. Then do the same thing inside the bailey-only a smaller, much higher mound, with a great tall timber tower on top as well as a palisade; that's the motte. You can do it fast, with a couple of hundred men working; the Normans used them to tie down territory they'd taken. Each one's more than a fort-it's a base for raiding parties, or for collecting tribute and taxes and tolls."
He pointed to two of the drawings. "The buggers got clever there with the location. See, the eastern one is at the western end of a bridge-so it commands the bridge, and they've got this section here that they can take up, like a drawbridge. Same thing mirror image over on the western end of the pass. And they've got some refinements added-metal cladding on the tower."
Hutton nodded: "We could get by easy enough, sneaky-like, but you couldn't take wagons or big parties that way.
Most of the old-fashioned bandits in between, they got chopped or ran, 'part from a few we met."
Juniper let them pass the drawings around and talk out their first fright and indignation.
"We Mackenzies have sources inside Portland-our coreligionists who got trapped there."
She nodded to another guest, a square-faced blond woman with a teenage daughter; they'd both been quiet, and concentrated on eating.
"This is the Protector's opening move for what he has planned next year; he wants to cut off the Willamette from the eastern part of the state."
Luther Finney spoke for the first time: "Arminger took over a lot of food in Portland; it's a major shipping port, even off-season. He drove out most of the people to die; but he's got enough to feed what's left for a year-feed an army. After that he's going to need farmers; only he's calling them serfs, and guess who he's got in mind? And I hope none of you Bend folks think he'll stop this side of the mountains."
"What can we do?" one of the ranchers asked, alarmed. "We'll have to get the CORA"-the Central Oregon Ranchers' Association, the nearest thing the eastern slope had to a government nowadays-"to hold a plenary meeting: "
Hutton snorted. "What we've got to do, is work fast. It's going to get mighty cold up there and soon."
Juniper sighed, and the fiddles in the background swung into "Jolie Blon." The dancers' feet skipped over the close-cropped turf:
And how many of them will lie stark and sightless soon, with the ravens quarreling over their eyes?
The "Twa Corbies" had always been one of her favorite tunes. She didn't know if she could ever play or sing it in quite the same way again.
When the talking was done for the night and she took the guests up to the Hall, Hutton fell into step beside her.
"By the way, Mike wants to ask you a favor."
Juniper's eyebrows went up. "Yes?"
"He'd like Astrid to stay here until this problem with the highway's solved."
Juniper looked behind her. The other Bearkillers were leading their horses up; Astrid had two, lovely dapple-gray mares with wedge-shaped heads and dark intelligent eyes, their tails arched and manes dressed with ribbons, with silver-chased charro-style saddles and tack. As she watched, the girl handed the reins of one to Eilir. Her daughter went blank for a moment, then gave Astrid a spontaneous hug, and another to the horse. The animal nuzzled at her, and accepted an apple with regal politeness.
"You'll be looking after it yourself, remember!" Juniper signed, smiling at her daughter's delight.
"That's Astrid for you," Hutton said dryly.
"Generous?"
"Sort of, if you don't mind it goin' off 'round corners. That there horse and saddle was supposed to be a diplomatic gift from the outfit for you."
Juniper laughed. "In that case, I'd have to put it in the common pool. But Eilir will enjoy it more; she's entranced with horses. Myself, I like them well enough, but: "
"But you ain't a teenager," Hutton said dryly.
"I don't think having Astrid around for a month or so will be any great hardship," Juniper said. "But why exactly does Lord Bear want it so? Doesn't he like the girl?"
"He likes her fine-says he always wanted a sister," Hutton said. "And I do too, like she was my own. But: well, the girl's a handful, and we've got somethin' coming up where she might. let's say she had a hobby befo' the Change that would sort of expose her to danger."
Aha, a mystery! Juniper thought; she recognized a don't-ask-me-now as well as the next person. And an opportunity. it would be well in years to come to have a good friend of the Mackenzies among the Bearkillers, I think.
"I'd be delighted to put her up," she said aloud. "We can say she's an envoy; she'll like that: at least, Eilir would if the positions were reversed. Didn't Mike say Astrid's prone to whimsy and romantical gestures?"
"Lady, you got no idea." He hesitated. "Thing my Angel wanted to ask?"
"You have a personal angel?" Juniper replied, interested. "That talks to you?"
Hutton grinned wearily; he'd had a very long ride, cold and wet and dangerous.
"Don't we all, ma'am? Sorry; I forgot we'd just met, y'all were so friendly-like. I mean Angelica, my wife. When she heard you folk were Witches, she wanted to know if you're a hexer or a healer-she comes from down around San Antonio way."
Juniper nodded. "Ah, you mean whether I'm a bruja or a curandera, then, in her terms. Definitely a healer, Mr. Hut-ton. Definitely."
But sometimes a healer has to cut.
Mike Havel whistled softly as he looked through the binoculars up the route of Highway 20, where it wound upward into the eastern slopes of the Cascades.
"Oh, my, they do like digging, don't they?"
A cluster of Bearkiller fighters kept watch, but he rode among the commanders of the allied force; the Bearkillers, the Mackenzies, and the CORA.
Sam Aylward grunted and passed his glasses to John Brown, the CORA delegate. The road was at three thousand feet just east of Echo Creek, and November was getting definitely chilly. Now Havel was glad of the warmth of his padded gambeson, and of the horse between his thighs; he'd added good wool hiking pants. When it started raining- or snowing-they were all going to be very, very miserable in tents. A while after that, people would start getting sick.