Jehane crossed herself, despite her liege-lady’s obvious irony; Tiphaine touched an owl-shaped amulet around her neck.
“What did happen back then?” Red Leaf asked.
“Rudi told you of the Sword?” Juniper replied.
“Ummm. . yeah. That was the part I found hardest to believe.”
“Et moi aussi,” Sandra murmured. “But it appears I was wrong too. We have that in common.”
Juniper took a deep breath. “When Rudi was very young, at his Wiccaning. . it’s a rite of our Old Religion equivalent to baptism. . I had a vision.”
Sandra raised a finger. “I was a skeptic myself. But please take this seriously.”
“I named him Artos then, in the Craft. And I spoke words.” Her voice deepened a little:
“And then Ingolf Vogeler showed up at Sutterdown a little over two years ago now, telling us what he found on Nantucket. . and you know the story of that. What happened on Imbolc was that Rudi-think of him as Artos now-reached Nantucket, found the Sword of the Lady in the World beyond the world, returned and drew it in the light of common day. And at that moment Earth’s foundations shook, as they had not since the Change itself.”
“So, he’s got the Sword and he’s coming home, and he’s pissed?”
Juniper nodded; her leaf-green eyes looked beyond the wall for a moment. “The Sun Lord comes, the son of Bear and Raven,” she said softly. “Lugh of the Long Hand comes again, in His splendor and His wrath.”
Silence closed down for a moment. Nobody who heard her could doubt her perfect sincerity. . and she judged that nobody here was altogether ruling out the literal truth of what she said, either. She went on more matter-of-factly:
“And in the meantime, the Cutters have been somewhat weakened. And all we who stand against them strengthened. At least as far as their ill-wishing and malignant abuse of the Powers are concerned.”
Sandra sighed and rested her chin on one small fist. “I must admit that. . that was a real problem.”
Tiphaine nodded from behind her. “We lost castles in ways that just couldn’t be accounted for,” she said. “Lost more than we could afford; we’d been relying on our strongholds to delay them. But now apparently we can play that game too.”
She inclined her head towards the Mackenzie chief: “Lady Juniper here bagged us an entire battalion of Boise’s troops just last week.”
“That was you?” Red Leaf looked at her, surprised. “I heard they surrendered, which is news ’cause they’re tough bastards generally, but. . you hexed them or something?”
Juniper winced and rubbed the fingertips of her right hand over her forehead. “I cast troubles into their dreams, and they’ll be none the worse for it. Eventually. Most of them. I wouldn’t have done it if there hadn’t been a High Seeker out of Corwin with them, because there’s a price to be paid for that. And I do not wish to discuss it, so.”
“But we must,” Sandra said. “If these things are possible now-”
“They were always possible!” Juniper snapped. “Magic is. . not a matter of clicking your heels and having boulders fall upward. It’s a thing of mind and soul and will. I will admit-” she said reluctantly. “I will admit that things have become. . easier since the Change. And much easier since Imbolc. The Veil is thinner. Something. . or someone. . moved through me; it’s not the first time, but it was the most disturbing. The which is linked to Rudi bringing the Sword. A new thing has come into the world.”
“Indisputably so,” Sandra said. “It’s disturbing, as you say, but I’m not going to deny the evidence of my senses. That would be irrational. Though I’ve tried prayer and it doesn’t seem to do any more for me than it ever did.”
“Of course it doesn’t!” Juniper said sharply. “You don’t believe in anything; you pray to nothing for something and you get. . nothing!”
“Is nothing sacred?” Sandra murmured.
Juniper made an impatient gesture; then she spoke very softly. “This frightens me, Sandra. More than it does you. I really know the implications, and you don’t. We’re not talking about a better breed of catapults or. . or D amp;D hit levels. We’ve always walked with our legends. But what happens if our legends start to walk with us? What will the world be then? Will the Powers burst the everyday asunder in their contentions?”
“At least we’re not at a disadvantage in. . non-material terms anymore,” Tiphaine said. “Which just leaves the fact that we’re badly outnumbered.”
“Yeah,” Red Leaf said, visibly putting other things aside. “OK, I’ve seen enough here to know you guys can put up a stiff fight. But as matters stand, Corwin and Boise between them have you beat in the next couple of years, right?”
“It’s not inevitable,” Tiphaine said. “But when you’re fighting someone who can replace losses and you can’t-” A shrug. “It’s the way to bet. Particularly if they don’t make any big mistakes or take big risks, and so far they haven’t. Grinding forward costs, but they can do it if they’re prepared to pay the butcher’s bill. They’ve already overrun most of our part of the Palouse, and even more south of the Columbia.”
“And having disposed of us, the Cutters will turn on you,” Sandra pointed out.
“Possibly,” Red Leaf said. “Or maybe Corwin and Boise will have it out and whoever’s left standing won’t have any attention left to pay to us. They’re partners now; that won’t last forever.”
“If this were merely a war of men, that might be so,” Juniper said. “But Corwin has no partners. It has only prey. The CUT is an infection that spreads like mold through bread.”
Silence stretched. “OK, you got something there, too,” Red Leaf said. “But we fought them once before and we got beat. Not whipped, but beat.”
“With us on your side, the odds would be much better,” Tiphaine said. “You could bring, what, fifteen thousand men into the field?”
“Ten to fifteen if they’re going to be away from home for a while,” Red Leaf said. “But-”
“But they’re all light cavalry, horse-archers,” Tiphaine said. “No siege train, no infantry and no logistics beyond foraging and what they can carry in their saddlebags or drive along on the hoof. Plus they all need grazing for three horses each.”
“Yeah,” the Indian said. “Most of the Cutters fight that way too, Ranchers and their cowboys, but they’ve got drilled infantry, and they’ve got the Sword of the Prophet-regular troops. Not tin-plated like you guys in the Association here, but more punch than our riders in a stand-up fight. And they’ve got forts. With Boise on their side they’ve got another big tough army, lots of forts, and field artillery, too-how they square that with the crazy religious thing about no gears or machinery, God only knows. We don’t have a ban on machinery, but we just don’t run to that war-engine stuff. It doesn’t go with moving around the way we do. And we’ve had some painful experience with it.”
“We do have field artillery and a siege train,” Tiphaine pointed out. “Taking all of. . Montival. . as a whole, we’ve got a great deal of field artillery; we and the Bearkillers and the Corvallans make some of the best. And we have relatively recent experience at using it. Mostly on each other, back a decade and change.”
“Yeah, but you’re on the other side of them from us. It’s our guys who’d have to ride into the teeth of bolts and round shot and balls of napalm at three times bow-range without being able to hit back, or try climbing stone walls on ladders while the people inside pumped flaming canola oil on them. Not good.”