She tilted her head to one side. “I’m glad the locals haven’t attacked us. The way it was going east, it seemed we couldn’t step behind a tree for a call of nature without an ambush or an affray or a fight or something.”
Artos nodded, and his hand closed on the pommel of the Sword. Crystal light seemed to seep through his flesh; was he imagining that, or the warmth?
“I think it’s this, acushla. The Sword of the Lady. The enemy can’t see us anymore, it comes to me. Not with eyes beyond the ones in their head, for Her hand is over us.”
“They could see us? Before?”
That was almost a squeak.
“I suspected it, and now I’m certain. How else could they have dogged our steps so closely, again and again, through so many miles of wilderness? Even when we broke contact for weeks, there they’d turn up, like a debt collector from a Corvallis bank. But now. . now we’re on more equal ground.”
“Good!”
They came back to the camp to the sound of raised voices. A crowd of onlookers was grinning and hooting; then the circle burst apart in two directions. In one a massively built Norrheimer stiff-armed his way through; that might have led to dangerous offense, except that the victims were laughing even after two of them fell on their backsides.
“Hrolf Homersson,” Artos mused to himself. “Ritva’s lover of the moment-”
On the other side there was a more flamboyant exit as someone vaulted onto a man’s shoulders in a handstand and back-flipped back to the ground, twisting in the air as she did so. The indignant bob of the blond fighting braid was unmistakable as she stalked away. Edain and Asgerd chuckled with the innocent cruelty of happy youth.
“Hrolf on one side, Ritva on the other,” Mathilda added. “Of the previous moment, I’d say!”
Bjarni strode forward, his broad-brimmed leather hat thrust back on his head; most of the crowd were men of his tribe, the Bjornings, but with a scatter from all the Norrheimer contingents.
“All right!” he shouted. “Is this a collection of picked fighting men, or a clutch of gossips at a quilting bee? Syfrid, can’t you keep them working? In the days of the sagas, men so idle would be thought useless as anything but a sacrifice to the High One! I need a working party to collect our dinners, which will be roast beef and ribs and better than you wastrels deserve-you, you, you-each pick four more, and take as many horses. The rest of you, get your weapons and muster by your standards!”
Ingolf walked over to Artos and Mathilda and shrugged. “They had a fight. I thought it was better to let them have it out, since it was personal, but it sort of escalated. Short of throwing a bucket of water over them. . well, she’s my sister-in-law but your sister. .”
“Ah, you’ve the right of it. Sooner shove your hand into a hornet’s nest. What started it?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it was a rabbit.”
“A rabbit?”
“Mary and Ritva got back from their scout, and they were pretty tired. Hrolf had just shot a rabbit, and he walked up and suggested that Ritva cook it for their dinner.”
“Ouch,” Mathilda said.
“Yeah. Then Ritva suggested he cook it himself since he’d been sitting on his ass all day pedaling while she did the real work. Apparently he’d heard that bit in those books where what’s-his-name does up the rabbit with herbs.”
“Sam,” Edain said. “I always did like him best, of all the folk in those stories. Sensible lad. Me da thought so too.”
Ingolf nodded, more as a placeholder than anything else, and went on:
“And Hrolf thought it was a big joke to quote that and say she ought to be able to do it just as well.”
Artos winced. “And her response?”
“She suggested he cook it himself using his dick for a roasting-spit and then shove it up his ass with chili peppers on it-she said it in Sindarin first and then translated for him-and I’m afraid I laughed. Because in that language-”
“To say, roast it on your man-spear with chilies and ram it up your back-hole sounds. . indescribable, so it does.”
“Yah hey. Then Hrolf laughed, and things went downhill from there. They didn’t actually draw on each other, but I don’t think it was just a tiff.”
Mathilda laughed herself. “And you can smooth down the ruffled feathers in your war band, my love. But I think you’d better be solemn, for she’s not going to be seeing the humor of it all. That’s how I’d guess, at least.”
Artos sighed. “Ah, a joyful and heady thing it is, to be leader.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GRANGEVILLE COUNTY,
CAMAS MILITARY DISTRICT (FORMERLY NORTH-CENTRAL IDAHO)
APRIL 14, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“Maybe it would have been better to go northand through the Dominions,” Red Leaf whispered. “I need to get home soonest, but. .”
“That would mean crossing the Canadian Rockies,” Astrid pointed out, equally quietly. “At this time of year, very risky. They’re much, much higher. Also colder, and not fond of men, like Caradhras.”
He grunted, as if to say And this isn’t a risk?
The eight Dunedain and the two Sioux all sat quietly after that, gnawing on strips of jerky that tasted like salty wood. They didn’t dare light a fire, and the steep lodgepole pine forest was still and cold, quiet save for the scolding of a few jays; they were far inland now, over the old Idaho border north of the Salmon River and several thousand feet up. She shivered a little, as much with exhaustion as the chill; not far away their horses stood with their heads drooping. Still, it was a day when the sky was aching-blue above, and the thin air was full of the awakening scent of the pines. She pulled the air into her lungs and let it out slowly, over and over, until her spirit expanded to fill the high forest.
A warbling call from above and her head came up, swift but not jerky. Then another and she relaxed, coming to her feet and dusting pine-duff off the slightly damp seat of her soft leather trousers. The sentry slid down with no more than a few fragments of bark coming with him, his blurred outline shaggy in his war-cloak and gauze face-mask.
“Man cennich?” she said softly: “What did you see?”
“No sign,” the young man said, nodding westward to where the slope fell away into a river valley. “They’ve lost us or they’re better at hiding than we are at finding, Lady.”
Astrid exhaled, hiding her relief. I’m not even really sure they were following us, she thought. But that’s two days.
“Let’s go, then,” she said.
Then she turned eastward and moved her hands in the broad gestures of battle-sign: Hold in place; await our return for the next three days maximum. They’d need a clear path of retreat across the river, just in case, which was why Eilir and John Hordle were back there with the other half of the party.
It took a minute or two to collect everyone quietly; the Ranger band was spread over several acres of the hillside, for better concealment. While they did she consulted her map and compass, just to be sure. One of the things she’d learned long ago in the early years of the Rangers was how disconcertingly easy it was to simply get irretrievably lost in country you weren’t thoroughly familiar with and end up going in circles. Particularly in unroaded wilderness without man-made landmarks.
I’m happy Alleyne is ahead of us breaking trail.
Now they went in a widely spaced single file; her, then the Indians with her Rangers bringing up the rear and last a horse dragging a bundle of brush-which wouldn’t hide their tracks completely but would make them much harder to read in detail. The two Sioux were nearly as quiet as her folk; forested mountains weren’t their native range, but they weren’t altogether unfamiliar with them either. The sun crept upward and the day warmed, enough to make her sweat a little under the leather-covered mail shirt she was wearing besides her travel gear. They rode and walked in about equal increments; that was good practice anyway, and the terrain made it impossible to do anything else.