A herd of fawn-colored pronghorns with white bellies and rumps came from the south, pronking and stotting as they went-bouncing along like rubber balls or hopping straight up, apparently for the sheer joy of it, and she saw Alleyne grin as he watched. A few white-tailed deer wandered along the edge of the woods, darting away when they got within a few-score paces of the silent humans and finally realized predators were about; some feral alpacas grazed. A blaring sound in the sky made her look up and see a brace of massive snowy trumpeter swans going by. Other birds swept through northward towards the lakes that lay there, V-shapes of duck and geese and tern; a golden eagle cruised along the forest edge for a while, a seven-foot wingspan of savage majesty hoping to scare up something edible. . which for that breed might be anything up to a pronghorn and certainly included the odd weakly lamb or fawn.
I do like the wilderness, she thought. More than the tame lands. Though the forests of Mithrilwood are even more comely than this. Home is where your children are born.
Then-
“That’s them,” she said, seconds after the two observers whistled the first sighting from their treetop perches-for detail her optics trumped their elevation.
Two groups of horsemen, riding along at a casual trot-canter-trot with remounts and pack beasts on leading reins, one coming from the east, the other from north and east.
“Literally six of one and half a dozen of the other,” Alleyne said. “You’re sure?”
“The blue scarves are the recognition signal, and they’re all wearing them. Either we’re blown, or it’s them.”
It was possible they had been blown; this area had been part of the United States of Boise for over twenty years, though it was lightly governed, or had been until recently. It took only one traitor or a suspicious and conscientious officer making arrests and holding people’s heads underwater until they talked, which everyone did eventually. She reached over her shoulder for an arrow and tied a bit of blue ribbon just below the head. Her man did likewise, and they rose and trotted out into the open. When they’d been standing for ten minutes each of them drew to the ear and shot skywards, and riders stood in the stirrups and waved back at them.
The Idahoans had a perfect right to be here on their home ranges, if anyone asked. They rode up boldly, and Astrid signed over her shoulder for the Sioux to come out beside the Dunedain leaders. The two approaching parties traveled the last hundred yards side by side. One was commanded by a sixtyish man in rancher’s leather and denim and linsey-woolsey with a Stetson on his head, and a Sheriff’s star on his jacket. The other’s leader was fifty-something, dressed in fine fringed buckskins with a bar of white paint across his eyes; there was as much gray as raven black in his long hair, which was bound at the rear of his head with a fan-shaped spray of eagle feathers. The rancher’s troop had excellent horses of a nondescript quarter horse breed; the Indians rode striking-looking animals with almost metallic-golden forequarters and socks, fading to pale gray with patches on the rest of their bodies.
The rank and file of the cowboys and Indians-her lips quirked for a moment-contained surprisingly few men in their prime fighting years.
Teenagers old enough for work but too young for call-up and women, mostly, apart from the two leaders.
The tyrant in Boise had been reaching deep into his pool of potential fighters. Alleyne met her eyes and nodded very slightly.
And most of them Changelings; not just in fact, but technically, as in born after March 17, 1998. That’s happening more and more and it’s a bit of a shock. Counting my ohtar, the majority of this whole gathering are Changelings. I think more than half of all the people on earth may be Changelings now, or will be soon.
A few of the locals had leather breastplates or light mail shirts, and all had slung helmets modeled on those of the old American army to their saddle bows. Everyone wore a saber or the heavy curved blade called a shete, and had bow in saddle scabbard, shield and lariat hanging at their cruppers, quivers across their backs, the gear common to the whole interior range-and-mountain country from the Cascades far into the eastern plains. The Sheriff drew rein first; despite his age he looked tough as the tooled leather of his saddle, though it bore images of flowers and his face had only lines and crags. His eyes were as blue as hers, startling in his weathered face.
“Ms. Larsson,” he said. “Long time no see. Though we enjoyed the letters.”
“Mae govannen,” she replied, putting hand to heart and bowing slightly. “Im gelir ceni ad lin, Arquen Woburn. Well met, and I’m glad to see you again, Sheriff Woburn. But it’s Astrid Loring, now; this is my husband, Alleyne Loring. Alleyne, Sheriff Robert Woburn. We met in the first Change Year, and a couple of times afterwards, though not lately.”
“She and Mike Havel and the rest of their bunch saved our ass the first Change Year,” Woburn said. “That one’s still on the debit side of the books.”
“Ah, yes, the affair of the soi-disant Duke Iron Rod,” Alleyne said. “I’ve read about it in the chronicle Astrid kept.”
“The Red Book of Larsdalen,” she affirmed, with a nostalgic thrill at the thought.
Though the Annals of the Westmen was current, started when she and Eilir refounded the Dunedain. And by then she’d been able to write it in Tengwar.
The other party reined in as well. The leader grinned at her and exchanged greetings, then explained over his shoulder.
“Astrid I know from way back. We owe her a couple of favors. Big ones.”
To her: “Glad to see you got hitched. Any kids, by the way?”
“Two girls and a boy,” Astrid said. “I’ve got some pictures. . later. You, Eddie?”
“Five; three boys, two girls. Yeah, hopefully we’ll have catching-up time.”
He made a signal to his followers-given the number who were women, she couldn’t say “his men”-and they dismounted and began to unload the packsaddles; Sheriff Woburn did likewise. The Indian went on, looking between the Sioux and her:
“So, who are these dudes? The message didn’t say, which is fair enough, seeing as it might have been read by not-good people. I presume they ain’t elves.”
“Neither are we,” Astrid said dryly. “We’re Men, well, People, of the West. These are John Red Leaf and Rick Three Bears, of the Oglalla and the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota tunwan.”
Who are sort of like the Riders of Rohan in some ways. Hopefully they’ ll also come charging to the rescue.
“Hau Kola,” they said, making the peace sign.
“Eddie Running Horse.” He introduced himself and shook hands. “Of the Nez Perce. Or the Nimi’ipuu as we say.”
“Meaning The Real People,” Red Leaf said dryly. “Self-esteem’s a wonderful thing. . and isn’t Running Horse a Sioux name?”
“Not when you say it in our language or in English. And Sioux means rattlesnake, doesn’t it? Or torturer? Or maybe movie Indian.”
“Well, fuck you too, Mr. I-will-fight-no-more-forever,” Red Leaf said.