That poor lady, held captive in Boise by a murdering usurper, she thought. Something has to be done about that. Eilir and I swore that oath to succor the defenseless. .
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BEND
CAPITAL, CENTRAL OREGON RANCHERS ASSOCIATION
MAY 5, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“So far, we haven’t donemuch thisyear,” General-President Thurston said.
They were using a third-floor chamber in a pre-Change building for the conference. It had glass walls on two sides, facing west and north; you could see the line of the-criminally inadequate-city wall along the bend of the Deschutes River that had given the city its name; he instinctively drew a mental picture of how it should have been done, the underground aqueduct to secure the water supply, the height of the wall, the wet moat and glacis. He knew that from there it followed two of the old roads in a right angle to the eastward, encompassing the old core of the city, and the visibility made his sense of frustration at the stalled campaign worse. The room also had the slightly dead feel that old buildings often did; you just couldn’t get the ventilation to work properly and frequently, as here, the windows didn’t open at all.
“We’re not accomplishing anything,” he said. “Not fast enough.”
Not since that. . that whatever it was. His mind shied away from remembering it, and he forced it back. Something. . something like a flash of light. . something about the Sun. . anyway, it’s put a crimp in your style.
The Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant smiled. Martin Thurston blinked. There was something. . wrong about the smile. Sethaz was a middling man, middling height and coloring and features; very fit but otherwise unremarkable, save for the tuft of brown chin-beard and stubble-shaven head that the higher echelons of the Church Universal and Triumphant affected. A little older than Martin Thurston, in his early thirties, but young enough to be more or less a Changeling.
And there’s something wrong about him.
“You sense higher things, the touch of the Ascended Masters. Yet you are still blind to them.”
As Martin stared, the ruler of Corwin went on, and the wrongness seemed to fade:
“We have taken Bend and all of central Oregon; and we have pushed the enemy out of the Palouse and confined their holdings along the middle Columbia to a narrow strip.”
Martin nodded jerkily.
And I need him and he needs me. Which is the best reason for cooperation there ever was. But we’re not taking any more castles by the. . special means he had. That’s why Dad never tried to break the PPA; they had too many of the damned things by the time we were organized enough to think about it. Storming one castle is expensive. Fighting your way through country full of them is a nightmare, like dancing up to your knees in molasses. “Yes,” he said aloud. “We have. Unfortunately, that means we’ve taken a lot of thinly populated rangeland. We won’t have mortally wounded the enemy until we cut them in half by cracking the line of the Columbia down to the sea, and we won’t have disposed of them until we’ve overrun the western valleys. And we’ve lost more men than they have.”
“We can afford it and they cannot.” Sethaz shrugged. “The lifestreams of the fallen will be welcomed by the Masters.”
There was a rattle in one corner of the room. He had a six-man squad from the Sixth Battalion here-just in case, and in full armor of hooped plates, with shield and pilum; tough young farmboys, smelling of sweat and leather and oiled metal. The rattle had been the men moving-not enough to notice, they were still rigidly braced-but enough to show their start of indignation. Martin Thurston was known to be a ruthless bastard, but he was also one who husbanded his men and hated to lose one without a measurable result.
Two centuries of infantry waited in the street outside. Sethaz might be an ally. . but I’m not crazy enough to actually trust him.
“My intelligence indicates the Midwestern states are making preparations for an attack,” the General-President said, tapping the files before him on the table. “We may not have as much time as we thought.”
“They are preparing for war,” Sethaz said equably. “But they are very far away. Also the Church Universal and Triumphant’s territories are between them and Boise.”
“And what about this Sword?” Martin asked. Because that’s what scares me. “Every rebel and guerrilla is talking about it-”
Sethaz screamed.
For a moment Thurston simply stood staring at him. He’s gone mad, he thought, and then they locked eyes. The eyes drew at him, a whirling vortex. He could feel bits and pieces of his mind shredding, flying away, sucked in by the spinning nothingness. He was floating, falling, drawn down, deeper and deeper and something waited for him at the bottom of the darkness. Not-being. Not-anything. Waiting to un-make.
Martin Thurston screamed in agony, and then in something far worse, that made him shriek on the same rising-falling note as the Prophet.
Did you think that you had bargained with Me? a voice asked. No, you deceived yourself. I have no need to buy men. They give themselves to Me.
FREE REPUBLIC OF RICHLAND
SHERIFFRY OF READSTOWN (FORMERLY SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN)
MAY 10, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“Not as nervous as you were last time, meleth nin,” Mary Vogeler teased gently. “Even though it’s just the two of us for now, instead of the great band.”
“Herves, last time I wasn’t sure whether big brother Ed was going to greet me like the prodigal son or kick me out like the proverbial polecat,” Ingolf said, taking a deep breath of the clean moist air as the earth exhaled last night’s rain. “Also we weren’t married yet. It’s calmed me down a lot and given me a more optimistic outlook on life.”
And last time I’ d been away for ten years. Now it’s only months, and two of those. . just went missing in an instant while we were on Nantucket. But I haven’t been feeling homesick quite as hard either, and that’s the truth. It’s as if something inside has let go. Mary and I will have our own place someday, and in the meantime we’re each other’s home.
“Anyway, we’re just going up to see about those troops.”
It was spring instead of late autumn this time, too; the same season when he’d originally stormed out as a young man to begin his wandering years as a paid soldier and salvager.
Mary grinned. “Anyway, Rudi’s giving you a last chance at a visit home while everyone else is stuck at the muddy junction of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi rivers, waiting for the barges. That’s why he didn’t ride with us, too. He wants you to have some time with your family before he arrives.”
It may well be the last time you can be here, went unspoken between them. Crossing the continent isn’t something that many men have done once, let alone two or three times.
They followed the dirt track north from a hamlet named Craw-ford, with forested ridges on either side crowding closer to the winding Kickapoo or opening out into a wider view. Mostly they traveled at an easy trot, the fastest pace a good horse could keep up for any distance. Every few miles they slowed to an ambling walk for ten or twenty minutes; that combination gave an average speed close to a man running. It didn’t even make conversation too difficult, if you were used to it and traveled side by side. Right now the traffic was light enough for that, only an occasional buckboard or someone on foot pulling a handcart or in the saddle or a bicyclist now and then lurching along on a solid-tire makeshift.