“No sorry needed, Ian. My father died fighting the Association. He killed Norman Arminger, in fact.”
“Oh, sorry about that, ah. . well, now that the PPA have learned to keep on their side of the old BC border.”
“Which is why the Anchor Bar Seven and the other border ranches get tax exemptions and subsidies on their military equipment,” his corporal said.
The map crackled again: “And why we spend so much time around here, too. Let’s see, it’s about sixty miles to Bone Creek. That’s the last place with enough good water before we turn north for Crowsnest Pass. We can make it by about four and scout it out, and the main body will be in by sundown.”
Ritva nodded; they were making a loop southward before they approached the pass. Threading the steep route through the mountains would be the difficult part; once they were over the Rockies they’d be in the Okanogan country, Association territory and part of Montival now.
Say what you like about the Spider of the Silver Tower and Lady Death, and Count Renfrew for that matter, they’ll have everything organized to rush us south fast. By the Valar and Maiar, it will be good to see Montival again!
The ground grew more rolling, and the railroad crossed a few gullies or small rivers. Sometimes that was on the pre-Change embankments or bridges. Once or twice it was on more recently built and more flimsy timber trestles that made them sway and rattle alarmingly as the railcar shot across.
Something teased at her as they slowed down to take one of those. Nothing she could have put a name to, nothing heard, something felt. They were the advance party, after all.
Who scouts for the scouts? she thought.
Her father had used an expression, Polish Mine Detector, for the people he put on point-she could just barely remember him laughing about it when he’d come back from that duty himself, and not understanding at the time.
And. . All right, Aunt Astrid, Uncle Alleyne and Aunt Eilir and Uncle John, a Ranger is supposed to pay attention to everything. What is it that’s nagging at me? Relax, take deep breaths, feel your legs moving, empty your mind. .
“Do the birds usually shut up this time of day around here?” she asked suddenly.
Until a few minutes ago there had been yellow-breasted meadow-larks chattering and singing, bluebirds swooping after grasshoppers, and dozens more. Even the occasional red-tailed hawk or falcon or eagle only made them scatter for a little while. Also there had been more than a few prairie dogs, waddling about or sitting in the entrances of their burrows going eeek-eeek-eeek at the passing humans and their machinery. Now there was silence save for the ticking of insects.
“No, they don’t,” Corporal Dudley said suddenly, throwing her a respectful look. Then: “Squad, rest easy!”
The vehicle coasted to a halt. “I think it’s maybe too quiet,” Ritva murmured, and suppressed an inappropriate giggle as most of the redcoats nodded solemnly.
There were hatches on the roof of the railcar. She opened the one above her seat and got out her binoculars, and so did Corporal Dudley. There was nothing but the rolling swells of the prairie, though through the glasses the Rockies were definitely visible now.
“No game, either,” she said. “Nothing moving but the bugs and those ravens over by that ravine.”
Minutes ticked by. Kovalevsky jittered a little, but he was the youngest of his band; the others had stayed quiet after checking their fighting gear. Ritva smiled and glanced down at him, then quoted a training mantra of John Hordle’s:
“Who dares, wins. Who gets the wind up and buggers about like a headless pillock, loses. Know when to wait, know when to kick them in the goolies, and you’ll be the one telling lies over your beer.”
Corporal Dudley looked at her again. “You really aren’t just somebody’s relative, are you, ma’am?”
“No,” Ritva said flatly. “No, I’m not.”
Normally she’d have embroidered on the theme, but the sense of something wrong was building instead of fading. From the way his head swiveled back and forth with the binoculars, so was the corporal’s.
“I think we should turn the railcar around,” Ritva said after a longer wait. “Just in case.”
“My thought exact-”
The first horsemen came out of the ravine ahead of them before the word ended; evidently they’d decided that their prey wasn’t going to walk into the parlor. Corporal Dudley shifted in mid-syllable.
“-squad reverse railcar!”
The eight scarlet-clad men and one woman in gray-green flung themselves out of the vehicle and at the handgrips built into its sides. Ritva grunted as the weight came on her arms and back and the corrugated metal bit into her palms; there was a trick to throwing your whole body into an effort like this, like drawing a bow. The same lightweight construction that made the railcar fast also made it possible to lift, if you worked carefully and in coordination. They did, feet churning to avoid tripping on the rusty rail or splintered, obtruding ties where gravel had washed away.
Clung.
The flanged wheels came down on the pitted steel of the rails again.
“Hup!”
The redcoats threw their shoulders against the open doors of the car and pushed to get it going; a fractional second later so did she. It was a good idea, overcoming the inertia faster than they could have by pedaling alone. In a few seconds they were moving it at a pounding run.
“Middle seats in. . now!” the corporal barked. “Outer seats in. . now!”
She hadn’t practiced this maneuver the way the men of the Force had, but she was a Ranger, and she’d spent endless hours climbing and tumbling and doing gymnastics. Her body thumped down in the left front seat beside Constable Kovalevsky about the same time as the others, though it took her an instant longer to get the soles of her elf-boots on the pedals. They were all pumping hard in unison, and then the corporal’s voice barked as speed built:
“Shift gears. . now. And shift gears. . now. And shift gears. . now!”
The sound of the wheels built to a thrumming whine, interspersed by the clickity-clack as they crossed the joints. Her eyes went to the mirror outside the window.
The helpful little objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear printed on the convex surface was deeply unwelcome, because the onrushing horsemen were far, far closer than was comfortable in any case. More and more of them were pouring up out of the ravine as she watched as well, laboring over the steep lip or traveling north and south for shallower exits, then crowding back until they formed a reverse crescent behind the railcar. Was it her imagination, or could she already feel the earth shaking beneath the impact of hundreds of hooves?
“A thousand yards and gaining,” she said.
Corporal Dudley grunted agreement; he had a mirror too. “The lightest men on the fastest horses,” he said. “They’re getting strung out.”
She hadn’t had time to be afraid before; you didn’t, when you were scrambling to meet an emergency, or fighting. Now she was just running away, and she found her breath coming faster than the exertion would justify. She slowed it by a practiced effort of will; if you made yourself act brave, you were. That was what being brave meant. She’d met a few people-all of them men, which didn’t surprise her-who really didn’t feel fear. Every single one had been a dangerous lunatic, useful mainly to stop spears or arrows which might otherwise have hit a real human being.