Mathilda offered her sword; he touched hilt and steel and sheathed it again for her. Then she stood, and they put their hands on each others? shoulders and exchanged the kiss of peace on both cheeks. She came to stand at his right, erect, with her eyes bright and glad. Mary stepped forward and knelt in turn and offered her hands, and the others lined up behind her. Rudi took his half sister?s palms between his; her single blue eye seemed to wink at him for an instant-but that might just be that it was the only one she had left to blink with.
When she spoke it was entirely solemn: ?In the sight of Manwe Sulimo and Varda Elentari and all of humankind, I, Mary daughter of Michael, daughter of Signe, of the House of the Bear and the fellowship of the Dunedain Rangers, do swear fealty and service as vassal to the High King of Montival-? ?That delay in Iowa means we can either hole up for the winter, or keep going despite it,? Rudi said two days later.?We?re far north and going farther, and the winter here will have all the wrath the Crone can muster and the Keeper-of-Laws send.? ?Well, I?ve lived through a fair number of those winters. Snow?s easier to travel through than mud,? Ingolf said.?Or to travel over. It could snow hard as early as Halloween… Samhain… or even a bit earlier.?
The Hammerdown was tied up for the evening, with a hawser stretched to the stump of something made of concrete and steel on the eastern shore, eroded and rusted but still strong. The travelers had set up tents ashore there-a little elbow room was very welcome-and Rudi could see, through the slanting windows of the stern cabin, the glow of their fires on the trunks and branches of the great trees that overhung the campsite. It was chilly enough that his jacket and plaid were welcome even in the rather stuffy cabin.
He spooned up another mouthful of an entirely forgettable catfish stew and took a bite from a lump of equally uninteresting corn bread laced with soy meal, his attention focused on the map, a topographic one from a journal of the ancient world called National Geographic. Ignatius and Mathilda were there too; the priest paused to turn up one of the lanterns and the blue flame brightened across the aging, fragile paper glued to a backing of new linen cloth. ?The roads are pretty rough, especially past about here,? Ingolf went on.
The Readstowner?s thick finger came down near his birth home, on the Kickapoo River. ?They already were when I left… and hell, that was a while ago, and there?s been plenty of frost and heave and floods since. Richland isn?t Iowa, and they weren?t kept up the same, or the railroads. But once the snow?s down hard, you can use sleighs, and skis. A man can go twice, three times as far in a day on skis as he can walking, and carry more of a pack, too, or pull a small sled. We?d make up the time. Stick to the rivers and lakes as much as we could.?
Rudi used his spoon as a pointer.?Right east, then?? ?As far as the Great Lakes. Big chunks of?em freeze hard, especially around the edges, and from what I hear the St. Lawrence freezes solid all the way down to the ocean. We could go that way-less chance of running into hostiles if we stay away from land as much as possible. It?s risky, yah, but so is waiting for spring.? ?We?d have to wait for freeze-up,? Rudi said.?But we do need some time, not least for our wounded to heal fully. Matti and Odard need some rest before they do hard travel again. And to be sure, every time we?ve taken a break on this journey important things have come of it; not least friends willing to fight the Cutters, when the time comes. That?s time well spent, even if it slows us down enough to make me want to run screeching into the woods like a banshee full of brandy.? ?I can travel,? Mathilda said stoutly.?But… yes, I couldn?t run or fight well right now.?
Ignatius traced the line of the Mississippi southwards from Dubuque. ?And somewhere southward here are what is left of the Cutters, waiting.? ?Well south, Father,? Mathilda said.?Kate told me that the Iowan river navy patrols well beyond their border, either way, and she and Abel Heuisink will have them looking hard. The Cutters will have to hide; probably they?ll have to run their ship up a tributary and abandon it, unless they go so far south they?re out of the picture.? ?Probably they?ll go at least this far,? Rudi said, tapping the place where the Ohio joined the Father of Waters.?They?d know that we were thinking of taking the Ohio route.?
Everyone nodded. Ingolf shrugged. ?Yah hey, they?d have heard. Tancredo owes me favors and he hid Mary and Ritva and Fred and Virginia. On the other hand, he is a pimp. A man who can?t be bought doesn?t go into that line of work, in my experience.? ?They lost about thirty men in Dubuque, killed and left badly wounded,? Rudi said thoughtfully.?They?d have eighty left-and a few of their local followers fled with them, to be sure. More than I?d care to meet, if it can be avoided. We were lucky once, but Nike is a fickle Goddess.? ?And there is their High Seeker, their adept,? Ignatius said.?He has… resources. I would not care to meet him again either, except at great need.?
Silence fell for a moment. Then Ingolf stretched his thick arms, rubbed one hand across his short-cropped brown beard and spoke: ?The Ohio route?s got its problems anyway. Lots of dams and bridges. And then the Appalachians.?
Ignatius raised a brow.?I had heard that more survived there than anywhere else in the east.? ?Yah, that?s the problem, Father. Mostly in the lowlands near the dead cities they?re barely human. But there aren?t very many of them either. Eaters who got through the first year, well, a lot still died before they could learn how to catch rabbits or deer when people got scarce. Not a lot of their kids lived, either, between starving and the way most of their parents were insane by then. Mind you, with a winnowing like that the ones who did live to grow up are as dangerous as rats-man-sized, really smart rats.?
Rudi tapped a thumb on his lips.?Living in the wilds is a thing which requires much skill,? he said.?Look at our poor Southsiders and how pig-ignorant they were… and they were farther west, and they were clean, as they put it.?
Ingolf?s hand covered what had been West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. ?Up in the hollers, the back hills where they could hide out from the refugees or fight them off…? ?They kept more knowledge?? Ignatius asked.?That accords with what the Church has heard.?
Ingolf nodded:?I?ve talked to a few salvagers who went that way. They grow corn and truck, raise a little stock, and they were mostly hunters before the Change. A few even know how to make cloth or do some smith ing. Some of them are decent enough, even if they?re mighty standoffish. But then right in the next holler there?s maybe a little clot of families that got through the dying time by eating outsiders if not each other, and still like a little BBQ stranger with their grits when they can get it. Or they may kill you for your gear, which means you?re just as dead, even if they leave the bodies alone.? ?There would be far more of them than there are close to the dead cities, too,? Rudi said thoughtfully.?If they farm, and are skillful hunters.?
How much food a land produced was always of concern to a warrior; food supplies set the limit on the number of people, hence of fighters. ?A lot more, and they?ve got better weapons and tools, and from what I hear they?re… not as crazy. You can?t just bull through with a troop, the way you can in the lowlands. Parts of northern Wisconsin are pretty much like that too, I?m afraid.? ?A choice between evils, so,? Rudi said, as his mouth quirked. ?It?s a wonder and a bemusement to me, so it is, that you find so many who want power. If you get it what goes with it? Late nights peering at maps and listening to reports, hard work and harder decisions.?