Read The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change Online

Authors: S. M. Stirling

Tags: #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Alternative histories (Fiction), #American Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Alternative History, #General, #Regression (Civilization), #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Dystopias, #Fiction

The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change (36 page)

BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
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“Yeah, we got camas in the
makol
too, but not nearly so many. Too dry, I suppose,” Red Leaf said. “That’s some good-looking pasture out there.”
Astrid breathed a soundless sigh of relief as she saw Alleyne rise from a nest of branches and war-cloak that had made him the next thing to invisible. The rest of the column came up and spread out to either side of his waiting place at the edge of the woods, far enough back that no betraying glint would make them apparent to a patrol out on the prairie.
“Secure?” Alleyne asked.
“No sign of those cavalry. Eilir and John are holding the rear in case we have to move back quickly, but I don’t think so.”
He nodded and called: “Hírvegil, Imlos,” while pointing upward.
The two young Rangers unwrapped their war-cloaks from their packs, and donned them and their claws. Then each ran up a tree with a cat’s hunching speed, picking ones with good fields of view on the back trail as well as ahead.
Astrid unshipped her Zeiss
palantír en-crûm
and leaned against a half-fallen pine to brace her elbows. Back and forth; no sign of man, save for a big herd of red-and-white Herefords already at the very edge of sight and slowly moving eastward with only two mounted cowboys in attendance; they’d vanished within an hour. This was rich farmland, well-watered dark basaltic soil planted to wheat and canola before the Change, but there was no need to till nearly as much now when crops weren’t shipped to great cities far away. Most of it was sparsely grazed prairie where it wasn’t outright abandoned these days, with planted fields only around the widely scattered ranch-houses and little hamlet-towns. The dirt roads that had marked it into square-mile sections had long since grown over in grass and brush, the telephone poles burned and fallen, plowland gone back to green wildness.
Like Eriador in the Third Age, and I saw the beginnings here back right after the Change
, she thought, with a complex mix of emotions.
Remembering myself at fourteen is like remembering
being someone else
, almost. Then I was only beginning to know what my fate was, and what I must do in the Fifth Age.
Man’s hand lay lightly enough on the Camas Prairie now that she could see a lobo pack in the middle distance, trotting from north to south in single file. She smiled to herself as she watched them moving confidently with their heads high to keep them above the tips of the thigh-high grass, eight big shaggy gray adults a yard high at the shoulders and four youngsters, gawky adolescent one- and two-yearolds. Then they caught her party’s scent; the wind was light, but from the west. She saw them halt and look her way, then give the canine equivalent of shrugs and head on their journey once more, wary of humans but not particularly frightened. A few bison cows and their calves an hour later were more cautious, veering away before they became more than dots to the naked eye.
Ohtar
—warrior-squires—came by with water for humans and horses, and carrying the last of the cracked grain to feed the mounts. They were well-trained beasts, but it tugged at her heart to see them yearning towards that rich tender grazing when she had to deny them.
“You can graze tonight to your heart’s content, my darlings,” she murmured beneath her breath. “I know war is hard on horses.”
The sun crept across the sky and moved behind her; she ate another stick of jerky and some raisins and ignored the way her stomach gurgled. She even tried to ignore the thought of how Diorn and Hinluin and Fimalen would be missing
her
, back at Stardell Hall. Children grew so fast . . . Diorn was past ten now and tried to hide his fears, but the twins cried whenever they saw her getting her war-gear together, though Míresgaliel was an excellent nanny.
Though I’ d be even more upset if they
didn’t
miss me. And I’ d like to have at least one more. Another boy, say, though a third girl would be welcome too. I’m thirty-eight, time’s getting a little tight . . . maybe it would be another pair of twins if we’re lucky? My family always ran to them and so does Alleyne’s. Uncomfortable but it saves time. If we live through this war, perhaps we should let the younger generation have the active tasks and settle down to teaching and policy all the time.
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 Dúnedain 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 lín, 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 Dúnedain. 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.
Alleyne looked very slightly alarmed to one who knew him as well as Astrid did; she caught his eye and shook her head a little.
I think they’re—
Red Leaf and the Nez Perce burst out laughing.
. . . joking.
“Eddie Running Horse . . . Jesus, were you at the last Crow Fair in ’ninety-seven? Yeah, you were in the rodeo—I remember you.”
“Christ, you never forget a face if you remember me from
that
.”
“Nah, I couldn’t tell your face from a prairie dog’s ass.”
“Not the first one to note the resemblance.”
“But I never forget a
horse
. You were riding one that looks a hell of a lot like him.”
He nodded towards the beautiful Appaloosa.
“Yup, he was Big Dog here’s granddad ’s brother, but we bred some Akhal-Teke into the line right afterwards; got the first colts the year of the Change.”
“Shiny.”
“Yeah, it does give their coats that look, not to mention putting in more staying power. Say, I remember
you
.”
“
You
never forget a face?”
“No, but I never forgot about hearing how this crazy Sioux named Red Leaf was dragging around a
Mongol
with a
yurt
, of all things. A
yurt
in the Tipi Capital of the World!”
“It’s a ger. Yurt’s what the Russians called them. We use a lot of them these days. Chinua—it means Red Wolf—showed us how, married my little sister too. How’s things here for us ’skins?”
BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
2.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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