"Protectorate knight," she said. "A man-at-arms wouldn't be so bold."
She looked up at the priest. "Shall we dispose of them, or do you claim the privilege, Father Andrew? You saw them first, after all, and on abbey soil."
He shrugged. "The abbot and Lord Bear and the Lady Juniper all agreed this forest of Mithrilwood was Dunedain land, and that you have the right to dispense justice here, my lady. High, middle and low."
"Only as custodian for the Dunedain Rangers," she corrected, not wanting to claim more than her due.
Another shrug. John Hordle had been talking in Sign with Eilir. He nodded and went over to the fallen knight; a muffled scream broke past clenched teeth as Hordle gripped the stub of the arrow between thumb and forefinger and casually drew it out, then stripped off the mail hauberk. That was normally a complex business, but the big man handled the other as if he had been a doll, despite respectable height and solid weight. When the armor had been tossed aside he ripped open the man's gambeson and shirt over the uninjured right shoulder.
"Ahh," Astrid said.
There was a symbol tattooed there, a circle with a Chinese ideograph in it. She'd learned that Eddie Liu had adopted that as his blazon in mockery; it was the glyph for Poland, which was where his maternal ancestors had come from. Liu was very dead, Eilir had killed him last summer, but:
"You're a liege-man of his," she said grimly.
The captive spat at her again, making a worse job of it; his mouth must be dry with pain and shock. "I'm brother to Lady Mary, the dowager Baroness Ger-vais. My name is Sir Jason Mortimer of Loiston manor," he said. "Baron Gervais was my liege lord and my kin by marriage. His handfast men will never rest until we've avenged him!"
Eilir made a clicking sound with her tongue, and Astrid looked over at her. He probably hired the bandits, she signed. What's the old phrase, plausible deniability?
As if on cue, one of the bound men spoke: "You motherfucker!" he swore at the knight. "You said there'd be food and women and a place of our own for the winter!"
"We'll keep you for ransom, then, Sir Jason," Astrid said; nobody paid any attention to the outlaw's outburst. "And it'll be a heavy one." She grinned. "You can explain back home how a pair of girls captured you. The same ones who killed your liege-lord, by the way."
She turned to the priest and away from the knight's incoherent curses. "Why don't you and your patrol stay with us tonight at Mithrilwood Lodge, Father Andrew? It's no trouble, we've plenty of space, and it'll spare you a winter bivouac." At his slight hesitation and frown: "And not all of us are of the Old Religion. I'm sure there are some who'd be grateful to make confession, if you wished, and receive communion if you've the Bread and Wine with you."
That seemed to tip the balance. "Most generous of you, my child."
"We've some of Brannigan's Special Ale, too," Astrid said impishly, and just a bit louder. "We traded venison and boar for it, but that's not all gone either. Roast yearling boar tonight, and scalloped potatoes, and cauliflower with cheese, and dried-blueberry tarts with whipped cream to follow."
The warrior-monk's company of militiamen suppressed a cheer, and let grins run free. Mount Angel had a winery of note and fine maltsters, but Brannigan's brew was famous all over the Valley. Juniper Mackenzie had made a song about it years ago, and it was sung in taverns from Ashland to Boise. Hot food and dry beds were a great deal more attractive than damp sleeping bags and trail rations, as well.
"Let's finish up here, then," Astrid said.
The monk addressed the half-dozen other captives who waited on their knees. "Do any of you wish to confess your sins and save your miserable sin-stained souls from Hell? No?"
Astrid's face was calmly lovely as she looked at the row of men, kneeling in the mud with elbows and wrists lashed behind them. A few wept or babbled; most were silent and shocked, a few bleeding from wounds.
"Does anyone think there's any doubt these are outlaws, bandits and wolf-heads, the enemies general of human kind?" she said formally, looking from face to face of the Dunedain, and then to Alleyne and Little John Hordle.
"That's buggering obvious, if you ask me," Hordle said.
Nobody else bothered to do more than nod assent. Hordle hefted the long, heavy sword he carried, checking for nicks, and Father Andrew took back his poleax, running an experienced thumb down the edge. Two of his men unlim-bered their axes. Eilir nodded herself, and then sighed in silent regret; Astrid smiled at her.
You always were tender-hearted, soul-sister, she signed. Do you want to ask mercy for any of them?
No, I'm afraid not. Though they might have been decent enough men, with different luck, Eilir replied.
"But they are as they are," Astrid said. Then she raised her voice slightly, in a tone of calm command: "Behead them every one, and that instantly."
Chapter Five
North Corvallis, Oregon
January 10th, 2008/Change Year 9
T he lands claimed by the Faculty Senate of Oregon State University-in effect, by the city-state of Corvallis-began where the village of Adair had been, before the Change. The steep crest of Hospital Hill to the west overlooked Highway 99 from less than a quarter mile away; on it beetled a small but squat-strong fortress of stone and concrete and steel with a round tower rearing on its eastern edge. The snouts of engines showed, ready to throw yard-long darts, steel roundshot and glass globes of clinging fire four times that distance.
As Michael Havel watched a light blinked from it, as bright as burning lime and mirrors could make it, flashing on the news of their arrival southward to the posts that would relay the message to the city. Most of the village east of the highway was brush-grown rubble; a few houses had been linked by cinderblock and angle iron and barbed wire into an enclosed farmstead, with barns and outbuildings about, and a sign-"Lador's Fine Liquor and Provisions"- showing that it sold to passersby as well. The dwellers had heard the fort's bell and turned out from field and barn with bill and spear and crossbow, then relaxed when they saw it was friendly Bearkillers, remaining to stare and comment at the size of the party and its members.
He'd brought a dozen armored A-listers along for swank-he had to keep up the Outfit's credit with the Corvallans, who were overbearing enough as it was. Their lances swayed slightly as the standing horses shifted their weight from hoof to hoof, and the whetted steel of the heads glittered in the pale sun of a winter's noon. It was one of the rare clear January days, only a few high wisps of cloud in a sky pale blue from the Coast Range on his right-he could see the four-thousand-foot treeclad summit of Mary's Peak, a rarity in winterto the High Cascades in the far distance on his left, hints of dreaming snowfields at the edge of sight. Overhead a red-tailed hawk floated, the spread feathers of its wings sculpting the air, then stooped on a rabbit. The air was crisp and colder than usual, cold enough that the frost still rimed grass and twig and brush with white even at noon; the breaths of men and horses steamed, a light fog strong with the mounts' grassy scent. A four-horse wagon brought up the rear with their gear, a few household staff walking beside it and the Bearkiller's chief physician riding atop; he'd lost a foot to some Eaters soon after the Change, and loathed riding as well.
Havel and Signe were mounted and armed but in civilian garb; tooled-leather boots, broad-brimmed hats, brown serge jackets and precious intact pre-Change bluejeans, almost new, and cunningly reinforced on the inner thighs with soft-tanned deerskin. Their eldest children were with them, eight-year-old twin girls identical down to the silver rings on the ends of their long, tow-colored braids and the slant to their cornflower-blue eyes; he'd left young Mike Jr. behind at Larsdalen, with the staff and nannies and indulgent grandfather and step-grandmother, since he was at the stage where he could move pretty quickly but still had a toddler's suicidal lack of common sense. Mary and Ritva were excited enough to bounce up and down in their silver-studded charro-style saddles, or would have been if they hadn't ridden nearly as long as they'd been walking. They pointed and exclaimed as the drawbridge on the fort came down and the gates swung open.