Mathilda was off her horse and in front of Rudi in a single scrambling rush. "No!" she said shrilly, spreading her arms. "You can't hurt him, Tiphaine! We're anamchara! Blood-brothers. I'll have right of vengeance against anyone who hurts him, all my life! I'm gonna be Protector someday and I'll remember!"
Tiphaine Rutherton seemed to sense the men behind her looking at each other in doubt-that was a credible threat to anyone who knew how stubborn Mathilda could be-and made an exasperated sound between her teeth. Before she could move, Mathilda's knife was out, and she pressed it to her own throat-hard enough that a trickle of red blood started down the white skin as she swallowed convulsively.
"If you hurt him, I'll kill myself! I swear it by God and the Virgin, and then you'll have to explain to Mom and Dad and His Holiness how come I'm dead and in Hell for suicide!" Mathilda said with desperate earnestness. "Not just now! If you hurt him later, I'll do it!"
Rutherton stopped as if she'd run into a stone wall; she stared into the girl's eyes for an instant, saw a bright focus of intent.
"Princess, I'm not planning on hurting him," she said gently. "My orders from your mother are to take him alive if possible. But to do that I have to restrain him, because now we have to run for our lives and we can't have him slowing us down. You understand?"
Mathilda swallowed, nodded and brought the knife down. Tiphaine turned her head.
"Well, what are you all waiting for, the kilties to arrive? Ivo, get the brat over a horse." To Mathilda: "This is just to keep him quiet, Princess. I won't hurt him now; on my honor as a warrior of the Association."
Something stung Rudi in the cheek of one buttock as hands heaved him over a saddle and lashed him to it with leather thongs. His head felt as if it were spinning down a whirlpool, with the world upside-down. He saw Aoife twitch as she tried to crawl; the blond woman who'd killed her bent for a moment, grabbing her by the collar of her brigandine and dragging her closer to Liath's body. Then everything contracted to a point of light and went out.
Chapter Eleven
Waldo Hills, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9
L ord Piotr Stavarov lowered his binoculars and scowled. "Are those scouts back yet?" he asked.
"Yes, my lord," Sir Ernaldo Machado said. "They report no enemy presence on the right. There are light screening forces in the woods to the left, although not all the scouts are back from that area yet. The glider couldn't see any of them except those."
He pointed to the band that blocked the road ahead. Stavarov gritted his teeth; they were excellent teeth, white and even, in a handsome, regular young snub-nosed, high-cheeked face. He knew he was young for this post: but the Stavarovs and their followers had backed Norman Arminger in his initial grab for power in Portland, less than ten days after the Change. He'd been sixteen then, and he could remember his father's relief and excitement that someone offered a way out. And now he was out from under the thumb of that scar-faced lout Renfrew.
Though, to be fair, at least he isn't as much of a pussy as most of those Society retreads.
He raised the field glasses. The Protectorate force was halted in column on the road, blocks of bicycle-mounted spearmen and crossbowmen and supply wagons, the two hundred infantry sitting motionless on their cycles, flanked by two mounted columns with fifty knights and men-at-arms each. The pennants on their lances snapped in the morning breeze, and the same wind poked trickles of grateful cool through the mail of his hauberk and the padded gambeson beneath.
There aren't enough of them to hold us, he thought, looking at the Mackenzie force.
There were a hundred of them, barely enough of them to block the road between the hills on either side; fifty with spears or polearms-what the kilties called Lochaber axes, broad arm-long slashing blades that tapered to a point and had a hook on the reverse. Swung two-handed, the six-foot weapons could cut right through mail just as well as a glaive or halberd; best to remember that. Another fifty of their archers to the west of that, thrown forward along the edge of the low scrub-grown hills that had been pasture once and were head-high brushwood and thorn now. It was a good position, but they didn't have the numbers to stop his men, and if they broke his lancers would hunt them like game. Odd, you'd usually expect a lot more longbows in a Mackenzie formation, from what the briefing papers said :
And under the banner, there was a figure in plate armor enameled green, not the brigandine and kilt the Mackenzies usually wore. Piotr's lips skinned back from his teeth.
The Lord Protector has a serious hard-on for Sir Nigel Loring after the way he betrayed him last year. It won't do me or the family any harm at all at court, if I bring him the Englishman's head. Maybe another fief? There's good wheatland out by Pendleton, or perhaps around here after the war:
"Nothing much on the left?" he said, swinging his glasses eastward.
The hills there were higher and steeper than the low, rolling ground on the westward side of the road, the crests better than a hundred and fifty feet above him. The rising face on their north slope was also heavily wooded with oaks and alders, Douglas fir and western hemlocks, all big trees planted long before the Change. The edge where the patch of forest met the abandoned fields was thick with saplings and bramble and thorn and Oregon grape. It was like a wall along the edge of the forest, and he couldn't see far into the depths beneath the big trees. Presumably there was a lot less undergrowth in their shade; further out towards him the open ground was covered with nothing more than green grass knee-high on a horse, kept free of brushwood by a fire last summer. Good open ground where his troops could use their superior discipline and formation.
I wish they'd put some of their bare-ass miniskirt militia there, he thought. Still, I can't expect them to be that stupid.
"Nothing on the left as yet, my lord. As I said, not all the scouts have returned from that direction."
"Probably still sniffing around the road on the other side," Piotr said. "Let's get going. All three columns are supposed to be over the Santiam by nightfall. Speed is why we're traveling in separate bodies."
A hesitation. "My lord, shouldn't we wait for the Grand Constable and his escort to get back?"
Piotr felt himself flush, hot blood darkening his skin from the mail collar of his coif upward. "Count Odell is in overall command, but I'm in charge of this column!" he snapped. "Do you dispute that, Sir Ernaldo?"
"No, my lord," he said dutifully. "We can make them scatter from beyond bowshot, if we set up a couple of the catapults."
Piotr shook his head. "That would delay the march for hours. We should be able to reach the Santiam today, that's the objective."
"My lord, their archers are good. And a solid line of spearmen and halberdiers is no joke. We only outnumber them by three to one on this field, and we'll be the ones attacking. It will cost us."
Piotr made an impatient gesture. "Yes, yes. But there aren't enough of the rabble to hold us up, and we can afford the losses more than they. Spearmen are easy enough to replace."
"Still, we could work men over the hills to either side. Then they'd either have to withdraw or be surrounded."
Piotr considered, then shook his head. "We'll have to fight them sooner or later anyway. They're obviously here to delay us while their militia gets mobilized. I won't risk a destrier's legs on them, though. Send in the foot. Spearmen on the left, centered on the roadway. Crossbows on the right; they should be able to drive off half their number of bowmen. Lancers to hold themselves ready for pursuit."
Piotr smiled at the thought. Once they turned their backs on mounted lancers, foot soldiers were so much meat to be shishkebabbed. Some of them might get away if they ran up into the forested hills, but most would probably just panic and try to escape and bolt down the road leading southward. His knights and their menie of men-at-arms would spear them from the saddle as if they were wild boar. He reached back to pull the padded weight of his mail coif over his head, fastening the lower part across his chin, then snapped his fingers. His squire rode forward to be ready with helm and shield and lance.