Giernas stepped out to his, rolling himself over the thwart to keep his center of balance low; he wasn't a mariner by trade, but like any Islander who'd grown up post-Event he had plenty of experience with small boats. At the stern was a two-foot rounded dowel of black oak, sanded smooth and driven into a hole drilled in the wood. He picked up the rudder and tiller- carved from a single block-and slipped it over the pivot, the wood sliding smoothly into the greased hole. It turned easily.
"I christen thee Mother of Invention," he muttered, then called and waved.
His crew were twenty-five of the local volunteers. They came aboard neatly enough; they all used canoes, albeit little one- or two-man models made out of bundles of tule reeds daubed with mud and natural asphalt. Packs and gear went into the bottom, or up toward the bow, where Eddie had taken a little extra time to carve a crude eagle as figurehead. They were less certain about the seats pegged to the hull, and the shape of the paddles, but sorted themselves out soon enough.
He looked over his shoulder; the other canoes were manned, each with an Islander at the tiller, and Spring Indigo was standing by the shore, holding Jared on one hip and waving with the other hand. His own hand answered, and so did the other three Islanders.
"Let's go!" Giernas said, turning his mind wholly to what he had to do, and the few phrases in the local tongue he had mastered.
Paddling in unison was familiar here, too, if not on quite this scale. That was why they hadn't tried to use oars. Enough fascinated or bewildered glances showed as the crew looked over their shoulders at the tiller as it was. Eventually the Indians sorted themselves out, one man to a seat, twelve paddles poised on either side. The twenty-fifth man had appointed himself coxswain.
"Tail" he shouted.
An intake of breath, and the paddles rose higher. Muscle rippled in the twenty-four strong brown backs before him, and hands braced.
"Hai-tai!" from the coxswain.
"Hunah!" in unison from the crew, a deep multiple grunt.
The blades dipped, bit, rose dripping again. The coxswain began tapping two sticks together, chanting as he did so:
"Hai-tai-tiki-tiki, hai-tai-tiki-tiki-
The red-alder-wood paddles flashed, throwing bright sprays of droplets high. Clouds of birds exploded from riverside marsh at the sound of the chant, and from the other side of the broad stream as well; otter and beaver plopped into the water. Far to the east the rising sun gave the snow peaks of the Sierras a blush of crimson, looming over the jungle of trees on that bank and turning the horizon to a jagged line of blue and silver and blood. He pulled the tiller toward himself, and the canoe turned smoothly… until the startled paddlers stopped and looked over their shoulders again; the only way they knew of steering a canoe was with the paddles themselves.
"Paddle!" he said.
The other canoes were out as well, cutting broad circles on the expanse of the Sacramento; it was a good thing it was a couple of hundred yards wide here; they passed within a few feet of Eddie's, and the other ranger was cursing and waving his free hand, trying to kick the nearest local.
They should shake down in a few hours, Giernas thought. And it's all downstream from here.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
November, 10 A.E.-Western Anatolia
October, 10 A.E.-Straits of the Pillars, Tartessos
October, 10 A.E.-Long Island, Republic of Nantucket
October, 10 A.E.-Tartessos City, southwestern Iberia
The jolt of the colonel talking to her faded, and Johanna Gwenhaskieths's marching day dragged on; an hour of march, ten minutes of rest to swig water and gnaw a dog biscuit, another hour on the muddy road. Even in one day's march up the Seha valley, though, the landscape had begun to change; fewer trees and groves, more of them olives, a drier feel to the land. Mountains rose in the east, the edge of the high country. If it hadn't been for that change of landscape, she might have thought this the afterlife, and she condemned to a march without end.
The sun dropped behind them to the right, throwing long shadows. A bugle call sounded; Johanna found her feet stopping automatically, even before the fall out and stack arms sounded.
Good campground, she thought automatically. A nice little hill, a ruined farmstead for dry firewood… and she smiled beatifically at the little flock of sheep in a pen.
"Fresh meat tonight," she said happily; feast-day food.
And it wasn't her company's turn for night-watch, so there wouldn't be a four-hour chunk taken out of her sleep. That didn't mean the end of work, of course, but at least she could walk over to where her section would be in the battalion camp, add her rifle and helmet to one of the tripods, and drop her webbing harness and rucksack. Then she pulled out a bundle of stakes with a steel blade on either end-swine-feathers, to be driven into the trench outside the earthwork-and took her entrenching tool to the perimeter.
When she came back a fire was already crackling, and she caught the smell of mutton roasting on it, enough to make her forget aching muscles, mud, and sweat.
One of her squad was frying crumbled dog biscuit in the grease that dropped from the chunks of meat; from the look, the beast had been a yearling lamb. She took some of the biscuit in her mess tin and hacked off a couple of chops from the spit with her clasp knife, blowing on her fingers as she juggled the hot food. While she gnawed the savory meat and ate the fat-rich morsels of biscuit (for once not worrying about breaking a tooth on it) Vaukel came up with two buckets of water. She hid a smile; even after this long, it was still a little odd to have someone doing women's work for her. Not unpleasant, she'd come to like Eagle People ways and even Fiernan more than those she'd grown up with.
"The corpsmen say the water's safe," Vaukel said.
"Ah, good!" she said, dipping up a cup that didn't have the unpleasant mineral taste of the purifying powder.
The she tossed her uniform over a branch and made for her rucksack, to fetch out a scrap of soap and half a dozen pairs of underwear and socks. A chance to clean them and herself; if she propped them on sticks by the embers of the fire they'd probably dry overnight, and if they didn't they'd be close enough to pack, or wear. When she came back the tent was up, and her squadmates were unrolling their bedding inside, and her legs were starting to tell her their tale of cooling, stiffening muscle.
"Ah, I'm getting to be a crone," she said as she slumped down.
"Legs stiff?" Vaukel said beside her. "Should I loosen them?"
"Thanks, Vauk," she said; Fiernans had a knack for that, healing magic in their fingers.
She sighed as he kneaded the knots and tension out of one leg, then another, finishing by stretching her ankles, rubbing the soles of her feet and drumming the edges of his hands up and down from heel to buttocks. Ahh, that does feel better. When he'd finished she looked up and caught his hopeful unspoken question, not to mention the rampant evidence of it.
"Sure," she said, with a drowsy chuckle.
A glance sideways showed the camp settling down for the night, the sun only a faint rim of light in the west. "But none of that Fiernan fancy work this time," she said, rolling onto her back. The Earth Folk could turn something as simple as fucking into something as elaborate as one of their dancing ceremonies. "I need my sleep."
Later, yawning and on the verge of slumber, she listened to a sentry's boots going past at the perimeter not far away, a wolf howling somewhere, a rustle of chill wind through the tree whose branches spread over the tent. The squad's fire was banked with earth on its outer side, to throw the warmth of the fire into the open flap of the tent. The stars were many and bright, promising dry weather… and dry socks, tomorrow.