Then they freed the horses, stripping off saddle and bridle and slapping their rumps to set them off; they'd find water, and probably somebody would round them up eventually.
Mary grimaced as she came up, wiping and sheathing her sword.
"I hate doing that," she said, taking a drink from her canteen after they had both tasted earth and murmured the prayer.
"Me too, sis," Ritva said, thankful her kill had been clean.
Her hands fought to shake; suddenly she was conscious of sweat and itches and the heat of the noonday sun. Hot dry wind was cool on her sodden hair as she slung her helmet to her saddlebow.
"I think Rudi got cut off a little south of here," she said worriedly.
"Mer," Mary said, agreeing. "But he might get ahead of them and circle north. Let's get to the rendezvous and see who made it."
They worked their way northward, towards a butte shaped like a camel's head and hump. Ritva's head came up as she caught the ringing stamp of a shod hoof on rock, and then she relaxed again and lowered her bow as Father Ignatius stepped out from behind a curve of stone. Edain came next, and then young Frederick Thurston. He looked like a man who'd been hit behind the ear with a sock full of wet sand, but not quite hard enough to knock him out.
But then, Ritva thought compassionately, he's got it worse than us. He's seen treachery by his own kin.
"Rudi?" Mary said sharply; he and the younger Mackenzie left the battlefield together.
Edain's sunburned face flushed. "We had a big clump of them on our heels so we split up. I managed to lose mine and get here." His lips thinned. "We've been waiting since."
Father Ignatius nodded and glanced at the sun. "Anyone who is not here yet isn't going to arrive," he said.
Then he pointed north, to a tall hill. "And there is a dust trail heading in this direction. At least a score of men."
Ritva winced. That meant either the enemy, or Boise cavalry… who might well now be the enemy; she didn't have enough of a feel for the place or the politics to know how openly Martin Thurston could hunt the ones who knew he'd killed his father.
If it's the Cutters, they caught someone and made them talk, she thought.
"What do we do?"
Ignatius smiled; it was grim, but confident. "We need to find the others… Rudi most of all."
"Head back towards the Prophet's men?" Mary said. "And… well, if they've caught him, they'll either kill him or take him east. That's a big piece of flatland and then hills east of here. We can't search it all."
"Not on the ground," Ignatius said. "But I think there is an alternative, God willing."
Ignatius looked at the leveled crossbows and raised his empty hands in a sign of peace.
"Give me a moment to speak, my sons, and then do as you will," he said.
The great curved shape of the Curtis LeMay filled most of the emergency airfield; it was staked down to a dozen heavy steel posts sunk in the earth on either side. The gliders and their launching apparatus were scattered across a wide stretch of sparse pasture around about. Soldiers and ground crew stood about in clumps, their faces grim; many showed the marks of weeping. The air was warm and very still, and smelled of latrines and metal and crude cookery, and under that a chemi cal taint from the steel gas-generating boxes on a half dozen great six wheeled wagons.
"The couriers said you were wanted in connection with the president's death," Hanks replied flatly.
The men and women behind him growled slightly, gripping their weapons and staring narrow eyed.
"We saved the president once," Ignatius pointed out. "You know that, and that it makes no sense for us to save him once to kill him a few weeks later. But don't take my word for it."
He urged his horse aside. A gasp broke out as Frederick Thurston's brown face came clear to their sight.
"And here's your own president's son to tell you the truth," Ignatius said, his trained voice rolling out clear.
"I know this place," Rudi Mackenzie said to himself and his horse, his voice hoarse with thirst.
Mountains rose before him, bare save for a scattering of silvery gray scrub, up great walls of rock and scree to the glaciers floating far above. The smell of cold rock and aromatic herbs and old sweat soaked into wool and leather filled his nostrils. The rattle of stone under shod hooves was loud, and far and faint came a baying like wolves that he knew was men. Ahead was the rest of the bare ridge, and over it another huge empty valley. The mountains were very far.
On the slopes of the ridge he could look far behind. Three separate plumes of dust headed towards him; he judged their speed and then ran his hand down Epo na's neck. She snorted and tossed her head, weary as she was.
"So, my girl, you've run well, it's splendid and brave and strong you are still," he said.
But there's only one of you, and I'm riding heavier than most of those even with only my helm and brigandine, I think, he mused. Soon you will be grazing the meads of the Land of Youth.
High above, black wings cruised through the air. He chuckled. "It's often I've said I'm ready to come when You call me, Lady of the Crows. If this is the time… well, I'll harvest a field as a bridal gift for You, so!"
He dismounted and took a careful swallow of his water, then poured the rest of it into his helmet and held that for Epona. She slobbered eagerly and her lips chased every drop into the padded lining.
"Now, don't be greedy, my fair one. That's all there is," he said gently, and put the sallet back on his head.
The raised visor acted as a sunshade; it was six hours past noon, and the long night of pursuit had tired them both.
"Sure, and they're a very determined lot, and have most impolitely kept between me and the rendezvous," he said. "Now let's see if I can break through them eastward and circle about beyond them."
He couldn't; that was obvious. He might be able to take some of them with him to the Summerlands, and give them a good talking-to there along with the Guard ians, to shame them for serving a bad cause even if they did it bravely.
"And Edain got away," he said. "Now, that's a comfort. If Mother must grieve, at least old Sam is spared that."
Then he laughed, full-bodied. "So much for my grand journey across the continent! Yet I don't regret that as much as never really trying to give Matti a sound kissing."
He mounted again, waiting, and working his sword arm to limber it. There was no fear now, and he thought he could hear voices singing-a deep humming, perhaps the bees making honey in the flowering clover meads of Tir-na nog.
"Perhaps my father lingers there yet," he murmured as he drew his sword. "I never knew him as a man. We could talk, eh, and perhaps ride together and hunt and yarn, before we return once more."
The Cutters approached with shocking speed. Their "Cut… cut!" sounded triumphant as they saw him, and his answering shout was as joyous. Epona belled chal lenge, rearing, and he stood in the stirrups to calclass="underline" "Welcome, brothers, in the name of the Crow Goddess!"
He laughed to see their rage, brought his shield up be neath his eyes as his legs prepared to clamp the horse's barrel one last time. For one long instant he thought the humming and song behind him were Her train, and the shadow that suddenly fell Her wings.