He looked at Ritva, and Mary quickly tapped the locations, describing each lookout post in detail.
"Only two hundred?" the general mused.
"It's an ambush," Ingolf pointed out.
"And surprise is the greatest force multiplier left, now that nuclear weapons don't work," Thurston agreed, rubbing a finger on his chin. "But why would the Prophet's men be on my territory? They're fully occupied with their war against New Deseret, according to my reports."
Rudi coughed into one hand. "Ah… as it happens, we were traveling with some folk from there, for safety's sake. But… "
His finger moved on the map again. "… we were heading east, so, well south of here. The Cutters wouldn't have seen us. The Deseret folk are still down there, on their way to home. We spotted the Cutters and turned north to warn you."
Mathilda spoke: "If you know anything about the Prophet-and you're closer to him than the Protector ate is, General Thurston-you'll know he's insatiable. If he gobbles up the Saints, you're next. Why haven't you helped them?"
And it's not tact that you excel in, is it, Matti? Rudi thought.
Thurston stared at her, his face bleak. "Young lady, I don't approve of theocracies-the Prophet's, or New Deseret's. Granted they aren't murderous lunatics like the Unawhacker, but there's the principle of the thing. They've been offered help, if they rejoin the nation and accept separation of Church and State."
Well, there's the little thing of the delayed elections in Boise, Rudi thought, but did not say aloud. That collection of two-score graybeards you call the Senate and the House of Representatives haven't been chosen by anyone since before I was born, from all I hear.
"In any case, they're here now, " Rudi said. "And I understand you claim this territory. In the immediate rather than theoretical sense, that is."
"I do," Thurston said shortly. "Let me think for a moment, please."
He took a turn, boots scrutching in the dirt and rock, armor rattling. A few of his officers tried to speak to him, but he waved them curtly aside. The soldiers waited, leaning on their four foot shields or their long javelins, a few munching hardtack crackers or chewing stolidly on board-tough strips of jerky.
Then the black general nodded as if to himself. "We'll go see about the Cutters. And then we'll see about you youngsters."
After a moment, he went on softly: "And perhaps we can also find out who told the Prophet's men I was coming this way."
Sure, and I wouldn't want to be that man when our good General Thurston finds out, Rudi thought.
He'd known a fair number of very hard men, good and bad, starting with his own blood father and Mathilda's dreadful sire, and he suspected he'd met another here.
"You're walking into their trap?" Mathilda asked, curious.
Thurston smiled. "It's only a trap if you don't know about it."
Rudi nodded to himself as Ingolf chuckled. "And if you know it's a trap, it's still a trap… for the other guy."
And that's something to remember.
The Boise wagonmaster had taken over the Cones toga with a nod of approval at the vehicle's state as he added it to the column's baggage train, but nobody had objected to the westerners getting their fighting gear out. The infantry marched in their armor as always, but the camp auxiliaries had put on light mail or studded-leather jackets too.
"I'm thinking this will be a footman's fight," Rudi said, thoughtfully shrugging to settle his brigandine and resting his longbow over his shoulder. "At least on our side."
"Couldn't we have an earthquake or a bit of a stampede or a flood, something of that order instead?" Edain asked. "It's a bit soon after the last fight for my taste, to be sure."
"It's in total agreement I am," Rudi said sardonically. "But I doubt the Prophet agrees."
Edain sighed. "That's the thing, Chief, innit?" He looked at the ground, and then the sky. "And I wasn't asking for a flood or earthquake, understood?"
Everyone was acting nonchalant, which was surpris ingly hard when you expected homicidal lunatics to attempt your life at any instant. The high hills pulled back on the right, but to the east they were still close to the road. Rudi sang softly in Gaelic as he walked:
Oh, fhag mi ann am beul a brugh
M'eudail fhein an donngheal dhubh…
"That's your mother's language," Mathilda said.
She recognized it easily enough, but didn't know more than the odd word or phrase most Mackenzies dropped into their conversation now and then. Those were rote copied from Juniper just as so many imitated her accent, and others imitated them. Often badly and to her exasperated annoyance, though it had grown natural enough to the second generation, who'd picked it up from their parents just as they did any other part of their native tongue.
"What's it mean?" she went on.
"Ummm…"
Rudi thought hard; his mother's mother's birth speech was a splendid one for song and poetry and flights of fancy, but not especially easy to translate. It had always been the secret way he and his mother spoke together, at least until his younger half sisters Maude and Fiorbhinn picked it up as he had, sung to them in their cradles.
Aloud he went on: "It's a song about a brown-haired girl…"
Mathilda grinned at him and tucked one seal-colored lock under her coif with its covering of lustrous silvery-gray titanium mail. "Keep going!"
"I'd render it more or less like…
I left yesterday in the meadow of the kine
The brown haired maid of sweetest kiss,
Her eye like a star, her cheek like a rose;
Her kiss has the taste of pears."
He hadn't seen her blush often lately. She did now, and clouted him on the shoulder. Since he was wearing a padded doublet with short mail sleeves and collar under the brigandine torso armor, it was more symbolic than anything else.
"You're just missing all the Mackenzie beauties daz zled by your looks and lineage," she said dryly, after clearing her throat. "Well, I'm no light heeled witch-girl to be charmed onto her back with poetry."
"Alas," he said, rolling his eyes at her with a theatrical sigh. "What a pity. It's such a nice strong shapely back that it's a true pity it sees so little use."
Then they both laughed; though Rudi acknowledged to himself there was a little truth to his anamchara 's ac cusation. There were only three women on the expedi tion, after all-and two of them were his sisters, while the third was a very good friend and determined virgin.
I hadn't thought about it till recently, but it does look like this is going to be a mostly celibate trip. Lady of the Blossom Time, have mercy!
On her other side, Odard smiled thinly with his helmet under his arm; then his blue eyes narrowed over Rudi's head, and his handsome dark face stiffened slightly.
"I think I saw something move," he said softly.
Rudi saw something else; the heads of officers beginning to turn, and then carefully not doing so.
"Yeah," he said. "Nice one, Odard."
Ingolf gave a sigh."You know," he said,"I usually don't go looking for a fight. But I would really like to meet Mr. Kuttner again. Maybe deal with his other eye…"
When the attack came, it was a surprise even though expected. The first arrow went thock into a shield even before the rattle of steel horseshoes on gravel reached them. A trumpeter went down, in the clump of men around the flag of the Republic; a few more fell along the line.
Then the whole formation turned left in unison, going from a column headed south to a three deep line fac ing east with a deep shout of "Oooh rah!" The big oval shields snapped up, the first rank vertical, the next slanted back, and the rest raised in an overlapping roof. Rudi blinked in amazement even as he ducked behind the corner of the wagon, with more arrows whistling over head or going thunk into the vehicle's body and cargo or punk into the drum-taut canvas of the tilt or bouncing off the steel frame like ringing metallic rain. He'd never seen anything like that dragon scale maneuver.