Aylward grinned, not unkindly. Or we know that evil bugger's Inquisitors tortured it out of our contact, and we're walking into a trap, he signed. But I don't think so, and you've got to take risks in this business. He looked up. Two hours to moonset. Just right, with a little margin for taking it slow. This fog's thickening-that'll help.
"Mist," Juniper Mackenzie whispered. "Blessed be!"
"Straight from the Cauldron of the Goddess," Rowan agreed.
His sister Cynthia nodded; her band had rejoined at the base of Rooster Rock and made the climb with them. Several of the others made Invoking signs, and glanced aside at the Lady of the Mackenzies. Juniper bit back an impulse to snap I'm not your good-luck charm, you adolescent idiots! Or the Wiccan pope-ess!
Though she had been wishing hard for something like this, and what was magic if not the trained mind and will directing the forces of the universe? Useless to feel guilty at the impulse to bark, either, as long as she didn't actually do it; nerves were natural enough. She'd never pretended to be a fighter by trade, even when she embodied that Aspect of the Powers. And the Mighty Ones were at work here.
How not? There's nowhere they aren't at work.
Table Rock stood before them to the north, looming out of the rising tide of silvery fog as the moon sank towards the horizon, growing larger to the eye as it did. Rooster Rock stood behind; it was several hundred feet lower, but straight up and down in its central parts and harder to climb. The Mackenzie war band had crept up the slopes of the long ridge that connected them, something made possible by the dense forest that grew to the top, and easier by the fog. That was rising even as she watched, and it turned the flat-topped height ahead into a black island amid the vapors, muffling every sound in the nighted wilderness. She unshipped her binoculars for a last look.
The outline of the low mountain hadn't changed since she came through here, backpacking through the wilderness with some friends: Lord and Lady, going on twenty years ago! She pushed aside a wistfulness; as far as she knew, every one of that little group was dead save Judy Barstow-Judy Lefkowitz, she'd been then. A long finger of land sloped gently up to just under five thousand feet; the last half mile was surrounded by cliffs on three sides, leaving only this approach. When she saw it as a young woman there had been only a trail, and the summit had been like a rock garden of wild rose, parrotbeak and kin-nikinnick. There was a wall across the top of the trail now, less than a fortress and more than a fence, three feet of dry-laid stone and a six-foot-high stretch of thick boards nailed to posts on top of it; the roofs of several buildings rose over the wall, and a tall timber-frame tower reared skyward. It was like seeing an old friend whose face had been slashed. A little lantern light showed behind it, even at near two in the morning. She looked up at the moon; another hour and a half until it set, and then-God and Goddess willing-they could get on with it.
Eilir goes into danger first, Juniper thought. And Astrid and Sam and all the others with them. Silently, beneath her breath, lips barely moving, she chanted:"
"Through darkened wood and shadowed path
Hunter of the Forest, be with my loves:
Lady of the Stars, fold them in Your wings
So mote it be!"
Then she settled down under her war cloak to wait. Behind her, three-score and ten Mackenzies did likewise, relaxed as tigers, bows waiting by their hands.
Here, Eilir signed, no farther from the recipient's eyes than his nose. Eilir followed him, the last of the party, as the five Rangers and Aylward's picked band of six slipped under the lee of a black basalt cliff that made them utterly invisible to anyone above. A great semicircular chunk had fallen from the base of it here long ago, and made a broad shallow cave; likely the fog would have hid them anyway, and it made moving through the darkness like walking in a giant broom closet. They waited in the blackness, waited to see if anyone had heard the noise from their crossing of the boulder field and scree that lay a little north. She worried about that less than the hearing; the everlasting silence she moved in allowed her to concentrate more. She'd long since learned how to move silently, starting with long summer days in the woods with her mother before the Change observing beast and bird. When one could sneak up unheard on a ground squirrel or get close enough to a deer to touch it, it wasn't hard to avoid human notice:
Nothing; the moon hung huge above, blurred through the mist, then dipped below the edge of tree-clad ridges. Darkness became more absolute, and silence stretched as they waited. She reviewed the layout above mentally: the fence and gate across the neck of the rising finger of land, then frame buildings on either side of the old trail with a narrow lane between, then a long timber-and-metal ramp out to the summit, with the signal tower beside it. She'd memorized the maps thoroughly before they left Sutter-down, though.
That left an uncomfortable amount of time to think. This would be a famous deed, if it went well. She enjoyed thinking of that; there was nothing wrong with being proud of doing right, and getting recognized for it; and if fighting the Protector's men wasn't right, nothing was. But watching Reuben drown inside, with all his life unlived:
Is this sort of thing what I want for all the rest of my life? she thought. I love the travel and outsmarting the bad guys and sneaking under their eyes and making them look like idiots, and hanging with Astrid is great-someone has to keep my darling sister-soul from flapping her arms and flying off with the wild geese-and the Dunedain are my best friends, and yes, I get a rush from the danger, but watching friends die: well, we all have to risk that.
When the Mackenzies went to war, everyone strong enough marched and fought; if you didn't like that, you were welcome to go live somewhere else.
I really don't know: this is something I do well, and it helps everyone. I do know I want children. And a man who's more than short-term fun, I'm getting too old to be satisfied with that. And I think Mom wants me to take over her job someday, but Rudi: of course, while I'm with the Dunedain, everyone knows Sign, which is really a help.
There just weren't many deaf people around these days-partly because there just weren't as many people, period, and partly because a smaller share of the deaf had survived the Dying Time. Not more than a score or so in the whole of the Clan's territories, certainly, including kids born since.
She sighed silently. How did that old saying. go?
The lame can go horseback
The handless tend herds;
The deaf are undaunted in war;
Better to be blind than burnt on your pyre
No deeds can a dead man do.
Of course, that was Odin talking, and He was a notorious fink: Just then one of the others tapped her on the shoulder, and she moved forward with eagerness blazing up again. Yup, I'm undaunted, all right!
Three ropes had fallen from the top of the cliff, good strong hemp. There was no need to talk; everyone knew what they were supposed to do.
Her bow went over her shoulder into the loops beside her quiver; that was new-filled with a full load of forty-five shafts. All the rest of her equipment was padded against noise. Sam Aylward spat on his palms and took the middle rope, climbing rapidly hand-over-hand. Eilir and Astrid flanked him, going up inchworm-style-locking the rope between crossed feet, holding on with their hands while they slid the feet up, locking them again and pushing with their legs. Halfway up they came out of the fog, and faint starlight showed on the surface of the mist like reflections on a dully phosphorescent sea, doubly so by contrast with the black basalt cliff. Then the ropes grew close to the rough, pitted surface of the rock as the overhang grew less, and she had to switch her feet to the cliff surface, boots scrabbling at it as she pulled herself up with arms and shoulders burning. They all reached the top at the same time, sweating and breathing deeply after the hundred-foot climb, but not winded. A figure darted forward and Eilir's hand went to her dirk for a moment, then upward as the stranger bent to offer a hand to help her. There was more light here from lanterns and fires, just enough to see that it was a woman in a housedress and shawl, but not enough to read lips well.