The big man winced slightly.?That?s Lady Astrid?s fault. She were always mad for those tales. Not that I don?t loik them myself-and Alleyne liked them even better. Allus did, even when we were lads in Tillbury, back before the Change, and you were drinking my Dad?s beer at the Pied Merlin and telling us lies about the sojer?s life.? ?Which is why he ended up married to her,? Sam said.?But your missus is near as bad.? ?Oh, no, no, now there you?re wrong. She just loiked them stories. It?s Astrid who took it all for Gospel; Eilir went along with it, and now the youngsters all believe it, God?elp us. Anyway, they were already living in the woods and doin? the?ole bit when Sir Nigel and Alleyne and I arrived. Doesn?t hurt, does it? It?s useful, having a language nobody else speaks, like using Sign. Sort of like a regimental badge for us Rangers, too. And we?re the next thing to the SAS about these days.? ?And you sound a complete pillock when it comes out of your mouth, John.?
He sighed and nodded agreement.?You know the worst of it? When I start thinking in soddin? Sindarin. Going on sixteen years now I?ve been in those woods, and everyone reciting and singing at me about every bloody thing.?
Hordle sang, in a deep rumbling bass: ?Alack, Lord Hordle!
Woe to the Men of the West
Who get no rest
For there is no bum-wad
In the Silvan crapper!
Nor any yet
In my Flet
No knotted grass
For my ass
In Stardell Hall
Is?t there none at all?
Of any stripe?
That we may wipe??
Sam chuckled like gravel in a bucket.?Still, they?re clever as foxes and they fight?ard as badgers, so let?em sing, Oi say.?
The big man went on in more normal tones:? You don?t have to live with it. It?s a good thing the missus is deaf and gives me some peace; I?d have done someone an injury, else.? ?How?s the ear coming?? ?She?s foine; the wound?s healed up proper. Weren?t serious, and she says she never used the ear anyway. Still more of a looker than I deserve!? ?How?s the other??
That could only mean Astrid Havel, the Hiril Dunedain, the Lady of the Rangers. ?Lady Astrid? Fine, and lucky with it. The?eadaches tapered off. .. you know?ow it is after you get a bad thump on the noggin.?
They both knew; you didn?t get up from being knocked unconscious and walk away as if from a nap. Blinding headaches for months were a small price to pay. Hordle?s fingers played with the hilt of his great blade for a moment; Sam turned his head for an instant and raised one shaggy white eyebrow at Dick, who was leaning forward towards the conversation with his ears almost visibly stretched. The boy went over and began fiddling with his mount?s tack.
Hordle lowered his voice a little:?It gave me a fair turn, Sam. That burke in the red robe caught Astrid?s sword right in the middle of a lunge, caught the flat between his?ands.?
He slapped his palms together to illustrate how. ?Caught it and punched it back into her?ead. If it hadn?t been slippery with some blood on it?e?d have knocked her brains out. Gospel, Sam; I?m not?avin? you on.?
Sam Aylward whistled through his teeth. He?d seen the Hiril fight.
You couldn?t catch her sword like that. John?s roit; it?s not natural. ?And the skinny little git who did it had already knocked me for a Burton,? Hordle said.?One punch under the short ribs and I couldn?t move until I got my wind back. One punch through a mail shirt and padding! And I had to chop?is?ead off to put him down; he was about to twist Astrid?s off like a cook with a chicken. So she?s talking about a real Dark Lord this time.? ?Daft,? Sam replied.?But you got out and you took Peters with you, right from his own house. Astrid?s daft, sure enough, but she?s roit fly too, and she does mad things and gets away with them. Of course, you and Alleyne?elp.?
Carl Peters was-had been-Bossman of Pendleton; he was now a ?guest? in Castle Todenangst, up in Association territory. Unfortunately his wife had always been the real brains of that partnership, and she?d escaped the Dunedain commando raid with her two sons and was now ruling Pendleton in cooperation with the Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant and the President-General of the United States of Boise… and playing those uneasy allies off against each other to maintain her own family?s power. ?Keep?er feet on the ground, as it were.? ?Samkin…? Hordle said unwillingly.?I?m not sure she is daft, not about this. The Prophet was in that room, and I saw the bugger, and my bollocks crawled up so high I?ad lumps on me neck and had to massage them down again with warm oil and cloths later.?Alf the time I think Astrid?s barking mad… but the other half I think she may know summat I don?t, like this.? ?He?s certainly a nasty piece of work, our lad Sethaz,? Sam acknowledged.?I?ve talked to a few refugees from out east, and Lady Juniper to more.? ?No, Norman Arminger was a nasty piece of work. Sethaz is all that and a bit more, believe me.? ?Well, I?ll let Lady Juniper deal with that side of things, eh? It?s?er job, so to speak. Meanwhile we?ve got to fight?im.?
John Hordle shook off his mood and grinned again.?We? I thought you were retired, Samkin??
Sam Aylward snorted.?I?m too old to do much shooting or bashing,? he said.?That doesn?t mean me brain?s gone soft, not yet. Since we lost Chuck at Pendleton I?m advising his boy Oak.? ?Good man, Chuck. Good sojer, for all that he came late to it. He?ll be missed.?
Aylward nodded. He?d been First Armsman-in charge of training and leading the war levy-for the Clan from the beginning, when it was just a few dozen people; Juniper Mackenzie had found him trapped and dying of thirst near her cabin when the first Change Year was young, fruit of an early retirement and unlucky hunting trip financed by an unexpected legacy. Chuck Barstow had been his second for most of that time, a man ten years younger who?d been one of her coven before the Change and a Society fighter. He?d taken the top job after the Englishman got too stiff and slow for field command, in this age when a general had to match the stamina of twenty-year-olds on the march, and fight with his own hands now and then too. ?Good farmer as well, for all?e came late to that, too,? Aylward said.
Chuck had been a municipal gardener in Eugene by trade. Sam Aylward had been brought up on the poorest and most backward little farm in Hampshire himself, a joke and scandal to the neighborhood. They?d been organic when it just meant you couldn?t afford anything better, not that you got premium prices from fancy restaurants and a pat on the head from the Prince of Wales. Until the land was sold out from under his father?s feet to be a stockbroker?s toy and the younger Aylward took the Queen?s Shilling just in time for the Falklands War.
A thousand years of farming Aylwards, and I thought Dad would be the last. But what he taught me turned out to be as useful after the Change as fifteen years in the SAS, or even making bows as a hobby. All the more so as we couldn?t afford the latest gear.
The exercise had ended; the Mackenzie warriors were collecting arrows or sitting crouched on their hams or leaning on their longbows or sparring with shortsword and buckler. The bow captains and commanders grouped around the standard of the antlers and crescent moon; a discussion was going on there-Mackenzie-style, which involved a lot of arm waving and raised voices. A tall fair man ended it by listing things that hadn?t satisfied him. ?And by the Powers, you?ll do it all over again, or my name isn?t Oak Barstow Mackenzie and my totem isn?t Wolf!? he finished. ?Oak did well getting the Mackenzies out at Pendleton, after Chuck died. I talked it over with Eric Larsson. But it?s still bloody silly to name yourself after a tree,? Hordle grumbled. ?Says the man whose kiddies are called Beregond and Iorlas,? Sam commented dryly. ?Well, they?d have felt left out in Mithrilwood, loik, if we?d called them Tom and Bert,? Hordle said defensively. ?We?ll be sending a thousand archers east next week,? Aylward said soberly.?They?re about ready, I think.? ?They?ll be welcome,? Hordle said. His thumb ran along the guard of his sword again.?Welcome and no mistake. We?re stretched thin.? ?Not as thin as Rudi and my Edain and their lot, wherever they are by now,? Sam said quietly. ?Roit, Samkin. But thin enough. Thin enough.?