There was a slight happy growl from the armored hirdmen behind their king; he couldn’t have picked a compliment from all the world’s tongues that would have pleased them more, as long as it came from someone they respected.

The which they do, after the Seven Hills fight, at which all these men shed sweat and many let their blood on the ground from their wounds. And for their pledged oaths many of them will die very far from home, meeting their end on foreign ground with their last sight the faces of angry strangers. I will do what I must, for the kingdom’s sake and the world’s. And for my children yet unborn. The praise will also go a way to reconciling them to being brigaded with Fred’s not-really-turncoats. It’s an acrobat a High King must be!

“Now, when is this battle where we Norrheimers will do our head-bashing to be?” Bjarni said, belching contentedly and handing his plate to the youth. “And where?”

More of the watered wine went around, and a small sack filled with dried fruit and nuts. Oak leaned forward eagerly as well, and Fred’s face had a wolf’s keenness.

“It’ll be as late as I can manage,” Rudi said. “Around Samhain, if I can harry and delay until then. Yule would be too much to hope for.”

He turned aside to Bjarni for a moment: “Samhain’s our festival of the dead and the Otherworld, that ends the sacred Wheel of the Year. The Quarter Day at the end of October. Lughnasadh is the summer festival, just past.”

Oak hissed between his teeth. “Samhain? That long?” he said, obviously thinking of the autumn planting and a hungry year to follow if it was skimped.

“Everyone planted more last fall than normal, I hear, and we can put in more spring grain next year needs must. Time fights for us, remember; time, and the land itself,” Rudi said. “The enemy outnumber us three to two; or they will at the beginning of things.”

“It would have been two to one, if you hadn’t gotten us allies,” Oak acknowledged.

Rudi nodded; it was true. “I’ll make them leave their base of supply far behind, draw them in, with each step making them weaker as they must detach forces to guard their lines of supply and invest the strongholds. Then I’ll bring them to battle at the time and place I choose.”

“Where?” Oak said.

“The Horse Heaven Hills,” he said, nodding eastward.

Bjarni frowned, and Rudi drew in the dirt with a twig, showing how those lay between the valley of the Yakima river and the Columbia, a little east of where they were now.