Guelf felt dizziness edging his vision with gray, sparks and black spots dancing before his eyes. He drew a cautious breath in and then another. Hot, but not hot enough to burn his lungs. Around him men were fainting or breathing cautiously through wet cloths that lay over the train.
He could hear the rough jeers and laughter from the ones who’d stayed conscious. They’ll rib their mates for days, he thought. It will keep them all alert.
Someone shoved a canteen of improved river water into his hand; he drank, coughed liquid out through his nose, spat and drank again despite the savage pain as the diluted alcohol struck the damaged membranes, and passed it along. They pedaled onward into the setting sun, bloodred sunset to the fore; bloodred fire to the rear.
Huon Liu frowned. “So . . . so he didn’t really do anything bad there?”
“Not there,” Dmwoski said grimly. “Your uncle was no coward and not a bad soldier. It was his bad judgment that gave the enemy their opening; his refusal to let go of hatred and the desire for revenge. We learned the details of that later; from his deeds, and his words.”
CHAPTER THREE
DUN JUNIPER TO DUN FAIRFAX
DÙTHCHAS OF THE CLAN MACKENZIE
(FORMERLY THE EAST-CENTRAL WILLAMETTE VALLEY, OREGON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
JULY 31, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“It’s by you my place is, Chief,” Edain Aylward Mackenzie said.
Rudi Mackenzie cocked an eyebrow. The commander of his guard regiment continued stolidly, his feet planted apart and hands on his sword belt, his gray eyes steady in his square young face: “I’m Bow-Captain of the High King’s Archers. You can dismiss me if you’ve a mind to; but until you do, I’ll do my job whether you find it suits your whim or not. Your Majesty.”
“You never call me that save when you’re going to defy me,” Rudi laughed.
“With all due respect—”
“And you never say that unless you’re going to be disrespectful, either. I’ve a sufficiency of armed men to guard me here in Dun Juniper, don’t you think? And this.”
He slapped a hand to the Sword of the Lady, and went on: “And I’ll have you remember I put your face in the midden more than once when we were boys together. I can do it again if I must.”
Despite himself, Edain laughed. At the High King’s inquiring glance he admitted: “That is most exactly what I said to me little brother Dickie when we got home, word for word, midden and all. And him grown so tall and roynish while we were gone.”
“Then be off. We’ll have our fill of risk this year, and you can throw yourself between it and me. This day I’m going to spend with my mother and stepfather and my sisters in the place I was born. You and your bride the sword-maiden go down to Dun Fairfax and do likewise!”
Edain chuckled as he set foot on the steep path that led down from the plateau of Dun Juniper to Dun Fairfax, where it was tucked away in the valley of Artemis Creek. The quiet of the hillside forest swallowed it, greenumber distances between the tall candle-straight trunks of the Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine, red cedar and hemlock, with the odd big-leaf maple or garry oak, and black walnut thickly planted long ago for variety. A jay went sheunk-sheunk-sheunk, squirrels ran chattering like gray streaks, and a hedgehog scuttled off into the underbrush.