"We will see pitaji again," she said. "I knew when we saw their faces again in the place of magic that we were fated. Karman. "

Singh nodded, then turned his face to Ingolf: "This is as good a place as any. We'll hold them as long as we can. Ride hard, my friend."

They leaned over to clasp hands for an instant. "It has been an honor, Captain. Avenge our blood."

Ingolf nodded, not wasting time on saying what they both knew. Singh swung down and handed him the reins of his horse.

His teeth were bared as he turned and got Boy back to a gallop, and clods of earth flew up from the hammering hooves. No point in holding back now; he had to try to break contact before the enemy caught up with him, and he ignored the low branches and brush that flogged at his face or rang off his helmet as he ducked and wove. The Illinois River was to his right, flowing from east to west here as he rode upstream, a long bowshot across-call it three hundred yards. It flowed quietly, with only a little gurgling chuckle at the edge. His own harsh breathing sounded louder in his ears.

A yell came from behind him, faint and far now. Then another, a man screaming in astonished pain, and then a clash of steel on steel. That followed him for perhaps a hundred of Boy's long strides; then it stopped, and he knew the two Sikhs were dead. He glanced behind as he went down a long straight stretch, and caught the first glitter of steel.

"Shit!" he snarled, and reached over his shoulder for an arrow. "They must have sent men around Singh."

The pursuers dropped back as he shot again, dropped out of sight, though that wouldn't last for more than seconds. The path twisted around and split. He made an instant decision and turned right, throwing aside the leading reins of Singh's horse and slapping it on the rump with his bow as it went by. Then he took the righthand branch, down to the edge of the water.

It was nearly under the piers of the Spring Valley bridge; Boy gave a single are you sure-boss snort and jumped into the water, striking out strongly for the op posite shore. Ingolf let himself slip out of the saddle, holding his bow above the surface with one hand and clinging to the saddle horn with the other. Water sloshed into his clothing with a cold shock, and he could feel the dragging weight as the padding under his mail shirt soaked it up. You could swim in war gear... but not for long.

He was three quarters of the way across and in the shadow of the bridge when the first of the enemy went pelting past the spot he'd left, galloping flat out. That meant the men in the lead were either very brave or completely reckless; there were any number of nasty tricks you could play on a narrow trail.

One... two... three...

The total had gone up to nine before one of them reined in, bringing his horse up on its hind legs. That took skill; so did avoiding a tangled collision by the two behind him, who split around the rearing horse. The too alert one pointed to the ground, then across the river. Yelling, the three horsemen spurred down to the water's edge, and into it.

"Shit!"

That had been a long shot, and it hadn't panned out. But three-to one was a lot better odds than twelve-to one. As Boy came out of the water he thought quickly while hooves went clattering on rock and making wet sucking sounds in the muck. The horse shook himself, spattering more water around; Ingolf got into the saddle and headed east again, on the south side of the river this time, urging the most out of his mount. The trees grew thicker as they blurred past; this path had been graveled once, but it had seen only the hooves of deer and elk, mustangs and feral cattle for the past generation.

One hour to sunset now, he thought. Only an hour.

Rock grew higher south of the river, layers of banded sandstone that caught the dying sun bloodred. They made sound echo, and sometimes treacherously die off or seem more distant than it was. The more so as he bore south and high walls closed around him on both sides, dark where the rock blocked the sun. Hooves clattered on stones and thudded on sand, where the ancient floods had carved this passage.

There.

The right spot, where a bulge of rock narrowed the passage through the canyon. His bow went into the sad dle scabbard, and he brought his shield around from his back and slid his left forearm into the loops.

He reined in and slid from Boy's saddle while the animal was still moving; it carried on around a curve in the canyon wall, slowing down and looking back. The man plastered himself flat against the rock; in the same motion he drew his shete, holding it high with the point back, suddenly conscious of his own panting breath, and how paper dry his mouth was, while the rest of him streamed water. The pursuers' gallop hammered at his ears, bouncing off the stony walls around him, making it hard to judge just where they were.

He could hear their barking, yelping cry, too: "Cut! Cut! Cut! "

"I'll give you a cut, you son of a bitch," he snarled to himself.

A lance point flashed as it came around the corner, giv ing him a fractional second's warning and showing where the man's arm must be-poised to thrust it into his back as he fled.

"Richland!" he bellowed.

As he shouted Ingolf pivoted with tiger precision and swung, whipping the long cutting blade forward with every ounce of strength his shoulders and back could muster. Combined with the speed of the galloping horse the sharp metal cut through a mail shod gauntlet, through flesh and bone and flesh and then through the tough shaft of the lance itself. The mounted warrior rode on for a dozen paces, screaming in shock and staring at the stump where his hand had been, the blood spurting out with fire-hose speed, then toppled and lay flopping and twitching.

The one following him slugged his mount back on its haunches with desperate brutality, dropping his lance and going for his shete. Ingolf ignored it, dropping his own weapon and darting in to grab one booted foot and heave with all his strength. The rider flew out of his saddle and into the rock wall of the canyon as if springs had pulled him. The helmeted head went bonnnngggg on the rock and the neck snapped beneath it. That horse went past too, riderless, buffeting Ingolf back with a force that brought a grunt as he was slammed into the canyon wall.

The third rider had an arrow on his bowstring. He drew and shot, in the same instant that Ingolf's hand whipped up across the small of his back and forward in a throw. Tomahawk and arrow crossed each other in flight. The arrow banged painfully off Ingolf's mail-clad shoulder, and the head of the tomahawk sank with a meaty smack and crunch into the rider's jaw. He toppled backward over his horse's crupper, trying to scream and succeed ing only in gobbling. Gauntlets beat at the ground in futile agony as Ingolf pounced. The back of the wounded man's neck was protected by an aventail of steel splints fixed to rings on the helmet brim, but they bent and snapped as Ingolf drove his boot heel down again and again.

Silence fell, except for the sound of the wind hooting through the rock, and the horses stamping and moving restlessly. Ingolf limped back to his shete-where had that small cut on his left thigh just below the mail shirt come from?-and sheathed it. That gave him a chance to examine his opponents for the first time. They were young men, younger than he was, of middling height but with the broad shoulders of bowmen and dressed alike in coarse blue woolen pants and tunics and high horseman's boots. They'd all been armed with dagger, shete, bow and lance, and all wore the same equipment, not just the helmets; back-and-breasts of overlapping leather plates, chaps of the same protecting their legs, mail sleeves. In fact...

That's like the gear Kuttner was wearing!

Things went click behind Ingolf's eyes. He'd been fu rious before. Now the rage went coldly murderous. For certainty's sake he examined one of the shetes; it was a twin to the one he'd taken from the wild-man chief near Innsmouth, though not quite as good.

"Time to get out," he muttered to himself.

Boy had stopped a hundred yards down the canyon, and the other horses were milling around, unable to get past him. He didn't bother to investigate the gear; time enough for that later. Instead he simply looped the stirrups of each up over the saddle horn and improvised a leading rein. Taking them in hand he looked up at the sky; it was turning dark blue in the east, nearly nightfall.

There was just enough sunlight to gild the arrowheads, when he came out of the eastern mouth of the canyon and found a semicircle of the enemy waiting for him, their stiff horn-and-sinew recurve bows drawn to the ear.

Kuttner sat his horse behind them, grinning...

Flying M Baronial Hunting Preserve, Near Yamhill Portland Protective Association, Oregon January 30, CY22/2021 A.D.

The fire had died down to coals while he told Ingolf's story. When Matti spoke her voice was as quiet as the blue and-yellow flickering over the embers. as the blue-and-yellow flickering over the embers.

"That would be hard, to lose your best friends all on the same day, and then be betrayed like that."

"Yes," Rudi said somberly. Then he smiled. "But you know what Mom said to him?"

"What?"

"She told him what his friends' names meant-the Sikhs. He hadn't known... She said-"

His gaze went beyond the wall, recalling that night in Dun Juniper.

"Lion," the Mackenzie chieftain said softly. "And Lioness."

Ingolf looked up, startled out of memory. "Ma'am?"

"That's what Singh means: Lion. And Kaur means lioness. Your friends died faithful to their ancestors, Ingolf."

"We'll have to get by the... Cutters? The Cutters, yes... when we go east," Mathilda said thoughtfully.

She picked up the poker and stirred the embers; they crackled and let a few dull red sparks drift upwards. The hall was silent now; they were alone, though there were servants within calling distance.

Rudi sat up. "Wait a minute!" he said sharply. "What's this we?"

Mathilda looked at him, her brown eyes hurt. He'd seen it done better... and they'd spent a lot of time together since they were children.

"We're anamchara."

"Yes, we are," Rudi said.

They'd been children when they went through that rite, back during the War of the Eye, when she was held prisoner by his people and before he'd been taken captive by hers; they'd done it to make sure that they weren't caught up in the quarrels of their parents. That didn't make it any less real, or less binding.

"But that doesn't mean you can run off with me, soul sister," he said. "You're heir to the Protectorate, for sweet Brigid's sake!"

"And you're heir to the Mackenzie," Mathilda shot back.

Her back had gone stiff, and she wasn't trying the puppy eyes on him anymore. Rudi ran a hand through his red-gold mane.

"I am not! It's not hereditary!"

She made a rubbing gesture between thumb and forefinger. "That's the world's smallest violin playing for you 'cause you'll be tossed out to starve or go beg in the gut ters of Corvallis, Rudi. The assembly made you tanist, didn't they?"

He flushed, which was unfortunately obvious with his complexion; not quite as milk white as his mother's but pale enough to show the blood mounting to his cheeks, particularly in winter. There wasn't much doubt who the Clan would hail as Chief... but he didn't want to think about his mother taking the voyage to the Summerlands, not yet. That might be a long time, anyway; she was only in her fifties, strong and healthy.

"Look, Matti, I'd love to have you along. There's nobody in the world I'd rather have my back. But you can't go. Your mother would never let you do something that crazy."

She pounced. "If it's that crazy, why is your mother letting you do it?"

"I'm of age," he said, and instantly regretted it as her lips narrowed.

Oops. Matti doesn't come of age until she's twenty-six. That had been part of the agreement at the end of the War.

"And besides, you heard about the dream Ingolf had. I'm supposed to be doing this. Mom doesn't like it, of a surety she doesn't, but she knows I have to."

"Pagan superstition," Mathilda spit.

"Hey!" Rudi replied, dismayed. I did get her angry, and no mistake!

Then she took a deep breath and relaxed. The problem was that she relaxed the way a lynx did, waiting on a branch for something edible to pass by. And he recog nized that expression; it was too much like her mother's. She was thinking.

"Well, who is going with you?" she said reasonably.

"Ingolf, of course," Rudi said. Anamchara did have to share their secrets. "And one more-I think Edain, Sam Aylward's son. He showed very well in that dustup with the Haida last year."

Mathilda nodded; they both knew the young man well. "And?" the young woman went on ruthlessly.

"And two Rangers."

Mathilda's eyes narrowed dangerously again. "Any particular Dunedain?" she said.

"Well... my sisters." At her look: "Well, half sisters."

She nodded quietly, got up and left. Rudi stayed and sat staring into the fire. Then his eyes turned towards the staircase where his best friend had gone. They'd known each other half their lives...

"That was much too easy," he muttered to himself.

Chapter Nine.

Stardell Hall, Mithrilwood, Willamette Valley, Oregon.

January 30, CY22/2021 A.D.

"E-ndan Ingolf warn?" Astrid Larsson said, when Ritva finished the tale that Ingolf Vogeler had told.

Mary and Ritva Havel halted on a footbridge. For privacy they and the commanders of the Dunedain walked the Path of Silver Waters, past waterfalls frozen into arching shapes of glittering white, fantasies that shone with an almost metallic luster beneath the pale bright ness of the winter sun. Likely they would melt in the next few days. Mithrilwood-what had once been Silver Falls State Park, and a good deal around it-was higher than the Willamette valley floor, and colder, but not as winter frigid as the great mountain forests that ran eastward from here until they met the glaciers of the High Cascades.

"Then the man Ingolf surrendered?"

The language they were speaking was Sindarin, the tongue most often used in a Dunedain steading. There was a slight tinge of distaste in her voice.

"Alae, duh! naneth-muinthelen Astrid," Ritva said, in the same language.

Her version used more loan words than Astrid's book-learned variety; she had come to it as a living tongue.

"Well, duh, Aunt Astrid."

Light flickered bright through the boughs of the firs and hemlocks, and the bare branches of oak and maple; it was still three hours to sunset, though there were clouds gathering in the north and she thought it smelled like more snow tonight.

She went on: "E-ndan i guina." Which meant: The man lives.

"His friends asked him to avenge their blood," Astrid pointed out.

There was a persistent rumor that she was an elf, or at least half Elven. Ritva had to admit that as far as looks went it might have been true; her mother's younger sis ter was tall and willowy-graceful, with white-blond hair that fell almost to her waist and features that had an eerie cast, eyes too large and rimmed and streaked with silver through their blue, chin a little too pointed. Which was the way elves were supposed to look, pretty well. Only the slight lines beside those disturbing eyes belied it; she was thirty six this year.

"Apa rasad pilinidi terealdamo mengiel?" Mary Havel scoffed. "Sort of hard to avenge anyone after he'd gotten a dozen arrows through his brisket. As it is, he escaped eventually-we didn't get the details on that-and he still has a chance to get vengeance someday, maybe."

"You have a prosaic soul, Mary," Astrid said regret fully; she used the same tone she would have to diagnose a skin disease.

The Lady of the Dunedain could tell Mary and her sister Ritva apart easily. How, nobody knew; their own mother had more difficulty. Her consort Alleyne was with them, and her anamchara Eilir and her man John Hordle, but the six of them were alone apart from that.

The thing that worries me most is this story about the sword, Eilir Mackenzie said in Sign.

Eilir was the same age as the Lady of the Dunedain, the same five-foot-nine height, and had the same grace ful sword-blade build; her features were a little blunter, her hair dense raven black and her eyes green. She had been deaf since birth, as well.

John Hordle snorted, and spoke in a basso rumble: "Well, if there's a bloody magic sword involved, at least the sodding thing isn't stuck in a stone!"

Astrid scowled at him for a second; the big Englishman could make even the Elven-tongue sound as if it were being spoken in a country pub over a pint. Or possibly at the top of a beanstalk, since she barely came to his shoulder, and he was broad enough that he looked almost squat. Beside him Alleyne Loring walked like an Apollo, six feet of long limbed blond handsomeness, with the first gray threads appearing in his mustache in his fortieth year.

Astrid nodded at her soul sister, speaking with hands as well as voice, as had become second nature since they met in the first Change Year.