Fit for Life

[Kulindahr]

178
The Sea
​

“Let’s find a nice beach”, Rita suggested, “and just soak up sun for a day.” The British Sea – they didn’t know if its inhabitants had a name for it – stretched calm and beautiful, and the day was warm.

“Nineteen and a half days of pushing hard, and here we are”, Austin declaimed, “and it’s all ours!” Valentina chuckled and patted his hand.

Devon laughed. “I think the British might have a different view!”

“The British aren’t here”, Austin point out. “And I want to go for a swim.” He rode Titanium across the loose, round pebbles into the low waves.

“Not so fast”, Rita called to him. “We don’t know what lives in there.”

“Oops”, the squire responded, and whipped Titanium around. “Anaph! Come check out the ocean – tell us if it’s safe!”

Anaph regarded the waves. With a grin, he urged Gloaming forward, then stood on the saddle, dropped his robe by his feet, and dove in. His staff fell to the ground and lay there. Airein gasped. “I’ve never seen it fall over!”- he exclaimed. He wasn’t the only one; there were gasps among the soldiers.

Devon laughed. “He’s not interested in his staff right now”, he said, having guessed what Anaph was up to. “He’s out there asking the sea what lives in it. I’d say his staff is getting a well-deserved rest.” That line brought chuckles, and a breaking of the hesitation that held them all in saddles. Legs swung over, feet came down, squires took horses, and Eldon took command.

“We’ll camp here”, Rigel declared. “It’s close to where we were last year. We’ll rest everyone a day or two – maybe a patrol will find us.”

“If they don’t?” Casey asked.

“We roll south”, Rigel replied. “Your turn in the cycle, huh?”

“Yep.” He had the same infectious grin of two years before – carefree, full of enthusiasm for life. Rigel envied him his simple world – or maybe not so simple, with a batch of apprentice or maybe journeymen scouts to shepherd around. “How long do you think Anaph is going to be a fish?”

“Only until I throw you in as bait.” Laughing, Rigel tackled him and headed for the water.

Anaph intercepted them, blocking almost as well as a real defensive back – from a middle school. They went down in a tangle. “Stay shallow”, Anaph told them when they were back on their feet.

“Troubles?” Rigel asked, starting to shed wet clothes.

Anaph shook his head. “Some things big enough to do damage if they’re mean. They don’t seem to like the shallows. The other thing, is there’s a shelf out there, maybe thirty meters – where it drops, it drops fast and deep.”

“Got it.”

“Hey, Rye – know what would be fun right now?” Rigel turned to see Devon with a mischievous grin.

“I’ll bite – what?”

“Football in the shallows.” The Engineer grinned.

“Right. How many know how to play?” Rigel asked, trying not to laugh.

“I’ll teach ‘em.”

“Sorry, that’s a negative. I can just see a pile-up with the guy on the bottom stuck with his face under water. I have a better idea.”

Devon, Casey, and – surprisingly – Ocean spent the afternoon teaching Celts and Quistadors how to play baseball.



Angus O’Rourke grinned. “How ya goin’ t’ make that set, lad?” he asked. “Namin’ a piece o’ the Sea after me?”

MacNeil grinned. “I’m the Crown Representative. Nothing on that coast is named except Bald Rock.” He peered at the top of O’Rourke’s head. “Which you resemble more than a bit – I can make that in your favor.” The two laughed together. “Seriously – once it’s been used in a few dispatches between Elizabeth and I, it’ll be established.
“Now, you’ve got three ships. Earl Rigel will be coming. Go watch that stretch of coast. If his company is the size it was last year, you can bring them south by ship. If not, send word.”

“And you’re after goin’ t’ look at this infestation of Aliens? Before that thousand men ha’ come?”

MacNeil looked uncomfortable. “Angus, I have to see it myself. But we’re not going straight there. Look at my map – it’s from the Fleet survey back when Elizabeth II was Queen! I need real detail of that territory! So we’re not heading straight there, we’ll go north, then south, then north, up and down, mapping carefully.” Kevin took a deep breath. “So if I do decide to attack, I’ll know the ground.”

“Aye, that’s wise, lad. Now while I’m gone, make sure none o’ these calm-water captains break a sloop in yonder lakes!”

After a good laugh, and a quick glass of wine, the two went down to the dock. Two ships were standing out, awaiting their temporary flag. “He’ll be there, Angus”, MacNeil stated.

“Ah, ya want ‘im t’ be, but that’s no the same as him bein’. We’ll see.” The grizzled captain tossed off one of the sloppiest salutes ever seen, bringing a grin to MacNeil’s face. He watched until Angus’ ship was under sail, cutting sharply away from the dock to join its companions.



“Three days”, Devon repeated. “The wheel’s ruined. Just be glad the trunnion cheeks held, or you could be minus a cannon. The brass had a flaw, it cracked, the wood failed. Now we could stack the parts in a wagon, and risk the wagon, or we can park ourselves here and you can let your Wizards do their job and redo that wheel bond.”

“Frak.” Rigel looked around, then back along the strung-out column. “This is a crappy place. Put it all on a wagon. I’ll ask Chen to pick a spot – south; I’m not backtracking.”

“Something with a nice beach”, Austin suggested. “But high ground for defense.”

“Feeling lucky?” Airein asked teasingly.

“Just had bad luck – our turn for good”, Austin asserted.

With a smile, Rigel closed his eyes – whatever the situation, the squires managed to lift his spirits with some antic or another. “Who’s on stand-down?” he asked.

“Oran”, Austin answered. “I’ll send him after Chen.”

“One of those moments when that Scout talent is a real gift”, Rita commented softly, taking his hand. “Rigel, things have gone excellently so far. At least this is a nice place for something like this to happen – think if it had been coming down one of those annoying scarps.”

“Point to the Wise Woman. Film at eleven”, he proclaimed grandly.



Land went by on the port side, but it wasn’t the land that should have been there, and Angus swore yet again. The wind was coming from just a hair to the west of north, directly against where they needed to go, making the land Eryksisle instead of the mainland. “Crawlin t’ the Sound by way of Kent! A simple voyage, made hard by this wind!”

“And a cold one”, his first officer noted, agreeing with his captain’s complaint, but noting a root of their difficulty. “Hard to make the men go aloft to shift sail.”

“Aye”, Angus conceded. “An ‘t’were a warm wind, we could beat to and back agin’ it. I will no be havin’ men fall t’ their death for frozen fingers.”

“Many captains would”, the senior leftenant noted. “You’re a better captain for it.” Angus grunted; he knew it was true, but he wasn’t fond of praise; he’d seen it too often as a tool for advancement. Not that such was the case here; his right-hand man was just assuring him he’d made the right choice.

“Well, either this Earl o’ MacNeil’s is there, or he isn’t”, Angus said after a moment. “If he is, God knows he can use a rest, after all that ridin’, an’ if not, we ha’ no need o’ hurryin’.” Hand went to brow and he squinted ahead. “That wisp o’ mist marks Asgard. Who’s–“

“Land, ho!” came the call from the top of the mainmast. “Boda Bay, two points to starboard!”

“Ah”, Angus breathed, “the lad wanted to be sure of the bearing. I’ll gi’ ‘im credit for that.” The captain checked the time on the hourglass near the wheel, grunted, then looked back past the stern. “That laggard... Make signal, we’ll put into Boda Bay, and if he can no straighten his riggin’, I’ll be puttin’ ya in his place.” Leaving his surprised first officer, Angus stomped down the steps, swung around, and ducked into his cabin.




The Duke’s own city stood before her. Staff wiped down with scented oil, boots polished with the same, humble pale brown cloak trimmed in green, a Nicene Creed rosary of green jasper, even a little silver in her purse, Anne felt prepared to face the capital city. Humming tone four of Gregorian chant, she joined the cluster of people waiting for the gates to open.



Backstroking through the shallows, Rigel looked up at the bluff. The spot Chen had found was superb: a shallow cove next to deep water, a bluff large enough to hold a camp sufficient for them all, if a bit crowded, and even a small stream trickling along the bluff’s north side. Pockets of sand along the stream were so fine Devon had been thrilled at the quality of casting he could produce using it. Lumina held classes for her Healers, and Tanner kept the troops busy fortifying the camp on the bluff. If the expedition had to be halted for repairs, he couldn’t have asked for a better place.

He heard a splash and turned to see Austin stroking toward him, a head-up Australian crawl, a lifesaving stroke that took a bit of strength to manage. “Rigel, Conal says there’s a ship out there – maybe more than one!”

“Wouldn’t want to welcome guests in bare skin, I suppose”, Rigel replied. “Let’s get respectable.”

“I think you’re respectable the way you are”, Austin quipped.

“No, you think I’m tasty, which is entirely different. Come on!”


“I think the captain knows these waters”, Landon observed some ten minutes later. They stood on the beach, watching what Tyrone, one of the translator team, said was a frigate glide toward the bluff. The amount of sail it had up decreased rapidly; the ship’s speed decreased less so, but its attitude in the water changed noticeably as momentum bled away. From the stern, two ropes went over, things like giant buckets on their ends.

“Drag anchors”, Tyrone announced. “Also called ‘sea anchors’. They can slow a ship, and at sea they can keep a ship aimed into the wind, for when there’s a storm. I think he needs to – there!” The vessel heeled over. Its new course was parallel to the shore. Just a few seconds later, a real anchor went out the stern. The ship slowed to a crawl.

“The anchor drags in the sand – kind of an emergency brake. You only use it when you know the bottom isn’t going to snap your line”, Tyrone commented.

“Ahoy the shore!”

“Leftenant”, Chen told Rigel. The two waved at the officer.

“Permission to come ashore!”

Rigel laughed – he’d always heard, “Permission to come aboard?” but never to come ashore.

“Come, and be welcome!” he yelled back. The officer waved to them, then his other hand swung and pointed to another man in officer’s uniform. “Mister Kyffin, make ready for the captain!” A longboat swung out on a boom, slipped swiftly down and slapped onto the water. The midshipman – so Tyrone informed them – followed six seamen down, kicking off and rapelling at a speed just short of free-fall, each landing precisely in his place in the boat. The moment they were set, the leftenant waved, and two seamen dropped a rope ladder over the side.

The captain’s descent was hardly more dignified than that of the midshipman and rowers. Disdaining the rungs, he hooked his feet around the outside of the ropes and dropped by sliding, his hands slapping the rungs to control his speed. In the boat, he quickly took his seat; before he was settled, another midshipman and a leftenant followed.

“Cuts ceremony to a minimum”, Chen observed.

“Either a superb captain, or a politically connected one”, Tyrone concluded. “Did you notice the sides of that ladder have wood inside? If they were just rope, he couldn’t have done that.”

“I wondered”, Rigel responded. “I’d say he’s a superb captain – someone sent him to find us, and you wouldn’t give that to a loser.” He paused several seconds. “Austin, some help with that boat?” Austin turned to Airein and snapped orders. By the time the boat was making it final charge to run up on the sand, the younger squire and three others his age were in the waves to meet it and help propel it in.

The captain’s only concession to ceremony was to allow Mr. Kyffin, the midshipman commanding the boat, to jump in and give him a hand for jumping out. Kyffin had done his job well; the boat had come in riding a wave that brought it far enough up that he and the captain got wet no higher than halfway to their knees. It would have been barely around their ankles if they’d gone over the bow, but this captain was plainly one not to fuss over a little water.

Angus scanned the group before him. Intuition prompted. “Earl FitzWinn, I presume?” he asked, stepping forward and offering his hand to Rigel.

“Right in one”, Rigel replied, as they shook. “And you?”

The leftenant did the honors. “M’lord, it is my pleasure to present to you Captain of Her Majesty’s frigate Druid, Angus Hugh O’Rourke.”

“The Druid?!” Oran exclaimed, grinning. He spun in place and yelled. “Anaph!”

“Lord MacNeil chose her”, O’Rourke explained. “He did say there was mention of Druids among you.”

“An honor, I suppose”, Rigel said. “So what are your other two ships?”

“Her Majesty’s frigate Undaunted, and Her Majesty’s light frigate Enterprise.” O’Rourke grinned as Rigel laughed. “Appropriate names t’ be meetin’ a small band o’ nomads.”, he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Not so small, this year”, Rigel informed him. “Want to come look?”

“‘S yer band too grand t’ sail away on my beauties?”

“Definitely”, Rigel began.

“One moment, m’lord.” Angus turned to the midshipman who’d come ashore with him. “Message one, mister, and smartly.” The youngster dashed off without a salute. He didn’t slow when he hit the water, but ran and dove into the boat. Midshipman Kyffin had it moving before his fellow officer was upright, the six rowers pulling hard for the Druid.

“‘Message One’?” Rigel asked.

O’Rourke nodded. “Lord MacNeil wished t’ know if ya would come by land or by sea. Since ya must be comin’ by land, ‘tis message one. Th’Enterprise’ll be turnin’ t’ bear that word.”

“‘One if by land, and two if by sea”, Oran quoted. “A poem from our world – Paul Revere’s Ride.”

“Ah, Revere – a right patriot, that one”, Angus responded. “Enough later, for that. Ya offered t’ show yer encampment?”

“So I did. Come on”, Rigel answered, starting to turn. “We don’t do much ceremony here”, he added.

“No need t’apologize, lad – were’t not for these Aliens, I’d be no captain of a frigate, for that I do no like much ceremony.”

“You two will get along fine”, Austin declared.

“That’s my squire – he doesn’t like ceremony, either”, Rigel told O’Rourke.


“Aye, ya’d no be fittin’ on three frigates”, O’Rourke agreed five minutes later. “Seventy wagons, hundreds o’ horses” – he shook his head – “Real horses! Lord MacNeil, he’ll be wantin’ some.” And five hundred men – more!”

“More”, Rigel replied. “Though you could do one thing for us – we have some wagons of goods meant for trade.”

“Easily done. How many wagons?”

Rigel chuckled. “I have no idea – that’s why I have a quartermaster. Eldon?”

The master organizer had been keeping close, just in case. “Of goods, four. Of others we shouldn’t need, three. If you don’t expect any major battles along the way, twelve more – half the supplies for the cannon.” He looked out at the two frigates riding at anchor. “I doubt you’ll want the wagons themselves, but everything is packed for easy moving anyway, in case of breakdowns. But with nineteen wagons to spread the load around more, we can pick up a half kilometer per hour of speed. I’m allowing for two wagons to roll empty, in case of need.”

Angus eyed the wagons, estimating. “Aye, we can take that much. I’ll have the lads rig a boom from yer fort here, t’ lower the goods right t’ the deck.”

Austin’s eyebrows rose – and he wasn’t alone. “You can sail in that close?” he exclaimed.

O’Rourke grinned. “Aye, lad – y’ happen t’ have picked one o’ the spots we captains use t’ retrieve Her Majesty’s patrols from off the mainland.” He turned his gaze west briefly. “I’m after thinkin’ t’might be good t’ make yer fort a real one. Fort FitzWin, it could be.”

Rigel groaned. “Not that abbreviation! Make it ‘Fort Winchester’ – my full name is ‘Fitzhue-Winchester’.”

“Fort Winchester it is, then”, Angus agreed. “How soon ought I load yer goods? Be ya leavin’ by the mornin’?”

Rigel shook his head, feeling the frustration again – though at least he’d met the British, and someone sent to find him, at that! “One more day – my smiths are repairing a wagon.” Thinking of a boom for loading ships, inspiration struck. “Unless.... Where we’re going – you have full metal shops, for steel and bronze?”

“Aye.” Angus saw where Rigel was aiming. “We could put your broken wagon on deck, and save ya a day.”

Rigel wanted to cheer. “Austin, go tell Devon.” He swatted his squire on the rump to set him moving. “Captain, would any of your men like the come ashore? We’ve got plenty of meat, if any would like to join us for a roast.”

“Aye, they’ll be happy to. But they’ll work for their supper, they will! I’ll set ‘em t’ haulin rock t’ add t’ yer fort! Ah – and I’ll be givin’ ya a guide, t’ help make yer way – Mister Midshipman Donovan Kyffin, commandin’ the longboat.”


“How long to get to this peninsula?” Marcos de Cadiz asked Midshipman Kyffin, several hours later, over roast venison supplemented by fish O’Rourke’s crew had caught.

“Pulling those wagons, twenty-five days, most like”, came the reply. “With our ponies, it would be twenty-nine – if they could pull those wagons at all! Those Escobar heavies, as you call them, should take you straight through places the ponies would have to go ‘round.”

Austin caught Rigel’s trencher. “Twenty-five days?!” Rigel exclaimed.

O’Rourke’s eyebrows rose. “Would you travel faster without the foot? I know nothing of land movement – a man of the sea, I.”

“Some”, Eldon responded. “The Escobar heavies make excellent teams. Without the foot, twenty-five days could become twenty-three. You think to leave the foot here? and send ships for them?”

“I’d be leavin’ the Undaunted”, Angus answered, “in case o’ trouble. Should Aliens come by, in numbers, there’d be room t’ take ‘em aboard.”

“Twenty-three days”, Rigel muttered.

Rita intervened. “Earl Rigel thinks on how long it has taken to come here, and all he has yet to do. He regrets any day simply going from one place to another. So, this saves two days – is there a way to save more?”

O’Rourke straightened in his seat. “Midshipman – signal the Undaunted to pass word to Enterprise of the change in plan.” He grinned. “And t’ request of Commodore Howe t’ send ships: first, one here t’ carry the foot; second, what he can t’ Rook’s Landing. Master Eldon, what might ya leave after five days, t’ speed ya more?”

Rigel’s quartermaster didn’t hesitate. “The lancers, and ten wagons. Beyond that, nothing will help.”

“How much will that save us?” Rigel asked.

Eldon shook his head. “Not as much as you want – a day is all. Even with a smaller column, the wagons only go so fast. Having the Escobar heavies gives us a longer range each day because of their endurance, but I won’t move them in the dark. Titanium’s horses can handle right up till the stars come out, but the Escobars need real light. And sorry, but Anaph’s light sticks aren’t enough.”

Rigel shook his head despondently. “Twenty-two days! Even if we had the manpower to build a real road there, there isn’t the population to justify it. Well, for future visits we’ll have to rely on our end to cut the time down.” He sighed. “Okay, Eldon, work things out with Captain O’Rourke. We leave in the morning.”

 

[Kyanimal]

Excellent chapter in many ways! Hitting the coast for some refreshing skinny dipping, and discovering Boda Bay. Indeed a good place for Fort Winchester! Kind of surprised the Brits didn't have any permanent structures there all ready, given their past use of it. But, that doesn't really matter. And though I know your image is not, it reminds me of a place on Cape Cod.

Angus was certainly the right man to send. He and Rigel seemed to have gotten along, quite well, right off the bat! And, interesting lessons in logistics. Angus's ships, and those to arrive at Rook's Landing, do make a difference.

Rigel, and a select company, could have boarded the "Druid", to arrive before the rest of the entourage. I'm impressed that that option wasn't even considered. Especially in spite of his anxiety of trudging on, Rigel's choice to travel with the column is an exemplary point to his leadership.

Eagerly awaiting more from Lost Britain! And, hearing of Anne in the heart of Duke country.

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
You've already gotten my initial Kudos via e-mail.

Hi, Chaz. Love your observations.

I think it's especially great that they're sending for ships to transport the foot soldiers. They've had the worst of it on the journey - all their own power.

Full Smithy facilities to repair the busted wheel - crane it aboard!
How many day's sail? 3? So, the foot will be in shore before the rest of them?

Angus sounded like he almost swooned at the sight of the full Quistadoran work horses.

And, yeah, the quick dip au natural provided a little recreational lightheartedness for our boy cum man Austin.

 

[Críostóir]

Really excellent! Finally some serious meeting with the Lost British!

I wonder if Rigel has realized they're trying to get him to marry the Queen?

 

[Kulindahr]

Really excellent! Finally some serious meeting with the Lost British!

I wonder if Rigel has realized they're trying to get him to marry the Queen?

I don't think there have been any hints, even.

 

[Críostóir]

I don't think there have been any hints, even.

Not for him, I guess. We, of course, know their nefarious scheme!

 

[Kulindahr]

179
Meetings
​

Fourteen days. The scenery was as dull as before, though bright with the palette of greens Nature’s local artist used. Technically it was still savannah, but trees were getting fewer, and more isolated rather than in groves. They were just slightly ahead of the estimate Eldon and Midshipman Kyffin had originally made – and pushing it just a little. Sitting due west of Cape Bóruma – the back of which they could see as a ridge slowly climbing to the east – they had a good view of the route behind and ahead.

“Downhill now”, Marcos de Cadiz noted. “We really ought to switch teams.”

Eldon shook his head. “Your theory is good – Titanium’s family are better and faster downhill – but it would take too long to make the switch. No, we’ll still be going downhill in the morning; that’s when we switch. Tomorrow should be a very good day.”


Arms crossed, Rita tapped her toe. “You’ve been avoiding me”, she accused.

Lumina nodded. “You’re going to chew me out for meddling with my pregnancy. So, consider me chewed.”

Rita chuckled. “Okay, you’re chewed – now tell me why?”

Lumina looked southeast, where lay the island she somehow knew but had never seen. “I think my kids are supposed to get born in Lost Britain. It’s a... certainty I have. I know I was due by now, but the babes are in hibernation, and they’ll be fine.
“I can feel the two girls especially. Rita, they’re both Healers.”

“Figures, from the way they were conceived. And I guessed already that Elzbédt meant one set of twins to belong to Lost Britain somehow. Being born there...” She shrugged. “I don’t see what difference it would make, but then I don’t see how Elzbédt is practically alive in the Stone when the Druids are what Anaph calls echoes.”

Lumina smiled. “If I were part Druid, maybe I could tell you. All I know is Elzbédt could humble lords with a glance. She probably intimidated the Stone and it surrendered."

Rita contemplated that image, and laughed.



“Water, lord”.

“Alfred, how did you convince me to let you come with me?” inquired Kevin MacNeil, dribbling a bit of water down his neck before rinsing his mouth and swallowing. The heat was still sufficiently moderate that water down his back helped, but he knew it would be long before the temperature would climb until today’s noonday mark would be the midnight measure – and the day even more than correspondingly hotter.

“So you wouldn’t have the duty of looking after young Onatah and seeing to his lessons – for which you are, of course, unqualified.” Alfred looked as proper sitting a pony as he had in the Queen’s palace negotiating her summer escapades.

Kevin glanced over where the young Haudenosaunee, technically a warrior – not that the native Americans ever fought – lay on his back on the rough grass, wearing only a loincloth, perfectly at ease with the world – and with not a one of the little pests the area had venturing to bother him. “I suppose I’m not, at that. So, old friend – where are we?”

Alfred chuckled. “Nigh unto two-thirds along Angus’ lakes, three days north of their shore, on yet another grand ridge from which we might spy out the broad land.”

MacNeil snorted. “You make it sound like a glorious enterprise, instead of the tedium it is.” He scowled. “I’ve been rushing us – the map makers are complaining.”

“Camp a day”, his gentleman’s gentleman advised. “We have water enough to get back to the lakes, where there are fresh springs.”

MacNeil considered. “Good place to watch the land from, defensible, and no one will object to the rest. Very well, we’ll do that. I’ll grant you the privilege of letting the map people know we’re granting them a day to catch up on their notes.”

“Very good, sir”, Alfred replied with a chuckle.



La Ciudad dos Montañas Oros. The gates were in striking distance. Anne judged the angle of the sun, deciding shortly that she could rest a quarter hour, then approach in a measured, meditative manner and arrive shortly after the big gates were closed but the side portal was still open for stragglers. What she’d learned said there would only be one guard right at the portal, and three near at hand – which would be much easier for her to handle than an entire squad with a senior teniente in command, or possibly the captain of the gate watch.

Anaph’s ability to anchor a staff upright would have been handy; she could have hung her cloak to get some shade. Smiling at the thought, she settled for spreading the cloak on the ground, settling into lotus position – something she’d finally achieved through practice on this journey – and fingering her rosary beads. She didn’t get serious about it, expecting that someone would stop soon, almost certainly someone with an ailment she could Heal.



Marcos de Cadiz stared. Oran was on his way across-slope toward them – pulling away from a mounted scout whose horse had given all it had. “It’s a matter of endurance”, Vivienne, riding her turn with Rigel so he could know where the other Scouts were. “Horses are faster in the short run, but humans can just keep going. People ride because it saves energy for doing other things, and because they can bring gear with them.
“Against a Scout, especially Oran, who was a long-distance runner already, a horse doesn’t stand a chance after the first hour or two. Scout Two could chase down a deer if he wanted; it can only run for hours; he can run for days if he wanted.”

The young lord shook his head. “Had I not seen don Rigel restore each stone of our ancient tower to its first place, I would not believe you. But these gifts... why have we never discovered them?”

“It’s against your belief system”, she told him bluntly. “Any special gift is supposed to be from your God, and come through laying on of hands or something. “So you don’t see what’s right in front of you, because it isn’t supposed to exist.”

Rigel was afraid he was going to have to intervene, but Marcos visibly reined in his anger. “I will think on what you say”, the de Cadiz son answered, effectively ending the conversation.

Oran was there soon, circling twice to catch his breath for speaking. “Hard run?” Rigel teased.

“I pushed. Rielsi met someone. A scout on a pony. He’s reporting back. British.” Oran took the liberty of lifting Rigel’s water skin from a saddle hook.

“This far out? I guess they’re not hugging the coast any more! Well, Sir Oran, lead on – but please don’t run; the horses would feel the need to challenge you.” It wasn’t quite true, just a tease.

“Titanium would make it a race”, Oran responded. “For hours.” Taking a deep breath, he turned and set off at a jog. Austin gave orders; Eldon gave orders; Conal and Tanner and the other officers gave orders, and ponderously the column turned. Not so ponderously as a week before, Rigel observed with pleasure; the messenger waiting for them at the way to Rook’s Landing had taken less than originally planned, but also arranged another rendevous, at Zekariah’s Landing, leaving them a trimmer force.


“Lord FitzWin – greetings”, the scout-leftenant said.


“Not chasing people away this year?” Rigel half-teased.

The scout grinned. “Not you, sir. Your impressive array of ‘nomads’ are quite welcome. We were to watch for you. Captain Ayers sent me to lead you to Colonel MacNeil.”

“A colonel now – moving up in the world. Well, then, lead on! Um, wait a moment – Eldon, how are we set for water?”

“Stretching. I keep hoping Anaph can call up a spring, or make a small one bigger.”

“I’ll lead you past a water hole”, the scout offered. “Only a few hours difference in travel.”



“That’s the last”, stated Master Korrûnos. “No more rifles until we have more iron.”

“Shit”, Ryan swore. “Innis, go to the semaphore: message to Master Samson, and would he please see if it’s possible to buy iron from the Quistadors.”



Three days in the city: it was enough. She had Healed forty children, who needed nothing but her prayers in order to believe God was working, and twelve adults, who needed to see herbs and anointing with blessed oil to go with the prayers. She smiled at the symmetry of the numbers, both symbolic in the Bible. Perhaps they were what stimulated her to move; perhaps not. Either way, it was time: that was her decision. That she’d found a disgraced deacon who’d told her the complete layout of the episcopal basilica and palace might have had something to do with it, as well, of course.

Vespers in the basilica was open to anyone who wished to join in the prayers. As a nun, she had access to better seating – better as closer to the altar, but better than better, near an access to the episcopal palace not known to many. If it worked as the deacon had described, she could appear in the palace without anyone but a very few having any idea how she’d arrived. So she devoted herself to prayer for success, and gathered her calm, centering on her image of a drop of water falling from a twig into a pool, Life moving from purpose to purpose.

“Sister, what are you doing here?” Four men she’d passed, unchallenged save for sharp or inquisitive looks; this one, the fifth, spoke.

“I was called”, she responded softly, meekly. “I have come.” It wasn’t a lie; the calling had come to her heart.

He could think of only one reason she might have been called; there were nuns who were renowned for healing. “Ah. You have strayed – come; the apartments are this way.” She marveled at her luck as the deacon – another deacon to lead her! – led the way.

“She was called”, that individual said at the apartment doors. The episcopal guard looked her over, caught her gaze – unflinching, open, friendly. He nodded, and opened the door.

The High Bishop was clearly in agony. Two men Anne took to be physicians stood arguing in harsh whispers. To the left, a priest sat reading out loud softly. The Healer ignored all three, and went directly to the man in the bed.

His eyes caught sight of her, and he stilled, a question in his eyes. Opening his mouth to speak proved painful, and a sharp small cry emerged instead of words. Anne began to hum Gregorian tone four, then broke into the words of the Twenty-Third Psalm. To her delight, the High Bishop tried singing with her. She smiled at him as she sang, taking out her rosary. Gently she tugged down the blanket tucked under his chin, and laced the beads across his frail-looking chest. The beads were nothing; her touch was what mattered: the pain fled, washing from his body like water from a punctured vessel.

“Sister, on whom do you call?” the High Bishop asked, wonder in his eyes.

“On Him who called me, and on St. Rafael, who Heals”, she replied, taking out her vial of blessed oil – not much left, but she could replenish in the basilica when she left – if she got that far. As she marked his forehead with the sign of the cross in spiced oil, she noticed that the physicians and priest had fallen silent. With the completion of that cross, a rally was launched in his immune system, one that would last a week or more. Next she marked the cross over his heart, using that touch to purge and repair kidneys worn from slaving to clean blood full of the detritus of battles with disease – he would need whole, well kidneys for what was to come.

Taking his right hand, she sprinkled holy water on it, then took it between hers, leaned her knees on the bedframe, and began ancient words:

Magnificat: anima mea Dominum.
Et exultavit spiritus meus: in Deo salutari meo.
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.....

He had two rashes, which Anne judged to be the results of primitive excuses for medicine inflicted on him; those she banished, not instantly, but to fade over the next two hours. Emphysema was a tougher problem, but it was one she’d guessed ahead of time and prepared for. Arthritis, too, succumbed. Some strange fungus infested all his pubic hair, crotch, armpits, and chest; that she rid him of by a quick analysis of what made some of it die and forming overwhelming quantities of the substance from the wastes in his bloodstream, then pushing it out in his sweat.

She needed a new prayer. The perfect one came to her:

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.

This also the High Bishop joined. The words flowed from her mouth as green motes of energy flowed through her into her patient, seeking the final enemy: cancer, already spreading through his body. Most of the colonies were tiny, vanishing under the flood of Life, but even the larger succumbed to her assault; cell walls shattered, nuclei crumbled, rogue DNA unraveled and fragmented into meaningless snippets. His blood stream would be clogged, except she directed his sweat glands to soak up poisons from the blood and ooze it onto his skin, to ease the strain.

She exulted: victory was in sight! Her Psalm had come to an end; she began another:

"I love You, O LORD, my strength."
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.

The High Bishop was merely mouthing the words; he was exhausted. Yet there was hope in his eyes, not defeat, and that would pull him through. Except –

Anne regarded the origin of the cancer. It was what the two physicians, one with his scalpel, had been arguing about, a sort of cyst in his skull, protruding on the outside but penetrating to the gray matter within. Assessing her own reserves, she knew she was defeated: purging this was beyond her. Another night, perhaps, but she couldn’t risk another night. One appearance, she was a miraculous visitor, even a saint of old; two visits, and she was suspiciously a mortal, needing more than once to impart her divine blessing. But how....?

She saw a way out. It wouldn’t last forever, but then the High Bishop didn’t have many years left even were he in perfect health; his body was just too old and worn. Taking her cue from the form of a cyst, she threw three-quarters of what she could muster into disintegrating the tendrils that reached into his brain, pushing back the frontier until the cancerous mass was as small as she could make it and have strength remaining to seal it in. When it was done, it was truly a cyst, the cancer locked in a dense mass heavily patrolled by white blood cells. The unruly cells would win through again in time, but when they did, he would be at his last, anyway, and the end would be rapid.

Rising, she retrieved her rosary and tucked it away, setting her eyes on the priest. “As the guests at Cana drank much in celebration, he must drink also – yet water the wine, for this is no marriage feast. And as our Lord lives, let these two” – she spun sharply, crisply, to face the physicians – “do no more to him. Do not lance the cyst; it is his thorn in the flesh, given by God, not to be touched by mortal man.” She put every bit of command into the last as she could summon.

With that, she turned and left, ducking into a rarely used side hall. Twenty seconds later she was a serving girl with a bag. Two minutes after, she was out in the street and on her way. The only event at all on her way to hiding to wait for the gates to open was a wonder.

“Sister – you dress below your station!” It was the guard from the portal, whom she had Healed of eczema, whose boy she had Healed of bronchitis.

“My station is at His feet, by the knees of the Virgin”, she answered enigmatically.

Shocking her, he dropped to his knees and crossed himself. “Lady of Heaven, which Saint are you – that I may tell my son?”

She considered this possible reaction to be remote, but had thought about it a little, since she’d had plenty of time to think. “I am the one you needed, and your son, and many other servants of God in this city. St. Rafael and the God he serves bless you, my son.” She made the sign of the Cross over him, something women weren’t allowed to do – unless, of course, they were Saints. On impulse, she touched his forehead with a finger still a bit oily from earlier, and gave him a store of energy that would keep him, and his family, healthy for a long time. Moving quickly then, while he still knelt in wonder and thanks, she disappeared into an alley and made her way onward.

In the morning, she awoke to a jab with a sharp wooden weapon; too short to really be a spear, it still looked lethal.

“I can give you better than gold, or my body”, she declared, cursing herself for not planning against this sort of thing. “Let me touch your hand.”

Mystified, the man actually did as she’d asked! She gave him a surge of warmth just enough to make him feel pleasant. He was missing half the little finger on his left hand; she ordered it to grow back, a complex matter involving the migration of stem cells. The eardrum in his left ear was punctured, a very small tear she could patch in ten seconds. A chip of bone in his left heel made walking evenly painful; she commanded it to crumble and his immune system to dismantle it. He had a hangover; that disappeared in two seconds. Something like lice infested his hair; she’d encountered that before, and settled it almost without thinking. A urinary tract infection caused terrible itching; that she put right in just four seconds.

Then she drew her hand back. There was wonder in his eyes. “Are you a holy woman?” he asked quietly, hesitantly.

“I am what God has made me. Now I must go to the city gates, and go see to others.” Thus she came to have an escort of three toughs on her way out. Beyond the gate, she stopped and did the same for the other two as she had for the first. “Change your ways, and stay whole”, she admonished. Making that a reality was a bit beyond her skill, but she gave it her best.

Somehow the trip back looked gloomy. Yet within a half kilometer, she came on a family of five pushing two carts along. Of course they had small ailments; healing those, her joy returned.



“Earl MacNeil – you have a few more men this year”, Rigel observed as they clasped wrists. He estimated five hundred men with the Colonel of Dragoons.

“Earl Rigel – we appreciate the danger more this year. Your party, too, seems increased.”

Rigel laughed. “This is barely half of it! Captain O’Rourke hauled the slower ones by sail. But he didn’t say you’d be clear out here!”

“I have reason.” MacNeil turned his pony and pointed south. “See that sliver of water? It’s a lake, one of three. Angus made a way to get sloops in, to sail it – and now we can patrol and scout farther. One scout brought a report of Aliens. I came to see for myself.”

Rigel flinched at the same time as a triumphant urge to cheer bubbled up.

 

[Críostóir]

Hmm. I'm not so sure healing the High Bishop is a good thing. Weren't the good guys trying to replace him with our own hand-picked saint?

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
This was a most interesting chapter. I suspect that the good High Bishop will be as good as a hand picked replacement until the end of his days.

I believe the transformation he just underwent will manifest itself in his appropriate, saintly actions. He has just experienced a miracle and knows it.

Meanwhile, back at the journey to New Great Britain . . . The discussion between Rita and Lumina regarding the pregnancy and the greater meaning of the dual twins and Elzbédt was captivating. Just a tiny bit unsettling, knowing that Lumina put the babies in stasis until they reach the protection and the "home" of the healers ancestral line.

All of the other goings on and the discussions on maximizing their distance covered in minimum time continues to be intriguing, too.

I know this has a been a bit of a difficult time for you; I hope you felt some of the healing from Anne that you imbued the others and the bishop with.

 

[Kyanimal]

Interesting reading about what's going on, at the same time, at the Northern, and Southern, "known" extremes.

Now that Anne's "mission" is clear, I'm still wondering about the "why". Perhaps it was nothing more, as far as the Big Picture is concerned, than her own internal "calling". I'm sure the High Bishop will not forget her visit! Nor will many others!

Might she be heading in Bro. Theo's direction? Those two would make one Powerful, very influential, team!

Beautiful lakes! Anxiously awaiting what the MacNeil/Fitz-Win expedition might discover in the way of "Others"! I'm at least at ease knowing that they'll make it back to New London (is that the right name?). Looking forward to "meet the Queen", and the birth in the Land of Elzbedt! (Still a bit surprised that if they've been "here" THAT long that The Brits haven't ventured further abroad than they have. Seems Elzbedt did!)

Hmmm ... Morsel outrunning horses. Wish I could catch a glimpse of his bod!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[DonQuixote]

Chaz,
Good to hear from you. You bring great insight into the interpretation and observation of the story.

I think the Brits have stayed as nuclear as they have due to their proximity to still active "other" nests. They have to be constantly vigil, whereas it seems that the folk further North have been left largely unattacked for a long time, now.

 

[Kyanimal]

^ Hmmm ... good point about "The Others"! I'm also thinking it may have had something to do with "The Blight", too ...

I was also wondering if The Brits had other healers? And, then I was wondering why Elzbedt may have ventured so far North? And, then I remembered "witch hunts" from around their time (at least in OUR time-line). And, if that were the case, might there still be a lingering threat?

'Tis fun to speculate!

Looking forward to what our Author may have in store!

 

[Kulindahr]

I have to weigh in to say the next chapter will be delayed -- I discovered that I have someone in two places at once. Despite the historical attestation of the Miracle of Bilocation, I'm not ready to do that for something this mundane.


Comments:

DQ, you're an optimistic romantic.

All -- Anne's a bit of an enigma, isn't she? She doesn't see the world quite the way everyone else does.

Ky, sometimes I wonder of you're reading my "worldline" sheet over my shoulder.....

 

[Kulindahr]

180
Druid Schemes
​

Five. Kevin MacNeil shuddered: the scouts had reported three, and now there were five, five fortresses rising down in the basin, three higher than the other two. Around each was a cloud of pale Aliens, thousands of them, the size of the cloud proportional to the development of the fortress. Seeing them directly brought chills, even made his knees tremble: how could he have ever thought to attack?! The idea was preposterous.

“Back to camp.” The Druid’s voice snapped the British lord out of his loop of anxiety. “Kevin MacNeil, I will need your aid.” Anaph turned sideways and rolled down the back of the crest they’d crept up on their bellies, not bothering to crawl, just rolling until the was far enough to stand without any living thing in the basin seeing him. The party of Scouts, commanders, and advisors walked slowly.

“A plague”, Devon swore softly, “they’re a plague on the land! Anaph, you have an idea; I can tell – what is it?”

“Can you build an earth dam?” the Druid asked. “Using the men we have?”

Devon raised an eyebrow. “Sure – how big depends on how much earth we can move and how much time we have.”

“Good. Rigel – leave Scouts here to keep watch. The rest – we have to be quick.”



The gap was a hundred forty meters across, as paced by Oran. The Scout had returned with what had become a small army – Rigel’s two hundred fifty plus cannon teams and wagoneers; Colonel MacNeil’s five hundred; and Captain Ayers’ four hundred – as the best to receive Scout messages from Casey at what had been dubbed “Fort Overlook”. Austin commanded there, not only because Titanium would make sure that every horse did its best, and more, if they had to flee, but because he’d faced Others before, something that would give the Scouts confidence.

“You want a dam across that. Twelve meters high.” Devon shook his head. “The ground here is hard enough, that would take months!”

Anaph grinned. “Grab a shovel – dig in the ridge behind us.” Devon heard Landon’s chuckle, and knew the Bard understood what Anaph was about. He got the shovel.

“Holy crap! It’s all loose!” the Engineer exclaimed. “How....?!” He looked at Anaph, awed and stunned.

Landon strummed his harp twice. “Soil is alive with creatures. Encouraged, they can loosen it readily. I think Anaph gave you plenty to build a dam with.” He marked each statement with a plucked string.

Devon kicked at loose dirt. “An earth dam needs a shallow slope. This whole ridge wouldn’t be enough if I leveled it!”

Landon laughed. “Level it – we can build a castle here. But the dam doesn’t have to last forever, just a while.” He hung his harp on its saddle hook as he leapt to the ground and bounded to join Devon. “It only has to last till the water reaches the top”, he confided softly.

Devon stared at Landon for two seconds, then looked east toward the lake a few kilometers distant. An expert eye gauged slopes, roaming far then back to where they stood. “Holy crap”, he said as he got it. “Yeah, we can build that kind of dam. I’ve got a thousand men to work with, and wagons... Anaph”, he said loudly, no longer just for Landon’s ears, “how long do I have?”

Their Druid was already thinking that through. “Kevin MacNeil, you have men by the first lake. May I command them?”

MacNeil blinked. “How many?”

“Six dozen would be about right. I would need men who can dig.”

Rigel laughed. “Take Mervynn – he’ll make that a lot easier!” He turned to his old college friend. “Dev, I’m surprised you didn’t think of my Cutter when considering this dam.”

Devon shrugged. “I did – but you couldn’t even start to loosen dirt as fast as a thousand men can move it. “Anaph, ask for explosives.”

“Oh – good idea. Colonel MacNeil?”

Kevin shook his head. “Wrong man – you need Earl MacNeil, the Queen’s own representative to this venture. Wait a moment.
“Alfred, compose a message to Lord Sidmuth, asking he extend all cooperation to Master Anaph.”

“Immediately, Master Kevin”, the faithful servant replied. He turned and went east to where a team was erecting a signals tower.

“Captain Ayers’ men will have a tower complete to the east within hours”, MacNeil informed the others. “The message will reach Percival before nightfall. Master Anaph, let Alfred know if there’s anything specific you want – it can be on a sloop and meet you wherever you’re going.” He grinned. “And just where are you going?”

“First, to the cliff where the Sea doesn’t quite flow into these lakes; then, back to where the last lake doesn’t quite reach this one.” The head Druid got a mischievous grin. “You’ll know when I get to work. And if it’s going to take hours to get that tower up, I’ll just start now and save time. I can give more details to that crew. If everyone works hard, I’ll need a week.” His grin was that of the kid before the Snatcher really touched him. “If you want to see something interesting, be at the gap between this and the last lake then.” He made no more farewell than that, just turned and whistled for Gloaming. Before leaving the camp, he paused only long enough to pick up Yahala, one of Lumina’s better student Healers, to ride with him, and ask Mervynn to join him. Unasked, Landon rode with Mervynn.



“I thought we were building a dam, not a road”, a man complained when Devon admonished him to spread his load level, for traveling across.

“The road is the dam”, Devon explained for perhaps the twentieth time. “We just keep raising the road higher. As long as it’s strong enough to ride on, it’s strong enough.” He eyed the gradient to their dirt source. “Tomorrow, we start running wagons on it – this carrying dirt in buckets and baskets and blankets is tiring.” And not good for the containers, as Rigel had pointed out.



Anaph made a rest stop where the second and third lakes were less than three kilometers apart. It was a physical rest, anyway; now his mind went to work – much as his mind mostly rested while his body did the work of riding. Reaching deep, he found the bedrock to be much as he had felt from farther away, and judged it more than satisfactory for his purpose. With Yahala and the other two to keep watch, he took his time, committing the patterns to memory to examine more closely as they rode.



Kevin MacNeil handed Devon a skin of his best wine. “Congratulations – you have a wagon road across the gap.” Devon took only a small swallow, though the heat made him want to gulp.

“I really like the ‘dirt tires’”, Rigel commented. Devon had realized beforehand that the wagon rims would just sink into the dirt, so he’d turned a number of local trees into wide planks that he and his team bent around the rims and fastened them there, making each wheel effectively half a meter wide. “Could that work on snow?”

Rita laughed. “Not unless you just want to move empty wagons, Rye!”

“Or make wider ‘tires’”, Devon said, differing a bit. “I could calculate it – sometime when it’s cool”, he added with a grin.

“They pack the dirt well”, MacNeil noted. “A better dam.”

Devon shook his head. “I don’t want it packed too much – that’s why I’m not worried about ruts; it doesn’t matter if it isn’t all packed.” He scratched his chin. “Haven’t you guys figured out Anaph’s plan yet?” he asked.

“To be able to sail ships to this point, I judged”, MacNeil offered. Rigel nodded agreement; Rita looked amused. “If he breaks the cliff between the Sea and the lakes, the water will come to here and it will be like a long arm of the Sea.”

“Save a lot of walking”, Eldon commented noncommitally. He shared a curious glance with Rita.

“Have to swim to the ships at first”, Rigel added. Something about not needing to pack the dam nagged at his mind, but he didn’t see what it meant – they wanted it fast, and would strengthen it later?

“Build docks, with fortifications to guard, and this is a supply point”, MacNeil said. He turned and looked west. “But that many Aliens would swarm it under.”



Bare rock greet Anaph and Yahala when they reached the small, sharp-ended bay of the Sea. A work camp sat near the cliff that rose four meters above the waters of the sea and closer to thirty above the surface of the lake. “Greetings, Gray One”, a man called, jogging up to them from the work area. “I’m Kurtiss Shelby, one of Her Majesty’s numerous captains, and Master Excavator. From the riddle you sent, I venture you wish to remove this impediment and let the Sea flow free?”

Anaph chuckled. “Exactly. You’ve gotten a good start.”

Shelby shook his head and spat toward the digging. “Not as good as I wanted. I know why there are lakes here now, that aren’t on the old maps: the rock here is cracked, maybe from the earthquake in my grandfather’s day, maybe older. The Sea is seeping through those cracks, making lakes. That’s why the first lake is a touch salty. Well, that water makes digging a touchy matter, enough so I’ve two men injured already. But those cracks, they’re a blessing: I can already see three places for packs to shatter the rock, maybe all the way through.”

“I’d like it all the way through at once”, Anaph replied. “I have someone here who can help. Mervynn – you know the plan.”

The Delver, as they’d come to call the avatar due to his ability to sense the structure of rock, nodded, and wordlessly headed for the excavations.



Landon looked at the sun. “About time”, he noted. He, Anaph, Mervynn, and Yahala sat looking down on the narrow stream where water flowed from the first lake to the second. Looking east, he shook his head. “You can really sense it all the way from here?”

Anaph just nodded. “I’ve kept alert to it since we left. Once Mervynn had sliced away enough rock to finish most of the job, I made a link to the life in the cliff and in the Sea beyond. I can feel the... spatial relationship.”

“So you’ll know when they move”, Landon concluded. “Nice – wish I could touch things that far away.”

Anaph smiled. “Practice – your spark is deep.”


Jeffrey Shelby wiped his hands and looked at the sun. “Half an hour to spare. Well, we won’t sit on our hands! The time means we can weight down those packs better and pull more rock out of the gap.” Though weary, men sprang to make his wishes a reality. A bit over twenty minutes later he called a halt, then made a final inspection of the preparations. Six packs of explosives – what Bard Landon had called “charges” – rested in their holes, a meter below the deepest point they’d excavated, positioned where he and that eerie Mervynn had decided would shatter the dam – there was nothing else to call a span of rock less than two meters thick, holding back an entire sea – in less than ten seconds, if even that long. Two long fuses ran to each pack, his way of providing backup in case a fuse failed – though he’d inspected every centimeter himself, and was confident all would work fine.

Atop the dam, his twelve fastest runners stood with fire to light the fuses. Shelby checked the area, scanned the formation of his men to verify they were all clear, and took a deep breath. With excitement growing – no Britisher had ever done such a feat as they were about to! – he took off his cap and waved. Twelve fire pots touched off twelve fuses; twelve men sprinted off the dam. They could have walked, since the fuses were cut for two minutes, but no ordinary man who knew what was soon to happen to that dam was going to remain on it any longer than necessary.

The moment they were clear, the master excavator signaled his men they could move. A scramble for pre-chosen perches to watch the event ensued. Boys dashed from the camp’s tents with sandwiches and wine chilled by lowering it into the Sea, five meters down. Shelby himself settled in on a low branch – a whole meter off the ground – of a twisted gray oak, leaned against the trunk, and watched the dam face do absolutely nothing.

That changed in a period of under three seconds, indeed barely over two. Six charges went off not quite as one, but close enough for this sort of brute engineering. Mud and stone erupted from the base of the dam, and cracks flashed across the surface of the lower half. That didn’t save the uncracked upper portion: the cracked rock bulged outward, then burst out and up, the immense pressure of the water of the Sea at a depth of fourteen meters throwing everything moveable out of its path. And as the debris was torn and carried away, the upper half of the dam vibrated from the rapid flow beneath, then all at once folded outward. The massive pieces sank into the flood, breaking and rumbling away. Across the new channel from them, the extra three packs Shelby had set personally went off; slowly, almost majestically, what had become a cliff sank, disintegrating as it encountered the vicious current. The ground shook as massive boulders slammed into the banks. Slowly, the current smoothed as the debris was borne west, what had become downstream. What had been a thirty-meter gap, widened by them to nearly fifty, was now twice that – and as they watched, the far bank collapsed again.

“Saints above”, a worker swore softly, “the Sea is loose!”



Anaph smiled. “They’ve done it. It’s a really good flow.”

“How long till we notice here?” asked Yahala.

“Two and a half hours at the earliest”, Landon replied. “Probably longer. It will be hard to notice at first, anyway. Anaph, is there anything we’re doing here?”

Anaph shook his head. “Already done.” His look at the Bard said it was a lesson.

Landon’s eyes went wide. “Everything alive is fleeing!” He laughed in delight. “Saving life! I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Still, there will be a great deal of death from this flood”, Anaph responded, a touch of grimness to his sadness. “But we’ll make use of it – come. Everyone near.” Landon observed once again as Anaph strengthened the horses.

“Saints and bards! You link them to all the life within... farther than I can tell”, he finished with wonder.

Anaph nodded. “Especially to the things that won’t survive the flood. They won’t need their energy much longer anyway.” Landon felt/looked again, and nodded. He didn’t ask about the feeling of being haunted he sensed from the High Druid.




Hours after the Druid had ridden away, the men at the well-protected camp they’d dubbed Fort Fitzhugh abandoned their tasks and lined the walls. The stream below, that had been barely wide enough for a sloop to navigate, was becoming a torrent. The water level rose visibly as they watched, the current tearing at the hillside, scouring it away.

When an equilibrium was reached, what had been a river had become a rushing flood, half a kilometer across, its depth unknown – it had carved away too much of its own bottom for any guess.



The sound of singing alerted Rigel first. He reached for his boots, then decided his feet were tough enough to go without; instead, he ditched his socks. He wasn’t the only shirtless one to greet the returning quartet – which was a quartet indeed: Landon had Anaph, Yahala, and Mervynn singing with him as they rode.

“You’re early”, Rigel called to Anaph when their song had ended.

The Druid grinning back. “So are you.”

“We thought it might be cooler here.”

“Only in the water”, Anaph responded absently, looking that way. “Has anyone been watching the shore?”

“Some of my men have tried fishing”, replied Kevin MacNeil. “Lad this morning swore the water is rising.” He looked at Anaph expectantly.

“Good.” Anaph swung down and turned Gloaming loose with a pat on the neck. “I need a swim. Then I need a lot of quiet. I sped our journey because I changed my mind about how to do this – I need to start earlier.”

“How much quiet?” Rigel inquired.

Anaph judged the sun. “Just before sunset.” Given the time of year – early summer – and their latitude, that meant over six hours. The Druid looked around. “I’ll be on that rock – the one that looks like a buried boulder. It’s bedrock.”

“We’ll keep everyone away”, Rigel promised. As Anaph dropped his robe, hanging it on the end of his upright staff, and headed for the shore, Rigel told Conal, who chose a half dozen riflemen to stand sentry so Anaph could have his quiet.



The space between the two lakes had to be, Rita had decided, a massive tilted slab of rock. The eastern side sloped at around a ten-degree angle into that lake, while on the other side the face plunged down something like a seventy-five degree grade. For curiosity’s sake, she persuaded Mervynn to slice into it. Rigel decided to help when some of the men volunteered to carry away the debris; he and Mervynn took turns.

The top proved to be a volcanic tuff – a welded one, the volcanic ash when it stopped moving having been so hot it melted together. It was almost pure ash; Rita had Rigel slice a dozen thin layers before she found any particles bigger than a pin head. Three meters lower, the next layer stopped her short.

“This is glacial!” she exclaimed. “Rigel, look at this – see the line where they meet? If the hot ash landed on the glacial deposit, some of the glacial flour would have melted, fused – but it didn’t!” Rigel could see the two layers, tell them apart, and he sure didn’t see where it looked like the fine glacial material had melted together – in fact when he stabbed at it with his knife, it crumbled just as easily right next to the tuff as it did ten centimeters away. But he didn’t see what that meant, and said so.

“What it means is I need a field lens”, Rita answered. “I suppose the tuff could be chemically welded, but that would be really weird – yet I can’t rule it out without a better look. But if it’s an ordinary tuff, then it means that the tuff was here first, and the glacial deposits came and sat on it, not the other way around.” She looked at him expectantly.

“You mean it’s like jelly on a piece of bread – you put the jelly on top of the bread, so when you find it the other way you know it got flipped over.” He grinned. “I’m not dumb. But, wow” – he waved an arm at the area where they stood – “this is a monster slab – what could have flipped it over?”

“A sloppy stone giant who dropped his tuff and glacial flour sandwich”, Rita teased. “Seriously – I don’t know. But all the scarps we came down to get here say a lot of force got cut loose here and left an empty spot underneath – and the land dropped down. Devon’s gabbro back at the Mendez castle already showed us something massive happened here, to drag that kind of rock up from the depths. But it’s interesting – some event blew out a lot of volcanic ash, then glaciers covered this place, fast enough there’s no real sign of soil developing, and after that some massive force flipped this slab.”

“Maybe that’s when the life here got stripped down to almost nothing”, Rigel mused. “Maybe it was a big catastrophe that wiped out their civilization, and they tried hard to recover, but couldn’t.”

“What – and they built the Snatcher to grab replacement species, but then they wanted help and started grabbing people?”

Rigel chuckled. “Or to the Snatcher, people are animals – or maybe we’re not replacements, but mercenaries who are supposed to get rid of the Others, the pests.”

Grinning, Rita shook her head. “We’re the exterminators, still animal enough to fill an ecological niche? Fits what we know as good as anything!”

“Wise Woman Rita”, Mervynn called. “This is interesting.” He had l carved steps as he went, leaving an easier path for them to join the Delver, now eight meters deep.

“Holy Finagle”, Rita exclaimed. Beneath the glacial deposits was a brownish rock with dark flecks in it. “Mudstone!”

“Was that on top of the glacial stuff, or is that what the slab landed in when it flipped?” Rigel asked.

Rita stared at the rock, then at Rigel. “Back to the drawing board”, she declared.



The earth shook. Horses and men screamed, but that was the worst of it: by Anaph’s instructions, every container had been sealed, nothing was stacked on top anything else, all the tents had been dropped flat on the ground, the wagons all had their brakes set – and the ammunition wagons had been unloaded, the containers set in rows with loose dirt shoveled between them. So while the earth rocked, nothing belonging to the humans did.

It went on for nearly a minute. It wasn’t like any earthquake any of them had ever experienced: ordinary quakes were generally sudden jerks, followed by aftershocks, while this one was a steady series of lurches all about the same intensity, more or less evenly spaced.

When Anaph took leaned on his staff briefly and then came walking back from his boulder, they knew it was over.

“That’s it?” Lumina asked. “You’re done?”

Ocean cut off Anaph’s reply. “Look – the ground sank! The east lake’s flowing into the west one.” The slab where Rita had investigated the local geology was tilted and cracked; beyond it, to the south, it looked as though the hill that had been there had gotten inverted; a mild whirlpool spun in a rounded depression, water flowing in from the east, out to the west.

MacNeil shook his head at the sight. “Was this spot higher than Engineer Devon’s dam?” he asked Anaph.

The Druid shook his head. “No – a few meters shorter. But if I’d let the water build up here and then flow over, it might have torn a deeper channel, and instead of a slow rise, the dam would have been hit by a rush. Besides, it would be a sailing hazard”, he added.

MacNeil chuckled. “Showing respect and concern for Her Majesty’s navy – I appreciate that. Now a matter for your attention – her Marines brought a message while you were... working out on the boulder.”

“In code, I suppose”, Anaph replied. “What did it say?”

“From Captain Shelby – the channel they excavated and blasted for you was torn to something more than three times its original width. He believes it is also deeper, but cannot measure. However, he has estimated that the flow is some seventy million cubic meters of water per hour.” Eyes went wide; MacNeil sounded doubtful.

“If it’s a hundred meters across and twenty deep, that would mean it’s moving....” Landon’s lips moved as he calculated.

“Forty kilometers per hour”, Abaca pronounced. “Can a river flow that fast?”

“I’ve heard of some going fifty at flood stage”, Landon replied, then flashed a grin. “I saw the drop up there – wouldn’t surprise me if it was flowing at sixty klicks!”

“So how long until the lake behind your dam fills?” Rigel asked Anaph.

The Druid shrugged and blushed. “I didn’t really think of that. Let’s go ask Devon.”

“In the morning – we have to reorganize and pack first”, Rigel pointed out.


When they began moving the next morning, a brown streak ran through the new channel out into the lower lake. “What’s that going to do to the lake ecology?” Rita asked Anaph.

The Druid immediately looked guilty. “Nothing compared to what the lake is doing to the land”, he said sadly. “I have a great debt to work off.”

“I heard that”, Rigel said. “Tell it.”

Anaph sighed. “I needed a lot of energy to move the rock to let the water flow. I took it from dying things – things the upper part of the flood was already killing. But that wasn’t enough. So I didn’t warn all the creatures down here that they should flee. I used some of the energy from the first creatures to kill all the ones that will die from the water coming in. That gave me enough energy for the channel.”

“You killed everything that won’t escape the water?” Rita asked, slightly awed. Anaph nodded, not looking at her. “So what’s the problem? They would die anyway!”

“But not yet”, Anaph replied. “I shortened their lives.”

“You did that when you started this!”

“But I did it more. I have a debt – I need to replace that much life.”

Rigel thought Anaph was being silly, but then he didn’t know what sort of balance a Druid might have to keep, so he didn’t comment on that. He chuckled. “I know how to do that”, he volunteered. “You still have that barrel of sewer water, right? Well, get to work, and make those critters be fruitful and multiply – you can sweeten the sewer of every dwelling in Lost Britain!”

Anaph stared, scratched his head, then laughed. “That does a bunch!” he agreed. “But I want to put life where I took it. I want to learn what kinds of life the Sea has, and bring more, and put it here.” He waved toward the lake with its brown streak. “I didn’t feel many different kinds of life when I took my swim. I want to bring lots more.”

Rita nodded. “I like that – the British will, too, I’m sure.” She looked to MacNeil. “Kevin?”

The British Earl nodded as well. “The Sea is our life and home, but it is too much like a desert. Master Druid, if you can make it richer, please do so! But a question: what is this of sewer water?”

Anaph let Landon explain. Rita shook her head and chuckled from time to time, at hearing an account of Druids playing with sewage – set to harp chords.



Devon had a surprise waiting for them: the earthen dam wasn’t yet as high as Anaph had asked, but a half kilometer behind it a row of twelve pyramid-like structures rose. “Bloody engineer’s gonna build a bridge!” Chen exclaimed on seeing it.

“Look why”, Oran said. “His fort’s on the other side.” It in fact looked like a fort, a camp with an high earth berm around it, and the sides of the hill it perched on sliced almost straight down, leaving bare rock walls four meters high below the berm. On one side, Devon labored with Rigel’s Cutter, slicing another layer off.

MacNeil stared a moment before he grinned. “If you have no high place to place your fort, carve low around it!” he exclaimed. “I say, let us see this wonder!”

While others admired what Devon had accomplished while they’d been gone, Anaph asked the Engineer for an estimate of how long it would take to fill the now-unified lake behind the dam. “There’s a lot of guesses in that – but let’s ask our guide.” They found Midshipman Kyffin supervising the placement of shattered rock against the upstream side of one of the ‘pyramids’.

“The lakes? I’ve been on them just twice, but I shall venture an estimate. The whole of them... joined, I should say three hundred, definitely not as high as three hundred fifty, kilometers in length. The width – it depends how high your water comes on all those hills. Forty kilometers on average? Perhaps forty and five? To be conservative, make it three hundred thirty by forty-five. And depth – that one’s really hard to say. Some places, it may be two hundred meters. Others, much less – down to zero at the edge. Perhaps an average of a hundred meters? But, no; the first lake will stay shallower, because it’s uphill. Sixty meters? To be conservative, I say sixty. There are your dimensions.”

Devon scratched on a wooden version of a slate. “Damn – Anaph, if those are the dimensions, it’s going to take your lake thirty years to fill! Okay, let’s be less conservative – how about three-twenty-five by forty, and fifty meters.... No, that’s still twenty-five years. Buddy, you need a bigger opening.”

Anaph turned and looked back toward the Sea. “I’ll never pay the debt”, he whispered. “But I’ve started this – I’ll go back tomorrow.”


His plans were changed by a signal tower message, which Colonel MacNeil gave him at breakfast. “Captain Shelby sent a word for you, friend Druid”, Kevin said. “Apparently they had a bit of an earthquake there. It shook a lot loose, then another quake struck. Using trigonometry, he has measured the new width as some six hundred meters. The depth, he reports, has increased as well. He had the assistance of Captain Shaugnessey, and managed to take a rough measurement – he believes the depth to be nearly thirty meters in the middle of the channel.” He’d been watching the Druid’s and the Engineer’s faces as he related the message. Anaph looked hopeful; Devon pulled a pencil – rough, large things, the British had – from behind his ear and made notations on the table.

Two minutes later the Engineer looked up at Anaph and grinned. “I’m not going to use an average of thirty meters deep. But if it’s only twenty, the time till it’s filled is just seventy days. “Still want to nudge it more?”

The Druid looked weary. “Maybe. Rigel, this is going to be longer than I thought. Maybe we should all go do whatever’s on your schedule next. Colonel, would you please send a message back asking if anything else looks unstable? That would help make my decision. Oh – I know the Scouts have been rotating; I want the latest report.”

None of them liked the report: yet another fortress of the Others was starting to rise.



Devon sighed. “Lord MacNeil, from your stories, I know you have a captain who can sail down in here. Now with Anaph’s water coming slower that he thought, I have to keep working on this dam – what it could have held if the water came in a few days won’t if the water takes weeks. Water seeps in, the dirt we’ve piled gets soggy, and it can collapse. So whatever you and Rigel want to do, someone has to stay here and work. And if someone’s staying to work, someone needs to stay to protect them. And if someone stays–“

MacNeil held up a hand. “Yes – they need a place to protect from, and that means supplies that you can’t wait to come by land. But while my captain may be able to shoot the passage at the Sea, one thing he most certainly won’t be able to do is sail back out. Thus any ship I send here will not be leaving until the water is level.
“Do I correctly understand that the top of your dam is lower than the level of the Sea?” Devon nodded. “Then either your Druid means to plug it, or he does not mean this dam to be permanent anyway. Either way, if I assign a ship to come here, it will not be leaving – correct?”

Devon had to concede the point. “Right. My idea was barges – but it would be safest with a ship to guide them.”

“So we end up with a fortress here – one not easy to resupply. Now, if you would commit to raise the dam, and delay the day when I am forced to either commit my Queen to a defend a place not authorized by Parliament, or to order it destroyed so an enemy may not occupy it, I would be more favorable.”

Devon shrugged. “If whatever soldiers get sent here can work as well as watch, I can raise and strengthen at the same time. Rigel should send all our foot and the archers, anyway; it’s either here or back at your base. They’ll be more useful here.”

“Indeed. Very well, if your lord approves it all, I shall invite Sir Aaron to risk ship and crew for this venture. Then it shall–“ He broke off as the ground shook. It wasn’t near as hard as when Anaph had opened the passage between lakes, but it was enough that both he and Devon picked up their glasses to keep them from spilling. After two second it was over, and they headed outside, Devon looking for Anaph.

The Druid was already heading their way, with Rigel and Rita in tow. Landon saw them and waved, then came at a job, bringing Mervynn along.

“Anaph, is this something you did?” Devon asked.

The head Druid shook his head. “I might have caused it, though. I think that was south.”

“South and east”, pronounced Mervynn confidently. “Anaph, what you did here used tension that was keeping other things from slipping. Now they are doing so. There is a hollow under the great basin; things slip toward it.”

Rigel shoved aside his urge to groan and lecture about unforeseen consequences. “I want to know two things: how the Others react to earthquakes, and what will this do to your dam? will we need to leave Devon here to keep it intact?”

“The first you have to ask the Scouts. The second – yes: if the dam fails, this will have been wasted effort. Leave him as many men as you can – he’ll need to turn that camp into a fortress.”

Rigel snorted. “Figures – well, the foot need to hole up somewhere; they’ve got to be through with marching! I’ll take the more modern weapons, and leave or send everything else here.” Devon smiled at the tidiness there; he wouldn’t even have to ask Rigel now. “I’ve been itching to move, anyway – and the units I want can move within the hour.
“Anaph, or Mervynn, can I expect more of these quakes?”

Anaph looked to the Delver/avatar, conceding the other’s familiarity with rock. “Yes. Lord MacNeil, you should send ships south to investigate. The shore of the Sea there has been jumbled. It may make new lakes.”

MacNeil looked surprised. “That far away?”

“Far from here – not far from the quake’s center”, Mervynn explained. “But your ships should be wary – do not venture near anything that has changed; it could change again with no warning.”

“One thing”, Devon said, looking north where men continued to toil on the dam, “if this thing breaks, the Scouts are going to be on the wrong side. Better pull ‘em back now, Rye.”

“Good point – you’re not going to put effort into the bridge, if you’re fortifying”, Rigel observed.

“Ha – not really working on a bridge yet anyway”, Devon told him. “But this spot will need one, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to build the footings before the water was here.”

Rita chuckled. “Always practical. It’s why Rye and Rye never got you into trouble at the university.” She ruffled his hair fondly. “Solid, sensible Devon.”

When Rigel and his firepower pulled out a bit over an hour later, Devon wasn’t so certain that staying was sensible. But he had a solid reason for doing so, and that was enough. He called one of his foremen. “We’re going to strengthen this very simply”, he explained. “We make a new dam behind this one, and pack it as we go. Once it’s going well, we fill between them. So – let’s get to work.”

 

[Kyanimal]

Oh, Sure! You had to post a new LONG chapter, of my Favorite story, just when I don't really have the time to read it!

But, I'm glad I did take the time, and everything else will just have to wait, for now!

SO ... I'm guessing "The Others" are going to be taking a Big Bath soon? Good for Them (or not)!

Do they not also have scouts? Are they not aware "something" is coming their way?

And, I'm a bit concerned about the "unknown consequences". Might "Lost Britain" be in some danger? Oh, wait ... they're North of this ... yes?

Looking forward to MORE (as usual)!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
The long anticipated chapter, just as I, too, had many things to do!
A most interesting chapter.
Poor Anaph - his dilemma of balancing life.
In addition to building a water weapon to flood out the others, he's looking at co-opting other life forms to infuse the new, expanded sea - algae, krill, and varying sizes of fish, perchance?

A much more bio-diversity to offset the loss he caused.

What a monumental installment.

 

[Kulindahr]

181
Rumors and War
​

Conal’s stallion slid and spun. “Orange smoke, ahead and left”, he said to Kevin MacNeil. “Your signal.” That wasn’t a question; he knew from working with MacNeil’s scouts that the British used colored smoke to signal general situations.

“Aliens”, the Colonel said grimly. “Not considered a major threat. Leftenant, alert Signals.” He turned back to Conal. “I need a high point, hopefully enough to see the Sea.”

Conal nodded. “Five minutes, I’ll have one picked.” It was just over three when he was back to direct the Signals team to the chosen location.

Half an hour later MacNeil was reading answers to his question. “Captain Penfield’s command. Small band of Aliens. Position....” His lips moved silently, then he turned to Rigel. “We’re less than two hours from their last position. Penfield is withdrawing toward the lake, where – no, I overturned the rotation; I don’t know who has the duty, but there’s at least one sloop patrolling there.”

Tanner spoke up. “Does Captain Penfield know our fort is there by the river – if it’s still a river?”

MacNeil shook his head. “I don’t know. But that’s a point – that would give a strong point to withdraw to. We’re....” He looked at Rielsi, the Siol Tormod orphan who was fast becoming one of their better Scouts, and who was serving his turn as Rigel’s “tracker”.

“Three hours at the present pace from Fort Fitzhugh”, the young Celt replied. Rita smiled at that; someone had named it after the other half of Rigel’s name, but with the British spelling, not the one Rigel used. “Ashiri is closest”, he told Rigel. “She could be there in” – he closed his eyes momentarily – “a bit over an hour. She’s fast”, he added admiringly, a compliment not given easily by Scouts.

“Let her know to tell the Fort we’re coming. They’ll know why, from Signals. Kevin, can we tell Penfield that’s the plan?”

“If he’s withdrawing ahead of Aliens – which are his instructions, unless he can dispatch them easily – he won’t be stopping for signals. We can only intercept and act from what we learn.” MacNeil looked unhappy. Rigel was suddenly glad he’d stopped short of telling the man about radio – that would have been even more frustrating. A bump to his horse made him turn.

“I can find them and tell them”, Austin told MacNeil. “Rielsi, what Scout’s on the way there?”

“Nootauah.” The lad grinned. “She runs naked.”

Austin shrugged. “So? About as exciting as a doe. Tell Scout One I’m taking her from his pattern.
“Colonel, Titanium will have me there in under a quarter hour. I’ll tell him you’re coming and the goal is to fall back to the fort.” Rigel nodded his approval so the British officer didn’t have to ask.

“Then go, squire, with my thanks.” Titanium was launching himself before the last phrase; Austin may never have heard it.


“Sir, someone’s coming!”

Captain Penfield turned from his contemplation of the division of the Alien company. He saw a horse – a real horse! – which meant that not only had Earl Dennishire’s nomads come back, but they were in the game. Its rider appeared to be standing... then sitting. It took two seconds to discern that there had been two riders and one was now on the ground. “Perhaps a change in the game, eh, Styvers?” mused the captain.

Austin jumped off and let Titanium keep moving; after a run like that, over eight kilometers, maybe eight and a half, even the king of horses needed to cool down slowly. “Captain Penfield? I come from Colonel MacNeil and Major Tanner. They saw your smoke, they’re an hour and a ... two thirds away, and suggest you fall back toward Fort Fitzhugh.”

Penfield frowned down at the squire. “I haven’t heard of any fort. Is it by the lakes?”

“Yes, sir – where the river flows between two. It won’t hold everyone when we get there, but it’s a strong point. They’ll be ready to help when we all get there.”

“Forester, get us ready to change our course. Damn! I prefer a sea where there are no hills to block a view. Lad.....?”

“Squire Austin, sir. With Earl Rigel FitzWin.”

“Squire, what of the Fleet? Is there a ship in the lakes?”

“Colonel MacNeil was sure there is. I’m sure the fort will signal it. Uh, the fort should know in a little over a half hour from now.” Austin wished he were as good with distances and times as Oran, or Abaca.

“A fort and a ship – that will give us teeth against these vermin. Forester....?”

“Ready to change course, sir.”

“Give the orders.”



Something had been puzzling Rigel. “Kevin, where are the signal stations between here and your base? How does this work, so the patrols can talk like this?”

MacNeil looked unhappy again. “On tall hills, from here to the coast. They have the kingdom’s largest and fastest ponies, at my insistence. But they have only their own number in Marines to guard them. And many are of apprentice age, since I would not send any so young out on patrols.”

“Then – frak, if the wind was wrong, the Foe would head right for them!” Rigel swore. “What idiot left you with that situation?!”

“The slow pace of a kingdom that cannot take war seriously. No, that does not. They can, but after all our time and traditions, most cannot believe there can truly be something to fight. A thousand more soldiers are coming – whether dragoons, Marines, or guards, I know not – but when the report came of Alien fortresses rising, I could not wait. All my men and all the Signals teams are out here – I have no reserve.”

Rigel shuddered at the thought of apprentice-age – which mean pre-pubescent, certainly – boys being out where Others roamed. “Well, you’ve got me.” MacNeil turned at the odd element in Rigel’s tone, and saw a man eager to meet his enemy. “Today, together, let’s get back some for all they did to you last year!”

Slowly, Kevin grinned. “Alfred, do you remember what I wished for, after that battle?”

“I believe it was a few cannon, even small ones, for which you pined, sir.” Together the three men turned in their saddles and looked to where Tanner’s artillery rolled along in the column’s center.

Rigel found himself looking over MacNeil’s head, and made a decision. “Airein! Bring me a half dozen stallions from the re-mounts.” A raised eyebrow and a salute were his reply. The squire was back quickly.

“Earl... Lord MacNeil. You’re too valuable to your Queen to be stuck on that pony if this gets nasty. I know you don’t know about horses, but here – see if you like one of these.”

MacNeil looked dumbfounded, but it didn’t last for long. Neither did his attempt at an inspection. “Friend Rigel, you’re entirely correct – I have no idea what I’m looking for. I would presume the qualities of ponies apply also to horses, but....”

“But you don’t know for sure”, Landon finished for him. “If we might stop a minute? Dismount, and face the beasts. Breathe evenly. Now, think friendly thoughts, and just lay your right hand on the nose of each one for a dozen heartbeats.” Anaph came over to observe, and nodded when the Earl’s hand came to rest on the fourth one’s face.

“Did you feel anything?” Landon asked MacNeil.

“Not really. Well, the first two and the last one... I couldn’t seem to... no, holding my hand there just didn’t feel comfortable”, MacNeil admitted, sounding sheepish. The Bard motioned to Airein to take those three away.

“Again, but on his neck”, Landon instructed. This time, the first horse shook its neck the moment the Colonel’s hand made contact; the Bard waved him to move to the next.

“Now pick”, Landon said with a grin, after the neck-test was over. There was no doubt in his mind at all.

MacNeil went back to the second horse, which had been the fourth the first time through. “I like this one”, he said.

“You make a fair pair”, the Bard agreed. Anaph nodded.

“He’s yours”, Rigel stated firmly. “People may object that I gave you one before the Queen, but the Queen isn’t out here facing battle.” He missed MacNeil’s wince, as just a reaction to swinging into the saddle of a beast much larger than his pony.

“She’ll agree with you”, the colonel said. “Need comes first.” His eyes caught Rigel’s. “And thank you – I am honored by this.”

Rigel blushed faintly. “Just do him honor.”



“More of them, sir.” Leftenant Forester frowned. “Two groups – and... sir, they’re fighting!” The two British officers shared a startled look.



“Put those backs into it!” yelled Major of Engineers , Senior Chief Engineer Jeffrays Granger. This stone would complete the work of restoring the damage from the earthquake of a few days before, an event that had cost him his third-largest crane and two immense blocks of stone. Half a day had gone to righting everything, a waste he loathed all the more because east on the peninsula, where the original wall was to have gone, they’d hardly noticed the shaking earth.

As the block slid into its place, then snapped into position as interlocking stubs and holes matched, the whole wall hummed. The vibration tickled the feet of men standing on it, and danced little ridges into mortar spread to receive stones. “Scoop o’ ale!” the chief engineer called, a reward for a labor where men replaced machine by raw strength – a cherished reward in this hear, for the ale barrels were hung off a barge in thirty-meter water, as cold as a man could manage in this season.

“Two days, now?” Percival Sidmuth, Lord Wenham, took a towel from the rack of wind-dried cloth and dried first his face, then his back. The Grand Duke had changed immensely during his association with Earl Dennishire; today, no one had been shocked to see such a lofty lord tossing his shirt to a Marine and lending his weight to the lifting of stones.

“Aye, Percy.” To Granger, being on a first name basis with this lord was a miracle competing with doing real physical labor, but there it was, as MacNeil often said. “Two days, and if Aliens come, we can fight them from the Wall. Every day after that will just be making their lot worse when they attack.”

“Good. Any word from MacNeil?”

Granger snorted. “As if I would know first! No, only what Signals said – he’s on his way.” He noticed the way Sidmuth’s feet kept shifting. “All right, man, what frets you?”

“The Lady Meriel has arrived.” Granger was part of the charade, as he had to be as head of the construction on the venture, so he knew what really fretted the Grand Duke: the Queen of Lost Britain had crossed the Sea, the first monarch since... well, neither would have bet that any of their monarchs had ever come to the mainland, unless one counted the early Captains.



“Quite sporting of them, to fight each other”, observed leftenant Forester. “Still, sir, the near two groups are getting closer, and they don’t seem to be interested in doing the same.”

That was when they got to meet the young woman squire Austin had said was the person he’d dropped off on his way to meet them. She’d kept her distance, pacing the patrol sometimes, disappearing briefly, returning. Now she came at a sprint. Captain Penfield’s mouth dropped open; she was a companion of this Squire Austin, who was clearly a Britisher by blood, but she looked all the world like one of the Haudenosaunee.

She went to Austin. “Hey tough stuff – Riders coming. Four dozen, with Scout Two and Cristobal.”

“How soon?” demanded Penfield.

“Sounds like you want ‘em fast”, she said. “I’ll tell ‘em three minutes.” Nootauah spoun and took off at a sprint.

“Sir, three minutes is about when we’re going to have to fight them”, the leftenant stated. “They’re not going to let us take them in detail.” They’d fought one group earlier, and with the element of surprise had made the tally of dead come out at seven British, forty Aliens. This time there would be no surprise.

“Pick us a spot, Forester.”



“Signal from the fort, captain – they’d like us to join them!” The midshipman signaled back to shore, acknowledging signal received.

Captain Shaugnessey considered the wind and what had become nasty currents. Shepherding barges down that chute had been a madman’s notion, but he’d managed it, and now found himself occupied with sailing up and down a lake whose boundaries changed steadily as water continued to pour in from the Sea. “My compliments, and tell them an hour and a half”, he called back. The midshipman nodded and went to work with his flags.



“There’s the enemy.” Anson Lhuydson, leftenant in command of forty-eight Rigel’s Rifles, nodded and squinted. Somehow finally seeing some of the Others was disappointing. He understood that was the whole point of Major Tanner drilling them on everything known about the true enemy, but it felt disappointing even so.

“All right. Advice, Scout Two?”

“Attack sooner than our friends think you can – good for morale. But don’t show the enemy everything you’re capable of right off”, Oran suggested.

Anson chuckled. “Like being in class at the Academy. But – good. Let’s do it this way....”



The two groups of forty Aliens each diverged. “They’re taking the easiest approaches”, Forester observed.

“Are they that foolish, or are we merely meant to think so?” Captain Penfield asked rhetorically – it never paid to assume the enemy was foolish. “First company, odds – fire!” Fifty British rifles spat balls of lead. “Evens – fire! Forester, take companies three and four. Staggered withdrawal, pattern three.” Salutes were exchanged. “Second company, together – fire!”


Leftenant Anson thanked the hours of training battles fought on bellies and knees. Right and left, two dozen Riders had reached their places. Rifles lay on the ground, visible if the enemy knew what to look for, but Anson was betting they didn’t.

“Mark”, Oran called softly, indicating the enemy group had passed the point Anson had selected.

The British rifles sounded a second time – an ordinary enemy would have their attention on that threat, now.... “Riders – aim.” Anson counted to three. “Fire!” Another three count, and he hollered again, “Fire!” After a third volley, they were up and running. This group of the Others had changed course to head straight for them – one objective achieved, to get them to split their forces, but still unnerving: now he started to get the jitters. It brought a grin; for the enemy, this would be the perfect moment for him to freeze. But jitters didn’t make him freeze, it made him determined. Discipline and training kept his mind clear. They couldn’t run toward the British, which would have been the response if the Others had kept on; now they diverged slightly away from a course that would intercept the British at all.


“Saints – they’re on foot!” a non-com cried. Captain Penfield spared two seconds to look. People who lived out here where the Aliens roamed wouldn’t do such a thing without purpose, so he dismissed it. His line had just physically pushed back an Alien rush, and some of his men had vanished along with ponies. Then he heard the roar of rifle fire, a deeper roar than his made, and looked again: the foreigners were lying prone, firing! When he saw the result of that volley, he judged he wasn’t going to have to worry about his left flank after all.



“Kneel!” Anson skidded on one knee, one foot, using the rifle butt to steady himself. It was a maneuver he’d thought laughable at the Academy, but here it was useful. The line was ragged when they halted, but so long as their aim wasn’t.... “Aim! And... fire!” seven Others dropped outright, for a total of twenty-one. Closer range made better slaughter. “Fire!” Hooves thundered behind him, the other half of his command, right on time. “Fire!” Off went one more volley before the horses roared by. Their own mounts stopped right by them; Anson and his men mounted without command, watching as the Riders with heavier horses charged in, their riders firing at near point-blank range, just far enough away they could switch to sabers. The line turned sharply, razor-sharp blades biting into alien faces. A horse screamed, but only one, and no Rider went down. “Charge!” he yelled: it was their turn.

“One unit down, no losses”, Luada noted. “But those two horses won’t be fighting again soon.”

Anson nodded grimly. “Send them to join the Britishers.” He allowed his junior leftenant three seconds to handle that.
“Form wedge, weight left”, he ordered calmly, checking rifle and saber.


“Sir! Captain – be ready to withdraw.” The messenger was plainly wounded, as was her horse. Captain Penfield blinked at seeing a woman – a girl! – in combat, but kept his attention of the battle. “Leftenant Anson is forming a wedge, to charge across your front. He’s, well, sort of depending on you to pull back at the right moment.”

“I see. I am not accustomed to taking orders from a leftenant, but as you come as an ally, and as he will enable me to do that which I have been seeking to accomplish – very well.” He raised his rifle and put a ball into the face of an Alien threatening one of his men. “Forester – see to the withdrawal.”


Anson whooped – the British commander had good timing – not perfect; there would be some dodging on the right, but the Rider left would be clear to maintain its speed, something this tactic depended on. His men were firing at will, concentrating on keeping the gap between Others and allies open, but switched to saber as they attained full speed. Briefly he wished for lancers, but if wishes were horses he’d have four times the men to work with – and Lord Rigel would have had eight more wagons to gripe about. He was laughing as the jolt of saber meeting enemy face for the first time for real wrenched at his shoulder. Anson kept the saber, but the shoulder wouldn’t work to put it away.

They were clear. “Luada – take command”, he ground out between clamped teeth. “I’m out of it.” He turned his stallion toward the British captain.


“Leftenant? Brilliant wo– you’re wounded!” Leeftenant Forester relieved Anson of his saber, wiped it, and put it back in its sheath. “I should have attended you sooner!”

“You were fighting.” He shook his head and regretted it. “Life! but you stand well on just those ponies.”

“Yet you wish they were faster, so we might disengage. So do I. But with your aid, we are managing.” Both glances northwest, where some six-score Aliens lay dead, the most recent only ten meters from the withdrawing body of British. “I also wish we each had a weapon of the sort your squire Austin and Sir Oran bear – they have preserved many lives.”

“Thanks”, Oran said, arriving. “Anson – what wound?”

“Torn shoulder”, the leftenant gritted out.

Oran gave him a disgusted look. “You’re supposed to let go – you can get a new saber, but until we rejoin Rigel–“ Scout Two rolled his eyes. “Go let Newt fix enough you’re not half ready to pass out.”

“‘Newt’?” Forester asked.

“Scout Nootaua”, Oran explained, a bit embarrassed. “But only Scouts dare call her that. Leftenant, we can link with Lords Rigel and Kevin in twenty minutes. I need to know something – can Captain Penfield continue in command?” It came out more bluntly than he’d planned.

Forester looked to where his commanding officer stared out where men lay, bodies they wouldn’t be able to recover soon, if ever. “Sir Oran, I don’t know. General McCutcheon and Colonel MacNeil chose the men they considered best. But we have never fought before, save a few veterans. And these monsters... The book says no man knows how he will react to battle until he has faced it. Captain Penfield is reacting poorly. I suppose he must be removed.”

Oran nodded. “Okay – about what I guessed. But I noticed something: he’s fine when you’re standing ground. He gets mechanical, but he knows what to do and reacts fast. I’m going to suggest putting him in command of a fort out here. He commands defense without flinching – he just can’t command a moving battle.”

Forester nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right – I didn’t really notice. If you would – since you run as well as any horse”, he said with a grin, “take that recommendation immediately, with my concurrence?”

Oran nodded. “Next question: would you prefer our two lords to just keep coming, and join us, or prepare a strong point?”

“A strong point.” Forester pointed with his sword. “More Aliens come. We are outnumbered. Morale is good, but the men are weary of this fight, run, fight, run. You know us now – help them plan.”

Oran smiled fiercely. “We’ll have two welcomes – one for you, one for them. You can rest briefly, then continue to the fort.” The Scout didn’t see the shudder his tone and look sent through the British officer; he was already running.


“Fire!” Every rifle still in the hands of a British Dragoon emptied into the leading wave of Aliens. It hardly slowed them. But the orders had already been given: they turned and fled. Leftenant Forester took charge of a rear guard of thirty, the strongest, to keep the enemy off his wounded and weary. He was beginning to worry about being flanked, and decided to command flight, when rolling thunder made yelling pointless.


Rigel’s face practically glowed in anticipation. “Here they come”, he said. The six cannon were loaded with shrapnel, scrap of all sorts – so long as it was sharp – and they were aimed across the Foe’s advance. “Fire.” He said it calmly. He’d cut it too fine, and swore; a horse screamed, caught by a piece of shrapnel. But it was the only one, and behind it, Others went down; those close simply shredded as broken pottery, nails, shattered rock, and slivers of glass sliced through one body, then another. Farther along, heads disintegrated, and beyond, bodies staggered and slowed.

Leftenant Forester decided it was an opening. “British! Turn, load, and fire at will!” Luck was with him: the rifles of Captain Ayers’ four hundred dragoons sounded from his right. Glancing left, he saw no sign of the cannon that had virtually flattened the Aliens’ right. Looking back, he found the rifle volley was coming one hundred at a time, pounding into the Aliens. When it was done, his men were ready; their fire finished the Aliens’ front. Leftenant Anson stayed with them, though he looked annoyed.

“Forester! Move them in!” He recognized MacNeil’s voice, with irritation in it, and realized that he’d stopped his men in the firing zone of the Colonel’s men. He set the example; they turned and charged to the rear. Around them, MacNeil’s five hundred put aimed fire into the Aliens beginning to climb over the shattered bodies of their own.

The cycle repeated: cannon firing shrapnel, Rigel’s riflemen spreading their fire along the Foe’s flank; Captain Ayers’ men firing from the other side of the box, then MacNeil’s from the front. Forester organized his captain’s men, the captain gone missing, and proceeded toward the fort, barely a quarter hour away.

MacNeil watched his men reload, efficiently, moving as one. He hadn’t been excited about the box idea, but that one horse being hit by stray shrapnel seemed to have driven home the point of ducking immediately after firing. He wondered if his fellow commanders were hearing any bullets whizzing overhead, but found he doubted it: that mass of Aliens was too easy to hit, too attractive a crush of targets, for anyone to miss it.

“Colonel. I find I am not fit to command.” It was Captain Penfield. But Scout Oran had already reported to him, with leftenant Forester’s endorsement of the Scout’s observation and proposal.

“A moving battle, perhaps not”, Kevin responded. “But I have a report that you excel in defending a position. It happens I need a commander for a fort. Having one who has faced the enemy and not faltered will cheer the men. So I will have no word of resigning your commission, while I will hear a request for transfer.”

Penfield brightened, but only a little. “Then I request a transfer, Colonel. Yet not quickly – I am... disturbed by all this.”

“A few days, then, Captain. For now, please – rejoin your men. Your task is to take them to rest, in the fort.”

“Thank you, sir.” Penfield saluted, and left.


“They’re flanking”, Conan reported.

Rigel sighed. “Took them long enough – we’ve got exactly two rounds of shrapnel left. All right – is Tanner moving?”

“Yes, sir, folding back quickly. No time for another round.”

“Right. Okay, your command – get the cannon out of here safely.” Rigel turned toward Tornado, and his rifle. “I’m going to kill some”

Conal’s formal exterior cracked a bit. “Enjoy yourself, sir.”


Captain Ayers’ men withdrew first, swinging back to join MacNeil’s, who were already working their way backward, maintaining their line and rate of fire. Tanner’s command, the hundred Mounted Rifles, began a shoot, dash, shoot pattern, with the goal of keeping the Others from the British.

Conal watched the withdrawal. “Load fire rounds”, he ordered quietly. The guns kept rolling, the Escobar heavies pulling steadily, but the crews had practiced loading while moving – at the time, something to stretch their skills, b ut now very useful.. “Ready”, gun commanders called one at a time.

“Halt, drop. Range... one hundred meters. Spread... pattern three.” Limbers dropped to the ground, brakes were set, charges and rounds tapped firmly in. When the last rod was out, Conal dropped his sword. “Fire.”


Rigel heard the guns, and approved the action. The Others were closing faster than they could deal with without close combat, which he wanted to avoid. When incendiary rounds birthed great blossoms of fire, he grinned. “Good call, kid”, he murmured, a congratulations he’d think about giving in person. The rounds had just enough explosive to spread whatever goop Ryan had come up with in small flying blobs. Those gobs now flew, plopping on Others in a radius of eight to ten meters around the impact. When they hit, they flared hotter, and began to flow. As bodies flailed and jerked, trying to shed the fires, the bits split, and were flung farther. In a line across the body of enemy, the advance stopped – not dead, because this stop writhed and burned and died. Ahead of it, less than a hundred Others continued on, as though nothing had happened.

Ten seconds later, there were none. Dozens were pouring around the end of the flames, but they weren’t close enough to be a threat.



“Jam!” It was the third such call in two minutes. MacNeil considered his options: the problem was that the rifles needed to cool, or they’d be more than just jamming. Water could cool them, but all they had to spare was salty, which brought its own problems. Well, he did have one card to play....

The gates swung open. Sixty lancers, trained for this and chafing at not being in the fight, charged through. Over their heads, archers poured out a withering sleet of arrows, parting it to the sides to let the mounted warriors advance. To the sides, the cannon roared, trios concentrating their fire to the sides of the lancers’ target. British rifles fell silent; from Tanner’s command fire continued at a slower pace.

Tall wooden poles, lances sharpened by fire on the tips, made it easy to follow the sixty as the column spread into a narrow wedge. In unison, those wooden tips lowered, the men settling in their saddles and leaning forward, their tasks reduced to aiming and serving as conduits for the power of their mounts. Lances struck home, lances splintered, heavy longswords came out. A horse staggered but didn’t go down. Then, from the wall, Sir Patrick sounded a horn; the lancers wheeled, now defending more than seeking to inflict damage, and can back at a trot.

“Keep ‘em back”, Tanner commanded. By tens, the riflemen chose targets and fired. No Foe caught a lancer, though one horse straggled badly. The gates opened, the horses ran through; arrows blanketed the space outside, keeping Foe out as the gates closed.

It was the closest the Others had come, right to the walls. Something new awaited them: Ughyr’s Mark II flamethrowers, wielded by Scouts with nothing else to contribute to the battle. Casey, in charge, waited until the enemy was climbing the ramparts. He didn’t give a command, just grinned wickedly, turned a stopcock, and pressed the trigger. Flame shot forth ten, twelve meters, an inferno he fanned back and forth. That was the signal to the rest. The first assault on the walls by their enemy died in fire.

“Casey, don’t pump it so high!” The voice was Landon’s, three spots down in the line of Scouts, bearing his own flamethrower. “You told us Ughyr said no more than ten meters!”

“Sorry”, Casey responded, chastened. “I got carried away.” Anything else he said was lost as British rifles began firing again, more slowly this time, and fewer.

The Others had been balked at the front, but they boiled around the corner. Rifle fire kept them from climbing the wall, though the forces were thin enough there they could have gained entry at moderate cost. Barreling on around, seeking a hole in the wall, was their fatal mistake.

“Let them close”, cautioned Aaron Shaugnessey. “God above! Ghastly buggers, aren’t they?”

“Indeed, sir”, replied first leftenant Oleg Benson. “I do hope it’s true that they avoid water.”

“Let’s not provide an opportunity to learn. Guns are yours, Mr. Benson.”

“Guns are mine, sir.” The HMS Brilliant was close to being past an effective firing angle, but the wait had dropped the distance by forty meters. “Captain of the guns, by the numbers!” Benson called. One by one, the sloop’s eight starboard guns fired, six seconds of evenly-spaced booms. It was only round shoot, iron balls, but at that range they punched through Alien bodies like a ball-peen hammer through eggshells.

“Take us back up”, Benson ordered his junior calmly. The lesser leftenant ordered more sail, starting again a process they’d already gone through five times: crewmen aloft dropped sails, which caught the wind and billowed out; tight sails pulled on the masts, which applied the force to the hull – and HMS Brilliant glided east against the current. In nine seconds she was returned to where she’d fired before.

“By the numbers, reverse order – fire!” As each cannon came parallel to the fort’s side, flame belched, sending another iron ball ripping through the diminishing number of Others. Then the Brilliant was up-current from the fort; turning around would take time.

Except neither Captain Shaugnessey nor First Leftenant Benson had any interest in allowing the Aliens any time. “Reef all sails! Wheel hard-port! First mate, hook that buoy!” Benson bellowed. “Drop stern anchor!” Practiced hands and feet flew to their tasks: sails were loosened, the cloth pulled up and wrapped tightly; the wheel spun, angling the rudder, and the ship turned into the current. The mate’s hook caught the buoy set beforehand, firmly set on the lake bottom. The stern anchor chain rattled, the three-hooked anchor splashing and plunging as the capstan spun free, the windlass below twirling in turn, letting gravity drive the release. A midshipman stood ready, with two seamen to command, in case the anchor cable – greased thoroughly that morning – should by chance tangle. But all went well; between the anchor and the buoy, the Brilliant was caught, so the power of the current forced the vessel to pivot about its stern. “Helm, free rudder!” Benson commanded, the joy of a maneuver that was working sounding in his voice: the current had the ship, and holding the rudder wouldn’t help.

The bow swung faster and faster. For a brief second they were aimed straight at the shore. The two chief officers saw the carnage their guns had made, and that perhaps a score and a half Aliens remained, still charging to get around the next corner, making little effort to climb the walls from which sparse rifle fire – indeed, more arrows than bullets fell on them – was more an annoyance than a danger. Leftenant Benson, feeling exuberant, freed a line and swung out, dropping onto the gun deck through one of the broad ports. “Gentlemen, fire as you bear”, he instructed calmly. Gun crews grinned back at him: live fire was, and always had been, one of the greatest enjoyments of being in the Fleet; choosing one’s target was a pleasure; having a real enemy came like a gift – for gunners in Fleet, this was as good as it got.

The volley was a ragged series of shots, as gun commanders chose their own moments to fire. But when, five seconds after the number three starboard gun led the broadside,
quiet settled on the gun deck, the only Aliens moving were a pair stuck together by mangled rear ends, feebly managing to spread their guts across the grass.



“How many do you think we’ve killed?” Austin asked Rigel, resting his rifle with the bolt open to cool it. “They just keep coming.”

“Seems like forever, huh? Hasn’t even been a half hour yet, squire. And it’s taking more to kill them than I like, because we can’t just put the right number into each one. Maybe five hundred already. But this is so better than facing them in the open! And I’m starting to realize just how big a difference just the rifles make – Jadriano only had muskets, and not many. Their power was low, their rate of fire was slow. In a battle like this he would have needed two hundred lancers to keep the Foe back so the muskets could even stand and fire. This – if I had two hundred lancers, and another hundred mounted rifles, I could lead an attack and crush their right wing in two sweeps, out and back!”

“So maybe this won’t be so hard?” There was hope in the youngster’s voice. “Hey, Antonio.”

Rigel snorted. “There’s thirty thousand or more of them out there building fortresses in that basin. If they sent that many just to claim that area, how many more are there?”

Antonio grimaced. “Millions. Okay, our problem is numbers – looks like we’ve got them on technology. So we really need the British.”

“At least their head people – well, some of them – seem to recognize that. Hey – did you know they marked the spot out there where I fired shrapnel? They’re going to send people out to retrieve the nails.”

“Ahhhh – iron’s scarce here, too!”

“Yeah. We’d better be able to use that city....”


The lancers charged again. They were down to fifty, though fortune had favored them: all the casualties were wounded, none dead, though they’d had to put down three horses. But this time they were just the vanguard, and didn’t ride alone: leftenant Anson led Rigel’s Riders, forty-six shielded by fifty once the lines closed, but leading and firing as they rode until then. And behind them came Tanner and the hundred Mounted Rifles. Firing above them, the cannon kept up a steady fire, paced so the roar was continuous. After the Mounted Rifles, a hundred select British rode out, not on their ponies but on loaned horses.

What remained of the Others milled about, confused for some reason neither MacNeil nor Rigel could guess – but they were going to take advantage of it. Fire from the Riders didn’t diminish that confusion. When the lancers slammed home, this time a very shallow wedge, the couple hundred Others flailed about wildly, attacking each other as often as their attackers. When the lancers and Riders withdrew, the Rifles and British swung in from the sides, not closing, but at a walk, firing steadily until the lancers regrouped – and rearmed themselves with lances offered up by volunteers from among the archers, who’d wanted some of their own in on the kill.

The fourth set of lances wasn’t needed, but Sir Patrick led a sort of ceremonial charge, lances in their sockets, swords out to make sure of any Others that still twitched.


Chen pushed himself. His arm burned, reason enough to reach a Healer, even if he hadn’t carried news that Rigel needed. Reaching the fort, he found a battle done with, bodies of Others being pushed by planks mounted in front of Escobar heavies like primitive bulldozers. He sought Rigel.

Nootauah intercepted him; she’d felt him coming, and his pain. “Stand still”, she ordered. “Ashiri, bring lord Rigel.” A quick examination frightened her. “Scout One, I don’t know what you’ve got, but I need to get rid of it soon. Hold still.” A moment later she changed her mind. “I can’t kill whatever it is – come on.”

When Rigel found them, she was just slitting Chen’s left wrist. She hoped an explanation would drive off the Grand Earl’s anger. “He’s got something I can’t kill. But I got his cells to spit it out, and I’ll get it to this cut. Only infected blood will drip out.” As Rigel watched, a slow drip began, not the deluge expected from a lit wrist. “And I didn’t cut anything but the vein, so there’s not much to Heal.
“Now, Chen, tell your news.”

“More Others. They’re not heading this way. Seem agitated. Looked odd, so I got in close – got this cut from one of them.” He grinned weakly. “That poison Ocean whipped up doesn’t kill them, but it paralyzes them, and pretty fast, too. Onward: this group has burdens, look all wrapped up in packaging. They’ve got scouts out, groups of three, moving like there are markers or landmarks they’re after, to guide them. Lord, I think they’re a construction crew, aiming to start another fortress.”

Rigel closed his eyes briefly, then nodded. “Nootauah, when you’re done, send him to see Colonel MacNeil.”



“Captain Shaugnessey – sorry we couldn’t give you more targets”, Rigel said, shaking the captain’s hand.

The commander of the sloop HMS Brilliant shrugged. “If you could make your enemy do as you wished, it wouldn’t be war. My lads are content enough; we gave them a few broadsides, and taught them to respect the Fleet.”

Rigel had to agree; after those broadsides, the Others had stopped trying to surround the fort, and come directly on. “They learn better than they did a few centuries ago”, he replied. “Not that their battle skills are much more impressive – continuing to charge a fortified position that keeps slaughtering your soldiers isn’t bright.”

“Aye, they show themselves a bit on the dim side, a few candles short of reading light at their best. I take it they’re fearsome because they don’t quit, and there are many of them. Word has it there are fifty thousand of them, not so far from here.”

“Something like that. Anaph–“ Rigel stopped. “I haven’t seen Anaph since about noon!”

“He left”, Landon reported. “He said he could feel water flowing out of the sea, to the south. Took a couple other Druids with him, said they were going to catch a current that crosses the lake, and get to the other side.”

“On horses?! Madness!” Shaugnessey exclaimed.

Rigel laughed. “Not for Anaph. If he had – oh, frak; Landon, did Austin go with him?”

The Bard shrugged. “Might have. I was busy helping with some wounded.”

Austin’s supposed master sighed. “He went. If anything would get the other horses to patiently float across that lake, Titanium would. I wish he’d turn of age – I could knight him, then his independent streak would be more acceptable!
“Anyway – ah, here’s MacNeil. Colonel”, he called, “join us!”

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
A Great opening salvo.
Once more into the Breech!
Only, this was from a well protected plan of attack, with the fort and the ship for reinforcement.

It was a captivating read.
Thank you, kind sir.
Now, I must have needs bo off to bed.
Work comes soon enough, and I've lots to do in the remaining two days this week, before turning again to more details for my Dad.

 

[Kyanimal]

Awesome, AweSome, AWESOME!!

Thank You! for this stuff that my dreams shall be made of!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

Water flowing out of the sea to the South???

 

[Kulindahr]

182
Missions​

The sun was barely up, but the heat was already rising. Without a word, Austin opened his pack, noted that his clothes were all still dry, and pulled out his towel. He would dry from the sun, but standing in the morning breeze after floating and swimming all night in the lake could give a horse cramps. Patiently, happily, he started rubbing Titanium down. Renn and Folos, “his” men for this crazy journey, immediately copied his example. Dugal was a second slower, and had to kick his two fellow Scouts to get them to conform. Yahala gave the males in the group barely a glance, though before she turned to give her horse a rubdown, she set hands on the shoulders of her fellow Healer, Vanora, who was shivering uncontrollably. On the crossing, some trick of Anaph’s had kept them from fully feeling the effects of the cold salty water. But once on shore that had vanished. Austin sympathized, but his horse came first.

“Couldn’t we just warm them more?” Kandath, one of Anaph’s Druid team, asked.

“You could”, Anaph replied, “but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Staio – why?”

The slightly older Druid thought for a moment. “We’ve adjusted their... metabolism” – he pronounced the word carefully – “while crossing the lake. They need time... going normally, to recover. Besides”, he added thoughtfully, “we’re going to be adjusting them a lot today.”

Anaph nodded. “Got it in one. So – get busy and do it the hard way.”

“And get used to it”, Austin called. “Druids or not, if you’re going to ride, you take care of your horse properly.”

Dalas, Anaph’s other Druid on the trip, snorted. Austin turned to say something, but saw the Druid standing there frozen, Anaph staring him down with crossed arms. “Austin rides the King of Horses”, the high Druid said softly. “When he says something about horses, you do it, or you won’t be riding any more. Austin won’t order it, I won’t order it, Lord Rigel won’t order it – but Titanium will.” Titanium added a big whuff! for emphasis. Dalas looked from Titanium, to Austin, to Anaph, to Titanium. Austin nearly laughed at the way the man swallowed hard, dug out his towel, and started to rub.

“Ashes – it’s wet!” the Druid wailed as his horse flinched away.

Austin sighed. “You hurried when you sealed your pack. I told you you were hurrying.” He dug into Titanium’s saddle bags, where he kept a second towel. “Here – and when you finish, take everything out of your pack and wear it. You’ll be walking until Titanium says your mount feels like carrying you.” He glared, leaning to meet the Druid almost nose to nose. “If we weren’t hurrying, you’d walk all day. Instead, you’ll walk until things start drying and you can put some in your pack, no matter what Titanium says.”

“I could walk all day”, Dugal commented from where he knelt, picking at Tam’s hoof. The way he glanced up and stared at Dalas told the Druid his opinion was that the Druid should do so as well. Where Austin had spared no glance at the two Healers, his gaze drank in Dugal, imagining his tongue rubbing that firm body just as he did for Titanium with a towel. Dugal noticed, and grinned, neither rejecting nor welcoming. Austin blew him a kiss, which the Scout caught, and pretended to carefully tuck into his pack.



“They’re a day ahead of us”, Tanner noted, not that anyone didn’t know it. Markers on Lord MacNeil’s map showed how far that other group of Aliens could have moved. “The good side of using a quarter of all our cannon ammo is we can travel faster – the wagons will be lighter.”

Kevin MacNeil stared at the markers grimly. “We were outnumbered here more than two to one. Even with fortifications, it was a nasty battle. If we go after them, the odds will be even, but we will have no walls or ditches.”

Rigel nodded. “If we had more lancers....” That’s what had made the difference for Lord Jadriano – he had a wall of horses and men, all armored. “Our lancers’ horses have armor, the Riders’ horses have greaves and chestplates, but that’s it – all our other horses are without protection.
“But we don’t have a choice: if we let them start to build their fortress, attacking them will just get harder.”

Leftenant Anson raised a hand; Rigel nodded. “Lord, we have an advantage we didn’t use well. We didn’t really have a chance, the way things happened. It’s an advantage Lord Jadriano didn’t have: we don’t have to get close, to kill them. The cannon can attack from a kilometer away, the rifles from half that”

“And British rifles from a third”, added Colonel MacNeil. “My officers are itching to have such rifles as yours, Lord FitzWin.”

Rigel closed his eyes and counted to three. “Tanner, I’m appointing an officer above you – Colonel Rigel Stefanos – no, make that ‘Stevens’. Just a moment, and I’ll send him in.” He got up, walked out of the conference tent, counted to three, and walked back in, taking his seat again.

MacNeil laughed. “Well played, Colonel Stevens! Earl Dennishire applauds you. So, Colonel, do you have a statement concerning the rifles Major Tanner’s men bear?”

“I do, Colonel – part of this expedition is a team we call ‘Engineers’ and ‘Wizards’. They can explain how the rifles are made, from the alloy mix to engraving on the sights.”

“Colonel – since we are of a rank, would you mind if I called you Rigel? You may call me Kevin.” The two grinned at each other like boys who’d pulled off a wonderful prank. “Both I and the Kingdom would be nigh-infinitely grateful for that knowledge.” MacNeil shook his head mentally; this foreign “Earl” gave no indication that he expected anything in return. “Her Majesty could well honor you with lands, for this.”

Bard Landon chuckled. “All the lands in the Sea are spoken for. Will she award lands for which we must fight?”

“Point taken, Bard”, MacNeil responded. “But you would fight beside us – for new lands, we must fight as well.”

Rigel nodded at that. “Then let’s talk about fighting the enemies we know are here. Kevin, I won’t refuse lands, but we have to figure out how to keep them. And right now, I think the Others – the Aliens – are ahead of us in that game.” He sighed. “So – Tanner? Chen? Leftenant Forester? How do we proceed?”



“Long break”, Austin announced. “Down, stretch, let ‘em graze. Anaph, if you have any tricks for them....”

The Druid grinned. “I’ll ‘trick’ you. But there’s something we can do. Dalas, Kandath, Staio, come observe.”

“Titey, help Anaph”, Austin suggested. The great stallion snorted affectionately. As fast as the Druids gathered, so did the other horses. When Anaph nodded a broke the huddle, horse moved away, frisky as young colts.

Austin caught Dalas. “Lay all your gear out – I’m going to inspect it.”

The Druid stared a moment, then tipped his head. “Yes, squire.”



“We’ve got their path”, Chen assured the others. “Don’t worry; no one’s going to get close”, he assured Rigel.

“The Druid will be here mid-afternoon”, Captain Shaugnessey assured them all. “Should Aliens come, everyone from the fort will have a place.”

“Then let’s get going”, Rigel said. “Kevin?”

“Captain Finster will meet us. With the numbers two-to-one in our favor, I have confidence. Yes, Rigel – time to go.”

Scouts were already out, Conal’s mounted scouts following. Now Rigel’s Riders spread out, teams of six making an arc ahead of the column of riflemen, artillery, dragoons, and lancers.



Kenedh came jogging back with a grin on his face. “There’s a lake – you’ll see it when you top the hill.” From the last hill – more like a rise, on the rolling savanna – they’d been able to look back and see the lake they’d crossed over most of a day and through the night to the next morning. Dugal had searched, but couldn’t see the force that had left the fort, chasing the Others Chen had found the day before. He knew they’d lost track of the Others because he could feel Oran and Casey wide apart, and other Scouts spread out evenly. Anaph hadn’t really been interested; he was spending more and more time concentrating on the earth ahead.

Now Anaph smiled. “It’s a lake because of my earthquake, and then the second one. It doesn’t connect to the Sea except through cracks in the bedrock – big cracks.”

“You’re going to connect it”, Yahala deduced. “Does this lake connect to the other one?”

“Not yet.” Anaph looked back north. “I have to connect them, or the water will go the wrong way. This lake will be as big as the others all together.” The Druid chuckled. “And it will have a big island in the middle – the British should like that.”

“Only one island?” Austin asked.

Anaph shrugged. “There might be some farther away; I’m not sure.”

“If there’s a medium-sized one, maybe their Queen will let Rigel have it”, Austin said with an impish grin.

“If he wants one”, Anaph replied with a shake of his head.

“It would be a good idea”, Dugal asserted. “Lands here would help with his alliance.”

They crested the hill. The lake wasn’t clear, like the ones farther to the north; it was a light brown. The current stood out plainly, a darker brown. The Scouts could see things floating. “It’s tearing apart the savannah”, Dugal noted. He looked at Anaph. “You haven’t just been feeling the earth, have you? You’re gathering power from all the things that are dying.”

Anaph looked unhappy. “I’m trying not to think about it. And I’ll be killing a lot more to make the connections. If I can do all the close gaps, it will make a bunch of small islands. Some might not be big enough to support a village.”

“Anaph – you need to replace a lot of life after you do this, right? This will all be part of the Sea”, Yahala pointed out. “It’s going to need life in it. You could sail around the Sea and collect life, then bring it all here, and make it reproduce like crazy.”

The Druid looked grateful. “I hadn’t thought of that – thanks. The first thing would be algae, to grow on and eat all that dirt and stuff. Duh – there’s algae coming in; I can give it a big boost!”

“Time to go”, Austin announced. “We can ride the rise, but we need to move.”



The rider, in Escobar House Guard colors, reigned up at the gate to Hills’ Edge. “I’m looking for a Druid”, he told the guard who stepped out to meet him.

“Hedraing-Druid is in the lord’s hall.” The guard looked at the eleven other rides. “Your escort may use the green for your horses.”

“My thanks.” The rider headed in, assessing the wall across the valley mouth. It wasn’t obvious, but his experienced eye saw that the first four meters leaned inward, then a meter was vertical, but the top five meters leaned out. The reason came to him when he thought of all the distance he’d ridden, a distance where there were no men except those his lord and Grand Earl Rigel had settled: like those castles, this wall was meant to hold off not men, but the Foe.


“Druid Hedraing is in council.” The man spoke his tongue, but with an odd accent.

“You’re a Quistador, aren’t you?” the House Guard inquired.

“I was. You are an Escobar.”

“That I am. I see this place has Celt, Quistador, and Escobar all together. That is a wonder.”

The former Quistador nodded. “The Lord Rigel makes many wonders. His man Lord Ryan, the Wizard, makes more.” He smiled thinly. “Still, you may not see the Druid.”

The rider, who was Lisandro Fernández, brother of the lord building his castle just south of Lago Osvaldo, tapped his sword hilt. “Then when I do, I shall tell him you would not permit an ambassador from Lord Escobar to speak with him immediately. And I shall ask him to which of your superiors I should make my displeasure known.” He smiled pleasantly, silently thanking escudoteniente Miguel Bolivar for the extra training in how to deal with snobs – along with court manners and ceremony. Lisandro was pleased that Miguel was now the official instructor for the House Guard; lessons these days included a great deal more than standing and looking decorative – and as Inspector General for the Guard, Miguel had decreed that duty in the Great Hall would be by rotation: every House Guard would take a turn there, just as every House Guard would serve in the streets and on the highways. To him, that was a step up in honor for the House, because all were required to be fully qualified for all the Guard’s duties, and all partook of the status of standing guard over their Lord. As he waited, he called up his mental image of dignified competence Miguel taught. After eleven seconds – he’d given up trying to break himself of the habit of counting things – the man in front of him yielded.

“I will present you.” Fernandez followed dutifully and waited patiently through the ritual.

“An ambassador.” A slender, dark man of noble bearing looked Lisandro over. “And you seek a Druid, not a lord. Unusual.”

“Lord Escobar named me ambassador so that I could speak for him as more than a messenger. I seek a Druid, as it could be that they know how to face a certain danger.”

The one Druid in the room spoke up. “I am Hedraing, Druid of Hills’ Edge. What is this danger?” So Isidro related what Osvaldo had told him, about the two breeds of horse, and the Blight. Hedraing had a few questions at the end, then leaned back.

“This is a matter for Healers”, the Druid declared after a short silence. So Lisandro could take an explanation back to Osvaldo, he explained. “In every creature there are tiny, tiny records, instruction on how to be that creature. Since our horses survived the Blight, and no longer suffer from it, somewhere in their instructions is a plan for surviving the Blight. Some Healers can see those instructions. If they search diligently, looking at our horses’ instructions and then at your heavy horses’ instructions, perhaps they can find the instructions which tell the horse’s body how to defeat the Blight. If they can find it, Druids can cause your breed of horse to make copies of those instructions for themselves, and they will be safe from the Blight.
“Now since you are here, would you answer questions from don Isidro Morales, lord of the new castle, and myself?”

“So long as my lord has not forbidden, I will answer as I am able.”



“We’re getting closer”, Chen reported, “but no one has actually sighted them. And Anaph’s made progress.”

“Good distance?” asked Rigel.

Oran grinned. “You won’t believe it – they’ve gone a hundred and fifty kilometers today.” Rigel stared, mouth dropping open. Oran laughed. “Druids and Titanium – they can cover ground!



Anaph reined in Gloaming. “Too many things are dying. I can’t hold that much energy.” He slipped down, tossing his staff ahead of him to stand there waiting. “I can feel bedrock – it’s about a meter down.”

Austin understood. “Renn and Folos, time to earn our meals – let’s dig.”

“You stopped here because you can reach the bedrock”, Staio guessed. “I think I can feel it. This is the shallowest point, isn’t it?”

Anaph shook his head. “There’s shallower ahead, but since I’m holding this energy, since I’m killing so many things, I don’t want to waste it.”

Dunsam jogged up with a limp. “Healer, I twisted my ankle. Not paying attention, enough.”

Yahala looked at the offending ankle, while Vanora observed. “Not really bad, but Healing it all at once would use more energy than I want to spend. So I’ll take care of the worst. Vanora, follow along, and help where you can.” The process took over a minute. When Yahala let go, Dunsam wiggled the joint carefully.

“Stay off it until tomorrow”, the Healer ordered. “I’ll do more tonight if no one else needs my aid. Tomorrow I’ll finish setting it right.”

Dunsam made a disgusted face. “Ugh – riding a horse.” He didn’t have to turn to see Austin’s sharp look. “Well, without them we’d all be poorer, and have to carry our own gear.” He and Vanora shared a grin, knowing Austin wouldn’t be satisfied with that. “Real gifts to men”, he continued – Vanora’s wink told him Austin was satisfied. “But I don’t have to like riding them”, he said softly. “I’d rather run with them – those muscles are inspiring!”

“There’s your hole”, Austin declared, using his hand to wipe dirt off the smooth rock they’d found.. “Now everyone quiet.” Renn was already settled, peeled down to loincloth, stretched out face down on his cloak; Kenedh and Renn joined him. To one side, Dugal was in bare skin, stretching; now he rolled and stretched out to watch – he knew there shouldn’t be anything to see, but he was always hopeful. Sometimes he thought he could feel something happening around Druids; it was something he was trying to figure out without asking for help.

Skyclad, Anaph stepped onto the uncovered rock and set his staff on it. Hands to his side, palms forward, facing the sun, staff upright at half arm’s length, he stood in concentration for five, ten, fifteen minutes. The minutes became half an hour. Fidgety, Austin looked around, grinning widely at the sight of Renn and Vanora “providing energy” in a species-old way. Anaph would certainly be aware, and using it. Briefly Austin contemplated the question of why having sex provided energy; to him it used energy – but he wasn’t a Druid. He looked longingly at Dugal, but knew he wouldn’t be welcome.

The ground trembled. Austin’s gaze snapped back to Anaph and found a smile. Whatever the Druid had been up to, now he was busy. The ground shook briefly, gently, then again. After a quiet minute, there came a jerk, followed by a rolling motion, then four seconds of serious vibration.

Anaph sagged and grabbed his staff. “Done. I didn’t get to do what I really wanted; I had to settle for what the energy could do.”

“Which was...?” Austin prompted.

“A small break from one of the lakes, into the basin. It won’t do much, just drain some of the lake and then sort of a trickle. I have to connect a few other things to hook to the Sea. But we’ll get there.”

“And closer is easier”, Austin said.



Eraigh looked up as he felt the intruder, or visitor, come close. “Bennet” – he shook his head in amusement – “you’re still sky-clad?”

“Forty-two days”, the Yankee Druid replied gaily. “Twenty-seven are done.” Eraigh had to chuckle; the former solar engineer was being thorough about his pledge; he slept with no covers, either.

“What did you bring?” asked the master of Druid Hall.

“Donal found it”, Bennet replied. “It’s an ant. He thought it might have come along when Anaph brought the sheep, like the mice and rabbits did. We searched, and the only place we could find any was in the area – three nests, one new, small.” He held out his hand and opened it. “Little black ant. I’ve never seen one here before. Oh – I didn’t kill it, just made its legs asleep.”

Eraigh took the small, dark, almost blue-tinted creature and looked it over with both sets of senses. “What does it eat?”

Bennet grimaced. “The only thing we could find it eating was the little bumps on the grass, that have moisture in them. It’s bad for the grass – Donal found them because there are brown streaks there. They leave the other two kinds of grass alone.”

“What good do they do?” Eraigh inquired, fascinated by the small figure.

“Did you notice it kind of looks like the Others?” Bennet asked softly. Eraigh nodded. “But they’re more useful – they eat up dead things, loosen the soil – and other things can eat them.” The Yankee looked into the distance. “We don’t have many of the things that would eat them.”

Eraigh was nodding. “I see how they would fit the web. Well, they are here, and they are harming our grass. Come – let’s gather some others, and see if perhaps we can bring other things they might eat.”



Rigel pulled the telescope down and rolled onto his back. “Okay, they’re digging. Oran, how long ago did they start that?”

“Just two hours. They spent a lot of time digging like sample holes.” He shuddered involuntarily. “I am so glad I’m older than Austin – two came running within ten meters of me. If I smelled like a kid....”

Rigel swatted the Scout on the butt. “Well, our turn to make them fear. Want to touch off the first cannon?”

Oran grinned. “Frak, yeah! Now – follow close, and I’ll get you out of here alive.” With a half-dozen non-Scouts along – including Rigel, Kevin MacNeil, and Captain Ayers – the withdrawal took forever from Oran’s point of view, but after a drawn-out, itchy crawl, he judged them safe. They stood and walked the last eighty meters to the line where men were digging to form rudimentary defenses – though not the sort to hide behind: across a broad area behind which the cannon and horses waited, they raised random mounds. It had been Kamal’s idea: an advancing enemy all on the level made it easier to waste ammo, but an enemy force to climb and descend would provide a richer selection of targets. To the Yankee, a battle was a system, to be manipulated for results, and making the firing zone uneven had been obvious to him.

They were set up at what Abaca had judged to be ninety-five percent of the cannons’ maximum range. The overriding tactic was simple: get the Other mad, and the moment they were in range of one’s weapon, start to fire. With nearly eighteen hundred men, the hope was that they’d run out of Others to shoot before the Others ran out of distance to cross.

Abhay, Tanner’s “master of things that go boom”, grinned and slapped Oran on the back. “They scared you, and now it’s your turn? Do it right, then – touch off the whole battery.” So the first six shots of the assault on this expedition of Others were sent by Oran.



“Enough”, Austin called. “Titanium says it’s time to quit. No protests that we have half an hour of light left; this is it.”

The sound of a staff hitting the ground got everyone’s attention: it fell flat. “I’m tired”, Anaph declared. “Dalas, set up my seeping spot. I’m going to do some feeling of the earth, and then fall over.” Time was past that that idiom had been humorous to the Celts.

“Have you gathered much more energy?” Austin asked softly as Anaph was settling himself.

“Not enough to do anything. But the break I made earlier is getting bigger. That will kill things. I’ve already got my net out; the energy will hook to my staff. By morning I might be able to reach far enough to connect that lake with the next one – they’re almost touching, anyway.” Anaph shook his head to drive sleep away. “Bring me something hot when I’m done, okay?”

“You got it.”



“Cease fire!” Tanner’s voice carried over the din, and the cannon went still. “Riflemen, fire only if they move! Runner, go tell Conal and Rigel.” Rigel’s commander stood staring.

Kevin MacNeil came riding up. “I can’t decide if I should believe it”, he declared.

Tanner nodded. “Yeah. But what sort of ruse would it be?” He whistled for his horse, and mounted so he could see better. “They’re not moving – not a one.”

Rigel and the British captains came to join them. “Send in your lancers”, Captain Forester – raised by a battlefield promotion by Colonel MacNeil – recommended. “If those beasties don’t fight back, then our work is done.” His head tipped to the left. “Or nearly – we should still make sure each Alien is dead.”

“Anaph’s going to wish he’d been here”, Rigel commented. “If anyone could figure out what just happened, it would be him.”

“I don’t think so”, Earon disagreed, a bit daring to be speaking up; standard bearers didn’t ordinarily interrupt officers. But they turned to listen. “I’ve heard Staio arguing with Kandath over why they can’t tell where any of the Others are. I think they’re sort of invisible to Druids.”

That suggestion sent a cold chill into Rigel. A heavy chunk of it took up residence in his gut. He’d relied on Anaph being able to reach out and detect the Others from a distance, in his thinking about fighting them. If he had to rely on scouts....

A memory struck. “Kevin, can your people make a light, fine cloth?”

MacNeil nodded, amused at the apparent change of subject. “Certainly. It’s expensive, though. Why?”

“If you sew it together into a big bag, and hang a stove under it to make hot air, and the air fills the bag, it makes a big balloon that will rise. Put a long rope on it, with a heavy wagon to hold it, put some people in a big basket under it, and let it rise high. Now, you have flag signals – think of the guys in the basket having flags, and you’ve got a battle coming.”

MacNeil ran it through his mind. When he saw it, he grinned. “To be able to see what the enemy is doing – that would be worth far more than the price of the cloth! Your people don’t make such a fine cloth?”

Rigel shook his head. “They’ve been working on it. So far they can’t get the weave tight enough to hold air. To make it hold, they have to soak it in something like wax. That makes it hold air, but it also makes it really heavy. But my friend Ryan, our chief Wizard, has a team that came up with a version of the wax that could go on very thin and add very little weight – if he had a fine cloth.”

“I will talk to the wizards you brought, and if they can explain how to do this, I will present it to the Queen. If we could anchor a balloon above each fort, we wouldn’t need to send scouts into danger constantly.” The British lord shook his head. “You bring gifts – Her Majesty will want to reward you.”

The lancers had assembled; conversation stopped to watch. Sir Patrick put them in a wide formation, the length from lance tip to tail tip between them for room to maneuver. They moved onto the battlefield at a fast trot. Patrick, outside on the right, carried out the critical test when they’d swept by thirty or forty Others with no response. His lance punctured the enemy’s body and struck deep; Patrick let the lance swing so the speed of his horse pulled it free. “Strike carefully!” he called, and the order was relayed down the line.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have hit them quite so hard”, Conal commented an hour later. They sat their horses, gazing at the destruction of what had been the center of the Others’ camp, r settlement.

“Yeah.” Rigel slowly shook his head. “We obliterated this. If we hadn’t, maybe we could have learned something about them.”

“If we hadn’t, we’d still be fighting”, Tanner countered. “Something we smashed here did a real number on them, and shut them down.”

“That’s a lesson itself”, MacNeil pointed out softly. “Maybe attacking their fortresses wouldn’t be a hopeless cause. Costly, but not hopeless.”

“I’ll take that as a lesson”, Rigel agreed. “Jadriano Escobar never attacked a fortress. If any other Quistador did, he didn’t know about it. He knew they weren’t fond of water, but he didn’t know it was as bad as Austin learned. So we’re ahead of the game in knowledge.” He looked back at their battle redoubt. “And we have cannon, and rifles, and flamethrowers.” A weary smile came. “His sword drives me, a fierce determination to exterminate them. But there’s always a nagging dread that we can’t do it. Now – I have some weapons against the doubt.”

Oran came jogging up. “Tanner wants to know where we’re headed. I think we go east-northeast. There are humans there.”

Rigel’s eyebrows rose. “You can sense ordinary humans?”

Scout Two laughed. “No, Druid Arslan can! Lord MacNeil, that’s your fortress, isn’t it?”

Kevin nodded. “Yes. And we’re closer to it than to the fort.” He sighed. “And I need to get there.” He didn’t share the reason he didn’t look forward to, or the one with a potential for huge complications.

“The that’s where we’ll go”, Rigel decided. “Oran, pick a pair of Scouts who can swim well. They’ll go to the fort with the message. Just in case there are more Aliens out here, they’ll follow the shore – if they see any, they just swim out.”

Oran looked toward the lake and back. “The current’s strong – they could just swim out a little and float”, he noted.

Rigel laughed. “Whatever. Just let the fort know what we’re doing. We’ll straighten out the guns and ammo situation later.”



Eraigh relaxed and leaned back. “Bennet, you led – what did we get?”

“Some little worms, some pill bugs, three centipedes, some kind of tiny beetle, a flock of gnats, some moss with juicy seeds or whatever, some regular moss, two kinds of grass, and two kinds of weed.” The Yankee Druid peered at the mound of dirt they’d dropped all of that into. The gnats sat on grass, urged by Druid compulsion to not fly.

“These are all food to the ants?”

Bennet shook his head. “No. The little worms and little beetles are, and the little pods on that moss. And the one kind of grass catches moisture really well, that the ants drink. One of the weeds... a dandelion; they like to use them for shelter. All the things that crawl become ant food when they die.
“I also brought along about four dozen different kinds of tiny things that live in the soil. I didn’t know if the ants use them or not, but since I was grabbing, and they were tiny, I brought them.” He got to his knees and stretched. “Now we need a big table of dirt. We speed these guys up so they multiply fast. Then we stick in some native plants and bugs, and see how they get along. If that works – we multiply them until there’s enough we’re sure they won’t die out, then start putting them in the valley.”

Eraigh nodded. “Speeding metabolism is good practice and drill for any Druid. I think this is a Hall project.” He smiled at the mound of soil. “All for some little ants.”

Bennet shook his head. “No – the ants just made us think of it. The more different kinds of living things in a place, the richer the Life is. I’ve studied the soil here, Eraigh – this will triple the number of kinds of things living in it!” He looked out to where a group of wild horses were grazing. “With all these, the grass might grow richer – all sorts of things could change.”



Fissures, pits, and lakes covered the land. Austin whistled. “This place is totally busted up!” he exclaimed.

Anaph nodded. “Kandath, close your eyes and find me some bedrock.”

It took the junior Druid half a minute. “Almost straight ahead, by the shore. It’s easier to find by looking for where the life gets thin, isn’t it? I’ve been looking for the special kinds of things that live in rock.”

Anaph chuckled. “Lesson learned.” He led the way to a wide, bare rock shelf. “Now another lesson: all three of you, watch what I do – I’m going to show you how to catch the energy from things that die. When I go to work, watch, and collect what you can. I’ll draw it from you when I need it.”

Staio looked troubled. “You’re going to be using it to make things die, and use that energy.”

Anaph sighed. “Yes. My debt is becoming huge. If I ever have to do this again, I should pay ahead of time. But this must be done now. So – let us begin.”

The rest of the group sprawled and waited, and watched. Dugal and Austin figured nothing would happen for a long time – gathering energy was like that, they’d learned, lots of waiting for big things – so they went swimming. Down the shore there was another rock shelf, barely above the water level. When Dugal swam at it fast and launched himself onto the shelf, then rolled on his back, feet dangling in the water, temptation was too much for Austin. He raised himself up, pushing Dugal’s knees apart, and lay on the Scout’s thighs. A puff of breath brought the reaction he wanted. He expected Dugal to push him off, but there was no reaction.

“How about we make a little more energy for Anaph?” he whispered. Dugal did a curl and looked at Austin for a moment, then grinned.

“My body’s already saying ‘yes’. I won’t say no. Have fun.”


Renn and Folos counted four big jerks of the earth, and nine little ones, plus some shaking too faint to count. They’d been there two hours when the Druids sighed, dropped hands, and sat. “Got all of it here”, Anaph declared quietly. “Once I break it at the Sea, this will have twice the flow at the other lakes.” He grinned. “And that’s just getting started.”

“Now where?” Dugal asked.

“Toward the Sea”, the Druid replied. “No swimming there unless I say so – there will be some really big shakes this time.”



The laughter was that of delight, not ridicule. Ryan felt like laughing himself, the day was so perfect. He broke into a jog, forcing Varden to match him to keep up. It became a race. Predictably, Varden pulled away and had time to catch his breath before Ryan reached their destination.

“You should get more exercise”, his squire scolded. “Pick a steward to handle your things. Lord Antonio says it works for him.”

“You’re right”, Ryan conceded. “It’ll have to be one of the Yankees, to understand most of what I do.”

Varden nodded, then shrugged. “The Yankees were sent to you by the Creator to help. Be grateful – and choose two.” He held back his grin until Ryan laughed.

“I do say I have enough work for three people – you got me on that. Well, you suggested it – you think about who would be good. Now, let’s see what Eraigh’s been up to.” They nodded to the student sitting watch at the door, and entered Druid Hall.

“Lord Ryan!” Bennet greeted him with a kiss on each cheek. Then Ryan pushed the Druid back.

“I’ll pass on hugging you while you’re sky clad. How many more days?”

“Thirteen counting today. But I’m so used to it I may not like clothes when it’s done. Now stop dressing me with your eyes, and come see the ‘farm’.”

“Whoa!” Ryan exclaimed a minute and a half later. “Those look like giant planting boxes.”

Eraigh turned from the nearest box and answered. “So they are. When we are ready to place them outside, a box will go in a cart. We will take it to its place, dig a hole the size of the box, and set the entire box in. Then we will rot the box and make it soil, joining this to the world.”

“Elegant”, Ryan decided. “Beats replanting. So what all do you have here?” Bennet did the job of explaining, since – although he was learning it – Eraigh lacked the vocabulary to describe things familiar to Ryan and Bennet.

“The ecology is that thin”, was Ryan’s first response, a touch of disbelief in his voice.. “How does it survive?” He poked a finger into the soil. “Some of these are for testing to make sure it’s compatible?”

“Exactly. Here – the ones on this side.” Bennet led the way. “It’s too early to tell anything, but this one has alternating strips – sod from the valley floor and the mix from the new stuff.”

Ryan felt at the grass. Earth grass was a little softer, he decided, even the really slender stuff that had almost round blades. “How long for results?”

“We’re speeding it at a week in a day”, Eraigh informed him. “It took one day to get enough to spread in four boxes. Yesterday we had enough for all these. It’s spread very thin. I think five days until it begins to look like turf.”

It suddenly dawned on Ryan what seemed odd. “When did you start using contractions?” he asked Eraigh.

The Druid got a faint silly grin. “I don’t know. I think I am enough comfortable with your Common that it just started.”

“Somehow you don’t sound as dignified”, Ryan responded, then grinned. “I like it! But for formal occasions, remember how to not use them.” He looked around the tables. “Where are you going to put them?”

“The first will go between the three ant nests”, Bennet replied. “That was the goal, after all – to provide a home-like ecology for the ants. I hope it will ease the pressure on the one type of grass. If that one works well, we’ll keep making more, and put them along this valley. Then we’ll make more, but in small boxes a horse can carry, and have Riders spread them through Rigel’s lands.”

A memory of a summer day and stepping on a small ant hill came to Ryan. “Bennet – your know what thimbleberries are?”

“Kind of. I could ask around. You want some?”

“Yeah – if you’re going to be grabbing new species, get thimbleberries. Raspberries, too. I’d say blackberries, but those vines might not be good for here.” Ryan laughed. “One more – watermelon. I have a good excuse, too – most ants I’ve ever seen love the stuff!”



The ground lurched. Dugal had taken Anaph’s admonishment to stay down or have his feet jerked out from under him as a challenge. It was a challenge he won – for the first lurch, and the second, and the third, but the fourth toppled him. Laughing, he lay on his back and watched the clouds jump in the sky above. “Wow – if we hadn’t been getting all those little quakes, that would be scary.”

Austin slapped Dugal’s bare abs. “If you want to see scary, look”, he told the Scout, pointing.

“Holy Creator!” Dugal breathed. Down a channel that hadn’t been there a minute before came a wall of water, clear in the middle but brown on the sides, frothing and splashing as it came. Its path was through clean rock for the most part, so the water stayed clean. Briefly they could see in, and saw something swimming; then the front of the wall collapsed forward.

“Just like a flash flood”, Austin said softly, remembering two such events wince he’d been Snatched. “Biggest flash flood in history!” The front edge of the flood closer. Impulsively, Austin jumped up and pulled Dugal with him, right to the edge. The squire proceeded to urinate off the cliff. Dugal laughed and joined in a moment before the foaming torrent smashed on by their puny streams. Laughing, they hopped away just in time: the earth lurched again, tumbling them. Dugal fell on Austin, and turned to look at his friend.

“If we hadn’t moved....”, he whispered.

“Yeah. That was pretty stupid”, Austin admitted. “How about we get farther from the edge?”

Anaph worked all day. His helpers wore out and dropped one by one. An hour before sunset the Druid came over, actually crawling, to Austin.

“I’m not sure the piece we’re on is stable”, he told the two quietly. “Let’s move over to the top of the bump for camp. We should be able to watch the new sea grow, from there.”



Casey growled. “Crap”, he whispered. Motionless, he looked around carefully, then started backtracking. Only when he’d gone forty meters without seeing anything but tracks did he get up. Five hundred and more meters went past under his feet at a sprint, getting him to the trudging column.

“Rigel”, Scout Three gasped, “Others – ahead of us. I found tracks.”

Colonel MacNeil wiped his brow. “No rest for the weary, this day”, he said with a sigh. “Rigel?”

Rigel matched his sigh. “Tanner, how fast can we go?”

“Fast march. Once we know more, we can push the wagons to the limit.” Tanner shook his head. “Is this an invasion, or what?”

“Catch one and ask it”, Eldon joked. “Rigel, I’ll go stick with the wagons, just in case.”

“Casey, stick here”, Tanner ordered, though the Scouts weren’t really under his command. “Oran, see what you can find out..” Scout Two nodded and took off at a ground-eating race pace. Tanner pulled out a bone horn and blew a pattern of notes.

“On alert?” Rigel guessed.

Tanner chuckled. “You’re guessing, but you’re basically right. Now the Riders will be watching.”

MacNeil made a brief inventory of his weapons, including the rifle Rigel had given him. “Once more to war”, he said.



Captain Mackelroy stood tapping his toe, glaring down at the main deck from his vantage on the quarterdeck. Regardless of who the visitors were, he didn’t like having horses on his deck. He didn’t trust the animals to stay calm on an open deck, and he definitely didn’t accept the tale that the big stallion was “King of the horses”. The assurances of the robed man carried little more weight with him; he didn’t buy into mystical notions of assuring beasts everything would be fine merely by stroking their noses. When it came down to essentials, the only reason he’d granted the request to haul these folk was that he was certain no other captain in the Fleet had ever carried horses on his deck.

The easy talk of these strangers that the four wearing robes had caused the earthquakes of the last few days made him uneasy. They didn’t seem unhinged, but really – how could a man cause an earthquake? Some pact with other powers had to be involved, and Mackelroy wasn’t interested in even imagining the sort of price that would come with such a bargain. Yet the way they mentioned the channels that opened, and how they retreated from one to the next in the very order the channels had broken open, sounded disturbingly real.

“We saw the one crack open, ourselves”, his first officer reminded him. Sometimes it was a good thing to have a first who could follow his thoughts so well, but sometimes it was a pain. Mackelroy had mixed feelings about which this was. “And the... canyon that opened in Cape Blount, like a crack in a clay pot!” The senior leftenant pointed. “And you can’t deny the cliff here dropped off quite conveniently, making a place a frigate could come in and horses get aboard.” A touch of awe came into his voice. “Horses – they make our ponies look like toys! To ride one – it makes a temptation, to leave the Fleet.”

Mackelroy snorted. “You won’t leave Fleet until you’ve made senior captain – you want the pension and the status.”

The leftenant sighed. “True. But I would like a horse.”

The captain snorted again. “Every man in the kingdom will want a horse! But I tell you – Her Majesty and Special Representative MacNeil will make the price high, to help fund this settlement.”

“And war”, the leftenant added softly. “The Aliens are real – these men have seen them.

“Aliens”, Mackelroy repeated softly. “Thanks be to the Creator, we are on the sea!”