Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change by S. M. Stirling

SOUTH-CENTRAL W ASHINGTON )
    H IGH K INGDOM OF M ONTIVAL
    (F ORMERLY WESTERN N ORTH A MERICA )
    O CTOBER 31 ST , C HANGE Y EAR 25/2023 AD
    T he High King of Montival drew rein, turning off the road past the time-wrecked and rust-gnawed length of an irrigation machine of the ancient world, all wheels and pipe at the foot of a low rough rise.
    “Sooo, sooo, Dando,” he said, stroking a gloved hand down the beast’s neck; it was lively with good oats and alfalfa, mouthing the bit and stepping high and showing every sign of wanting to run. “Easy does it, lad. We’ve a long day before us, and more work tomorrow and the day after that.”
    The courser turned its head nervously at a harsh whicker from the remount herd following as the headquarters crew badgered them past and took the opportunity to let them roll and graze. Rudi’s charger Epona was there, and she was never altogether easy seeing him riding another horse. Even her own get, much less some anonymous gelding she barely acknowledged as one of the horse-tribe at all. Moving this many strange horses together was always tricky, though at least few disputed Epona’s claim to be lead mare of any group she was in…and she didn’t tolerate sass from stallions, either.
    One shied a little from her rolled eye and cocked hoof-ready hip even as he watched, probably wisely. He could see Edain Aylward grinning at the pale anxiety on the faces of the horse-handlers as he deployed a platoon of the High King’s Archers off their bicycles and into a loose screening formation about Rudi; they all had high-geared mountain bike models and could keep up with horse-soldiers easily on this sort of terrain. Epona would tolerate the master-bowman…mostly…because he’d been Rudi’s friend from earliest boyhood and because he knew better than to take liberties. Strange grooms were fair game, and she had never liked the human-kind in general much.
    A platoon of Bearkiller mounted crossbowmen were sharing the guard duty today, grimly silent and businesslike as they cantered about to check folds in the land for a couple of hundred yards in every direction. Catapults and aircraft aside, that was as far as bodyguards need worry.
    “Epona’s getting even more testy in her middle-age,” Rudi said.
    The jest hid real concern. She’d been all the way to the east coast with him, and he’d been worried for her the way she’d lost condition then; Epona had amazing endurance for a seventeen-hand warmblood, which was what her looks said of her breeding. But even so she wasn’t an Arab, or a cow-pony used to living on grass and hard work. Coming back had been easier—big chunks of it through the Dominions where they’d been able to haul her on a horsecar on the rails—but the fact remained that she was nearing the end of her working life.
    He remembered the look that had passed between them, all those years ago at Sutterdown Horse Fair; the boy he’d been, and the young mare who’d come to hate the human-kind while she was still a filly. A secret knowledge, a complicity between just the two of them…
    And she’d never forgive me if I left her behind
, he thought, casting a look at the sleek black figure that paced along with arched neck and flying mane.
She’s not a horse you can turn out to pasture and bring an apple now and then. There have been times I doubted whether she was not Epona Herself. It wasn’t an accident I named her for the Lady of the Horses.
    “I suspect we all will become less tolerant in our age,” Father Ignatius, Knight-Brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict said. “If theLord blesses us with years, which is by no means certain. And being Lord Chancellor of an inchoate kingdom still in the womb…”
    “Will age you before your time, eh, Father?”
    Ignatius chuckled; apparently being away from the offices and documents suited him, and he bore the weight of his armor with casual unconcern.
    “Not as much as being your chief of staff in an army