A Meeting At Corvallis

The infantry were farmers and artisans and laborers, militia who drilled in the slow parts of the
agricultural year and fought when he called them out. Their equipment was a little varied and a lot of it
homemade, though everyone had some sort of metal helmet, and at least a brigandine or chain-mail shirt
for armor; some of the more affluent had breastplates hammered out of sheet steel, and plate protection
on their shins and forearms, and long, metal-plated leather gauntlets. Good steel was abundant in the
Changed world, salvaged from the ruins; it was the time of the scarce, skilled craftsmen that made armor
expensive.
The cavalry were A-listers, full-time warriors and the elite of the Outfit, uniformly kitted out in
knee-length chain hauberks, greaves and vambraces of plate or steel splints on leather, round helmets
with nasal bars, hinged cheek-pieces and mail-covered neck-flaps, and two-foot circular shields. Their
weapons were lances, recurved bows made of laminated horn and wood and sinew, and long,
single-edged swords with basket hilts; the shields were dark brown, with the stylized outline of a bears
head in crimson. His own helmet had the tanned, snarling head of a bear mounted on it; he'd killed the
beast himself, shortly after the Change, with an improvised spear. From that, a great deal had followed.
A great deal including the Outfit's name, though that was Astrid's idea, as usual. Aloud: "All
right, Bearkillers. What would have been different if this was for real?"
"We'd have crossbows on our flanks, Lord Bear," one of the infantry said, a stocky, freckled young
man with shoulders like a blacksmith—which was what he was—leaning on a glaive. "When the charge
stalled in front of the pikes, we'd have shot the shit out of them, killed a bucketful and made the others
easy meat. Armor's not much help at close range like that."
Havel nodded. A hard-driven arrow or crossbow bolt was just too damned dangerous to use in a
practice match, even with a padded, blunt head, and having people standing around shouting Twang!
Twang! as they pretended to shoot was sort of silly. Instead the referees had tapped on a certain
percentage of the mounted troops with their batons, often starting furious arguments, while the missile
troops were off shooting at targets.
"Hey," one of the A-listers said. "If this were for real, we'd have been using our bows and that line of
pikes would have been a lot more ragged before we hit it."
Havel nodded again, but added: "Yeah, Astrid, that's true. But we're practicing to fight the Portland
Protective Association, and the Protector's men-at-arms don't use saddle bows. Sword and lance only,
and they rely on their own infantry for missile weapons. OK, we'll say that cancels out."
He didn't add: And there aren't many who can use a horse-bow like you, either. It was
true—everyone on the A-list was a good, competent shot, but Astrid was a wonder. Your ego doesn't
need any stroking, however.
Astrid Larsson pouted a little as she leaned her hands on the horn of her saddle. "I suppose so."
She was twenty-three to her sister Signe's twenty-eight, with white-blond hair and huge blue eyes
rimmed and veined with silver. They gave her face an odd, nearly inhuman quality despite its fine-boned
good looks. She was intensely capable when it came to anything involving horses or bows, a fine
swordswoman and in Michael Havel's view just one hair short of utter-raving-loon status. Unlike many,
she'd been that way at fourteen, before the Change and its aftermath.
"Lord Bear," she added, confirming his thought.
And she stuck me with that moniker and this damned taxidermist's nightmare on my helmet,
he thought. Plus that shield …
Hers wasn't the standard outline of a snarling bear's head that was the blazon of the Outfit. It had a
silver tree instead, and seven stars above it, around a crown. Her helmet was even stranger-looking, with
a raven of black-lacquered aluminum on the steel, wings extending down the cheek-pieces and
ruby-eyed head looking out over the nasal bar.
It's all those books she reads, those giant doorstopper things with dragons and quests and
Magical Identity Bracelets of the Apocalypse.
She'd been obsessed with them when he first met her, and the ensuing decade had made her worse,
if anything. He wished, very much, that she'd only been weird about archery and horses, but no such
luck.