A Meeting At Corvallis

Six heads were close together as they bent to lift the end of the long timber into the clamp and fasten
the chain across it. Astrid spoke smiling, as if chatting casually among friends out to find a Yule Log.
"Yrch," she said; to the Dunedain that meant enemies. "Could be bandits, could be servants of the
Lidless Eye. I saw only two that I'm sure of, so they've got some woodcraft."
Eilir Mackenzie nodded and casually stretched with her arms above her head, which gave her an
excuse to look about.
I spotted him—the fir over from the boulder with the point, snow knocked off the branch, she
signed. The other's behind the boulder?
Astrid nodded as she mentally tallied their strength here. Herself and Eilir, her anamchara. Alleyne
Loring and John Hordle; first-class warriors, though not exactly Dunedain themselves, not quite. Young
Crystal, but she didn't really count for a fight. Only sixteen, and not fully trained; brave, but the weak link,
the more so as she was slight-built. Another ten Dunedain, in their late teens or early twenties, six of them
Mackenzies and the other four Bearkillers. Everyone had bow and quiver, sword and knife and targe or
buckler; you didn't go outdoors without, any more than you'd walk out naked. The two Englishmen had
light mail shirts under their jackets; under her own she wore a black leather tunic lined with mesh-mail
and nylon; Eilir had on a Clan-style brigandine, a double-ply canvas affair with small metal plates riveted
between the layers. Most of the others had something similar, but none was wearing a helmet.
"We don't know how many or why," Astrid said. "So we'll all just walk around the corner of the trail
up ahead, and then wait for them—double linear ambush upslope. That way we can shoot without hitting
each other. They won't follow close."
Send Crystal on to the Lodge with the horses from there? Eilir signed.
Crystal 's face was a little pale, but she glared at Eilir; besides being offended at the implication that
she couldn't hold her own with the rest, she also had a furious crush on Astrid at the moment … which
was so embarrassing. Though she was beginning to show signs of transferring it to Alleyne, which would
be infuriating.
Astrid signed back: No. Too risky—they might have an ambush along the trail already. We'll go
around the corner, drop the log, and … wait a minute!
The word drop triggered something in her mind. "Here's what we'll do," she began. "Remember that
trick we practiced? Like the old story about how the little furry Halfling men fought the wicked Emperor's
troopers?"
Eilir's eyes went from the log to the coils of rope draped around it. Her smile grew, and the faces of
her companions went from grave to grinning. They were all young.
We'll have to hurry, she signed.
Twenty minutes later Astrid waited behind a tree, wishing for a war cloak, what Sam Aylward called
a ghillie suit, of camouflage cloth sewn all over with loops for twigs and leaves. The wool of her jacket
would do, it was woven from natural beige fiber; she breathed shallowly and slowly, lest the puff of vapor
give her away, and ignored the drip of melting snow from the branches of the big hemlock. She couldn't
see any of her Dunedain, though, except for Alleyne, and that was from the rear where he crouched
behind a big basalt rock.
If I can't see them, when I know where they are, the yrch certainly won't. Raven, totem of my
sept, watch over us! Queen of Battles, Lady of the Crows, be with us now! To you, Dread lord, we
dedicate the harvest of this field!
The canyon widened out a little here, the slopes not quite so steep until they ran into cliff-faces north
and south. The old park trail was down fifteen yards below her hiding place, visible between the
wide-spaced trunks of the great trees in a twisting line of trodden mud; the horses waited patiently a
hundred yards further east, nearer the waterfall—you could see the mist lifting above the icy curve of it
from here. The noise would be good cover …
There was an arrow on the shelf of her bow, cord to the knock, the whole held in her left hand, and
forty-four more in her quiver. Her sword was leaned up against the deep-fissured trunk, a single-edged
weapon with a basket hilt of brass and a yard-long blade, and her two-foot circular shield was slung over
her back on its carrying strap. Everything ready …