Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Read Online Free PDF Page A

as power builds!
    Dance with us our witch’s rune!
    And it was a dance indeed, faster and faster about her, widdershins and sunwise they danced, crossing and braiding the power. She thrust the staff to the sky before the altar.
    Father of the ripened corn
    Hunter of the winter snows
    With open arms we welcome you!
    Dance with us as power grows!
    When she became herself once more the movement had slowed, as the shuttle of her loom did when she battened the last threads home. The cloth was whole now, the weaving tight and strong, the colors sliding into each other and blending.
    By all the light of moon and sun,
    By all the might of land and sea,
    Chant the rune and it is done.
    As we will, so mote it be!

CHAPTER TWO
    C OUNTY OF A UREA
    (F ORMERLY CENTRAL W ASHINGTON )
    H IGH K INGDOM OF M ONTIVAL
    (F ORMERLY WESTERN N ORTH A MERICA )
    O CTOBER 30 TH , C HANGE Y EAR 25/2023 AD
    T he High Queen of Montival bent over a map table with the Grand Constable d’Ath and a clutch of lords and officers this morning. Huon Liu could see them, though it wasn’t polite to stare. Even if you were heir to a wealthy barony like Gervais, which he was, a squire was a very lowly form of military life. Though you didn’t realize it when you were looking at it from the worm’s-eye-view of a page, which he’d been until a couple of months ago.
    Even a royal squire was out in the cold—literally, since he was about twelve feet from the edge of the pavilion tent’s door, along with a gaggle of other squires and couriers and their horses. He could see the heads and hands moving, but nothing of the map. There were a pair of spearmen from the Protector’s Guard in black-enameled three-quarter armor standing by the entrance as well, their faces invisible behind the vision-slits of their visors, the butts of their glaives braced against their right boots and their four-foot kite-shaped shields blazoned with the crimson and gold Lidless Eye at the parade position. He didn’t envy them, though the guige strap over the shoulder took some of the weight, but they were as motionless as statues.
    Huon had been excited to finally make the step from page, and hence child,to squire, which made you a youth if not a man yet. At over fifteen he was past due for it; though he lacked an inch or so of what would probably be a medium final height. He was already broad-shouldered and lithe and active. His high-cheeked face, stubborn lack of beard and slightly tilted dark eyes—legacy of his father’s father—made him look a little younger than he was, and he was well-versed in all the weapons he had the size and strength of arm to use.
    But there was nearly as much standing and waiting involved in squiring as in page work, even if you didn’t serve at table as much.
    At least it’s a warm sort of cold to be out in.
    Dawn had been frosty, but now it was a fine day for the end of October, bright sunlight with a few white clouds, and warm enough that his light outfit of brigantine and mail sleeves was making Huon sweat a bit as he stood at parade rest by his horse’s head. Carrying messages was the likeliest duty. The rolling plain around them had mostly emptied of troops now, but there were still a few encamped on the stubblefields; the man-stink of the great temporary city was gone, leaving only the smell of horses and dung, dust and woodsmoke and hay and greenery, the scents that were the common background of life. A group of varlets with a wagon were waiting to take down and pack the pavilion, feeding the mules from nose bags and currycombing them. There was a troop of the Protector’s Guard not far off too, men-at-arms in full armor and mounted crossbowmen, mostly standing by their horses; you didn’t burden them when it wasn’t essential.
    Dust smoked from the fields where the fall plowing was underway, teams of oxen or mules or big platter-hoofed horses pulling double-furrow riding plows and disk-harrows and seed-drills through stubble or clover-ley.