The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change Read Online Free PDF

hundreds of thousands of others. Signe thought of them sometimes, whenever the present seemed too grim to bear: astronauts in orbit when all the city lights below went out and the ventilators died, passengers in 747s at thirty thousand feet glancing up in a flickering moment of pain and silence, people in submarines or down at the bottom of gold mines when the pumps stopped.
    Mostly they’d been the lucky ones, at that. For them it had been fairly quick. Five billion and more had died in what followed, died slowly of thirst and hunger, of plague, or killed for what little they had or the meat on their bones.
    And thanks to Mike we survived. Survived the plane crash, survived that year after the Change, survived . . . life. For a while. Life’s so dangerous nobody gets out of it alive, he used to say, and he’s been dead fourteen years now. I’ve got this bad feeling about what’s coming down the tracks.
    She poured strength into her voice, willing desperate men to see sense:
    “The Prophet’s maniacs alone outnumber all the troops the countries of the Meeting . . . the High Kingdom of Montival—”
    Freya, we’re calling the whole country something because someone barely old enough to shave suggested it in a letter . What next? How desperate for hope are we?
    “—can muster. The United States of Boise outnumbers us by about the same margin. If we try to meet them here in open country, they’ll crush us. They didn’t beat us at Pendleton last year because they were better, they beat us because they were good enough and there were Loki’s own lot of them. They want big decisive battles. We can’t afford to fight on their terms; we have to make them come to us. Bleed them until they’re down to a level we can tackle.”
    A man got up; elderly, leathery: Rancher Brown of Seffridge. A good man, steady. He’d been an ally of the Outfit in the wars against the Association in the decade after the Change.
    “What’s wrong with Bend?” he asked; they’d agreed on the question beforehand. “They have to come at us here, and we’ve got the city wall and plenty of food.”
    Signe made herself grin. “You have to ask? The wall’s good enough against a bunch of bandits or Rovers. It’s too long and too low for an army with a good battering and assault train—wheeled belfries, siege towers, trebuchets, which Boise has and will lend to the Corwinites. And the water supply can be cut off. You people should really have thought of that.”
    She saw embarrassed winces. The CORA had trouble agreeing on the time of day, normally. War wasn’t normal times, but it was a bit late now for major engineering.
    “I thought that . . . that thing that happened was supposed to stop places falling to the Cutters,” Brown said.
    People made the signs of their various religions, or muttered prayers . . . or curses, or both. Signe kept calmness, but only just. That flash of pain and the ringing voice in the middle of Juniper Mackenzie’s ceremony:
    Artos holds the Sword of the Lady, she remembered that tolling voice speaking from within her. The Sun Lord comes, the son of Bear and Raven! The High King comes, as foretold! Guardian of My Sacred Wood, and Law! His people’s strength, and the Lady’s Sword!
    She cleared her throat, swallowed and went on: “That means their spooks can’t hoodoo men into opening gates anymore,” she said.
    She added to herself: We think .
    Aloud: “It does absolutely nothing to keep them from coming over the walls on ladders. When—” She nearly said if and then went on: “When Artos gets back, things will be different. Until then we’re on our own.”
    Another roar, and a general shout of What good are you, then?
    She slammed a gauntleted fist down on the podium. “We Bearkillers stand by our promises, and by our friends!” she shouted.
    That had the double advantage of being true, and being known to be true. Over the years the Outfit had shed a lot of blood, their own and other people’s,