The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change by S. M. Stirling

Many would have tried to hedge their bets, and traded a possibility of swift victory for the certainty of slow piecemeal defeat.
    “The enemy?”
    “Less certain, but more than the fyrd by a quarter to a third. All the wild-man tribes of the north along the Great River from Royal Mountain to the Stone-Halls. We have a treaty with the Madawaska Republic—”
    She pointed to a narrow strip shaded along the upper St. John to the north and east of the Norrheimer settlements, with a symbol that looked like a porcupine in a circle of stars beside it.
    “—and we were expecting a thousand men, but we’ve heard nothing.”
    Artos’ breath hissed between his teeth. “And your last word from Bjarni?”
    “Two days ago. They were here,” she said, moving her finger westward. “Skirmishing with the troll-men’s outrunners, and the foe seems to be gathering all their gangs into one horde.”
    “They’re going to accept battle, then,” Artos said thoughtfully.
    Sure, and it can be surprisingly hard to make men stand and fight if they don’t want to come to the dancing-ground , he mused. Especially if neither side is cramped for room.
    She nodded. “Bjarni said he’d try to have them come to him on his chosen ground, he knew the place he’d prefer to fight. Six-Hill Field, it’s called, used for summer pasture by the northernmost of our folk. The old roads run through there; it’s the only way to get large numbers into our farmlands quickly.”
    Then Artos blinked. The map seemed to be . . . overlain somehow. As if he was hovering above the land like a raven, and the war bands were like little writhing lines of men coming together; and yet he could hear them, the murmur of voices, the shuffle of boots and skis and snowshoes. But at the same time they were like living numbers, swinging balances of supply and distance and time in his head, a consciousness of every factor in a dynamic balance. It was the way a God might see them . . .
    And not the way I would choose to do so, at all. Useful, though!
    The others were looking at him oddly, as if he’d gone away for a moment. He shook his head.
    “Yes, that’s where the fight will be. Almost certainly. No word of Mary or Ritva?” he asked. “I sent them on a scout, and they were to rejoin here if they could.”
    “Your half sisters?” Harberga said, frowning. “No, nothing.”
    Ingolf moistened his lips, then visibly took command of himself. Rudi-Artos felt his mind stutter. One part was worried; the other was . . .
    Not indifferent , he thought, turning the eye of attention inward. Not that. But as if I had ten thousand thousand sisters, and all were somehow equally dear to me. And that too is how a God might look on things, and no comfort to a man. But it’s perhaps a lesson to a King.
    Then he regained his self’s balance, feeling as if he should be panting. But that was no calm center. It was more as if he rode a rushing wave, as a longboat does from a ship off the surf-beaten Pacific shore to land softly on the gravel beach that might have ground its bones to splinters if it wavered.
    “We’ll take this path, cutting the cord of the circle,” he said. “That will give the best chance of catching up in time. The river ice is still hard?”
    “For now,” Harberga said. “But the weather could turn warm anytime. The weather-wights are flighty in this season.”
    Artos looked up, at a sky white with high thin cloud, felt the air through his skin and breathed the stinging cold. He folded the gift-map.
    “Not for a week,” he said absently, watching the others get the war band ready to move; it went quickly. “Probably ten days. Time enough to find Bjarni, and fight a battle.”
    Matti returned, giving him a quick report—full provision—and then checking her horse’s tack. The gray titanium-alloy mail of her hauberk and vambraces seemed to suck the pale light out of the day. Gudrun was with her, but carrying a young babe swaddled in one arm and leading