Chicks - Chicks 'N Chained Males Part 11

G.o.d, it made one gorgeous shadow! Kyria thought-then flinched as arrows ricocheted off.

Some of the women had broken cover, were standing looking up in amazement. The idea of vulnerable people, approaching before that chopper's rotors had come to a full stop . . .

"Get back!" she screamed. "Demetria, tell your people to get back."

She ran forward, knowing the chopper would hover, and she'd have a matter of minutes, if that, to race toward it and in.

Demetria screamed something and gestured. Away from the chopper, the land began to glow. The sun grew brighter.

The mist was fading fast now.

Thwock . . . thwock . . . thwock. . .

Coming in for a landing.

Unfortunately, it looked as if the infantry had arrived too. Good G.o.d, what had the mist dragged in this time? Were those actually hoplites?

Men were gesturing, urging her forward, shouting just as if she was making an eighty-yard run for a touchdown at the Superbowl . . . she was throwing herself at the hatch . . . someone had grabbed her arms . . . the chopper started to lift . . .

A gust of wind blew a patch of the mist right at them, enveloping the chopper.

d.a.m.n. The chopper's engines choked, then stalled. Its rotors ground slowly to a stop.

"Now what?" demanded the man who had boosted her into the chopper. She recognized him from base: Lieutenant Tony "Mad Anthony" Wayne.

"I told you," she said. "There's a local condition. Works like EMP-oh, I don't know, call it an obscure application of Clarke's Law."

"You got brain bloat but good this time?" Why in h.e.l.l had Boomer come along on this one? She had amoment's vision of him, surrounded by Amazons, and managed, just in time, not to grin.

"Haven't got time to explain. I suggest . . . allies over here . . . let's GO!"

She turned in time to watch the Amazons sweep past the chopper and intercept the remaining archers and a stray hoplite or two.

Oh, there'd be a hot time in the old town tonight.

She waved at Demetria, who emerged from around a rock, cleaning her sword. She sheathed it, put her hands to her throat, and shrieked a victory cry, throbbing up and down on two shrill notes.

"I see you brought us guests!" she hailed Kyria.

"These are my friends," she said. "Men of my unit." Yes, and there was Kathy Banks, too, the other female pilot in her wing. Under her helmet, Banks was all eyes-and a smile that gradually expanded into a seriously evil grin.

"This is a joke, right?" Banks asked.

"You'd better tell me what's going on," Wayne snapped at Kyria. In a minute, he'd draw, and she'd really be up the proverbial creek.

"You won't be able to take off in these weather conditions. It's like EMP. Shorts out everything. But these are friendlies . . ."

Very friendly.

She leapt from the chopper-no one was going anywhere, at least not till the mists came up again-and ran toward the Amazons. Now, she could grin. Demetria met her halfway.

"When do you think we can expect the mists to come again?"

Demetria raised her head and sniffed the air.

"A couple of weeks," she said.

So. They'd think the chopper had broken off radio contact, had crashed in the mountains. She wondered if they'd send in a search party, much good it would do them until the mists arrived. And meanwhile . . .

She turned to the helo pilot. A captain. Humph. She rated. Well, F-15 pilots were expensive to train.

And female F-15 pilots were a PR nightmare, his sour expression seemed to indicate. And thank you very much, sir, only "thanks" isn't quite the word I had in mind. I suspect the Amazons will express their grat.i.tude too.

Everyone into the gene pool!

"Sir," she said, "I suggest we get this craft under cover. Camouflage. The local friendlies say it'll be at least two weeks before we can fly out." "How the h.e.l.l do they know?"

Kyria shrugged. "They know local conditions, sir."

"And what do they expect us to do until then?" the man demanded.

His eyes rounded as Demetria and several of the scouts came up, bows, swords, bronze bras, and all.

Not an ounce of cellulite on them anywhere. Banks and Kyria covered their mouths at the same time to conceal smiles.I believe the technical term is"relax and enjoy it, " Kyria thought.

"They're very friendly, sir," Kyria said. "I'm sure they'll think of something."

There was some satisfaction in knowing that she wouldn't be leaving the Amazons in the lurch. And at least as much in watching Boomer's face as the Amazons gave him the once-over. Maybe he'd stop preening soon.

And best of all, since all of them were in it, there wouldn't be any scapegoating. Talk about unit cohesion.

Or maybe the best thing to say would be: Don't ask. Don't tell.

As an infant, Rosemary Edghill was discovered floating down the Amazon in a hatbox and was raised by the Lords of the Middle Terraces in downtown Zinderneuf. Though a dead ringer for the Crown Prince of Ruritania, she has found time to write over a dozen novels in several genres and far too many short stories like this one.

No, I havenotbeen drinking; that's the bio she sent me in its entirety. So there.

Bad Heir Day

Rosemary Edghill

For, lo! Whosoever pulleth this swordeth out of the stoneth, shall, all things being equal, probably be King of Britain, more or less, if everything works out okay.

From theProphecies of Geoffrey the Equivocal,Sixth Rev. Ed.

It's not my fault how things turned out. My brother (he's not really my brother, but that's another story that the bards don't like to sing) says it's only what anyone could expect, but Mo has a much lower opinion of people than I do. Probably that comes from having studied magic in his misspent youth, although if you ask me, growing up on a farm with three older brothers like Ingrate, Aggravating, and Garish would be enough to sour anyone's disposition. By the time I was old enough to get to know them, I was glad, believe me, that Mother'd had the foresight to dress me as a boy. Not that this alone would have been enough to save me, but I could run fast, too. Faster than the sheep, anyway. But you'll be wanting to hear about the prophecy, and my parents, and things like that. I would like to stress that I neither planned nor expected how things turned out. Maybe Mo did. You could always count on Mo for things like that. Complicated plots and really spectacular revenges, that's my brother.

Well, step-brother, anyway. And it isn't as much his fault as it was the old king's. Rules are rules and prophecies are prophecies, and people should understand that what they say is what they mean, no matter what they intended to say instead. But the person whose fault itreally was, was Ambrius' merlin.

You'd think people wouldn't go around annoying wizards, wouldn't you? But kings are all the same, Mo says. He keeps wanting to tell me this long story about somebody named Saul who was king a long way east of here, and I tell him, "Mo, what is yourpoint? Does this guy have a sword?" And Mo tells me that no, but there's a harp mixed up in it somewhere, which is not much of an inducement as I've never been really musical. Thezakpjip sounds like a pig caught in a gate, if you ask me, and Orkney's too damp for harps. The bards are always complaining.

Anyway, I suppose you want to know about King Ambrius. The main thing to know is, he was one of these guys who put everything off until way beyond the last minute, and so the bottom line is, he's eighty, he's dying, and he hasn't got an heir. What he does have is a War Duke named Uther, and guess who's the insiders' pick for the next king? (This is the point at which Mo always wants to tell me about some people named David and Adonijah and Solomon and Abis.h.a.g. I ask him, doesn't he know any stories about people withnormal names?) Anyway, what Uther didn't know when he hustled Ambrius off that mortal coil was that the king had gotten an heir on a girl named Nimhue, a serving girl of the blood of the Old Line who had been brought to Ambrius' bed to give him heat. You can get away with a lot if you're king, as I intend to prove. I came into the world while Uther, now High King of Lochrin, was still piling stones on Ambrius' tomb in blessed ignorance of my mother's interesting condition.

I was smuggled from the palace on the night of my birth by the king's merlin, who was a lot fonder of my mother than he was of Uther, especially considering Uther had gone secretly to the Druids to be named Pendragon and King, and so much for the King's Royal Companions, a.k.a. the hostages Ambrius had exacted from all the n.o.ble families of the realm with the promise that, failing further developments, one of them would be King.

It sounds complicated, but it's not. A few murders, some betrayals, a clandestine alliance or two . . . of course, by the time Uther was. .h.i.tting his stride in the backstabbing department, Nimhue was long gone.

Uther had done a major prereign housecleaning and parceled out the old king's women to whoever would take them. Mom got Lot, Orkney, and four stepsons. Uther got the throne. The merlin got the gate, because Uther didn't want him around when he was breaking his latest set of campaign promises.

He'd promised the Druids that he'd drive out the followers of the Chrestos who'd come in on a "One G.o.d-One Vote" platform and were annoying everybody. What the Druids had failed to note was that the Chrestians were likethat with the Roman legions, and Uther thought that a Roman legion might be more good to him later on than a few sprigs of mistletoe and some sacred snakes, but by the time the Druids had worked that out for themselves Uther was already on the throneand anointed with the Dragon's Blood, and they were pretty much stuck with him.

n.o.body in Orkney paid much attention to this at the time. If it didn't come in a dragon ship waving torches, no one up north really cared. Still it was always amusing to hear what fools thesa.s.senach were making of themselves, so when the merlin came to visit (usually arriving just before the first hard snow of the season, necessitating his staying the winter; the man had a marvelous sense of timing, ask anyone) and tell us what was going on down in Lochrin, we listened. Ingrate, Aggravating, and Garish (Lot's threeeldest, in order of annoyance) never were sure he wasn't going to turn them into toads (a vast improvement, it would be, but not really astretch, in my opinion) so they were marginally better behaved while he was here. Mo and I were the youngest, so we got most of his attention.

I think he would have liked to take Mo as his successor, but Lot was real down on the whole castration thing (Mo wasn't too big on it either, truth to say), so most of what the merlin knew would die with him.

At least, I thought so at the time. Now I'm not so sure. Being King changes your perspective.

Meanwhile, by the tenth year of Uther Versus Practically Everybody (the Tribute Kings of the Royal Kindred being really sore losers who could carry a wicked grudge), Uther was pretty desperate for some Peace In Our Time. The Druids weren't talking to him, the Legions were staying put in Armorica, and the Chrestians were proving to be a pretty weak reed-the White Priest might talk a good fight, but he couldn't bring Uther alliances and he couldn't bring him luck.

So when Ambrius' merlin floated a rumor that he had one last great magic to perform for the right person and the right price, Uther jumped at it like a gaffed trout. What the merlin did then did not bring Uther luck either, though it took Uther some time to figure that out. He was too dazzled by this fairy tale about a magic sword known only to the merlins' college, which lay in a cave in the hills to the west and upon which Ambrius had sworn his vows of kingship.

And which, the merlin let it be known, he was willing to give Uther as a free gift, owing to how he was the last of his line and all. Uther, never a subtle man, believed him.

And so the merlin went off with the White Priest, a cohort of soldiers, and two teams of double-yoked oxen to fetch Guenhwyfar the Shining, the merlin's magic sword. They found her right where he said she'd be, only there was a slight catch: Guenhwyfar was sunk to the hilt in two sword-stones.

One was an iron anvil such as swords had been forged on since my grandfather's day, and the one below that was a heavenstone such as the old bronze swords were poured out on. And written upon them both in large friendly letters was the merlin's final judgment upon Uther: that anyone who might draw the sword forth from the stone and anvil was the true and rightful overlord of the land, accept no subst.i.tutes.

Anyone, mark you.

Well, you probably know the rest of the story as well as I: that everyone-starting with Uther-tried to pull the sword out and n.o.body could, which was way too bad because Uther, like Ambrius before him, did not have an heir. Uther had gone through six Queens in all (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, left with no forwarding address), with the interval between the weddings (and the beddings and beheadings) getting shorter as Uther lost patience, until there was absolutely n.o.body in all Lochrin willing to date the man, let alone marry him.

This was the main reason that Uther didn't simply sink the whole mess (sword, stone, anvil, inconvenient prophecy) in the River Tame and let the fish try to draw the sword. While the merlin's travelling wondershow was sitting in front of Caer Londinium, Uther could at least pretend he was taking the whole succession thing seriously. (Mo says Uther thought he'd live forever. I tell Mo I'm not as stupid as he'd like to think I am. I think Uther thought that the last time a king had named an heir, look what happened to that king. Better to keep them guessing.) This was mainly the period during which Uther turned the place upside down looking for the merlin, whohad made himself a very scarce fellow indeed, as who could blame him? Looking for him, though, ruined Uther's health, and after twenty-one adventure-fraught years of reign, Uther was dying, andstill no heir in sight. People were talking, even up in Orkney.

Naturally there was a fair held in the City of Legions down South. A sort of a hiring fair, because with the sword stuck firmly in the stone, and Uther having done such a good job of weeding out importunate claimants in his salad days, any man's claim to the throne was by now as good as any other's (though, entre nous, the Duke of Cornwall's was better than most, plus he had an inexhaustible supply of Eirish mercenaries who'd work for cheapusquebaugh and some hot dance tunes). Claims needed armies to back them, and my step-father had an army for sale. Having learned from Uther's example, he didn't leave anybody behind in Orkney who might have the least interest in the throne. We all went, even Mother.

And certainly Mo, since Mo was easily bored and dangerous therewith and n.o.body knew it better than his father, especially after the affair of the sheep, the Archbishop, and the traveling portrait painter. If Lot went to war, I knew that the Three Stooges were going to draw lots to see who got Mo as squire, since, face it, wouldyou wanthim to be the last person who'd handled your armor?

But I digress.

While Uther or his spies would probably recognize Mother, he didn't even know I existed. So Mo and I had the run of the town, while Mother stayed put inside the tent and Lot went around trying to drum up business. Naturally, the first thing Mo and I wanted to see was the merlin's sword-me, because it was probably the last piece of magic anyone would ever see, Mo, because the last piece of magic anyone would probably ever see could probably be used to cause trouble.

It's much better to stay on his good side, really. But he was my best (and only) friend and I'd always liked him. Besides, he has a strong appreciation of how long I can carry a grudge.

Anyway, we got to the courtyard in front of the White Tower, which was the king's residence, and there Guenhwyfar was, surrounded by bored guards and gold-painted iron chains.

"Do you think it's true?" I asked Mo, after I'd puzzled out the inscription on the stone and the anvil. The merlin had taught me to read, but it wasn't like there were any books in Orkney to practice on and I was a little rusty.

"You mean, do I think somebody can pull the sword out of the stone and live past the point Uther's chief steward Gaius slips something into their wine? No," he said comprehensively.

"But it says that whoever draws the sword gets to be king."

"Don't believe everything you read," Mo advised me kindly.

"It isn't fair," I said, kicking at a stone. Mo rolled his eyes, then grew thoughtful. "No," he said reflectively, "it isn't, is it?"

Lot's first mistake was bringing Mo, and his second was in giving Mo enough free time to reflect on how much he'd hate going to war as squire to one of his brothers. This meant that by Friday everybody in Caer Londinium had heard a shocking new rumor that Uther was going to give everyone one last chance to draw Guenhwyfar the Shining out of the stone-everyone,not just knights and n.o.bles andwell-connected types like that. It was either the exciting new rumor (three guesses on the source) or the sight of his va.s.sals preparing to carve him like a roast out of sheer boredom and uncertainty; either way, Uther geeked and set a date.

By the next Holy Day of the Chrestos a tent city stretched along both sides of the River Tame for half a league and the line to try Guenhwyfar was nearly as long. Uther made an impressive speech for a man who had to be carried out in a litter and swore that he would abide by Guenhwyfar's choice . . . and that any man who wouldn't do the same had better ride for the border, because his lands were forfeit.

It was exciting policy decisions like that which got Uther where he was today: no matter which way the cat jumped, all the kings were sworn to peace and mutual a.s.sistance. Mo said that Tyndareus had made all the Greek Kings swear a similar oath about somebody named Helen. My opinion is n.o.body would go to war over a girl. I don't know where he gets this stuff.

The princes had finished up by noon, and second sons and landless men were trying now, equally without success. Uther had gone back to the White Tower, but there were enough bored guardsmen and White Priests around to make sure he was informed of anything interesting.

"You try it," Mo said to me.

"Yeah, right," I answered. Mo's brothers were in the queue waiting for their turns, and if Guenhwyfar could be wooed by brute force and stupidity, we'd have a new king by tea-time.

"Let me list the reasons," Mo said, and proceeded to tell me a bunch of things I didn't know he knew, ending up with: "and since the inscription says'whomsoever ,'and Uther says he'll abide by her choice, you've got it taped."

a.s.suming I could pull the thing at all, but Mo never let minor obstacles like that stand in his way.

"And what's in it for you?" I asked suspiciously, because Mo did not generally exert himself for nothing.

"To be your chancellor," he said promptly. "And not Gawain's squire."

I guessed they'd already drawn the lots. So to speak.

"If I can be King," I said, "you can certainly be Chancellor, Modrat."

We had to wait until Ingrate, Aggravating, and Garish were out of the way, drowning their sorrows in the nearest ale-b.u.t.t, but by the time they were well gone the only people who approached Guenhwyfar did so for sport, and it was easy enough to usurp their place. While the sun still stood a good handsbreadth above the horizon, I stood on the platform and clasped Guenhwyfar.

I knew at once that the merlin had left her for me and that Mo'd probably had inside information. One might suggest that if the merlin had wanted me to have Guenhwyfar, it would have been better just to bring her to Orkney, but that wasn't how his mind worked. And besides, his way had led Uther into a most inconvenient pledge (never p.i.s.s off a wizard, remember?), and as I have said, rules are rules and prophecies are prophecies, and Uther had been very explicit: who pulled the sword would be king, and king hereafter.

So I did. Wouldn't you know that one of my step-brothers would pickthen to be thrown out of the tavern?

Ingrate-or, to name him properly, Gawain-staggered to his feet, took one look at me, and bawled out for all the world to hear: "That's my sister Vivane! She can't be King!"

So I'm a girl. Sue me. I was amazed he knew, actually. Most people don't look past the hair and the clothes.