The Given Sacrifice by S. M. Stirling

self-conscious about their function now that he was older and knew
     more about it. It was no longer simply a place he lived sometimes, like Montinore
     Manor back in the barony of Ath that he thought of as
really home
, or the townhouse near Portland.
    Tiphaine spread the long callused fingers of her right hand slightly, half a gesture
     of agreement, half a motion like touching a swordhilt.
    “Taking Dawson wasn’t really cost-effective, no matter how much plowland it has or
     even how many extra workers we got. I remember distinctly at the time Sandra thought
     Norman was getting Big Eyes syndrome again, pushing our frontier that far north,”
     she said. “Risky. We were overstretched.”
    Renfrew shrugged. “Our big advantage was getting organized first, and at least
suspecting
where the pointy end of the sword went, not to mention
having
swords and not just kitchen knives on sticks. That was a wasting asset. Norman knew
     we had to use it or lose it.”
    “Norman just liked looking at the map and rubbing his hands and saying:
Mine, all mine! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
”
    “Yeah, that’s him to the life, but it worked. And half the time back then we hardly
     had to fight at all to take over, people were so glad to see someone who knew what
     they were doing and had a plan. Later . . . later it got a whole lot harder.”
    “We had to fight for Dawson, all right,” she said. “And then fight
seriously
to keep it when the Drumheller government got their act in gear and decided to restore
     British Columbia.”
    Conrad spread his massive hairy spade-shaped hands. “By then we had some castles built,
     and they never did manage to cleanse us from the sacred soil . . . or permafrost . . .
     of Canukistan.”
    “They certainly tried. The Yakima is a lot warmer and closer, and we could have rolled
     up the rest of the towns there after the Tri-Cities fell, if we hadn’t had so many
     troops chasing Canuks through the snowdrifts and getting frostbite, also arrows in
     the rump.”
    The Count nodded. “Remember the February campaign? Back in . . . Change Year Five,
     or Six, wasn’t it? You were doing scout work there with . . . mmm, Katrina Georges?
     She died four or five years later, in that ratfuck rescue attempt with Eddie Liu after
     the Mackenzies kidnapped Mathilda? Dawson would have been your first real war, apart
     from all that black-bag and spec-ops work you two were doing as Sandra’s Teen Ninjas.”
    “Change Year Five
and
Six,” Tiphaine said, her voice softening a little. “Kat and I were doing scouting,
     right . . . we actually
were
scouts before the Change, you know. Girl Scouts. It’s the main reason we didn’t die.”
    The Chancellor frowned. “I thought you were a gymnast? Olympic hopes and all that?”
    “Gymnastics first, but Kat talked me into the Scouts in ’ninety-seven, my mother pitched
     a fit . . . Sandra pulled some strings to have us attached to the reconnaissance element
     for the Dawson campaign. Norman thought we were a joke, but she wanted us to broaden
     our skill-sets. And get some mojo with the regulars.”
    “Ah, right. I remember you two mousetrapped that Mountie deep-penetration patrol.
     A nice change from all the times the sneaky bastards did it to us. Yes, and you marched
     up and plopped the heads down on the breakfast table and said
Pray allow us to present some friends, my lord
. He didn’t think
that
was a joke!”
    “He laughed, Conrad. He laughed so hard he snarfed his porridge and you had to pound
     him on the back. Kat offered to do the Heimlich on him and then he turned blue.”
    You can always tell when older people are reminiscing,
Lioncel thought indulgently.
They start using that old-fashioned way of speech, even my lady isn’t quite a Changeling
     that way.
    “He didn’t think
you
were a joke anymore. The heads, yes, that hit him right in the funny bone.”
    “We did think it would cheer people up,” Tiphaine said, a little