Dies the Fire dtf-1

by S. M. Stirling

  “So far, like you say. I’m just in charge of this scouting party,” Havel said. He’d been careful to give that impression here. He wasn’t altogether sure how much Arminger had been taken in. “Like when I was back in Force Recon.”

  Surprising how many educated people think a Marine noncom must be a no-neck dullard. Useful misconception, though.

  “The consensus is that the land’s better here, and that by the time our whole party reaches the area it’ll be near-enough empty, more so than anything good east of the Cascades where the initial die-off isn’t so bad. There’s a lot of people on the move there, and not just townsfolk; places that depended on pump-irrigation, for instance. The best spots are already held and the farmers and ranchers have most of the labor they need and all they can feed until the harvest. We didn’t want to settle for being sharecroppers or hired hands anyway.”

  “Logical,” Arminger said. “I think this generation’s sharecroppers and hired hands will be the serfs and slaves of the next. And you’re not sentimental; I like that. But by the end of this year, or next at most, I intend to control the Willamette. It’s the natural core for a… kingdom, state, whatever… ruling the Northwest; nearly ten thousand square miles of the best rainfed farmland in the world. You… Bearkillers… would be well-advised not to try to fight me for it.”

  Now we get down to it, Havel thought.

  “We didn’t intend on making a bid for the whole thing. You’d prefer we go somewhere else?”

  “Oh, on the contrary. I can always use a group of… sensible fighting men. Centralized government isn’t possible anymore, without powered machinery or fast communications. Or without cannon for that matter. I would grant you lands, and authority over those living on them-provide you with labor, if necessary, farm tools, seed, livestock. In return, you acknowledge me as ultimate overlord, furnish armed men when I call for them, plus labor for public works like roads, and give me a reasonable share of the yearly profits from your… demesne, shall we call it. In return, you get the help of the whole Portland Protective Association when you need it.”

  The word demesne tickled Havel’s memory, a vague recollection of something Ken Larsson and Pamela had mentioned in one of their campfire conversations. So did the whole setup Arminger was outlining.

  “Exactly what period of history were you a professor of, Lord Protector?”

  Arminger looked at him with narrowed eyes; the expression on Sandra’s face was identical. Havel cursed himself behind an impassive mask.

  You should be consistent when you try and get someone to underestimate you. Bad Lord Bear. No biscuit for you!

  “Ninth through twelfth centuries,” the Protector said. “Early feudal Europe, specializing in Normandy and the Norman principalities-England, Wales, Ireland, Sicily.”

  “Sicily?” Havel said, trying to sound idly curious.

  “Indeed, Sicily and southern Italy; conquered by Norman religious pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. They went to do good, and in fact did very well. rather as I plan to do.”

  Havel raised a brow and smiled crookedly. He didn’t want Arminger to think he was a patsy, either.

  “But you don’t, as of now, control the Willamette? Sir.”

  “No,” the Protector said. “Right now, it’s Portland, and part of the lower Columbia. Our current southern and western border is roughly a semicircle from Oregon City to Tualtin. Does that mean your group won’t consider my offer?”

  “No, sir. We will most definitely consider it-when and if we get here.”

  Leaving you to assume that here means Portland, and that we’ll come up I-84. Assume makes an ass of you and me.

  Aloud he went on: “And depending on our appreciation of the situation then in the light of our own interests. I’ll certainly recommend that we take your offer under advisement and send further scouts later in the year, when we’re closer. The Pendleton committee offered us land; it just wasn’t very good land when you don’t have modern equipment to work it. Plus the politics there look unstable, as you said.”

  Slowly, Arminger nodded; then he made a gesture of dismissal, with grudging respect in it.

  “You can start on your way back tomorrow then. Ask the steward for anything you need in the way of amusements tonight, or supplies tomorrow.”

  “Thank you kindly, sir.”

  Havel stood, nodded his head in an almost-bow, and led his companions out the carved-teak door, moving easily, but conscious of the sweat that trickled down his flanks despite the coolness of the air. They were billeted in a yellow-brick apartment building half a block away, and he’d be very glad to get there.

  “Mike!” Eric hissed, after they passed the guards with their halberds and crossbows. “What the hell were you-”

  He gave a muffled oofff! as Josh took his arm and elbowed him in the ribs as he did it. Havel draped a comradely arm around his shoulders for an instant, and said loudly: “Yeah, sounded like a pretty reasonable proposition.”

  Josh nodded. “Certainly the best offer we’ve had so far.”

  Eric missed a step and then nodded vigorously; he was young and still had a bit of the sense of entitlement produced by being brought up rich, but he wasn’t stupid. They passed through the corridor, then into a vast open area where the reconstruction work was still under way. From the looks of it, this was going to be a barracks or ready-room.

  Havel stopped, looked around, and went on: “Thank God we don’t have to worry about electronic bugs anymore… anyway, didn’t it occur to you that he has a vigorous zero-fault tolerance program for those who tell him ‘no’ to his face? Like, nailing their heads up over the door?”

  Eric nodded. Havel thought for a moment: “You ever do any of that role-playing stuff?”

  “D and D? A little. I wouldn’t have figured you for the type, Mike.”

  Havel gave a rare grin. Eric wore a lot better now than he had when they’d first met; he suspected it was mostly a matter of having real work and real responsibilities.

  When you’re in it, you grow up fast. Aloud he went on: “I wasn’t into D and D; working on my Harley and deer hunting and track and field were more my style, when I could duck out of chores at home. I even read the odd book.”

  Eric mimed staggering in surprise, and Havel gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

  “But there was this girl I knew in high school in ‘eighty-seven who was a fanatic about it; Shirley, real cute, and by rumor a demented mink in the sack-”

  “- and you thought you could make a saving-roll into her pants?”

  “Hey, I was a teenager, all dick and no brains, like some people around here right now. Thing is, she liked the Chaotic Evil types and I couldn’t compete.” Seriously: “The Protector and the way he operates remind me of the guy she dumped me for-dressed in black a lot, had this little scraggly peach-fuzz goatee like a landing strip on his chin, lot of attitude, thought he was seriously bad. And he was smart, but not as smart as he thought he was-for example, he thought all those little needling jabs were going right over my thick jock head. And he thought he could fight ‘cause he’d pranced around a dojo a little, in a black gi, of course.”

  A reminiscent smile, and he rubbed the knuckles of his right fist into his left palm. “About the time I finally gave up on Shirley, I broke the little pissant’s nose out behind the school gym-caught hell from the principal, but it was worth it, and I planned on enlisting anyway.”

  Soberly: “Anyway, give you odds the Protector was his clone when he was a kid and always played a, what the hell was the name… yeah, a dwerg or a draug or a Dark Elf or magical assassin or something.”

  “Now he’s trying to do it for real?”

  “Yeah, and it won’t work in the end, I’d bet. We may have had a change in the laws of nature, but I don’t think even the Change could make the world that much like a D and D game. Plus I think he’s got this thing about the history he used to study, the feudalism thing, and that won’t work either, at least not right
away, although it’s a better bet long-term than the Evil Overlord stuff. We may have had all our toys taken away, but the people he’s dealing with weren’t born back then.”

  “I don’t know, Mike,” Eric said. “He has taken over around here, and he looks like he’s getting things organized. People will put up with a lot, for that and for food.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “And he’s also operating on a pretty big scale. What was that Russian saying Eric’s dad quoted?”

  “Quantity has a quality all its own,” Havel said. “Yup. I’m not saying the Protector would be a pushover. Even if he goes down, he could do a lot of damage first; in fact, he certainly will do a lot of damage whether he wins or loses.”

  A glance over his shoulder, and he continued meditatively: “If he weren’t such a looney-tooner, I’d actually give that proposition of his serious consideration. Even though he is… “

  Eric made a disgusted noise. Havel went on: “I said if, kid. The other problem is that he’s got big eyes. I think it’s going to be a join-him-or-fight-him thing everywhere in the Columbia basin, eventually. Damn.”

  Eric nodded. “We’re still not committed,” he pointed out. “I mean, we could head southeast, try the Snake River country, or even get out across the Rockies over the summer. Try the High Plains, or find somewhere to winter and then a chunk of good farming country we could claim.”

  Josh tapped the fingers of his left hand on his sword hilt; the brass strips of the guard rang a little.

  “Problem with that is, first, good country isn’t going to be all that easy to find without we drive off someone else. And second, we could walk straight into something just as bad as this Protector guy. I got this ugly feelin’ ambitious men are going to be right common for a good long while now.”

  “We’ll see,” Havel said. A grin: “I mean, hell, I’m ambitious. And tomorrow, we ride out of here-south. He admitted he doesn’t control the Willamette. I’d like to see if anyone does, and what the prospects are, before we go back and start making decisions.”

  Kenneth Larsson wept with the jerking sobs of a man unaccustomed to tears.

  “Shhh,” Pamela said, holding his head against her shoulder in the cool canvas-smelling dimness of the tent. “Shhh. It’s all right, Ken.”

  The tears subsided. “I’m so fucking useless,” he said. “I’m sorry, Pam.”

  “For what?” she said. “Hey, Ken, I’ve been having a fine old time tonight. Young men don’t make love to a woman; they use the woman to make love to Mr. Dickie. Give it time.”

  He relaxed, probably amazed she didn’t want to kick him out of her bedroll and never see him again. Pamela’s lips quirked in the darkness.

  I meant what I said, she thought. And besides, Ken-we can’t walk out on each other, not anymore. We’re all stuck with each other unless we want to leave the outfit.

  Ken took a shuddering breath. “I haven’t been much use to any woman, since Mary… died. I couldn’t protect her or my daughters-yeeeeow!”

  Pamela poised her fingers to give his chest hair another painful tweak.

  “What was that for?” he gasped.

  “For being stupid, is what. It isn’t like you. Will Hutton couldn’t protect his family, and he’s as tough as anyone in the outfit. And Mike couldn’t have alone, either-what’s the old saying, even Hercules can’t fight two?”

  “He rescued us.”

  “With Eric and Will helping! We protect each other. You didn’t protect your family before the Change, either: the law did, and the police did, and the military did, and the State of Oregon did, and the U-S of A did. Now the outfit does. And you’re our engineer, and you know a hell of a lot of history. You’re at least as useful to everyone as I am, or Will is.”

  Softly: “I played at Renaissance fencing because it was fun, Ken; I’m a middle-class Jewish veterinarian from southern California! I never thought I’d have to kill with it. Hold me, will you?”

  A few minutes later: “Yeeeow! What was that for!”

  “To drive the lesson home.” Her hand strayed.

  “Thanks, but-”

  “Hey, I’m doing that ‘cause I like it, buddy! Doesn’t feel bad, does it?”

  “No, but-”

  “There’s no prize for making the finish line here,” she said. “Just two codgers having fun… “

  A moment later: “Well, well!” She rolled over and straddled him. “That does feel nice!”

  Seventeen

  “Lord and Lady, I don’t think I can stand this much longer,” Judy Barstow said, her olive Mediterranean skin gray.

  Juniper nodded. They were ten miles north of Salem, and…

  She wiped at the flies crawling over her face, spat, and pulled the bandana up over her face again, which let her breathe through her mouth without inhaling any of them-even after many days’ exposure, she hadn’t gotten used to the stink. Her eyes skipped over the bodies lying by the road, and the rats that crawled bloated and insolent among them. Rags and tatters of flesh were left; the crows were at them too, but the rats were so numerous that they could drive the birds off in chittering hordes. Inside an SUV windows pullulated with heaving gray bodies…

  “It’s almost as bad here as it was along I-5,” she said. “I don’t think we should try to get any closer to Portland.”

  “No,” Judy said. “I don’t either. My grandfather got out of Lithuania in World War Two… I never really understood what he was talking about before.”

  Almost compulsively she opened the economy-sized bottle of sanitizer again, and handed it around. Juniper’s face and hands were already raw and chapped from the desiccating effect of the alcohol-based solution, but she obediently scrubbed down all the exposed parts of her body. Steve and Vince followed suit.

  None of them had much skin exposed, despite the mild heat. When you thought of where the flies had been…

  “No, we shouldn’t be here,” the nurse-midwife went on. “We’re endangering the whole clan as well as ourselves. I never thought it could be as bad as this! If someone designed an environment to spread disease, this would be it.”

  She swallowed and went on: “How… how can They let this happen?”

  Juniper pushed her bicycle over beside her friend’s and put her arm around her shoulders; that was more symbolic than anything, when the person you hugged was wearing an armored jack, but symbols counted.

  “How could They let the Holocaust happen, or the Black Death, or the Burning Times? We’re not People of the Book; everything’s connected, but we don’t have to imagine that everything happens according to a Divine Plan. It could be our fault, something humans did through carelessness or malice. It could be aliens doing the same. Or… it could be something the Otherworld did for our own good.”

  “Our good?” Judy asked, looking around.

  “We might have killed the planet, if this hadn’t happened. Killed the whole human race, and the plants and the animals too. I don’t know, but it’s possible.”

  Judy drew a breath, coughed, and nodded. “All right. Thanks. But let’s get out of here!”

  Juniper nodded and pulled out the map. “All right,” she said. “We had to know… but oh, how I wish we didn’t!” Her finger traced a road west and then south. “We’ll cross here, near Wheatland, and turn south towards Corvallis, then slant across to home the way I did right after the Change.”

  Vince Torelli had put an arrow to his bow as soon as they stopped. He left it there as he put the weapon back in its frame across the handlebars, held by the nock’s grip on the string and the angle of the arrow-shelf. Then he stepped on the pedals and darted out ahead of them, keeping a careful hundred yards in advance. The two women followed; it took them a little more time to build up speed, as their bicycles were towing little baggage carts that held their modest supplies. Steve Matucheck followed behind, looking over his shoulder regularly.

  The stink died down as they moved west-away from the produce truck that had probably attracted the group o
f people who stayed around it and died, and into open country. They wove down the two-lane blacktop, eyes busy keeping watch on the empty fields to either side-and not ignoring the abandoned cars and trucks that sat as they had since 6:15 p.m., March 17th.

  Back at her cabin, she could go hours without thinking about the Change; days, sometimes, in the scramble to get the fields planted. Out here, not a minute went by when you could forget.

  Once they were out from strip-mall development the fields were eerily silent; grass tall and shaggy, but not a cow to be seen; now and then a field of beets gone tangled with weeds, or wheat beginning to head out, or an orchard with fruits or nuts starting to swell. There were still occasional bodies by the road-people had stuck to those lines of travel, mostly trudging back and forth until they dropped, as far as she could see. The sun was cruelly bright, and she swallowed as a brace of crows launched themselves off a telephone wire.

  Another hour, and they stopped for a drink from their canteens; Judy restrained herself from checking the water, since she’d made sure they brought it to a rolling boil for twenty minutes that morning.

  “Anyone seen those dogs?” Juniper asked; a feral pack had shadowed them.

  “Not since about ten,” Steve Matucheck said.

  “Odd. We haven’t seen a living soul since yesterday, and yet so many stayed by the roads until they died,” Juniper said.

  Surprisingly, Vince Torelli spoke up. “Lady Juniper, I think it’s part of the same thing. The ones that stayed at home, or walked back and forth on the roads, they died. The ones with sense enough to get away, they stood a better chance-but we won’t be seeing them, much. Not around here.”

  Juniper nodded, trying not to let the young man see how much being called Lady Juniper annoyed her. Yes, you called a High Priestess Lady in the Circle, but it didn’t apply in day-to-day life and Vince wasn’t even a member of the coven. Dennis had started doing it, and she suspected it was as much to irritate her as anything else; his sense of humor had been easier to take when she only had to do it occasionally, instead of 24/7.