Dies the Fire dtf-1

by S. M. Stirling

She’d always trusted her first impressions of people, and had rarely been disappointed. Havel would make an excellent friend and a very bad enemy; provoke or threaten him or his and you could look for a sudden frightful blow, without warning, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

  “A lot of this bunch look sick, too,” he said. “I’ve noticed that before as well.”

  Judy spoke: “They were probably undercooking their… food,” she said. “You can safely eat fish or even beef rare, most times. Pork you have to cook thoroughly. Human flesh… “

  “Right. Josh, cover us. You two”-he nodded to Vince and Steve-“keep an arrow on the string and an eye out behind us. One of you stay at the entrance when we go in, and watch the horses. Don’t want them creeping back to corncob us. Ms. Mackenzie, if you and Ms. Barstow could back me and Eric up directly?”

  They all moved towards the BBQ place; that was where the smoke came from, trickling out of a sheet-metal chimney. The big picture window was unbroken; the lower half was frosted as well. Nobody felt like trapping themselves in the revolving door.

  Havel looked at Eric; they nodded without words, laid their swords down carefully, and picked up a big motorcycle between them; then they pivoted and threw it-six feet and through the glass. The crash and tinkle sounded loud across the corpse-littered parking lot.

  Juniper noted that the two young Mackenzies looked impressed; she snorted slightly to herself.

  A horse is even stronger, but those two don’t get that me-am-awestruck-junior-dog look when one hauls a ton of logs out of the woods. Men!

  Havel looked through the shattered glass, blade and shield up. Then he turned his head aside, grimacing slightly.

  “Christ Jesus!” he said, spat, then turned back to whatever was within.

  Judy looked as well, then turned and began vomiting. When Juniper stepped forward in alarm, Judy waved her back as she spat to clear her mouth. Mike Havel held up a palm to stop his own men likewise.

  “No point in letting this inside your heads unless you have to.”

  “They were… cooking,” Judy said. “They had a-” Another heave took her. “I wish I hadn’t seen it.”

  Havel nodded, sheathed his sword and drew the long broad-bladed knife he wore across the small of his back.

  “I’ll handle this,” he said with calm, flat authority.

  He went inside; they could hear wood scraping and crunching, and then his voice, speaking loudly as if to someone deaf or ill:

  “Do… you… want… to… die?”

  A rasping mumble, suddenly cut off; Juniper made the Invoking sign, as did Judy-and to her surprise, so did the two young men. Then Havel called an all-clear, and they stepped cautiously into the big dining area; the stench was stunning, even to hoses grown far less squeamish since the Change. Even with the front window smashed in it was dim, which she was thankful for, and she let her eyes slide a little out of focus as well. Havel had spread some of the filthy crusted tablecloths over… things… lying beside the big fireplace hearth that stood in the center of the room, radiating heat from a bed of coals.

  That had a copper hood, and firewood heaped nearby; the Eaters had been burning bits of planking and broken-up furniture… complete with the varnishes and stains in the wood.

  No wonder they were all mad! From the chemicals, as well as guilt and horror.

  The table beside it was scored with cuts, soaked with old blood and littered with knives, saws and choppers, a moving coat of flies buzzing around them.

  “I… don’t think there’s anything here,” Juniper said, lifting her eyes and focusing on the please wait to be seated sign still standing near the door. “If they’re holding prisoners, it’ll be out back. We ought to shout and then listen first; it might save poking around.”

  They did; in the ringing silence that followed she heard a muffled calling and pounding. She led the way back through the kitchen-empty, save for a few boxes of spices and salt and a severed blackened hand kicked into a corner and lying with its fingers clawed up as if reaching for something.

  She moved on grimly, down a near-lightless corridor, to a metal door that had probably been a cold-store for meats. Even in the dimness she could see long scratches in the paint on the walls, as if someone had tried to cling to the smooth surface while being dragged. Voices and thumping came from behind the metal door, muffled by the insulation.

  “We’ve come to get you out safe!” she called.“Hold on!”

  The voices redoubled, but the door looked strong, and the padlock was a heavy model with a stainless-steel loop as thick as her middle finger. Her heart revolted at the thought of rooting through the clothes of the dead Eaters outside, or among the grotesque filth in the room around the hearth of abominations; both would be dangerous. And the one with the key might have been among those who fled, anyway. She began to look around for a tool.

  “Just a second,” Mike Havel spoke, surprising her. “Josh, check the packtrain. I don’t think any of those maniacs would stop running that close, but no need to take a chance. And get some torches ready, we’ll want to burn the place down when we’ve checked things over. Ms. Mackenzie, I’ll be right back.”

  They squeezed past the knot of people in the corridor; Havel was back in a few seconds. Oddly, he was carrying a rifle.

  “Thought I saw this on a rack in the main room,” he said. “Over by the cash register.”

  “But… that won’t work,” Juniper said.

  Havel grinned, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “It won’t shoot, but it’ll work fine as a pry bar,” he said. “An ax or a sledge would be awkward, the way the door jamb is right against the end wall. This is a Schultz amp; Larsen 68DL hunting rifle, of all unlikely things, always wanted one myself. Hell of a thing to do with a fine piece of gunsmith’s work… Stand back, please.”

  He slid the barrel through the padlock between hasp and body, tested the position once or twice, set his hands on the underside of the stock and put a booted foot against the further wall. That made the skirt of his hauberk and gambeson fall back; he wore copper-riveted Levi’s beneath, and the incongruity of it made her blink for a second. Then he took a deep breath, emptied his lungs, filled them again…

  “Issssaaaaa!” he shouted, teeth bared in a rictus of effort.

  The lock parted and flew apart with a sharp ping of steel striking concrete. Havel threw the gun aside too, panting; the barrel had a perceptible kink in it now.

  “Show-off,” the blond youth said, but he smiled as he did.

  Juniper ignored them, pulling the latch open and then working the handle of the door; she had to dodge as the heavy portal swung open.

  A woman with matted hair and a face covered in bruises and crusted scabs ran out, bounced off Havel’s armored form with a shriek, then stopped and stared at Juniper’s face. The dim light in the corridor must seem bright to her; the inside of the cold-storage locker would have been stygian-black. And Juniper’s molten-copper hair was hard to miss.

  “Juney?” the prisoner said. “Juney?”

  “You know me-Carmen?” Her eyes went to the other captives. “Muriel? Jack?”

  The slight dark woman threw her arms around the High Priestess of the Coven of the Singing Moon; then the others were around her as well.

  “Juney, they wuh, wuh, were going to-”

  “Shhh, I know. You’re safe now. We cast the Circle and made the rite, and She brought us to you.”

  Eighteen

  “Oh, ladies bring your flowers fair

  Fresh as the morning dew

  In virgin white and through the night

  I will make sweet love to you;

  Your petals soon grow soft and fall

  Upon which we may rest;

  With gentle sigh I’ll softly lie

  My head upon your breast… “

  Juniper finished the tune, and laid her guitar aside. Their campfires were in a hollow where the hills began west of Salem, cut off from the flatlands, overlooked by little ex
cept the Coast Range forests. A huge oak leaned above the little hollow, and the low coals of the fires lit its great gnarled branches and the delicate new leaves, turning them brown-gold and green-gold. The sky above was clear, frosted with stars and a waxing moon that hung huge and yellow above the mountains; sparks drifted up to join them now and then, when a stick broke with a sharp snap amid the coals.

  She was feeling pleasantly not-quite-full, although closer to it than she had been in weeks. The kettle had held three big rabbits, as well as some wild onion, arrowhead tubers, herbs, and bits and pieces from both parties’ stores; noodles and sun-dried tomatoes and two cans of lima beans they’d found in an abandoned camper.

  The smell of it still scented the air, along with the fresh green grass and camas lilies. She’d contributed the makings for herbal tea, and she picked up a cup of it now.

  “Good of you to slow down and keep us company for a while,” she said across the coals. “It’s been a nice couple of days; a chance to let clean air blow the grue out.”

  It was a joy to be able to chat with someone new, as well, the pleasant meandering talk you had when people struck a spark of friendship and got to know each other. Beyond essentials, they’d mostly talked about times before the Change, as if to raise a barrier against the grisliness of their meeting. He’d found her ex-surburban, only-child, class of life as a wandering minstrel intriguing; just as she had his hard-grit blue-collar rural upbringing with swarms of siblings and relatives; and they shared a love of the woods and mountains, the trees and beasts.

  “No problem, we were heading this way anyhow,” Mike Havel said. “It’s been fun, and fun’s thin on the ground these days.”

  They were a quarter-circle away from each other; Judy was a little farther from the fire, and the second hearth held most of the rest-she could hear Muriel’s voice. A dear lady, but given to babbling at the best of times, and more so now; Eric and Josh were going to get an earful of Wiccan herbalism, whether they wanted to or not; at least that was happier than the bursts of tears in the first day and night.

  They’ve been surprisingly patient and gentle with the captives, that they have, with strangers they owe nothing, Juniper thought. Good hearts under those iron shirts.

  Mike Havel sat with his back against his saddle; his hands worked on a rabbit trap without needing to look at the task, long fingers fashioning the bent willow-withe and nylon cord with effortless strength. In boots and jeans and T-shirt under a battered-looking sheepskin jacket he appeared a good deal less exotic than he had in hauberk and bear-crowned helmet, but just as good.

  I’m not one to need a Big Strong Man at every moment, she thought. But I’m fair thankful this one came along when he did. Nor is he hard on the eyes, by Macha! Not stupid either, and strong of will without being a macho jerk; the women of the Bearkillers must be fair blind! Nice pawky sense of humor, too.

  Tactful questions had revealed he was single so far. There was wistfulness in the thought; they must part, and soon.

  “Figured your friends needed some recovery time,” he said. “Cutting our way through that hell-on-earth south of Portland wasn’t any fun for us three, either, and hard on our horses-we took it as quick as we could and not founder them. Slowing up for a bit makes sense.”

  He grinned: “And besides, while your style isn’t what I usually put on the CD player, it’s good-and Lord, but I’ve missed music! The only people in our outfit who can sing at all do cowboy songs. Mind you, it could be worse-one of my father’s sisters was always trying to make me and my brothers listen to Sibelius.”

  “Cowboy songs? You don’t like country?” she said, surprised.

  “Oh, I like country a lot. I meant real cowboy songs: cows, dust, horses-the old stuff actual trail riders sang to the dogies. Not bad, but sort of monotonous. My tastes run to Fred Eaglesmith, say, or Kevin Welch.”

  “Kevin Welch, is it?” Juniper said with a smile; she picked up her guitar and struck the strings, whistling for a second to establish the beat, tapping her foot and then putting a down-home rasp into her voice:

  “My woman’s a fire-eater,

  My woman’s ‘bout six feet tall… “

  Havel exclaimed in delight when she’d finished, leading a round of applause.

  “‘Hill Country Girl’! My favorite tune-never thought I’d hear it done right again!”

  Juniper laughed. “We have ceilidh all the time; well, all the time we’re not working or too cursed tired.”

  “Kailies?” Havel said, which was roughly the way it was pronounced.

  “Singsongs, really; the word’s Gaelic. Music and dancing; I was a professional, of course, and I can handle several instruments-not badly, either, if I say so myself-but Chuck’s a good hand on the mandolin and Judy can do wonders with a bodhran drum, and Dorothy is a piper, and plays a mean tenor banjo as well, and most of my old coveners can carry a tune. There’s a lot of sheet music at my cabin, of course; it was my base and as much of a home as I had. I specialized in Celtic music and folk and my own stuff, but it’s not all we do.”

  Havel whistled. “Sounds better than a CD player!”

  “More fun, truly. What do your people like to entertain themselves with of an evening, then?”

  “Well, we try to sing something else, now and then,” Havel said. “Angelica knows some Spanish folk songs. Astrid-Eric’s younger sister-does readings from her favorite books, or just tells stories; she and Signe both draw and sketch, and they’ve been teaching some others; and we have games, play cards… I do wish we’d had a good musician, though. Maybe we’ll get one.”

  “You don’t have a bad voice, Mike,” she said. “It just needs training.”

  “Haven’t had the time,” Havel replied. He hesitated, and went on: “Is Juniper your real name?”

  “It is now,” she said cheerfully, putting the tea down and strumming a little to accompany her words. “And has been these fourteen years; it’s my outer Craft name. I was sort of militant about it then; put it down to being sweet sixteen and at outs with my parents.”

  “Er… ” Havel said. “I’m sort of a lapsed Lutheran myself. I haven’t known many Wiccans.”

  Juniper laughed: “And the ones you did see tended to the impractical? Endless discussions of anything under the sun? A preoccupation with dressing up? Sort of flaky, overall?”

  She watched his embarrassment with a slight smile; he was about the most relentlessly practical man she’d ever met, on first impressions. He was probably trying desperately to avoid saying words on the order of some of my best friends are flakes.

  “Well, that’s not entirely mistaken,” she said, taking pity on him. “But there are all types in the Craft, from herbalists to dental hygienists, some varieties more flamboyant than others; not to mention the different traditions, which are as distinct as Baptists and Catholics. My coven, the Singing Moon. well, we’re a straightforward bunch. A musician-myself-a city gardener, a nurse, a couple who owned a restaurant… “

  “Certainly sounds like you’ve been doing well,” he said with relief. “Anyone who’s alive and not starving and has a crop planted is!”

  They looked at each other for a moment while she let a tune trickle out through her fingers. Then Havel cleared his throat and gestured at the piled rabbit-traps he’d wrapped in a blanket for carrying.

  “Guess I should get these set,” he said, then coughed into one hand. “Ah… care to come along?”

  “I’d be delighted,” Juniper said gravely, suppressing her smile-men had fragile egos and big clumsy emotional feet. “It’s a useful skill, setting snares for rabbits. Learned it from your grandmother, did you say?”

  “Her younger brother, Ben.”

  They both picked up their sword belts and buckled them on. As she rose and turned to slide her guitar into its battered case she saw Judy smiling at her from across the flame-lit darkness, raising her hand in the gesture of blessing.

  Juniper stuck out her tongue briefly, and turned to follow
Havel into the darkness. They both stopped for an instant beyond the reach of the firelight, staring outward to let their eyes adjust; she noticed Havel noticing what she’d done, and his nod of respect.

  The moon was a week past full, still huge and yellow, shining ghostly through tatters of cloud, and the stars were very bright-even now she wasn’t quite used to seeing them so many and so clear in this part of the country. Together they made it easy enough to find your way, if you were accustomed to nighted wilderness.

  After a moment they moved off the trail, through long grass thick with weeds, where a spiderweb shone like silver with beads of dew. Havel moved quietly-very quietly for a big man, and in unfamiliar country. Juniper followed him up the slope, through overgrown pasture towards a line of brush and trees behind a wire fence.

  “Good spot,” she said in an almost-whisper, when she saw where he was heading.

  She pointed, and they could both see the tracks and the slight beaten trail. “Creature of habit, your average rabbit, likely to come through here again.”

  “You a hunter?” he asked softly with a chuckle in the tone.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t hunt, not until the Change. But I liked watching the birds and animals, when I got the chance.”

  They both ducked through the wires of the fence, holding it for each other-his long saber was more of a nuisance than her gladius-and moved to where a fallen tree trunk made good shelter for a small animal low on the food chain to scan the meadow before venturing out. He rubbed grass and herbs between his hands before he planted the trap, and baited it with a handful of evening primrose roots. The next few went further up along the brush-grown verge, natural stopping-places for an animal attracted to the varied food that grew in edge habitats.

  They moved into the woods; mixed fir and oak, old enough to have a canopy over their heads. The cool green smell was different from the open meadow, more spicy and varied. It was much darker here, just enough to see their way.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  The spot showed close-cropped grass, beneath a high bank that cut off the wind; it also broke the roof of branches above, and let in a little starlight and moonlight.