Dies the Fire dtf-1

by S. M. Stirling

  I can just about handle it now, he thought. After years of pouring Tabasco over MREs to hide the taste. It would have killed me when I was Eric’s age.

  Most of the people in his neck of the woods clung to Old Country cooking habits, and Finns thought highly seasoned meant putting dill in the sour cream.

  The eating part of the Bearkillers’ homecoming celebration was about over; mainly variations on meat and bread, but well done; the grateful smell lingered, along with woodsmoke and livestock. It was full dark now, with a bit of a chill in the air and only an enormous darkness around their fires. Somewhere in the distance a song-dog howled at the stars, and he could hear horses shifting their weight and snorting in the corral behind the wagons.

  He flipped the bone into the fire, watching as it crackled and hissed and then burned when the marrow caught. Not far away a hound pup followed the arc with wistful eyes, but she was lying on a pile of them already, stomach stretched out like a drum. Havel was thinking of naming her Louhi, after the Old Country sorceress who could eat anything.

  And Christ Jesus, it’s good to be home.

  Will Hutton wailed a note or two on his new harmonica and set it down again.

  “You really ready to get back on the road?” he said.

  “You haven’t been back but half a week, and busy as hell that whole damned time.”

  Havel nodded. “We’ve about outstayed our welcome in the Kooskia area if we aren’t here for good,” he said. “We’ll start south tomorrow. Josh and Eric and I were doing fifty, sixty miles a day most of the way back.”

  A smile. “Tiring him out was the only way to keep Zeppelt from playing that goddamned accordion. Christ Jesus, if you knew the hours I’d suffered listening to those things as a kid, and watching the old farts lumber around dancing to it! And the kraut version is even worse.”

  “He ‘n’ his lady did seem a mite sore when they got in,” Hutton grinned. “Fact is, though, he’s not bad on that squeeze-box at all.”

  Havel shrugged; he didn’t want to argue a point of musical tastes. “So five or six miles a day with the whole outfit will be a rest-cure.”

  “That slow?” the Bearkillers’ trail boss said.

  Havel nodded: “I don’t want to travel too fast; Pendleton or the Walla Walla country by July or August-we can hire out to help with the harvest, or just pick some out-of-the-way wheatfields nobody’s working on and help ourselves-and Larsdalen in say October, November. By then the sickness ought to be burned out, and until then we don’t go near cities.”

  “Bit late for plantin’ surely?”

  “Not in the Willamette. You only get occasional winter frosts there; you can put in fall grains right into December, and graze stock outside all year ‘round.”

  Will frowned, turning the mouth organ over in his battered, callused hands. “Don’t like what you told about this Protector mofo,” he said. “Don’t much like it at all.”

  Havel grinned like a wolf. “The guy seriously torqued me off, yeah, I admit it, but I’m not just looking for a fight. The Willamette’s still the best place going, and I don’t think Mr. Protector is going to stay satisfied with what’s west of the Columbia Gorge, either. From what he said, he already had his eye on the waterways inland, too-and you can sail all the way up to Lewiston, if you hold the locks. That’s cheap transport nowadays.”

  Hutton’s lips pursed in thought. “Bit far to reach, things bein’ the way they are.”

  “Not him directly. But remember that deal I told you he offered me? One gets you five that’s his boilerplate-and every would-be little warlord within reach of Portland gets the offer. No shortage of them; they’re like cockroaches already. Give them some organization and backup, and things will get nasty all over this neck of the woods.”

  Ken Larsson nodded. He and Pamela Arnstein were sitting close with their hands linked; that had surprised Havel and flabbergasted Eric when he got back, but even Signe and Astrid seemed to be taking it in stride.

  Ken spoke slowly, deep in thought: “Not surprising, given what you told me about his academic background. I think he’s jumping the gun a little-it’s a bit early to try for full-blown feudalism. But it’s certainly more workable than trying to keep the old ways going.”

  “Like, we’ve got to learn how to crawl before we walk,” Havel said; a corner of his mouth turned up. “Get tribes and chiefs right, before we can have barons and emperors.”

  “More or less.”

  Hutton had been thinking as well: “Mike,” he said after a moment, “Does it strike you as a mite strange that the plague, the Death, got as far as Lewiston so fast?”

  “Hmmm. The Columbia-Snake-Clearwater is an easy travel route, and refugees from the coast did get that far… You suggesting Professor Arminger helped it along? Let’s not make him the universal boogeyman.”

  “Could be; or not,” Hutton said. “For sure it’s helpful to him that way, keeping the interior all messed up while he gets himself set. Anyway, I see what you’re drivin’ at. Stay here, go there, we’re still gonna end up fightin’ the man. Unless we move far south or east, and that’s damn risky too. Could be worse there and we’d be committed. Only so many months in the year and we need to find somewhere we can put in a crop. The Willamette… “

  Havel nodded. “It’s best because things are worse; no organized groups to stop us settling… well, not in parts of it, at least. There’s that bunch of monks around Mt. Angel, and Juniper Mackenzie and her neighbors, and Corvallis, and a bunch of small holdouts around Eugene, but that chunk around Larsdalen’s clear. Most of the central valley is empty.”

  “Thought you said there were families holdin’ out ‘round the Larsson spread.”

  “By hiding. Nothing organized-and if they don’t get someone to organize them, none of them will last out this winter. You need some security to farm. I think we could provide it.”

  Just then Signe came back to their campfire with a basket, followed by Angelica with a bottle and tray of glasses, and Astrid staggering under a collection of wooden struts and a large rectangular object. The basket held little chewy pastries done with honey and nuts; the bottle was part of the town’s gratitude, good Kentucky bourbon-priceless now, and usually jealously hoarded. Havel poured himself a finger of it, and splashed in some water.

  “What’ve you got there, kid?” he asked the younger Larsson girl indulgently; she had that epic-seriousness expression on her huge-eyed face.

  He’d noticed some smudges on her fingers lately, Magic Marker and paints. Signe had real talent when it came to drawing, but Astrid was better-than-competent herself. Apparently Mary Larsson had thought it was something suitable for her girls to learn.

  She gave him a smile, and went to work. The struts turned out to be an artist’s tripod and easel; the strange object she put on it was about the size and shape of a painting, or a very large coffee-table book.

  “Dad helped me find the paper,” she said, one hand on the cloth that wrapped it. “At the Office Max where we got all that stuff, you remember? Art supply section-non-acid-pulp drawing paper. And Will did the covers.”

  “We weren’t doin’ anything with that piece of elk hide,” Hutton said, a little defensively. “I like to keep my hand in at tooling and tanning leather. It’ll be right useful, one day.”

  “Signe helped with the drawings. And I took notes from everyone about everything!”

  Havel felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach; Astrid’s pale eyes had taken on that dangerous, joyous glint they had when she came up with something truly horrifying.

  She used her new dagger-which she wore every waking moment-to slit the string binding, then whipped off the cloth. Beneath lay a book-leatherbound board covers, rather, with an extensible steel-post clamp at the hinge for holding the paper. Across the front, tooled into the elk hide, was: the CHRONICLES OF LORD BEAR AND HIS FOLK: THE RED BOOK OF LARSDALEN.

  The letters were archaic-looking in a sloping, graceful fashion, carefully picked out
in gold paint.

  Havel felt his throat squeeze shut and his eyes narrow. Signe sank down beside him, elaborately casual, and leaned towards him on one elbow.

  “She needs to do this, Mike. It’s like therapy. Go with it? Please?”

  He forced himself to relax. A crowd had gathered, standing behind him. It was the usual suspects-everyone who didn’t have something urgent to do. There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment on a typical evening, and this made a delicious change.

  Astrid threw back the cover. The pages inside were large in proportion, big sketch-pad size. Across the top something was written in spiky letters; between the odd shapes and the flickering firelight it took him a moment to read:

  The Change came upon us like a sword of light!

  The Change came upon us like a monumental pain in the ass, Havel thought; but the drawing below was interesting enough-complete with him wrestling with the Piper Chieftain’s controls and Biltis yeowling inside her carrier box-the actual cat was sniffing around people’s feet and hissing at the hound pup.

  Astrid began to read the text. It was written in the Roman alphabet, cunningly disguised to look runic. Her high clear voice made the mock-archaic diction sound less ridiculous; absolute faith could do that. He almost rebelled when he got to the appearance of the Three Aryan Brotherhood Stooges, and she faltered a little.

  “You said they were like orcs, Mike!”

  “Ahh… Yeah, kid, I did say that. Go on, you’re doing great!”

  I didn’t say they had fucking fangs, girl, or arms that reached down to their knees, or little squinty yellow eyes and scimitars!

  Signe murmured in his ear again: “It’s sort of metaphorical. Showing them outwardly the way they were inwardly.”

  Havel smiled and nodded. It probably was theraputic for Astrid to do this; and looking around he found amusement and fondness on a lot of the adults’ faces. The problem was that the youngsters were just plain fascinated, and God alone knew what stories they’d be repeating when they were parents themselves. He kept smiling and nodding when the Eaters became a nest of goblins, his meeting with Arminger turned out to be a confrontation before a huge iron throne, with the Protector ten feet high and graced with a single slit-pupiled red eye in the center of his forehead…

  And Juniper Mackenzie was evidently a sorceress Amazon with a glowing nimbus of power around her, a wand trailing sparks, and guarded by Scottish-elf longbowmen.

  “More whiskey,” Havel said hoarsely, holding his glass out without looking around. “Please.”

  “Was she really like that?” Signe said. “Beautiful and mysterious?” A smile: “I sort of resent it when you go fighting cannibals with anyone but me, you know.”

  Tell the truth, Havel told himself.

  “Beautiful? Nah,” he said. “Cute, in a… cute sort of way, sort of like a scruffy hobo pixie. About five-three, redheaded, thirtyish-looked like she’d been spending a lot of time out of doors. Skinny. Nice singing voice, though.”

  Astrid finished up: “And to Larsdalen and home, he showed the way!”

  There was a moment of silence, and then a burst of whooping cheers; he wasn’t quite sure whether they were for him, as the subject of the epic, or for Astrid’s treatment of it. It certainly came out more colorful than the dirty, boring, often nauseating reality. Eventually they dispersed towards the open space in front of the wagons; there had been talk of dancing. Of course, that meant the Bearkiller analogue of music…

  “Got the storyteller’s gift, that girl,” Will Hutton said. “Tells things the way they should have been.” He popped one of the pastries into his mouth.

  “Married this woman for her cookin’,” he went on contentedly.

  Havel grinned at the smoldering look Angelica gave her husband; the fire that slipped down his throat as he sipped the bourbon was no more pungent-sweet.

  “My cooking? De veras? And here I thought it was because my brothers were going to kill me and the worthless mallate cowboy I’d taken up with!”

  “Now, honeybunch, you know it was your momma I was frightened of,” he said, mock-penitent.

  Then he looked over at the cleared area, brightly lit with half a dozen big lanterns. “Oh, sweet Jesus, no, no! Spare us, Lord!”

  Havel glanced that way himself, and snorted. Eric Larsson had a feed-store cap on backward, and a broomstick in his hand, evidently meant to be a mike stand; he was prancing around-

  “Christ,” his father said. “A capella karaoke rap! How could it come to this? How did I fail him?”

  “That boy may be able to jump some,” Hutton said dourly. “But Lord, Lord, please don’t let him try to sing!”

  Luanne Hutton leaned against the wagon behind Eric, holding her ribs and gasping feebly with laughter. A few of the other young Bearkillers were making stabs at dancing hip-hop style, and doing about as well as you’d expect of Idaho farm kids with no musical assist.

  Hutton surged upright. “C’mon, Angel. We got to put things right; let’s find Zeppelt and his squeeze-box.”

  Havel looked at Ken Larsson. “What gives with you getting your vineyard guy from Oz of all places?”

  “Australia has a lot of fine winemakers,” Larsson said defensively. “Hugo Zeppelt is first-rate. Smart enough to hide out in that old fallout shelter my father built, too, and get our horses into the woods when the foragers from Salem came by.”

  The chubby little Australian and his tall gangling blond wife had pushed Eric out of position with the Huttons’ help, and they were warming up on their instruments-accordion and tuba. Oom-pa-oom-pa split the night, already familiar from the trip back; Josh and Annie Sanders started organizing the dance-they had no musical talent to speak of, but she’d helped at church socials a good deal in her very rural Montana neighborhood.

  “Do-si-do, turn your partner,” Havel said. “Not only an Aussie with an accordion, but an Aussie who’s obsessed with polkas!”

  “He’s from the Barossa valley in South Australia, and it was settled by Germans,” Larsson said defensively. “And Angelica likes it.”

  “She’s Tejano,” Havel said. “San Antonio and the Hill Country used to be lousy with krauts. The oom-pa-pa beat spread like the clap. Put Zeppelt and Astrid together, and in a generation we’ll all be wearing lederhosen to go with the pointed ears. the Tubas of Elfland, going oom-pa, oom-pa.”

  “C’mon,” Pamela said; she’d been quiet that evening. “Let’s dance, oh fianc?Mike’s in one of his grumbling moods. Signe and the dog have to listen but we don’t.”

  They wandered over to where couples were prancing to the lively beat. Signe sipped at her own whiskey; her cheeks were a little flushed. For a moment they leaned shoulder-to-shoulder; then Louhi crawled between them, licking at hands and faces.

  “All right, that settles it. I christen thee Louhi, and you can start learning manners. Been ten years since I had a dog.”

  Signe smiled, tousling the young hound’s ears. “I’d have figured you for a dog sort of guy, Mike.”

  He shrugged. “I was, when I was a kid. Had this German shepherd called Max-very original, hey? From the time I was eight until just before I graduated high school.”

  He smiled, looking into the flames: “He used to sleep on the foot of my bed, bad breath and gas and all, and I even took him hunting.”

  “It’s odd to take a dog hunting?”

  “Max? Yeah, sort of like taking along a brass band. He saved a lot of deer from death. My dad couldn’t stand it-the mines were always laying people off with about a week’s warning, and there were four of us kids, so a lot of the time we needed that venison. But Max, he’d howl something awful if you tied him up when you got in the canoe.”

  “Canoe?”

  “Yeah, we had this creek that went by our place, and ran through some marshland-man, when I remember what my mom could do with wild rice and duck-then into a little lake with some pretty good hunting woods. Even better if you took a day or two and portaged a bit. White pine cou
ntry before the loggers got there; lots of silver birch, and maple. We had a good sugarbush on our land, in the back of the woodlot.”

  “It sounds lovely,” she said. “In fact, it sounds like Sweden-we visited there a couple of times, Smaland, where our family came from originally.”

  Havel’s mouth turned up. “Yeah, the Iron Range country is the grimmer parts of Scandahoofia come again-it’s even more like Finland. Makes you wonder if our ancestors had any brains at all-those of present company excepted, of course.”

  “Que?” Signe said.

  That was one of Angelica’s verbal ticks, and a lot of people had picked it up while he was gone.

  Havel mimed wonder: “Like, did they say to themselves: Ooooh, rocks and swamps, crappy soil, mosquitoes bigger than pigeons, blackflies like crows, and nine months of frozen winter blackness! Just like what we left. To hell with pushing on to golden, mellow California-let’s settle here!”

  Signe laughed and wrinkled her nose: “I saw the Larsson home in Smaland, and you could grow a great crop of rocks around it. Oregon probably looked really good by comparison. I mean, Sweden’s a pretty nice place to live now-or was before the Change, you know what I mean-but back in the old days, you could starve to death there.”

  “And in 1895 the Upper Peninsula of Michigan didn’t have a lot of Russians trying to draft you into fighting for the Czar, yeah, point taken. Anyway, Max, he would have starved to death if he’d had to hunt on his own-what the shrinks call poor impulse control. He got his nose frostbit a couple of times trying to track down field mice in winter; he’d go galloping across the fields with his muzzle making like a snowplow. I was too young myself to train him properly when he was a pup.”

  Louhi crawled further up, stuck her nose into Mike’s armpit and promptly went to sleep.

  “I’ll do better with Louhi here. Hounds scent-hunt anyway.”

  Signe considered him for a while, head on one side: “What happened to Max?”

  “Besides scaring the bejayzus out of deer and squirrel, getting into pissing matches with skunks, and shoving his face into a porcupine’s quills once a year? He used to get into the maple-sap buckets in the spring, too, pretty regular. Ever tried to get that stuff out of the fur of a hundred and ten pounds of reluctant Alsatian?”