Dies the Fire dtf-1

by S. M. Stirling

  Some remained to fight, but they seemed to be moving as if encased in amber honey. An armored man swung a jointed iron flail from a pre-Change martial-arts store at her; she ducked beneath it and smashed the edge of her buckler across his instep. Then she came erect like a jack-in-the-box as he doubled over in pain, driving the point of her shortsword up under his chin. Chuck’s spear drove into a belly, hard enough to snap scales loose from their leather backing; wet ruin spun away from the edge of Dennis’s bearded ax.

  A man came at her with a spear, but she didn’t bother to guard; a flash drawn across her vision was Aylward’s arrow, and it went through his throat in a red splash and spray, hardly slowing…

  It seemed only seconds later when the only living enemy were a handful who fled, wailing as they ran across the reaped wheat towards the tree-lined creek beyond. Juniper laid her sword in front of Aylward’s bow.

  “No,” she said, conscious of the same cold wind still blowing through her.

  Others were shooting, but they missed. Aylward wouldn’t.

  “We want a few to spread the word that this is no place for reivers to come.”

  Quiet had fallen, save for a broken whimpering and the wheezing breath of the enemy commander’s horse, dying slowly with three shafts through his ribs. Sutterdown men and Mackenzies alike hesitated for an instant of ringing silence, their eyes on her.

  Of themselves, Juniper’s arms reached up again, holding her buckler and dripping blade this time, spread over the field of battle. Wings beat at the corners of her consciousness, vast and black-feathered.

  “O you of humankind!” she cried. “Make peace with your mortality. For when you call on Me in such wise, then this too is God!”

  Then she staggered, knees buckling and eyes turning back up into her head for an instant. The world turned gray and light shrank to a point. Hands grabbed her under the arms, supporting her as she wheezed and fought for breath.

  “Anyone got any candy left?” she croaked.

  Someone did, giving it up without question; she stuffed it into her mouth despite the salt blood on her hands, washed it down with water and felt the dizziness recede, and the grayness fade from the edges of her sight.

  “I’m all right,” she husked. “I’m all right.”

  The men supporting her stepped back. One of them was Dennis; his ax was bloody, and more was splashed across his face and body, but the fear in his eyes was directed at her.

  She shook herself. “I feel… I feel like a flute that Someone was playing on.”

  “Jesu-I mean, God and Goddess, Juney, that was the scariest fucking thing I’ve ever seen!”

  He shook his head, leaning on his ax and panting like a great wheezing bellows for a second.

  “What happened? First it was like you were screaming right in my ear-or inside my head-and then you were like the original whirling Dervish, you were a blur. I didn’t even think about anything else except following you and hacking these guys up.”

  She felt her everyday self return, and with it a sharp twist of nausea at the sights and smells about her, and held up a hand palm out while she struggled back to self-command.

  Before the Change, this would have sent me catatonic, she thought. Now it just sickens me. Goddess, let me never see such things without sorrow. Let me never see such things again, please.

  Dennis was still staring at her. She answered his question: “Well, there’s a rational explanation for what happened, Dennie.”

  “Shit, I hope so, Juney.”

  She nodded: “Hysterical strength, amok, berserkergang; it’s all a well-known phenomenon, right there in the textbooks. There weren’t any miracles, were there? I didn’t glow red, or levitate, or cast thunderbolts, after all. Although. this is the sort of thing that gets legends and myths started.”

  “Ah,” he said, looking relieved. His face relaxed. “You think that’s what happened? Your subconscious took over?”

  “Oh, no, Dennie, you don’t get off that easy-and neither do I,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  He retreated a little as she went on: “What I think-know-is that I called on the Dark Goddess… and She came to me. It isn’t all light and love and laughter, my friend. There’s blood and fear and death and wickedness in the world, and the Mighty Ones act through us.”

  She reached out and touched the pentagram-and-circle amulet he’d taken to wearing. “And if this is more than a piece of jewelry, you’ve picked which explanation you want to believe, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said soberly. “I suppose I have.”

  Chuck came up to her. “One dead of ours,” he said, his eyes avoiding hers a little. “John Carson. A couple of wounded, but… mostly it was over by the time we reached the road. Judy and Dr. Gianelli are getting to work. They think the clan won’t lose anyone else.”

  “Blessed be,” she said sadly. “But it could have been worse.” She looked around, letting her eyes fall out of focus a little to miss detail. “Was worse, for them.”

  Aylward paused in recovering arrows and spoke with a surgeon’s calmness: “It’s like that, with surprise. Especially if the side surprised just gets the wind up and sods off regardless. They can’t run and fight, but you can chase and kill at the same time.”

  She nodded. “Find out how the Sutterdown people did, Chuck,” she said. “Get me Sheriff Laughton, if he’s alive and fit to move.”

  When he showed up a few minutes later Laughton had a bandage covering half his face, but he seemed to be coherent enough; a dozen of his townsmen came with him, some of them bandaged or limping.

  “Lady Juniper,” he said. This time there was no awkwardness to the title. “Thank you. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We’ll get our homes back, now.”

  “You will,” Juniper said. “And you’ll be able to feed your children through the winter.”

  Which are the only reasons good enough for this vileness, she thought.

  “We had thirty wounded and… nine dead,” Laughton went on. He swallowed. “Including Reverend Dixon.”

  Her brows went up. “Dixon?” she said. “How?”

  “He just. died. He just dropped down and died,” Laughton said.

  Well, he was a coronary waiting to happen, Juniper thought. Plenty of stress today to set it off.

  “He’ll be missed,” she said soberly, and fought not to think: But not by many.

  Then she saw the eyes of his men on her, all wide and fearful and a few of them full of the beginnings of adoration. The echo of a cold wind seemed to blow up her back, despite the hot sun and the sweat-dripping weight of mail and padding.

  This is how legends and myths start, she reminded herself, and shivered ever so slightly. Goddess gentle and strong, powerful God, what is it that You want of me?

  “Well, we’ll have to see to the wounded,” she said, dragging herself back to practicalities.

  Her voice gained strength. “And to getting your families back to your homes, and we Mackenzies will pitch in to help get the rest of your crops in safe-we don’t have anything to waste. And then we’ll talk about making sure we’re not caught by surprise like this again, and with all the other communities around here about defense. The man who set this on us, the one who calls himself Protector… “

  “Yes, Lady,” Laughton said.

  Ray and Cynthia were kneeling by their father’s body when she found them. A crossbow bolt had struck him just left of the breastbone, sinking in through the armor until only the fletching showed. There was a spray of blood beside his mouth, but the wide eyes looked surprised, as if it had been very quick. The flies were already coming, but they had plenty to feed on today.

  Cynthia started to rise. Juniper sank down on her knees on the hot pavement between them, pressing a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder and on her brother’s. He looked stunned, unbelieving, his face much younger than the body beneath his warrior’s gear, blinking his eyes at his father as the bloody work of cleanup went on around them. A seep
ing bandage marked where the little finger of his left hand had been, but he ignored that too.

  “S-sorry, Lady Juniper,” Cynthia said. “We should help-”

  “You should both stay here and mourn your father,” Juniper said quietly. “There’s hands enough to do what needs doing.”

  The girl’s face crumpled, turning red. “He… he shouldn’t have died like this!” she cried.

  “No,” Juniper agreed. “He shouldn’t. He was a good man, who only wanted to tend his fields and do right by his family and neighbors. There were years yet of work and joy ahead for him. He should have died old and tired and ready for the Summerlands, with you and your brother and your children around him to bid him farewell. He gave all that up, for us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cynthia said, putting the heels of her hands to her forehead. “Can… can we have a rite for him?”

  “Certainly we can among ourselves, honey,” Juniper said gently. “But he respected your choice; you have to respect his. We’ll get the ritual he’d have wanted for his burial. Just let it go, for now. Mourn him, girl, and you too, Ray. Cry. Scream if it helps. There’s no way around the pain, you have to go through it to the end and beyond. Blessed be.”

  She left them sobbing in each other’s arms; Eilir was coming, riding a horse and leading another for her mother, her eyes wide with horror as she looked about.

  When Juniper Mackenzie stood it was as if the weight of the world pressed down on her shoulders.

  Twenty-seven

  Problems, Mike Havel thought.

  I didn’t have enough of my own, so I took on a hundred other people’s. Then we all decide to make a living solving problems for strangers…

  Mother Superior Gertrude was a horse-faced woman in her early sixties. She wasn’t quite what Havel had expected in a nun; she did wear a headdress, but the rest of her clothing was overalls and a checked shirt and heavy shoes of the sort once called sensible.

  Now she finished making corrections on the graph paper that Ken Larsson had pinned to a corkboard supported by a tripod. They were in Sheriff Woburn’s house, a painfully ordinary suburban living room-except for the lamphold-ers screwed into the walls, and the smoke marks above them; the whole house smelled not-so-faintly of woodsmoke from the kitchen, ashes from fireplace, and burnt gasoline from the lanterns.

  There were improvised stables out back, too, and you could smell the horses as well, and their by-products. Flies buzzed about, despite the screens on windows and doors. There was too much manure around, and it made an ideal breeding ground; so did the broad-and heavily fertilized-truck gardens the residents of Craigswood had put in.

  Well, hello, Good Old Days, Havel thought absently. Eau de Horseshit and all. At least wandering about we can escape from our own crap.

  Woburn caught the drift of Havel’s thoughts as he glanced about. “Not lookin’ forward to an Idaho winter with only the fireplace and the woodstove,” he said.

  “Damnit, we should be laying in wood now, but we don’t have time.”

  Havel nodded. It would be even worse in a tent, he thought.

  Eric and a couple of others had suggested that they take up the wandering life full-time, herding cattle and sheep and horses for a living and trading for what else they needed. Then Ken Larsson had given a brief but colorful description of a north-plains winter in a teepee or equivalent, which had been enough to put paid to that. Plus the bit about their grandchildren being-literally-louse-eating nomads.

  Susan Woburn came out with two big plates of bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches in her hands; Havel took one eagerly, with a word of thanks. They didn’t eat bacon very often-pigs really weren’t very practical to drive along for long distances-and they got fresh greens less often than that. There was even mayonnaise, and just eating light risen bread was a treat-on the move it kept falling and rising again, and ended up… chewy was the most charitable way to describe it.

  Woburn nodded to his wife. “Thanks, honey… At least we haven’t been short of food, praise God,” he said. “And we shouldn’t be next year, even with all the damage the Devil Dogs have done. If we can get things in order soon.”

  Ken Larsson leaned back from his sketch. “This is best we can do. Combination of the original plans and the latest intelligence.”

  Havel brought his sandwich over. “Damn, that does look like a fort,” he said. “All right, what about doorknockers?”

  Ken fanned out a selection of diagrams. “This is what I think we can make, given the materials available.”

  Havel nodded, impressed. He noted that Woburn looked a lot less happy.

  “The problem is… well, to tell the truth, the problem is that… “

  “You can’t get enough men together to surround the place,” Havel said. “Not after getting whipped last time. Lots of people finding excuses for not showing up.”

  Woburn nodded, mouth drawn in a bitter line. “What I need is a big win,” he said. “Beating the crap out of a bunch of them. I could get the support I need after that.”

  His hand-the one not holding a sandwich-clenched into a fist and came down on his knee. “And then there’d be some changes around here! We’re not doing half the things we should. Too much talk, not enough action.”

  I detect a certain amount of bitterness, Havel thought.

  It occurred to him that if Woburn did come out on top, things might get quite uncomfortable for temporizers and those who’d tried to play both sides against the middle.

  Hereditary Sheriff Woburn the First? Not my business how things turn out here, he thought. I’m just passing through… and they could do worse. Duke Iron Rod is a chancre that needs cauterizing. Not unlike his big-city patron.

  “What we need,” he said aloud, “is to cut up a couple of their raiding parties. For that we need recon. How big a gang do they send out?”

  “Two dozen on a serious raid, give or take,” Woburn said. “Enough to swarm any resistance on a single farm and get away fast. Usually they set out around dawn. They probably won’t try again for a while after the most recent lot. But I don’t see how you can intercept them any better than we can. It’s not as if we could sneak someone up onto Cotton wood Butte with a radio!”

  “What we need,” Havel went on, “is aerial recon.”

  Woburn snorted. “That’s not funny. Why not wish for a couple of working tanks?”

  Havel grinned, and saw a frown of puzzlement growing on Woburn’s face.

  He went on: “You’re forgetting something, Sheriff; truth is, I hadn’t thought of it until my last trip down the Columbia Gorge. Electricity doesn’t work anymore, and guns neither. But hot air still rises. Got much propane left around here?”

  Billy Waters sat on the curb and watched men and a few women going in and out of the tavern. It had been one before the Change, one of three in Craigswood; it was the only one left now. A sort of sour half-spoiled smell came from the buildings to its rear, and he recognized the scent-mash getting ready for the still, with an undertone of beer fermenting. The thought made him smile a bit, and he hummed a few bars of “Copperhead Road”; then the pain in his lips brought reality crashing back.

  The day was bright and warm, but he shivered. Memories tormented him; the smooth heat of the whiskey going down his throat, and the sweet hiss of the cap coming off the beer bottle, the first cool draught chasing the fire all the way to his belly…

  Just one, he thought. Havel wouldn’t mind if it was just one. He never told anyone not to take one drink. Hellfire, he likes his beer, and a whiskey now and-then.

  A horse-drawn wagon made from a cut-down truck went past while he was thinking, and nursing the bruises. He touched his face gingerly, trying to summon up enough anger to get him across the street and into the tavern.

  The problem was that he couldn’t; all he could feel was fear.

  He could feel anger at Jane, for making him hit her, and at that deceitful little bitch Nancy, and at Reuben for trying to hit his own father, but when he tho
ught about Havel it was as if a white light filled his head, like it had the day of the Change.

  All he could feel was the pain and the fear.

  I can stand up to him! he thought. I can-

  “Excuse me,” someone said.

  Waters looked up. The man standing over him on the sidewalk looked nondescript; not young, not middle-aged, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, cowboy boots and Budweiser billed cap.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “You’re the guy who can make bows, aren’t you? Name of Billy Waters?”

  “Yeah,” Waters said.

  “I heard how you got beat up just because you spanked your kid. That doesn’t sound right.”

  Waters levered himself stiffly to his feet, squinting at the unremarkable man. That also wasn’t how he’d heard that people in Craigswood had gotten the story, either. Most of them who’d heard anything at all had been treating him like something nasty they scraped off their shoes on a hot day. And Craigswood was small, about a thousand people before the Change, half that now. He knew how news spread in a setting like that, having spent most of his life in one small town or another; the largest place he’d ever lived was Little Rock, and that only for a few months.

  “Smith,” the man said, offering his hand. “Jeb Smith. Thought I might like to talk to you about bows, and other things. Care for a beer?”

  Waters’s eyes flicked to the tavern, with its neon sign that probably hadn’t worked before the Change and certainly didn’t now. He shook the man’s hand, but the white explosion of light seemed.to fill his head again. Someone would talk…

  “Ah… ” he began.

  Jeb laughed. “Not that horse piss. It’s overpriced anyway, you have to trade half an hour’s work for a glass, or something pretty fancy in the way of hard goods. No, I’ve got some home brew that isn’t doing anything but filling up a crock.”

  He released Waters’s hand, but steered him along for a moment by the elbow. “Seems to me a man who knows how to make bows should have a better position,” he said. “And be able to sit down and have a beer when he feels like it.”