Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  Havel always thought of his father when he used it; one of his first toddler memories was watching him carve a toy out of white birchwood, the steel an extension of his big battered-looking hands.

  He trimmed and barked the poles with the knife, and cut notches at either end for smaller sticks lashed across to keep the poles open—he had a big spool of heavy fishing line in his crash kit, light and strong. One of the ground-sheets tied in made a tolerable base.

  Mary Larsson woke while they were lifting her in the bag, conscious enough to whimper a little and then bite her lip and squeeze her eyes shut.

  "Take a couple of these," he said, holding up her head so that she could wash down the industrial-strength painkillers. Even then, she managed to murmur thanks.

  He looked thoughtfully at the bottle when she sighed and relaxed; he wasn't looking forward to running out of them … and Mary Larsson was likely to hurt worse as the days wore on. He'd had a broken leg once, and it was no joke, even when you were young and full of beans. At least she was doing her best, which was turning out to be considerable— the group's shaky morale would have been cut to ribbons by screaming and sobbing.

  Then Havel sacrificed her coat to rig padded yokes at the front and rear of the stretcher, and to wrap the rough wood where the carriers' hands would go; he had good steerhide gloves with him, but the others didn't, and their palms were softer to start with. She wouldn't need the coat; the thin-film sleeping bag was excellent insulation, particularly with the hood pulled up.

  Let's see, he thought, shrugging into his pack. I'm worried about the twins' high-tops, but it's walk on those or their bare feet.

  Astrid's soft-sided boots had perfectly practical rough-country soles; he'd checked.

  OK, the rifle's useless, but …

  The four hale Larssons were standing in an awkward group, looking at him. He nodded to the youngest. Astrid swallowed and hugged her cat a little closer; the beast dug its claws into her leather jacket and climbed to her shoulder. He hoped the stuff was well tanned; wet leather was about the most uncomfortable-wearing substance known to humankind, and if it dried stiff it was even worse.

  "How did that bow of yours come through? Mind if I have a look at it?"

  "It's fine," she said. "Sure, here."

  He examined it; he'd never taken up archery himself, but he'd flown enough bowhunters around Idaho to pick up a little knowledge of the art. The weapon was a recurve, the Cupid's-bow type with the forward-curling tips, and he could tell it had set her dad back a fair bit of change.

  The centerpiece handle, the riser, had its grip shaped to the hand and an arrow-rest through the center; it was carved from some exotic striped hardwood he didn't recognize and polished to a glossy sheen. The whole weapon was about four feet long unstrung, and it had a look he recognized from other contexts—the sleek beauty of functionality.

  "Nice piece of work," he said. "The limbs are fiberglass on a wood core?"

  "Horn on the belly, steer-horn, hot-worked," she said, with a hint of a sneer. "And sinew on the back, with a yew core; fish-bladder glue. Cocobolo wood for the riser, leather covering for the arrow shelf and the strike plate, antelope horn for the tips. Lacquered birchbark covering."

  His left eyebrow went up; that was Ye Ancient Style.

  "It was made by Saluki Bows. I helped … well, I watched a lot."

  "What's the draw?"

  "Twenty-five pounds."

  The eyebrow stayed up. Astrid was tall for fourteen; five-three, and headed higher from the look of her hands and feet—the whole family were beanpoles—but she was slender. That was a fairly heavy draw for a girl her size.

  It occurred to him that she might just carry the bow for effect. She had spent considerable time and effort trying to dry her high-priced illustrated Tolkien by the fire, and seemed almost as upset at its ruin as at her mother's condition or the general peril they were in. Given that and her clothes …

  "Can you use it?" he asked, and tossed it back.

  He could see her flush. Instead of answering she braced the lower tip against the outer side of her left foot and pushed the back of her right knee against the riser, sliding the string up as the weapon bent until the loop on top settled into the grooves. Then she opened the cover of the quiver slung over her shoulder, nocked a shaft, and drew to the ear as she turned.

  "That lodgepole pine leaning from the bank," she said. "Head-height."

  The flat snap of the bowstring against the leather bracer on her left forearm sounded, echoing a little in the narrow confines of the canyon. Half a second later the arrow went crack into the big tree she'd called as her target, standing quivering thirty yards downstream.

  "Not bad, kid," he said.

  He walked over to the tree with his boots scrunching in the streamside gravel and rotted ice. When he pulled the arrow free it was with a grunt of effort; it had hit at head-height, and sunk inches deep in rock-hard wood. The shaft was tipped with a broadhead, not a smooth target point— a tapering triangle shape of razor-edged steel designed to bleed an animal out.

  "Ever done any actual hunting with it?"

  "I shot a coney once," she said proudly. "A rabbit, that is."

  Her brother grinned. "Hey, sprout, aren't you going to tell him what you did afterward?"

  She flushed more darkly, and glared. Eric went on to Havel: "Princess Legolamb here puked up her guts and cried for hours, and then she buried poor Peter Rabbit. I guess they don't eat bunnies among the Faeries of the Dirt-wood Realm."

  "That's elves of the woodland realm, you—you—you goblin!"

  "But she can shoot the hell out of a tree stump, and every spare pie-plate on Larsdalen rolls downhill for its life when she comes by in a shooting mood … "

  Havel cleared his throat. "Eric, you and your dad start with the stretcher. He and Signe can change off after twenty minutes. I'll spell you after forty, but I'd better lead the way to begin with, until we get our direction set and find a game trail."

  As they lifted the injured woman he motioned Astrid aside for an instant.

  "Kid, I'm glad you've got some experience shooting moving targets with that thing," he said softly.

  She looked up at him, startled out of the walking reverie that seemed to take up most of her time.

  "You are?" she said.

  "Yeah. Look, we're going to need three days minimum to get your mother to the Centennial Trail, and then another day to make the ranger cabin, and another plus for me and your brother to get to the highway. We don't have much food. It's going to get cold every damn night and it may get wet, and carrying your mother over this country's going to be brutal. Shoot anything that moves unless it's a bear or a mountain lion. We need the extra food. We're all depending on you—your mother, for starters. We'll lead off, you and I, and you stay ahead afterward with whoever takes point. OK?"

  He watched the girl's face firm up, and she made a decisive nod. He kept his own face grave as he returned the gesture, then looked at his compass once more and started off on a slanting line across the hillside he'd picked out earlier.

  Gunney Winters would be proud of me, he thought.

  The noncom had used exactly that we're-all-depending-on-you technique to get the best out of every guy in his squad.

  Chapter

  Four

  "Dennis, what's everyone going to eat, if this goes on more than a day or two?" Juniper Mackenzie said; they were back on the third floor of the Hopping Toad, looking south. "And how can help get in from areas where things are normal?"

  Her friend's smile was normally engaging. This time it was more like a snarl. "Juney, how do you know that there is anyplace where things are normal?"

  They glanced at each other in appalled silence, and then their eyes flicked to Eilir; the girl was looking out the window through the binoculars, squirming between them to get a better view. The fire was coming closer, but slowly, and the southern rim of flame had stopped at the edge of the open campus of Oregon State.


  How do I feed my kid? Juniper thought suddenly— something direct and primal, a thought that hit like a fist in the gut.

  She'd been poor—still was poor, if you went by available cash—but this was different. It didn't mean living on pasta and day-olds and what she got out of the garden by the cabin, or busking for meals; it meant not having anything to eat at all.

  "You still have that wagon out at Finney's place?" Dennis said.

  "Yes," she replied. "He stores it for me so I can use it at the RenFaire and the festivals and meets over the summer, and he boards Cagney and Lacey for me. My pickup's out behind his barn right now. I was supposed to drive down to Eugene to meet my coven after I finished up here."

  She'd have liked nothing better than to live out of the wagon the whole summertime, ambling along behind the two Percheron mares; it was a real old-style tinker-traveler-gypsy house-on-wheels shaped like a giant barrel. Not practical, of course.

  Or it wasn't, she thought, with an icy crawling feeling. Now it may be high-tech. Damn, but I hate being scared like this.

  "I think we should get moving. Get out of town, find someplace real remote, and hide like hell," Dennis said. Then he hesitated: "If you want my help."

  "Oh, hell, yes, Dennie," she said.

  To herself: I know you're trustworthy, and I can't get in touch with Rudy or anyone else in the coven and I certainly don't want me and Eilir out there alone right now. Maybe some of the others will have the same idea. Rudy certainly will.

  She went on: "The cabin up in the Cascade foothills would be perfect and I'll be glad to have you along. We'll have to cross the valley … "

  "You think this is going to last long enough for that?" Dennis said, his voice neutral.

  Her brows knotted. "You were right; we've got to act like this was all over the world, and for keeps. If we do and we're wrong, we just look stupid and scared. If we don't and it is like that, we could die. I'd rather look weird than be dead."

  Her impish smile came back for an instant: "As if I wasn't weird enough at any time!"

  "Right," her friend said, nodding vigorously. "That's just what I was thinking."

  They clattered down the stairs again. Nobody was left but a couple of the staff, talking together in low tones.

  "Boss," the cook said, coming out of the kitchen and drying his hands on his apron. "I stay and help, but my kids—"

  "No, Manuel, you get home where you're needed," Dennis said. He hesitated, then went on: "You could think of getting out of town, too. And take some of the canned stuff, whatever you can carry. I think things could get, uh, hairy for a while, with this power failure and all."

  He spoke a little louder: "That goes for everyone here. Take what you can carry."

  The stocky Mexican gave him an odd look, then handed the three of them a platter of sandwiches and went, grunting a little at the weight of the cardboard box of food in his arms and the sack of dried beans on top of it. The rest of the staff trailed out in his wake, similarly burdened.

  Juniper looked at the pastrami sandwich he'd made.

  Well, there's the farmer and his tractors, and the trucks, and the packing plant, and the refrigerators, and the power line to the flour mill, and the baker, and the factory that made the mustard …

  Her stomach contracted like a ball of crumpled lead sheet; she made herself eat anyway, and wash it down with a Dr Pepper.

  Juniper kept her mind carefully blank as she and Dennis worked. She changed back into jeans and flannel shirt and denim jacket, then helped the manager—ex-manager— load their bicycles with sacks of flour and soy and dried fruit, blocks of dark chocolate and dates, blessing the Toad's organic-local cuisine all the while.

  "No canned goods?" Dennis said, as she chose and sorted.

  Juniper shook her head. "We'd be lugging stuff that's mostly water and container. This dried food gives you a lot more calories for the weight, when it's cooked. And throw in those spice packets, all of them. They don't weigh much, and I think they're going to be worth a lot more than gold in a while."

  The garage out back held a little two-wheeled load carrier of the type that could be towed behind a bicycle; Dennis used that for some of his tools before piling more food on top, and she didn't object. They stowed as much as they could in the storage area of the basement; that had a stout steel door and a padlock. When that was full, they stacked boxes of cleaning supplies and old files in front of it, hiding it from a casual search at least.

  "Wait here a second," Dennis said.

  When he returned he had the shotgun from under the bar. He turned it on a stack of cardboard boxes and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  It was his hopefully nonlethal backup for an emergency that had never happened—the Hopping Toad wasn't the sort of place where a barkeep needed to flourish a piece every other week.

  He worked the slide twice and the second time he caught the ejected shell; then he cut off the portion that held the shot and set the base down on the concrete floor.

  "Stand back," he said, and dropped a lit match into it.

  There should have been a miniature Vesuvius, a spear of fire reaching up from the floor to waist height into the dimness of the cellar, blinding-bright for an instant. Instead there was a slow hissing, and what looked like a very anemic Roman candle, the sort that disappointed you on a damp Fourth of July.

  "What's happening!" Juniper cried after they'd stamped out the sparks and poured water to be sure.

  "Juney … Juney, if I didn't know better, I'd say someone, or some One, just changed the laws of nature on us. As far as I can tell, explosives don't explode anymore. They just burn, sorta slow." He ran a hand over his head. "Shit, you're the one who believes in magic! But this … it's like some sort of spell."

  Juniper raised her brows. She'd always thought Dennis was a stolid sort, a dyed-in-the-wool rationalist. She started to cross herself in a deep-buried reflex from a Catholic childhood, and changed it to the sign of the Horns. The idea was preposterous … but it had a horrible plausibility, after this day of damnation.

  "Well, the sun didn't go out," Dennis said, scrubbing a palm across his face. "And humans are powered by oxidizing food, and our nerves are electrical impulses … Maybe some quantum effect that only hits current in metallic wires, and fast combustion?"

  Juniper snorted. "Does that mean that the dilithium crystals are fucked, Scotty?"

  Dennis was startled into a brief choked-off grunt of laughter. "Yeah, that's bafflegabic bullshit, I'm no scientist— I just read Popular Mechanics sometimes, and Analog. We don't know what happened; all we know is that it did happen, at least locally … but who can say how local? Like you said, Juney, we gotta act like it's the whole world."

  He went over to another corner of the basement and dragged out a heavy metal footlocker. "I was keeping this stuff for John, he had it left over from what he sold at the last RenFaire and Westercon, and it was less trouble than taking it back home or all the way out east."

  "East?" she said.

  She'd met John Martin now and then and liked him, although Dennis's elder brother was also a stoner whose musical world had stopped moving about the time Janis Joplin OD'd; besides that he was a back-to-the-lander and a blacksmith. Mostly he lived in a woodsy cabin in northern California, and made the circuit of West Coast dos and conventions and collectors' get-togethers. Of course, he and Dennis worked together a fair bit, with Dennis doing the leatherwork.

  "Yeah, John's in Nantucket, of all places. He's got a girlfriend there, and there are a lot of the summer home crowd who can afford his ironwork and replicas. I hope to God everything's all right in Santa Fe East. John's a gentle sort."

  He unfastened the locker and threw back the lid. Reaching inside, he took out a belt wrapped around a pair of scabbards and tossed it to her.

  "Put it on," he said. "Jesus, I wish John were here. He's a good man to have around, under all that hippy-dippy crap."

  What she was holding was a palm-wide leather b
elt with brass studs and a heavy buckle in the form of an eagle. It carried a long Scottish dirk with a hilt of black bone carved in swirling Celtic knotwork and a broad-bladed short-sword about two feet long. She put her hand on the rawhide-wrapped hilt and drew it; the damascene patterns in the steel rippled like frozen waves in the lamplight. It was a gladius, the weapon the soldiers of Rome had carried from Scotland to Persia; the twenty-inch blade was leaf-shaped, tapering to a long vicious stabbing point.

  Juniper took an awkward swing; the sword was knife sharp, not as heavy as she'd expected, and beautifully balanced. It was beautiful in itself, for the same reason a cat was—perfectly designed to do exactly one thing.

  Except that a cat makes little cats, as well as killing, she thought. And went on aloud: "I can't wear this!"

  "Why not?" Dennis said.

  He reached into the locker and drew out an ax—nothing like the firefighting tool he'd used in the brief street fight. It was a replica of a Viking-era Danish bearded war-ax, and made with the same care that the sword had been; the haft was four feet of polished hickory.

  "Why not?" he repeated. "'Cause it'll look silly? I'm going to be carrying this, you bet. Same reason I'd have taken the shotgun, if it worked. Lot of desperate people out there right now, more tomorrow—and a lot of plain bad ones, too. We already got some confirmation of that, didn't we?"

  She swallowed and unwrapped the belt, settling the broad weight of it around her waist and cinching it tight— they had to cut an extra hole through the leather for that, but Dennis had the tools and skill to do a good quick job. The down vest she pulled on over it hid the hilts and most of the blades, at least, if she wore it open.

  "I don't have the faintest idea how to use swords," she complained as the three of them spent a grunting ten minutes moving a heavy metal-topped counter-table over the trapdoor to the basement.

  "I just sing about them. And I don't know if I could actually hit someone with this."