Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  Josh nodded. "From the look of the dirt, that berm's just finished. Last couple of days. I'd put topsoil on and then turf, to keep it from melting away in the winter rains."

  "Yeah," Havel said, then pointed as the wind fluttered a banner out over the gatehouse. It was black. He peered a little closer: black, with a red catpupiled eye in the center.

  "That tells us something too," Havel said. "The folks back at Hood River weren't shitting us; this Protector guy really is a maniac. Loopy. He's not for real; he's playing games."

  "Why?" Eric asked curiously, shifting in a creak of leather and chime of ringmail. "Astrid's always using stuff out of those books. So, I grant you she's a flake— a big-time, fresh- from- the- flake- box flake— but not a maniac."

  "She uses the good-guy stuff, Eric," Havel said. "If I were running Portland and surroundings, I'd be using the Stars and Stripes—no matter how much of a dictator I was, and how much of a lie the flag was. You don't put up a sign that reads 'HEY, I'M EVIL! GEN-U-WINE SADISTIC LOONEY! REALLY, REALLY BAD!' Particularly not if you are evil."

  "Why not?" Eric said curiously. "If you're a bad guy, that is."

  "'Cause most people don't think that way, even if they are rotten. How many are going to stick with you when things go wrong, if you advertise you're a shit?"

  "Hey, it's cool to be baaaad."

  "Not the same thing." Havel grinned for an instant. "Hell, I'm bad, in that sense. This jerkoff s coming right out and saying he'll screw you over in a minute; guys like that have a short half-life. Maybe you can run a cocaine cartel that way, but not a country or an army—or if you do, the results are what a lieutenant I knew used to call suboptimal.

  Probably the only reason he got any traction at all was that Portland was a complete madhouse right after the Change."

  "He's a fruitloop with a lot of troops, right now," Josh said. "That makes me nervous, Mike. You see the heads over the gateway? Those look too fucking real for this ol' boy's taste."

  "Well, we are here to find things out. If Mr. Me So Bad has a lock on the Willamette, our people need to know so we can pick another destination. And they did say he didn't usually molest travelers who toed his line. Let's go. And mouths shut, ears open. This isn't risk-free, either."

  Havel rode in at an easy fast walk; there wasn't much traffic, mostly improvised wagons drawn by men, or people on foot—thin and frightened-looking and mostly very, very dirty. He wrinkled his nose; the three Bearkillers were fairly ripe in their armor and gambesons, but they tried to keep the bodies underneath as clean as possible.

  The guards were another story; all equipped in scale-mail, and all looking reasonably well fed. The heads spiked to the timber of the gate above their spearheads were all fairly fresh too. Above them, some sort of machine moved to cover them behind a slit in a sheet-metal shield; he'd have bet that was some sort of giant crossbow or dart-caster … or possibly a flamethrower.

  "Hi," Havel said to their leader. "I'm here to see your Protector."

  * * * *

  "Not just nails—twelve-inch spikes!" Alex Barstow crowed from inside the truck. "Crates of nice big bolts. And half-inch cable, by God, a whole hundred-yard spool. Fan-fucking-tastic!"

  Outside his brother Chuck quirked a smile. "That's Alex. Do you know, even when we were little kids he could build the most fantastic castles out of matchsticks?"

  A deep breath: "Do you really have to do this, Judy?"

  "Chuck, I need to know what's going on out there epidemic-wise if I'm going to do my job helping keep this bunch healthy. We've been over this. I love you."

  "I love you too," he said; they embraced. "Merry meet, and merry part."

  "And merry meet again," Judy said; they both had tears in their eyes. "See you before Beltane."

  Juniper had made her good-byes back at the Hall; she looked away, swallowing, as her friends made theirs, letting her fingers busy themselves checking her gear.

  Then she waved and put her foot to the bicycle's pedal as Judy broke free. They were well past the Carson place, due west of Mackenzie territory; everyone around here knew them by now, and more to the point was familiar with their wagons and the way they sent them out to scavenge supplies from stranded trucks and abandoned stores.

  Plus farms that looked to Sutterdown for guidance tended to shun the Mackenzies—Reverend Dixon's influence, she supposed. The Carsons and a few other cowan friends passed on news from there. Nobody would notice four Mackenzies on bicycles heading out from the wagon.

  Steve scooted ahead of her, taking point as Sam Aylward called it; Vince dropped behind, and Judy pedaled beside her. The spring sun beat down on a world of green around them as their wheels scrunched, and on the quiet dirt country lane it might almost have been before the Change … save for the occasional car or tractor they passed, frozen since that evening; save for a farmhouse abandoned, or crowded with refugees.

  And save for the ever-present faint acrid tang of smoke from cities burning.

  "Keep your eyes open," she told herself.

  They were going to loop up north, then cross the river and see what was going on near Corvallis.

  "Time to come out of the cocoon and learn."

  * * * *

  "You do yourself nicely here," Havel said.

  He sipped at the single malt, savoring the smoky, peaty taste as he looked around the big high-ceilinged room and the glowing Oriental rugs on the floor; evidently if you had unlimited labor, it didn't take long to turn a library built in 1903 into a fair approximation of a palace. The wall that cut off this corner of the former Government Documents Room looked like professional work; the faint smell of fresh plaster confirmed it. Shelves had vanished, replaced by hangings and pictures that had the indefinable something that screamed money even to an art-infidel like Havel, or at least hinted at foraging parties with handcarts and sledgehammers backed up by swords and spearheads.

  Dinner smells lingered a little too; skillet-roasted mussels in a coconut curry broth, a salad of pickled vegetables, garlic-crusted rack of lamb and fresh bread, finished off with a noble Dutch-style apple pie and cheeses, and accompanied by wines finer than Havel knew he had the palette or experience to appreciate.

  Portland might be just getting by, uncounted millions were starving to death around the world, but the Protector and his friends certainly weren't on a ration book. There wasn't any point in not enjoying the dinner, either.

  The smell of the kerosene lamps was a little incongruous— but the light was welcome. You missed electricity after dark.

  Norman Arminger and his wife lounged on a black-leather sofa; Havel was surprised she was with him. The scantily clad servants had given him the impression of a man with serious harem fantasies. The Protector leaned back with a shot of the whiskey in his hand; his dark-haired wife had a glass of white wine.

  Then Arminger spoke; he had a deep voice with an edge of humor to it. He'd been doing most of the talking, at that, but he was never boring.

  "Well, it is the City that Works," Arminger said. "I'm doing my best to transform it into the Kingdom that Works. If people are to survive above the level of cannibal bands or isolated farms, there has to be organization, leadership … and it has to be based on realistic principles. Post-industrial democracy was wonderful, but it's not possible now. The foundations of that way of life have been knocked out from beneath us. We have to turn to older models."

  "That sounds reasonable," Havel said. "Similar things had occurred to me, actually."

  Arminger lifted his glass with a smile. "Meanwhile, I'm impressed with the equipment you had," he said. "Much, much better than the usual improvisations. Did you have any SCA people in your group?"

  "No," Havel said. "A lot of people expert around horses, good handymen, some books on cavalry warfare and gear, and someone who was involved with a Renaissance fencing club. HACA, I think it used to be called, or ARMA—not sure which."

  "Ah, surprising and very fortunate for you—the Association of Those Who
Like Hitting Things with Sharp Pointy Things," Arminger said. "I attended a few of their gatherings. Very focused, very practical—in the sense of recreating effective sword styles, which in those days wasn't of much practical use at all. The Society was deplorably eclectic, although the Pensic War was always entertaining. And a surprising number of its members proved to be excessively sentimental and had to be … removed from the equation."

  "Things have Changed," Havel said. "We also found a bowmaker, and we had one very good and one pretty good archer to teach the rest of us. That wasn't so odd; hell, there were a couple million bow-hunting licenses issued last year."

  Sandra Arminger snorted. "We prefer crossbows. Easier to make, and easier to learn."

  "And in the long run, less problem to armored horsemen," the Protector said. "Wouldn't want the tenants to get too uppity."

  "Less useful than a bow from horseback, though," Havel pointed out.

  "You're aiming at doing things Mongol-style?" Arminger said, raising his brows. "Ambitious!"

  "I always liked that saying of Genghis Khan's that a year after he sacked a city you could gallop a horse across the site without stumbling. Say what you like about Genghis, he got things done," Havel observed.

  Arminger grinned, a charming expression. "I think you may be a man after my own heart, Lord Bear."

  Christ Jesus, I hope not, Havel thought, with an imperturbable shrug.

  "I understand you came through Pendleton," Arminger said. That was a logical deduction; it was the major city of northeastern Oregon. "Have they started their civil war yet?"

  "There was some tension between the reservation and the city, but on the whole they seemed to be doing pretty well," Havel said. "They've moved most of their urban population out to the ranches and farms. In fact, they're wondering why they didn't see a lot more refugees from Portland than they got. They've got a lot more wheat than they can harvest with the hands available; it'll all go to waste, since they can't transport it—or plant nearly as much this fall."

  "Pendleton only had, what, eighteen thousand people in the city limits?" the Protector observed. "Seattle tried moving people east en masse, and it didn't work very well, even before the final collapse there. Mostly it just overburdened the rural areas close by. I, ah, encouraged the surplus population here to move out southward. Mainly by setting more fires and cutting off the water supply. It's gravity-flow here, and should last for generations with some upkeep. We've had some success with using water-power to run machinery; for stamping out armor scales, for instance."

  Havel sipped at his whiskey, keeping his face neutral. "I noticed a lot of damage to the city," he said.

  "The big jets coming down hard set most of the area east of the Willamette on fire," the Protector replied. "Giant bombs full of fuel, you see—surprisingly effective. And we did more around the fringes. Nothing essential lost, though."

  He snorted. "And in this climate, the ruins will all be overgrown in a single summer—we have to cut back vines on the roads that grow two inches a day! The burned-out areas will be scrub in a year and forest in ten."

  He paused, considering. "Why did you decide to come this far west? I've had scouts of my own as far east as Montana and as far upriver as Lewiston, and the situation is a bit less dire out there. So far."

  "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 rain-fed farmland in the world. You … Bear-killers … 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 ar
m 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."