“Irony still functions post-Change,” Mike said with a chuckle. There were times when gallows humor was the only type available. The problem was that those were the times you most needed a laugh.
Ken nodded, getting a faraway look. Havel recognized it; the older Larsson looked that way when he was doing the big-picture thing.
Which is useful, within limits, Havel thought. Gotta make strategy drive tactics, not the other way ‘round, as Captain Stoddard used to say.
Ken went on: “When we get settled, we should look into how to make rag paper. The acid-based pulp in most modern books doesn’t last more than a generation even with careful storage; anything that isn’t recopied will be lost by the time your kids are my age. Books will get almighty expensive in the places that hang on to the notion at all. When you’re talking a small-scale society that doesn’t really need literacy to function, it just won’t pay to put in the effort, not when there’s cloth to weave and turnips to hoe.”
“Hard to keep the history straight, then,” Havel said. “That’s a pity. I… the things we’re all doing, what’s going on… that should be preserved.”
“Oh, it will be, but not as history. We’ve fallen out of history, history with a capital H.”
Havel raised a brow. “How can you be outside history? Sure, maybe nobody will record it, but it’ll still be there.”
“Ever read the Iliad or the Odyssey!”
“Yeah, bits here and there. I always preferred Ulysses;. Achilles was an undisciplined glory hound, the sort who’s a nightmare to his squad leader. A good soldier needs to be ready to die, but a suicidal one just leaves you with another damned empty slot in the TOE you have to train a replacement for.” He paused, then added judiciously: “Unless you need someone to play Polish Mine Detector real bad. Then a glory hound can come in very useful.”
“Right,” Ken chuckled. “But the point is that nobody wrote those poems. They were composed to be recited aloud and memorized, and they’re full of bits from a lot earlier-half a millennium earlier, from the fall of Troy, with some chunks that may have been a thousand years old or more when Homer was singing for his supper. That’s how people in that type of culture remember things-just like the sagas, only those got written down sooner. It’s not history. It’s folk-memory, the time of legends and heroes and myths, and anything that happens gets crammed into that framework. A sense of historical time needs a high civilization, and a particular type of one at that. Barbarians and tribes live in mythic time, legend time, not an ordered progression of centuries going from somewhere to somewhere. It might be better to say they’re timeless.”
“Like the Kalevala?”
“Yup. Or the Nibelungenleid, where you get Siegfried and the dragon and the cursed Rhinegold all mixed up with real figures centuries apart like Attila the Hun and Theodoric the Ostrogoth.”
“And then some looney squarehead makes a real boring experience out of ‘em,” Havel said. He’d suffered through a video of the complete Ring cycle once, with a girl who was crazy for the stuff.
Christ, the things I did to get laid.
Ken went on: “Most of the Old Testament is the same sort of thing, filtered through literate scribes much later.”
“So someone may make a saga out of our friend Howie someday? Or a chapter of Genesis?”
“More like Exodus. Out of a distorted what-Grandpa-told-me memory of him, yeah.” Ken got up, pushing off his knees. “Or maybe a memory of you, Mike. You’re the one who killed the bear and led his people to the promised land… if we make it. See you tomorrow.”
Hmmm, Havel mused. Ken is an interesting guy to have around.
He poked a stick into the fire, watching the sparks fly up towards the bright frosting of stars; it was a little chilly now, with the sun well down.
I should start thinking about the longer term, a little. Once things hit bottom, they’ll have to start up again-but in a new way, or a very old way. A strong man is what’s needed, leadership, and something to believe in. Someone has to build on the ruins. Ken was right; we’re back in the age of legends and heroes. A dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.
Orange flames crawled over the low coals of the fire; in them he seemed to see vague pictures, visions of glory amid the fire-
“Surprise!”
He rose, pivoting smoothly and very fast, the sword coming free of the scabbard with a rasping hiss of steel on greased leather and wood. At the same time he stepped sideways so he wasn’t silhouetted against the fire and cursed how it had killed his night sight for crucial seconds. He hadn’t been expecting anything-And come to think of it, someone trying to kill me wouldn’t shout “Surprise!” now, would they?
He straightened up, blinking. People stood before him, a crowd of most of the adults in the outfit-with Signe, Lu-anne, Astrid, and Angelica Hutton in the forefront. Signe and Luanne had his new and all-of-a-sudden-finished hauberk slung between them on a pole run through one sleeve and out the other. Angelica had the gambeson bundled up in her arms. And Astrid…
Astrid was holding out a helmet.
The actual metal was the standard model they’d settled on, a round steel bowl with a leather-and-foam liner, a flat bar riveted on the front to protect the nose, and a leather skirt at the rear-the aventail-covered in chain mail to guard the neck.
This one had some additions. The tanned head of a bear was mounted on it, the top half at least, with the snarling muzzle at brow-level and enough of the fur left attached behind it to hide the helmet’s neck flap. Glass eyes stared at him, and the teeth were bared in an artistic, and quite realistic, snarl. He remembered the expression vividly, from the time the beast had been about to eat him.
“Well… ” he said, feeling suddenly inadequate. “Well, I guess that’s where the bearskin went.”
“Angelica and Will showed us how to do the tanning,” Astrid said proudly. “Actually it was sort of gross, you use brains. But it looks great now. We wanted to be sure we’d got it right, so we waited and it didn’t smell at all. Put it on, put it on!”
Her face was shining.
I can’t say no. It would be like… well, like taking candy from a kid. Hell, she is a kid, or was until the Change.
He did spare a glower for the adults, who should have known better than to let her gussy up fighting gear with nonessentials.
The padded coat was easy, closing up the front with an overlapping flap and laces. Luanne and Signe held the mail coat over his head as he ducked, then helped him wiggle into it with a clash and clinking rustle; you could put it on yourself, but it was a pain.
The shifting weight dragged at his shoulders, and he quickly cinched his broadsword belt tight around his waist to stabilize it and transfer some of the burden to his hips. Will had made forearm protectors-vambraces-out of sheet steel, hammered to fit around wooden forms; he slipped on his, then buckled on shin guards, leather covered in thin steel splints, and pulled on leather gauntlets whose backs were covered in more chain mail.
Not bad, he thought critically, doing a few twists and deep knee bends, flexing his hands and swinging his arms, his enthusiasm growing.
Yeah! Way lighter than the field gear I carried in the Gulf. Better distributed, too; not bad at all, once I get used to the way it affects my balance. Bitchin’ uncomfortable, though, and no two ways about it. I can feel the sweat starting even after sundown, and Christ Jesus, the thought of an itch in this stuff… but against an unarmored man, you’d be like a tank.
“The helmet, the helmet!” Astrid said, and a bunch of the youngsters took it up.
He took it from her and settled it on his head, fastening the chinstrap. The nasal bar bisected his view, and he found himself unconsciously shifting his head slightly back and forth to keep his peripheral vision up.
Another thing to get used to.
The bear head mounted on top didn’t seem to make any difference, or add any real weight. It wouldn’t matter in a fight, although the thing was going to look pretty tatte
red if a couple of edged weapons went through on their way to the metal beneath. He could always switch back to the one he already had after a couple of days.
“And we made the rest of the hide up into a cloak, for colder weather,” Astrid said proudly.
At her urging he swung the heavy length of cinnamon-touched black fur around his shoulders, fastening the paws across his chest with a hammered-gold clasp-gold was easy to come by these days and a lot less valuable than food or tools. The curing was professionally done-exactly what he’d have expected of any project the Huttons oversaw-and it had only the musky-sweet new-upholstery smell of well-tanned hide. The claws clicked on his chain mail as he threw the left side back a little to free his sword hilt.
Shit, I must look like a carnivorous Carmen Miranda, he thought. It’s a good thing I can’t see myself—
Eric and Josh walked up with a full-length mirror from one of the houses. With a flourish they set it down beside the fire, and then he could see himself. For a long minute he gaped, hearing a murmur from all around him as the. Bearkillers took it in, with some townies who’d been hanging around as well.
I look like something off the cover of one of Astrid’s goddamned books! he thought. The words “no fucking way” trembled on his lips.
Astrid’s face was shining. Suddenly she threw her fists in the air and cried: “All hail to Lord Bear!”
His own shout of revulsion was buried in the chorus as everyone else took it up-except for Eric, who’d actually fallen flat laughing and who lay helplessly hugging himself as he rolled on the ground.
That left Havel grinding his teeth in fury. After a moment, he realized what bothered him more: better than half the spectators weren’t laughing at all. In fact, they were taking it just as seriously as Astrid.
Christ Jesus, he thought, stomach sinking. The kid’s making a hero-shaped hole and the entire bunch of them are shoving me into it.
“So, does this count as a date?” Signe said. “Here we are, alone at last.”
Startled, Havel looked over at her. They were side-by-side on the seat of the wagon, and he was suddenly conscious of the slight summery smell of her, clean sweat and woman.
And she’s definitely a woman, he thought, with a wry smile. There’s never a bad time to stop and discuss your feelings.
“Ummm… I hadn’t actually thought of it that way,” he said cautiously. “For one thing, your brother and Pam are under the tarp right behind us, so we’re not really alone.”
“Oh, don’t mind him,” she said. “He can’t see a thing.”
Muffled gagging and retching sounds came from beneath the tarpaulin, then a yelp, as if someone had kicked someone in the shin. Havel felt a sudden impulse to grin enormously. He fought it down, looking around at the long empty stretch of road. They were alone; two horses drawing the wagon, and a pair hitched to the rear… as tempting a target as they could arrange.
Easy pickings, the arrangement said. Come and get it!
It wasn’t the sort of trick he’d have pulled out in the hot-and-dirty places the Corps had sent him. Far too blatant and obvious.
Item: Things are different now. No guns and not many good archers yet. You have to get close to someone to hurt them. Item: Odds are these are amateur bandits, just learning the trade, the way I’m learning how to use a sword or shoot a bow.
For a moment he felt an enormous familiar anger at whoever or whatever had done this to his country, to his world, and then it passed away. If he ever had a chance to do anything about it… but until then, put it away.
‘Cause those who can’t put it away are going to die real soon and never get a chance to do anything about it.
Instead he spoke, his voice light: “That’s flattering, Signe, but let’s take a rain check. After this is over, maybe? In the meantime, we’d better concentrate on business.”
She made a pout and flipped the reins over the horse’s back. “Yes, O Lord Bear. Business.”
“Now that’s a low blow. And yeah, business.”
You know, this is business, he realized. Literally. We’ve dealt with bandits before, and this is on our way, but we’ve actually been hired to do it.
They went forward at a fast walk amid the clatter and hollow clop of hooves and the creaking of the wagon’s fabric. He pulled a strip of jerky from a pocket and began gnawing on it as he watched their surroundings; it tasted like salty cardboard, but it was food.
The land was tending upward, with more grass and less sagebrush as they climbed into a belt of higher rainfall, but not much cultivation yet-it would be another day’s travel until they were into wheat country. Before the Change this had been ranching territory, and seasonal grazing at that-virtually nobody actually lived here. Occasionally they passed an abandoned vehicle; once they sped up as a gagging smell told them someone, or several someones, had died inside a four-door sedan flipped upside down.
They passed a few bodies beside the road as well, but birds and coyotes and insects had taken most of the flesh there, leaving only scraps of tendon and wisps of hair blowing in the warm dry wind.
“How could anyone do that?” Signe asked. “Just sit and die?”
Havel shrugged. “Easy,” he said, and waved a hand around them at the immense silence and the great blue bowl of the sky.
“It’s bigger now. Physically bigger.”
“Bigger?” Signe said. “Quieter, yes, but bigger?”
“Yeah, for all practical purposes. I’ve felt it before, backpacking into real wilderness, the deep empty country. The world gets bigger. OK, now it’s like that everywhere: This was pretty thinly settled country before the Change, but that was when you could do thirty miles in an hour even on bad dirt roads. Bam, the Change hits, and suddenly thirty miles, that’s two, three days’ walk for someone not used to hiking-if you’re lucky. Suddenly every distance is fifty, sixty times bigger, or more, and the fastest way to carry a message is feet.”
“That never made us sit down and die of fright,” Signe said stubbornly.
You know, I really like this girl, Havel thought. She doesn’t just accept anything I say.
He nodded. “Yeah, but I wasn’t taken by surprise when I went on vacation, and I’m used to being on my own in remote places. Some townie type, say someone from a big city like Seattle or even Spokane, they’d be just as likely to wait a long time for someone to drive by and rescue them as to get going right away. It would even be the sensible thing to do-how could they know things were screwed up worldwide? A lot would die of exposure; it was down below freezing here at night right after the Change. And there aren’t even any surface streams around here, and try going twenty-four hours without water. Wait too long and you’ll be too weak to move, or you’ll collapse on the way.”
She shivered. When she spoke again her voice was flat with dread. “Mike… it’s probably a lot worse than we’ve seen, back on the coast, anywhere with cities, isn’t it?”
“Worse isn’t the word. There probably aren’t any words. And it’ll all get worse before it gets better,” he said grimly. “Your dad thinks that by this time next year, there won’t be more than ten, maybe twenty million people at most left in the whole of North America, from Guatemala to Hudson’s Bay.”
My, you know how to sweet-talk a girl, don’t you, Havel? he asked himself.
All the while his eyes had been moving around them; so had Signe’s, come to that. The road wound and turned as it climbed, and sometimes the hillsides rose almost cliff-steep beside them. He checked his precious wind-up watch and looked behind them; a mirror-flash came at the edge of sight, just one quick blink. Impossible to tell from sunlight on a broken bottle or a bit of quartz, if you didn’t know what to look for.
That’s comforting, he thought. Nice to know help is on hand.
It was another five hours until sunset, and then he’d have to figure out a different trick. He wasn’t going to try this in darkness, when nobody could see what was happening or rush to the rescue.
And
even in daylight, it’s not all that comforting. The rest have to hang well back if they’re not going to be spotted.
“Mike!” Signe said. His head came around. “Up ahead!”
He saw only a moving dot, but Signe had unusually keen eyes. He thought for an instant, then decided to take a chance; binoculars were not something any innocuous traveler would have, but he needed to know what was going on. The road a half mile ahead sprang into sight.
Man on a bike, he thought. Then: Correction. Kid on a bike. About ten, and a boy, I think. Also he’s bleeding, and looking over his shoulder. I think some genuine bait got in ahead of us.
“That’s torn it,” he said grimly. “All right, everyone out.”
Signe pulled on the reins. Havel switched aside his broad-brimmed hat, pulled the loose shirt that concealed his armor over his head, and clapped on his helmet. Pamela and Eric were out from under the tarpaulin in less time, red-faced and sweating but fully equipped; Pam was in one-third of their current store of chain hauberks, Eric in leather like his sister. They unhitched the horses from the wagon’s traces and saddled them while Havel jumped down to the pavement, grunting a little as his boots hit and the mail clashed. It wasn’t that the armor was too heavy to run and leap in…
… it’s just that when I do, it’s like being thirty years older.
The boy gave a cry when he saw them waiting and tried to stop, wobbled, and went over.
“Canteen,” Havel said; Pamela tossed him one, and he went over to where the slight body rested under the cycle. One wheel still spun.
Havel hooked the broken machine off with a toe, sending it clattering down the steepish slope to their left. He’d been right; it was a boy about ten, with a big shock of sun-streaked brown hair, skinny and filthy and smelling fairly high. He had a slash across one cheek, shallow but clean-edged as if done with a very sharp blade; that was just old enough for the blood to start clotting, and blackish red streaks crusted on his neck and chest on that side. He did a careful once-over to make sure the boy was unarmed-not easy to conceal a weapon when you were in shorts, a Marilyn Manson T-shirt and sneakers-and then went to one knee.
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