Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  "Jesus!" he shouted, leaping backward.

  Signe half stumbled as the deer carcass swayed unexpectedly, but pivoted with fluid balance and drove the long knife home, grunting with effort as it sliced into flesh.

  Only then did she turn to see what had startled him. A drumroll thunder of hooves announced Astrid's arrival once more, but there was a hoarse bellowing snarl underneath it.

  The bear behind the horse was traveling very nearly as fast, its mouth open and foam blowing from it; an arrow twitching in the hump over its shoulders showed why.

  It was a black, not a grizzly, but the point was moot—it was also a very large boar bear, four hundred pounds if it was an ounce, and moving at thirty miles an hour. Astrid turned in the saddle as her horse pounded by in a tearaway gallop, drawing her bow again and firing directly over its tail in what an earlier age had called the Parthian shot.

  "No!" Havel shouted futilely.

  Well, now I know how a horsey teenage girl snaps from combat stress. She goddamn well tries to shoot a bear!

  Havel had hunted bear; he knew the vitality and sheer stubborn meanness of a wounded bruin. By some miracle, the arrow even hit—a shallow slant into the beast's rump, leaving head and feathers exposed. It halted and spun with explosive speed, throwing up a cloud of earth clods and twigs and duff, snapping for the thing that had bitten it on the backside; that let Astrid's horse open the distance between them.

  Unfortunately, it also pointed the bear directly at Havel. It hesitated for an instant, as he stood motionless; then its eyes caught the sway of the mule-deer carcass, and the glint of afternoon sun on Signe's knife.

  It went up on its hind legs for an instant, narrow head swaying back and forth as it gave a bawling roar and estimated distances with its little piggy eyes. Then it dropped to all fours again and came for him, as fast as a galloping horse.

  "I don't fucking believe this!" he cried, and then, much louder: "Spear, spear, where's the goddamned spear?"

  Chapter

  Eleven

  There was a hypnotic quality to riding the disk harrow, Juniper decided. The horses leaning into the traces ahead, their shadows falling before them, the shining disks sinking into the turned earth behind the plows and leaving a smooth seedbed behind …

  "Goddamn it!" Dennis called from her left. "Whoa, you brainless lumps of walking hamburger! Whoa!"

  His single-furrow walking plow had jammed up with bits of tangled sod again; it was one of the half-dozen copies they'd made of the museum's original. And it was scraping along on top of the turf rather than cutting it, the handles jarring at his hands. Dennis leaned back, pulling at the reins knotted around his waist; Dorothy Rose, who was walking and leading the horses, added her mite to the effort, and the team stopped.

  Then they looked over their shoulders. Horses didn't have very expressive faces, but she would have sworn both of these were radiating indignation—at the unfamiliar task, and at the sheer ignorant incompetence behind the reins.

  "Easy, Dennie," she said soothingly. "Remember, bo le bata is capall le ceansact; a stick for a cow, but a kind word for a horse."

  "I'd like to use a goddamned log on these beasts," he said, but shrugged and smiled.

  Of them all, only Juniper had any real experience at driving a horse team, and that only with a wagon; she did know how surprisingly fragile the big beasts were, though. She looked up at the sun and estimated the time since the last break …

  "Whoa!" she called to her own team. Then: "All right, all teams take five! Rest and water the horses!"

  She hauled on the reins, wincing as they slid over fresh blisters beneath her gloves. When they'd stopped she wiped a sopping sleeve over her face, tender with sunburn despite the broad-brimmed hat and bandana—the early-April day was bright and warm. Damp reddish brown earth was soft under her feet as she jumped down. It had a scent at once sweetly green and meaty, a compound of cut grass and damp dirt and severed roots and the crushed camas flowers that starred it. That made a pleasant contrast to the smell of her own sweat, and of Cagney and Lacey's.

  "Goddamn it, why does this thing keep jamming?" Dennis said. "It's not just the copies Chuck and I made, the original does it too."

  There was an edge of frustration to the point of tears in his voice. He knelt and began pulling at lumps between the coulter knife that cut the furrow and the moldboard that turned it over.

  Chuck Barstow and John Carson halted their teams as well; Carson turned and looked at the crooked, irregular furrows that lay behind the three plowmen.

  "The plows jam because it's old meadow sod," Carson grinned.

  He was a lean fortysomething man, with sun-streaks through his light brown hair, and blue eyes. He also owned the property four miles west, where Artemis Butte Creek flowed out into the valley proper and the real farmland began, and he was here as part of a complicated swap of labor, animals, and equipment.

  "Hasn't been plowed in a hundred years," he went on as they unharnessed their teams. "Not even been grazed heavy these past forty or more, this bit. Lots of tangled roots, most of 'em thick as a pencil. A big tractor could just rip it all to shreds, but horses … Well, two hundred fifty horsepower against two-nothing, it stands to reason!"

  The furrows were roughly along the contour of the sloping meadow, and very roughly parallel; oblong islands of unplowed grass showed between them, and the depth varied as if they'd been dug by invisible land-dolphins porpoising along.

  At least there weren't very many rocks to hit around here.

  "I thought I knew what hard work was," he said. "No work harder than farmin'. Now I know my granddad knew what hard work was, and I've been kidding myself. He farmed—I operate machinery. Did operate machinery."

  They all unhitched their teams, leaving plows and harrow standing where they lay, and led the big animals over beneath the shade of a spreading oak to the north. They brought buckets of water from the creek rather than taking them to it—it was easier to make sure they didn't overdrink that way. The little pool below the waterfall was close there, and she gave it a longing look as she hauled the water.

  The thought of stripping off her sweat-sodden clothing and diving in, then standing beneath the falling spray …

  Better not, she said. Got to keep going. And Mr. Carson might shock easily. Presbyterians tended to be more cautious about nudity than Wiccans, in her experience.

  Juniper banished the image of a whooping dive into the cold water. Instead she uncorked a big ceramic jug—until recently an ornamental sitting on the mantelpiece over the kitchen fireplace in her cabin. It held spring water, cut with cold herbal tea. When you were really thirsty, that quenched better than water alone.

  After a swallow she passed it around, trying not to think about fresh lemonade. Dennis took it with a grin, wiping the neck and bowing.

  "My thanks, gracious Lady Juniper, High Chief of the Clan Mackenzie, herself," he said.

  "Go soak your head, Dennie," she replied, scowling. "Cut that out. This is a democracy. Sort of."

  "If only I could!" he said, passing the jug on to John Carson. "Soak my head, that is."

  Their neighbor glugged and passed it to Chuck in turn. "Time was an acre was a few minutes' work," he said. "On a tractor, that is! Even if I was towing the rototiller for a truck crop. Now I feel like I've plowed Kansas if I get an acre done in a day."

  His mouth quirked: "You know, I had an old three-furrow riding plow in a shed—"

  All their ears perked up; then they groaned as he went on: "—but I sold it for scrap instead of making it into a lawn ornament like I'd planned."

  The meadowland sloped gently down from the edge of the rise behind her to the lip several hundred yards south. There was the rough first-pass section nearest, the lumpy brown-green quilt of the area that had been plowed twice, then the smooth reddish brown seedbed the disk harrow left. The disks had an automatic neatness built in, chopping and mixing grass and roots and dirt into a light mixed mass. The smooth look of
it was sharp contrast to work that depended on the skill of human hands, or the strength of human shoulders.

  The rest of the clan were working on the finished section; adults turning over a spadeful of earth at regular intervals, the children behind them dropping in a section of seed potato and a dollop of fertilizer. Some of the children still wore green blazers, much the worse for wear and grime; most worked barefoot and in their knee-shorts.

  They'd bury the cut eyes and mound up the earth on the next pass. It wasn't as heavy work as plowing, but it was monotonous; she'd done her share of that, too.

  "We're getting it done," she said, almost to herself. "By the Lord and the Lady, I feel like it's aging me a year a day—not surprising, with days that feel like years—but it's getting done."

  Now if the weather cooperates and the bugs and blights stay away … We should have an Esbat soon. There are lots of crop-magic spells.

  John Carson nodded. "By the time this field is finished, we'll all know what we're doing, a little more at least," he said. "That'll mean my fields go faster, for which I thank you. Not to mention this fall—come November, we have to start planting the winter grains."

  "That harrow's yours," Juniper pointed out. "And it's saving us a lot of time. Neighbors should help each other. Not to mention that silage you're giving us. Big horses like these can't work on grass alone."

  "Neighbors need to help each other more now more than ever," Carson said somberly. "I don't know what I'd have done without your plow teams, Ms. Mackenzie."

  Most of them courtesy of the museum, but let's not mention that, she thought.

  "Good of you to take in all those kids," Carson went on. "I've got my brother and his family and a cousin and his, besides those three the Reverend Dixon talked me into, and I had to turn away others—it hurt, but what could I do? Almost wish I'd been a Mormon instead of a Presbyterian— we'd have had more food stored. As it is I slaughtered more of my stock than I liked."

  A snort. "Not that it mattered after those bastards in Salem cleaned me out, eh? It leaves the silage for the plow teams, at least."

  Just then a thudding of hooves came from the stream-side road. Dennis hefted his ax and lumbered over to the spot where the road emerged from the woods. Sally was there with her bow, seated behind a blind they'd rigged with every art that they could manage. She was the only adult they could spare, and that only because her leg still wasn't healed enough to let her do much work.

  Juniper worried about it—it just wasn't safe not to have more people watching, given the number of hungry refugees about—but there was nothing else they could do, just yet. Not keeping careful enough watch might cause a disaster; not planting the crop in time would certainly kill them all.

  A rider in blue denim overalls came through; a girl in her late teens, blond hair streaming. She halted for a moment to talk to Dennis and Sally, and then trotted her horse over to the tree.

  "Dad!" she said, and then: "Lady Juniper."

  Dennis, I am going to kill you with your own ax for starting that Lady Juniper nonsense, the musician thought, but the girl's face looked too urgent to bother with his warped sense of humor.

  "There's people headed up here," she said. "We saw them pass our place—we're plowing the old south field, Dad, like you said—and they went right up the creek road. Uncle Jason said I should come right up and tell you."

  "How many?" Juniper said quickly.

  Could it be a foraging party?

  The thought brought a cold chill. That was the latest bright idea of the remnant of the state government, parts of which were still hanging on in Salem. They'd started organizing bicycle-borne townfolk and refugees to go out and requisition food and livestock for issue as rations to the urban population, and the refugee camps—Salem hadn't quite collapsed totally, the way she heard Portland and Eugene had done.

  John Carson looked equally frightened. That was how he'd lost most of the considerable herd of cattle he'd had before the Change, that and casual theft by passing scavengers, and the remaining dozen head were grazing on Mackenzie land, for safety's sake.

  "Just four, on foot," Cynthia Carson said, and Juniper blew out her cheeks in relief. "They're leading a horse; one woman, three men. No bows or crossbows—just the usual."

  For safety's sake, Juniper still fetched the crossbow hanging beside the seat of the disk harrow and spanned it, and strapped on her sword belt, before walking over to the guardpost. Dennis and Chuck had been talking about a simple, quick way to make body armor, and perhaps when they had the plowing and planting done …

  Chuck brought his sword and buckler, too, his hand resting on the hilt as he peered down into the shadow of the streamside road. Then: "Alex!" he blurted, letting the long sword swing free.

  Chuck's younger brother smiled and swayed, leaning against the horse he'd been leading; he had the family looks—sandy blond and leanly muscular. The girl beside him wasn't one Juniper remembered, but she'd never been much involved with Alex, since he wasn't of the Craft and didn't like her type of music—he'd been strictly a thrash-metal fan. The closest they'd come was when she'd hired him to do repairs on her barn in '95; he was a builder by trade.

  The two young men behind were strangers as well—one fair and short, the other dark and tall. Polite strangers, though, since they laid down the ax and shovel they'd been carrying. All four were gaunt but not skeletal, and all carried heavy packs; the horse's load was mainly large sacks made of heavy paper, bulging with something small and homogenous, and topped by bedrolls and blankets.

  "Oh, God," Alex said. "I thought we'd never make it, honestly, I did … And you're here..."

  He was almost crying with relief, and the haunted-eyed young woman clung to him with tears streaking the grime on her face.

  "I … this is Barbara. Vince and Steve, they saved our lives. We got caught around Lebanon by some … "

  He swallowed. Everyone winced; they knew what he meant. Not everyone out there was starving quite yet, but enough were, the more so since everyone who did have food was hoarding it against the future. Some were already hungry enough to eat anything at all—and there was only one large animal still common and easily caught.

  "Eaters," the girl whispered.

  Suddenly his eyes went wide. "Can we stay?" he blurted, looking from face to face.

  Juniper caught eyes, willing acceptance; there were nods, mostly; Chuck's and Judy's were emphatic.

  "Of course," she said, turning back to the younger Barstow. With a smile: "And the horse you rode in on, too."

  The animal was tired-looking, but well-fed otherwise— the valley wasn't short of its sort of food. And it was a saddle breed, unlike Cagney and Lacey or the big Suffolks Chuck had liberated from the living-history exhibit. That would be useful.

  "Welcome to the Clan Mackenzie, Alex," she said. "What's in the sacks?"

  He grinned; even that was weary. "Barley," he said. "Certified seed barley. We found it yesterday in an overturned truck—the other half of the cargo was sacks of fertilizer, and they covered it up, but we saw rats digging; there's more, we hid the rest and brought what we could. And if you knew how tempting it was to just eat it … "

  "Come have some Eternal Soup instead," she said, smiling. "And then we'll get a wagon ready."

  Threefold return indeed! she thought. Actions most definitely do have consequences.

  Not a matter of a celestial scorebook of punishments and rewards, just that everything was connected.

  Then another thought struck her: Oh, Goddess—we'll have to plow more!

  * * * *

  There, Juniper thought, freezing, the only motion the slow rise and fall of her chest.

  You don't see me. You don't smell me. You don't hear me. I bind your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, horned one; in the name of Herne the Wild Hunter, so mote it be.

  The mule deer hesitated, then caught Cuchulain's scent—the dog was with Dennis, two hundred yards northeast through the dense bush. The animal turned swiftly
away from the smell of predator, head high and ears swiveling. The mottled clothing she wore would fade into the spring woods, and the wind was wrong for him to pick out human scent from the cool decaying-wood and damp-earth smells. Ferns and brush stood between her and it, but for a moment it poised motionless, quivering-alert.

  They were up in the mountain forest, a thousand feet above the old Mackenzie land. This area had been clear-cut much more recently than hers, and there was more undergrowth. It was still cold here, the more so on a rainy day— there might be sleet or snow if they went a little further upslope. The deer had already begun to head up towards their summer pastures, though: even without guns, the hunting pressure on their herds in the foothills was much worse than usual.

  She exhaled, ignoring the cold drops trickling down her neck, remembering what the book said and practice had reinforced: stroke the trigger gently …

  Thunggg!

  The short heavy bolt flashed out, and the butt of the crossbow thumped at her shoulder. Her breath held still, as she waited for it to be deflected on some strand of second growth, but instead there was a heavy, meaty whack. She didn't see the strike, but nothing could hide the deer's convulsive leap.

  "Dennie!" she cried, springing forward. "I got him!"

  Dennis roared in triumph as he heard her voice, and he plunged towards her—she could hear Cuchulain's frenzied barking as he scented blood, and the shaking of branches as the ex-manager of the Hopping Toad pushed his way through the thickets.

  Blood splashed last year's stems and the green of the new growth. She ran crouched over, sliding through the undergrowth easily. Juniper had never hunted before the Change, but she'd walked these woods on visits all her life, lived here six months in the twelve for the past decade— and all those years she'd watched the comings and goings of its dwellers, deer and fox and coyote, otter and eagle, rabbit and elk.

  She half remembered the lay of the land even here, well off her great-uncle's property; she wasn't altogether bewildered when the deer disappeared in a crashing and snapping. The depth of the ravine that opened beneath her feet still shocked, and she threw herself backward and slapped a hand on a branch slimy with moss to steady herself.