Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  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 tattered 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 god-damned 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.

  Christ, you have to learn a whole new way of moving in this stuff.

  Pamela came up on the other side, evidently thinking the same thing from the cautious way she moved.

  "Easy, kid," Havel said, as she put a hand under his head.

  The adolescent wasn't really unconscious, just stunned. He sucked eagerly at the warm water, coughing and sputtering, then drinking more; his eyes widened at the sight of Havel's gear, but he didn't seem frightened of them, just terrified in general.

  "They hurt my mom," he said. "They—"

  "Son, calm down," Havel said, his voice firm and strong, but not shouting. "Take it from the top. I need to know what's going on, and fast."

  The boy closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. "We—my family and our neighbors— we were traveling east, out of Lewiston, to get away from the sickness."

  Havel's eyes narrowed; Pamela's hands moved with quick skill, checking for temperature and swollen glands.

  "Nobody happened to mention that about Lewiston, did they?" she said angrily; then she shook her head, smiling a little in relief, and Havel blew out his cheeks with a whoosh. Medicines were getting scarce.

  The boy went on:

  "We don't have it! But a lot of people did. We got out a week ago, and we were traveling, going to my uncle's farm outside Kooskia. But we stopped, and they … they … " He started to shake again.

  Havel gave him more water, and leaned closer to look into his eyes: "How many? Mounted, or on foot? What happened, and where did they go?"

  "A lot—a dozen, maybe. I didn't see any horses. They were all around us, and I just—I saw one of them hit Mom with an ax, and I just got on my bike and went. Please, mister, you've got to help! I just ran away. I ran away from them all."

  He started to cry.

  "Running was the best thing you could do, kid," Havel said, giving him a quick squeeze on the shoulder. "Trying to fight out of your weight is stupid, not brave. Now how far was it, and what's the ground like?"

  Havel looked up at Pamela when he had all the information they could muster; the ambush had taken place about two miles west, well uphill, and just where the road cut through the edge of the plateau. He closed his eyes for a second, calling up the terrain map of the area he'd studied.

  "He's undernourished and dehydrated and he's got cooties, but otherwise fine, far as I can tell," Pamela said. "If his party had been on the road for a week, chances are they're clean."

  He stood, thinking, weighing distances. "All right, this has fucked up Plan Number One to hell and gone. We've got to keep in contact or they'll get away again. Signe, light the signal and stay with the kid—that's an order!—until the rest of the A-list gets here. We'll leave s
ign; follow at speed. Keep an arrow on your string until the cavalry arrive and get ready to run if you have to."

  He picked the boy up, laying him on the tarpaulin in the back of the wagon.

  "Eric, Pam, equipment check. Then water the horses, all they'll drink. Double canteens, take nothing but water, armor and weapons."

  Pam pulled out three bundled smocks. Havel groaned inwardly at the thought of putting on another layer, but the thin cotton surcoats were sewn with patches, camouflage-patterned in gray and brown and sage green, better disguise than even the most carefully browned metal. They pulled them on, buckled their sword belts over the cloth and swung into the saddle, giving each other's gear a quick once-over.

  Signe already had the smudge pot out on the road and lit, and a column of black-orange smoke rose to the sky. That would tell Will and the rest of the mounted backup Come at speed.

  * * * *

  Havel leaned down in the saddle on an impulse; Signe turned, startled, and her eyes flew wide when he gave her a brief hard kiss. He grinned and clamped his legs to his horse's barrel.

  "Follow me!"

  Hooves thundered, spitting gravel behind them; some of it hit the smudge pot with a sharp metallic tinking.

  Havel leaned far over in the saddle to study the marks by the side of the road. Damn, but I'm better than I was, on horseback. Well, a month of continuous practice …

  "Bikes and a cart with bicycle wheels," he said.

  They'd seen that before, rigged up like an Asian pedicab. His eyes scanned.

  "Went off upslope there. Blood trail—big splotch of blood by the side of the road, and then splashes of it; someone got cut badly."

  He frowned. "Probably fatally. The splashes get smaller up the hill here, like a body bleeding out. You can track 'em by the way the ants and flies are swarming on it."

  "Should we follow?" Eric said, reining his horse half around.

  "Patience," Pamela said.

  Havel noticed that her eyes went skyward, like his. She hadn't been a hunter until the Change, but she had spent a lot of time before that watching wildlife.

  "Patience, my ass. Let's go kill something, as the vulture said," Eric began brashly, but fell silent as the others pointed upward.