Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

  Dennis hesitated. "There are still a couple of hundred civilians there … They're in pretty bad shape, Juney."

  But for once we can do something for them without worrying, she thought. With the grain we'll be getting from the Bearkillers. That was clever of Mike, to realize we could still use the railroads, for a few years at least, until there are too many washouts.

  "Let's be about the work of the day, then," she said, and nodded to Chuck. "There's no point in just chasing the rest back to Portland; we'd just have them back at us again next year."

  * * * *

  "Crawl faster!" Mike Havel shouted again.

  Another fireball rippled overhead. Then Signe screamed.

  "Christ Jesus!" Havel hissed.

  The crossbow bolt had hit her high on the left shoulder, slanting right down through the meat and leaving the head sticking out the other side. She screamed again when Eric grabbed her under that arm; Havel took the other, and they ran crouching to the shelter of the catapult. Aylward hit the release toggle one more time, then snatched the arrows out of Signe's quiver.

  "We're cutting it too bloody tight," he said, turning and shooting. "You two take the north approach; we'll cover the blockhouse."

  Havel grunted agreement, taking the remaining loops of rope from Eric and Signe and fastening them to the bailey's outer palisade, dropping the long knotted cords down the wall and into the moat. Pamela bent over Signe, then pulled out a hypodermic, stripped it with her teeth and stabbed it dagger fashion into the back of the younger woman's thigh. The morphine brought a long hissing sigh, and relaxation.

  "I don't know how much damage there is inside, but she's not in immediate danger," the veterinarian-swordswoman said.

  "Oh, yes she is," Havel snarled, crouching behind the throwing engine's cover. "We all are."

  The ballista was in a horseshoe-shaped embayment in the castle wall, and it was mounted on a turntable about six feet across. There was a sloping steel shield with a slot for the throwing trough; that was pointed towards the burning tower right now. Crossbow bolts were pattering off it at about one a second, each one with a nerve-wracking ptinnng sound and a spark as the points hit the quarter-inch sheet plate and the bolts pinwheeled off into the night.

  It was crowded, too; they had to get right up against the shield because the upper floors of the tower overlooked them and the crossbowmen there could shoot down … at least until the fire got that far. The tower's own moat and the bellowing fire in the main gateway meant they were cut off from the tower otherwise, though; its garrison could shoot—until the fire drove them out—but they couldn't come out on foot. The heat of the burning tower was enough to dry the sweat it brought out on Havel's face.

  Unfortunately, there was no cover at all on either side, where the fighting platform of the eastern wall ran, and everyone else could get at them that way.

  "Get here fast, stalwart ranchers," Mike snarled to himself, and slid the recurve bow free from its case over his shoulder. "Real fast. Eric, you fit to fight?"

  A drift of wind down from the mountains and the pass blew smoke over them, thick and dense and sooty-hot.

  Eric coughed. "I'll manage," he said.

  "Good," Havel snapped. "Shoot when I do."

  By the increasing light of the tower's fire he could see more of the Protector's men dashing across the open ground from the barracks and up ramp-ladders to the palisade. A few of them were already trotting towards the ballista; Havel coughed again as he saw their heads weaving.

  Trying to figure out what's going on, he thought, carefully not thinking of the probability that he'd be dead in a few minutes. Got to get closer before the impossible becomes visible.

  At about fifteen yards they goggled and halted. Havel came up to one knee and drew, the familiar push-pull effort.

  Snap. An instant later; the crack of a bodkin point on sheet metal as the arrow punched into a black-painted shield.

  A soldier yelled and danced, shaking his shield and screaming—four inches of arrowshaft had pinned his forearm to the plywood. Havel ducked back as another crossbow bolt went by with an eerie whuppt of cloven air, close enough that he felt the wind of it on the sweat-wet skin of his face.

  Movement brought his head around, with the bow rising behind it. He lowered it again as he saw the CORA fighter lever himself over the palisade.

  "Get down, you fool!" Havel shouted, crouched back under the ballista's shield.

  The rancher's man looked at him, then jerked and grunted as two bolts hammered into his chest. He toppled backward, but three more heads followed, and then hands held up a pair of thick shields …

  Eric shot once more and then slowly toppled over backward in a dead faint.

  "I am getting too old for this shit," Havel wheezed, suddenly exhausted beyond bearing. Then he shouted:

  "Corpsman! Stretcher party, here!"

  * * * *

  "I'll look like a football!" Signe said. "All over stiches!"

  "Actually, you look more beautiful than a sunset," Havel said. "See? I'm learning!"

  She smiled back at him from the cot, then winced as motion pulled at the shoulder wound. She drifted back off to sleep.

  Aaron Rothman sighed. "Thank God for morphine," he said. "I really, really hope someone is planting opium poppies!"

  The big hospital tents were crowded; mostly CORA ranchers and their men, but more Bearkillers than he liked—it would have been politically dicey to hold them all back. There was a smell of disinfectant and blood, faces waxy and pale under the light of the Coleman lanterns. Gasoline stoves kept it fairly warm, but the air was close and stuffy as well.

  "Her brother was just faint from loss of blood," Rothman said. "I gave him some plasma and a painkiller; he'll be sore with all those superficial cuts and punctures, but he had his tetanus shots, thank God."

  "What about Signe?" Havel asked, his face impassive.

  "I used the pin test," Rothman said, holding one up. "She's got feeling and movement in all the fingers and no numb spots on the arm, so there isn't any nerve damage to speak of. The clavicle's cracked, though, and the cut muscles will take some time to heal. Full function, or nearly, but not for a while, and she'll need physical therapy."

  Havel gusted a sigh. "Could have been a lot worse," he said.

  Then he went down the rows of cots; for many of them it had been a lot worse. He talked with those who could use it, gave a nod and a touch to others.

  "Thanks!" a young Bearkiller they'd picked up in Grangeville said, with a smile despite the broken leg.

  "Been there, done that," Havel said, grinning back.

  The grin died as he ducked out of the tent's entrance, pulling on his armored gauntlets and settling his helmet; for one thing, the blanket-wrapped bodies of the dead weren't far away, waiting for friends and relatives to take them away, or for time to free up for burial details. For another, out here the smoke of the burning castle still lay thick, in the cold gray light just before dawn. The tower had fallen in a torrent of flame and sparks hours ago, and most of the rest of the palisade still smoldered.

  Also present were the prisoners taken, two score of them; all the guards were Bearkillers or Mackenzies, most of them lightly wounded.

  The CORA fighters and camp followers gathered glaring in the dark chill of morning, bundled up in down jackets and muffled in wool scarves. Breath steamed. Enough could be seen of their faces to know their mood, though; some were bandaged, and all had lost friends or family in the swarming, confused fight through the Protector's burning fort.

  "String the bastards up!" sounded again; the Bearkillers turned their horses' heads outward, and a few of the kilted clansfolk reached over their shoulders for arrows.

  Havel opened his mouth. Before he could speak, another voice sounded—John Brown, the CORA delegate.

  "Go on!" he shouted, waving his hands. "These folks fought for us—do you want to start a battle with them, too? Go on—go on back to your tents. We're civilized people here,
by God; we're Americans, not a lynch mob. Git!"

  Then the leathery bearded rancher turned to Havel. "Sorry about that."

  "No problem, but we'd better get under way," Havel said. Everyone's gotten a bit rougher-edged since the Change.

  "Well, we've got the roadway through the fort cleared and the bridge is ready," Brown said. "Pretty hot and smoky, though."

  Havel shrugged. "Well over half of them got out of the castle. We need to make sure of them before they get west to their other fort."

  Josh Sanders came up, leading Havel's horse. Havel swung into the saddle with a clink and rustle of chainmail; the horse was a strawberry roan mare, not quite as well-trained as Gustav. He quieted it and stroked a gloved hand down its neck.

  "No sign of a rear guard?"

  The Hoosier grinned. "Boss, once they bugged out of the castle, that bunch straggled so bad I'm surprised they managed to get anyone together. But they're closed up into one group now, more or less, and less the wounded they've been leaving behind. Stopped about two hours ago, but not for long is my guess. They remembered to take their bicycles, at least."

  "Good work, Josh," he said. "Aylward's people are in position?"

  "Got into place about the time the fight was over here. That Brit's pretty damn good in the woods."

  Will Hutton was ready at the head of the Bearkiller column, a hundred armored riders with Sanders's scouts in a clump before, and their supply echelon on wagons and packhorses behind. Havel trotted down the column of fours and into position at the front beside Luanne Larsson, where she rode with the outfit's flag drooping from her lance in the still, cold air.

  A sudden gust snapped it out, brown and red in the soot-laden breeze; humans coughed, and horses stamped and snorted, tossing their heads in a jingle of bridles.

  Ahead was the column of smoke from the castle, bending towards them like a reaching hand. On either side the mountains reared steep and rugged; to the north the dawn sun gilded the snowpeaks, leaving the blue slopes below in shadow.

  "This part ought to work fairly well," he said.

  Will Hutton nodded and spat thoughtfully aside. "Whole strategy feels sort of … odd, Mike."

  "Lady Juniper is odd." Havel grinned. "And it's her idea. Yeah, it's not my own first impulse—I was always the kill-'em-all-let-God-sort-'em-out type by natural inclination, and God knows life is cheap these days—but I can see her point, long-term. And she put this whole deal together."

  He raised his arm and chopped it westward. With the sun at their backs, the long shapes of horse and rider lay before them, and the hooves trod the shadows down as the Bear-killers advanced. The honed edges of the lanceheads above caught the dawn light with a rippling sparkle like stars on the sea.

  * * * *

  "Here," Sam Aylward said.

  West of Santiam Pass, Route 20 wound between forested hills that crowded close to the roadway. Eventually it swung north and east for a while before turning west and then south again, like a long U around an outthrust ridge of the mountains that reared-ever higher to Three Fingered Jack on the north and Mount Washington to the south.

  Creeks brawled down from the steep slopes on either hand; they were west of the Cascade crest here, and the extra moisture showed—more Douglas fir and western hemlock, less lodgepole pine. The forest was dense, dark green, seeming to wait eagerly for the heavy snows to come, breathing a cold clear scent of pine and moist earth.

  Speaking of moisture … hope Lady Juniper's magic actually works. A blizzard would bugger things for fair.

  The Englishman cocked an eye at the sky; about noon, not quite time for the party to begin, but getting there, and he didn't like the look of the clouds. It was chilly enough to make him think that might mean snow, too—they were four thousand feet up here, with wet air sliding in from the Pacific, and it was December, albeit only just.

  Just enough to make me doubt me sanity, wearing this Jock skirt, he thought wryly.

  In fact, the kilt wasn't all that uncomfortable—the Jocks had worn them in all seasons in the Scottish Highlands, after all, with a climate that made western Oregon look like Barbados. The colors were good camouflage, and the boost to morale was more than worth it. Few of these people had been fighters before the Change, any more than they'd been farmers; wearing strange clothing helped them adjust to doing things strange to them.

  There was a clatter and rustle as the Mackenzies moved into position; a lot of them were puffing from the night march in full gear, but nobody had fallen out. He grinned slightly to himself at the thought; after the past eight months, most of them were stronger and fitter than they'd ever been in their lives—Yanks had tended to lard before the Change, but he hadn't seen a fat one for months now.

  Now if only they were better shots, he thought.

  About a dozen out of fifty were what he'd call passable archers, and as for the rest …

  Well, they can hit a massed target at close range. Most of the time. And we've got plenty of shafts along.

  He looked up and down the stretch of road. There were four abandoned vehicles in sight, all shoved off the road— courtesy of the Protector's men when they moved in on Route 20—but one was impossible, a heavy truck. The other three included two ordinary four-doors and a Ford Windstar van, and should do nicely.

  "That one, that one, that one, and put them there. Move your arses, Mackenzies!"

  A platoon's-worth flung themselves on the vehicles. They weren't easy to move, with months for the transmission fluid to solidify, and resting on the rims of the flat wheels, but enough musclepower served. Once the cars were in place, more hands rocked them until they went over on their sides, spanning the whole width of the road and its verges, presenting their undersides to the enemy. Those would stop a crossbow bolt well enough, and they were too high to easily climb over. Of course, that meant they were also too high for defenders to shoot or stab over the top.

  "Right, get rocks and dirt and logs; get a fighting platform in behind them," Aylward went on. "Move it!"

  The section leaders gathered around him, shaggy in their war cloaks, leaves and twigs pushed into the netting of the hoods drawn up over their bowl helmets.

  "Look up there," Aylward said, pointing northwest up the road. "We're a good five hundred yards down from that curve. I want two sections"—eighteen archers—"behind the barricade. The rest of you, get your people up on the slopes either side—no more than fifty yards total, but I want each and every one to have a good tree to hide behind and a clear field of fire. Go do it!"

  Everyone did. Aylward watched, which made him itch; circumstances and the growth of the Mackenzies had pushed him into an officer's boots, much against his will.

  He comforted himself by walking back up the road and looking to either side. You couldn 't see far; the verges at the edge of the road's cleared swath were thick with Pacific rhododendron, vine maple and bear grass. His eye could trace the Mackenzies settling in, but once they were motionless, only knowing where they were let him see them.

  "Good enough," he muttered to himself. "In a couple of years, they'll be bloody good, if I do say so myself."

  A check behind the barricade showed that everyone there had a good step, high enough to shoot over the metal, but convenient for ducking down. They also all had a spear to hand, if things got close and personal; he'd picked two sections with people who'd fought the Protector's men back before Lughnassadh …

  "Christ, they've got me doing it," he muttered to himself again, as he climbed up into the woods. "It didn't even occur to me to think August."

  There was a little more work for him here. The archers were spaced about three paces apart, with a tree or bush to conceal each—and with the hoods of their cloaks pulled up over their helmets and shadowing their faces, they were hard to see. A few had picked spots that would block their fields of fire, though. He patiently corrected those, with a quick explanation why and how to check—he wanted them to do better next time—and made sure that each had two bundle
s of extra arrows from the packhorses, which made a hundred and twenty arrows altogether, counting those in the quivers. Most of the archers had a dozen or so pushed point-down into the dirt or a convenient fallen log, which was a good trick—faster than reaching back over your shoulder.

  "Listen for the horn calls, lad," he repeated again and again, or variations, with the odd slap on the shoulder. "Just do what you've practiced, and it'll all come right."

  And if things go wrong, the order will be to scarper up-slope, right quick; we can climb the hillsides faster than the Protector's men; their armor is heavier and they're going to be a lot more tired.

  All done, he settled down to wait behind a hundred-foot-tall lodgepole pine on the west side of the road, taking out a hardtack and gnawing quietly at it, his bow across his knees. It took him half an hour to eat it—if you went too fast, you risked damage to your teeth, which since the Change was no joke. It was about two o'clock when the scout stationed at the northward curve of the road stepped out onto the pavement, waved her bow overhead, then vanished back into the undergrowth.

  "That's that, then," Aylward said, standing and dusting a few crumbs off the front of his jack.

  "How many's that?" Havel asked, as they stopped to pick up a wounded straggler.

  "Twenty," Luanne said. "Not counting the three deaders."

  Havel made a tsk sound as he looked at the steep slopes on either side. In theory the Protector's men could have set an ambush; Josh's scouts were only a couple of hundred yards ahead, and the only way to get a horse into the forest would be to dismount and lead it. The enemy still had half again his numbers. In practice …

  "The Protector thought he had a real army because they had weapons and ranks," he said to her father. "Big mistake."

  Will Hutton nodded; he had his helmet pushed back, and now he pulled it back down by the nasal bar.

  "Sure was," he said, looking as a Bearkiller stretcher party carried the wounded prisoner back towards the ambulance wagons. An abandoned bicycle lay tumbled not far away.

  "What was that you said about these here?"