Dies the Fire

Woburn rubbed his lantern jaw. "Sort of hard to think of Portland having much to do with our problems. These days, it seems a long ways off."

"Believe it," Havel said grimly. "I doubt Iron Rod would have been more than a major nuisance without someone giving him help and ideas. Hell, the Protector gave me ideas, unintentionally."

He looked at the balloon again. It had taken a bit of finding. but there were a surprising number of hot-air balloon enthusiasts in Idaho-had been, before the Change.

It was still an hour before noon, and the sun wouldn't be getting into anyone's eyes for a couple of hours, no matter which way the fight turned.

God, I hope this isn't too expensive when the butcher's bill is totaled up, he thought.

Partly that was the simple desire to keep his people from harm; he'd selected every one, and a lot of them were friends by now, and all of them were his. Partly it was a desire to conserve the Bearkillers' capital assets.

Condottieri, he thought. The word simply meant "contractor" in Renaissance Italian. That's what we've ended up as.

It turned out that Pam and Rothman and Ken all knew a lot of stories about Renaissance Italy, and they were a lot less dull that what he remembered of high school history classes; if Woburn had heard some of them, he might have been more cautious about hiring his fighting done.

Particularly the ones about condottieri leaders deciding they'd rather be Duke of Milan or something of that order. Havel intended to keep scrupulously to the terms, but how could the sheriff know that?

On the other hand, Florence got taken over by a family of bankers, of all things, he thought with a taut grin. Now, there's a real gang of mercenary pirates for you.

At least he had the consolation that he was fighting people who needed killing, on the whole.

He leaned forward and slapped his big bay gelding affectionately on the neck; it tossed its head and snorted, shifting its weight from foot to foot, making its harness jingle and his armor rustle and clank.

"Work to do, Gustav," he said. Then, louder, he turned in the saddle and called to his Bearkillers: "Time to do good, and earn our pay!"

That brought a cheer; Signe gri

Damn, but I wish she weren 't here, he thought. Nothing to be done about that, though, except win this fight as quick as we can.

His eyes made one last check of equipment, although he would have been astonished had anything been less than perfect. Also present, through unavoidable political necessity, were twenty of Woburn's posse members, which made him a little less than happy. They were equipped with anything that came to hand, and about half of them were pushing into middle age.

Sixty-odd horsemen took up a lot of room. The strong musky-grassy smell of the horses and their sweat filled the hollow, and the scents of human sweat soaked into leather and cloth, of steel rings wiped down with canola oil, of fear and excitement, and of earth torn open by ironshod hooves.

"Will, you get going on your part of it," Havel said.

The horsemaster nodded and reined his mount around; rather more than half the Bearkillers followed him, and all Woburn's men except the sheriff himself.

"Let's go, Gustav," Havel added to his mount, and gave the big gelding a leg signal; the horse broke into an obedient canter. A file of twenty followed him, and Woburn- but he didn't expect the sheriff to do much fighting. He pulled his bow from the case that slanted back from his left knee under the saddle flap and reached over his shoulder for an arrow, conscious of everyone doing likewise behind him… except Woburn, of course.

"I'm really starting to think we can run this raiding party off," the local man said.

"No!" Havel answered sharply, without looking around. "We are not going to chase them away. We're going to kill every last one of the filth, for starters."

The horses crested the top of the hill without pausing; the land to the south was flatter, rolling so gently it would have seemed level without the wind ruffling waves through the knee-high wheat that covered it and showing the long low swellings. The hooves were a drumroll under the soughing breeze.

"There!" Signe called, pointing southwest.

There was a dark clot against the green, one that swiftly turned into a group of armed men on horseback. Twenty or so of them, all in scale-mail tunics and steel helmets; one of them even had bulls' horns on his, bad-movie-Viking style. With them were half a dozen captives, four women and two men, with their feet lashed into the stirrups of their horses and their hands tied behind their backs, and a biggish herd of cattle and horses being driven along. Many of the horses had bags of plunder thrown over their backs to make rough packsaddles.

He could hear the outlaws' yells and whoops as they caught sight of the Bearkillers; one or two stayed to guard prisoners and plunder, but the rest hammered their heels into their mounts and thundered forward. Havel's eyes narrowed as the distance closed; the Devil Dogs were in no particular order, but they didn't appear to be shy of a fight. Their bellowing cries were full of blood-lust; and worse, of confidence.

Not very good riders, he thought; none better than he'd been at the Change, most worse. Big men mostly, with beards spilling down their chests. Well-armed.

They all had decent body armor, and they all had a crossbow slung like a rifle at their saddlbows. For the rest they carried swords-double-edged swords with long hilts, what they'd called a bastard sword in Europe in the old days-or axes ground down so they were light enough to be used single-handed. And they all carried shields slung over their backs, kite-shaped models bigger than the Bear-killer targe, and heavier too from the looks.

"Let's give them their first surprise!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Signe, Shooting circle and At the gallop."

She put the trumpet to her lips and sounded the calls, the bugle high and sweet in the warm still air. Havel dropped the knotted reins on his saddle horn and leaned forward, signaling his horse up to a gallop. Distance closed with shocking speed; he could see the leader of the Devil Dogs shouting and gesturing frantically to his men.

Havel's lips ski

Not that we're very good at it yet, he thought. But we have trained for it. And they're expecting us to get down to fight too.

He waited until the distance closed further; one pre-Change military skill that still had value was being able to do a quick accurate assessment of how far away something was. The Devil Dogs had all gotten off their horses, and they were bending to span their crossbows-the weapons shot hard and straight at close range. They were expecting to catch his people dismounting and shoot them up before they could reply.

"Yo!" he shouted, and turned his horse with balance and knees-skills Will and Lua

Gustav pivoted neatly, like a rodeo mount in a barrel race. The dozen riders behind him did likewise, at well-timed intervals; suddenly they were galloping from left to right across the line of the Devil Dogs' formation. Black soil flew up in divots; the horses' heads pounded up and down like pistons, and he felt a sensation of rushing speed no machine could quite match as the great muscles flexed and bunched between his legs.