Dies the Fire

De

"Holy Ha

The floor of the Willamette Valley was mostly flat, but here towards the edge of the Cascade foothills the odd butte reared up out of the fields. Juniper Mackenzie lay on the crest of one such, training her binoculars west; the damp ground soaked into her shirt, but the temperature was heading up, finally getting springlike, and the earth had the yeasty smell of new growth. Crocus bloomed nearby, blue spears under a big Oregon oak whose leaves were a tender green.

She swallowed, her hands trembling as she watched I-5, the main interstate that ran north-south from Portland to Eugene. The litter of motionless cars and trucks hadn't changed. The first thin scatter of trudging people on foot had; most of the stranded passengers had probably dispersed quickly, and for a day or two-the day her party had crossed-it had been nearly empty.

Now it was thronged. Groups on foot-they probably included a lot from Salem and the first or the most determined from Portland; perhaps some walking north from Eugene in ironic counterpoint to the flood heading south away from the metropolis.

Everyone looking for the place things are normal, and not finding it.

A lot of the ones on bicycles were almost certainly from Portland; it was an easy three-day trip by pedal, and there were a lot of bicyclists there.

From Albany, too, she thought.

That city wasn't far away to the north; she could have seen it on a normal day. Today a thick plume of black smoke marked the location, and the faint bitter smell was an undertone to the earth scents. On the highway, a group was fighting around an eighteen-wheeler truck that had coasted into the rear of an SUV on the evening when everything Changed, carried along by momentum. Merciful distance hid the details, but there were certainly clubs and pieces of car-jack and tire-iron in use. Probably knives and shovels as well.

Must be food inside. Oh, Goddess, there goes another bunch.

Twenty or thirty cyclists traveling in a clump abruptly braked to a halt and drove into both groups fighting around the truck in a solid wedge. At this distance everything was doll-tiny even with the powerful binoculars, and she kept the point of aim moving so that she wouldn't catch more than an odd glimpse. There were already too many things in her head that kept coming back when she tried to sleep.

The worst of it was that she couldn't even blame them for fighting over the food. If everyone shared fairly, that would simply mean that everyone died of starvation. There just wasn't enough to go around, and no authority to enforce rationing if there was. Too little anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of a warehouse or a grain elevator or a packing plant-and there, too much, and no way to move it any distance before it spoiled.

Do not think of what New York or LA is like, she told herself. Do not. Do not.

That was like telling yourself not to think about the color orange, or an elephant, but she had to try if she wasn't going to curl up into a little ball and wait to die. Cuchulain thrust his nose into her armpit and whined slightly as he scented her distress.

Instead she cased the binoculars, picked up her crossbow and started to thread her way down through the tangle of trees and brush that covered the steep south face of the butte, sliding down on her butt and controlling her descent with her heels more often than not; it was better than five hundred feet of steepness. Cuchulain kept pace with her, wuffling happily as he stuck his nose, into holes and snapped at long-tailed butterflies.

She felt a moment's bitter envy; as far as the dog was concerned this was a perfect spring day, out with his person in the country, and she'd even let him eat some very high carrion. The only thing wrong was that she smelled scared and sad.

Then he went quiet, stiffened, and gave a low growl. Juniper reached out and grabbed his collar, whispering stay! in a low emphatic tone, and pushed her way forward the last few yards.

The narrow graveled road ran along the base of the butte, with a filbert orchard on the other side. The hobbled horses were grazing there among the new spring grass and the flowers, and the barrel shape of her wagon was a little distance further from the road, mostly hidden from a casual view; De

Now six people on bicycles faced him and Eilir where the gate from the road went through the orchard fence. They weren't openly hostile yet, but she could hear the raised voices, and she could see their desperation; they looked just as dirty and tired and ragged as she felt, and thi

Four men, two women, and a child, she thought. They realized they'd do best off the Interstate. Looking for "normal" means dying; better to look for food.

The child was young, no more than four or five. A boy, and with his own miniature cyclist's helmet; his mother's bicycle had a pillion seat for him. She was Oriental, and she was dangerously well armed. Two of the others carried baseball bats, one a golf club, one a spade with a thick straight-sided blade crudely sharpened; all of them had some sort of knife, if only the kitchen variety. But the Asian woman had an honest-to-goodness bow, and a quiver clipped to the side of it with four arrows; it was a fiberglass target weapon, not even meant for hunting, but potentially deadly for all that. An arrow was nocked to the string, but she hadn't drawn it.

"Look," De

He had the Danish ax held slantwise across his body, one hand on the end of the haft and one halfway up. Eilir stood beside him with her crossbow cocked and loaded but not quite leveled.

"I'm sorry as can be, but there's nothing we can do for you. We don't want any trouble. You can pass on by, and nobody will be hurt."

Just then one of Luther Fi

"You've got chicken!" one of the bicyclists screamed; it was the sound of a beggar confronted with riches.

"No, we don't," Juniper said firmly.

Everyone jerked around to look at her as she came out of the brush at the base of the hill and onto the road.

The stuff inside the wagon would be unimaginable wealth if you could see it, she thought grimly, as she advanced and stood on De

"That's a rooster and some breeding hens and we're not parting with them to make all of you one meal," Juniper went on.