Dies the Fire

His scream turned to a squealing babble; half a second later it cut off in a thump and gurgle as Eric's improvised naginata slashed down and glanced into the side of his neck before jamming for a moment in his split collarbone. Jimmie's heels drummed on the planks of the veranda, making the dry wood boom like a slack-ski

Havel felt the vibration beneath his feet as he ducked under the spear shaft. It registered, but just as data-like the rest flowing in through his skin and ears and eyes, like the spray of blood that spurted out for half a dozen feet in every direction from the huge flap of skin and flesh sliced off the dying man's neck. Havel's mouth was open too, showing his teeth. He left the spear-too big for close work-and flicked the door catch open, yanking the plank-and-iron portal towards him and bouncing back and to the side.

A chair flew through the open door, thrown from close range. The scrimmage on the veranda had been brief but noisy. Havel ducked forward again, stooping under the pole-and-rawhide chair, knife out and flashing up in the gutting stroke. The ski

The front room of the cabin was big, nearly thirty feet by fifteen, with chairs and a couch set in a U-shape around the fireplace; there was a blaze going in it, and a Coleman lantern on the mantelpiece over it. The thickset bandit was there, trying to stand and having difficulty with it. That was because Signe Larsson had him around the knees; he was wearing long johns with the front flap open, and she had on panties and a set of scratches and bruises. He was swinging his fists at her head and screaming curses as he tried to wrench free, but she ducked her face into the dirty gray fabric covering his legs and hung on like grim death.

That couldn't last; the bandit leader weighed two-fifty at least, and not all of it was blubber. The blade of Eric's nag-inata came up by Havel's left shoulder; blood dripped off the whole length of the steel, and off the shaft and the arms that held it. The young man's face was white but set, and heavily speckled with red drops.

"Keep him off me," Havel barked, jerking his left hand at the ski

In the same instant he vaulted over the couch. The bandit chief roared and flailed his arms at Havel, kneeing Signe in the face in his heaving panic. Havel stepped in, delicate as a dancer, taking the clumsy blow on his shoulder. The puukko stabbed twice with vicious speed-once up under the short ribs, then up under the chin as the man doubled over like someone who'd been gut-punched. The mattresslike beard parted easily, and the front half of the bandit's tongue flew out of his open mouth in a spray of blood.

Havel knocked the dying man over backward with a grunt of effort as he shouldered past him; he fell with his head and shoulders in the fireplace and lay there with his hair burning and his blood frying and crisping and stinking on the hot iron of the log holder.

That left Eric and Jailhouse Bob on one side of the sofa and Havel on the other, moving fast towards the bandit's end to take him in the rear. The man had been on the attack, ready to take a few cuts to get in under Eric's polearm with his knife and finish him quickly before the two men could gang up on him, just exactly the right thing to do.

He hadn't quite managed it, and there was blood flowing from a shallow cut on his cheek. Now he backed again, moving fast in a straddle-legged crouching shuffle, his head swiveling between the two opponents coming at him. The knife in his hand was nearly a foot long, almost a bowie, and sharpened on the recurve; it glittered in the lantern light as he moved it in small precise arcs at the end of his long arm.

No fancy Ramboesque serrations on the blade or Klingon wings on the plain brass quillions; it was a professional's weapon, and even two-on-one Bob was likely to do some serious damage before he went down.

Behind him Astrid Larsson walked out of the hallway. She was entirely naked and spattered with blood; mostly someone else's, far too much to come from the bite-marks on her small breasts. There was an old-fashioned alarm clock in her right hand, and a collection of small heavy objects in the curve of her other-coffee mugs and paperweights.

She threw the alarm clock, hard; it jangled as it hit Bob's shoulder, and there was a look of dawning panic in his narrow hazel eyes as he flicked them back and forth, darting between the girl and the two armed men.

She followed it with a coffee cup, which missed, and a paperweight, which didn't. The ski

Women scare him, Havel realized. That's why he hurts them.

"Kill him," Havel said to Eric, and moved in to do just that as a mug flew past Bob's head.

The bandit reversed the knife with a swift flip and threw it at Havel; then he turned and dodged Eric's thrust with the point of his naginata and jumped straight through the window, arms crossed in front of his face as he smashed through the glass. He was lucky-you were about as likely to cut your own intestines out doing that as not-landed flat on the veranda, and took off ru

Havel twisted to let the big blade go by; you could get hurt by a thrown knife, but generally only by accident. Then he put a booted foot on the windowsill to follow; he didn't look forward to chasing the stick-thin killer in the dark, but he wasn't going to have him hanging around, either.

Astrid walked to where her bow and quiver hung by the door, put a shaft to the cord, drew, and loosed through the window. Her movements had the smooth inevitability of a sleepwalker's.

The arrow made Havel jerk aside in surprise; it went by close enough that he could feel the wind of its passage, and hear the whhhptt of cloven air.

"He wanted to rape me but he couldn't," she said with a calm like ice on a river just before the spring surge cracked it, ignoring the savage lash of the bowstring on her forearm.

"So he took me into Mom's room and he killed her; he said he'd be able to do me after that."

Havel completed the vault and dropped down onto the broken glass that littered the veranda; it crunched and crackled under his boots.

Twenty yards away, Jailhouse Bob lay in the pathway, pulling himself along on his hands. His legs were limp, and an arrow stood in his lower back. It jerked and quivered as he tried to drag himself along, looking over his shoulder with a snarl. Havel shook himself, as if he were coming out of deep cold water.

Eric Larsson was on his knees at the edge of the veranda, puking with a violence that threatened a pulled muscle in his back, and obviously wasn't going to be much use for the immediate future. He walked over to the middle-aged black man instead, and went down on one knee to cut the rope lashings that held him.

"My family?" Will Hutton asked, working his arms and rubbing at his wrists.

"Hiding out in a thicket by the road with most of your gear," Havel said. "Should be fine."

"Lord, but that's good to hear," Hutton said, slumping in relief. He began to offer a hand, then realized Havel still had the knife in his. "Many thanks… "

"Mike Havel," he replied, and waved the blade slightly. "Consider this my contribution to public hygiene."

Hutton had a heavy rural-Southern accent, but sharper and more nasal than Gulf State gumbo; Havel thought it was probably Texas originally. The Corps was lousy with Texans of all varieties, and he'd heard that slurred rhythmic twang a lot in some sandy and unpleasant places.