Dies the Fire

The injured man smiled as he took the concentrated ration, and managed not to gulp it.

"I chucked a bit of wood at your dog because I thought it was that coyote again. One's been visiting, waiting for me to come ripe."

There was an English twang to his voice, but not Cockney or boarding school; instead a broad yokel burr that reminded her of documentaries she'd seen about places with thatched cottages and Norman churches.

Juniper nodded, examining. "He wasn't hurt, just startled. Your shoulder's dislocated," she said. "Ball right out of the socket and displaced up."

"I know, lass," he said. "Tried fixing it, but I couldn't get the leverage."

De

"You're not Scots, surely?" the Englishman said, giving her another head-to-foot glance. "Irish, I'd have said."

"My mother was born in west Ireland, my father's family came from Scotland a long time ago by way of Ulster, and De

"I don't think aught else's broken or torn-just sommat bruised and battered! I couldn't come at the legs with me arm out, is all."

De

"De

A grin. "And tell Diana that the guest comes with a venison di

De

That done, she studied her… Well, probably new clansman, if he's at all suitable, she thought. The unsought omen should never be disregarded. A gift from the Horned Hunter, this one.

The man was older than her by a decade but younger than De

She shook hands carefully; his great square paw swallowed hers. "And you're English, by the sound of you?"

"Samuel Aylward, at your service, lady," he said, then winced when he tried to give a half bow. "Samkin to his friends. Late of Crooksbury, Hampshire, late sergeant in the Special Air Service."

"You're a long way from home!"

"Not much wild land left back in old Blighty. I like wandering about in the woods; it's an old family tradition, you might say, Lady Juniper."

"That Lady Juniper is just a joke of De

He looked at her and quirked a smile. "It's Lady Juniper or call you an angel from heaven, lass; I was getting fair anxious, there. What was that last bit of Erse you said to him? Stumped him, I could see."

"Roughly translated: If you want to be liked, shut up and listen. We're old friends."

"Thought so," Aylward said, then sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

Long-held tension released his face, making it look younger despite stubble and lines and dirt. She held his head while he drank again; he knew enough to pace himself, and nibbled on some dried fruit when she gave it to him. He was wearing camper's or hunter's garb, and a pack; a long case lay not far away. She snagged it and worked it out of the tangled branches.

"What's this?"

"My bow, if it's not a broken stick," Aylward said. "I bloody well hope not. I'm no Adams, but I spent a lot of time making it, I did; it's my favorite reflexdeflex longbow."

She opened the soft waterpoof case; the stave within was yellow yew, about six feet long with a riser of some darker wood and a leather-wrapped grip; a neat little quiver held six goose-feathered arrows. The wood shone and slid satin-smooth under her touch. When she took it up by the grip it had the fluid natural feeling of handling a violin from a master craftsman's hands, despite being far too long for someone only three inches over five feet in her socks.

"It's fine, indeed. Were you poaching?" she said, teasing to distract him from his injuries-it hadn't been the deer-hunting season when the Change hit.

"There's no season on boar here," he said a little defensively; feral swine were an invasive pest, and unprotected. "And-"

She nodded encouragingly and gave him another drink of the water. Best if he talks a little, she thought.

"And I've the time for it these days. Call me a masochist."

He took a deep breath; she could sense he wasn't much of a man for chatting with strangers, in more normal times. Not surprising now, when he's half-delirious and just reprieved from a very nasty death. Juniper waited, her face calmly attentive, ready to accept words or silence.

"Is the war over?" he said, after half a minute.

"War?" she said, bewildered.

"I was looking north towards Portland from the mountainside when I saw the flash," he said. "And then everything went dark-lights out good and proper, none since, and everything electronic in my gear was buggered for fair. I was staying high, working my way south and waiting out the fallout, until I ran too hard and looked too little after a buck and landed down here."

She looked at him with pity. "Oh, you poor man!" she exclaimed. "You thought it was World War Three? It's much worse than that, I'm afraid!"

A day later Juniper finished adding the column of figures, wishing for one of the old mechanical crank-worked adding machines as she did, and putting it on a mental list for scavenging or swapping.

All the adults were present, including a near-silent Sam Aylward propped up on the couch with his wrenched leg and sore shoulder; Sally Qui

The adults of… she supposed she couldn't just say the Singing Moon Coven; half the people weren't coveners at all. Though to be sure they weren't exactly cowan, either.

Well, I may have suggested we call it a clan, she thought. But it was De