Dies the Fire

"The Protector?" Eddie asked. "He the man, here?"

The clerk's lips went tight. "You'll see. And you'd better be respectful."

Eddie looked at the line of spears, and the burning ground. Several other pillars of black smoke rose from the city, and now that he knew what they were he could easily tell them from the ordinary plumes from random fires.

"Oh, yeah, duibuqi, so sorry, no disrespecting, man. None at all."

The streets were mostly empty; the long rectangle of park swarmed. Several of the big grassy areas had been fenced off; some held horses, others men learning to ride horses; one fell off and staggered to his feet clutching an arm as Eddie watched.

Much of the rest of the park had been converted to vegetable gardens; a whiff told him where the fertilizer had come from. And another line of spearmen was prodding several score men with disks around their necks towards a small baseball park with bleachers, the kind neighborhood kids would have used back before the Change. Another man with a clipboard waited there; he had a belt with tools around his waist; beside him cooks were boiling something in big pots over wood fires. It smelled like porridge of some sort, and Eddie could hear Mack's stomach rumbling.

The man with the tools shouted for silence.

"All right," he said, when the newcomers had damped down the rumble of their talk. "First thing, anyone lies to us is really going to regret it-but not for long. Understand?"

Eddie preempted Mack's question: "He means if you lie and they find out, they'll off you."

"Oh," Mack said, nodding thoughtfully.

"We need skilled workers," Mr. Handyman went on. "Any blacksmiths first and foremost. Farriers too."

"Well, that lets us out," Eddie murmured; the closest he'd come to blacksmithing was a few hours of shop in high school, and he didn't even recognize the name for the other trade.

"Plumbers, fitters, machinists, bricklayers, carpenters," the man went on. "Doctors, dentists. Gardeners and farmers too. Line up over there at the desks and give the details. And people, do not lie. General laborers over here."

Over here had another bunch of tough guards, and a bin full of metal collars.

No, not my thing, Eddie thought.

There was a scattering of men and women sitting in the bleachers around the baseball field, mostly close up by home base. There were also racks of weapons near the entrance- spears and shields-and an alert-looking squad with crossbows.

Eddie nodded, unsurprised. Yeah. An elimination event.

Also there was a big horse-drawn carriage, the type they'd used to show tourists around town before the Change; it had four glossy black horses hitched to it, and another couple standing saddled nearby, with collared servants holding them. Plus six or seven big armored men, standing by their mounts. Eddie's status-ante

One more servant sat in the carriage, holding up a lacy parasol-a blond chick, and a real stu

A little closer, and Eddie could see that it was armor- thousands of small burnished stainless-steel washers, held on to a flexible backing with little copper rivets through the holes in their center; it clad the man from neck to knees, slit up the back and front so that he could ride a horse.

Around his narrow waist he wore a leather belt carrying a long double-edged sword and a dagger; over his broad shoulders went a black silk cloak; on his feet high black boots with golden spurs on the heels. A servant nearby held his shield and a helmet, hammered steel with hinged cheek-pieces and a tall raven-feather plume.

The face above the glittering armor was narrow and aquiline; the hazel eyes that surveyed the field were the coldest the young man had ever seen. Eddie estimated his age somewhere between thirty and forty; that sort of bony look didn't show the years much.

I think I'm in love, he gri

"Hey!" he shouted aloud. "I didn't come here to shovel shit. I came here to join the Association and fight. I want to be with you when you move out of Portland."

Mack rumbled agreement, and about a dozen others among the crowd did as well; none of them had come through since the Change looking plump but they were notably less gaunt than the others.

The man in the coat of rings shifted his gaze to Eddie, coming erect with lazy grace. He walked nearer, the muscle just behind.

"And what makes you think we're leaving Portland?" he said softly, he had an educated man's voice, calm and precise.

Eddie met his eyes, forcing himself not to flinch or show the sudden rush of cold anxiety that ran from crotch up to stomach.

"Because that's where it all is, now," he said. "The farmers and the farms, that's everything. If you've got them, you've got everything."

A guard bristled. "You call the Protector 'sir', cocksucker, or 'Protector'."

A thin brow crooked up, and the man raised a hand for quiet. "Why did you come into town, then?"

"I figured, what with the panic and all, probably not all the food got eaten right after the Change. Just the stuff in stores, maybe ca

"Well, well, well," the lord of Portland said. "We've got one with brains. Perhaps I'll have a use for you. Any education?"

Eddie shrugged and gri

"More hard knocks we can arrange," the man said. He nodded his head towards the baseball field. "It takes a special sort of man to be an Associate. We have a little contest first, a chance to show your quality. The wi

Eddie nodded. "Figured it would be like that, from your setup," he said calmly. "One question, Protector?" At the nod he went ahead. "How come you figured things out so fast?"

The man smiled, and gestured another bristling guard back. "I was a man who realized what the Change meant," he said.

He clapped his hands sharply. "Let the play-offs begin!"

Fifteen

"I'm surprised," Will Hutton said a week later. "Hadn't expected gratitude to last so long, but they still love us."

Havel gri

"I don't think they really needed those tents they gave us," he said, holding his horse's bridle beneath the jaw and stroking its nose. "And word about the ca

Gustav tried to nuzzle his face; he pushed it away with his right palm. Horses were a bit like St. Bernards when they got affectionate, given to slobbering all over you with the drooling jaws of love. The powerful earthy-grassy scent of the big gelding was strong in his nostrils. Will Hutton had picked it for him, twelve hundred pounds of agile muscle and endurance, a descendant of Steel Dust and Shiloh on his dam's side, crossed with Hutton's Hanoverian stallion.