Dies the Fire

The tents the locals had donated were National Guard standard, meant to sleep eight men; a row of them stretched across a green meadow not far from the Clear-water. Families and groups of the unattached milled about each in the morning chill, getting ready for the day. The wagons were nearby; one of them was a ranch-style chuck-wagon; Angelica had hugged the vehicle and kissed the tilt when it arrived. The horse lines lay a little beyond, and beyond that the ground sloped up towards the west; stock drifted over it, watched by mounted herders.

The cattle and sheep had been surplus to local needs too, but the extra horses were very welcome. So were the four precious milch cows and their calves.

Havel pushed his helmet back by the nasal, so that the padding of the lower rim rested on his scalp and he had an unobstructed view; it was becoming a gesture as natural as breathing. The long shadows of men and horses stretched before him towards the west, and the wind was gratefully cool through the steel rings of his armor. More and more of the Bearkillers drifted in, until he was ringed by faces old and new.

So much for making a quiet exit, he thought. Christ, we talked about the trip long enough.

The Larssons were there, and Pamela, and a scattering of others-Aaron leaning on his crutch, and Billy Waters too for some reason.

"I still think it's a bit risky to send you," Will grumbled. "Yeah, we do need a detailed scout of the way we're headed-news just plain spreads too slow and gets too garbled. It's purely foolish to keep the whole shebang pokin' ahead into the blue. So sending Eric 'n' Josh I can see. Why you, though?"

"I like to see the ground I'm going to be operating through," Havel said patiently-he'd listened to the same argument for days. "And I can bargain for us, arrange safe passage and make deals."

Plus personal reasons, he added to himself; Signe was hanging back, looking sheepish. Not her fault, but…

"You can run the camp well enough, Will."

The Texan gri

Havel winced slightly. "Well, whatever works. And you're needed for teaching-so are Pam and most of the others. How many newbies have we got now?"

"Twenty-seven, countin' the kids and the teenager we rescued. Eighteen grown men and women."

"Right, and they all need to know the basics," Havel said. "Half of them have never forked a horse and none of them have ever picked up a sword. We need a long stop for that anyway, and to get the bowmaking operation and the other stuff going. Three men with a good string of remounts can travel fast. I should be back in about a month."

He paused. "Hey, Astrid," he called.

She started, pulling her eyes from a red-tailed hawk circling high above.

"It's your birthday next week, isn't it?"

She nodded. He turned and took a parcel out of his saddlebag.

"Eric and I found this for you. I know you miss that Lord of the Rings you had. We won't be here on the day, so-"

The wrapping was plain brown paper, but she gave a suppressed squeal, slung her bow over her shoulder, and took it eagerly.

Havel hid a grin as she jumped from one foot to the other and tried to undo the knots.

Sort of gives you an idea of what she would be like as a normal teenager, yakking for hours on the phone or mooning over some idiot musician, he thought.

She gave up on the knots and drew her hunting knife to cut the string.

"It's a complete set!" she burbled. The books were bound in gray, with a golden ring and a lidless eye on the cover.

"Ohmigod! The Allen and Unwin hardcovers!" A quick glance inside. "A first edition Allen and Unwin with the foldout pocket maps intact! A-" she choked. "A signed first edition! Ohmigod!"

Unexpectedly she threw herself at him and hugged him hard; even through the mail and padding it made him give back half a pace and go ooof! Usually she hated touching anyone.

"Hey, kid, watch it-you're still holding that knife! And Eric did a lot of the looking too."

And the original owner is dead, he thought, with a touch of i

She gave her brother a perfunctory nod of thanks; he rolled his eyes. Then there was a flurry of handshakes and slaps on the back. Thankfully, nobody else tried to hug him.

Signe was the last. "It's my birthday soon too," she said.

"Ah. didn't have anything to give," he replied awkwardly.

"Yes you do," she said, and threw her arms around his neck.

The kiss went on for a long time, and grew hungry. He was dimly aware of whoops and laughter in the background; this time both Astrid and Eric were rolling their eyes, and Astrid made a theatrical gagging sound. Her brother might have made the same finger-down-throat gesture if Lua

"I'll be waiting," Signe said, when she drew back.

"So will I," Havel answered; he had to catch his breath and clear his throat before he could finish the brief phrase.

He put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle with a grunt and a rustling clink and clatter. Josh Sanders finished his good-byes to wife and child and mounted likewise.

"Eric!" Havel barked. "Tear yourself away from the ton-sillectomy and get on the goddamned horse!"

The other two men fell in behind him; Eric was leading their packhorse-and-remount string. Havel took a deep breath and looked west. Ru

"Thataway!" he said, and brought his horse up to a canter.

The crowd parted, cheering; Eric and Josh turned to wave as the hooves crunched and clattered.

Havel kept his eyes on the gravel road that stretched like a silver-gray ribbon into the green hills.

All I've seen so far is a worm's-eye view of wilderness and a few little towns, he thought. It's time and past time to find out how other people are dealing with this new world we've been handed.

"NO!"

Juniper Mackenzie added her voice to the chorus of a hundred others; all the adults within walking distance of this spot, in fact. The foragers approaching from the west slowed uncertainly as they heard it, a few of them ringing the bells on their bicycles as if that would clear the road. There weren't as many of them-forty or fifty, she estimated-but they all had some sort of weapon, and they had a bicycle-drawn cart behind.

The face-off was taking place well away from her cabin-what they'd taken to calling the Hall-down in the flatlands to the west. She could see the outskirts of the little town of Sutterdown to the north, over the tops of the pines lining a creek. Her twenty clansfolk, the neighborhood farmers and the townsmen were a collection of clumps making a rough line north and south through the shaggy overgrown pasture of the fields on either side of the road. The roadway itself was a two-lane county blacktop, and quite thoroughly blocked with a semi that had skidded across it on the day of the Change; nobody was going to move it anytime soon, since the cargo had been sacks of cement.

Must get a wagon down here to haul some of it off, she thought with some corner of her mind. We can use it.

There were so many people here, and they were so loud-but it still seemed quiet, quiet and empty: The noises were all of human voices and feet and hands, no drone or roar of engines. You noticed more without that burr of background noise. The sound of grass and twigs under feet, the smell of angry unwashed men…