Dies the Fire

It was still the weapon of Rome's legions, the most dreadfully efficient tool of slaughter humankind had invented until Hiram Maxim's time. A short punching stab in the throat sent the Eater backward gobbling and clutching his throat.

"Let me go!" she shouted, chopping at the other two as if she were jointing a chicken. "Let me go!"

They did, ru

All the rest of her people seemed to be on their feet too, with nothing worse than cuts and scrapes and bruises; she squeezed out a brief, heartfelt wordless thanks. Outside the Eaters were ru

It's a headdress on top of a helmet, not a bear's head, Juniper thought. Gave me a start there!

Animal-headed god-men were very much a part of her faith, but she hadn't expected to run into one in the light of common day. It was almost as frightening as the prospect he'd rescued her from, of grisly death and dreadful feasting.

After a moment the ca

The noon sun blazed on the edged metal of their swords, and the man with the bear helmet shouted: "You in there! The party's not over and the mosh pit is sort of crowded. Pitch in if you can!"

The shout carried easily across the twenty yards, through the brabble of the Eaters' lunatic malice; a voice trained to carry, but not a musician's like hers-more of a crashing bark. Juniper looked with disgust at the blood on her blade and arm and side.

"Let's go," she said. "Come on, Mackenzies!"

The three strangers formed up with their leader as the point of a blunt wedge and charged in a pounding rush with the skirts of their mail hauberks flapping around their knees, armored from shin to helmet. Their great straight-bladed sabers went up in glittering menace.

"Haakkaa paalle!" they shouted in unison; the words weren't English or any language she knew, but they prompted a flicker of memory. "Haakkaa paalle!"

Then they struck the loose crowd of their foemen, and the mass seemed to explode in a spray of blood and screams and swords swinging in arcs that slung trails of red droplets yards into the air. Juniper gritted her teeth and made herself move forward with blade and buckler.

The Eaters stood and fought-mostly, just died-for a brief moment, then spattered screaming across the parking lot and out into the fields around, ru

Then there was no sound except their own panting and a series of quick are you all right queries. And the sickening knowledge that a single minute's delay would have seen them all dead and dismembered.

"Oh, Goddess gentle and strong, I want to go home," Judy whispered, then straightened. "We ought to check out the buildings. There might be things that… need doing."

"Damn right," one of the strangers said.

Juniper looked around. She had been controlling the churning in her stomach by main force of will; the movement distracted her, and she swayed backward against a car, sliding sideways. The world swam, narrowing and graying at the edges, and her mouth filled with spit.

Judy reached for her, but the stranger was quicker, holding her upright until she recovered a little. His grip was firm but not painful, although she could feel the remorseless strength in it, but she swallowed again at the sight and smell of the blood and matter that clotted the mail on the back of his leather gauntlet.

"Easy," he said. "Your first sight of combat?"

He held a water bottle to her lips. She filled her mouth and turned her head to spit, then drank.

"Not… not quite," she said, looking around at the bodies.

And every one of these a child of the Goddess and the God. Hard to remember that, but she must. May they find rest and peace in the Summerlands, and come to forgive themselves!

Aloud she continued: "But nothing before the Change, and nothing since like… like this."

He nodded and stepped back as he felt her strengthen; his friends came up behind him and followed his lead as he took off his helmet.

Their eyes met. For an instant that stretched green gaze locked with gray; Juniper felt a sudden shock, like a bucket of cold water and a jolt of electricity and all the chakras- power points-of her body flaring at once. She could see very clearly; clearly enough to notice the sudden widening of his pupils as he stared at her with the same fierce focus.

Then the moment passed, so quickly she wasn't sure if it had been more than her wooziness; it did blow the horror out of her for a while. Instead she was chiefly conscious of another reaction: My, but he's pretty.

Almost beautiful, in a hard masculine way: square-chi

Oh, my, yes, Juniper thought, surprised she could notice at a moment like this; and even then she thought she caught a flicker of kindred interest on his face.

Then: They're not giants, either.

She'd had a confused impression that they were all huge men; but on second glance the leader, the one with the bear's head… let's mentally subtract all that gear… was tall but not towering, and not even thick-built; broad-shouldered and long-limbed, rather, narrow in the waist and hips. He moved easily under the weight of cloth and leather and metal, light and graceful as a leopard.

The youngest was an inch or two over six feet, a fresh-faced freckled blond no more than twenty at the most, already heavy in the shoulders- and thick-armed. The other was about halfway between his two companions in build.

"No disgrace to feel a bit woozy after something like this," the gray-eyed leader said. "I was, first time. You get used to it."

"Goddess, I hope not," she said.

He raised a brow at that-observant of him-and looked at the four Mackenzies, quickly taking note of their gear and the antlers-and-moon blazon on the breast of their jacks.

"Well, your Goddess must have been looking after you; we've met bunches like this before and decided to pile in and help on general principles. Ah… I'm-"

The blond boy gri

The older man-about my age, give or take a year- grimaced at him, and the other one smiled.

"I'm Mike Havel." He jerked a thumb at the youngster. "This is Eric Larsson, and his family are all humorists-in their own opinion, if nobody else's. The sensible one here is named Josh Sanders."

The other man had brown hair and blue eyes and a narrow planes-and-angles Scots-Irish face that reminded Juniper of her own father; he pulled off a gauntlet and extended his hand.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," he said. "Mike is the bossman of our outfit, right enough."