John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

“I expected more before this,” Talbot mused unhappily.

“I know,” June replied. “She’ll be all right.”

“They had everything they needed to make it,” he said, definitely.

“You know, Edmund, no one would take it amiss if you got on a horse and went looking,” she said.

“I sent Tom,” Edmund replied. “Between you and me. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m taking privileges of my rank. He went to Warnan and down the trail but he didn’t find them.”

“Damn.”

“He said that some of the people on the trail said that the bridge was out south of Fredar on the Annan. If they tried to cross…”

“They probably went around,” June said. “Daneh wouldn’t try to cross the Annan in full flood. If so, they’re on one of the side trails.”

“And I can even guess which one,” Edmund said. “But if I went out looking, all sorts of people would want to go haring off in every direction. And we can’t have that; we’re running on a knife-edge here.”

She worked her jaw but nodded in agreement. “Which makes the other piece of news I got all the more unpleasant.”

Edmund’s face was like stone except for a raised eyebrow.

“The last group in had been… set upon by a group of men. The men took everything they had of value.”

“All the wonders of period travel and now bandits,” Edmund said with a snarl. “We’re going to need a guard force faster than I thought.”

“There are plenty of reenactors…”

“I don’t want a bunch of people painting themselves blue and charging screaming,” the smith said with a growl. “This won’t be the first problem by a long shot. We’re going to need professional guards, soldiers damnit, who can get the job done in a stand-up fight. I want legionnaires, not barbarians. Among other things, I’m not going to see them become the nucleus of a feudal system or my name isn’t Talbot.”

“You need a centurion to have legionnaires,” June said with a smile. “And the proper social conditions as background.”

“If we’re lucky the first will turn up,” he said cryptically. “As to the latter; working on it.”

“Well in the meantime you’d better scratch up a few good Picts before the Norsemen get here.”

Herzer had been having a very bad week.

The Fall had caught him at home, but like most people he had little of use in the post-Fall world. His parents had kicked him loose at the earliest possible age. Neither his mother nor his father had ever said anything to him about his condition, other than to inquire if it was improving yet, but he was well aware that both blamed the genetics of the other for it. And neither of them were the sort of people who could handle the psychological burden of a child with “special needs.” They had both treated him well when he was young, more like an odd toy than a child, but a well-loved toy; however, when his palsy started kicking in they had become more and more distant until finally, when he reached the minimum age to be “on his own” his mother had pointedly asked him when he was moving out.

Thus he lived by himself. And whereas everyone had a very generous remittance from the Net, he used a good bit of it on his recreation games. Thus his home was modest and so were the things he owned; the term “minimalist” could be used for the small house in which he lived. He’d never even kept the weapons that he trained with, instead storing them “off-line” to reduce the clutter.

So when the Fall came, he was caught flat-footed.

He knew that the Via Appalia was somewhere to the north of him. And he knew that Raven’s Mill was somewhere to the west on the Via. And he knew how to find north. So he started out.

There had been no food in the house at all. And the only material for shelter was a cloak that Rachel had given him years before. It was far too small, but it served, barely, for his needs.

The greatest initial problem was that there were no human trails anywhere around his home. And the terrain and vegetation were horrible; the area was flat and covered in streams, all of them running in full spate with the weather. And the area was thick with privet plants, choking the way for miles on end.

He had followed game trails and his own nose for two days before finding the first human trail. Then he followed that north, striking for the Via Appalia.

What he found, instead, was Dionys McCanoc.

At first he’d just been glad to see him. Dionys had his usual cluster of sycophants around him and it was at least a group to attach himself to. But the attachment palled quickly. Benito had tried to make a bow and arrow to hunt, but none of the rest of the group bothered to try to find food. They had had a small amount of food when Herzer arrived, but the eight full-grown males, nine with Herzer, quickly ran through it.

After that Herzer had tried to forage, but his training had never run that way. He had borrowed a knife and whittled a gorge, then baited it and fished. But it took all day for him to catch just two fish and they were both distinctly strange looking. Neither of them was shaped the way a fish was supposed to be shaped and they had strange whiskers coming from their lips. He also had no idea how to prepare them but he finally decided that doing it the same way as game would work. So he cut of the heads, gutted and skinned them. Then he had to get a fire started in the pouring rain. Dionys had a very old fashioned lighter and with great reluctance he gave it up for the experiment. After several tries Herzer managed to get a fire going in the shelter of a fallen tree. Then he cooked the fish by sticking them on a forked stick. The first stick had caught on fire after getting too hot, nearly dropping the precious piscines into the fire and ruining them. After that Herzer kept in mind the prescription about a “green” branch for cooking. Several pieces of the fish had fallen in the fire anyway as they cooked. And when he was done there was a bare mouthful for everyone in the group. But it was something. And it was hot.

It was only this morning, after going through all of that for a mouthful of half-cooked fish, that Herzer had started to wonder about Dionys’ plans. The giant didn’t seem to be going anywhere or doing anything. He seemed to have an attitude of waiting.

As soon as he flung off the sodden cloak in the morning, Herzer braced Dionys on his plans. It had not, in retrospect, been the most politic move possible. There was no breakfast and no prospect of dinner unless one of them somehow found some food in the rain. And Dionys was not one to take a challenge to his authority lightly. He had heard about half of Herzer’s diatribe then struck the young man in the center of the chest with a punch that would fell an ox.

Herzer had been in innumerable full sensory fights but rarely with his fists and never at full stimulation; only real idiots or masochists had the pain systems turned all the way up. So for just a moment he lay in the mud wondering if the madman had killed him. Finally he got up out of his fetal curl and walked away into the woods.

He wasn’t sure where he was going, just that he wasn’t going to look Dionys in the face for a while.

He returned to the encampment after noon having found no food and no answers. Dionys, in the meantime, had sent some of the hangers on out to watch the trail. Then Dionys had gathered the rest, including Herzer, together for a speech.

“The days of weakness are over,” he said, standing in the rain with his sword unsheathed and planted on the ground in front of him. “Now is the time for the strong to take their proper place.”

It continued in that vein for a good thirty minutes as the four who were not out on watch sat in the rain and, at least in Herzer’s case, wondered where this was going. Finally the purpose of the speech got through to him.