S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

He looked thoughtfully at the bottle when she sighed and relaxed; he wasn't looking forward to running out of them: and Mary Larsson was likely to hurt worse as the days wore on. He'd had a broken leg once, and it was no joke, even when you were young and full of beans. At least she was doing her best, which was turning out to be considerable- the group's shaky morale would have been cut to ribbons by screaming and sobbing.

Then Havel sacrificed her coat to rig padded yokes at the front and rear of the stretcher, and to wrap the rough wood where the carriers' hands would go; he had good steerhide gloves with him, but the others didn't, and their palms were softer to start with. She wouldn't need the coat; the thin-film sleeping bag was excellent insulation, particularly with the hood pulled up.

Let's see, he thought, shrugging into his pack. I'm worried about the twins' high-tops, but it's walk on those or their bare feet.

Astrid's soft-sided boots had perfectly practical rough-country soles; he'd checked.

OK, the rifle's useless, but:

The four hale Larssons were standing in an awkward group, looking at him. He nodded to the youngest. Astrid swallowed and hugged her cat a little closer; the beast dug its claws into her leather jacket and climbed to her shoulder. He hoped the stuff was well tanned; wet leather was about the most uncomfortable-wearing substance known to humankind, and if it dried stiff it was even worse.

"How did that bow of yours come through? Mind if I have a look at it?"

"It's fine," she said. "Sure, here."

He examined it; he'd never taken up archery himself, but he'd flown enough bowhunters around Idaho to pick up a little knowledge of the art. The weapon was a recurve, the Cupid's-bow type with the forward-curling tips, and he could tell it had set her dad back a fair bit of change.

The centerpiece handle, the riser, had its grip shaped to the hand and an arrow-rest through the center; it was carved from some exotic striped hardwood he didn't recognize and polished to a glossy sheen. The whole weapon was about four feet long unstrung, and it had a look he recognized from other contexts-the sleek beauty of functionality.

"Nice piece of work," he said. "The limbs are fiberglass on a wood core?"

"Horn on the belly, steer-horn, hot-worked," she said, with a hint of a sneer. "And sinew on the back, with a yew core; fish-bladder glue. Cocobolo wood for the riser, leather covering for the arrow shelf and the strike plate, antelope horn for the tips. Lacquered birchbark covering."

His left eyebrow went up; that was Ye Ancient Style.

"It was made by Saluki Bows. I helped: well, I watched a lot."

"What's the draw?"

"Twenty-five pounds."

The eyebrow stayed up. Astrid was tall for fourteen; five-three, and headed higher from the look of her hands and feet-the whole family were beanpoles-but she was slender. That was a fairly heavy draw for a girl her size.

It occurred to him that she might just carry the bow for effect. She had spent considerable time and effort trying to dry her high-priced illustrated Tolkien by the fire, and seemed almost as upset at its ruin as at her mother's condition or the general peril they were in. Given that and her clothes:

"Can you use it?" he asked, and tossed it back.

He could see her flush. Instead of answering she braced the lower tip against the outer side of her left foot and pushed the back of her right knee against the riser, sliding the string up as the weapon bent until the loop on top settled into the grooves. Then she opened the cover of the quiver slung over her shoulder, nocked a shaft, and drew to the ear as she turned.

"That lodgepole pine leaning from the bank," she said. "Head-height."

The flat snap of the bowstring against the leather bracer on her left forearm sounded, echoing a little in the narrow confines of the canyon. Half a second later the arrow went crack into the big tree she'd called as her target, standing quivering thirty yards downstream.

"Not bad, kid," he said.

He walked over to the tree with his boots scrunching in the streamside gravel and rotted ice. When he pulled the arrow free it was with a grunt of effort; it had hit at head-height, and sunk inches deep in rock-hard wood. The shaft was tipped with a broadhead, not a smooth target point- a tapering triangle shape of razor-edged steel designed to bleed an animal out.

"Ever done any actual hunting with it?"

"I shot a coney once," she said proudly. "A rabbit, that is."

Her brother grinned. "Hey, sprout, aren't you going to tell him what you did afterward?"

She flushed more darkly, and glared. Eric went on to Havel: "Princess Legolamb here puked up her guts and cried for hours, and then she buried poor Peter Rabbit. I guess they don't eat bunnies among the Faeries of the Dirt-wood Realm."

"That's elves of the woodland realm, you-you-you goblin!"

"But she can shoot the hell out of a tree stump, and every spare pie-plate on Larsdalen rolls downhill for its life when she comes by in a shooting mood: "

Havel cleared his throat. "Eric, you and your dad start with the stretcher. He and Signe can change off after twenty minutes. I'll spell you after forty, but I'd better lead the way to begin with, until we get our direction set and find a game trail."

As they lifted the injured woman he motioned Astrid aside for an instant.

"Kid, I'm glad you've got some experience shooting moving targets with that thing," he said softly.

She looked up at him, startled out of the walking reverie that seemed to take up most of her time.

"You are?" she said.

"Yeah. Look, we're going to need three days minimum to get your mother to the Centennial Trail, and then another day to make the ranger cabin, and another plus for me and your brother to get to the highway. We don't have much food. It's going to get cold every damn night and it may get wet, and carrying your mother over this country's going to be brutal. Shoot anything that moves unless it's a bear or a mountain lion. We need the extra food. We're all depending on you-your mother, for starters. We'll lead off, you and I, and you stay ahead afterward with whoever takes point. OK?"

He watched the girl's face firm up, and she made a decisive nod. He kept his own face grave as he returned the gesture, then looked at his compass once more and started off on a slanting line across the hillside he'd picked out earlier.

Gunney Winters would be proud of me, he thought.

The noncom had used exactly that we're-all-depending-on-you technique to get the best out of every guy in his squad.

"D ennis, what's everyone going to eat, if this goes on more than a day or two?" Juniper Mackenzie said; they were back on the third floor of the Hopping Toad, looking south. "And how can help get in from areas where things are normal?"

Her friend's smile was normally engaging. This time it was more like a snarl. "Juney, how do you know that there is anyplace where things are normal?"

They glanced at each other in appalled silence, and then their eyes flicked to Eilir; the girl was looking out the window through the binoculars, squirming between them to get a better view. The fire was coming closer, but slowly, and the southern rim of flame had stopped at the edge of the open campus of Oregon State.

How do I feed my kid? Juniper thought suddenly- something direct and primal, a thought that hit like a fist in the gut.

She'd been poor-still was poor, if you went by available cash-but this was different. It didn't mean living on pasta and day-olds and what she got out of the garden by the cabin, or busking for meals; it meant not having anything to eat at all.

"You still have that wagon out at Finney's place?" Dennis said.