S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

This didn't quite make sense, not on a purely local basis.

He stood back respectfully and bowed his head with his followers when Woburn pulled a Bible from his saddlebags and began reading a service. He'd fallen away from the Lutheran faith of his ancestors himself, but he'd been raised among believers.

When the rest of Sheriff Woburn's little posse had ridden off towards their homes, Havel gave a short sharp. whistle.

The two Bearkillers who'd been riding sentry turned and moved the horses back towards the others. Those got each other into their gear-you could wiggle into a hauberk alone, but it went faster with help-saddled their mounts, and formed up in a column of twos. One at the rear led a packhorse with their picks and shovels.

"Got 'em well trained," Woburn remarked. "How many men-"

Signe Larsson looked at him in the act of putting on her helmet, then settled it and clipped on the chin cup. Gloria Stevens, the other woman present, snickered.

"-well, troopers, do you have?"

"We've got around a hundred adults now," Havel said. "Carefully picked. Not all of them have the heft or the inclination for a stand-up fight or to go along when we ride out like this, but things being the way they are, I try to give everyone some weapons training."

Including even utterly hopeless cases like Jane Waters and Rothman, he thought. But let's not talk about that now. Aloud he went on: "You may not plan on having the fight at home, but: "

Woburn nodded. "Yeah, the other guy sometimes has plans of his own, the dirty dog. I can see why you'd want all your people to know how."

"Your Kate Clarke would probably have wanted to know how, yesterday morning, for example," Signe said, then dropped back into the column.

Woburn winced a little and looked at the horses, changing the subject: "All well-mounted, too."

"We've done this and that here and there, helping people out with jobs or problems," Havel said neutrally.

And liberated some stock left wandering, or plain looted it from people who tried to attack or cheat us. Plus there's no better judge of horseflesh in the world than Will, with Angelica a close second.

"We take payment in tools, food and animals, mostly. Lucky this part of the country isn't short of livestock. And as I said, we've got a really good horse trainer."

Woburn didn't seem concerned to be alone among armed strangers; that made him stupid, suicidal or brave, and Havel thought he was probably the last. He was also keeping his eyes open.

"All this weird old-time knights-in-armor gear still looks funny to me," he said. "I mean, I have problems taking it seriously."

Havel shrugged and drew his puukko. He handed it to Woburn, who tested the edge automatically, raised his brows in respect, and handed it back. Havel pressed the blade to his mail-clad body and then ripped it down from shoulder to waist, just beside the diagonal line of the bandolier that held his quiver. The steel cut a bright line along the little interlinked rings with a rattling click.

"Point taken," Woburn said.

On a man in cloth, that would have worked like a chain saw on wood. Not for the first time, Havel thought how much of a survival advantage it was to be mentally flexible in this Changed world.

Woburn sighed. "I know up in my head that guns don't work anymore, but there are times when"-he patted the vintage saber at his saddlebow-"this doesn't seem real. Plus there's no time to learn how to use it properly. Some of our people have been sewing washers or pieces of metal on coats and dusters. Or making jackets of boiled steer-hide."

A scowl: "A lot of Iron Rod's men use scales fastened to canvas backing, too, recently."

"I've seen gear like that," Havel said. A lot of it in Portland, to be precise. "It's heavier and less flexible than chain mail, though. We can sell you some armor, and more importantly we can take some of your people through the whole process of making it."

It was past four o'clock when they passed the Bearkiller sentries; some of them were carrying lances as well as swords and bows, which impressed Woburn. Havel hid a smile as he returned their fist-to-chest salutes; so far, only the unanimous verdict of Will's cavalry manuals kept him trying with the damned bargepoles. They were as hard to manage on horseback as archery!

The Bearkillers' camp was in a clearing just back of the ridge where the lane led down to the prairie; the grassland there covered several acres, interrupted by scraggly lodge-pole pines and some aspens. The afternoon sun gilded the tall grass, and cast blue shadows towards the east. A scent of woodsmoke and cooking came from the hearths, and the cheerful sound of children playing, the tink: tink: of metal on metal, the rhythmic lock of axes splitting firewood.

More of the wagons' loads had been taken down than was usual for a one-night stopover; Havel wanted Sheriff Woburn impressed, and it had been easy enough to send orders back from the sacked farmstead.

The tents were pitched in neat rows, one per family with more for the single men, single women and outfit purposes; each had a fire in front of it and a Coleman lantern hung from the peak. A latrine trench was behind a grove of aspens, and a canvas enclosure for bathing stood beside a wheeled metal water-tank, another Ken-and-Will joint project; it was built so that a heating fire could be kindled in a hearth at one end. A woman was tossing chunks of pine into the fire, and a valve hissed on top as the water came to a boil.

"Helps avoid giardia," Havel said.

Woburn nodded; the nasty little parasites were endemic in Idaho streams, including the "purest" mountain brooks.

"Pretty piece of work," he said.

Havel nodded gravely, grinning to himself. He wasn't quite running a Potomekin village setup for the good sheriff, but he was putting the best foot forward.

"Lord Bear," one of their more recent recruits said, taking the reins as Havel and his guest swung down out of the saddle.

Havel felt his teeth gritting. Breaking people of calling him that was probably more trouble than it was worth, and most seemed to like it better than "Boss." Giving Astrid a sound spanking for coming up with the idea was almost certainly more trouble than it would be worth : but it was so tempting, sometimes!

He steered Woburn past the portable smithy-they had a real blacksmith now, freeing up a lot of Will's time-the arrow-making operation, the armor-assembly area from which Astrid and Luanne had been reprieved for awe-the-locals purposes, and on to the bowmaking benches.

Interesting, Havel thought. When he's actually working, our Bill looks almost trustworthy. The problem is you have to stand over him to keep him working.

Right now he was opening the insulated hotbox and checking a bow-limb curing there, the half-S shape secured between plywood forms with metal screw-clamps; the box reduced the time needed for the glue to set hard from a year to weeks, at the cost of a slight loss in durability. An assistant had a hardwood block clamped in a vise; he was shaping the riser into which the limbs would be pegged and glued, roughing out the shape of the pistol grip and arrow-shelf with a chisel. Shavings of pale myrtlewood curled away from the tap-tap-tap.

Havel nodded towards the pots of glue, planks of osage-orange wood, bundles of dried sinew, pieces of antler, and a box of translucent lozenges sawn from cow horns.

"We'll always have those materials."

"You've been thinking ahead," Woburn said respectfully.

They passed the school, taught open-air by Annie Sanders when there was time, with a folding blackboard and students from six to twelve. Reuben Waters, Billy's eldest, made his typical entry-Annie dragged him in by one ear, with occasional swats to his backside along the way. She thought the Waters kids were salvageable, and they did seem a bit brighter than their parents.