S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

"At them!" Juniper screamed, dropping her bow and ripping out her short-sword. "At them, Mackenzies!"

She snatched up her buckler and ran forward, keening a wordless saw-edged ululation. The armor seemed no more than a cotton shirt on her back, and the rough ground merely gave strength to her feet as she bounded forward like a deer.

Dennis ran beside her on the right, bellowing and flourishing his great ax; Chuck was to her left, snarling and intent behind the point of his spear; Aylward came behind, with an extra quiver slung over his shoulder and a shaft nocked to his terrible hundred-pound bow.

Chaos greeted her, as the Sutterdown men came out from their barricade in a roaring wave. Most of the invaders threw away their weapons and ran. It did them little good. The armor which had guarded them also slowed them, and vengeful spears and axes ran behind in the hands of those whose homes they'd seized.

Some remained to fight, but they seemed to be moving as if encased in amber honey. An armored man swung a jointed iron flail from a pre-Change martial-arts store at her; she ducked beneath it and smashed the edge of her buckler across his instep. Then she came erect like a jack-in-the-box as he doubled over in pain, driving the point of her shortsword up under his chin. Chuck's spear drove into a belly, hard enough to snap scales loose from their leather backing; wet ruin spun away from the edge of Dennis's bearded ax.

A man came at her with a spear, but she didn't bother to guard; a flash drawn across her vision was Aylward's arrow, and it went through his throat in a red splash and spray, hardly slowing:

It seemed only seconds later when the only living enemy were a handful who fled, wailing as they ran across the reaped wheat towards the tree-lined creek beyond. Juniper laid her sword in front of Aylward's bow.

"No," she said, conscious of the same cold wind still blowing through her.

Others were shooting, but they missed. Aylward wouldn't.

"We want a few to spread the word that this is no place for reivers to come."

Quiet had fallen, save for a broken whimpering and the wheezing breath of the enemy commander's horse, dying slowly with three shafts through his ribs. Sutterdown men and Mackenzies alike hesitated for an instant of ringing silence, their eyes on her.

Of themselves, Juniper's arms reached up again, holding her buckler and dripping blade this time, spread over the field of battle. Wings beat at the corners of her consciousness, vast and black-feathered.

"O you of humankind!" she cried. "Make peace with your mortality. For when you call on Me in such wise, then this too is God!"

Then she staggered, knees buckling and eyes turning back up into her head for an instant. The world turned gray and light shrank to a point. Hands grabbed her under the arms, supporting her as she wheezed and fought for breath.

"Anyone got any candy left?" she croaked.

Someone did, giving it up without question; she stuffed it into her mouth despite the salt blood on her hands, washed it down with water and felt the dizziness recede, and the grayness fade from the edges of her sight.

"I'm all right," she husked. "I'm all right."

The men supporting her stepped back. One of them was Dennis; his ax was bloody, and more was splashed across his face and body, but the fear in his eyes was directed at her.

She shook herself. "I feel: I feel like a flute that Someone was playing on."

"Jesu- I mean, God and Goddess, Juney, that was the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen!"

He shook his head, leaning on his ax and panting like a great wheezing bellows for a second.

"What happened? First it was like you were screaming right in my ear-or inside my head-and then you were like the original whirling Dervish, you were a blur. I didn't even think about anything else except following you and hacking these guys up."

She felt her everyday self return, and with it a sharp twist of nausea at the sights and smells about her, and held up a hand palm out while she struggled back to self-command.

Before the Change, this would have sent me catatonic, she thought. Now it just sickens me. Goddess, let me never see such things without sorrow. Let me never see such things again, please.

Dennis was still staring at her. She answered his question: "Well, there's a rational explanation for what happened, Dennie."

"Shit, I hope so, Juney."

She nodded: "Hysterical strength, amok, berserkergang; it's all a well-known phenomenon, right there in the textbooks. There weren't any miracles, were there? I didn't glow red, or levitate, or cast thunderbolts, after all. Although. this is the sort of thing that gets legends and myths started."

"Ah," he said, looking relieved. His face relaxed. "You think that's what happened? Your subconscious took over?"

"Oh, no, Dennie, you don't get off that easy-and neither do I," she said, looking into his eyes.

He retreated a little as she went on: "What I think- know-is that I called on the Dark Goddess: and She came to me. It isn't all light and love and laughter, my friend. There's blood and fear and death and wickedness in the world, and the Mighty Ones act through us."

She reached out and touched the pentagram-and-circle amulet he'd taken to wearing. "And if this is more than a piece of jewelry, you've picked which explanation you want to believe, haven't you?"

"Yeah," he said soberly. "I suppose I have."

Chuck came up to her. "One dead of ours," he said, his eyes avoiding hers a little. "John Carson. A couple of wounded, but: mostly it was over by the time we reached the road. Judy and Dr. Gianelli are getting to work. They think the clan won't lose anyone else."

"Blessed be," she said sadly. "But it could have been worse." She looked around, letting her eyes fall out of focus a little to miss detail. "Was worse, for them."

Aylward paused in recovering arrows and spoke with a surgeon's calmness: "It's like that, with surprise. Especially if the side surprised just gets the wind up and sods off regardless. They can't run and fight, but you can chase and kill at the same time."

She nodded. "Find out how the Sutterdown people did, Chuck," she said. "Get me Sheriff Laughton, if he's alive and fit to move."

When he showed up a few minutes later Laughton had a bandage covering half his face, but he seemed to be coherent enough; a dozen of his townsmen came with him, some of them bandaged or limping.

"Lady Juniper," he said. This time there was no awkwardness to the title. "Thank you. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We'll get our homes back, now."

"You will," Juniper said. "And you'll be able to feed your children through the winter."

Which are the only reasons good enough for this vileness, she thought.

"We had thirty wounded and: nine dead," Laughton went on. He swallowed. "Including Reverend Dixon."

Her brows went up. "Dixon?" she said. "How?"

"He just. died. He just dropped down and died," Laughton said.

Well, he was a coronary waiting to happen, Juniper thought. Plenty of stress today to set it off.

"He'll be missed," she said soberly, and fought not to think: But not by many.

Then she saw the eyes of his men on her, all wide and fearful and a few of them full of the beginnings of adoration. The echo of a cold wind seemed to blow up her back, despite the hot sun and the sweat-dripping weight of mail and padding.

This is how legends and myths start, she reminded herself, and shivered ever so slightly. Goddess gentle and strong, powerful God, what is it that You want of me?

"Well, we'll have to see to the wounded," she said, dragging herself back to practicalities.

Her voice gained strength. "And to getting your families back to your homes, and we Mackenzies will pitch in to help get the rest of your crops in safe-we don't have anything to waste. And then we'll talk about making sure we're not caught by surprise like this again, and with all the other communities around here about defense. The man who set this on us, the one who calls himself Protector: "