S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

The Bearkiller leader grinned at the others. "You know what Arminger's problem is?" he said.

"He's a bloody maniac?" the Englishman replied.

"No, that's our problem. His problem is that he thinks it's 1066 come again."

The Englishman touched the bow slung over his shoulder, and looked at the Bearkillers' hauberks. "It isn't?" he said.

"Let my father-in-law-to-be tell it. He's the intellectual."

Ken Larsson made a rude gesture with his hook before he spoke. "Look, Alien Space Bats may have stolen our toys-"

Several men snorted laughter.

"-but we're not eleventh-century people. We know how to do things they couldn't, including things that don't require powered equipment or electronics or explosives. Someone's done something to: "

"Mucked about with," Aylward said helpfully. "Buggered for fair."

": those parts of natural law, somehow. But all the other parts seem to be working as usual."

He held up his hook. "I lost this hand because someone cut it mostly off with a sword. But I didn't get gangrene; we had a doctor who didn't rely on eye of newt and dust from a saint's tomb. You expecting to lose many men to dysentery?"

"Of course not," Aylward said, indignation in his tone. Then: "Oh. Well, bugger me blind. I see what you're driving at."

"Yes. We can keep a camp clean, if not a city, just because we know why clean water is important. And the same thing applies to other tricks."

Havel took up the thread: "Which I sort of suspect Arminger doesn't know much about. His interest in history stops about the time of Richard the Lionheart. I think he thinks it's been all downhill since then."

Larsson grinned. "Why do guys like that always imagine they'll be the king and not the man pushing a plow?"

"Plus his men are mostly frighteners," Aylward said thoughtfully. "Hmmm."

"Yes, and frighteners aren't Norman knights, either; different motivations. Meanwhile, let's go have breakfast," Larsson said.

The command group turned and cantered eastward down the verge of the road, eyes slitted against the rising sun; it got a bit warmer as the orange globe rose. The valley got wider as well; they turned off 20 and onto a local road that wound southward around a butte that hid them from the Protector's castle.

There were over a thousand people camped on a long sloping shoulder of that rise. You could tell who was who easily enough. The Bearkillers' encampment was laid out in neat rows of tents and wagons-not too many of the latter, since this was an A-list expeditionary force, not the whole outfit. Surrounding it were coils of barbed wire, and mounted sentries rode the perimeter. The Mackenzie camp was further upslope, among the pines; less geometric, but taking advantage of the ground for shelter from the keen wind and prying eyes as well, tents in circles around central hearthfires.

They'd brought their supplies on packhorses-the enemy controlled all the roads across the mountains-but they didn't look as if they lacked for much.

And as for the CORA men:

Well, I've never really seen a gypsy camp, Havel thought. But I think that's how they were supposed to do it, pretty much.

Every rancher-member of the Association had arrived as he-or in a couple of instances, she-pleased, and with what followers they could muster; and that ranged from four mounted men with their bedrolls to thirty or forty with a chuck wagon and a big pavilion tent for the boss-man and his family. They'd come with what they pleased too, which often meant as much of the comforts of home as they could carry. They'd also scattered themselves across a huge sweep of hill and down the tree-clad banks of Hackleman Creek towards the blue of Fish Lake, just visible now. Herds of horses and cattle moved in that direction as well.

The smoke of their campfires wafted towards the riders, along with the sounds-a farrier's hammer shaping a horseshoe, the shouts of playing children:

Havel's eyes met Aylward's. They'd only met the day before, but they'd already discovered a great deal in common.

Shambolic, Aylward's lips shaped soundlessly.

What a cluster-fuck, Havel's eyes replied.

Brown seemed to catch some of the byplay. "Well, you've got some womenfolk with you too," he said defensively.

"The only ones in our camp are in our support echelon, medicos and such, and some who're wearing a hauberk," Havel said bluntly. "And those all passed the same tests as everyone else on our A-list. The noncombatants and kids are all back where we've got our base set up."

Brown flushed a little. "We're providing most of the men for this fight," he said. "And the supplies. We've got plenty of veterans, too."

But no single one with enough authority to get you all organized, Havel thought. He didn't say it aloud, or let it show on his face; they weren't here to quarrel with the locals. Instead he went on: "Granted. And you've provided first-rate intelligence-"

Or at least Ellie Strong has.

"-that drawing of the gate and drawbridge is going to be extremely useful, I think. See you at the noon conference."

One corner of Havel's mouth drew up as the mollified rancher smiled and turned aside with his men. Aylward laid his rein on his mount's neck and came closer.

"Not telling him exactly what you have planned for that information, are you, Lord Bear? Perhaps a little worried intel might be flowing into the castle as well as out?"

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" Havel said. He hesitated: "How's your boss, by the way?"

"Lady Juniper?" Aylward said. "Coming along fine, if you mean her condition."

"More a matter of 'What's she like.' We only met for three days and a bit; I was impressed on brief acquaintance, but you've been at Dun Juniper for most of the time since the Change."

Aylward nodded. "She's strange. And lucky, and it rubs off."

"Rubs off?"

"Well, take me-when she found me, I was trapped in a gully, dying of thirst four feet from water, and like to be eaten alive by coyotes. And that's gospel."

"That would have been a waste," Havel said.

He looked at the square tough weathered face; it would indeed, to lose this man of formidable strengths and so many skills.

"Lucky for her you were there," he said. "But even luckier for you."

"That's exactly what I mean, mate," Aylward said. "But it was lucky for me because I was in the ruddy ravine in the first place. Think about it for a bit. Here's me, traveling about doing as I please, South America, Africa, Canada, and I get an impulse to go fossick about the Cascades in bleedin' March -might as well be Wales, that time of year. Then I take the Change for a nuclear war-well, that's not so hard to believe-so I stay up in the mountains afterward. Then that fuckin' ravine crumbles in just the right spot, I put me shoulder out an' get me legs caught in a scissors by two saplings, and she 'appens by, before I'm too far gone."

He touched the horns-and-moon symbol on his jack. "It's enough to get you thinkin' serious about this Goddess of hers, innit? Not that I'm not grateful to her and hers, mind." A shake of the head. "She's got the flux. Daft things happen around her."

"Flux?" Havel asked.

"Chap I knew used the word-when I met him I was in the SAS and he was runnin' a pub called The Treadmill. Did everything in his day, Foreign Legion an' all, right tough old bastard. He thought some people had it, sort of like a magnetic field that pulled in odd happenings. Willie was always on about some bint he'd known in the old days, and if half what he said was true: anyway, Lady Juniper has it in great job lots."

"When I think of the times I almost died before the Change and after: maybe I do too."

"Nar, I figure you were just born to hang, mate."

They both laughed; after a moment the clansman went on: "But she's not just lucky. She's fly." At Havel's raised eyebrow he went on: "Clever at outguessing you. Dead fly."