S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

A single swift hard chop split the smaller end of the first down the middle, leaving a cleft twelve inches long, and he repeated the process for the second, longer one. Then he used the hammer and prybar to knock the wooden handle off the machete, and punch out the two rivets; the tang was solid except for those holes, a simple continuation of the blade. He forced it into the cleft of the shorter pole, trimming with his knife and waggling it carefully to seat it and then hammering in two horseshoe nails from a bag in the packsaddles.

Angelica brought him the rawhide thongs, which had at least been thoroughly wetted down.

"Wish there was more time to soak these," he said absently.

Eric came up and helped hold the shaft while he bound the cleft with a double layer of leather cord, using the ends of the nails as tie-points and pulling the wet leather as tightly as he could with both hands and bracing foot. Then he turned the ends of the nails down with a few swift hammer-blows; there was no wobble when he shook the improvised weapon, and in a while the drying leather would hold it on like iron. The result was a shaft about the thickness of a shovel handle, with two feet of chopping steel fixed on the end coming to just over eye level on the younger Larsson.

"Looks like a naginata," Eric said.

"That's the idea," Havel said. "I was stationed in Okinawa for a while back in 'eighty-nine. You ever trained with one?"

"Just a few times, and watching. Hate to have to use one and try to ride a horse, though."

"Better than nothing, and we'll get down to fight. These'll give us enough reach to get at a man on horseback; I ride a lot better than those clowns, and I wouldn't care to try and fight from the saddle without a lot of practice."

While he spoke he sorted through the knives; he knocked the handle off a good-sized pointed kitchen blade, and bound it into the second shaft as he had the machete. Now he had a spear as well, about seven feet long in all.

By the time the weapons were ready the horses were as well; they both had bags of food thrown across their withers.

Eric gave him a boost to mount, then sprang on with rather more agility himself; Havel was a good practical horseman, and he'd enjoyed wilderness trips in the saddle, but he hadn't grown up in a family who had a stable at a country property.

"Wait, and keep out of sight," Havel said to the two women. They ought to be OK. Plenty of food for a week or two. "If we're not back in seven days: well, do what you think best."

"God go with you," Angelica said, crossing herself.

They both pressed their thighs to their mounts and the well-trained animals moved, taking the steep section of the trail that joined Highway 12.

Havel looked up. It was about an hour to the early spring sunset; the sky was already darkening in the east, and the temperature was dropping-it might go below freezing in the dark, and they probably wouldn't dare light a fire, but the horses should help keep them warm.

"We've got problems," he said to Eric, drawing level with him. The trail was broad enough for that, and soft enough that he could read the tracks fairly easily: one horse galloping first, and then three more strung out after it. Call it twenty miles an hour over this terrain, but they can't keep that up for long, even though these horses are pretty fresh and well-fed.

"Tell me about it," Eric said.

The answer was probably rhetorical, but Havel took it literally: "We've got a set of problems, assuming we don't get lucky and find the Three Demon Stooges lying with their necks broken 'cause they couldn't stay on. OK, first, there's the kid with the bow."

"He didn't hit anything," Eric observed. "And we were pretty close."

"Not from a horse he didn't, no. But he might be a lot better on foot. Those hunting bows are no joke-look what your kid sister did with one, and neither of us is as tough a target as a bull elk! That means we have to get real close before he sees us. Next, there's tall skinny tattoo-man. You noticed him?"

"He's worse than the others?"

"He's a real killer, not a wannabe or a blowhard; I recognize the type. I don't know if he's got any hunting experience, or whether he's got any brains, but he won't panic or freeze up-which the other two might. That's the difference between life and death when it's for real."

Eric swallowed; he was coming down from the adrenaline high of the brief chaotic fight, and looking a bit pale. But he was a sharp kid, and he probably took the point about freezing up better than he would if Havel had stated it openly.

"What's the third problem?"

"They're heading right towards your folks: stop right there!"

The young man reined in at the snap of command.

"We come barreling down after them, they're likely to hear us coming and ambush us. Right now they're going hell for leather after Hutton-the black guy. They'll catch him, he can't get off the trail tied to his horse like that, but they won't worry about us if we're real careful."

"Why not?" Eric said.

"Because to their way of thinking, we've got the women and the stuff; plus they don't know about your family. They may know about the old cabin, though. Three on two is bad odds. This is going to be real tricky."

He paused a moment. "You realize we're going to have to kill them all?"

Eric nodded abruptly, swallowing again; he started to speak, cleared his throat, and then went on: "Yeah, Mike, I do. They'll kill my folks if we don't, won't they? And rape my sisters. And they'll torture that black guy."

"For starters," Havel said.

The sun was setting on the mountains behind them, and the beauty of it made him shiver a little as the great trees threw spears of shadow before them. He'd told Signe that the forest wasn't hostile; and that was still true. But men, now: men had been suddenly thrown back each on himself. The cake of law and custom had been broken; now they were all on their own, and their true natures could come out, for good or ill.

"They're fucking monsters!" Eric burst out.

Havel shook his head. "No, they're just evil," he replied. "But that's close enough for government work."

"W hat the hell is going on?" the store owner said, under the sign that read DABLE GARDEN AND LAWN SUPPLY.

He looked at the two great horse-drawn wagons; curious children freed by the lack of school buses gathered around as well. Chuck Barstow glanced up and down the one street of the little town of Dable ; houses faded into farmland not two hundred yards from where he stood, and new leaves were budding on the trees that arched overhead.

It was only nine o'clock, but there was a line outside the bakery and the little grocery store. A group of men were pushing the dead cars out of the middle of the street, clearing the way. Several of them looked speculatively at the wagons, which made him nervous.

The strong smell of the horses' sweat filled the air; getting out of Eugene had been a nightmare-if you could call this out of it, since a ribbon of suburb and strip mall extended nearly this far. Nobody had attacked them- quite-or seemed to guess what was under the canvas tilts. He still shuddered and swallowed acid at the back of his throat, thinking of the things he'd seen in the dying city.

"What do you think has happened?" Chuck said.

"Don't know," the storekeeper admitted. "Figure it's some sort of big power-out."

"What about the cars? Radios? The batteries?" Chuck said.

"Well, that could be one of those government projects- I read about it in Popular Mechanics, a bomb aimed at frying electronic gear. That's what must have happened; a test got out of hand."

If that was all, I might have believed something like that myself. Aloud he went on: "What about the guns?"