S. Stirling - Dies The Fire

Eric looked up from putting the big basket of dirty clothing down by the gravelly shore of the river. Havel gestured sharply, and he reluctantly headed their way.

"Amazin' how a little conversation can make a boy his age want to do laundry," Hutton said dryly, and all three of the men laughed.

As they watched, they heard a drumroll of hooves and turned to look west. A hundred yards away Astrid Larsson had twitched her horse into a hand gallop with an imperceptible tensing of her thighs on the saddle and shift of balance; the reins lay knotted on the horn. She flashed down the edge of the woods, her bow rising smoothly as she drew to the ear. The arrow flashed out towards a target Havel and Hutton had rigged from poles and mounted on a stout Ponderosa pine. It missed, but not by all that much, sinking half its length into the grassy turf just short of the tree.

Astrid shouted angrily in a language that sounded liq-uidly pretty even then, and stopped her horse with the same smooth combination of leg-signals and shifting seat. She turned it, trotted back to the target, bent out of the saddle to snag the arrow without dismounting, then set it back on the string and cantered away down the edge of the woods.

"Lord Jesus, but that girl can ride," Hutton said, whistling. "About as good as my daughter, and Luanne's got prizes for barrel riding at four rodeos; she'd be up there with Sherry Potter and Charmayne Rodman if she wanted. Eric and Signe ain't bad at all, but Astrid there, she is fine."

He didn't say anything about Havel 's equestrian skills, which was tactful, since they were no better than competent-journeyman by his standards. Havel was grateful; from what he'd seen in the past two days, what the black man couldn't do with horses just couldn't be done.

"Not bad with that bow thing, too, nohow," Hutton went on.

He paused, adjusting a wrench and handing it to the elder Larsson before taking up a hacksaw himself. "What's that lingo she keeps mutterin' in, anyways? Ain't English or Spanish neither. French or something?"

"Elvish," Havel said, and Astrid's father laughed.

Hutton looked at Havel blankly. The younger man continued: "Elvish, Will, no shit. Girl's a Tolkien fanatic."

It turned out the Texan had only the vaguest idea of who Tolkien was; his reading ran more to books on horses and ranching, or on cavalry and other equestrian subjects, or to Western history, and fiction by Louis L'Amour and Larry Mc-Murtry. Eric arrived while the discussion was still going on.

"Yup, Elvish," he said. "Probably something like Curse of the Valar upon thee, crooked Orcish shaft! That's the problem with a language invented by a professor from Oxford. No meaty, satisfying swearwords for poor Legolamb."

They all laughed at that, but Havel sobered as he walked away to where Signe was practicing with the captured compound bow.

Astrid is damned good with that bow, to come anywhere near hitting something from a moving horse. She's also acting a bit weird. Or maybe even weirder than normal would be a better way to say it. Only to be expected -

Havel had seen what happened to people exposed to the sudden violent death of friends; it had to be worse for a teenager with a parent. He'd been keeping an eye on her, but she hadn't quite blown a gasket yet. That could be a good sign, or a bad one.

"Mike?" Signe said, lowering the bow.

"I'm a bit worried about Astrid," he said. "The problem is that I don't know her well enough, and-"

Signe smiled: "And she acts weird all the time anyway." Her face sobered; smiling hurt her, anyway, with the bruises still fresh.

"She had bad dreams again last night," Signe went on, then shrugged. " I just couldn't sleep at all. It: well, she's younger than me, and she actually saw what happened to Mom. And that crazy man with the tattoos-even then, he scared me worse than the others. And they all terrified me!"

"Yeah," Havel said, wincing slightly at the memory of what he'd seen of Mary Larsson's body-and that was just the aftermath, and she hadn't been much more than a face and a name to him.

"She and Astrid weren't all that close," Signe said, fiddling with the bow. "Mom: Astrid's always been moody and solitary; the sort who has one or two really close friends, you know? Just totally uninterested in boys so far, too. Mom thought kids should have an active social life; parties, and clubs, and activities, and volunteer work. All Astrid was ever interested in was those books, and her horses, and archery-Mom got worried about that, too."

"Archery isn't an activity?"

"Not if you concentrate on it too much!" Signe said. "Then it becomes an obsession. I went to archery club meetings. Astrid just walked through the woods shooting at stumps. Mom-"

She turned away, rubbing at her eyes. "God, I miss her, even the things about her that drove me crazy."

Havel put a hand on her shoulder for an instant, then removed it when she flinched and took the bow and looked down at it.

"Yeah, that's rough," he said. "My mother died of some sudden-onset cancer thing while I was in the Gulf, and I couldn't get back home. We'd fought like cats and dogs for six months before I left, too-she wanted me to go to college instead of into the Corps real bad. I know up here"- he tapped his forehead-"that it wasn't my fault. Nobody knew she was sick, she didn't know she was sick, but: A lot worse for you, and for Astrid."

Signe nodded jerkily. "I'm glad we've been so busy. Less time to think about. everything that happened. I just start feeling guilty, and then I get angry-imagining what I could have done differently, as if I could have saved her-"

"There was absolutely nothing you could have done," Havel said with flat conviction. "Apart from what you did, which probably saved Eric's life and maybe mine. Jail-house would have gotten to him in another thirty seconds, and you saved me at least that much time.

"Sorry," he finished, as she paled and swallowed.

"No!" she said fiercely. "I've got to: learn to deal with it. I can't live with it clubbing me every time I get reminded."

"Which brings me back to Astrid," Havel said, looking down the meadow.

She was wheeling about, tiny with distance at the northern end of the meadow. Still shooting from the saddle, he thought, but it was hard to tell.

"Sometimes feelings bleed off, like pressure from a propane tank," he said. "That's what happens with some people, at least. Brooders, they tend to build it up and then snap. I'd read Astrid for a brooder."

Signe gave him an odd look: "You're a lot more: well, no offense, sensitive, than: "

Havel grinned at her. "Jarheads don't have feelings?" he said.

He enjoyed her blush; she probably got extreme guilt feelings herself when she found herself believing a genuine stereotype. That was insensitive.

"Actually, that's what got me thinking. You get real tight with the guys in your squad, closer than brothers-you live closer than brothers do, and you have to rely on the guy next to you to save your ass; and you have to be ready to do the same for them. Watching someone you're that tight with die: not easy. Some people seriously wig out after that, self-destructive stuff. I don't think Astrid will get careless with explosives-not now!-or get drunk and try and disassemble the shore patrol, but there are probably equivalents a fourteen-year-old can come up with."

Signe nodded. "I'll try and get her to talk: and meanwhile, shall we practice?"

"Right," he said.

He'd tried his hand at the compound; the offset pulleys at the tips made it much easier use than a traditional bow of the same draw-weight, and it had an adjustable sight. And he was strong, and had excellent eyesight, and was a crack shot with a rifle and very good at estimating distance.

Even so, he could tell it was going to be weeks or months before he gained any real skill with it, and that was frustrating-he might need it on a life-and-death level sooner than that. Given a choice, he preferred to do any fighting from a comfortable distance.