Dies the Fire (49 page)

“Good spot,” she said in an almost-whisper, when she saw where he was heading.

She pointed, and they could both see the tracks and the slight beaten trail. “Creature of habit, your average rabbit, likely to come through here again.”

“You a hunter?” he asked softly with a chuckle in the tone.

“No,” she said. “I didn't hunt, not until the Change. But I liked watching the birds and animals, when I got the chance.”

They both ducked through the wires of the fence, holding it for each other—his long saber was more of a nuisance than her gladius—and moved to where a fallen tree trunk made good shelter for a small animal low on the food chain to scan the meadow before venturing out. He rubbed grass and herbs between his hands before he planted the trap, and baited it with a handful of evening primrose roots. The next few went further up along the brush-grown verge, natural stopping-places for an animal attracted to the varied food that grew in edge habitats.

They moved into the woods; mixed fir and oak, old enough to have a canopy over their heads. The cool green smell was different from the open meadow, more spicy and varied. It was much darker here, just enough to see their way.

“There,” she said, pointing.

The spot showed close-cropped grass, beneath a high bank that cut off the wind; it also broke the roof of branches above, and let in a little starlight and moonlight.

“Good spot,” he repeated. “Wouldn't be surprised if there were some burrows there.”

“You men are unromantic beasts,” she said, laughing. “I had a bit of a stop in mind, Mike.”

He had a crooked smile, but an oddly charming one. “You know, I was hoping you'd say something like that.” He hesitated. “I can't stay. I've got my people to look after—commitments elsewhere.”

“Me too, but you're a gentleman to say so.” She put her arms around his neck. “Now shut up, will you?”

My, my, my,
Juniper thought.

She stretched luxuriously and then hugged the sheepskin jacket around her shoulders against the chill, watching as Mike Havel lit a fire a yard away. He had an old-fashioned liquid-fueled cigarette lighter to do it with, and the wick caught the second time his thumb worked the wheel in a little shower of sparks. The light showed for a moment through the teepee of twigs and duff he'd laid as tinder.

“It's not that cold,” she said. “Besides, it's fun to cuddle, and we've got this blanket you so
accidentally
wrapped those traps in.”

He looked over his shoulder. Squatting naked wasn't usually a flattering position for a man, but he was as unselfconscious about his body as a wolf.
Odd that he got a bear-name dropped on him.
He wasn't furry, less body hair than most, but a wolf was what he reminded her of, or a cat; something lean and perfectly shaped.

Except for the scars,
she thought, with a quick surge of compassion; she'd noticed, of course, but things had been too . . . urgent . . . to ask before.

“How did that happen?” she asked gently.

He glanced down at the white seamed mark on his leg as he carefully added deadwood to the little blaze.

“Slipped cutting down a dead pine,” he said. “Christ Jesus, did my dad give me hell about it!”

She nodded, but went on: “No, I meant
that.
”

That
was a curious radial pattern on his ribs; the muscle and tendon moved easily beneath it, but the flickering underlight of the fire brought out the tracery of damaged skin.

He glanced up at her quickly, his eyes cold and withdrawn for a moment, then thawing.

“No,” he said. “You're not the sort of girl who'd get off on scars, hey?”

“I'm not any sort of a girl,” she said tartly. “And not that sort of woman, either. I like you, Mike. I just wanted to know about you.”

He grinned and finished building the fire. “OK, point taken, and I like you too, Juney. It was an RPG.”

“Role-playing game?” she asked, bewildered, and saw him laugh aloud, his head thrown back—for the first time since they met, she realized.

“Rocket Propelled Grenade,” he said. “Freak thing—should have killed me, it hit the rocks just to my left and then shit was flying everywhere.”

He looked down at his hands; they slowly closed. “Next thing I knew I was crawling and pulling what was left of Ronnie Thibodeaux out and yelling for a corpsman. You would have liked Ronnie—Cajun kid from the bayous, turned me on to zydeco music.”

The flames cast shadows on the bank of earth behind, moving like ruddy ghost-shapes in the darkness.

“I may be a beast, but not an unromantic one; a fire always makes things nicer, right?”

Juniper threw back the coat and opened her arms.

 

 

 

Mike Havel always found partings awkward; he'd expected this to be worse than most, after the holiday feeling—like three days spent out of time, without the sensation of knotted tension he'd had most days since the Change and every day since he saw the Protector's outposts. He'd always gotten good-byes over with as fast as he could, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

Oddly enough,
this
good-bye was easier than most; not less for regrets, but . . .

At that he had to chuckle; since the Change, it had gotten complicated beyond belief—but apparently the personal stuff didn't stop. Juniper looked up at him from her bicycle, smiling in her turn. The young sun flamed on her hair, falling in loose curls to the shoulders of her jack; she had her bow over her shoulder, and her bowl helmet slung from the handlebars—as if this was a care-free day before the Change, and she someone heading out on a mountain bike. The air had a cool bite to it, a wind out of the west that hinted at rain, but for now the clouds were white billows sailing through haze-blue sky.

“What's the joke, Mike?” she asked; her voice still had that hint of a lilt and burble to it.

“That this doesn't really feel like good-bye,” he said.

“Well, maybe it isn't, then?” she said, grinning at him. “I have a strong premonition we'll all meet again—and I'm a Witch, you know.”

She looked past him to Eric. “I've a present for your sister,” she said.

“Signe?” he blurted, then looked as if he wished his lips would seal shut.

“No, Astrid,” she said; then glanced at Havel.

He could read that glance:
I'm already sending
Signe
something.

“From what I heard, your Astrid and my Eilir would get on like a house on fire—tell her that from me.”

She unsnapped the dagger from her belt. It was a Scottish-style dirk, ten inches of tapering double-edged blade, guardless, with a hilt of bone carved in interwoven Celtic ribbon-work, and a pommel in the form of the Green Man's face. More of the swirling patterns worked their way down the sheath, tooled into the dark leather.

She tossed it up to him, and then turned her bicycle; the rest of her people were straddling their machines in a clump—the nest of Eaters had had half a dozen workable trail bikes.

“Merry meet and merry part,” she said, waving to the three Bearkillers; her eyes met Havel's, and he felt a little of that shock again. “And merry meet again!”

Havel waved, then leaned his hands on the pommel of his saddle as the knot of . . .
Well, “Mackenzies,”
he thought.
Makes as much sense as “Bearkillers,” doesn't it?
. . . coasted off southward, freewheeling down the slope that took the two-lane road weaving among trees and fields.

“Damn. That is quite a woman,” he said quietly to himself. “One hell of a woman, in fact.”

Eric was looking over the dagger; he drew it and whistled at the damascene blade. “Legolamb will love it,” he said. “Looks Elvish to a fault.”

“Scottish,” Havel corrected.

“Whatever.” Then his glance turned sly: “Shall I tell Signe about the circumstances?”

Havel shook himself slightly, touching the rein to his horse's neck and turning the big gelding westward, up the gravel road that intersected the county highway.

“No, I'll tell her.”

“Why shouldn't I do it first?” Eric said, grinning.

“You over that constipation, kid?” he said.

“Well . . . yeah,” Eric replied, frowning in puzzlement.

Josh Sanders was chuckling on Havel's other side as the three horses moved off, the pack-string following.

“Then if your bowels are moving regular, you really shouldn't tell Signe a word,” Havel went on seriously.

“What's that got to do with it?” Eric said.

“It's
real
difficult to wipe your ass when you've got two broken arms,” Havel said.

Sanders barked laughter; Eric followed after a moment.

“Want me to take point?” he said.

“Let Josh do it first,” Havel said.

Sanders nodded and brought his horse up to a canter, pulling ahead of the other two riders and the remount string. The road they followed wound west into the Eola Hills; the slope was gently downward through a peach orchard for a long bowshot, and Havel lost himself in it for a moment as petals drifted downward and settled in pink drifts on the shoulders of his hauberk and Gustav's mane. There had been enough ugly moments since the Change that it was a good idea to make the most of the other kind.

The thought made him smile. Morning's chill and dew brought out the scent; it reminded him of the smell of Juniper's hair for some reason, and the almost translucent paleness of her skin where the sun hadn't reached.

The road broke out of the little manicured trees and crossed a stretch of green grassland that rose and fell like a smooth swell at sea; from here they could just see how it turned a little north of east to head for a notch between two low hills shaggy with forest; there were more clumps of trees across it, and along the line of the roadway. Beyond all rose the steep heights of the Coast Range, lower than the Cascades behind them and forested to their crests.

Beyond that . . .

Would ships sail there in his lifetime? Perhaps not, but maybe in his son's, or grandson's; windjammers, like the Aland Island square-rigger that had brought his great-grandfather to America. He shook his head, and Gustav snorted, sensing that his attention was elsewhere.

Salem lay to their rear across the Willamette; Corvallis was two days' walk southward. The closest town was the tiny hamlet of Rickreall, miles off to the left and over ridges. The hills ahead were an island in the flat Willamette, steep on their western faces, open and inviting when you came in from the east.

The only human habitation in sight was a farmhouse and barn off to the right about half a mile away, and it felt abandoned—probably cleaned out by foraging parties from the state capital right after the Change.

“Mike . . .” Eric began.

Havel turned his head. “Thought you had something to say.”

“Are you and Signe . . . well, together?”

“Yes and no,” Havel said. A corner of his mouth turned up. “Or yes, but not really, not quite yet. Want to have another go about the way I look at your sister? Or did you think I was cheating on her?”

“Well . . .”

“You and Luanne have a commitment, right?” Eric nodded. “Well, Signe and I don't, yet.”

Eric flushed, and went on: “Just wanted to know. I mean . . . are you two going to get married, or something?”

“Probably,” Havel said. “Very probably; depends on what she decides. But I haven't made any promises, yet.”

Although that's probably not the way a woman would look at it,
he acknowledged to himself.

Eric nodded; he
was
a male, after all, and a teenager at that.

“She'd have to be pretty dumb to pass you up, Mike,” he said. Then he went on, in a lower tone: “Thing is, if you two get married, that'll sort of make us brothers, won't it? I've never had a brother.”

Havel gave one of his rare laughs and leaned over in the saddle to thump his gauntleted hand on the younger man's armored shoulder.

“I could do worse. What's that old saying? ‘Bare is back without brother to guard it'? We've watched each other's backs in enough fights by now that we're sort of brothers already. Now let's see this home of yours.”