Dies The Fire

Chapter Twenty-six

"C omplicated plan," Sam Aylward whispered. "Depends on the enemy doing what we want."

Juniper nodded. "It also allows a good chance for us to run away if things go bad," she replied softly, concentrating on the view through her binoculars.

"It also depends on the Sutterdown folk doing what they promised."

"N? artgo cur le ch? e," she said. "There's no strength without unity. We can't do this by ourselves."

She lay at the edge of a patch of woods that covered a low rise in the valley floor. Beyond that was a narrow strip of plowed land grown with weeds, earth turned before the Change but never seeded. Beyond that was a wire fence, now down and derelict, and a narrow two-lane road; beyond that was a fair-sized wheatfield, reaped but with the grain still lying in windrows, and beyond that a line of trees along the irregular course of a small creek.

The sight of the grain lying out disturbed her, even though the land was well beyond the clan's borders and into Sutterdown territory. Every night it lay out was one more for the birds and animals to eat more, and the risk of it spoiling was unbearable. In fact, she could see jays at it now, and crows, and a rabbit hopping through looking for good bits.

The waste of war, she thought. Bad enough before the Change. Worse now.

She laid the glasses down and turned her head, looking through a fringe of cloth. The long hooded poncho they'd christened a war cloak was light fabric, splotched in gray-green-brown, and sewn over with loops that held twigs or served to break her outline; Sam called it a ghillie suit. All the Mackenzie fighters wore one, and even though she knew where they were, she could see no more than a few- Dennis, lying with the ax blade beside his head, and John Carson beyond him.

The Englishman had taught them that trick; he was willing to give advice, or train, or fight, or even lead a small group, but not to command overall, though they'd offered him that. What had he said?

Hasn't been an Aylward ranked higher than sergeant in seven centuries, Lady. I wouldn't want to break the tradition.

She didn't look behind herself. The horses were safely on the other, eastern side of the woodlot; Eilir and half a dozen other kids too young to fight but old enough to be trusted held them, ready for retreat. If worse came to worst, most of her people could probably flee: but she didn't expect that.

I've never felt like this outside the Circle, she thought, but the musing was distant. It wasn't that she was brimming with confidence; she just: waited.

The first Sutterdown men to come by were running, and for real; weaponless, some leaking blood, but not too badly to keep them from making good speed. They came down the road and vanished around the corner as it curved eastward, to her left. The rest came in a clump; many more wounded or limping, some lying in a cart drawn by a single horse. She knew that meant others were dead; that a rear guard was spending their lives buying time for the rest to retreat and make their stand.

Even wondering if they'd stop didn't make her feel anxious-just a slight tension, like a tight string on a guitar.

They did stop. Reverend Dixon was there, the only man on horseback, but sharing his parishioners' danger. She could hear his voice, though not make out the words: harsh, hectoring, shaming the men into halting and turning to face the foe once more. But she could feel the power in it, as he gestured with the Bible in his hand.

I'll never like him, and we may be enemies someday, but respect him I must, however reluctantly. He's no hypocrite.

There were a hundred or so of the Sutterdown militia, working with frantic speed to make an improvised barricade where the road turned east, hauling fence posts with a tangle of wire and shoving a couple of abandoned cars into place before rocking them over on their sides; forty of her Mackenzies waited along the edge of the woods. Silence fell again, more or less; birds sang with cruel indifference, and insects burrowed and bit.

And the braying sound of a trumpet came from the northwest, towards Sutterdown, faint but menacing. A man on a bicycle came from that direction too, stopped on a straight section of the road just beyond bowshot of the militia's barricade and looked about with binoculars of his own.

She lowered her own lest the reflection give her away and waited; he seemed to give only perfunctory attention to the side of the road. The barricade got a close going-over, and the scout wrote in a spiral-bound notebook. Then he extended a fist with all but one finger clenched into a fist, pumped it in an unmistakable gesture, and pedaled off towards Sutterdown again.

When he returned, the whole band was with him. Only two of them were on horseback, one who seemed to be the leader-he had a tall feather plume on his helmet-and a standard-bearer beside him. The flag that hung from the crossbar on the pole was black, with a cat-pupiled red eye on it; her mouth quirked slightly, at the evidence that someone-perhaps this Protector-had a nasty sense of humor.

Or as Mike said, a weak grasp on reality; possibly both.

The rest were on bicycles. Her lips moved again, in a silent curse. With bicycles and good roads, raiders could travel fifty miles in a day and strike without warning; and in the short run bicycles required neither the skilled care nor the expensive feeding of horses. That alone made things different-and worse-than in any of the history everyone was mining for clues on how to live in the Changed world.

Take bandits, add bicycles and shake, and what do you get? Instant Mongol!

Now someone seemed to have figured out how to apply the same advantage on a large scale. You couldn't fight from the saddle of a bicycle, but then, nobody around here could fight from the back of a horse either. Not yet.

Sixty-three, she counted; that didn't include the banner man. Thirty with crossbows.

Pre-Change crossbows, or made well since; they also wore short sleeveless tunics covered with metal scales, helmets, and had small shields slung across their backs; and they all seemed to have long knives or shortswords at their belts. Many carried hatchets as well.

The remaining dozen had knee-length hauberks of rings or scales; their armor had sleeves, and they wore steel-splint protection on their forearms and shins. Their shields were thick and broad, strapped with metal, and they were armed with heavy spears, long swords or axes. The mounted commander halted them along the eastern side of the road, and Juniper felt a stab of anxiety-had they seen her folk?

No, she decided. He's just holding them there ready to charge.

She could see them laughing as they dismounted from their bicycles, leaving them on their kickstands, forming up in a column shield to shield; a few paused to piss by the side of the road, holding the skirts of their armor aside.

The invaders had a supply wagon with them as well. It wasn't horse drawn, though: men powered it, seated on six bicycles bolted into a frame. Scrawny men clothed in rags, whose feet were chained to the pedals of their machines.

Now, are these the Good Guys, or the Bad Guys? she thought grimly. Nice to know your first impression isn 't mistaken. Cernunnos, Lord of the Gates of the Underworld, make ready!

The crossbowmen formed up in a double line and began walking towards the Sutterdown position; they moved in open order, leaving gaps for the second rank to shoot through. Archers and crossbows opened up on them as they came within a hundred yards, but they ignored them- and ignored the man of theirs who fell kicking with a bolt in his thigh, except that they shuffled their ranks to close up the empty space.

At eighty yards they stopped with a single long shout. The first rank leveled their crossbows and fired, a harsh unmusical snapping of strings and whistle of bolts; then they dropped the forward ends of their weapons to the ground, unshipped the cranks at their belt, hooked them to cord and butt and rewound.

The second rank fired as they reloaded; then the first raised their weapons again, steady and methodical:

They'll keep shooting until the militia are badly shaken, she thought.

Behind them the full-armored fighters were shouting and slapping their weapons on their shields, waiting their turn.

Then the heavies will go in. Morrigan witness, nobody really knows how to fight this way. A hundred Romans or Normans could wipe the floor with the lot of us. But the Protector's bunch are a little less ignorant than most.

"But perhaps not so wise as they supposed," she murmured to herself, and whistled softly in signal.