Eric and Josh walked up with a full-length mirror from one of the houses. With a flourish they set it down beside the fire, and then he could see himself. For a long minute he gaped, hearing a murmur from all around him as the. Bearkillers took it in, with some townies who'd been hanging around as well.
I look like something off the cover of one of Astrid's god-damned books! he thought. The words "no fucking way" trembled on his lips.
Astrid's face was shining. Suddenly she threw her fists in the air and cried: "All hail to Lord Bear!"
His own shout of revulsion was buried in the chorus as everyone else took it up-except for Eric, who'd actually fallen flat laughing and who lay helplessly hugging himself as he rolled on the ground.
That left Havel grinding his teeth in fury. After a moment, he realized what bothered him more: better than half the spectators weren't laughing at all. In fact, they were taking it just as seriously as Astrid.
Christ Jesus, he thought, stomach sinking. The kid's making a hero-shaped hole and the entire bunch of them are shoving me into it.
"So, does this count as a date?" Signe said. "Here we are, alone at last."
Startled, Havel looked over at her. They were side-by-side on the seat of the wagon, and he was suddenly conscious of the slight summery smell of her, clean sweat and woman.
And she's definitely a woman, he thought, with a wry smile. There's never a bad time to stop and discuss your feelings.
"Ummm: I hadn't actually thought of it that way," he said cautiously. "For one thing, your brother and Pam are under the tarp right behind us, so we're not really alone."
"Oh, don't mind him," she said. "He can't see a thing."
Muffled gagging and retching sounds came from beneath the tarpaulin, then a yelp, as if someone had kicked someone in the shin. Havel felt a sudden impulse to grin enormously. He fought it down, looking around at the long empty stretch of road. They were alone; two horses drawing the wagon, and a pair hitched to the rear: as tempting a target as they could arrange.
Easy pickings, the arrangement said. Come and get it!
It wasn't the sort of trick he'd have pulled out in the hot-and-dirty places the Corps had sent him. Far too blatant and obvious.
Item: Things are different now. No guns and not many good archers yet. You have to get close to someone to hurt them. Item: Odds are these are amateur bandits, just learning the trade, the way I'm learning how to use a sword or shoot a bow.
For a moment he felt an enormous familiar anger at whoever or whatever had done this to his country, to his world, and then it passed away. If he ever had a chance to do anything about it: but until then, put it away.
'Cause those who can't put it away are going to die real soon and never get a chance to do anything about it.
Instead he spoke, his voice light: "That's flattering, Signe, but let's take a rain check. After this is over, maybe? In the meantime, we'd better concentrate on business."
She made a pout and flipped the reins over the horse's back. "Yes, O Lord Bear. Business."
"Now that's a low blow. And yeah, business."
You know, this is business, he realized. Literally. We've dealt with bandits before, and this is on our way, but we've actually been hired to do it.
They went forward at a fast walk amid the clatter and hollow clop of hooves and the creaking of the wagon's fabric. He pulled a strip of jerky from a pocket and began gnawing on it as he watched their surroundings; it tasted like salty cardboard, but it was food.
The land was tending upward, with more grass and less sagebrush as they climbed into a belt of higher rainfall, but not much cultivation yet-it would be another day's travel until they were into wheat country. Before the Change this had been ranching territory, and seasonal grazing at that-virtually nobody actually lived here. Occasionally they passed an abandoned vehicle; once they sped up as a gagging smell told them someone, or several someones, had died inside a four-door sedan flipped upside down.
They passed a few bodies beside the road as well, but birds and coyotes and insects had taken most of the flesh there, leaving only scraps of tendon and wisps of hair blowing in the warm dry wind.
"How could anyone do that?" Signe asked. "Just sit and die?"
Havel shrugged. "Easy," he said, and waved a hand around them at the immense silence and the great blue bowl of the sky.
"It's bigger now. Physically bigger."
"Bigger?" Signe said. " Quieter, yes, but bigger?"
"Yeah, for all practical purposes. I've felt it before, backpacking into real wilderness, the deep empty country. The world gets bigger. OK, now it's like that everywhere: This was pretty thinly settled country before the Change, but that was when you could do thirty miles in an hour even on bad dirt roads. Bam, the Change hits, and suddenly thirty miles, that's two, three days' walk for someone not used to hiking-if you're lucky. Suddenly every distance is fifty, sixty times bigger, or more, and the fastest way to carry a message is feet."
"That never made us sit down and die of fright," Signe said stubbornly.
You know, I really like this girl, Havel thought. She doesn't just accept anything I say.
He nodded. "Yeah, but I wasn't taken by surprise when I went on vacation, and I'm used to being on my own in remote places. Some townie type, say someone from a big city like Seattle or even Spokane , they'd be just as likely to wait a long time for someone to drive by and rescue them as to get going right away. It would even be the sensible thing to do-how could they know things were screwed up worldwide? A lot would die of exposure; it was down below freezing here at night right after the Change. And there aren't even any surface streams around here, and try going twenty-four hours without water. Wait too long and you'll be too weak to move, or you'll collapse on the way."
She shivered. When she spoke again her voice was flat with dread. "Mike: it's probably a lot worse than we've seen, back on the coast, anywhere with cities, isn't it?"
"Worse isn't the word. There probably aren't any words. And it'll all get worse before it gets better," he said grimly. "Your dad thinks that by this time next year, there won't be more than ten, maybe twenty million people at most left in the whole of North America, from Guatemala to Hudson 's Bay."
My, you know how to sweet-talk a girl, don't you, Havel? he asked himself.
All the while his eyes had been moving around them; so had Signe's, come to that. The road wound and turned as it climbed, and sometimes the hillsides rose almost cliff-steep beside them. He checked his precious wind-up watch and looked behind them; a mirror-flash came at the edge of sight, just one quick blink. Impossible to tell from sunlight on a broken bottle or a bit of quartz, if you didn't know what to look for.
That's comforting, he thought. Nice to know help is on hand.
It was another five hours until sunset, and then he'd have to figure out a different trick. He wasn't going to try this in darkness, when nobody could see what was happening or rush to the rescue.
And even in daylight, it's not all that comforting. The rest have to hang well back if they're not going to be spotted.
"Mike!" Signe said. His head came around. "Up ahead!"
He saw only a moving dot, but Signe had unusually keen eyes. He thought for an instant, then decided to take a chance; binoculars were not something any innocuous traveler would have, but he needed to know what was going on. The road a half mile ahead sprang into sight.
Man on a bike, he thought. Then: Correction. Kid on a bike. About ten, and a boy, I think. Also he's bleeding, and looking over his shoulder. I think some genuine bait got in ahead of us.
"That's torn it," he said grimly. "All right, everyone out."
Signe pulled on the reins. Havel switched aside his broad-brimmed hat, pulled the loose shirt that concealed his armor over his head, and clapped on his helmet. Pamela and Eric were out from under the tarpaulin in less time, red-faced and sweating but fully equipped; Pam was in one-third of their current store of chain hauberks, Eric in leather like his sister. They unhitched the horses from the wagon's traces and saddled them while Havel jumped down to the pavement, grunting a little as his boots hit and the mail clashed. It wasn't that the armor was too heavy to run and leap in: : it's just that when I do, it's like being thirty years older.