The sun was gone and it was nearly dark. Jeff kicked some wood together, built up a fire and set a pot of water on to boil. Tearing up what toweling he had into strips for bandages, he set to work. When he had done what he could, Jeff walked into the woods and vomited his heart out. The sight and blood-stench of gaping wounds had been too much.
Feeling weak but calmer, he returned to the battlefield only to find warriors eyeing each other suspiciously and growling what were undoubtedly curses. Restoring order, Jeff took a moment to consider his next step.
If they head home now, he reasoned, most of the wounded will never make it or they’ll just start fighting again. Jeff threw more wood on the fire. Some of the warriors were inclined to leave until Jeff unsnapped the Colt.
The night seemed to drag on forever. Pacing up and down between the two groups, stopping only to put more wood on the fire, he tried to figure out a plan for the coming morning but couldn’t shake memories of what he had done. The larger moon sailed above the trees, encouraging Jeff to seek relief in music. He unpacked the recorder and let his mind drift away with the notes as they soared along cool pathways offered by moonbeams.
The fire was nearly comatose, lending an acrid quality to the thick tendril of smoke that found its way up Jeff’s nose. He awakened sitting by the fire in the grip of an explosive fit of sneezing. He didn’t remember where he was for a moment but figured it out when he noticed a forest of legs knotted with muscle on either side of him. That and the fact that he was about to topple into a bed of ashes drove him to his feet in an awkward two-step shuffle.
“Real graceful,” he said around a big yawn, “I’ll bet that impressed ‘em.”
The warriors were toeing the line he had drawn, but instead of exchanging insults they seemed to be talking excitedly. Progress? Jeff wondered. Screw progress, all I want to do is dunk my head.
Doffing his hat, he kneeled by the river and submerged his head. It was so cold he would have screamed had it not meant inhaling a lungful of water. Instead, and vitally refreshed, he leaped to his feet with a shout.
Slinging his head to get hair out of his face, Jeff looked around and nearly ducked. A thicket of tree-like arms pointed toward his head accompanied by amazed-sounding exclamations. While the words were unintelligible, he kept hearing one that sounded like alarai. Alarai hair? he thought. Whatever, it’s time to get these folks headed home.
Through gestures and pantomime, Jeff conveyed the idea that they could leave. The night before he had discovered that the wolf leader’s assessment was probably correct: he could feel their emotions to an extent, but that was it. He let the group of four leave first, then, two hours later, the rest. They disappeared into the forest singing a multiple part continuo that slowly faded to silence.
Remorse and bone-deep fatigue returned almost at once. Jeff sat around what was left of the fire for some time replaying the battle. No matter how he looked at it, there was no excuse for killing the warrior. He could have run. Jeff got up with the intention of leaving but was so exhausted that sleep came first.
When he awakened late in the afternoon, rested but feeling dirty inside and out, Jeff stripped and plunged into the river before he could think about it. He exploded from the water with a cry of anguish. When he could tolerate the water for more than a few seconds, he used the nubbin of soap that remained to good effect.
Drying off in what was left of a sun being overcome by cloud cover, Jeff donned a spare pair of jeans and went in search of food. He decided to set some snares, but had a hard time remembering how to go about it.
On his way back to camp with a collection of spring greens, he stumbled on a bird’s nest in a clump of brush. Nestled inside were five pearly-green eggs of good size. Mouth watering, Jeff picked up three and left before he snatched the last two. Bedding the eggs in the greens, he hurried back to camp. The eggs proved as good as their promise.
Sitting around experimentally tasting the greens and trying to get sparks from various rocks, Jeff mulled over his encounter from a calmer perspective.
“I must have seemed like something from a nightmare. Maybe a demon. They might even have thought the backpack was part of my body.” Jeff remembered blue eyes that would never see again and had to fight back a fresh wave of remorse. “I have got to learn their language, and fast, or it’s going to be nothing but one screw up after the other.”
Jeff let his mind wander to more comfortable territory and pieced together what he had learned.
If there is any comparison between this world and Europe during the first three centuries A.D., he reflected, the prospects of finding civilization this far north are not good. The terrain and climate are too severe to encourage the development of meaningful agriculture. Without that they’re stuck with hunting and no time for anything else. Maybe farther south. Some of those battle-axes were of decent quality. They might represent trade items. If I’m going to find settled communities or even cities, that’s were they’ll be. Have to locate a village, learn the language, then South here I come.
Not surprisingly, Jeff awoke to an overcast drizzling sort of day. He donned his coat and made a quick round of snares set the previous day. Much to his surprise and delight he had snagged a rabbit. Jeff held his breath and gingerly pried the rabbit’s mouth open, then let it out in a gusty sigh. Normal rabbit teeth. He dressed the rabbit, tied it to his backpack and moved out, light rain casting the terrain into misty vagueness.
For most of the day Jeff slogged along through wet grass, pants soaked up to the knees. The air was humid and ground fog clung to the meadows, lending a dreamy atmosphere to the forest. It was a relief to have his world shrink to a smaller scale, and Jeff’s thoughts wandered far away. Automatically stepping around a big tree, he slid to a halt and nearly yelled in fright. Sitting on his haunches no more than a foot away, the wolf leader was nearly nose to snout with him.
“Damn you! Give me some warning!” He took a few deep breaths and counted to ten. “Easy does it, lad, easy does it.”
“Good hunting, leader.”
The roguish mirth evident in the wolf’s thoughts confirmed Jeff’s opinion that the meeting ground had been selected for more than convenience’s sake. Cheap-shot comedian, he muttered deep inside.
“We are happy to see our brother walking on two legs this day.”
“The yellow-hairs were eager to taste each other’s blood.”
“It is always so when strange packs meet and dispute hunting grounds.”
Jeff put his irritation aside and got down to issues. “This one would search out large numbers of his kind in what are called cities.”
He conveyed images of walled cities and a montage of variations on that theme in the hope they would spark memories from the pack’s travels.
“Ah! Our brother desires to seek out places that foul the air and water. Our curiosity is great that you should consider these two-legs your kind.”
Puzzled by the last comment, Jeff thought he might have messed up the query and tried again, this time including images of men and women. The wolf leader’s thoughts overflowed with the same vast amusement.
“We believe that ‘your kind’ would be unhappy with such comparison.”
“Your humor grows old. Please answer me directly.”
The wolf fell silent for a period, a certain respect growing in his thoughts. “You are related to the two-legs of the south as we of the brethren are related to grassland hunters. From your thoughts we conclude you intend to seek them out in search of understanding, and this is deemed necessary.”
“Forgive my impatience, leader of many, but riddles avail nothing. True knowledge to assist my passage would be of great value.”
When the wolf replied, it was in a grave tone. “Much that must be is not given to this one. Two marches to the south you will find a gathering of the golden-haired ones. There you will learn much.” With that and a brief farewell, he was gone.
“Well,” Jeff grumbled, “at least something to shoot
for. I don’t know what gathering means, but most likely a village. Maybe a big one. So many questions and so little information or answers. It looks like I’m going to have to dig it out for myself.”
Totally fed up with what seemed to be nothing but evasive replies, Jeff continued on his day’s journey with a vow to keep his own counsel and not be moved around like some pawn in a chess game. It may have been a coincidence, but at that moment a faint howl drifted to his ears and made them burn.
The weather cleared as the day wore on, and Jeff’s mood followed suite. “Got to give that wolf a name, symbol or no symbol.” Jeff chuckled and laughed as he considered one unflattering name after the other. In the end he got serious and settled on Balthazar.
Blue skies returned the following day, and he made good time as the land opened up a bit. While still heavily forested, there were more meadows. Hurrying across the smaller ones, Jeff detoured around larger meadows to avoid the risk of being caught out in the open. Not long into the afternoon, he ran across evidence of cultivation.
Putting his experience from the family farm to use, Jeff assessed the weed-grown plot. Maybe something over two acres, it had not been worked for a season. He was intrigued by the furrows. They were large and appeared to have been turned by a two-bottom plow. That meant draft animals. The men he had seen were giants, but not strong enough to pull such an implement.
“Now where did that come from up here? The village has to be close—I’ve got to see this place!”
Wary of provoking a confrontation, Jeff moved away from the river. He also did not want to stumble onto a settlement without having a chance to first look it over. By early evening he had located the village, set up a secure campsite and wormed his way into a stand of trees on a promontory that gave a good view of the village. He scanned the area and let out a soft whistle.
“Well, there’s my lake,” Jeff whispered, “and what a lake.”
The opposite shore was not visible. Even though there was no breeze to speak of, good-sized waves curled far up a sandy beach. A number of children raced back and forth chasing the water, and long-legged birds skittered along the shoreline. No boats were visible, which surprised Jeff. While the lake might be barren of fish or comparable species, that possibility seemed unlikely.
As the sun touched the horizon he counted fifty buildings constructed of squared-off logs, their high-peaked roofs covered with sod. Donning sunglasses, he could see more trailing off into the woods.
“Hmm. Remind me of those Viking lodges excavated in Newfoundland. Really sturdy. Maybe twenty-five feet on the side and no chimneys, just smoke holes. Wait a minute, what’s that?” Peering into shadows now extending over the village, Jeff could almost swear that one lodge did have a chimney, and wood planking on the roof to boot.
The people all seemed to fit the same mold as the warriors he had earlier encountered. He saw children sprinting here and there, roaming groups of what looked like dogs, and clusters of adults talking to one another. Wood smoke sifted through the roofs of many lodges. Close by his hiding place, a man and woman were busy skinning a deer while conversing in a guttural tongue. Occasionally, one or the other would call out to people in the village or laugh uproariously.
Jeff’s overall impression was of a people intent on completing the day’s tasks while catching up on village gossip. As the sun disappeared from view, Jeff abruptly turned from his survey in the grip of a devastating wave of homesickness. He had experienced a number of serious attacks since accepting he was no longer on Earth, but always in the presence of other demands that could not be ignored. At the moment there was no threat.
The sight of people engaged in routine, familiar experiences in the company of family and friends reminded him of everything he had lost. Caught unawares, Jeff’s heart unraveled. The knowledge that he would never see his family again was no longer a strong possibility, it was fact. There was no escaping it.
All the loneliness he had felt up to that point was nothing compared to the anguish that gripped him. Finding his way to the tent, Jeff curled up in his sleeping bag and let the tears come. They were not tears of momentary distress, rather an outpouring of grief for what was forever gone—the slender but immensely strong resource of people he loved and who loved him without reservation. The transition to sleep came somewhere around midnight
To his intense relief, Jeff felt drawn but calm the following morning; felt as if something had taken another step on the way to being settled. And those he loved were still there, somewhere in the universe. Jeff smiled when he thought about his grandmother. She would never give him up as lost.
Returning to his observation post, Jeff reassessed the village. While it was quite early, villagers were already bustling about. He watched people stream back and forth from a spot in the woods with growing curiosity.
“Oh yeah! Has to be it. Pit toilets. Now that’s impressive.”
The streets were dirt, certainly, but seemed to be laid out in a regular fashion. Concentrating on an odd building near the center of the village that was open on two sides, Jeff distinctly saw an orange glow.
“Could it be a forge?” Several minutes later, “I think it is! Son of a gun. Technology rears its ugly head.”
Jeff was so excited that he forgot himself and stood up. This is a dream come true, he thought, I have to publish this! The absurdity of the thought was such that it brought him back to reality and behind cover.
“No way, bucko, do you go charging down that hill,” Jeff breathed. “You wouldn’t get more than fifty feet from this spot before they took you out. Question is, how am I going to make myself known to these folks and stay alive at the same time?” Thinking it over, Jeff came up with a plan that promised to get him into the village in one piece and conscious.
It took some time to cautiously circle around until he was several miles south of the village. He found a dense grove of trees and set the backpack down when he was well inside. Extracting the recorder, Jeff draped a sweater over the pack and hilt of his sword. He figured the former was truly alien appearing, and the latter just might get him killed.
“Okay, I’m ready. Here goes nothing.”
Playing a sprightly tune, Jeff walked into the open and strolled along with what he hoped was a confident gait. He had not progressed far before armed villagers and a pack of barking dogs charged out of the woods to surround him.
Faced with a thicket of spears and axes, Jeff’s throat clenched tight. Looking straight ahead, he did not slow down. At the last instant before his chest met a spear, the circle opened and allowed him to continue on. Although many villagers were scowling, they seemed intrigued at the same time.
He crested a rise and the village came into view. A short distance beyond the rise, a man stood with arms akimbo directly across his path. Jeff drew to a halt surrounded by jostling villagers. Two teenagers grinned at one another and gave a third a hearty shove. He was young but in no way small, and almost knocked Jeff to the ground when he stumbled into his back.
“Shit!”
Jeff felt like he was surrounded by a pack of giant pit bulls, and muttered, “Okay, you wanted to brazen it out as a minstrel, so let’s frikking brazen while you have the chance.”
He put a big smile in place and held his arms out.
“Greetings, citizens of this beautiful metropolis.” Jeff had to stop and cough dry phlegm from his throat. “I have come from a land far to the south,” pointing grandly in the appropriate direction, “to spread joy and music. I can assure you that I am alone, but the southern rascals tell me they plan to get up this way soon and break some heads. I come in peace and not a little desperation, hoping you will accept my offerings and not open my veins.” Jeff immediately began playing a medley of tunes while assessing the impression he had made.
A number of villagers still scowled suspiciously, but the majority seemed curious and unsure how to respond. On the periphery, a number of younger men and women were stamping out the time and children were whirling a
round in maypole circles.
Well, I’m still alive and they certainly like the music, Jeff thought with great relief. The fact that I’m by myself might make the difference.
Turning his attention to the villager confronting him, Jeff was impressed by the cool assessment of risk that seemed to be going on. The man, who looked to be forty or so, issued a string of commands and gestured for him to proceed toward the village. A group of warriors trotted off to the south.
One smart dude, Jeff concluded. Wants to make sure this is not a setup. The man who had confronted him stepped into the building with the chimney. Jeff followed with several warriors immediately behind. Peering around, he noticed the hall had a beamed ceiling with planking laid on top and estimated its dimensions to be about sixty by forty feet. The floor was rammed earth and amazingly clean. Low benches were arrayed around the perimeter. At the far end, a pair of split-log chairs cushioned with furs were set in a prominent position. A fireplace constructed of well-mortared and fitted fieldstones bulked large in one corner.
This has to be a combination community and administrative hall, Jeff mused, continuing to look around with what he hoped would appear to be careless aplomb.
Seating himself in one of the chairs, the man gestured for Jeff to approach closer. This guy is most likely the chief, he decided. If I really lay into it, maybe I can get through to his mind. Jeff was gathering a mental thrust when the chief gestured imperiously. What’s he pointing at? My backpack?
Feeling behind his head very slowly, Jeff discovered that the sword hilt had escaped the sweater. “That does it for sure,” he groaned under his breath.
Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles) Page 10
