Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles)

by Dale B. Mattheis

  The chief gestured again, leaving no doubt he wanted the saber. Jeff glanced over his shoulder at the doorway to see how far off it was. Leaning forward, the chief shouted a command and held his hand out.

  The tension peaked as he reached back to draw the saber. Several warriors crouched slightly and raised their weapons. The saber slid from the scabbard with such a loud rasp that Jeff nearly broke and ran. Instead, he held it across his body and offered it to the chief.

  Turning the blade over in his hands to test the edge, the chief inhaled sharply and wiped blood from his thumb. Well, Jeff thought sourly, that clears up one question about their technology: they’re certainly not used to weapons that carry a razor edge. The other warriors clustered around the saber to get a better look.

  “Now I suppose one of them will discover it also has a sharp point,” Jeff grumbled.

  Within seconds one of the younger men jumped back with a yell, holding his hand. Jeff shrugged expressively and held his hands out, palms up, in the universal sign of, ‘Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it.’ With a peremptory gesture and command, the chief stood up. The saber looked like a toy in his hand as he advanced.

  This is it, Jeff thought resignedly. Either it flies or I’m dead. No more killing.

  Watching the saber with intent concentration, Jeff was taken by surprise when the chief snatched off his hat. The move had been so quick and unexpected that Jeff was immobilized by indecision. When everyone jumped back and shouted what once again sounded like alarai, all he could do was stare around in confusion.

  The chief let out a bellow that quieted the younger men and returned to a position in front of Jeff, but with a different expression. Try as he might, Jeff could only interpret the look to signify respect. He handed the saber to Jeff and clapped his hands twice. Two youngsters trotted into the hall from a back room. The chief spoke quietly with them and they hurried off. Taking a seat, he waved Jeff to do likewise.

  Jeff was so distracted that he stubbed his boot when he tried to sit down in the chair, and nearly fell. The girl and boy returned promptly with large tankards. Jeff cocked a hopeful eye at the foam spilling from the tankard handed him. It looked like it might be beer, but…. Taking a cautious sip, his taste buds were greeted by a smooth ale that could have come from a microbrewery in Seattle. Warmth began to spread from his belly outward after a few swallows.

  The tankard was hardly tapped when an old man hobbled into the building, grumbling and muttering as he came. He planted himself and fixed Jeff with a piercing look that contained more intelligence than he had seen since last talking with Professor Hildebrand. This is my man, Jeff decided.

  He was assembling a thought when a powerful probe blew into his mind. Jerking upright in his chair, Jeff thrust the probe back to a mental arm’s length. All right, he thought excitedly, it isn’t only wolves that are capable of telepathy. First thing I have to find out what the deal is with this word, alarai. My hair may be different, but it isn’t worth this much excitement. Are they referring to me?

  “Greetings, Elder, my name is Jeffrey Friedrick. How may I address you?”

  The old man let out a startled exclamation. “I am called Gurthwin, and long has it been since I have spoken mind to mind.”

  “I am recently come to these parts from a distant land, and have heard little of the Alarai in the time of my absence. It would please me to be informed of their doings, and of your people.”

  Favoring Jeff with a piercing gaze, Gurthwin was silent for some moments. “We will talk later. Now it is time to share meat.”

  The chief directed a group of villagers to set up rough-planked trestle tables. Shortly they were covered with steaming platters of meat, rough loaves of dark bread, and baskets of tubers. Torches were placed in iron wall sconces, and logs piled into the fireplace to add more light to the windowless building. Villagers streamed in throughout the process.

  Calling to their friends, shouting jests and roughhousing, many villagers crowded close to get a good look at Jeff. Songs were raised in competing melodies; conversations were loud and enthusiastic. The sense of community that Jeff experienced reminded him of Sunday socials after church service. He moved closer to Gurthwin with a self-conscious smile. It definitely was similar to a church social, and he felt like a kid again.

  The chief, whose name Jeff had learned was Halric, raised his arms. The room was immediately filled with a thundering chorus of enthusiastic voices raised in common song. After a few measures a number of men and women broke free to sing in parts. Jeff was walking to the head table with Gurthwin when a countertenor set his voice to soar overall.

  Stopping to listen, Jeff let the chorus’ measured cadence and sweet harmonies fling his imagination to some onion-domed cathedral in Russia. Jeff was so captivated that he hardly noticed when Gurthwin tugged him back into motion.

  He had no sooner taken the indicated seat than buckets of beer were placed on the table and a general attack on the food began. Singing quickly gave way to a torrent of loud conversations and banging of wooden utensils. Taking his cue from the crowd, Jeff sliced off a piece of venison from a smoking haunch and refilled his tankard from the nearest bucket.

  As the meal progressed and beer buckets were emptied, the noise level continued to rise. Reflexively jerking his head aside as a piece of venison flew by his ear, Jeff thought, What a rowdy bunch! I could get used to this!

  The survival knife excited nearly as much interest as had the saber and made its way around the room. Everyone had to try its edge on what remained of the venison. Jeff winced each time it was flourished. Any minute, he expected an errant finger to be lopped off. The knife eventually wound up in Gurthwin’s hands.

  Speculatively, he turned the knife over in his hands. Gurthwin noticed the compass embedded in the hilt and watched it rotate as he moved the knife. Turning an enigmatic stare on Jeff, he handed the knife back to him.

  “Thank providence the Colt is tucked away under my shirt,” Jeff murmured. “This guy is sharp.”

  He was re-sheathing the knife when Halric stood and called for silence with a casual but immediately effective gesture. He waved toward Jeff and spoke in a serious tone of voice filled with consonant rumblings. Although Gurthwin broadly interpreted the speech as one of welcome, Jeff wasn’t convinced it was as simple as that. After only a few words Halric switched to a different cadence, his voice rising and falling in such a steady fashion that it was hypnotic.

  Shifting uneasily in his seat, Jeff suspected the recitation was a saga or an oral history sparked by his presence. He really needed to learn the language, and fast.

  Jeff’s concern increased rapidly when villagers began darting quick looks in his direction. He queried Gurthwin, who was as deeply involved in the story as anyone.

  “Now is not the time to speak of this.”

  The audience expelled a collective sigh at the story’s conclusion, stirring on their benches as they came back to the here and now. In only a short time, the hall was once again filled with roaring conversation.

  Three men unlimbered leather-covered drums and an instrument that looked like a cross between a fife and shepherd’s flute. The drummers played back and forth until they decided where they were going, at which point the fifer entered with a breathy melody.

  Stacking tables against the wall until the central portion of the hall was empty, villagers hurried to form a ring around the musicians. Arms around each other’s waists, they skipped forward and back while stepping right and left in a complicated pattern.

  Gurthwin nudged Jeff. “Your strange instrument has charmed us all. I am quite sure Halric will call on you to play before this evening is concluded.”

  Villagers who had not been part of the meal streamed into the hall. The hall was packed wall to wall and many more villagers could be seen dancing outside when Halric beckoned. Jeff eyed the crowd nervously as he wormed his way to the center of the hall. Nearly every person he dodged around was a head taller, men and women alike.<
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  “I can’t get over how big they are,” Jeff muttered, ducking an elbow that nearly caught him on the ear. “Six feet tall, and I haven’t felt this short since I was a kid. I don’t think half of them even know I’m down here.”

  He made it as far as the ring of dancers but couldn’t find a way through linked hands and arms. The dancers shuffled right, left, then right again for a full revolution, skipping in time to the music. Before he knew it, Jeff’s foot was tapping the floor. That guy on the fife isn’t bad, he thought. I wonder....

  Putting recorder to lips, Jeff waited until he had a solid grip on the tempo and horned in with a quick arpeggio. Crowd noise rapidly diminished, and heads turned to look down. Many seemed surprised to find him standing there. The ring stopped long enough to let him through, then skipped back into action.

  The musicians wavered, but Jeff shook his head. Never letting go of the beat, he segued into a spirited folk tune from the Balkans. The drummers liked it and came along, the fifer following suit but frowning at being upstaged. Within minutes he was having so much fun with the style that Jeff let him run with it and was content to take the lead every so often when he faltered.

  The music was new, meant for dancing, and concentric circles of dancers soon filled the hall. Clockwise and counterclockwise, stamping out the beat until the earthen floor shook, the dancers faded to a collage of impressions as the quartet moved from tune to tune. Jeff was really getting down when he was jerked off his feet and flipped toward the ceiling beams like a Frisbee. Thunderous shouts of approval sounded each time he was flung into the air. When they finally put him down, Jeff’s head was spinning and his stomach was about to object in the strongest fashion. The fifer nodded at the drummers, and the three of them took off on a Balkan reprise.

  Before he could rejoin the musicians, Jeff was pulled into the dancing. The rings gradually broke up into smaller groupings that reminded him of square dancing. Head swimming from the beer, Jeff was spun from partner to partner. The crowd grew rowdier as time passed, forcing the dancers to weave around fistfights and wrestlers.

  The hall became hot from all the sweating bodies, and outer garments went sailing into various corners leaving leather shirts and halters to serve modesty. Some of the women were so tall that Jeff’s eyes were nearly at chest level. After a period he began to wonder if there was a small-breasted woman in the house. Somewhere along the way Jeff found himself dancing with a woman who appeared to be in her late teens. She wasn’t much taller than he was, which was a great relief.

  He was tired of being thrown around, and she appeared to feel the same way. Jeff discovered her name was Rena about the time the music began to falter and slow. She was intrigued by his clothing and let a hand fall to test the texture of his jeans. Suddenly Rena pulled him out of the dancing. Frowning, she ran a finger up and down the zipper in his jeans.

  Before he could react Rena found the tab and pulled it down. Jeff did not know what to do so he opted out and did nothing. Rena paused long enough to smile at his expression and pulled the tab back up. Jeff glanced around in embarrassment. No one was paying attention.

  Just relax, man, he thought. This isn’t Earth. She’s simply curious about the zipper. That proved to be the case, but the zipper was flying up and down so fast that he pulled back to avoid the possibility of a painful incident.

  The word did get around later. In defense of modesty and his jeans, Jeff unpacked the windbreaker to demonstrate zipper action. While doing so he had to laugh at himself. Having men work the zipper on his jeans as enthusiastically as the women had proven to be a bit too much.

  Beer buckets were constantly replenished and slowly thinned the dancers’ ranks as one after the other staggered out the door. When the hall was nearly empty, Jeff gave Rena a goodnight kiss. That called for more kissing, and it was some time before she left with her family and he could wobble out of the hall in Gurthwin’s company.

  The night was clear with a nip in the air, serving to steady his feet. They wended a circuitous path through the village, their way lighted by a moonless sky so full of stars that shadows stood out in bold relief. Breathing deeply, Jeff felt a degree of contentment that surpassed anything he had experienced for years.

  Chapter Six

  Horse of a Different Color

  Jeff rapped his forehead against a handy beam to distract himself from a pounding headache.

  “Enough for the moment. Please!”

  He felt stupid with fatigue and his brain was on strike. Gurthwin had goaded him awake early in the morning and was perched in his mind holding what amounted to a list of vocabulary. Not long into their language lesson, the list took on the aspect of a quiver of lightning bolts as word after word was thrown at him.

  Handing Jeff a mug of herbal tea, Gurthwin threw another brain-twister. The headache relented and Jeff plied him with questions about the Alarai, but Gurthwin was feeling crotchety and not to be diverted. Over the course of the session Jeff did pick up a good deal of general background.

  The village was called Valholm, which meant Village by the Water, and had existed on the same spot for over fifty years. Periodic moves to escape exhausted soil, Jeff learned, were no longer necessary. Now where did they get the concept of crop rotation this far north? he wondered. It doesn’t fit. Outside intervention?

  The population consisted of around 500 people, the majority of whom were related in one way or another. That’s enough population to keep inbreeding down to a dull roar, Jeff mused, but not over a long period.

  Gurthwin picked up on the thought. He had a surprising grasp of every genealogical line in the village and traced one of them. As he did so, it became clear that youngsters were encouraged to seek mates from nearby tribes. Gurthwin’s role comprised a mixture of responsibilities including village historian, counselor to Halric, and spiritual leader.

  By the afternoon of the second day Jeff was tired of language lessons. He pressed Gurthwin for clarification of his being identified with the Alarai. Seated on a pile of hides, Gurthwin settled himself more comfortably and frowned in concentration.

  “I was a mere child when stories of the Alarai were given into my keeping by the last old one to have personal knowledge of them. They were a long-lived people by all accounts and had been with us for many seasons. We were all children when compared to the knowledge they possessed and freely shared.”

  “Where is their land of origin?”

  “It is said they spring from a small land far to the east, one that is bounded by waters that have no ending.”

  An island? Jeff privately thought. Could it possibly be the land I saw in my dreams? I certainly got the impression it was an island.

  “I have had visions of such a land. It was given over to rolling meadows and gentle mountains. It might well be they are the same.”

  “While my people have only stories to remember the Alarai by, no one will forget their red hair and green eyes. I have seen the Alarai in the mind of my teacher, and they are you. Thus if the people are yours, it is likely their land would beckon you in such visions.”

  “How was it they found you?”

  “This is not certain. I do understand that it was only with their counsel that our people survived the coming of southern Iron-shirts many seasons ago.”

  Iron-shirts? Whoa. Jeff sat up straight and stared at Gurthwin. “The Alarai took your part?”

  “Without reservation. Nearly were we all destroyed in those battles. And would have been, had not the Alarai brought all the villages together and taught us, man, woman and even child, the manner of Iron-shirt warfare. Season after season, the invaders fought their way north only to be thrown back. Then, one spring, they did not return.” Gurthwin paused, a deep frown creasing his forehead.

  “It is not understood why they left. We held them, yes. We defeated them in the forests and hills, but their numbers seemed endless. One day they departed and were not seen in our lands again. This has caused much discussion and troubles me still.
We have grown soft with peace and arrogant with safety, remembering the victories but forgetting that we were not victorious.”

  “Do you recall the appearance of these Iron-shirts?”

  “My grandfather said they were small, but fierce and well-ordered in battle. It was this that nearly proved our undoing until the Alarai took up our cause.” Gurthwin studied Jeff’s face. “My people say the Alarai have returned and rejoice. If this is so, my heart tells me we must also have war and does not rejoice.”

  The old councilor was called to a meeting with Halric, leaving Jeff to wander the village for the rest of the day pondering what Gurthwin had shared.

  “And then there’s Gaereth,” Jeff said in a frustrated tone of voice. “While I may resemble an Alarai, everything I remember about him fairly shouts that he is an Alarai. Were Mom and Dad right? Did he have a hand in my coming here? If so, why did he just dump me in the mountains and never show up?”

  It was getting late and Jeff set his feet toward the meeting hall and the evening meal. He had nearly died in the snowfields. The memories were bitter. If Gaereth was responsible, he wanted to know why.

  Over ensuing weeks, Jeff became increasingly familiar with the village’s daily routine. By the end of the third week he found himself thinking in his new language. Telepathy had proven to be an astonishingly effective teaching tool. As he gained fluency, Jeff became engrossed in comparing life in Valholm with the Europe of Antiquity. Adding in Gurthwin’s stories of the Iron-shirts, the similarities were fascinating.

  What emerged strongly reminded Jeff of the fading years of Roman occupation in southern and central Europe. He wondered if a similar empire had reached out its mailed fist to conquer this land, only to be defeated by central rot fueled by decades of self-indulgence.

  If that were true, Jeff reasoned, then heading south as intended would likely turn up more advanced civilizations. Certainly, that had been the case in southern Europe. The Romans had destroyed local culture, but also brought education, a body of written laws and the concept of centralized government.