When they emerged from the forest, Reyes gasped as she saw vast luminescent green swirls sweeping across the sky to her right. Overcome with amazement, she came to a stop, and Agnar nearly ran into her. Ahead of them, the others continued across a narrow bridge over a river, which babbled and glittered beneath them. The hills in the distance were visible only as great sloping masses of black below the greenish haze of the sky. Agnar gave her a light shove and spoke a curt sentence.
She nodded and started walking again, her eyes still transfixed by the glowing green swirls in the sky. She wanted to ask what it was, but she was out of breath and any explanation Agnar gave would be lost in translation anyway. And as he would have only a bronze age man’s understanding of the phenomenon in any case, he’d be more likely credit fairies or dragons than to give her anything resembling a scientific explanation. As the luminescent swirls seemed to dominate the northern horizon, her best guess was that they had something to do with cosmic radiation interacting with Earth’s magnetic poles. She’d heard of similar phenomena occurring on other planets with strong magnetic fields, but had never seen it herself—nor had she known that it happened on Earth. Whatever it was, it provided enough light to see the path in front of them for a few meters. Sigurd doused his torch, and Agnar then did the same.
Reyes followed the others across the bridge and then half-walked, half-ran behind them along the rocky, snow-packed path for a good hour. The men in front of her seemed to need no rest, and she didn’t dare ask them to stop. She massaged the stitch in her side and tried to ignore the burning in her lungs. Like the rest of the crew, she engaged in regular calisthenics to stay fit during Andrea Luhman’s voyage, but her regimen clearly hadn’t prepared her for this.
She heard fearful and agonized cries ahead, and at first thought they were under attack. She slowed and put her hand on her pistol. But when she rounded a bend in the path, she saw the reason for the uproar: in the distance, the hills and valley floor were dotted with dozens of fires. Reyes didn’t know what these represented, but she could guess: homes, barns, workshops, storehouses. These men were not wealthy people. Everything they owned was down there—along with their wives, children, friends and relatives.
Once the men had recovered from the shock of the destruction, they started off again, even faster than before. Reyes despaired of keeping up, and Agnar seemed to know there was no point in pushing her. He took her arm and they walked side-by-side down the path. After some time, they reached a wider road. Up ahead on the right the embers of a large fire glowed.
“Sigurd,” said Agnar, pointing to the remnants glowing red in the dark.
“Oh, no,” Reyes said, peering into the distance. She thought of young Yngvi, the boy she had thought might be Sigurd’s son. Did he have other children as well? A wife? When they reached the track that led to Sigurd’s property, she wanted to turn, but she thought better of it. The mission came first. Her own people came first.
She tapped her cuff. “Slater, do you read me? It’s Reyes.”
“I read you, Reyes. Where are you?”
“Just got to the valley floor. Where are you?”
“In the hills to the south somewhere. Is it safe?”
“I think so. Sigurd’s group is up ahead and I don’t hear any fighting. Try to make your way back down. I’m going to find O’Brien.”
“Copy that.”
*****
Sigurd ran down the path to his house, not caring whether any of the others followed. Wisdom counseled him to keep the men together in case Gunnar’s force was still here, but he ignored it. Even the house he’d worked so hard to build was of no concern. The only thing that mattered to him now was Yngvi.
There was little left of the house. The roof had collapsed into a pile of rubble and embers; anything inside of value had been destroyed. He approached the wreckage, wanting to reach down with his bare hands and move it aside—hoping and dreading to find some sign of his son.
Something moved to his right, and Sigurd drew his sword. Between the light of the aurora and the glow of the embers, there was enough light that he could make out a figure lying on the ground some twenty paces away. He sheathed his sword and ran to the figure, who lay on his back clutching his belly, his blond hair matted with blood.
“Yngvi!” Sigurd cried, crouching down next to his son.
“Father,” Yngvi said weakly. “I tried to stop them, but there were… too many.”
“It’s all right,” Sigurd said. “I know you did what you could. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have left you. Can you get up?” It was hard to see how badly Yngvi was wounded in the dim light.
“I… think so,” Yngvi said. “Head… hurts a lot.”
Sigurd leaned toward Yngvi’s face, trying to see where he was hurt. He pressed his fingers to the boy’s scalp, probing the area carefully. There was quite a bit of blood, but little swelling, and the skull didn’t seem to be fractured. Maybe Gunnar’s men hadn’t been trying to kill him; they were just trying to burn the buildings to demonstrate Harald’s claim on the valley, and Yngvi had gotten in the way.
“Here, boy,” Sigurd said, wrapping his left arm around Yngvi’s shoulders. “Get up. We’ve got to get you to Gunhild. She can give you something for your head. We’ll have to sleep at the fire pit tonight, but the weather is good and…”
Yngvi cried out weakly as Sigurd lifted him. “No, Father! Stop!” Sigurd felt something warm and wet against his thigh. He set Yngvi down again and pulled away, trying to see in the dim light.
“Move your hand, Yngvi,” Sigurd said. “I need to see.”
Yngvi groaned and shook his head. Both of his hands were clutched tightly to his belly now.
“Please, son,” Sigurd said. “I won’t hurt you.”
Yngvi slowly moved his hands away. Sigurd tried not to retch as the odor reached him. It was like a mix of blood, bile and vomit. Harald’s man had cut deeply. Too deeply.
“Am I going to be all right, Father?” Yngvi asked. He had past puberty some time ago, but now his voice sounded small and weak again, like the little boy he had been years ago.
“Yes, son, of course,” Sigurd said, forcing himself to meet Yngvi’s gaze. “We just need to get you to Gunhild.”
“I don’t think I can move.”
“It’s all right, son. She’ll come here.” Sigurd managed to keep his voice from breaking.
“I’m cold, Father.”
“Hold on.” Sigurd stood up and removed the broach from his cape. He pulled the cape off his shoulders and lay it on his son. He pulled off his tunic, rolled it up and put it under Yngvi’s head.
“I’m cold, Father,” Yngvi said again.
“I’m sorry, son. Shall I start a fire?”
“Yes, Father.”
“All right. I’ll be right back.” Sigurd walked toward the house, finding a fragment of a board at the outskirts of the rubble. He used it to drag several coals across the ground to where his son lay. After shoving the coals together, he gathered some other small pieces of wood and piled them near the coals. He blew on the coals until a flame flickered, and then gradually lay more wood on top. Soon a bright fire illuminated the area. Sigurd was warm even without his cape and tunic. He turned to look at his son.
Yngvi’s eyes had closed. Even in the dim light of the fire, Sigurd could see he had gone pale. He leaned over and brushed Yngvi’s cheek with his thumb. “How do you feel, son?”
“Tired, Father,” Yngvi said, his eyes flickering open. “But my head doesn’t hurt anymore. Will Gunhild be here soon?”
“Yes, son. She’s on her way now. Why don’t you get some sleep.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You were very brave today, Yngvi. I am proud of you.”
“Thank you, Father,” Yngvi said with a slight smile. Then his face relaxed as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Sigurd stood. For some time, he watched the shimmering glow of the aurora in the north. Then he cast his eyes back to Earth, where he s
aw Yngvi’s spear lying a few paces away, its head dark with blood. His son had fought bravely, but there had been too many of them. Sigurd walked to the spear, picked it up, and wiped the blood on the snow. Then he returned to his son, kneeling beside him. He lay the spear across Yngvi’s chest and placed the boy’s hands on it, right over left, as he would have held it while defending their home. He held his son until the boy’s breath stopped.
Chapter Nineteen
The sky was beginning to lighten in the east when Reyes saw Slater making her way down the hillside toward the main road. Everywhere Reyes looked, homes and other structures had been reduced to charcoal. Slaughtered goats and pigs littered the landscape; occasionally she spotted a person among them. Sigurd’s men had scattered across the valley floor, looking desperately for their loved ones. Anguished wails broke the stillness of morning. The scene reminded her of medieval depictions of hell.
Slater ran toward her, practically weeping with relief at seeing a familiar face. But Reyes’s eye were fixed on the horrors around them. Slater stopped a few paces from her, taking in the scene. “My God,” she said. “I knew it was bad, but I thought… I thought maybe it was just panic. I thought things would look better in the daylight.”
“They don’t,” Reyes said grimly. The fires she had seen in the distance had looked downright cheery compared to this dismal gray hellscape. And an insistent voice in the back of her head kept telling her: this is your fault.
She pushed it away. “Any word from O’Brien?”
Slater shook her head. Reyes had tried to get through to him a few times, but had gotten no response.
“Where were you and O’Brien staying?”
“Um,” Slater said, looking around in confusion.
“Seriously?” Reyes said.
“It was nearly dark when we got here. And the buildings were still intact.”
Reyes nodded. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long night. Take your time.”
“This way, I think,” Slater said. “Come on.”
Reyes followed her down the road about half a klick, and then turned left on a narrower path. Soon they came to a long, squat building that looked like it was made of grass and mud.
“What the hell is that?” Reyes asked.
“O’Brien called it a longhouse. They build them from turf. Cheaper than wood, I guess.”
Two corpses lay in the snow near the front of the building, a man and a woman. The man had been beheaded; the woman had hewn nearly in two by an axe. Slater ran past them to the longhouse and threw open the door.
“O’Brien!” she called. “Are you all right?”
Reyes came up behind her in time to hear a man’s groan from inside. Alive. O’Brien was alive. The damn turf house had saved his life: Gunnar’s men hadn’t been able to burn it.
They went inside. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dim light. They found O’Brien lying on one of the benches that lined both sides of the building. He was struggling to sit up.
“Stay there, O’Brien,” Reyes said. “This is probably the safest place in the valley right now. How do you feel?”
“About the same,” O’Brien said. “What happened? I woke up and everybody was gone. I heard screaming. Tried to get a hold of Slater, but these damn turf walls make it hard to get a good signal. So I tried to get up, but…”
“You did the right thing. The village was attacked. Gunnar’s men tricked us.”
“What? How?”
“Not sure yet. Do you need anything?”
“Thirsty,” O’Brien said.
“We’ll get you something. Slater, can you stay here with O’Brien? I need to see what Sigurd and his men are up to.”
“Yeah, we’re good. Go.”
Reyes went back outside. She tapped her comm. “Hey, Gabe,” she said.
After a few seconds, he replied. “Reyes. What’s up?”
“Village is destroyed. Slater and O’Brien are alive. What’s your situation?”
“Same as two hours ago. Sitting on top of the lander, trying to stay awake. Scanning the horizon for Vikings. That sort of thing.”
Reyes smiled at Gabe’s confidence, but she could hear an undercurrent of worry in his voice. Now that they’d taken out the village, it was only a matter of time before Gunnar’s men attacked the lander. Gabe couldn’t fight them off forever.
“I’ll get back as soon as I can,” Reyes said. “Things are pretty grim here, but we’re safe for now.”
“Copy that,” Gabe said. “I’ll let you know if I see any guys with horns on their hats.”
“That’s a myth, you know.”
“No fucking way.”
“Talk to you later, Gabe.”
*****
Dawn had arrived by the time the survivors gathered at the meeting place. Men and women sobbed and screamed at the heavens. The voices of children were conspicuously absent: none had survived the attack. Only thirty-six of the valley’s inhabitants remained alive, and several of them were wounded. Sigurd had been one of the lucky ones: he had gotten to say goodbye to his son. He had held the boy’s lifeless body, weeping silently over him, until sunrise.
Several people, including some children, were still missing. Some of these may have escaped by running to the hills, as the foreign woman had done, but Sigurd scanned the hillsides with no success. The foreigner named Reyes was walking up the road toward them from Magni’s house. One of his men had reported that Magni and his wife Dagrun had been found dead in front of their house.
The destruction was almost too much to comprehend. Sigurd had seen several raids—and had participated in them when he was younger—but raiding was for gathering wealth. Raiding among one’s own people was questionable enough, but this sort of wanton destruction was unforgiveable. Harald’s men had raided not for silver or cattle, but simply to crush the spirit of the valley dwellers.
This was not the time for mourning, though. That would come. Now was the time for vengeance.
“Last night our enemy attacked us in our homes,” Sigurd said, addressing the group. “That snake Gunnar and his band of hired cowards attacked while most of our fighting men were away. They fought not bravely, as warriors, but as brigands and assassins, with no end other than destruction of our families, our homes and our community. I have warned you in the past of Harald’s ambitions, and I cannot express how saddened I am to have been proven right.”
“Harald!” shouted a tall, dour woman named Ulla. “This is not Harald’s doing. This is your fault!”
A few murmurs of agreement went up from the group.
“Please, Ulla,” Sigurd said. “You are aggrieved over your husband’s death, as I am by my son’s. But let us not waste our anger quarreling amongst ourselves. Our enemy is Harald. We must take this fight to him.”
“What kind of father are you, Sigurd?” Ulla shrieked. “You speak of such things while your son lies dead in your own yard!”
It was true. Yngvi still lay on the cold ground, covered by a wool blanket. It had not yet been decided what to do with the dead. Some were agitating for an immediate burial, but as it was unclear whether the community would survive, others suggested holding off on burials until they knew where they would settle. Sigurd gritted his teeth, not responding to Ulla’s deprecations. He feared that if he lashed out at this woman, he might find himself unable to control his rage.
“Take the fight to Harald!” another woman, named Birjitta, shrieked. She had lost two of her four sons in the attack. “We can’t even defend our own home. You should have been here, Sigurd! You and your men! We could have fought them off, but you were off… doing what? Finding foreigners to bring into our valley?”
Sigurd took a deep breath, steadying himself. “We believed, with good reason, that Harald would attack the foreigners’ ship,” Sigurd said. “We thought fighting with the foreigners was our best chance at defeating them.” He knew in his head that he was right, but his heart was not in it. Part of him wanted to tell Ulla
that she was right. It was his job to protect them, and he had let them down. If only it had been he who had been gutted by Gunnar’s men, instead of Yngvi…. He put the thought out of his head. Not yet. Now is not the time.
“It saddens me to say it,” Arnulf said, “but Ulla is right. We were misled. I was willing to go along with the will of the majority, but it is clear now that standing up to Harald was a mistake.” Arnulf’s own wife had been killed in the attack.
“Then we must surrender,” said Brynjarr. “Send a messenger to Harald and tell him we accept his terms.”
“Why would he accept now?” said Gunhild. “He will never trust us.”
“Then we will give him something he wants,” said Ulla, glancing at the dark-haired foreign woman who had just joined them. The woman looked back at her, suspicious.
“What makes you think Harald wants these people?” Arnulf said.
“Not them,” said Ulla. “Their ship. You said Harald wants it.”
“We don’t have their ship,” Arnulf said. “One of the foreigners is guarding it.”
“Only one man?” Birjitta asked.
“He has a very powerful weapon,” Arnulf said. “Like the one Sigurd carries, but bigger. With it, he is a match for twenty or more men. We could not take the ship if we tried.”
“Gods, you men are dense,” said Ulla. “We don’t have to take the ship. We trade this man the ship for his three people. This woman and the two others staying in Magni’s house.”
“These people are our guests, Ulla,” Sigurd said sternly.
“I didn’t invite them,” Ulla snapped. “And I’m not feeling very hospitable now that my own house has been burned down.”
Reyes glanced to Sigurd, a concerned look on her face. It was clear she could sense something was wrong.
Arnulf shook his head. “I can’t go along with that, Ulla. The gods will punish us for treating guests in this way.”
“Then you are fools,” Ulla spat. “Do you think it’s a coincidence these people showed up just as Harald moved in?”
The Dream of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 1) Page 19
