The Voyage of the Iron Dragon

by Robert Kroese

  Gabe rolled to his left and managed to get to his feet, his useless right arm hanging at his side. He turned and stumbled away from the tower, hoping to get free of the fracas. A man came at him with an axe but fell with an arrow in his chest. As he fell, though, three more men moved in. Beyond these was a sea of attackers with axes and spears. As the fight continued behind him, more attackers pressed forward on Gabe’s left and right. There was nothing to do but keep moving and hope the attackers wouldn’t trouble themselves to cut down an old man running from the battle.

  The first few men were so surprised at the sight of a strangely garbed and apparently unarmed man running toward him that they hesitated to swing their axes. One took an arrow in the throat and another in the left eye. An arrow barely missed a third man, but his comrade with the arrow shaft protruding from his eye socket stumbled into him, blocking his advance long enough for Gabe to slip past him. Something struck Gabe hard in the back, causing him to reel and stumble onto one knee. An axe or sword, he thought, but the bulletproof flight suit took the brunt of it. Pain surged through his right arm as his muscles tensed, and he braced himself with his left. By the time he’d managed to get to his feet again, three more men had fallen with arrows in their chests. Still more attackers swarmed toward him, but Gabe could see daylight behind them. He pressed on, slipping between two men with axes. More men were coming up the slope, but they paid him little mind, as they were intent on taking the tower.

  Gabe made his way down the slope toward the longhouses. When he reached the far corner of the first longhouse, he ventured another look back. The fighting at the base of the tower had all but ceased. Attackers swarmed around the tower; the defenders had been isolated and were being cut down, one by one. Some of Harald’s men, boosted onto the shoulders of their comrades, had begun to climb the scaffolding of the tower. His right arm throbbing, Gabe ran to the massive steel tank labeled LOX. Next to it was an identical tank, labeled LH. Both had big red warnings on them, in Norse and Frankish, to keep fire far away.

  Until three weeks ago, the tanks had been several hundred yards away from the nearest building, as the contents were too dangerous to keep nearby. They’d been moved to the center of Svartalfheim precisely for this reason. Moving them had been an engineering feat in itself: they’d had to build a massive wheeled platform and demolish several buildings that stood in the way. Setting the charge had been the easy part: an engineer had strapped a few ounces of TNT to the tank near the outlet valve. A pair of insulated wires ran from the detonator down a steel conduit into the ground, alongside the longhouses, and up to the button in the tower. Pressing the button would complete the circuit, triggering the detonator. It should have been foolproof, but somehow the wires must have been severed in the battle.

  The valve was protected by a steel box that could only be opened by a key like the one Gabe wore on the band around his neck. He ran to the box, fumbling with the key in his left hand. After a moment, he managed to get the key into the lock, but before he could turn it, he heard someone approaching from behind him. He turned in time to see a huge blond man bearing down on him with an axe raised over his head. Letting go of the key, Gabe dodged to his right as the axe came down beside him. Taking advantage of his attacker’s momentary loss of balance, Gabe threw his left fist into the man’s face, hitting him squarely in the nose. His right arm still hanging useless at his side, Gabe pressed the attack, throwing his left twice more. The third time, he felt something crack, and he wasn’t entirely certain it wasn’t his hand. Stunned, his attacker stumbled backwards, his axe hanging from his hand, blood pouring down his mouth and chin.

  In the distance behind the man, Gabe saw that the attackers had overrun the tower. A dozen men were scaling the scaffolding, and several had already reached the top. The archers were trying to fight them off with their swords. No defenders were left standing on the ground, and the men swarming the tower, realizing the battle was over, had begun to scatter in the hopes of finding either spoils or more men to kill. If Gabe was going to take out Harald’s army, he needed to do it quickly. Several attackers, having noticed the trouble their comrade was having with one strangely dressed old man, were already moving toward him, axes held out in front of them.

  He turned again to the lock, but before he could get his bruised fingers to turn the key, the big blond man’s shadow fell on him again. Gabe dropped to the ground as the axe blade swept over his head. Rolling onto his left side, Gabe drew back his right leg and then thrust it forward, bringing his heel against the man’s left shin, just below the knee. Gabe felt cartilage separate, and the man fell with a yelp to the dirt.

  Gabe pulled himself to his feet again. As his fingers grasped the key, something slammed into his right arm with such force that something cracked. He stumbled to his left and nearly fell to the ground. Agony shot through his arm, clouding his vision. He staggered, fighting to remain conscious. Turning, he stumbled with his back against the tank. To the left was the steel box, still locked. He gradually became aware of several men standing around him. Big, blond men with axes and shields. They were laughing. Gabe started laughing too, because the men were ridiculous. They looked just like Vikings. What the hell kind of backwater planet had he wandered onto this time?

  He realized he was holding something in the fingers of his left hand. A key, he thought, holding it before his eyes. No, half a key. The key was broken. But where was the other half? In the box, he thought. He’d been trying to get the box open. There was something in the box. Something very important. He glanced at the box, hoping for a clue, but was distracted by his sleeve. Something was wrong with it. No, not with his sleeve. With his arm. Is that my arm? he thought. It had a funny dent in it, just below his shoulder, and it was all twisted wrong. Blood was pouring from his fingers to the snow. He tried to move it, which was a mistake.

  His vision went black, and for some time he was aware only of pain. When he regained consciousness, he was still standing, but just barely. He was leaning against the tank, his chin resting on the metal box. Get the box open, he thought. He clawed at the edge of the door with his left hand, but it was no use. It was still locked, and with the key broken off in the lock, he’d never get it open.

  He heard a footstep behind him, and for a moment everything was clear. He shifted his weight to the right and the axe came down alongside his head. It brushed against his cheek and bit into the tendons of his shoulder, making a clang as it smashed into the metal box behind him. Gabe fell to his knees. Something warm flowed down his left arm. Behind him, the men’s laughter grew more raucous. They were toying with him, he realized. The battle had been too easy, and now they were entertaining themselves by tormenting a feeble old man, like a cat trying to get the last bit of fun out of a wounded mouse. Let them, he thought.

  Below the noise of their guttural laughter and taunts there was another sound: the hissing of escaping gas. As Gabe rolled onto his back, he felt the freezing cold air blowing on his face. He breathed deeply despite the pain, trying to muster the energy for one final act of defiance. As the men closed in on him, he managed to get his left hand into the pocket of his flight suit, where he kept the little electric lighter that he’d had with him when the lander crashed twenty-seven years ago. For a moment, his thoughts went to Korey, the man they’d called Fireman because Gabe had entrusted him with the lighter. Korey had died for the Iron Dragon without ever knowing it. Gabe pulled the lighter from his pocket and put his thumb on the button. “This one’s for you, Fireman,” he said, and pressed the button.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Eric Haraldsson, whom history would call Eric Bloodaxe, was not a patient man. Eric, the third son of the King of Norway, had been trying for ten years to west Northumbria from the hands of Edward, King of the Saxons, when he’d received a demand from his father to cease his advance until further notice. Eric had ostensibly been acting independently of Harald, and his father had never made any pretensions in the past of being able to control him, so
Eric chafed at the request. He assumed it had something to do with his father’s negotiations with the Christian Pope in Rome, but Eric had no interest in politics. He sent word to his father that his conquest of Northumbria would not be delayed.

  To his surprise, his father replied that if he held off until summer, Harald would send an army to assist him in his efforts. Eric knew that his father and Hrólfr had been amassing men in Frankia and Denmark, he assumed for a campaign in Burgundy or Lombardy. Apparently Harald planned to make quick work of this campaign if he expected the army to arrive in Northumbria by summer. Dubious but enamored of the idea of another two thousand Norsemen under his control, Eric agreed to wait. He could use the time to prepare for the campaign in any case.

  As the weeks wore on and no word was received from Harald, Eric grew anxious. He sent a messenger with a warning advising Harald that unless he heard otherwise, he would resume his advance into Northumbria. He had already mobilized his troops when a directive arrived from Harald, advising him to wait until word had been received of Harald’s campaign in Iceland. Knowing nothing of a campaign in Iceland, Eric was puzzled. June came and went, and still there was no word of the fate of Harald’s campaign. Eric decided to investigate the matter personally. He boarded his personal snekkja and sailed north from Northumbria to Reykjavik. He received a cordial, if cautious, greeting from the people there, who suggested that he sail east along the coast until he got to a place called Höfn. He would find what he was looking for there.

  The village called Höfn was deserted. Fifty or more Viking ships lay abandoned in the harbor, which was lined with a surprising number of shipping docks. A small guard tower—unusual for a tiny Viking village—overlooked the harbor. Longhouses and timber buildings sat empty. Looms had been abandoned mid-thread and a screen of fish had been left to dry in the sun. It was as if everyone in the village had simply dropped whatever they were doing and left. A gravel road leading northward to a pass in the hills offered a clue.

  Eric and his men walked up the path. As they rounded a bend, a great wood fence, twelve feet high and several hundred yards long, came into view. At the end of the wall on either side were guard towers. The road led to a guard house, beyond which was a gate. The gate had been left open and the fence was in disrepair; holes had been torn in it in several locations. Eric went inside. He found only the remains of forty or so wood buildings clustered around a patch of scorched earth more than a hundred yards in diameter.

  Stopping short of the scorched earth, Eric found a broadsword that had been thrust into the ground halfway to its hilt. Nearby lay a single leather boot, and a few feet from this a man’s severed arm, bloated and rotting in the sun. Advancing beyond the buildings that were still standing, he saw now that scattered along the edge of the charred ground were hundreds of wooden shields, sometimes with a man’s partial arm still clutching the handle. All around was the detritus of battle: helmets, boots, axe heads, spears and knives. As the wind shifted, he became aware of the stench of death. Eric couldn’t begin to guess what sort of weapon had done this, or how many men had died. Hundreds, at least.

  Further exploration revealed nothing of value: a few scraps of paper filled with writing that was in no language Eric recognized, empty metal drums and remnants of machinery whose purpose was a mystery. A stairway that seemed to lead down into a cave at first seemed promising, but the way down had been blocked by a cave-in.

  Eric had never given any credence to the rumors of a race of Dvergar who toiled at mysterious projects in a secret stronghold somewhere in the north, but what he had found gave him pause. He found himself wondering who these people were, and what they had done to provoke his father’s ire. Given the quality of the weapons he found, the amount of iron machinery lying around, and the size of the settlement, he supposed the Dvergar—if that’s who had lived here—must have been fabulously wealthy. Little remained of it now, and Harald’s army had been destroyed. Not one man was left alive.

  Having finished their investigation of the site, Eric’s men gathered on the scorched ground at the center of the obliterated settlement. Eric’s dour lieutenant, a man named Gudmund, approached him. He carried a large, round object that he handed to Eric.

  Eric, turning the thing over in his hands, realized it was a sort of helmet. It was constructed of a lightweight material that he had never seen before, and it had a clear visor made from a strange sort of curved glass. He tried putting it on, but it fit too tightly on his head and the visor fogged up almost immediately from his own breath. It seemed odd to him that people capable of such craftmanship would nevertheless design a helmet so poorly. On the back were what appeared to be Latin letters, which read IDL. On the front was another label, which read REYES. He tossed the thing to the side in disgust.

  “It does not appear,” said Thorvald, gazing upon the carnage, “that your father’s army will be of much assistance.”

  Eric smiled at Gudmund’s grim understatement. “Take what weapons you find worth taking,” he said to the others gathering nearby. “We embark in an hour. Northumberland awaits.”

  *****

  “Perhaps it is a ruse,” Theo suggested. “Harald’s army may have taken the Dvergar stronghold and he plans to keep their treasure for himself.”

  “That is not the impression my spies give,” Theodora said. “Harald’s ships have not been seen in Normandy, Norway or Denmark. By all accounts, the fleet Harald sent fleet never returned.”

  “They may have turned south. I received word yesterday that Eric has resumed his campaign in Northumberland.”

  “And did you also receive word of the arrival of two hundred Viking ships? If Harald’s army were aiding Eric, we would know it.”

  “But how can a fleet simply disappear?”

  “It seems we underestimated the Dvergar.”

  Theo nodded, rubbing his chin worriedly. “We have no defense against such people.”

  “We have no reason to suspect they are aware of our involvement.”

  “But if they truly plan to conquer Christendom….”

  “I’m beginning to have my doubts about that. It’s been weeks since Harald’s fleet should have arrived in Iceland, and we’ve heard not a word from these Dvergar. If they did defeat Harald’s army, then as you say, we have no defense against them. So where are they? Why have they made no demands?”

  “They are patient people. They act according to their own timetable.”

  “Perhaps. If they do intent to conquer us, we would do well to distance ourselves from their enemies.”

  “You think it’s time for a new Pope?” Theo asked.

  “This one has served for seven years. He begins to chafe at the bit.”

  “And the demon chained up in the basement?”

  “How long has it been since it provided any useful information?”

  “Many years.”

  “Then we are agreed it has outlived its usefulness?”

  “You would have me murder the thing? It’s done no one any harm.”

  Theodora shrugged. “I don’t care what you do with it, as long as the next Pope doesn’t find it.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  Antillia was the name O’Brien gave to the tiny Caribbean island where the Eidejelans established Camp Aldrin, the new headquarters for Pleiades. Located about a hundred miles east of Puerto Rico, Antillia was oblong, stretching about two miles from east to west and only two hundred yards wide in places. Most of the island was only a few feet above sea level at high tide. It didn’t appear on any of the maps of the Caribbean, leading O’Brien to suspect it had disappeared sometime before the exploration of the area by Europeans. This was not uncommon with such tiny islands: a direct hit by a hurricane could easily obliterate it. Whatever was left of Pleiades after that would be erased by the corrosive effects of seawater. It was with these cheery considerations in mind that O’Brien selected Antillia as their best bet to escape the destructive whims of LOKI.

  Antillia was uninhabited and h
ad no natural resources to speak of, but setting aside the occasional hurricane, the climate was unquestionably better than that of Iceland. Only a few degrees north of the equator, it was also an ideal place to launch a rocket into orbit. It was, in fact, only about a thousand miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, where the original Gemini missions had launched.

  Relocating Pleiades had always been part of the plan; the security lapses had just moved things up by a few years. In the early years of the project, the Eidejelans had been dependent on the major population centers of Europe for teachers, laborers and warriors, as well as finished goods like ships and clothing, but now that they had a workforce of engineers possessing a vast body of technical knowledge, they were closer to being self-sufficient. They were far less reliant on trade and would not need to recruit more workers, forcefully or otherwise.

  Although several major technical problems remained, much of the work was now a matter of gathering raw materials and fabricating the various components of the Iron Dragon. The forfeiture of Svartalfheim had certainly been a setback: besides the loss of most of their fighting men, they’d had to leave behind many of their tools, machines and buildings. The equipment in Hell alone represented an investment of hundreds of thousands of man-hours of labor. But machines could be rebuilt. The most important thing to be moved from Svartalfheim, besides the engineers themselves, was the library of technical information they had developed over the past twenty years. In addition to the specifications and theoretical work they’d downloaded from Andrea Luhman, they now possessed documents detailing specific solutions to the technical challenges they’d run into in the process of attempting to build an aerospace program. These documents were stored in electronic form on the four cuffs, and the most important ones had been duplicated in paper copies that were stored in one of two airtight steel cabinets, which were transported on two different knars.