Homecoming y-2

by John Dalmas

  “Well there’s something over there,” Mikhail said pointing. “About three hundred degrees from course azimuth.”

  They peered at a low cloud of distant dust, then Matthew turned the craft in a broad arc, climbing as he did so. Mikhail targeted the viewscreen and set it on automatic hold. In a little more than a minute they were hovering at 4,500 meters, too high to be noticed when motionless.

  From there they watched two mounted companies approach each other a little distance apart; Nikko reactivated the camera. Abruptly both sides broke into a gallop, and Mikhail increased magnification. The smaller troop, of perhaps thirty men, rode in a near-perfect line with lances raised. The other line was ragged, its riders lanceless, and a flight of arrows coursed from it, and another. Lancers and horses began to fall, and their ranks closed to fill the holes. Then the bowmen’s line fragmented, its riders veering in pairs to the sides, drawing swords, forcing the lancers to slow and turn, losing the momentum that made their lances effective. Some lances dipped to strike regardless while others were dropped in favor of swords, and Mikhail raised the magnification again. Horses and men milled in concentrated violence amid billowing tawny dust, striking, colliding, falling.

  They watched with shocked fascination. In moments the surviving lancers broke away to flee. Bowmen pursued them, loosing arrows. Three lancers dropped from their horses. Six horses fell, tumbling their riders. None escaped. The bowmen rode near the unhorsed, stopped casually to take aim, then shot them and dismounted. Mike zoomed the lens to full magnification. Even through the resultant image waver they could see the grins as the victors scalped the fallen. Shifting the focus showed other scalpings at the battle site nearby.

  “Talk about savages,” Chandra whispered.

  “Let’s break out the automatic rifles and run them off,” Mikhail suggested. “Maybe shoot a few of their horses to give them the idea.”

  “No.” Matthew’s voice was thoughtful but positive, and he tilted the pinnace in a descending spiral. “We don’t know which side are the good guys yet.” Shortly they hovered only twenty meters above the grass, at an oblique angle convenient for viewing through the craft’s side. The scalpers had stopped, standing erect to watch the pinnace, and a glance at the viewscreen showed their magnified faces narrow-eyed, intent, without apparent fear. They were strong-necked and hard-faced, wearing braids and short beards, their shoulders heavy in mail shirts, thighs powerful in soft leather breeches. After a few still moments followed by some verbal exchange, one unslung his bow, strung it, and fired at the Alpha while the others watched.

  On board they could hear the faint rap as the arrow struck. “Incredible!” Chandra breathed. “They’re insane!” After a short pause, other raps sounded. Then the bowmen gathered, talking with frequent glances upward. Most mounted and sat with an eye on the pinnace while several still on foot moved about working efficiently with their knives. Then they too mounted, and all fanned out to collect the loitering horses of the fallen of both sides. Slender ropes uncoiled, and when they rode away, with occasional backward looks, a number of them had a spare horse trailing.

  Matthew lifted and they quickly climbed out of sight to six kilometers, watching the viewscreen.

  “Total savages,” Chandra said. “I can hardly believe there are actually human beings like that.”

  “Also totally efficient,” Mikhail replied drily, “and we’d better believe it.” He turned to Matthew. “What was it old Gus Fong said? We’d bring back stories that would change the world.”

  “Something like that.” Matthew read the polar azimuth of the barbarians’ course and moved ahead of them in that direction far above their view. Forest-dark mountains drew near, moved beneath, and pinnace Alpha slowed to a near hover. His deliberate hands manipulated and the landscape below slid smoothly across the viewscreen, magnification low as he transected the terrain. Within three minutes he found what he sought, a long grassy valley between forested ridges, with clusters of rude huts strung out for several kilometers. He dropped slowly, zooming the pickup for close examinations, retracting it for perspective.

  The people’s identity seemed unquestionable. Like the warriors, many were light-haired, though most were not so strongly built. Women carried water and wood. Children helped or followed them or played and wrestled. Men and youths tended cattle from horseback, speared fish in the stream or swam in its pools. Others shot at marks, and many, on foot and on horseback, trained with swords.

  Matthew read their position to the servo-mech, then instructed it to locate the homing beam and return to the Phaeacia. As they started their rendezvous trajectory he sat back pensively.

  “What are you thinking about?” Chandra asked him.

  Matthew tugged thoughtfully at his chin. “The barbarians. They look temporary, like a people in migration. No garden patches, nothing permanent looking… I wonder if they know what they’re getting into?”

  “I see what you mean,” Mikhail said. “They’re badly outnumbered and outclassed, regardless of how tough they might be.”

  “Right. I’d say the fight we saw was something like attacking a dire bear with a stick; you might get in the first blow or two, but then good night! If I was one of those people down there I’d load my family and gear on my horses and start putting distance between me and that city.”

  V

  Fanns allri nannan som Ynglingen hanmilt som mjok (onar leene), stark som storm (men allri raste), vis som jodens salva annen.

  A varelse var han, aj dykt.

  [There was never other like the Youngling, mild as milk (his eyes smiling), strong as storm (but never raging), wise as the spirit of the earth.

  And living man he was, not myth.]

  Prefatory verse of THE JARNHANN SAGA,

  Kumalo translation

  The long low ridge extended eastward from the foothills a considerable distance into the open plain. Its cool north-facing slope was green with new grass. At intervals, shallow draws ran down it, thick with low shrubby oaks whose soft, late-emerging leaflets tinted their gray with pink. Along the crest, broken rock let rain and melting snow penetrate deeply, and a ragged line of scraggly shrubs grew there, overlooking a semi-barren south slope.

  The sky was cloudless and immense, the sun warm. Gnats hung in the air, celebrating the absence of wind, and an eagle soared, tilting and swaying in the updrafts. A mouse scurried between two spiny shrubs and a sparrow hawk darted toward it, rising again with the furry victim in its small talons.

  The two adolescents, prone within the screen of shrubs, watched the brief tiny drama with sharp eyes, then looked southward across the plain again. Sweat oiled their dirty foreheads. Gnats hovered and bit unheeded. After several minutes the younger said softly, “There is something else I like about this country; you can see so far.”

  The other nodded curtly, and for a time they said nothing, did nothing except scan the plain.

  “Look,” the younger spoke again, and pointed southward.

  “Jaha. Men on horseback; it looks like three.”

  They watched awhile. “There is one trotting ahead on foot,” the older added. “About a hundred meters ahead.”

  The other squinted. “I see him. It looks as if they plan to cross the ridge over east, where it isn’t so steep.”

  They crawled back from the crest, then ran downslope to their horses tethered to a clump of oak shrubs. Untying them, they scrambled to their backs and started eastward at a gallop. A kilometer farther they angled up the slope and tied their horses again, then ran toward the crest, wriggling the last few meters on their bellies to lie panting among some shrubs.

  They were startled to see how near the running man was, perhaps seventy meters off. He stopped.

  “He’s looking at us!” hissed the younger. “How can he see us?”

  The man raised his hand, halting the others-two men and a woman.

  “They are our people!” the younger added.

  “I can see that!” the older whispered with irr
itation.

  The warrior started diagonally up the slope toward them, trotting easily. They could see as he came how big he was, an agile giant, shirtless, glistening, thick muscles moving smoothly in torso and limbs.

  “It’s the Yngling!” the younger whispered.

  “You don’t know; you never saw him.”

  They stayed on their stomachs, eyes large, until their necks were craned backward and the man stood above them. Sweat dripped from his nose and trickled down his grimy torso. Strong teeth showed between the long sparse tow-colored mustache and an even sparser growth on his chin.

  “Just what we need,” he said. “Someone to guide us to the People.”

  Both boys got up.

  “You are the Yngling, aren’t you?” asked the younger.

  “Some say so,” the man said grinning. “I am Nils Jarnhann, warrior of the Wolf Clan, of the Svear. And you are lookouts. Where are your horses?”

  The older boy pointed. “But one of us must stay here on watch. I am the oldest, so I will stay. Alvar will guide you.”

  Nils nodded and gestured for the others. “Fine. What is your name?”

  The boy stood straight. “Ola Gulleson, sword apprentice of the Reindeer Clan of the Svear.”

  They shook hands and then parted, Nils and Alvar walking toward Alvar’s tethered horse. “I am Ola’s brother,” Alvar volunteered. “He will be sixteen when the leaves fall, and I was fourteen when the snow was melting. I am a sword apprentice too.”

  “Good.”

  “You think I’m too skinny to be a sword apprentice, but things are different than they used to be. Lots of things changed this winter. And I am growing.” He untied his horse. “Do you want to ride him? I can walk. Many people say we young don’t want to do anything but ride. They say if we aren’t careful we will be weak-legged like the horse barbarians who can walk only a short way before they are tired out. I don’t want to be weak-legged. Is that why you were running? So your legs won’t lose their strength?”

  “I was running because we have only three horses,” Nils answered matter-of-factly. “And as you say, it’s good to run. When we fought the orcss in the battle of the neck, we won despite their numbers because they tired.”

  “You ride now,” the boy said decisively. “It will be my turn to run.”

  The others rode up to them and the boy loped off. “The runner is also the scout,” Nils called after him, “so keep your eyes and ears open.”

  Nils let Alvar jog some five kilometers, then called for him to wait. “I think we can do without a scout now, and I need answers to some questions. You can share Miska’s back with Ilse while we talk.”

  As soon as he was aboard, the boy asked, “Where did you get such fine horses?”

  “From the Magyars.”

  “Did you steal them?”

  “They gave them to us. I have friends among the Magyars; I was a soldier in their royal guard once. We wintered with them.”

  “Why didn’t they give you four horses so you all could ride?”

  Sten and Leif laughed aloud at the way the boy controlled the conversation, but that didn’t faze Alvar.

  “There were five of us then,” Nils explained, “and they gave us ten horses, but bandits attacked us in the mountains and when they fled we were only four, with three horses.

  “And now a question for you: How did the People winter?”

  “The clans wintered separately, to get enough food. They were in many places in the South Ukraine. The Reindeer Clan was at a place called Kishinev. There had been villages but the orcs had burned them.” Alvar paused to make a face of disgust. “House burners and barn burners! They have no shame. And they’d killed most of the people. The ones that were left had made little huts in the forest, and that’s what we did too. All their warriors were dead or gone away, and the orcs had taken most of their cattle, but some had been hidden in the forest so there still were some for us to take. The Ukrainians would come and beg for food.

  “After we made camp there, the Council of Chiefs decided that all men must train to fight because we had too few warriors; so many had been killed, you know. And we needed to practice fighting from horseback because we were not skilled at it. And all boys from thirteen to sixteen were made sword apprentices unless something was wrong with them. We trained as hard as the hunger would let us. I’ll let you feel my muscle sometime. Here.” He tapped Ilse on the shoulder and doubled his right arm. “You feel it.”

  She turned in the saddle-awkwardly, for she was eight months pregnant-and squeezed his bicep. “It isn’t very big yet,” she said, “but it is hard as a rock.”

  Alvar blushed. “You talk funny,” he said. “You are not of the People. Even the Sydnorskar talk better than that.”

  “True,” Ilse said. “I am Deuts, and I’ve only been learning your tongue since last fall. But now I also am one of the People because Nils is, and I am his wife.”

  They rode without talking for a bit, but shortly Alvar asked: “Are you a thought reader, like Nils, that can look into people’s minds?”

  “Yes.”

  Alvar blushed again.

  “But I have always been able to do that,” she went on, “all my life, and I’m used to people’s thoughts. I think you are a fine boy with a good mind. Before long you will be a good man and an able warrior. I tell you that honestly.”

  Nils grinned across at her.

  “Our sword master curses me sometimes,” Alvar launched on. “Quite often in fact. But he curses most of us a lot. He curses Ola least of all, and one of the Ukrainians the clan adopted that we have named Tryn because his nose is so big. They are the two best with swords in our whole ring.

  “By the time the snow started to melt though, we were too hungry and didn’t train much. And the horses were thin. Some of the old people died, and many of the Ukrainians. We left as soon as the ground was bare enough in the open and the horses could eat the dead grass. Ukrainian grass is very nourishing for horses. And as we traveled we ate everything we came across-deer, wild cattle, wild horses, wolves, hares-everything. The acorns bound up our bowels so that everyone was sick.” He grimaced. “Then we made bark soup to loosen them, and that was worse. But since we arrived in the orc land we have had all the cattle we can eat, and fresh blood and milk to drink, so we are all hard-fleshed again and everyone feels strong.

  “The People like this land. They didn’t want to stay in the Ukraine because it was so poor in cattle, and the warriors say it is shameful to rob the Ukrainians who have so little.” He shook his head. “But it’s a pleasure to raid the orcish herds. And here we can live where the mountains meet the Great Meadow, with all the timber we need and endless pasture. We will force the orcs to attack us and then kill them. Kniv Listi is our war leader now. He is of the Weasel Clan, of the Jotar.” They were riding up a narrow foothill valley now, and Nils looked it over with interest. Its walls were forested, the south-facing with open pine stands, the opposite mostly with dense fir. The valley floor was meadow, encroached upon trom the sides by pines and broken with groves of birch and aspen. A stream meandered about its midline, swollen by melting mountain snow.

  Alvar chattered on. “Some of the mountain people attacked a party of us when we first camped here. They liked to hunt in this valley and wanted to drive us away. We let two of them go, and afterward a chief came who spoke some Anglic and talked with some of our people who speak it. The mountain folk are terrified of the orcs and do whatever they tell them, even deliver their prettiest girls. We told them we are going to kill all the orcs we can and drive the rest out of the country. We told them if they don’t bother us we will not kill them, that it is only the orcs we feud with, but they must not spy on us for the orcs. A few of their young men have come to join us, and they are teaching us the country and some of the language.”

  Emerging from a birch grove they came in sight of a large encampment of tiny huts with low log walls, in loosely ordered rows instead of the customary neoviking ring.
The clan totem stood near the center, a crude representation of an otter.

  “We have not built real villages yet,” Alvar explained. “It was decided we probably will have to move: we must be light on our feet. And the orcs will burn whatever we have built.”

  That night the Council of Chiefs and the War Council, from all the neoviking clans, met around a tall fire beneath the stars. A chieftain, referring to him as the Yngling, suggested that Nils Jarnhann replace Kniv Listi as War Leader.

  Nils stood in the circle of firelight, greasy braids resting on his wide heavy shoulders, and looked around him. “I thank Ulf Vargson for his faith in me. But I know of Kniv Listi, of his cunning and resourcefulness. His raids have been told of in the longhouse of my village. I prefer to leave the leadership in his experienced hands and act as counsel to him, as I did to Bjorn Arrbuk when he led us in humiliating the orcs and horse barbarians time and again.

  “Having said this, I will ask something of you. I would like to search the tribes for those who have prophetic dreams, or who sometimes seem to know what another will say before he says it. Some few of them will prove to have psi-power, as I have, but undeveloped. Trained, their minds can be as valuable to us as swords or bows.”

  VI

  Tolkien conceived of Mordor, stinking Mordor, wasteland, blasted, land of vile depravities unnamed; washed with reeking acid rain, too corrupt for any greenness, splintered mountains round a fissured plain.

  For how could Mordor, foul, perverted, smile beneath a sun?

  How lie green with fragrant grass?

  How lie spotted white and gold with gently nodding flowers, atrill with birdsong, sweet with loveliness?

  From EARTH, by Chandra Queiros

  The Phaeacia resembled a giant guitar pick-a reflective ellipsoid seventy-one meters long, thirty-three wide, and somewhat thicker aft than foreward. Functional outriggings broke but did not spoil the symmetry of her lines. Much of her volume was occupied by the drive units, life support system, and a hangar for the two pinnaces. Living and working space for her crew of thirty-one and the sixteen members of the exploration team was adequate but tight.