The Dream of the Iron Dragon

by Robert Kroese

  If he knew Reyes, though, she wasn’t going to give up anytime soon. She’d most likely be working on getting the lander’s systems back online all night, which meant that Gabe was on guard duty for the foreseeable future. Fortunately he had a pocketful of stimulants. Eventually, though, he’d need to sleep, and Slater or Reyes would have to take over.

  It was late afternoon when he once again heard the crunching of snow in the distance. He got up and scrambled on top of the lander to get a look. This time it was about a dozen men, arriving on foot. They were coming from the south, as the others had. Gabe slid down the side of the lander and strolled around to greet them.

  As they came closer, he saw that they were dressed more plainly than Harald’s men, wearing ragged fur coats rather than neatly tailored wool clothing. Several of them were armed with axes and spears, but only the man in the lead had a sword on his belt. They wore leather helmets and had round wooden shields strapped to their backs. The lack of uniform attire gave Gabe hope: perhaps this was a rival faction to Harald’s men. If they could play the two groups off each other, they’d have a better chance of getting out of this alive.

  The man with the sword, who was burly and had long brown hair flecked with gray, waved as the group approached. Gabe waved with his right hand, still holding the pistol in his left. He stood his ground, wondering how many of them he could take out before he ran out of ammo or was impaled by one of those spears.

  The man with the sword stopped a few meters in front of him, and the others remained a few paces back, regarding him curiously. Their eyes flitted back and forth between him, his gun, and the lander.

  The man in front said something that Gabe couldn’t decipher.

  “Sorry, friend,” Gabe said. “I don’t speak Old Norse. Or New Norse, for that matter. I don’t suppose you speak any English?”

  “Sprecest þū Englisc?” the man said.

  “More or less,” Gabe replied. If the Norseman spoke English, it would be what people of Gabe’s time called Old English. It was closer to German than the English Gabe spoke. Still, he had managed to communicate rudimentary facts to Gunnar’s man—for all the good it did either of them.

  The man spoke again in the same language.

  “Slow,” Gabe said, holding up his hand. He knew a fair amount of German, but even with that advantage it was going to be tough going. He had a pretty good idea what the man was asking, but he might as well establish right now that they were going to have to take it slow. He also wanted the option of pretending he didn’t understand what the Norsemen were saying.

  The man repeated the question, more slowly.

  “My name is Gabe,” he said, tapping his chest. He pointed to the lander. “That is my ship. It flies through the sky. The ship had a problem and it fell to the ground.”

  “Ic beo Sigurd,” the man said. “Bist þū wunde?”

  Gabe stared at Sigurd, not understanding. Sigurd raised his finger to his cheek.

  Puzzled, Gabe did the same. When he pulled his hand away, he saw flecks of blood. He shook his head. “No, it is not my blood. Men attacked me. I killed some of them.” He held up his gun to let them know that wasn’t averse to killing to protect their ship. Besides, it’s not like he could hide the three corpses lying in the snow on the other side of the lander.

  The man said something else, only one word of which Gabe understood.

  “Did you say Gunnar?”

  Sigurd nodded. “Harald.”

  “Yes, Harald’s men. They came from that direction.”

  Sigurd asked him a question that Gabe didn’t understand. Having just gone through this with Harald’s men, he took a shot at answering it. “My people are at war. I was looking for a new place for our people to settle. Our enemies found us. There was a fight. My ship was damaged. It fell to the ground.” That ought to cover it, Gabe thought.

  An older man with a thick auburn-and-gray beard said something to Sigurd in what Gabe assumed was Norse. The man had a tough, weathered look to him. Gabe noted that he was missing the two smaller fingers on his left hand. Sigurd replied to him in a curt but genial tone. The two conversed for some time, and then Sigurd turned back to Gabe. He said something, pointing to the lander. Gabe realized he was asking for permission to approach the ship.

  Gabe thought for a moment. If the crew was going to survive more than a few days in this place, they needed allies. This group seemed like a better bet than the last one. “Yes,” Gabe he said at last. “Just you.”

  Sigurd pointed to the older man he’d been speaking to.

  “Fine, him too. The rest of them wait here.” He held up his hand as if barring the rest of the group.

  Sigurd nodded. He turned to the group and spoke briefly to them. The others didn’t seem happy with this development, but no one protested. One strapping young man asked Sigurd a tentative question, but Sigurd shook his head. Sigurd then put his hand on the lad’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before turning to face Gabe again. Was this young man Sigurd’s son? There was definitely a likeness. Gabe counted fourteen men altogether, including Sigurd and his friend. They wore layered wool clothing and ranged widely in age. Sigurd’s son, if that’s who he was, appeared to be the youngest. Sigurd’s friend, who must have been around sixty, looked to be the oldest.

  “After you,” Gabe said, motioning for the two Norsemen to lead the way.

  Sigurd nodded and walked past him. If he feared the strangely dressed man who had fallen from the sky, he didn’t show it. The second man paused briefly before Gabe and patted his chest. “Arnulf,” he said.

  Gabe nodded. “Arnulf,” he repeated. The man smiled and walked after Sigurd. He too showed no fear. So different from Harald’s man, Gunnar, whose fear Gabe had sensed immediately. It hadn’t surprised him when Gunnar ordered his men to attack, nor when Gunnar “slipped” on the snow, allowing the others to die in his place. Gunnar had the air of a man whose self-regard rested on his position in a social hierarchy. Sigurd and Arnulf seemed like men who took responsibility for their own fates. Whatever authority either of them had over the others seemed to arise from mutual consent.

  The three of them rounded the tail of the lander. The two men didn’t pause when they saw the three corpses. Sigurd walked to the one called Ivar and kneeling down next to him. He muttered something Gabe didn’t catch, but the tone was clear. It echoed his own thoughts: he was just a kid.

  “I had no choice,” Gabe said. “They were trying to take my ship.”

  Sigurd stood up and faced Gabe. He asked a question, and Gabe readied himself to explain what had happened. But then he saw that Sigurd’s eyes were on the gun on his belt. Sigurd wasn’t questioning Gabe’s motives; he was curious about his methods.

  “Yes, I used this,” Gabe said, drawing the weapon. “Gun.”

  “Gun,” Sigurd said.

  “Figures that would be the first English word you learn,” Gabe said. He pointed the pistol at one of the dead men and pantomimed the kickback from firing. Sigurd seemed puzzled.

  Gabe was going to take another stab at explaining when he heard a faint noise from inside the lander. Sigurd turned his head. It was clear he’d heard it too. He spoke a brief question.

  “Yes,” Gabe said, holding up three fingers. “Three more.” He supposed there wasn’t much point in lying about the number of crew members at this point.

  Sigurd asked another question. When Gabe didn’t reply, he pointed to his own face and then to Gabe’s.

  “No,” Gabe said. “Not injured. Just hiding.” Better for these men to think they were at full strength for now.

  Sigurd said something else, motioning toward his mouth.

  “No. Thank you. We have food.”

  A more complicated question followed. After some back and forth, Gabe determined that Sigurd was asking what the crew’s plans were.

  “We do not intend to stay here. We will repair our ship and continue on our way.” As he said it, he realized he was unconsciously making his speech mo
re formal in an attempt to be clear. But this was counterproductive: words like intend and repair were probably unfamiliar to these people, as they had Latin roots. He tried again. “We will not stay here. We will fix our ship and go away.” Gabe knew the odds of them getting the ship airborne were slim, but there was no point in complicating matters.

  This time, Sigurd seemed to get the gist of it. He shook his head and spoke in an ominous tone. Gabe caught the name “Gunnar.” Sigurd made a motion with both of his hands like groups of men converging on a point.

  “I know,” Gabe said. “They’ll be back. We have to stay to protect our ship.”

  Sigurd shook his head.

  Gabe shrugged. “We have no choice.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sigurd turned to Arnulf. “They are going to stay with their ship,” he said.

  “Then they are fools,” Arnulf replied.

  “Fools who killed three of Harald’s best men.”

  Arnulf shrugged. “This is not our fight.”

  “Weren’t you just bemoaning our lack of allies? Harald will want this ship. If Gunnar has gone to him with news of what happened here, Harald will soon send many more men to claim it.”

  “And we will be home in our beds.”

  “Don’t you see, Arnulf? These people have forced Harald’s hand. He will not expect us to help the foreigners, and he will not have time to assemble his full force in any case. If we fight alongside these people now, we could deliver a defeat to Harald such that he will think twice about sending men to Haavaldsrud again.”

  “We know nothing of these people.”

  “We know they have weapons capable of doing this.” He gestured again to the three men. “Look at this ship. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen. You’ve heard the stories of the powerful weapons once used by those in the East. Perhaps that is where these people are from.”

  “We don’t know where they are from. We don’t know anything about them. We can’t even speak their language!”

  “I cannot force you to fight, but I intend to stay and wait for Harald’s men.”

  “I suggest a compromise,” Arnulf said after a moment, a mischievous grin playing on his lips. “We kill them and take their ship and weapons.”

  Sigurd laughed. “Go ahead and try. I’m curious to see how that weapon works.”

  Arnulf sighed. “Well, if you’re going to stay, then I suppose I will have to keep you from getting yourself killed.”

  Sigurd grinned. He turned back to the man who called himself Gabe and pointed behind the lander. “We need a moment to speak with the others.”

  Gabe nodded, a slightly puzzled expression on his face.

  Sigurd and Arnulf walked back to the group. “What is happening?” Jannik asked as he approached. Jannik seemed annoyed to be left out of the discussion.

  “The crew of this ship are explorers. They were fleeing from an enemy. Gunnar and his men must have seen the ship crash. They tried to take the ship, but the foreigners fought back and killed three of Harald’s men. Gunnar and one other escaped.”

  “Harald will send more men soon,” said Jannik.

  “Yes,” Sigurd replied. “And Arnulf and I intend to help the foreigners defeat them.”

  Several men spoke at once. Some were confused or skeptical; a few seemed game for any chance to kill some of Harald’s men.

  “We volunteered to investigate the thing that fell from the sky,” Jannik said. “Not to start a war with Harald.”

  “We’re at war with Harald whether we like or not,” Arnulf said. “I voted against this war, but now that we’re in it, I intend to win.”

  “Arnulf is right,” said a tall, young man named Brynjarr. “We knew when we voted that we would have to fight Harald eventually.” Brynjarr’s brother, Agnar, nodded.

  “How is helping these foreigners part of our war?” another man, named Vilmar, asked.

  Sigurd made his case again: by allying with the foreigners, they could surprise Harald, striking a blow against him before he was ready. This would at least delay Harald’s attempts to take the valley by force, and might dissuade him of the idea altogether. In the end, only four men opted to return home.

  “There is no shame in leaving,” Sigurd assured them. “As Jannik said, this is not what we came here to do, and we should not leave the valley unprotected for much longer. Yngvi, you’ll have to go back.”

  “But Father, I want to stay and fight!”

  “I know, son. But it is important for some able men to return to protect the valley. If some of us don’t return soon, the women will start to worry.”

  “Yes, Father,” Yngvi answered glumly.

  “Who else is going back?” Sigurd said.

  “I’ve got cows to milk,” said Vilmar. Two others, in addition to Jannik, said they would be going back.

  “Good,” said Sigurd. “That leaves us with a decent fighting force. Go now then. I expect to be able to send word of our victory by tomorrow morning.”

  “May the gods be with you,” Jannik said coldly.

  Sigurd grunted thanks and embraced Yngvi. “I will see you soon.”

  Yngvi nodded and joined the others, who were already making their way back to the woods.

  *****

  “Did you get any of that, Reyes?” Gabe asked in her ear.

  “Some,” Reyes said, lying on her back in the cockpit, staring up at a mass of scorched circuitry. Slater sat quietly in the seat nearby. O’Brien was still asleep in the back. “I gather they’re not fans of this Harald character.”

  “I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “Not sure yet. I think they might be plotting to kill us right now.”

  “All right,” she said, sitting up. “I’m coming out.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  She stood up, grabbing the pistol from the seat where she had left it. “Yeah. Sounds like you could use some help. Besides, I’m going stir crazy in here.” She hadn’t left the lander since the crash. “Be right back,” she said as she walked past Slater. Slater nodded slightly. She looked exhausted, but Reyes had told her to stay awake for a few hours in case she had a concussion. Reyes went to the hatch and cranked the latch. She pushed the door open and climbed out, blinking in the bright light.

  “You know how to use that?” Gabe asked, raising his eyebrow at the gun in her hand.

  “I’m an engineer, Gabe. Not a baboon.”

  “I’m just trying to avoid getting shot in the back.”

  As he said this, Sigurd came around the tail again. He started at the sight of Reyes.

  “This is Reyes,” Gabe said. “She’s actually in charge of this expedition.”

  “In-charge?” asked Sigurd.

  “She’s our chief. Our jarl,” he added, remembering the word from which the English got the title earl.

  “Sigurd,” said Sigurd, patting his chest. He reached out and clasped Reyes’s hand.

  He said something, patted the hilt of his sword, and then gestured toward the others.

  “That didn’t seem like a threat,” Reyes said.

  “No. I think he’s offering to help us against Harald’s men.”

  “Why?”

  “You may have noticed I don’t speak Norse any better than you do.”

  She scowled at Gabe and turned back to Sigurd. “You are offering to help us?”

  Sigurd nodded. “Help.”

  “Why would you help us?”

  “Harald, enemy,” said Sigurd, using the word Gabe had used when referring to the Cho-ta’an.

  “That may be the most thorough explanation we’re going to get,” Gabe said.

  Reyes nodded and smiled at Sigurd, holding out her hand. “We accept.”

  “Just like that, huh?” Gabe asked.

  “You said it yourself. Holding off a Viking horde with a railgun is not a long-term strategy. We need help.”

  Sigurd shook her hand and smiled back. He point
ed at the lander and asked a question, holding up four fingers.

  “Yes, there are two more. They are…injured. Hurt.”

  Sigurd glanced at Gabe, who met his eyes but did not respond. Sigurd could hardly blame him for lying about crew members being injured.

  Sigurd asked another question, pointing again at the lander. When Reyes didn’t reply, he took a step forward.

  “He wants to take a look inside,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah, I got that, thanks.”

  “You’re thinking of letting him?”

  “If we’re going to fight with these people, we’re putting our lives in their hands. What’s the point of half-measures?”

  Gabe nodded, ceding to her judgment.

  “Just you,” Reyes said to Sigurd. She pointed to his weapon. “Leave your sword here.”

  Sigurd seemed to understand. He unstrapped the scabbard and lay it on top of one of the insulation panels Harald’s man had left on the snow.

  “You stay out here, Gabe,” Reyes said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gabe replied. He stepped away from the lander, holding his gun in front of him.

  Reyes pulled the hatch open. “Slater, you awake?”

  Slater mumbled something in response.

  “We’ve got a visitor. He’s a, um, Viking.”

  Slater’s response was unintelligible.

  “After you,” Reyes said to Sigurd.

  Sigurd nodded and ducked down to enter the craft. He moved slowly, taking everything in with wonderment in his eyes, dried foam pellets crunching under his feet. Reyes followed closely behind him. She had to stifle a laugh at his reaction to the interior of the lander: he seemed as amazed at the upholstery as any of the twenty-third century technology.

  “O’Brien,” Reyes said, pointing to the sandy-haired man asleep under a blanket in the rear of the lander. She patted her side with her left hand. “Hurt.”