by Scott Moon
“He likes apples,” Gunnarr said, then stretched as though awakening from a nap. “You won’t have a problem with him.”
“Do you have any apples?” Aefel asked.
Gunnarr laughed. “All I meant was that he is just a man. Some claim that he is the descendent of real giants, but everyone knows they are even uglier than Jorgo.”
“I suppose that is good to know,” Aefel said as he considered his adversary. He still didn’t like the resemblance between the Hawk Clan champion and the special breed of guards designated as LTGE by the Commonwealth. If the propaganda could be believed, an LTGE was nearly indestructible.
Aefel was surprised at Gunnarr’s confidence. They weren’t exactly friends; never would be friends. The young man sneered at the boot-camp-style calisthenics and improvised strength conditioning program that was practically Aefel's religion. He was glad, however, that the young man had his suicidal battle lust under control. It could be that fear was growing in the inexperienced Jarl, but Aefel didn’t think so.
“I’ve seen you fight,” Gunnarr said. “If you want my advice, make the contest last as long as you can. Stall for time. Eventually, the rest of Jorgo’s friends are coming up here to rape and kill.”
Aefel watched the big, possibly LTGE Guard find his footing and adjust the grip on his sword. His eyes shone golden, like machined glass when the morning light cut through the mist. The same effect scrolled along the sharp edge of the two-handed sword.
“What is your unit designation?”
The giant stood slightly straighter and made a bemused face, then adjusted his grip and edged forward. “I’ll not answer your demon talk, stranger.”
“Then I’ll assume you are a native.”
“Believe what you like, devil man,” Jorgo said. He burst forward, swung the sword in a wide arc over his head, and slashed at Aefel, who was forced to throw himself to the ground to avoid the cut.
With only enough hesitation to watch Jorgo shift his weight from one heel to the other, Aefel dropped his sword and lashed out with his hand, cupping the heel and dragging it back in one movement. At the same time, he scrambled to his feet, swatted the overlong blade away, and aimed his stomping foot at Jorgo’s other knee.
A normal fighter might have been done, finished, maimed, and screaming for mercy. Jorgo might not be one of the elite bodyguards he resembled, but Aefel thought the champion’s grandfather might have been one. The giant rolled nimbly away from the strike, twisting free of Aefel’s strong hands.
In a heartbeat, Jorgo spread his feet in a wide stance that could support a mountain of violence and then menaced Aefel with the tip of his blade. He moved forward and back, side to side, constantly adjusting his position as the raiders came farther up the trail to cheer and taunt. The contest would have lasted longer, but the rest of the Hawk Clan swarmed past their champion.
Much of the advantage of the miniature Hot Gates evaporated as the attackers broke the rules of single combat.
“You have no honor!” Gunnarr, Sveinn, and Fey were the first to charge to Aefel’s side, blades licking forward and shields held high.
“You won’t be around to tell the tale!” Jorgo shouted.
This stunned Aefel. He hadn’t expected cleverness or treachery from the Heavy, the enforcer in Reaver terminology. Aefel shouldn’t have invited single combat, should have kept Jorgo from coming so far up the trail. Most of the day’s work had already been lost when the real fight started.
The Hawk clansmen drove Aefel and his handful of companions back just as the Arrow Clan arrived on the left flank, having scaled a treacherous cliff to catch the ladies and old men of the Sky Clan unaware.
“The Eye of the Needle proved to be of less use than you had us believing,” Sveinn said.
Gunnarr had the grace to look annoyed with the younger boy, but Aefel admitted the truth of the matter. Had they remained to defend the steep trail, the Arrow Clan would be at their backs with total surprise in their favor. He turned in a slow circle to take a good look at all of the enemies.
The Hawk Clan blocked any chance of escape with a double line of shields.
“Jorgo claims first rights!” Jorgo shouted.
The Arrow Clan cavorted on the left flank, numerous and terrible despite disorganization and lack of discipline. More than half of the enemy in this direction had shields and a few had good leather coats or pieces of chain mesh armor. Swords, axes, hammers, and shields clanged a frightening rhythm. Low-moving clouds raced above the battlefield.
The Hawk Clan saluted, and then advanced on the Sky Clan.
“Shield wall!” Fey shouted.
Women, old men, and boys stepped nearer each other and overlapped the heavy wood circles. Metal bands bumped and thudded. Curses rumbled along the line as respectable practice formations failed to become good battle formations.
Aefel took his place, squatting more than he would have liked to keep his shield connected with Fey on his left and Gunnar on his right. He walked in a crouch on Gunnarr’s left because the enemy knew he was the leader of the clan and would aim their attack at the grim young man.
The Hawk Clan came in a rush, nearly breaking the line, but Gunnarr and Fey screamed encouragement and the shield wall held. Sveinn and the others in the back lunged over the top with long spears and did their work just as the Hawk spearmen did theirs.
Blood gushed onto the frozen ground, turning ice to bloody red slush. Men and women screamed in pain and begged for mercy. Aefel lost all sense of time as he pounded apart shields, knocked men down, and stomped them to death or hacked them to pieces. Wounds crisscrossed his arms and face. He could not feel his body or the ground that he stood upon.
In a contest of attrition, there came a point when enough was enough, but the women of the Sky Clan ignored defeat, prepared to die one and all. By midday, the Arrow Clan joined the battle and soon Aefel and the others were fighting in the middle of a circle without hope or even light. Looming enemies blocked out the winter sun.
“Gunnarr,” Aefel said. He was about to tell the young Jarl to surrender, but the words stuck in his mouth. The battle was clearly lost. They were fighting against skilled veterans and were outnumbered three to one.
Weapons came from all sides. Shields fell apart. Weapons shattered. Women died. Men died. Children died.
“How does surrender work among the clans?” Aefel asked. He could barely lift his arms to block or strike. In the beginning, he had felt reasonably healthy, stronger, and fresher than he had hoped. Fatigue laid siege to his confidence and he could not endure the idea of Fey dead. Images of her being raped tortured him, but he didn’t know what else could be done.
Losing a battle was nearly as bad as dying, he thought. Aefel hoped to never experience it again but knew he would. “You must consider surrender, Gunnarr,” he said.
Fey snarled wordlessly, startling Aefel and causing him to stumble. “Sky Clan will never betray the hotjidelig-ed!”
Sunlight cut through swift-moving clouds and raked across a lull in the battle. For a moment, Aefel saw Fey, and then Sveinn illuminated by golden rays.
“You can never understand what that means. Sky Clan must never serve another clan. We descend from kings and must never swear fealty to man or woman,” Fey said.
The fanatic stubbornness of Fey and the others suddenly made sense. He nodded and raised his shield. The brief respite only teased him, although realization that Sky Clan somehow understood their importance gave him strength.
Jorgo pushed to the front of his shield wall, his head freshly bandaged and one eye clogged with blood. “Yield, Jarl Gunnarr.”
Gunnarr thrust his sword into the scabbard, grabbed his manhood through his kilt, and thrust his hips towards the Hawk Clan leader. The fight began amidst laughter and cat calls.
Aefel held his place in the shield wall, but frequently forged ahead of the line to rain death and destruction on the enemy. The circle closed tighter and he barely escaped inside the Sky Clan ranks.
<
br /> “Stop doing that,” Fey grunted.
The battle continued and Aefel’s second wind faded. He began to lose hope for the first time in his long military career.
Fewer and fewer swords fell upon the scrap of wood still bound to his arm and he started to breathe easier, despite blood running into his eyes and the taste of blood and sweat in his mouth. He noticed a man slipping away from the circle, then another, and finally, a score of them. He looked at the ground, resisted the urge to drop to his knees and drink mouthfuls of blood and piss and death.
“Why are they leaving?” Fey asked the question with madness in her eyes, hunger for violence and fear that she would have it.
“They are tired of killing,” Aefel said.
Gunnarr lowered his sword and watched as the rest of the Hawk and Arrow Clans quit the field. “What does that mean, Vildfremmed?”
“It means we won.”
10
DUSK
PRIMITIVE BATTLEFIELD
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE, HIGHLAND PASS 83A2T-P1A
MISSION CLOCK: 1:82:23:00
Young girls and the smallest boys ran toward the battlefield carrying water skins and winter-biscuits so hard they might have been replacement weapons for the Sky Clan warriors. Helen’s youngest son, Algot, led the children, although he’d fashioned himself a small shield and carried a hatchet through his belt as though it were a mighty battleaxe. The sun moved beyond the horizon, soon to be done with the day as it cast red light in streaks from its hiding place. Aefel and the others tended wounded warriors and feasted standing up as though bread and water were the grandest reward imaginable.
Fey gave him a bloody kiss, then another. He didn’t want to let her go, and wouldn’t have, if he had not seen the singer and his troupe of performers moving up the road from the west. His gut tightened. Although he desperately wanted to find Seccon and complete his mission, the sight of the man in local garb startled him. He suddenly realized that he did not really want to face the man or the secrets the man harbored. The joy of victory and survival hummed in his exhausted muscle and even throbbed bittersweetly from the depth of his worst injuries. It was time to honor the dead and celebrate life with his fellow warriors. The needs of the Earth System Commonwealth Empire shouldn't matter here and now.
Fey, Gunnarr, and the others saw the direction of his gaze and stared at the newcomers. “A regular band of Vildfremmed,” Sveinn said with an over-sized smile. He struggled to stand. Someone had thrust a sword blade through the top of his foot when he pressed into the front of the shield wall to fill a gap.
Aefel studied the band of traveling performers, silently disagreeing with Sveinn. They might be strangers to the boy and his village, but only one was a true stranger. Something about the way Seccon moved betrayed him as an off-worlder. Maybe it was the man’s years of training the royal court or his overconfident, strangely intense gaze. Aefel admitted he could be biased. Since he recognized the man, he knew there was a possibility that he had overlooked off-worlder clues present in the others, but he thought they were locals. He believed they were the descendants of Commonwealth colonists allowed to go feral, to grow to adults without cybernetic implants or rigorous education.
He turned his gaze on Sveinn, took a deep breath, and made a decision.
“Why do you look at him like that, Aefel?” Fey said, keeping her voice low and away from Sveinn.
“Someday, I will tell you. Call it hotjidelig-ed.” He moved between the performers and the Sky Clan, lest Seccon decided to approach the battlefield after all. The man had killed the Emperor, proudly admitting the treasonous regicide before he fled the Homeworld. Now he was watching a boy that every citizen of the Earth Systems Commonwealth thought to be dead and gone.
Aefel had nothing personal against coincidence, but doubted Seccon would be here without a reason. The man was much older than Aefel. He had so many more years in service to the Commonwealth that his age showed. His parents were from the earliest days of cybernetic rejuvenation. He was, or had been, in every way a member of the old guard. That was why the Emperor had trusted him.
It made sense, Aefel supposed, that he would know the nephew and nieces of the Emperor were not really dead. Proof of death was hard to fake, and no one doubted the Royal children had been assassinated. Suspects had been arrested, tried, and executed, although it was likely they were little more than scapegoats, hired guns at best.
If Emperor Dan Uburt-Wesson gave the order, his Strongarms were involved. Seccon must know they had escaped. He was probably here to finish the job, even though he had betrayed the Emperor. The pressure of being the strong right arm of the Emperor must have broken him like it had so many others.
“Fey,” Aefel said without looking toward Sveinn. “Keep an eye on Sveinn.”
For once, she nodded and moved closer to the boy without complaint.
The boy that would be Emperor was searching for survivors who needed mercy and survivors who needed rescue among the scattered bodies. Limping like an old man, he carried a large jug of water with a metal dipper that refused to gleam in the gathering dusk. Nothing he did was exceptional or unusually admirable. Other people from the village, including injured fighters, performed the same tasks.
“I won’t tease you about your stranger anymore,” Fey said as she cleaned her sword and checked what was left of her armor.
“Why not?”
“It no longer seems as funny,” she said.
11
DUSK
PRIMITIVE BATTLEFIELD
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE, HIGHLAND PASS 83A2T-P1A
MISSION CLOCK: 1:82:26:09
Aefel walked forward, staring at Seccon. There was no way the man could fail to recognize his FALD Reaver tattoos. Naked to the waist, armor discarded, Aefel felt the stars reach across the sky. Dried blood and sweat gave him the shivers, but he welcomed the discomfort. Thoughts of his military training and his friends walked with him. He could hear Paul screaming for enemies to die in the charnel house of defeat.
The words of his boot camp sergeant calling down thunder and lightning blended with images of Sveinn taunting his sisters with the wrath of Thor. Grendel 0473829 had been seeded with brainwashed role-players who believed in Norse mythology at the time Christianity was being introduced by Saxon enemies and sometimes allies. During Aefel’s short time in Sky Clan village, he had seen that many of the historical themes were drifting into something new and strange. Religion was one example. The surprisingly efficient mill that harnessed the power of the river was another.
None of it would matter once his mission was complete.
Rest and relaxation, medical care, and his friends waited for him in the two-thirds abandoned space station orbiting Grendel 0473829. He dreamed of taking Fey and half the village with him, knowing it was impossible. With their concept of the hotjidelig-ed, the forever oath, they had given their lives without hesitation. It was pure insanity to think they would abandon their homes for a starship —— which they would probably equate with Valhalla or Heaven, depending on how they interpreted their religion.
Fey and the others would never leave with him, but all he had to do to go home was get a confession from Seccon and kill him. The confession was probably optional, although failure to follow mission instructions would be noted in his performance file. Nausea rolled through his stomach, something he was getting used to without Internals functioning at thirty or forty percent efficiency. Getting the Core Internal put back in his hip would probably be worth ending the mission right here and now.
Probably, but maybe not. There was also the chance that his nausea was the result of doubt. His mission made no sense. Killing Seccon would be easy and impossible at the same time.
Fatigue caressed every muscle in Aefel’s body. His head swam with dizziness. He understood the effects of blood loss and realized a fight with the Emperor’s former chief of security might be a bad idea. Would a man like Seccon hide in a place like this without a modern weapon secret
ed away under his tunic? Aefel didn’t feel like he could react quickly enough to disarm a man intent on drawing and firing a pistol.
Everything he did on this planet seemed to be a bad idea.
Numbers and symbols flared to life in Aefel’s peripheral vision. Identification probable: confirm with direct scan: Seccon 99991, former Chief Strongarm of Emperor Dan Uburt-Wesson. Evidence shows he is the assassin. Continue with the mission. Aefel snorted, thinking his mind was ahead of his Internals for once. I already knew it was him. How strange.
Seccon reached into a cart without focusing his full intention on the item he was reaching for. Then, as though Aefel’s life hadn’t become thoroughly bizarre, the assassin smiled. The expression might have said, “Come here so I can shoot you in the face,” or perhaps it was just a smile. Maybe the former Strongarm understood Aefel’s confusion and doubts. He said something to his companions and the other performers loaded children into carts and hurried away from the battlefield.
Aefel ran after the killer, but Fey caught him and pulled at his body with both hands. “They are going to prepare a celebration. Your stranger will be easy to find.”
Aefel stared at the trail and eventually heard the Gren-pipe play in the distance as the entertainers sang and danced their way toward the village.
“We have dead and wounded,” Fey said.
He looked at her and the other clans-people hard at work, then nodded and walked back to the carnage. Fey slipped her arm around his waist. He held her around the shoulders as they walked.
12
DUSK
SKY CLAN VILLAGE
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE, HIGHLAND VALLEY 83A2T
MISSION CLOCK: 1:87:16:00
Aefel and the others returned to the village to find the traveling performers had already set their carts in a circle and made camp on the commons. A valiant troop of boys and girls stood guard, while others ran to greet their mothers and siblings and grandfathers.