by John Dalmas
Nils's questing awareness assured him that no one was there now, and that it was safe. When he led them forward again, it was still with a sense of something wrong. The shutters were open, and the interior was lit by autumn sunshine filtered through thin-scraped deer hides stretched over the windows. The place had been used by horse barbarians, apparently in a rain, for one had voided in a corner. Blood had dried on the split logs of the floor. The expressions of the three mirrored their separate characters as they looked from the blood to Nils.
The blond Jot, Erik Barsarken, showed covert pleasure, his eyes gleaming in anticipation of vendetta. In Leif Trollsverd's darker face the jaw muscles were knotted; there was a blood debt here. Sten Vannaren, keen-minded and long on experience, merely watched his big young friend to see what his reaction might be; he had decided some time before that Nils Jarnhann was a new kind of man, whose acts he could not yet predict but would in time.
Nils walked slowly through the cabin's two rooms, his eyes missing nothing. Then all four went outside and examined the ground.
"They were here yesterday, and once a few days earlier," he said at last. "Maybe some will come tonight. We'll bed within hearing, in a thicket."
As they led their horses downwind of the cabin, they smelled rotting flesh. By a clump of hazel they found the body of a baby, skull smashed, its flesh gnawed by polecats. In a draw behind the cabin they found Ilse's spring, and the tracks where horse barbarians had ridden up the brook. They staked their horses some distance away and returned, holing up in a grove of old firs ringed with sapling growth that screened them from the nearby cabin. From their saddle bags they took dried meat, cheese and hard bread, and ate without talking. When they were done, they stretched out on top of their sleeping robes and relaxed like wild animals.
Soon the sun had dropped behind the crest of the ridge in back of them. All heard the voices at the same time, loud and in a language that was not German. They lay quietly, listening to the careless sounds. This time the horse barbarians came down the draw above the spring. Soon the voices were lost within the cabin's walls.
Nils spoke for a moment in an undertone, answered by nods and narrow-eyed grins. They buckled on their harnesses, took swords, shields and bows, and slipped through the trees to where they could see the cabin clearly. It still was full daylight, even in the shadow of the ridge. The horse barbarians had tethered their horses on leather ropes, to browse the twig ends of the brush, and after a brief intent examination of the surroundings the northmen decided that all were inside. The smoke of a young fire was starting from the chimney.
Each side of the cabin had openings. There was a door in front and one in back, and each side wall had two windows, one into each room. Leif Trollsverd, an arrow nocked, took a position from which he could cover the back door and the windows in one of the side walls. Sten knelt behind a tree diagonally opposite, covering the front and the other side. Erik slipped smoothly across the narrow strip of open ground to the side of the house and around the corner, stationing himself beside the back door, his teeth exposed in an ugly grin.
A moment later Nils appeared from the other side. He had a dry fir branch in his right hand, one end wrapped with blazing birch bark. As he ran up to the wall, he threw the branch onto the shake roof, then darted around the corner, shifting his sword from his left hand to his right. He could sense the sudden intentness inside; they had heard the thump of the torch.
Just as Nils reached the side of the door, a swarthy youth stepped out, started, jumped back, but the sword stroke caught him as he moved and he fell backward into the cabin with his rib cage cloven. The short shouts from inside meant nothing to Nils, but the thoughts that reached him were of anger and alarm. He stood shoulder to the wall, waiting for another, but none came. There were sounds of men scrambling, of swords being drawn from scabbards, and Nils sensed one of them standing by the wall, just inside the door, waiting for someone to try an entrance.
"That's one!" Nils shouted.
They were talking inside now, urgently and with undertones of fear. Through Sten's eyes, Nils saw flames begin to blaze up around the torch, but those inside were not aware of it yet because of the loft that separated them from the roof. From the rear of the cabin a brief clashing of steel sounded.
"Make that two!" came Erik's cheerful bellow.
Through the eyes of the man inside the door, Nils watched a lean youth draw a knife, slash the sides and top of one of the window coverings, and thrust his head and shoulders through. Uttering a bleating cry he fell backwards, and with a convulsive jerk pulled an arrow from the muscles of his neck. He rolled over onto hands and knees, retching, blood gushing from the wound and from his open mouth, then collapsed forward on his face. With an abrupt roar, another man ran and hurled himself headlong through the open window. Rounding the corner he ran at Nils, drawing his sword, fell forward to his knees, rose slowly, and fell again as a second arrow drove through his mail shirt.
Nils's mind counted the consciousnesses inside. "That's four," he shouted. "Two for Sten. There are six left." A victorious whoop came from Sten's position among the trees.
Inside, too, there was talk, and one horse barbarian stationed himself by each window and door. Their tough minds broadcast uncertainty, with various mixtures of anger and fear. They had no clear idea of what they were up against and no concerted idea of what to do beyond defending themselves. Again through Sten's eyes, Nils watched the flames on the roof, burning higher now and starting to spread.
Suddenly there was a mental shock of alarm from inside, then quick words of instruction. One of the window guards left his post, and Nils's mind went with him up the ladder, raising the trapdoor and gazing into the dark loft. Above he saw the bright flames burning through the roof. At that moment some burning material fell near him and the man dropped from the ladder to the floor below, yelling.
A few hoarse words drew them all into the front room; Nils in turn shouted to Erik. All six rushed for the open door. Nils's stroke caught the first as he emerged, sweeping below the shield and cutting his legs from under him. The second hurdled him before Nils could strike again, and attacked with berserk rage while a third ran out behind him. From inside came oaths and grunts as Erik fell on them from behind. Sten put an arrow through the third man out while Nils killed his furious assailant and went crouched through the door to help Erik.
Erik needed no help. One lay struck dead from behind and a second was down, bleeding and helpless, cursing. The blond Jot stood watching through the open window; the last of the enemy patrol had jumped through it and was running into the woods, holding his right shoulder where an arrow was embedded. A grinning, red-haired figure pursued him out of sight among the trees. In a minute Sten reappeared, waving his bloody sword, and they left the burning cabin.
When Nils's eyes opened, they focused first on the skeletal crown of a naked beech, its major limbs dimly resolved against the night sky. A few stars of larger magnitude were visible between the black masses of fir tops, and moving his head, he could see the lopsided moon past the meridian, telling him that dawn wasn't far off. Its pale light washed patches of ground and filled others with dense black shadow. Forty meters away, between the stems of trees and brush, he could see dull red where the collapsed heap of the cabin still smoldered. Its smell was strong but not unpleasant. Frost from his breath coated the fur at the upper edge of his sleeping robe.
He had wakened wide, not from the cold or the moonlight but from something that lay calm and watchful in his mind. Without ever having experienced it before, he knew it was the consciousness of a he-wolf, probably one of Ilse's familiars, but he didn't know how to communicate with it.
The wolf had sensed his waking telepathically and had waited until Nils was aware of him. As if it had sensed Nils's psi power even when the northman was still asleep-as if it had recognized what being was there. And then it held a picture of Ilse in its mind for Nils to see. The picture zoomed in on Ilse's face and seemed to go right into her mind where t
here was a physical and mental image of Nils. And with that as an almost instantaneous background, the picture was again of Ilse, hands tied, being taken away by a patrol of horse barbarians. As Nils sat up in his sleeping furs, the picture became one of a large man, Nils, on horseback, with undefined representations of companions, following a large wolf through the forest.
The picture faded and the emission of the wolf's mind changed to a quiet formlessness, as Ilse said his own did. Nils acknowledged, then lay back down and went to sleep almost at once, not to awake again until the gray wash of dawn.
He wakened his companions and the four warriors squatted hunched beneath their robes, silently gnawing cheese and dry bread, bodies stiff with cold and sleep. The only speech was Nils's quiet voice. They were glad to lead their horses up the dim slope to the ridge crest; the exertion warmed them before they mounted and rode away.
When the sun was two hours high, they lay beneath the low branches of a thicket of sapling firs. Farther downslope a fire had consumed the undergrowth two or three years earlier, leaving an open clumpy stand of older trees. A good campsite. Forty-two teepeelike tents stood on the gentle toe-slope-more than one hundred men and perhaps close to two hundred. Secure in their strength and hidden site, the horse barbarians had become careless again about sentries.
"Leif, run down there and bloody your sword," Erik breathed with a grin. "We did all the work yesterday."
Trollsverd grunted an obscenity.
Sten chuckled. "That's the price of a big reputation; they kept away from him. And when did fighting start to be work?"
Nils ignored their whispered chaffing. They were within the range of normal telepathic pickup from the camp-close enough that loud voices could be heard. He had intended to reach Ilse with his mind, but now he did not dare a forceful telepathic call to get her attention. For there were two psi minds in the camp-hers and one that belonged to a horse barbarian.
"This place is dangerous," he whispered. "There's a psi down there." With that they wriggled back out of the thicket and slipped away.
3.
The castle was much larger than that of Martin Gutknekt and had a moat with brown billows of dead algae. The gate stood open in the sunlit morning as the neovikings walked their horses across the drawbridge. The gate guards scowled at the strangely garbed and equipped riders but did not move to stop them. As the warriors approached the great squat keep, the two guards at its entrance lowered their pikes, and one called down to halt. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
Nils stared up the stone steps at them, one enormous hand spread on a thick thigh, making the most of his size and imposing physique as they stared back at him. "Who is your master?" he responded.
This question for a question stopped the slow-witted guard. After a moment he answered, "The graf, Karl Haupmann."
"Tell him four northmen are here to see him, with information about a strong force of horse barbarians in the country."
The sun-browned face stared suspiciously at the big northman, jaws working with indecision. These strangers obviously were not nobles, or even knights. Nils helped him. "Or would you rather be staked out in the sun and flayed?"
The guard stepped back, then turned reluctantly through the open door. His partner's mind squirmed with discomfort at being left alone to face the four big warriors, a discomfort that the three could read in his face as certainly as Nils read it in his mind.
"At home men like that would be thralls," Leif Trollsverd said.
"That's about what they are here," Sten answered.
The remaining guard stared at them, perplexed by the unfamiliar tonal syllables. He knew German and Anglic, but had never heard any other language and was uncertain whether this was truly speech or not. After several minutes a burly knight came out of the interior and squinted down at them in the bright sunshine. He snapped fast words in German, and they sat looking impassively up at him until he repeated in Anglic. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"We are northmen and want to see the graf," Nils said dryly. "We've seen a large force of horse barbarians near the district of Martin Gutknekt."
The knight sneered. "Show a skin-clad savage a peasant riding on an ox and there's no telling what he'll think he saw."
The usually imperturbable Sten rose in his stirrups and had his sword half out before Nils put a hand on his wrist and spoke softly in Swedish. Turning back to the knight, Nils said with mild calm, "Then let us tell him what we think we saw."
Without saying anything more, the man led them inside and to a throne room some fifteen meters long. Entering, they passed two guards with pikes and swords who stood by the open door. Five mail-clad knights stood on the dais near the throne; three were breathing deeply as if they had hurried to be there. Karl Haupmann sat upright and hard-faced, as his marshal, followed by the barbaric-looking warriors, strode to the foot of the dais and stated the particulars in German.
Nils recognized an unforeseen problem here. The graf was a cruel and ruthless man with a pathological suspicion of foreigners.
He looked at them. "Northmen, eh? What is this about horse barbarians?"
"There's a large force of them, between one and two hundred, camped in the mountains near the district of Martin Gutknekt. We think they plan to take his principal village."
The graf's emotional pattern was ugly, but his speech, if curt, was civil. "Why do you think they'll try to take Doppeltanne?"
Nils sensed here a xenophobe who might have them attacked on the spot if he thought it safe. And lacking any tactical advantage, the odds of nine to four did not appeal to Nils, especially with the two door guards behind them. He stated his answer matter-of-factly, in a voice of utter assurance. "First, I didn't say 'try.' There is no question of their ability. Second, they'll need food and shelter for the winter, and the village has both. Third, they're camped near Gutknekt's district. And forth, they're in tents, making no effort to build huts against the winter."
"And why should I listen to you?" The graf's control cracked for a moment. "You are foreign barbarians yourselves. What are northmen doing in Bavaria, unless…?"
"We're going to Baalzebub's land. Our army beat his and killed Baalzebub himself. Now we will take his country."
"But we'd heard you were passing far to the east, far east of the Czechlands." The graf stared intently at Nils through narrowed eyes.
"The rest of our people are. The four of us have come this way to see to some business."
"What business?"
To say "a woman" might amuse and relax the graf, but it might also make them seem ludicrous and weak. On the other hand, while to say "our own business" might offend him dangerously, it might also impress him with their fearlessness and make him cautious.
"Our own business."
The graf darkened and, turning, spoke to his marshal in German for a full minute. The marshal nodded curtly and left. The other knights tightened.
"Then why do you come to tell me about horse barbarians? They're no business of yours, are they?" There was a note of triumph in the graf's voice.
"Maybe they shouldn't be. Not here at any rate." Nils looked at the others. "Let's go," he said in Swedish, "but be ready to fight." They turned to leave.
"Wait!" The graf stood up. "You saw their camp. How can we find it?"
They stopped. "It is in the mountains west of Doppeltanne," Nils answered. There are three main ridges between the valley and their camp, or maybe four. They are camped along the east foot of the next ridge west. Or they were. They may be in Doppeltanne by now."
The man was stalling for time, Nils realized.
Sitting back down, the graf asked more questions about the condition of the enemy and their horses and what Nils thought their tactics might be. After several minutes he arose abruptly. "I am keeping you from your journey," he said. "Thank you, Northmen, for your information." His eyes were like chips of flint, and a smile played at one corner of his mouth. "And travel in peace."
Nils nodded,
and the four warriors started toward the tall broad door of the chamber. Halfway there Nils sensed that the knights were moving; glancing back, he saw them sauntering from the dais. Though seemingly casual, they were taut inside, and nervous. Nils paused briefly in the doorway, then started down the wide corridor.
"When he sent his marshal out," he said rapidly, "it was to set a trap. After that he was stalling for time. The ones behind us are the smaller jaw."
The short flight of stairs leading down to the entrance of the keep was only half as wide as the corridor. They would be bunched there, with no room to maneuver. Just short of the stairs, Nils quietly said "Stop," steppped to a window and leaned out on his stomach through the thick-walled opening to scan the courtyard. Outside stood a phalanx of bowmen and a group of mounted knights, facing the door.
The knights following the northmen had continued a few paces and stopped uncertainly. "Take them," Nils said, and they fell upon them.
At the sounds of fighting and the shouts of the knights, the entrance guards below began to shout. The unexpectedness and ferocity of the northmen's attack overran the knights, three of whom fell while the others gave way and let them pass. One of the guards at the throne room door dropped his pike and ran into a side corridor while the other, cursing, stepped quickly through the door and tried to close it. It burst open in his face, throwing him to the floor as the four warriors rushed in.
The graf stood in front of his throne, drawing a short sword, but Nils met him at the foot of the dais and bisected him casually in passing, then led them through a curtained doorway behind the throne and up a flight of stairs. This took them to a suite of rooms above, where they found a woman, obviously the grafin, and a boy in his early teens. Startled, the boy drew a knife, but Leif grabbed his wrist and the knife clattered on the flags as the boy yelled with pain.
Erik covered the stairwell then, and Leif and Sten held their two prisoners while Nils gagged them. They could hear someone shouting in the throne room, and while Nils snatched a bow and quiver of arrows from the wall, angry voices and shod feet sounded from below. Strong-arming their prisoners, they hurried out of the apartment into another corridor and from it into a climbing stairwell that wound within the outer wall.