by JD Moyer
* * *
The girl was gone when Car-En woke. She sat up slowly, squinting in the bright daylight. She was stiff and sore. Her foot ached from where she had kicked the white-haired man. His lifeless body still lay there, a few meters away. His twin swords, including the scabbards and belts, were gone.
Stupidly, she now realised, she had told the swarm to wake her if anyone entered the perimeter. She hadn’t given any instructions for if someone left. From the swarm’s recordings she saw that the girl had taken the trail east, away from Happdal, and had a two-hour head start.
Her m’eye blinked with alerts. Adrian had been trying to get hold of her for several hours – he was still trying. She opened an audio-only patch.
“Where are you?” he asked crossly – and unnecessarily. He knew exactly where she was; she wasn’t masking her coordinates.
“There was an abduction. I followed the kidnapper.” She didn’t have the energy to lie. Adrian would find out everything anyway. He always did.
The patch was silent for a long time. She checked the indicator to make sure it was still open.
“You Intervened,” he said, finally.
“I didn’t think about it. It was the right thing to do.” She was surprised to hear how strong her voice sounded. She was angry.
Another long pause. “Please send me a full report within two hours. And forward all recordings from the last forty-eight hours.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “There was…a fight.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat. He wouldn’t ask her any more questions. He didn’t trust her; he would need to see for himself. “Please don’t leave anything out. We’ll review your case immediately.” He closed the patch.
So, he would take it to Academic Conduct. Her fieldwork was over.
She stood, woozily, and approached the body of the white-haired man. The black lines under his skin had faded. His skin looked old and leathery, no longer smooth and translucent. She knelt and examined the corpse, looking for anything of interest, but especially hoping to find her carbonlattice knife. It, too, was gone. Katja had left him with only his clothes and boots.
Where was her rifle? She’d dropped it in the brush, before her valiant charge. If the girl had taken it, Car-En would have no means of defending herself. With a sense of rising panic, she ran to the spot where she had dropped the weapon.
It was still there, fully loaded with sedative darts. Car-En retraced her steps, and checked her pack. It hadn’t been tampered with, as far as she could tell. The girl must have been confused, waking up next to such a strange-looking person as Car-En (with her brown skin and weird cloak), but she had chosen not to harm her or rob her. Car-En felt strangely grateful. It seemed like an act of kindness, and it had been a long time since another human being had been kind to her. She sat down heavily and sighed.
So, she thought, this Earth adventure was nearly over. The most exciting time in her life was concluding, prematurely. Would they send a crew to extract her? Or would she be expected to trek back to the mule station? She would prefer the walk – more time on Earth. She wasn’t ready to resume her life on the Stanford. She missed her friends – especially Lydia – but she wasn’t ready to see any of them.
Leaving the withering body of the white-haired man behind, she left the path and walked into the woods, heading north-west. The indicator on her m’eye pointed to a set of coordinates marked ‘OETS’ (Orbital Earth Transport Shuttle): the mule station, over one hundred fifty kilometers away. She told her swarm to follow.
Footnote 1. Known human inhabitation of the Harz mountain region
Human subspecies: Homo erectus
700Kb–350KbLower Paleolithic hunter-gatherer groups, Acheulean tools
Human subspecies: Homo heidelbergensis
350Kb–250KbLower Paleolithic spear hunters, ancestor of Neanderthal
Human subspecies: Homo neanderthalensis (‘Neanderthal’)
250Kb–130KbMousterian culture (Middle Paleolithic, megafauna hunters)
130Kb–115KbEmergence of Keilmesser (bi-facial stone knife), Eemian interglacial warm period
100Kb–50000bPost-Eemian/global cooling, climactic adaptation, start of Weichsel glaciation
50000–35000bAschersleben culture (composite material tools/birch pitch adhesive)
Human subspecies: Homo sapiens sapiens (Eurasiatic ‘Cro-Magnon’ [Neanderthal hybridization/subsumption])
40000b–26000bAurignacian (Upper Paleolithic, megafauna hunter-gatherers, stone blades, cave art)
26000b–21000bGravettian (Upper Paleolithic, small flint tools, Venus figurines, Last Glacial Maximum)
21000b–15000bSolutrean (Upper Paleolithic, articulated flint and bone tools)
15000b–09000bMagdalenian (late Upper Paleolithic, bone microliths, receding ice sheets/Tardiglacial)
09000b–05000bMaglemosian culture (Mesolithic, start of Holocene – interglacial warm period)
05500b–04500bWestern Linear Pottery culture (early Neolithic, early agriculture)
04500b–04300bRössen culture (mid-Neolithic, farming and husbandry)
04300b–20800bFunnelbeaker culture (late Neolithic, farming and husbandry)
02800b–02500bCorded Ware/Battle Axe culture (late Neolithic/Copper Age)
02500b–01200bBell-Beaker culture (late Copper Age/early Bronze Age pastoralists)
01200b–00800bUrnfield culture (late Bronze Age, cremation burials, swords, chariots)
00800b–00600bHallstatt/Wessenstedt culture (early Iron Age, trade with Greece)
00600b–00100bJastorf culture/Nienburg group (pre-Roman Iron Age, cremation burial)
00100b–00200Cherusci tribe (Roman Iron Age)
00200–00800Saxons (Roman Iron Age/Early Middle Ages)
00843–01500East Francia/Kingdom of Germany (Holy Roman Empire, Middle Ages)
01500–01800Kingdom of Germany (Renaissance, Reformation, ‘Little Ice Age’)
01815–01860German Confederation
Human subspecies: Homo sapiens populensis (urban population explosion, genetic integration and diversification)
01862–01918German Empire (ending in World War I, early Industrial Age)
01919–01933Weimar Republic (Industrial Age, start of Anthropocene)
01934–01945Nazi Germany (ending in World War II, Industrial Age)
01946–01989West Germany (mass media, early Corporate Age)
01990–02072Unified Germany (Corporate Age, global population peak, rapid climate change)
Human subspecies: Homo sapiens melior (genome editing and design)
02073–02210Northern European Confederation (Corporate Age, Phase 1 Depop, peak warming)
02211–02386Unified Europe (Revival, Phase 2 Depop, ringstations)
02387–02450New Saxony (Campi Flegrei, Regionalism, end of global trade, Phase 3 Depop)
02451–02634Germanic Survivalist tribes (Remnant Age, Phase 4 Depop, continued global cooling)
Human subspecies: (none detected)
02635–02721Post-Inhabitation, end of Holocene interglacial/return to Quaternary glaciation
Human subspecies: Homo sapiens? (yet to be classified)
02722–presentNew Iron Age, Phase 1 Repop?, New Glacial Maximum
Chapter Five
Trond dreamed that a fox was lying on his face, making it difficult to breathe. He awoke to Esper’s hand covering his mouth. He knocked his brother’s hand away and sat up, ready to curse. Esper’s finger was pressed against his lips.
The brothers shared the loft, with Trond taking the east side, Esper the west. Arik and Elke slept downstairs near the hearth. Their mother was a light sleeper.
“Katja has not returned,” whispered Esper.
Trond was parched and his head ached. He took a long draught of cold w
ater from an earthenware jug he kept near his bed. “She will be back by morning. Go back to sleep.”
Esper shook his head. “A boy told me he saw her taken.”
Trond pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Too much öl. “Who? Who told you and who took her?”
“Jansen’s boy – the one missing a finger. He said a tall man with white hair took her.”
Bjorn had spoken of the gast. A tale to scare children. He remembered, in his groggy state, that his uncle was dead. It seemed impossible; they had conversed only hours earlier.
“Come with me,” said Esper. It was too dark to see his brother’s expression, but Esper sounded worried.
“Elke will not like it if we both leave.”
“Our mother can defend Happdal on her own, wielding only a wooden spoon, if need be.”
What Esper said was true. Elke was fierce, and she could fight, but men feared her because she was clever and ruthless.
“Very well,” Trond said. He rose and dressed quietly, strapping his sword to his belt, as well as a hatchet and a dirk for good measure. He glanced at the immense warhammer hanging on the wall, supported by a pair of iron spikes. He would leave Trondfist here. Nor would he bring his shield, a sturdy circle of oak. They were off to fetch his sister from her latest misadventure, not marching into battle. He hastily stuffed a few more items into his pouch: a tinderbox, a jar of herbal ointment for cuts and scratches, a small bag of rock salt, and a candle. Esper stood waiting, bow in hand, a sack slung over his shoulder.
“I have food. Some, anyway – we can hunt if we need to. And wool blankets, should we need to sleep in the rough.”
Trond suppressed the urge to ask Esper how long he thought they would be gone. They would return when they found Katja. Probably she was curled up with a boy somewhere, he told himself, but again he thought of Bjorn’s story. His uncle had insisted he had seen the gast, and that the sprite had looked like Henning, Arik’s fierce, long-missing grandfather. It was as if Henning had not aged, Bjorn had said. A body thief.
The brothers crept down the ladder (Esper silently, Trond creakily), and made their way to the door. In the dark, Trond could just barely make out the form of his mother blocking their way. Elke had not bothered to light a candle. She could see in the dark as well as Esper.
Esper spoke first. “Katja is missing. We are off to find her.” His brother sounded resolute, a feeling that Trond did not share.
“No. She will find her own way back. Your sister needs no protector.”
“This time is different,” said Esper.
Elke said nothing, but did not move from her door-blocking position.
Trond surprised himself by gently moving his mother aside and opening the door. She did not resist (there was no point in resisting Trond physically), but Trond was glad he could not see her face in the darkness.
“You leave us defenseless,” said his mother. There was real fear in her voice. “Haakon is coming.”
“We will be back soon, Mother.”
Esper followed him into the road. Elke watched from the doorway as they walked away.
“What was that?” asked Esper, when they were far enough away. “You moved our mother, like a child.”
“We are doomed,” Trond said. “We might as well live out our days as forest wanderers.”
Esper laughed. “She will forgive us, in a year or two.”
They returned to the moonlit clearing, where the remains of the pyre still smoldered. A few of the village dogs gnawed on the remnants of the feast. Trond shouted and the mutts trotted off, prized morsels clutched in their jaws.
“This is where Jansen’s boy said he saw her,” said Esper, pointing to a spot near the long wooden tables. He crouched and examined the ground. To Trond’s eye there was only well-trampled dirt, but he knew better than to doubt his brother’s sight. Esper moved to the edge of the clearing, examining the meadow grasses and wildflowers. “Look here. A boot mark – deep. Someone carrying a heavy load.”
Esper continued into the woods, pausing frequently to look at the ground, or to inspect a trampled bit of vegetation. Trond followed slowly, twenty paces back, letting his brother do the work. Unlike Esper, Trond could not see well in the dark. The stars, rings, and half-moon gave him enough light to see his feet in front of him, but not enough to track their quarry (though even in full daylight, Esper was the superior tracker). There were only two things Trond could do better than his little brother: forge steel, and lift heavy things. A short list indeed. He was only a little jealous; mostly he felt pride and admiration toward his younger sibling. The skinny whelp who had tagged along, practically his shadow for so many years, had grown into his own. Esper was a man now, wise and skillful.
They were heading south, through the beech wood they both knew well. Happdal lay in the center of a large, flat valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides. They hiked uphill for the night’s remaining twilight hours. By the time they came to the Blue Meadow, night had yielded to day. The lavender was in full bloom. The sickly sweet smell made Trond’s nose itch. Esper had already crossed the meadow and was beckoning to Trond.
“Help me. Can you see which way they went?”
Esper stood on the Silver Trail, which ran east–west. To the east lay the silver mine, beyond that the ruins of an ancient Builder town. To the west the trail led to the river, following it south-west to the foothills and eventually to the decayed remains of another Builder settlement. Though Trond had never seen it, he had heard there was a stone fortress at the end of the western way, built during an even earlier age. The Builders, for all their brilliance, had rarely used stone as a building material; few of their structures remained standing. Builder ruins were vast, but the buildings themselves had succumbed to rain and roots. Only the odd rusted frame stood higher than a man. Still, there were treasures and oddities to be found among the rubble.
Esper had picked up the trail again, and was heading west. Trond yawned and followed. His stomach rumbled; he had not eaten since last night’s feast. He imagined Katja sitting at the table by the hearth, eating hot porridge and crispy bacon, laughing at her foolish brothers. Arik would be laughing with her. Even their mother might forget her worries and crack a smile at the thought of her foolish sons. Perhaps she would even forgive Trond for moving her like a doll.
“Brother,” Trond cried out, “can we stop for breakfast?” Esper shook his head and kept walking, not bothering to look back. “Surely Katja is home by now,” Trond continued. “Should we go back and check?”
Esper kept walking, ignoring him. Trond hurried to catch up. They walked in silence, side by side, and Trond’s hunger pangs faded. Dappled sunlight played on the trail, reflecting off the white bark of the slender birch trees. It was good to be in the woods; lately he had seen little but the top of his anvil and the blackened walls of the smithy.
“Did you know, not so long ago, we were all one great family?” Esper asked, out of the blue. “All the villages of the Five Valleys.”
Trond grunted. He had heard such tales, but believed them no more than stories of body-thieving sprites.
“Even Haakon,” continued Esper, aware of his brother’s skepticism, but pressing on nonetheless. “He is but another cousin, no more than five generations removed.”
“Haakon is not my blood,” said Trond, matter-of-factly. He tolerated Esper’s speculations on such matters – and his brother had no shortage of speculations on all manner of things – but he refused to agree to such a ridiculous idea. A vile animal like Haakon was not their kin.
“Do you think the song of the Ice Trail is just a tale?” Esper challenged. “It is the history of our people. We came south together, and settled in the Five Valleys. The high mountains have snow, like our ancient homeland, but the loam of the valleys is rich and fertile, and free of frost for most of the year.”
“Why would the
Three Brothers cover our ancient homeland in ice, like the song says? It makes no sense. Our people have always lived in the Five Valleys.” Even as Trond spoke the words he felt unsure. Esper’s point of view made little sense, and most in Happdal would agree with Trond, but out here there was no one to back him up. “There are old buildings in Happdal,” continued Trond, raising his voice, “very old ones. The smithy. The longhouse. Nobody even knows how many generations ago they were built.”
Trond turned to his brother for a response, and discovered he had been talking to himself. Esper was crouched down, examining something, ten paces back.
“What have you got?” asked Trond, retracing his steps.
“Just a dead fly. The light caught it in a certain way….I thought it might be a coin, or a piece of glass. An odd bug, though. Look for yourself.”
Trond held out his hand. Esper delicately dropped the dead insect into his outstretched palm. “It does look strange,” Trond said. “As big as a cow-fly, but it looks more like a house-fly. Shiny.”
“The carapace gleams,” said Esper, peering into Trond’s palm. “One moment it looks black, the next like a brilliant rainbow.”
“Heavy,” Trond said, dropping and lifting his palm to better gauge the weight.
“Let me see it again,” said Esper. Trond gave it back. Esper examined the fly for some time longer, then tucked it away in a pocket. “Are you ready for some food?” Trond grunted in assent.
Esper had raided Elke’s pantry well. They broke their fast on dense rye bread, thick yellow butter, hard cheese, and crisp apples. With such provisions their rescue mission seemed more like a picnic. Perhaps Esper had the same thought; he ate quickly and soon pressed for them to move on. Trond wrapped up the food reluctantly, not quite sated. They each took a swig of water and set out.