He could probably kill everyone here, Halvard thought.
In a few moments most of the newly arrived warriors had clustered below the second story balcony where Halvard and the Jarl stood waiting.
Halvard was not surprised Morten the Hammer was the first to demand an explanation.
“We are here now, and we are hungry and thirsty. Jarl Gregers, why have you brought us here to Stavanger?”
Halvard could tell that the Jarl bristled at the ostentatious stranger. Either that or the man disliked Laplanders—or he had personal knowledge of this one.
“We are facing a grave time, but I will let good Halvard explain to you all. Many of you know of him, from when he traveled to your villages to teach your people new things.” A low rumble of agreement filled the crowded courtyard below. Halvard had traveled most of the country about twenty years previously, assessing the population of what had been called Norway before he had been born. Along the way he had made many friends. “I expect that you will lend him your attention, as you would lend it to me. Halvard speaks of important matters.”
The Jarl turned to look at him, and nodded. Then he walked away, back toward the ladder that would take him down to the ground level and the feast awaiting them all in the longhall. The Jarl might believe in Halvard, and he had used his authority to bring all these men of war to the town, but he clearly had no desire to listen to the grave news once again. Remembering the Jarl’s wife, Halvard understood why.
“Gentlemen—and lady—we are facing a threat unlike anything we have known in many, many years,” Halvard began, his voice already growing hoarse from using the utmost volume he could manage, to address the crowd.
“What kind of threat, Halvard?” Morten asked.
“Human extinction.”
4
Val reached for a large mug of beer from the long oak table in the stone meeting room. There was nothing other than beer to drink, and although she knew better than to drink enough of it to become drunk, for now it would slake her thirst.
Eleven men from different regions of the country, including Trond, who had rushed to her rescue in the battle, stood with her. She had thanked him with a nod, and it had been all that was necessary. She knew his type: quiet and courteous…when not crushing an enemy’s skull. There were far too few men like him. Most were like Vebjørn, the mountainous thug that had tried to attack her from behind. He stood in a corner, drinking by himself, already alienated from the others by his inability to rein it in when the Jarl had blown his horn.
In an opposite corner of the room stood a man she knew of but had never met, Ulrik the Fearless. At almost a head taller than her and twice as wide, he radiated calm. But under his surface, she could sense menace. She noted that while the others all grabbed beers from the table before Halvard had started to speak, Ulrik had refrained. She also noticed that he hadn’t bothered eyeing her up or even looking at the others in the room, after he had briefly greeted Halvard. Instead, he had taken up his position, in the opposite corner from the Bear of the North, and his eyes never left the larger man. He wasn’t staring. Val thought most of those gathered in the room wouldn’t even realize what Ulrik was doing, but she understood it. He had assessed the occupants of the room and deemed Vebjørn to be the biggest threat. Ulrik leaned against the wall, as if he were disinterested and relaxed, but Val saw that his fingers were never far from the handle of his ax.
Among the others in the room was a quiet man with long, braided blond hair and a bow and quiver. His clothes were patterned like the leaves of trees, dyed many different colors, so he might blend with the forest pines. He said little, but his eyes were alert. She had not heard his name. There were a few others she didn’t know, and then there was Morten the Hammer and his friend Oskar. The former had introduced himself to her, while his friend had simply looked at her chest brazenly.
“Let us begin,” Halvard said, clearing his throat. “I am old, and I get tired quickly, so I will tell the twelve of you, and ask that you pass this information on to the others.”
No one spoke, but many heads nodded assent.
“Do any of you know much of the Utslettelse—the Great Annihilation?”
Again, no one spoke.
“Very well. Over one hundred years ago, nearly sixty years before I was born, this world was a very different place. You see the remains all around you. Stavanger was once a city of perhaps one hundred and thirty thousand people. Now there are but three hundred—and it is one of the biggest towns in the North, as you are all well aware. It was an amazing world. Men traveled the skies in flying metal birds. They spoke to each other across great distances through machines small enough to fit in your hand, and weapons could be sent around the world—Midgard—to kill entire nations of people.” Halvard sighed at the loss of the world’s technologies.
“How do you know these things?” Val asked him.
He turned to her, a man weary with the knowledge of things others did not know. “I was taught many things by my father. He was a scholar before me, and he learned these things from his father. And from many books. I too, learned many things from the books I could find in my travels.”
“You can read the old languages?” Morten asked.
Halvard simply nodded. “I can. The world was a very different place, but wars and sickness, and earthquakes and all manner of death attacked the world for many years.”
“Ragnarok,” Oskar the Laplander whispered.
“Not quite Ragnarok, but I am sure it must have seemed so to those who lived through it. You know that at least some of the humans of the time lived through the great cataclysms, because all of us are here.” Halvard sat at a long wooden bench and drank from his mug of beer. “There were people of many kinds in those days, but our people, the people of the North, managed to withstand the sicknesses the best. That is why we all have the same colored blond hair and blue eyes. People with different colored hair had weaker constitutions and perished.”
He looked around the room, as the gathered men all looked at each other and at Val’s long blonde hair, swept back over her black leather jacket. She still wore her red-lensed goggles—she kept them on at all times—but none of the men were interested in looking at her eyes. They either looked at her body, as Vebjørn did, or they avoided her gaze as Morten the Hammer did. She didn’t care for his hubris, but she appreciated the intelligence behind his eyes.
“There was a time when men had different colored hair?” Morten asked.
“Oh, yes,” Halvard said. “Different facial features, eye color, and even the tone of their skin could go as dark as tree bark.”
Some of the gathered men grunted at this. They had heard such things around campfires as children. Whether they believed the tales, Val could not tell.
“So why are we all the same now?” Ulrik’s voice startled the gathered warriors, as if they had all forgotten he was in his corner.
Halvard turned to him, rubbing his fingers on the bridge of his nose. “It has to do with a science called genetics. Simply put, it is like the way your farmers create the strongest wheat by mixing different seeds. People have different things in them called genes. When mixed in certain ways, you get different results. The babies of two people with blonde hair and blue eyes will probably look the same. After many generations of not introducing any different looking people, most will look alike. But if you met a woman with hair the color of mud, and the two of you had a baby, the child might have yellow hair like you, or brown like the woman’s.”
“That sounds like magic,” Morten said. “Or some strange curse.”
“Believe me,” Halvard said, “I have read the old books. It was a very normal thing once. But for many decades, the only people in the North have looked like us.”
Val spoke up. “So why have you brought us? What is this emergency? What is this human extinction you spoke of?”
“Right,” the old man said. “There is a problem with the genes we all have. At first they were strong. They let
our ancestors survive the Uttslettelse and prosper. But too many years of the same genes, without the introduction of anything new, have led to stagnation. Much the same way a strain of weak wheat will remain weak if not crossbred with hardier strains.”
Morten’s face darkened. “You are talking about the barren women.”
Halvard nodded slowly. “Yes. You have all noticed a lack of successful births in the last many years. It is a problem with the genes. They are, for lack of a better word, dying. I have checked with many people around the North, and I have sent messages by carrier birds to other men of science around the world. The problem is everywhere. All humans have been unable to bring new children into the world, as of the last fifteen years or so. If we cannot find new genetic material—new seeds, if you will—then the human race will die. But if we find the correct genes, even if they are as small as a grain of sand, I know other men of science who can make the necessary changes to the genes in a laboratory. We can save the entire human race. Man and woman can continue into the future. But without the help of science, there will be no more children. We will all die, and there will be no more generations to follow us.”
“Please tell me,” Vebjørn said before belching loudly, “it is the Ålands woman.”
Val snapped her head up to look at Halvard, a scowl crossing her face.
“Of course not, no. I need you to travel far from the North, to a place where a man of science I write letters to has discovered something.”
“What has he found?” Ulrik asked.
“Genetic material that might just be the last hope for humanity. But the journey is far, and as you all know, travel by sea to the south is too perilous. Too many pirates prowl the waters. You will need to travel by land. And you will need stealth as much as strength. I think nine would be a proper number.”
Many of the gathered men nodded. Nine was a lucky number.
Val stepped forward. “Where is this ‘genetic material’ that we need?”
Halvard stood up and looked at her. “I have maps to show the way, and special equipment that will see you through. But first you’ll need to choose your leader and your group for this journey.”
“It will be easier if I choose men from this very room,” Val said.
Morten stood from the bench. “What makes you think you will be leading this mission? You are a woman. Clearly you can fight. We’ve all heard stories about you, but you have nothing to recommend you as a leader.”
Val walked around the table and stood in front of Morten. The red lenses of her goggles were an inch from his bandaged nose when she stopped, her hand on the handle of her ax. “I will lead, and you will follow. Once you agree to follow, the others will as well.”
“Sorry, but no. You will need to fight for the position of leader.” His hand slid down toward the handle of his longsword. The other men in the room remained motionless, tense.
Val tilted her head slightly, but never took her eyes from Morten. “I will not fight you, Morten the Hammer. I will need to put your craftiness to work on this trip. I do not wish to damage you, before you are of use to me.”
Morten smiled and was about to say something. She spoke first. “I will not fight you, because you will be valuable to me.” Val raised her arm, and without looking, she pointed at the corner of the room. “But I will fight him.”
Everyone turned to face Vebjørn, the Bear of the North, a man who stood two heads taller than Val and outweighed her by a hundred pounds of lean muscle. A man who was grinning at her outstretched finger, which was pointed directly at him.
5
It was the next day, and the sky was leaden with heavy gray clouds, the humidity pressing down on the harbor and trapping the pungent smell of fish and the nearby latrines for the camped fighters.
Most were still hungover, despite the sun being high behind the sky’s thick clouds. The courtyard outside the Jarl’s longhall was filled with men, all eager, despite still feeling the effects of the previous night’s alcohol, to catch sight of the fight that would determine leadership of the mission. The small but deadly woman from the islands on the far side of the Swedish lakes versus the biggest human being most of them had ever seen.
Ulrik liked the woman, but he doubted she would be able to take on Vebjørn by herself. He doubted five men, twice her size, could do it.
The woman wore her dark pants from the previous day, but she had shed her armored leather jacket, wearing only a form-fitting black tank-top. She still wore the goggles, and her face was still painted with the red downward-pointing raven’s wing design, spreading down to her mouth. She strode to the center of the courtyard, which had become an arena with spectators encircling it, the Jarl and the science-man, Halvard, back on their balcony to watch.
Val stopped walking near the center of the courtyard, standing on the buckled and cracked concrete. At her side, still sheathed, was her long ax, and on her other hip was a knife and a hand ax.
Ulrik watched the crowd of men on the far side of the area part for Vebjørn. The man sauntered into the center like a Jarl or a King. After he kills her and leads the mission, if he returns alive, he probably will be a Jarl...or a King, Ulrik thought. The man was the size of a building, and his bare chest rippled with power. He wore just shorts and boots, and he held a long double-headed ax, like Trond’s. It was so big, Ulrik doubted the woman would have even been able to lift it.
This is going to be unpleasant.
He wondered if the Jarl would have some words for the crowd, but no one seemed in the mood—least of all the Bear of the North. The man had stopped a dozen feet from the thin blonde woman, but now he simply rushed her, bringing his massive ax behind him for an overhead vertical sweep that would plunge down straight in front of him, cleaving the woman in half.
To Val’s credit, she did not flee in terror. She stood still. Her hand did not even move for her long ax.
The crowd held their collective breath.
Vebjørn approached, and his ax started to come down. When he was within striking distance, Val suddenly moved—with explosive speed. She leapt to the left, twisting like a corkscrew. The long double ax missed her and the blade bit into a long soil-filled crack in the concrete.
The woman slid the wickedly shaped hand ax from her belt while spinning in the air, and she pinwheeled her legs, flipping her body around. Before her feet hit the ground, she swung hard and sank the pointed bottom edge of the ax head into the Bear’s shoulder meat. The blade chewed into the muscle and bone beneath it, then came to an abrupt jolting stop.
Val, still holding tightly to the handle of the small weapon, was left suspended, her boots dangling two feet off the ground. She didn’t stay motionless, though. With her other hand she pulled the black handle of the short knife on her belt, reversed it in her grip and then stabbed it into Vebjørn’s other shoulder. This time the giant howled in pain.
Val scrambled up the man’s back, frantic, grunting and tugging her blades out and sinking them back in, like a woman climbing a ladder. Vebjørn dropped the handle of his oversized weapon and reached with both arms over his shoulders, trying to grab the scrabbling woman who was repeatedly stabbing him. But his own massive biceps prevented his reach from being long enough.
Instead, he thrust his body backward, falling over and mashing the small woman into the ground. He drove the air out of her with the heft of his upper body’s weight.
The move drove her knife so deeply into his back that only an inch of the handle showed of a seven inch-long weapon. But as the Bear rolled to his side to get up, Ulrik could see the smaller hand ax had been knocked free.
Val rolled on the cracked ground, chest heaving as her lungs tried to pull in some air. Vebjørn reached down and grabbed her by her hair, tugging her across rough concrete. She reached up, trying to dislodge him from her hair with her fingers, but he was too strong. He dragged her behind him, as he walked toward his fallen ax.
Val’s hand slid down to her own long ax and quickly pulled it fre
e from the metal loop on which it hung. She used both hands on the handle and swung it up at herself, the head of the ax clearing her head and sinking vertically into the middle of the Bear’s wrist, even as the dark handle wrapped in leather cord smashed into her own face.
It was almost comical: twin arcs of blood erupted from Vebjørn’s wrist and Val’s face at the same time.
The Bear howled and staggered away from the woman, clutching his wrist to his chest. Freed from the massive man’s hand tugging her hair, the woman was back on her feet and leaping once again. She appeared to be lunging away from the Bear, but once again, at the last second she rolled her body, stretching her arm to its full extent. She let her ax handle slide through her hand, until the very knob at the end caught in her grip.
The swing had length, which meant it had leverage, and Ulrik knew it would have the same power as a shorter swing from a stronger fighter. The edge of the ax head sank sideways into the back of Vebjørn’s neck, and lodged there, trapped deep in a vertebra.
Val continued her roll through the air, and landed on her feet, her legs bending into a crouch to absorb the kinetic force. Vebjørn staggered forward, his body on a slow tumble to the broken concrete and tufts of wild grass below him. But Val was making sure. She lunged to the ground, snagging the discarded hand ax, and rolling in front of the falling mass. Ulrik thought she would be crushed under the weight of the man, like a falling tree pressing grass into soil.
But the woman struck upward with the devious pointed end of her hand-held ax, embedding the blade in the Bear’s eye socket, before she performed a backward-somersault, just out of the reach of where the giant man’s body would hit. Out of weapons, the woman came to a halt in a crouch just inches beyond where Vebjørn’s face cracked into the concrete, three gouts of blood spurting out to either side of his ruined head and above it.
Viking Tomorrow (The Berserker Saga Book 1) Page 3