A man who had been standing clear of the lander came at him with a spear. Gabe stabbed him in the belly with the knife. He caught a glimpse of the man’s face as he fell—he was just a kid, no older than sixteen. Gabe pulled the knife back, put the kid’s face out of his mind and ran. Two more came at him from his right, but the one nearest him was still dazed from the shock. Gabe sliced at the man’s neck and he dodged clumsily, stumbling into the other man. The two of them fell to the snow. Gabe ran.
Some others noticed him as he neared the nose, and one of them shouted and pointed. Soon a dozen men were chasing him. A spear whizzed past his left ear, sticking in the snow some twenty paces ahead. He kept running without looking back. He had no clear goal in mind—only to get as far away from the lander as possible. The prevailing wind was blowing north, and he was heading east, so he’d probably be safe from fallout—assuming he survived the initial blast.
The alarm chimed again in his ear. Ten minutes past the failsafe point. According to Reyes, the reactor could blow at any moment. How long would it take for the heat from the meltdown to reach the fuel tanks? He had no way to know, but he suspected it wouldn’t be long. Even running at top speed, he’d be hard-pressed to get out of the blast range in time. He ran.
He heard men yelling not far behind him. Something hard struck his lower back, nearly knocking him off his feet. Probably a spear. The nanofiber shielding had saved him again. His legs were getting tired and his lungs burned. The forest was now less than fifty meters off. If he could make it there, at least he’d have some cover. Gabe had been the fastest runner in his class at the academy, but he’d been cooped up in a spaceship for way too long. The odds were pretty good that at least one of these strapping Norsemen was faster than he.
He reached the woods just as an axe slammed into a birch tree a meter to his left. He kept running, keeping as best as he could to a straight line while putting some trees between him and his pursuers. The crunching on dead twigs behind him told him that the nearest man was now only about ten meters back. They were gaining on him.
He couldn’t keep up this pace much longer, and the forest presented new challenges. The trees were far enough apart here that he could still run at a near-sprint, but the ground was littered with leaves, twigs and roots that were mostly covered by the snow. One wrong step and he’d go sprawling to the ground. The men behind him continued to gain, and he didn’t dare slow down. He lungs were on fire and his legs felt like rubber, but he kept running.
And fell. His left foot hooked under a root and a half-second later he was prone, sliding on his belly across the rough, snowy forest floor. The first man was on him by the time he managed to turn around. Gabe got his left arm up just in time to block the spear thrust. The spear slid across the outside of his forearm, tearing his sleeve open and slicing a gash in his skin. The spearhead missed his ribcage by the width of a finger, embedding itself into the snow and earth. Gabe gripped the shaft with his right hand as the man tried to pull it away, giving him a hard kick in his sternum. The man huffed and stumbled backwards, letting go of his weapon.
Another man, this one armed with an axe, shoved the spearman aside as several others approached from both sides. Gabe scrambled away, but there was nowhere to go. He was surrounded.
“Hvaðan ertu?” the man with the axe barked.
“The ship is yours,” Gabe gasped. “Take it.”
“Hvað heitir þú?” the man demanded.
“I’m Gabe. Gabe Zuehlsdorf.”
“Harald es jarl minn. Kom aptr með oss til hans.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Statt upp,” the man said, gesturing upward with his hand.
Gabe stared at him, pretending not to understand.
“Statt upp!” the man barked again, kicking Gabe’s shin.
Gabe shook his head. The man with the axe barked something to the others. Two of the men crouched down to grab Gabe by his arms. As they did so, the sky behind the man with the axe lit up with a blinding flash. Gabe had just enough time to shut his eyes, clamp his hands over his ears and roll into a ball, turning his back to the blast. He dug his face into the cold snow.
The shockwave was like being hit with a two-by-four over every inch of his body. The Earth shifted beneath him. A deafening boom sounded a second later, followed by a blast of scorching wind. The man with the axe fell on top of him, inadvertently shielding him from the worst of the fireball. Even so, the exposed parts of Gabe’s skin felt like they’d been pressed against a griddle. The hot wind continued for several seconds and then faded, replaced by a cold counter-draft sucking air back into the vacuum left by the blast. Gabe became aware of a droning hum that he realized after a moment was the man on top of him screaming. The wind settled to a strong breeze.
Gabe opened his eyes and crawled out from under the man. All around him, trees were on fire. The snow had melted as far as he could see; steam was hissing up from the hot ground. Closer to the lander, nearly half of the trees had been knocked down, and flaming limbs were falling all around. As the breeze faded, the air became so hot that it stung his eyes and made it hard to breathe. Some of the men lying nearby began to stir. Their clothes—and in some cases, their hair—were on fire. Muted screams filled the air.
The skin on the backs of his hands was already beginning to blister, and the pain on the back of his neck was nearly unbearable. He scooped up a handful of muddy snow from where he had been lying and slapped it on his neck. Cold water ran down his back underneath the flight suit. He struggled to his feet.
A vast mushroom cloud towered over the plain. The lander and anything within a hundred yards of it had been vaporized. His view of the cloud grew fuzzy as the steam and smoke mingled around him, obscuring his vision. Gabe turned away from the explosion and stumbled forward, coughing in the smoke and doing his best to shield his face from the heat of the fires all around him. Soon he could barely see his feet in front of him, and the melting snow was turning the ground to muck, but he trudged on, doing his best to avoid burning limbs and fallen logs.
After a few minutes, the smoke began to thin and he saw fewer and fewer trees burning. In the distance, there were still patches of snow on the ground. The nape of his neck felt like it was on fire again, so he pressed on toward one of the patches. When he reached it, he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Sparing a glance behind him, he saw that he was alone. The Norsemen chasing him were either dead or too badly burned to continue pursuing him. Allowing himself a moment to rest, he scooped up some more snow and pressed it against his neck. When his lungs had stopped burning, he struggled to his feet.
He heard the footsteps too late, his hearing dulled by the blast. He’d just gotten the pistol out of its holster when something hard struck him alongside his temple. He fell sideways into the snow, dazed. Some seconds passed, and when he reached again for the gun, it was gone. Looking up, he saw a large man standing over him. The man held a sword in his right hand, and Gabe’s gun in his left. He had a forked, braided beard and a jagged scar running from his left cheek to his chin. His tunic was stained with blood. The man grinned at Gabe. “Stattu upp,” he said.
It was Gunnar.
Chapter Twenty-three
Reyes, Sigurd and the others were still about three klicks out when she saw the flash. She spun around and yelled, “Down!”, and then dropped prone with her hands over her head. She could only hope the others had understood the warning. If they weren’t following suit, they’d understand what she was doing soon enough.
A split-second after she hit the ground, the shockwave hit, followed closely by a deafening boom. Wind rushed over her; even at this distance, she could feel the heat. She kept her eye clamped shut for another ten seconds as debris clattered to the ground around them. Hearing awed murmurs and gasps, she opened her eyes and got to her feet.
Sigurd and Njáll stood just behind her, staring at the mushroom cloud rising above the trees. The others—Agnar, Brynnjar and Braggi—sat on t
he ground, dazed. None of them looked seriously injured.
“Hvat es þetta?” asked Sigurd at last.
“The lander,” Reyes said. “Our ship.” She sighed. She hadn’t allowed herself to believe that Gabe would really do it. She knew he must have felt he had no choice, but she had actually believed Gabe would find some way to save the lander. Now they were stuck here. Gabe was dead, and the human race was doomed.
They stood for some time watching the cloud billow and slowly dissipate. Sigurd’s face held only grim horror; the others were literally gaping open-mouthed. These men had never even seen a firecracker.
Reyes had never seen an explosion of such magnitude up close either, but she’d been inured to this sort of destruction. Humanity had been at war with the Cho-ta’an since before she was born. In a strange way, the explosion of the lander marked the end of that war. Humanity had been defeated.
She tried to make the words mean something, but she felt nothing but numb. Getting the bomb to the IDL had always seemed like a long shot, and in some ways it was good to have the matter settled. She—and the rest of humanity—had been clinging to shreds of hope for far too long.
Pressing more heavily on her was the fate of Haavaldsrud. More than fifty people had been slaughtered, including Sigurd’s own son. Sigurd’s rage was the only thing keeping him going now; he was determined to kill the men responsible for his son’s death. She suspected he would take little comfort in the knowledge Harald’s men had died in the explosion. Judging by the look on his face, he had already figured it out. There was nothing for them to do but go back for Slater and O’Brien, who were waiting in the longhouse. The rest of the villagers had traveled south.
Sigurd took a step forward, as if he planned to get a better look at the destruction. Reyes put a hand on his chest and shook her head.
“No. That explosion… Dangerous.” How the hell was she going to explain radiation to pre-industrial people who didn’t even speak English? The amount of fissile material in the proton reactor was relatively small; she doubted there was much danger at this distance, but she wouldn’t want to get any closer—at least not until the debris settled. Fortunately the wind was blowing almost due north, away from Haavaldsrud.
Sigurd took her hand and gently moved it aside. He strode forward, and the others followed him. Reyes continued to protest, but it was no use. They were determined to get a closer look. Reyes debated whether she should go with them or return to her crew. How much longer did she really expect to live in this environment anyway? She’d probably be impaled by a spear or eaten by a bear before she succumbed to radiation poisoning. But at last caution won out. She tapped the open channel icon on her cuff to let O’Brien and Slater know she was on her way back. Her heart jumped as she saw the green dot next to Gabe’s name. That meant his comm was still functioning. If he’d died in the explosion, the comm would have gone with him.
She tapped his name. “Gabe,” she said. “Gabe, come in. It’s Reyes.”
There was no reply. She waited several seconds and tried again. Still no reply. Sigurd and the others had disappeared around a bend in the path. She had been resigned to let them go without her, but now things had changed. She needed to find Gabe. But how? She could estimate distance based on signal strength, but triangulating his location would be impossible without another receiver. She could go get Slater, but if Gabe was being held captive, he could be a hundred klicks away before they pinpointed his location.
She ran after the Norsemen, stopping on the trail just behind Agnar, who was bringing up the rear.
“Wait!” she cried. “Stop!”
Sigurd halted and the others did the same. “Hvat es málit?” asked Sigurd.
“Gabe,” Reyes said, tapping her ear. “Alive.”
*****
Gunnar couldn’t help chuckling to himself as he followed the foreigner through the woods. This had worked out far better than he had imagined. Having seen what the foreigners’ weapons could do, he’d never believed Harald’s men could take the lander. In fact, he suspected the only reason they had come so close was that something had gone wrong with Gabe’s weapon. He had either run out of the projectiles it fired or something had broken down within the mechanism itself. Gunnar assumed that Geir’s men would be defeated; his plan was to wait for the foreigner to get tired and then sneak up on the ship, hiding among the dead and waiting for an opportunity to disarm the foreigner. If the opportunity didn’t come, he could still walk back to the fortress at Svelvig. He doubted anyone would question his valor: he’d been seriously wounded in the first attack, and he could certainly make up an explanation for how he was able to escape again. Besides, Ragnar would be too interested in hearing about the foreigners’ weapons to worry much about Gunnar’s curious penchant for survival.
But this! This was too much to ask for. The foreigner had practically run right to him! When the foreigner had fallen, Gunnar had thought he’d missed his chance, but then the ship had burst into flame, incapacitating the other Norsemen. Gunnar had nearly been killed himself; it had only been instinct that had caused him to dive behind a large oak stump a moment after the flash. Even so, his hair had been scorched in the blast and his ears were still ringing.
“Left!” he shouted to the foreigner, who was trudging along some five paces in front of him. Gunnar had tied his hands behind him with a strip of a dead man’s cloak.
The foreigner veered right, and Gunnar yelled, “Left, you fool!” This time the foreigner went the correct way.
Gunnar was tempted to try to fire a warning shot with the weapon he’d taken off the foreigner, but he feared he would do it wrong and the thing would explode in his hand. It wasn’t necessary anyway: the wound in Gunnar’s shoulder made running difficult, but the foreigner wouldn’t get very far with his hands tied behind his back. The foreigner didn’t know this land, and he had no friends here. His only hope was to do as Gunnar instructed and hope he would be allowed to live.
Not wanting to risk meeting enemies coming across the bridge, Gunnar had opted for a different route. They would move southeast through the woods until they hit the river. They would then follow the river to the next village, where they could take a boat down the river to the fortress at Svelvig. It was a more treacherous and time-consuming route, but he couldn’t risk the chance of someone waiting for him at the bridge.
Gunnar panicked for a moment as he heard a voice, then realized it was the foreigner talking to himself. Or was he speaking with someone else? Did the foreigners have some way of speaking to each other over great distances?
Gunnar drew his sword and took several quick steps forward. He brought the sword back and cracked the foreigner on the top of his head with the flat of the blade. “Quiet!” he shouted. The foreigner stumbled, reeling into a tree. Steadying himself, he started walking again, without making a sound.
*****
Sigurd approached Reyes, a curious look on his face. “Á lífi? Hvar?”
Reyes held up her hand. “Gabe, come in,” she repeated. “This is Reyes. We’re near the lander. Where are you?”
“East of the lander site,” Gabe’s voice said quietly. “Maybe three hundred meters, heading southeast. I can’t—” His voice cut off abruptly.
“Gabe,” Reyes said. “Gabe, are you there?” The channel was still open, but there was no sound.
“Hvar?” Sigurd asked again.
“I don’t know,” Reyes said. “I think he’s been taken captive.”
Sigurd stared at her.
“Captured.” She gripped her left wrist with her right hand, pantomiming someone being taken against their will. “Enemy. Hvar?”
Sigurd nodded, seeming to understand. “Brú,” he said, pointing back the way they had come.
Reyes hesitated. She knew what he was saying: the road south to Svelvig was on the other side of the river. To get there, you had to cross the bridge. But Gabe had said he was east of the lander, heading southeast. Assuming he was being taken to Svelvig, that
meant that either there was another way south, or there was another way across the river.
She crouched and drew a wavy line in the snow. “River,” she said. She placed a twig across the wavy line. “Brú.” Then she placed a pebble a few centimeters down the wavy line. “Us,” she said, pointing at the pebble and then at herself. She placed another pebble where she guessed Gabe was, relative to them. “Gabe.” She put a piece of bark farther down the river and said, “Svelvig.” Then she picked up the twig. “Nei brú,” she said. “How does Gabe get to Svelvig without crossing the bridge?”
Sigurd nodded. He turned and discussed the matter with the other men for a moment. Then he knelt down and drew a line on along the eastern side of the river. At the end of the line, he placed a piece of a leaf, then set the pebble representing Gabe on top of it. “Bátr.” He dragged the leaf across the river to piece of bark.
“Bátr,” Reyes repeated. “Boat. They’d follow the river south and then take a boat across to Svelvig.”
Sigurd nodded again. He got to his feet and barked orders to the others. After a brief exchange, Agnar, Brynjarr and Njáll set off running—Brynjarr to the south, Agnar and Njáll to the southeast. Reyes had understood enough to know that he had sent Brynjarr to watch the bridge and the others to the riverbank to the south. With any luck, one of them would spot Gabe. She hoped that Sigurd had instructed them to return to them if he did; she wasn’t anxious to see just how good the Norsemen were with their pistols.
“Gabe, it’s Reyes. Cough if you can hear me.”
After a moment, she heard Gabe cough.
“We think they’re going to take you south along the river and then take a boat across to Svelvig. If you’ve reached the river, cough.”
There was no response.
“Agnar and Njáll are headed toward you. Brynjarr is watching the bridge. They’re going to try to get to the river before you. Move as slowly as you can.”
The Dream of the Iron Dragon Page 23