The Brave New World - 141 The God of War

The morning mist was lifting, and Sven was finally able to make out the buildings of the settlement across the lake.

His war party had arrived in the area the previous afternoon. It had been raining hard all day, and everyone was in a nasty mood. Some of his men wanted to attack the settlement right away, and Sven knew why.

“You’ll have to stay wet for one more night,” he told them. “We won’t attack until we know the exact layout of that village. I don’t want anyone there to get away.”

They scouted out the village’s perimeter that same evening. They came across a path leading away from the lake and into the forest. Sven would have missed it in the rain and the murk that came with the dusk, but Henrik once again proved his worth as Sven’s best scout.

He halted the scouting party with an upraised hand, dropped to one knee, and examined the ground. He beckoned Sven to join him, and whispered:

“There are people walking through here regularly. Not many, maybe a couple, once or twice a day. They’re coming and going, to the village and away from it, inland. The ones going to the village are carrying heavy loads.”

“How can you tell all that?” marveled Sven. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”

“My grandfather took me hunting a lot when I was a kid. I loved it. He taught me how to track animals. He could tell whether it was a moose or a reindeer that had passed, whether it was walking, trotting, or running, and how much it weighed. Those people going to the village… The ground is wet, so maybe they aren’t carrying as much as I thought. Tracks are always deeper in soft, wet ground.”

“I still can’t see a single fucking track.”

“There.” Sven’s eyes followed Henrik’s pointing finger, and indeed he there was suspicious hollow in the moss. The ground everywhere was liberally sprinkled with pale, dried-out fir needles, and Sven saw that the ones in the hollow were bent or broken.

“It’s probably the path to the mine,” he whispered to Henrik.

“What mine?”

“They have a blacksmith, so they have metal ore. They must have a mine somewhere.”

“They’ll have people working there.”

“Correct.”

“Maybe we should check this out before we attack.”

Sven shook his head.

“No,” he whispered. “We’ll capture the village, and lie in ambush for anyone that shows up. Chances are they’ve got hunters and gatherers out in the country. It’s September, my guess is most of them will be busy harvesting food for the winter. We’ll wait for them to come home.”

They spent a couple more hours that evening reconnoitering the area around the settlement. They found another path leading along the shore of the lake. It was marked by fish scales scattered here and there, and Henrik guessed it must lead to a good fishing spot further down the shore.

“It will clear soon,” said Sven, and took Uwe along on a trip to a good observation point across the lake from the village. It involved getting thoroughly wet while crossing the river, and Uwe wasn’t happy about that.

“I feel I have a bad cold coming,” he complained soon after they found a good lookout spot atop a small cliff close to the shore.

“I’m as wet as you are. You want to go home?” said Sven. That shut Uwe up.

As Sven predicted, within an hour after sunrise the mist had cleared enough to see the village. It seemed dead. Nothing and no one was moving. But there were people there, all right: Sven could see the smoke rising from the rooftops.

The settlers definitely had metal tools, and good tools too: the small pier had been built with well-hewn timber. There would be several very sharp axes in that settlement, for sure. For a moment, Sven regretted bringing just one bow and two crossbows. But he brushed the thought away: all his men excelled at melee combat.

Every single male in Holm’s nascent empire was obliged to spend at least an hour every day training with two weapons of his choice. A year and a half added up to a lot of hours. They had good swords and axes and throwing spears, and knew how to use them. It was time to start putting thought into action.

“Okay, we’ve seen enough,” he said to Uwe. “Let’s rejoin the others.”

When they did, Henrik had some news.

“Karl and I went to have a look at that path in full daylight,” he told Sven. “You know, the one you said leads to their mine. Almost the moment we got there a guy comes trotting along with a big wicker basket. It was pretty heavy, he shifted it from hand to hand twice while we watched him, and we only watched him for a couple of minutes, maybe less.”

“He didn’t see you?”

“Of course not.”

“He was going into the village?”

“Yes.”

“Then that mine must be pretty close,” said Sven. “He must have left some time after dawn, and that was what, two hours ago?”

“A little longer than that.”

“And you saw him when?”

“Uh, maybe an hour ago. Yeah, around an hour.”

“The sun moves faster with every day now,” Sven reminded him.

“You’re right, I didn’t allow for the day getting shorter Less than an hour, then. But not by much.”

“Okay,” said Sven. “Has everyone had breakfast?”

“Yes, if you can call it breakfast.”

“I want everyone to come closer,” said Sven, and waited until they assembled before him in a semicircle.

“We’re going to split into three groups,” he told them. “I’ll take Lasse and Jens. Henrik, you head the second group. Choose three guys to go with you, and include one crossbow. Lennart, you’ll lead the third group. Same setup, if you and Henrik want the same guy you’ll have to sort it out among yourselves.”

“Does this mean we’re going to fight, too?” said Johan, one of the porters.

Sven gave him an appraising look. The porters – Johan and Hans – had been chosen from among relatively recent recruits to the New World; Sven remembered that they’d arrived sometime in late spring. They had weapons – short axes and blades resembling machetes, and by now they were sure to have had over a hundred hours of training. But they had no armor and no helmets. And most importantly, they had no combat experience. They hadn’t killed anyone yet.

He grinned at each of them in turn, and said:

“You might have to fight, yes, and I’m sure you’ll do just fine. One of you will bring up the rear in each group. If any of the boys in front has to deal with more than one opponent, you move in to help. Clear?”

He gave each of them a sharp glance. They fidgeted, and had difficulty meeting his eye. They definitely were short of confidence in their own abilities. But he saw no fear, and that was what counted most.

“I’m fine with that,” said Johan and Hans, the other new boy, nodded in agreement.

“Good,” said Sven. “We’re going to hit them from three directions. I’ll attack along the shore. Henrik, you’ll advance along the path to the mine. Lennart, you have the farthest to go: you’ll take your men all around the village, and attack along the shore from the other side. Watch out for fishermen on that path there. Everything clear so far?”

They nodded, and Sven continued:

“Get as close to the buildings as you can while staying out of sight, and wait. You’ll hear me shout when it’s time to strike. If something happens, if you’re about to be discovered, don’t wait for me – give me a shout, and go for it. Three abreast, crossbow in the center, the new boy jumps in to take his place as needed. Got it?”

The new boys looked uncomfortable with being called new boys. That was good. It would make them eager to show they were just as good as the old boys.

“You’ll just have Jens and Lasse with you,” Henrik observed.

“We’ll manage,” Sven said. “As long as you’re all in position when I give you the signal. I want to attack about half an hour from now. That gives you more than enough time to get into position. Questions?”

“What about prisoners?” asked Johan.

“We’re not taking any.”

“Women and kids?”

“I said, we’re not taking any prisoners. Got it? If your conscience bothers you, make sure they die quickly and without unnecessary pain.”

He stared hard at Johan, making it clear he didn’t appreciate stupid questions.

“You’ll go with Henrik,” he decided. “Lennart, you’ll take Hans. Okay, get moving.”

He waited until both Henrik and Lennart left with their teams, discreetly watching Johan. He seemed all right, eager and alert when Henrik issued him orders.

He turned to his companions and said:

“I’ll go first. You two follow ten paces behind. When I drop to a crawl, you start crawling too. No noise.”

He set off and smiled to himself when he heard them begin to follow exactly on his tenth step. They were good, those two. He preferred having the two of them over half a dozen new boys. Both Jens and Lasse had spent well over a year in the New World. They knew what was what.

They’d camped just over half a kilometer from the village, in a spot Henrik was sure wasn’t frequented by anyone for quite a while. They half walked, half ran crouching from tree to tree for just a few minutes before Sven dropped to one knee, raising a hand.

He stayed frozen for a while, listening hard and sniffing the air. He was pretty sure the village lay just behind the mild rise in front. He looked over his shoulder at Lasse and Jens. They grinned at him. They were ready.

Sven shifted the equipment fastened to his belt to his back, and lay down on the ground. He began to crawl: left arm and right leg forward, then right arm and left leg. He stopped occasionally to clear stones and sticks out of his way, and he was pleased to hear that Lasse and Jens made almost no sound at all.

He loved this: sneaking up on an enemy, blood hissing in his ears, heart pounding with the thrill of the coming fight. He was born to do this. Everyone was born to a certain calling, to a profession that would make the best use of their inborn talent. Sven was rock certain he was born to make war. That was what he loved most. He was the god of war.

As he had thought, the village came into view when he reached the top of the rise. He could see parts of two buildings through the trees: a log cabin, and a shed of some sort. They were just under a hundred paces away. He raised himself on his elbow, and signaled the others to join him. When they did, he whispered:

“Let’s try to get a little closer. Spread out to the sides to form a line. Eye contact every few seconds, when any of us stops the rest stops too. Lennart won’t be in position for a few more minutes, so we can take our time, slow and careful all the way. Okay, go.”

He waited for them to get into position. When they were ready, he began moving forward once again.

He had barely covered a couple of meters when a dog started barking in the village.

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