The Brave New World - 143 Blood Lus

They were on their way to the purported mine around half an hour later.

Lasse was in front. There were three reasons for this. First of all, Lasse knew how to track – not as well as Henrik, but he’d also done plenty of hunting with his marksman bow, back in the old times.

Secondly, Lasse was the only Viking who hadn’t been spattered with blood – he wouldn’t scare off anyone encountered, at least not as badly as the other Vikings, richly decorated with other people’s blood. The third reason was his bow. If they ran into someone, and that someone did get scared and tried to run run, Lasse would nail him. His new bow was a vast improvement on the previous one – Lasse could hit a palm-sized target at twenty paces, and as earlier events had proved he had no problem hitting a man-sized target at distances much greater than that.

Jens came next, a good twenty steps behind Lasse. He would rush to Lasse’s aid as needed, and do his best to stay out of sight otherwise. Sven and Johan followed another ten steps back. Sven didn’t want to lead the group because he needed private thinking time. A lot had happened in the past hour or so.

It had been a splendid victory. The prize was magnificent: a ready-to-live-in settlement outfitted with all the basic workshops, and with plenty of stored food. There were lots of well-made tools too – axes, hammers, shovels and spades, rakes, pitchforks – there was even a wood plane, several spindles, and two weaving frames.

Sven had mixed feelings about this, because Svenborg appeared poor by comparison. He had been very proud of his capital. Now he was faced with the sad truth someone had made more progress than him. He had to find out why.

The Vikings had begun colonizing the New World practically the moment the cubes appeared, so a time handicap could be ruled out. The colonists they’d just killed clearly had better knowledge, better skills. It was a pity they couldn’t be taken prisoner.

When he reflected on this, Sven realized that he had made a bad move. He’d wanted to prevent any possibility of anyone discovering that the Vikings had founded an illegal colony. Sonberg knew, but Sonberg was all right. Sonberg got at least three kilos of lamb, a dozen eggs, and a kilo of mixed New World wild fruit and vegetables every single fucking week. Sonberg was fat, and wanted to stay that way.

However, colonizers whose New World settlement had just been taken over were sure to complain back home. They would point out that the attackers had to have come from an illegal colony. Swords, axes, armor – such items weren’t possible to acquire within a month of arriving in the New World. And having been taken prisoner, they’d also be sure to learn enough, given time, to identify Sven Holm and his motorcycle gang as the culprits.

His blood lust had blinded him. He could have taken them prisoner. More, he could have tried to work out a deal. Those colonists could have been quite willing to join the Viking empire, especially if the alternative was death. True, it would have been a headache; Sven had no illusions about forced loyalty. But with time, little accidents could have been arranged, here and there, until only the children of the conquered colonists remained. New World children that knew no other reality than Viking rule.

And in the meantime, twenty pairs of skilled hands would have been working for him.

On top of that, he’d made another, minor blunder. He’d assumed Johan took active part in the combat despite his misgivings – he’d patted his shoulder, taken him along because of that! But before they’d left the captured settlement, Sven found out that the blood on Johan’s blade came from a dog, the dog he’d heard barking when they were preparing to attack. That brave dog tried to defend the village from the invaders; with animal cunning, it selected Johan as the weakest target. The only killing Johan did was in self defense, defense against a fucking dog.

If there were injured enemies or prisoners to be killed off in the near future, he would appoint Johan as their executioner. Yes, there would be prisoners to be killed off in the near future. He had to take a prisoner or two, at the mine or whatever the path was leading to. He had to find out where the founders of the village had originated from, back home. He had to find out who they were, how it was possible for them to advance so far, so fast.

He saw a lizard pretending to be a stick among the plant debris littering the path: the cold wasn’t bad enough to send it into hibernation, but it had made it so sleepy and lazy it didn’t skitter out of the way of the approaching giants. He was about to crush its skull with his heel as punishment, but at the last moment he changed his mind and stepped over it. He had to control his blood lust, his love of violence and combat a little more. It made him stupid. Loving something or someone always made one stupid. He’d learned that much.

Sven shut out his thoughts, looked at the grey sky, and looked at Lasse up front just in time to see Lasse raise his hand in warning. He saw Henrik stop and stopped himself instantly; the stupid Johan continued until Sven hissed:

“Freeze, moron.”

They stood in silence and they all heard what Lasse had heard first: a faint, rhythmic clanging. It came in short series: clink-clang-clang, clang-clang, clink-clang.

They were all looking at him, waiting for his decision. Sven raised his arms and swung them in as if grasping something to his chest. They all gathered around him, and Lasse said right away:

“I think you were right, Sven. It’s a mine. That sound, someone is hammering a spike into something. Probably rock with veins of ore.”

It was exactly the conclusion Sven had come to in the meantime, and he was a little annoyed Lasse got to reveal it first. He said:

“Good thinking, Lasse. Good because it reflects what I think, too.”

He grinned at Lasse, and continued:

“We have to get off the path and out of sight, just in case. Lasse, you and Jens take the left side. Jens, you’ll move first, twenty-thirty steps. Wait for Lasse to catch up, then repeat. We’ll follow you two on the other side of the path and twenty steps back. Jens, make sure I can see you when you want to signal something.”

The all moved into position and proceeded, as smoothly as a well-oiled machine: Johan was being extra diligent to make up for his earlier mistake. He was acting the way a freshly reprimanded kid acts around a grown up, even though there were less than ten years of age between him and Sven. Sven observed this discreetly – the kid had a conscience. That was both good and bad. Good because he’d always try to do better, bad because people with a conscience were harder to train to do distasteful things.

Sven decided he’d have a little talk with Johan, soon. He’d explain things were different in the New World. He seemed to remember that Johan was one of those guys that played lots of video games. If that was right, it would all be simple: the New World is like an ultra-realistic video game, Johan. You kill but you don’t, not really, and when someone kills you, you aren’t really dead. It’s just fun and games, enjoy the guiltless gore.

He would go to all this trouble because his intuition told him Johan was promising material, someone who would make a very good Viking indeed given the right mindset. He had a good physique too, far better than most video gamers. And he moved well, with the fluid grace of a field athlete. Yes, Johan definitely was someone Sven would watch closely.

The clanging got louder and louder as they got closer to the mine. It was still well out of sight when they started hearing other noises too: the muffled thudding of a pick, the crunching of rock being split, occasionally a voice uttering what sounded like a command or a curse.

When they got close enough to distinguish individual voices and make out what they said, they gathered together again, on Sven’s side of the path. Lasse said:

“You were hundred percent right, Sven. It’s a mine. There’s a guy working in a cave or shallow tunnel with a pick, and there are two guys on the outside. One’s working with a spike and hammer on the rock face, the other’s splitting pieces of rock into smaller ones. There could be a fourth guy, I’ve heard them make references to someone who is away.”

“The fourth guy was at the village,” said Sven. “He’d brought in a basket of ore. We killed him this morning. There are three of them, one in a deep cave or tunnel from the sounds of it. It’s going to be very easy.”

“More fucking slaughter,” said Jens, and grinned widely. Johan flinched ever so slightly.

“No,” said Sven. “We need to find out more about them. I want prisoners this time. One or two, we’ll have to kill someone right away so that they see we aren’t joking.”

Jens and Lasse weren’t happy about that; Johan was. Sven said:

“Of course you might have no choice. But I really want at least one alive.”

“Maybe we should just take out the ones outside and capture the guy in the cave,” suggested Jens. “He has to come out sooner or later.”

“We’re not going to wait for him to come out,” said Sven. “If he doesn’t come out right away, he’s dead. But good thinking, Jens. Let’s try to take one of the guys outside alive too, though. Just in case he knows something the other doesn’t. One more very important thing.”

He fell silent and looked at each of them in turn to make sure they got the importance of his message.

“They cannot identify us,” he said. “So no first names. I’m one, Lasse two, Jens three, Johan four. Those are our new names. Second point: all of you keep your traps shut around the captive or captives, however it turns out. You don’t speak until I speak to you and I’ll make sure to phrase things so that you answer with a yes or no. Got it?”

They did, including Johan. He could see it in their eyes.

“Good,” he said. “Spread out a little and follow me closely, two paces. Lasse, I want you to my left. Let’s go.”

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