The Reluctant Warrior (6 page)

Jed looked at Rex and Jonathon who in turn looked at him. This wasn’t what they had told Erik. They had merely said they were looking for a sanctuary; somewhere they would be safe from Montrose.

“He’s dropped us right in it,” Rex whispered. “We’ll be seen as the saviors who’ll lead them to victory.”

“We’re going to have to play along,” Jed whispered back. “If we don’t it might not go too well for us.”

Erik stopped at a log cabin and waited patiently as an old man stepped off the porch and made his way painstakingly towards them. “Why have you brought our enemy here?” he demanded.

“They have come from over the ice to help us defeat the Sky-Gods,” Erik repeated.

The old man looked them up and down. “Take them to the longhouse,” he ordered, “we shall decide this matter there.”

Five minutes later Jed was taking in the solid beams of the longhouse and thinking how it looked remarkably like the ancient Viking ones of the same name. In fact, even the way these people dressed was similar to the Scandinavians of old.

When all the men had assembled Erik began his defense. “Amora and I were coming back from our meeting with the Skraelings in the Great Woods when we pulled in to the river bank for a rest.”

Rex nudged Jed. “Who or what are the Skraelings?”

“Eskimo’s.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Erik continued. “We had just hauled the canoe onto the gravel when we were suddenly surrounded by six Sky-Gods.” There was a loud murmuring from the men. “They dragged Amora away and were about to kill me when these men,” he nodded in the direction of the explorers, “used their thunder sticks to save us. All six Sky-Gods are dead,” he said triumphantly.

The longhouse erupted with excited babble until the old man rapped his walking stick loudly on the wooden floor to silence them. “How did you come over the ice?” he asked Jed. “Did you fly, like the Sky-Gods did?”

Jed thought carefully. If he said yes would they consider him to be a Sky-God spy and put the three of them to death? On the other hand, if he said no, maybe they wouldn’t believe they had walked over the frozen continent and put them to death for lying. He decided to go with the truth. “No,” he said reluctantly, “we did not fly.”

“Then how did you cross the ice?”

There it was. This was the question that would ultimately lead to either exoneration or death. “We crossed the ice on skis.” He hesitated. He must tell them the rest but it was so unbelievable he didn’t see how people even as primitive as these were going to swallow it. “We tied ropes to big wings we had made ourselves and these wings dragged us along.” He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable eruption, and he wasn’t to be disappointed, as a hundred or more voices broke in unison he was certain that it was the end of the road for him and his two pals.

“It is the ancient prophesy,” the old man said, as the last refrains died away. “They are the long awaited three that the ancient prophesy speaks of.” He turned to Jed. “Our ancestors prophesied that three men would come to us from across the ice on skis directed by birds they had created. They would come to free us from an enemy we could not defeat ourselves.” He now looked at them with reverence. “And now you have come. We will obey all your commands.”

Jed breathed a sigh of relief; at least it had bought them some time. But if they didn’t come up with a good plan to destroy Montrose, and soon, he doubted if their welcome would last.

That night, in Erik’s cabin after enjoying their first meal of meat in over two weeks, Jed decided to ply his host with questions in order to extract some much needed answers. “Why did you tell your people we had come to defeat the Sky-gods?”

“I had no choice, if I hadn’t told them that they would have killed you.”

“Then why did you bring us here if you thought they might kill us?”

“If I had left you back on the river bank then Montrose and his Sky-Gods would have killed you for sure. How could I leave you to that fate when you had saved my sister, the only one who brings me joy?” He looked across at Amora and smiled at her before continuing. “You will be safe here with the Noragin. You are one of us now.”

“You realize we don’t have the ability to defeat the Sky-Gods, don’t you?”

Erik nodded. “But with your thunder sticks you will give us a better chance, and coming from the same land as the Sky-Gods you will understand better than us how to fight them.”

Jed looked him right in the eye. “What makes you think we come from the same land?”

“Your speech, you sound the same, and your weapons are thunder sticks. Only Sky-Gods save thunder sticks.”

“You mustn’t tell the others we are not the men of their ancient prophesy,” Jed warned. “If they discover we are not, they will kill us.”

“Amora and I will do nothing that will bring harm to you for we are in your debt.”

Jed glanced at Amora and caught her looking intently at him. She blushed and quickly turned her face away. “How did your people get here? Where did they come from?” he asked Erik.

“Many years ago my people came in over the ice like you did. It wasn’t an impossible trek back then, as the ice wasn’t as harsh and impossible to cross as it is now.”

“Do you think they came in from the North Pole?” Rex asked.

Jed nodded. “I think that is the only reasonable conclusion.”

“My people are Noragin,” Erik said. “They left our native land many years ago to live in a land that was green and fertile. When they got there they built homes and farms. But after many years the land began to freeze. The grass did not grow any more and the animals began to die. The people came to rely on supply ships from home. After several years the supply ships stopped coming and the people had to rely on hunting to survive. One day some of the men hunted much further to the north than they had ever done before and came across a warm land plentiful with game. That land was the one we are living in now. They went back and told our people about it, and so instead of waiting to die from starvation my people came here, and we have lived here ever since. But we long to return to our brother Noragin in our native land.”

Later that evening after Erik and his sister had gone to sleep Jed told Rex and Jonathon what he had discovered. “These people, the Noragin, are Vikings.”

The other two looked at him as if he were mad. “I know it sounds far-fetched, but if you’ll hear me out I’ll explain it to you.” He rested his elbows on the big wooden table as he continued his narrative. “Some time early in the first millenium the Norse planted a colony on Greenland. As Erik told us, Greenland eventually cooled and became too inhospitable to support life without supplies from the outside world. After the colony had their 500 years or so the supply ships stopped coming. Many years later when they came back to check on the colony they found them all gone. Some Eskimo’s whom the Vikings called Skraelings…”

“So Eskimo’s are living here too?” Rex interjected. “Erik mentioned Skraelings were living in that huge forest we went through.”

“Yes,” Jed confirmed. “Anyway, the Eskimo’s who were living on the coast of Greenland told them that the colony had packed up everything and gone to live in a new land they had discovered to the north, this one obviously.”

“Why do they call themselves, Noragin, instead of Viking?”

“Noragin…think about it, Rex.”

“I have, but I still don’t get it.”

“Noragin…Norwegian.”

“Ah yes, of course. So we’re likely to find other racial groups from the surface of the planet here as well.”

“It’s highly likely. But we really need to come up with some plan to combat Montrose with.”

“We need to know his numbers before we plan anything,” Jonathon chipped in.

Rex grinned. “We know he’s got six less than he did yesterday.

“We’ll grill the Noragin tomorrow for as much information as we can,” Jed decided. “If we fail in this we don’t just sign our own death warrants, we’ll probably cost Erik and Amora their lives for bringing us here.”

“And we mustn’t let anything happen to the pretty Amora, must we?” Rex said teasingly. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, Jed. Not that I blame you, she’s drop dead gorgeous.”

“What? I haven’t been looking at her,” Jed protested.

“And have you seen the way she looks at him?” Jonathon asked, getting in on the joke

“I have…I have indeed, Jonathon.”

“Aw come on you guys,” Jed half pleaded. “Let’s be serious about this.”

“Love is a serious business, wouldn’t you say, Jonathon?”

“I would…I would indeed, Rex.”

Jed allowed himself the luxury of grinning. “Okay, so she is incredibly beautiful. What man wouldn’t notice that? But after Cassie I’m determined to steer clear of women for a while.”

“We shall see,” Rex said. “Nature has a strange way of disrupting a man’s plans.”

Over the next few days Jed set about finding out as much about Montrose as he could. He was about Jed’s age according to the Noragin, and firmly in control of his people. Apparently, several years ago he had conquered the Yakros, a warlike people who lived a long way from the Noragin and had incorporated them into his army. His forces were now about fifteen thousand strong, according to Erik. The Noragin were also up against half a dozen death-birds, which Jed took to be the Noragin name for helicopters. Just where Montrose was getting his fuel to run them was anybody’s guess, but apparently he had six of them and they had killed many of the Noragin and Skraelings from the air.

Jed discovered the Noragin had split into many smaller tribes so Montrose couldn’t find and attack them all at once. From what he could gather there were about four thousand Noragin warriors altogether and three thousand Skraeling allies. With odds like that and against enemy carrying firearms they were on a hiding to nothing before they even started.

Montrose was in possession of all the countryside hereabouts, and now all that belonged to the native inhabitants were the forests. Montrose had also taken hundreds of Noragin and Skraeling women for his men, killing all the males over the age of puberty in every village he conquered. He had no interest in peace, conquest was his sole aim. It appeared he was the Adolph Hitler of this hollow earth and would not stop until he had either conquered or destroyed everything.

“The way I see it,” Jed said to Rex, a few days later, “we can’t defeat Montrose in a head on conflict. We will need to run some sort of guerilla campaign.”

Rex strolled along beside, hands in pockets. “Pick them off a few at a time?”

“It’s the only way.”

“Fifteen thousand is rather a lot to pick off a dozen or so at a time,” Rex said doubtfully. “Even if things did go our way it’d take years for us to make any inroads like that.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“No.”

“At least we’ll be seen to be doing something, and that’s imperative, because if we don’t act soon then our welcome will run out very fast.”

Rex sighed. “I never thought I’d see the day I’d be running around the countryside playing at being a commando.”

“If we ever get back home we could market a doll based on you,” Jed said, leaving his serious side out of it for the moment. “We could call it…G.I. Rex.”

Rex chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind if it made me a bit of money.” He walked along quietly for a while. “She’s been asking me questions about you.”

“Who has?”

“Amora has.”

“Aw come on, Rex, give it a rest.”

“Well she has,” Rex said defensively. “She wanted to know if you’ve got a woman back home.”

“I hope you told her about Cassie.”

“No.” Rex looked genuinely surprised. “Cassie’s ancient history, I told her you were single.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well for crying out loud, you are single, Jed. Move on from Cassie, you’ll never see her again.” He placed a hand on Jed’s shoulder. “Find some happiness here, and if Amora wants to offer that to you then take it.”

“And are you going to take your own advice?”

“You bet your last dollar I am. I would have made a play for Amora if she didn’t have eyes only for you.”

“What else have you been telling her about me?”

“She wanted to know if back home you’re considered to be a mighty warrior.”

Jed’s face took on a look of pure horror. “You didn’t…?”

“Of course I did. I told her you were the mightiest warrior in our land, and that men ran in fear from you on the battlefield.”

“You rat, Ferguson. How am I going to live up to that?”

Rex was enjoying this. “You’ll have to, or die trying. Anyway, she thinks you’re a mighty warrior so you’ll just have to go along with it.”

Jed scowled. “Looks like I’ve got no choice.

“That’s the spirit. And hey, you know that pretty little lady that goes down to the river every morning to draw water for the village? If she ever asks you about me put in a good word will you?”

Jed grinned. “I’ll put in a few words for you, but I doubt any of them will be good.”

“Now don’t you blow it for me I’m serious about that little lady, she’s the one I plan to have kids with.”

Jed stopped walking and looked at him. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of putting down roots here?”

Rex stared down at his boots. “Do you know the real reason I’ve always gone on these adventures?”

“I always figured it was to see things very few others ever had.”

Rex slowly shook his head. “That’s what I’ve always let everyone think. But it’s really so that I can be a man.”

“I don’t think I follow you.”

“In New York I always felt like I was looked down on because I wasn’t a metro-sexual. You know the sort, a smoothie who charms the ladies by being a bit of a cream puff.” He shifted his weight uneasily. “When we were away on our expeditions it was the only time I felt I could be a man without feeling ashamed of it. And here,” he waved his arm in the direction of the village, “its paradise. The women love you for being a man. I finally feel like I belong somewhere.”

“Wow… I wasn’t expecting this,” Jed confessed. “Going on what you’ve just told me I guess even if we did find a way home you wouldn’t come with me.”

“I wouldn’t let you down if that’s what you’re worried about,” Rex assured him. “We’ve been friends since we were youngsters, so if you needed me to help you get home I’d go with you.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s going to come to that,” Jed said despondently. “I can’t see any way we can get back across that ice alive. So it looks like you’ll get your wish with the pretty water carrier.”

Later that day Jed discovered what Erik and Amora’s business with the Skraelings had been. They had gone to enlist their allies support for an assault on Montrose’s fortress. The dead men they had found on the river bank had gone with them but in another canoe. Erik had been sad to learn of their deaths but not surprised. “The Sky-Gods are everywhere,” he had said.

He was glad he had turned up when he did, to attack the fortress would have been suicidal. Now, however, with them in charge they could steer this war in a different direction, a direction Montrose wasn’t used to, a game of cat and mouse that would ultimately leave him frustrated. He just hoped he would live long enough to see the outcome.

Over the next few days Jed and Rex taught six handpicked warriors how to use the rifles they had taken from Montrose’s dead men. The rifles were of course empty, they couldn’t afford to use up any of their precious shells on practice.

“I don’t know what we’ll do when we run out,” Rex said. “I guess we’ll have to pray we take some more in battle.”

The same concern was gnawing at Jed. Montrose would have his ammunition well guarded, so the best they could hope for was to take a few rifles and ammunition belts off his men, hardly enough to turn the tide of the war. He knew they could hold Montrose off for a while, even cause enough casualties to concern him, but they didn’t have a dog’s show of defeating him. Not without a miracle happening. All they could reasonably hope for was to delay the inevitable, and it made him sad to think that his friend mightn’t have much time left to enjoy the company of the pretty water carrier.

It was six days after their arrival in the village that Jed ran into Amora on the trail to the river. He was heading down; she was heading up, alone. He deftly skirted around her and thought he was in the clear when he heard her call to him. “Do I displease you?”

He stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn’t counted on this, up until now she had acted so shy around him that he had fully expected to just walk past her without a word being spoken. But because her question deserved an answer he retraced his footsteps until he was standing before her. “Of course not,” he said gently.

“Then why do you avoid me?”

A lump came into his throat. How could he tell her that he came from a different world and so there could never be anything between them? “I’m not avoiding you,” he lied.

She came a little closer. “Yes, you are avoiding me. You are not like Noragin men. You seem to be afraid of women.”

“I’m not afraid of women,” he said quickly, more than a little offended by the accusation.

“Then why…why do you avoid me?”

“Men act differently with women where I come from,” he said, slipping back into lying mode.

She wasn’t having it. “Your two friends don’t. They both have eyes for our women, and aren’t afraid to spend time with them.”

Jed risked stepping closer to her. “Look…I’m staying in your brother’s home. I am his guest. It would be wrong for me to be too friendly with his sister.”

She looked at him quizzically. “Why?”

“Because you are his sister and I do not wish to offend him.”

She smiled sweetly. “Erik would not be offended. If he did not like you he would not have invited you to live with us.”

“Maybe he does like me, but that doesn’t mean he’d like me spending time with his sister.”

“He wouldn’t mind.”

“I can’t afford to run the risk of offending him. He is the only friend I have in this village.”

“I could talk to him about it if you are afraid to speak to him yourself.”

“I am not afraid of him,” Jed snapped, then wished he hadn’t when he saw the look of surprise on her face. “I’m sorry, Amora. It’s just that I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to get too friendly.”

Her eyes dropped to the leaf strewn track. “So I do displease you.”

“No.” He was beginning to get frustrated by all this. Obviously she had it in her head that he thought she was beneath him, and that wasn’t the case at all.

“Rex told me you liked me,” she said sadly, “but I guess he lied to me.” She began to move away.

He grabbed her by the arm and swung her round to face him. “No…he didn’t lie to you. I do like you. I like you very much.”

She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes, and it was something he would never forget, for in that brief moment it was as if he could see into her soul, her pure and beautiful soul. “Then spend time with me,” she pleaded.

“I have had other women, Amora,” he confessed, knowing it would shock her. “I was living with a woman just before I came here.”

If she was shocked her face did not betray it. “Is she your wife?”

He thought about how to answer her. “No, we just lived together as lovers. In my land that is common.”

“Why did she not come with you? Noragin women usually travel with their men.”

“She left me just before I came here.”

Now her eyes did widen in shock. “She left you?”

“Relationships are different where I come from, Amora.”

“Do you still love her?”

“I don’t know. I guess. She was very pretty but she had a terrible temper.”

“How could you love her if she had a terrible temper?”

“I don’t know.” Then he laughed. “I honestly don’t know,” he said again. “But she’s gone now and so I try not to think about her.”

“Is she the reason you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I guess she is part of the reason. I don’t want to get hurt like that again.”

She smiled that sweet smile again. “You will find the women are different here, Jed. We do not leave our men, and we do not lose our tempers.”

He chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“So you will speak to Erik?”

“Yes, Amora, I will speak to Erik about you,” he promised, unable to resist her any longer.

“Good. But do not leave it too long, people are starting to talk.”

He watched her as she made her way back towards the village and couldn’t help fearing for his heart. She was the sort of women who could make men go weak at the knees, and he fancied he could feel a slight trembling in them now as his eyes rested on her shapely form moving with more sensuality than any women should be allowed to possess.