Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

“The other hundred of our men will sweep through the village, making quick plunder of cartable valuables and potential slaves—the sweep to be finished within thirty minutes and all booty returned to the ships. The remaining men of that group are then to reinforce the abbey looting if necessary.

“The main body of three hundred men will move on the abbey, as soon as ashore and organized. Speed and coordination are essential. The information from the Narthani and a look with our telescope confirm the wall around the abbey is only seven to eight feet tall. Assuming the other information is correct, most of the fighting men will be absent, partly due to our feints on the other villages down the coast two days ago and partly from Narthani assurances that another portion of the fighting men will be absent.

“It bothers me, as it always does, that we’re proceeding based on information we didn’t gather or confirm ourselves. So far, though, I have to give reluctant credit to the reliability of the Narthani intelligence,” grumbled a resigned Abel. “Assuming, once again, the information is accurate, the locals shouldn’t be able to stop a simultaneous assault at multiple points on the wall.” Abel pointed to three ‘X’s on the map. “We’ll attack the abbey complex wall at these three points in hundred man groups. First, two groups, each of seventy-five Benhoudi and twenty-five of our men, will attack about halfway between the main gate and the two corners—we assume the gate will be closed and barred. Either or both groups should be able to get over the wall and engage the locals. The wall next to the gate, and the gate itself are twelve feet tall, so ignoring the gate area and going directly over the eight-foot wall is easier. Once we’re inside, we should be able to overwhelm the defenders. It’s getting over the wall where most of our losses will happen.

“The third group of one hundred of our own men will wait for the first two groups to launch their attacks, then hit the western wall of the abbey complex. Most defenders should be involved with the first two group, so the third group might get inside the walls untouched or might not even be needed, but just in case . . . ”

Musfar approved. His cousin had earned his position. He was fearless as necessary in battle, yet his real value was his planning and cool thinking. Musfar knew of too many Buldorian men wasted because of stupid leaders. He took it as a matter of pride that his men suffered as few casualties as they did when balanced with the volume of booty this expedition had garnered. No small part of that success was the result of Abel’s careful planning and attention to detail. This might be the last trip with Abel as his second. He was due for a command, and Musfar would support him if he chose to go out next time as a commander. He’d miss him.

“If all goes as expected,” Abel went on, “we should be back at the beach within two to three hours. If there’s either more resistance or more booty than expected, I’ll balance time and booty potential. Whatever happens, I don’t expect the raid to take longer than four hours at the most.”

The two men returned to the deck and squinted to shore as their ship sailed toward the beach. Within ten minutes, they’d be anchored and the first men scrambling into the longboats.

“Good luck and good hunting,” said Musfar, and the two kinsmen clasped forearms, before Abel turned to lead the raid.

The sun peeked above the eastern mountaintops on a typical morning on the southwest coast of Keelan Province. Scattered white clouds hinted at a clear day. The slight onshore breeze brought in the usual sea freshness. A morning haze still lay on the fields, and the same atmospherics allowed the haze hovering over the ocean to just start to clear with the sun’s first rays.

Sistian and Diera Beynom finished morning meal—both late this morning for their duties, but they were in charge of their respective orders at St. Sidryn’s, and no one begrudged their luxury of occasionally lingering at morning meal.

Abersford’s fighting men were organized into Thirds of fifty men each. Carnigan Puvey and Denes Vegga belonged to the one Third currently in Abersford. A second Third of the local levy was, “by chance,” on a scheduled patrol duty, this time farther north than usual. Eywellese riders had crossed several times into the northern districts, and Hetman Keelan had ordered increased patrols. Those fifty Abersford men were seventy miles away and a day out of semaphore or courier contact.

The final Third of the Abersford men spent the previous night thirty miles west at a Gwillamer Province coastal village that had spotted sea raider ships unloading men several miles farther west. No attack had yet occurred, but the local Gwillamer boyerman had invoked the Tri-Clan Alliance agreement, and Abersford, being the closest Keelan settlement, was obliged to respond. Denes Vegga, the local magistrate, the overall supervisor of the Thirds, and the direct commander of one of the three, vociferously objected to leaving the area with so few men. A rider carried Gwillamer’s request to Langnor Vorwich, the district boyerman, who reluctantly ruled the request had to be honored and promised to start additional men moving toward Abersford by that afternoon. The village and the abbey would only be short fighting men for a few hours the next morning.

Both Carnigan and Vegga were already at work—Carnigan helping a village smithy repair an iron railing at the abbey hospital, and Vegga at the local authority office, preparing to ride out accompanying the registrar to a farm delinquent in taxes. The farm itself was productive enough to pay the taxes, even in these times, yet the owner managed always to be late. The farmer was also a disagreeable character, and the registrar agent asked Vegga to accompany him.

Halla Bower had just walked her oldest child, Manwyn, to the village school. At six years old, he would attend the small local school for another three to four years before she and her husband decided whether to send him to the abbey school, where older children could further their education beyond that needed for most trades. Her husband worked in his father’s leather shop, and although he knew he would someday inherit the shop, he didn’t intend for his son to be obligated from birth to take over the business. Halla loved her husband for this attitude, for the consideration he always showed his family and other people, and just because … she loved him.

After returning home, Halla put down Manwyn’s sister. At eighteen months, the toddler was getting a little big for Halla to carry too long. As usual, it would be a busy day for Halla. Clothes to wash, clothes to mend, their vegetable garden to tend, turnips past ready to pull and store in their root cellar, a return trip to the school to collect Manwyn after the midday bell, and tending to the girl. The toddler was walking and running, sort of, and would soon start training to use the outhouse. If that training took hold in the next few months, then Halla would have a six-months’ respite; she hadn’t told her husband about another child on the way.

Yozef Kolsko had risen with only a slight hangover from the night’s pub session and had eaten a morning meal with Elian. Brak had eaten earlier and had been at work around the property before light. Yozef didn’t see the need for the elderly man to rise so early and work so hard, but his suggestions met with disapproving looks from the proud older man, and Yozef dropped the subject. Elian wasn’t as regimented as Brak. While she saw no need to rise as early as her husband, Yozef’s sleeping well past sunrise seemed decadent. However, since she wasn’t always hungry when she rose, and since she perceived that Yozef didn’t always wish to eat alone, many days she waited, and they ate together. Over the months, Yozef learned what he thought must be every detail of her life and Brak’s, the past and current lives of their four children, and the preferred methods of preserving local products and cooking the traditional Caedellium dishes. Despite his hearing most of it multiple times, somehow the gentle nature and kindness of the older woman and her pleasures at what seemed to Yozef a hard life never bored him. It was meditative and a lesson for finding life’s positives.