John Dalmas - The Yngling

Nils smiled slightly, and as the innkeeper approached with roast meat and a stew of vegetables, he returned to the point. "We've seen signs of two bunches, one of nine and the other possibly as large. They behaved more like scouting parties than like vagrant bands. They didn't even stop to rape the woman they caught." His mind pictured the wagon for Hannes, with the two cloaks and the dead man, a picture more precise than any intentional memory Hannes had ever seen. It was as if the northman had complete access to his memory bank and his subconscious. His sister's mind was the finest he'd ever seen before, but it wasn't like this one.

Nils's calm thoughts continued relentlessly. "That suggests a strong force of them nearby. And they are fighters by nature. As individuals they're as good as your knights. A village is a better place to winter than in the forest, and they're reckless men. If there are as many as fifty of them, they can easily take and hold the village against the force your baron has. The knights are far too few to drive them out, and outside the castle walls the men-at-arms are no match at all for horse barbarians. Will the castle hold all the peasants?"

Hannes' mind thickened in the face of the problem. It had been generations since there had been such a need, and castles had not grown with the population.

Night had fallen and the air already felt frosty. The moon was two nights past full and would not rise for a while. In the darkness the northmen rode slowly on the short stretch of unfamiliar road between village and castle. Their horses' hooves, thudding softly on the earth, emphasized the stillness now that summer's night sounds had passed. In front of them the castle stood black against a star-strewn sky. Only a few windows in the gate tower showed lights above the wall.

Nils reached out and sensed the minds of the gate guards. As he came beneath the wall, he was near enough to see the spots on the cards through their eyes and the rough plank table. He sensed thoughts and voices in German without knowing their meaning, felt their emotions which were quiet and poorly defined. At the gate he drew his sword and hammered the hilt sharply against the timbers three times, calling in Anglic, "Open the gate."

The immediate responses were starts and flashes of irritation, followed by suspicion, probably with the realization that the hail had not been in German. Nils could not read the German thoughts, but his mind presumed them. Except for the Brethren and foreigners, who would hail in Anglic? And would one of the Brethren ever use such a preemptory tone? A torch was held over the battlement and a dim face looked down from an embrasure more than twenty feet above them. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"We're northmen come to see Martin Gutknekt. Let us in!"

"Come back tomorrow when the gate is open."

Nils pounded again, almost violently, bellowing, "Open! Open!"

"Peace, peace," the voice hissed from above. "If your racket disturbs the baron, you'll wish you hadn't got in. I can't let armed men in at night, unknown men, without his leave. Why can't you wait until morning?"

"Two reasons," said Nils, his voice suddenly mild.

"First, northmen don't wait unless they want to, although they'll wait forever if it suits them." With each mention of "northmen" the man's mind had reacted, Nils noted. Apparently stories of them had reached here from the war in the Ukraine and were known by more than the Brethren. He continued. "The second reason: we have information for your baron of horse barbarians near here. We will either tell him what we know right now, or we'll leave and your blood can mark your ignorance. Your scurfy district here means nothing to us that we should cool our heels."

Sten grinned at Nils, chuckling in his throat as the torch was withdrawn, and spoke softly in the northern tongue until their companions too wore wolfish grins. Then they waited silently for a span of minutes. At length Nils sensed the gateman approaching with others, one of them hard and especially self-assured. The baron, or perhaps his marshal if he had a marshal.

A narrow gate opened beside the main gate, and the gateman beckoned to them. It was almost too narrow for a horse to pass through, and low enough that the northmen dismounted to enter. The other three loosened their swords in their scabbards cautiously, but Nils, finding no treachery in the waiting minds, had taken his horse's reins and preceded them. Inside the wall the tunnel-like gateway was no wider, and where it opened into the courtyard there was another gate, a raised door of heavy bars. In the courtyard a cluster of knights waited, dimly seen. Nils's glance counted eight, and he looked at the one whom he sensed was the leader.

"Come," the man said curtly and, turning, led them, the other knights falling in behind.

The keep loomed in the darkness, perhaps twenty meters in diameter and several levels of rooms in height. Probably with a dungeon below ground level, Nils decided.

Martin Gutknekt's audience chamber was small, in keeping with his position as one of the lesser nobility. He was a freckled, small-boned man of medium height, but chunky and strong-looking. Although he met them seated, the elevation of his chair allowed him to meet Nils's eyes on the level.

"So you are northmen. The Saxons told us of your feats against the enemy far away in the east. They also told us you were going south from there into unknown lands. What are northmen doing in Bavaria?"

"I've been in Bavaria before, as a wanderer. Now we've come to find a seeress who saved my life after the Great Storm. We plan to winter in the land of the Magyars and then pass down the Donau to the sea, where our people are going.'

"To the land of Baalzebub? Then it is true what we heard. You must be great fighters indeed to have defeated his army and killed him."

"No others can match our weapon skills. But there were a lot of the enemy; we won mainly by cunning. Now Baalzebub's orcs are dead or fled, and the last I saw his head, it was lying beside a Ukrainian Marsh a full meter from his neck. But his horse barbarians are still plundering, in spite of the beating you people gave them at Elbestat, and you don't need to go farther than the hills west of this valley to find some."

"My man told me you had news of horse barbarians near the district. Where, and how many?"

Nils described what they had seen and what they had made of it, and the baron indicated his acceptance of their interpretation by not disputing it. "But they can't take the castle," he answered. "A few score men can hold it against hundreds, unless the hundreds have siege engines."

"They don't need the castle."

"But they can be driven out of the village."

"Not by you. There aren't enough of you."

For just an instant Gutknekt realized that the comment should have irritated him and hadn't. "My lord the graf can drive them out. His vassals include three barons besides myself, plus his own knights."

"How many men?"

The baron grew thoughtful. "Five dozen knights, perhaps, and bowmen to support them. We all took losses at Elbestat. In fact, the old graf himself died there, and his cousin is the graf now."

"Five dozen? Not enough," Nils said, sensing the same thought in the baron's mind. "Not if the horse barbarians number as many as a hundred."

"But the graf could get help from others."

"How long would it take that help to get here?"

"Two weeks, maybe less. We could easily hold out that long."

"You could. But what about the peasants? Could you bring them all inside the walls and shelter and feed them? The weather can turn bad any time now. The horse barbarians will take the village, kill the men and take the women captive. And if an army comes to relieve you, and it's strong enough, they may not even stay to fight. They may ride into the mountains and come back when the graf has left, or go somewhere else and take another village. That's what I'd do."