John Dalmas - Return to Fanglith

Maybe two hours later we came to another hunter with another goat. This was near the mouth of a ravine where there was scrub, with dead branchwood to burn. So we took a break, half-cooked the goat, and ate some of it, wrapping the rest in the hide. A third hunter saw the smoke and hiked over. He hadn't seen anything near enough to shoot at.

Then we lay around for a while, feeling full, napping in the sun, digesting the half-raw goat meat. We never saw the fourth hunter again. He might have fallen and broken a leg somewhere. We yelled, there and later from a ridgetop, but never heard a thing.

A couple of ridges later I wondered if maybe he'd run into hostiles. Because when we reached the top of this ridge, we could see a lot bigger valley on the other side. Arno said a valley like that was sure to have farms and hamlets, and almost surely a castle with knights.

And these people wouldn't have heard of the Angel Deneen, though hopefully they might be under Norman control.

We talked it over and decided that the Varangians would hike down one of the ravines. It had enough brush and trees to give cover. Tarel and Amo would stay with them to provide flrepower. Moise and I would hike along the top of one of the spur ridges that walled the ravine. From there I could provide blaster fire with my rifle, if needed. And while the two of us could be seen from a distance, the sight of two hikers shouldn't get anyone excited. Not when neither of us was visibly a warrior. Neither of us carried a shield, and I'd left my longsword on the battleground.

Tarel turned his communicator on so we could stay in touch.

It was a warmer day than we'd been having. Spring was coming along, and the country wasn't as high as a lot that we'd been through. I was actually enjoying the hike. We paused on a high point, from where we could see a lot of the valley. And Arno had been right: A good-sized hamlet, almost a village, was visible, with a castle nearby. I saw a dust cloud in the valley's lower end, and staring, made out a number of mounted men at the head of it. They had to be military.

I took the communicator from my belt. "Tarel," I said, "this is Larn. Tarel, this is Larn. Over."

"This is Tarel. Over."

"Tell Arno there's a force of cavalry in the valley, riding toward the castle. I can't tell if they're Normans or Saracens. Ask him what he wants to do about this. Over."

"Hold on; will do."

It was two or three minutes before I heard anything more than faint murmuring. Then Arno answered. "This is Arno. We'll continue down the ravine as far as there's cover for us. Then we'll wait until dark. After dark I'll go out and see what I can learn."

"Right," I answered. "Moise and I will keep hiking the ridgetop to near the end. Maybe we'll be able to see more farther on. Larn over and out."

A moment later I heard Tarel's voice again. "Got that. This is Tarel out."

A half-mile ahead, the ridge crest started dropping off more sharply into the valley, giving us a fuller view ahead. The cavalry had ridden to a point almost in line with it. I still couldn't make out details, except I was pretty sure they didn't wear robes. They made me think of men returning home though; they formed a fairly strung out group, about twenty of them. And they weren't making the dust they had been, as if they'd slowed from a trot to a walk. I let Arno know. Then Moise and I sat on the ground and I followed them with my eyes, wishing I had binoculars.

After a minute, I noticed something else. Another horseman, ahead of them and off to one side, had stopped, as if he had gotten off the road for them.

Again I called Tarel, and told Arno what I'd seen.

Arno chuckled. "The people of the country here are Saracens. That the horseman got out of the road probably means that the cavalry are Normans, and that the fighting here is past."

"Do you want to go on out into the valley this afternoon?" I asked.

He didn't answer immediately, and when he did, it was slowly, thoughtfully. "No. We are fed now, and there is no great haste. We'll stay under cover till nightfall."

Moise and I stayed where we were for a while, continuing to watch. The castle was far enough away that we couldn't see what went on when the cavalry got there. Finally we picked our way down into the ravine, and along the bottom til! we came to Arno and Tarel and the Varangians.

It was nap time again.

We did more waking than dozing. And with danger no longer baring its teeth at us, plus the probability that we were out of enemy territory, sitting around made the Varangians restless and impatient. So Arno didn't wait till dark to go scouting; he started out when sunset was coloring the sky.

Even no more than that made the Varangians more cheerful. They liked action-something going on. If not their action, then someone else's. At least something was happening.

While dusk settled, Tarel and I sat side by side without saying much. Being with him made me remember Jenoor, and that made me introspective. Moise had gone over to sit by Gunnlag and ask him questions in Greek; he found the Varangians intriguing. After a while, he came back and sat down by Tarel and me again. Gunnlag, he said, had told him I'd surprised him-that he hadn't thought a holy monk could fight like I had. I'd been like a berserker, Gunnlag had said, howling in battle and wielding my sword with a fury that would do credit to any warrior he'd seen.

Neither of us was clear on what a berserker was, but apparently it was something or someone pretty wild in battle. Moise was impressed with the story, and Tarel even more. As for me, there wasn't much I could say. Even allowing for Fanglithan exaggeration, it sounded like pretty high praise by Norse standards. I couldn't remember much of the fight-general impressions, fragments of image. But I did remember hearing someone howl and realizing it was me, and that I had gone at it pretty hard.

I was big by Norrnan standards, of course-even by Varangian standards. But the Varangians, like the Normans, had always seemed to me to be a lot stronger and a lot more formidable than I was.

I recalled the times when one or another of them had grabbed me. Arno, on that first day in Provence, when he'd grabbed my wrist and hauled me up onto his destrier. And Varangians a couple of times. They'd seemed terribly strong. Was it because of the way they did things? With hard, abrupt force, the way a warrior might learn to do them? Did they actually think of me as physically strong-or at least fairly strong? And was I, in fact, stronger than I thought? I didn't have the hand and wrist strength to handle a Varangian sword one-handed, but maybe the rest of me compared better with Normans and Varangians than my hands and wrists did.

One thing I knew for sure: Fighting with swords was something I'd gladly do without.

It was sometime after dark when I woke up. How long after, I don't know. The moon wasn't up yet though, and it was really black among the scrub trees in the ravine bottom. Guys were moving, talking. Then I recognized the plod of hooves, not running or even walking, but stamping around, and not just one horse but several.

"Larn! Gunnlag!"

It was Arno's voice. I rolled to my feet and moved through the dark in his direction. "What is it? What did you find?" I called.

"You were right!" He said it in Evdashian. "We're here! They are Normans!"

Gunnlag was beside him before I got there, asking questions in rapid Norse, and I had to wait for a minute before I could get any more information. Then the Varangian chieftain turned away and began to shout orders.

Arno turned to me. "The baron holding this district in fief is Gilbert de Auletta," he said. "He has invited us to stay at his castle, and within a day or two he will provide us with an escort to Palermo. Which is no farther than two long days' walk. And for you and me, and perhaps a few others, he will provide horses."