“I see what you mean,” Mikhail said. “They’re badly outnumbered and outclassed, regardless of how tough they might be.”
“Right. I’d say the fight we saw was something like attacking a dire bear with a stick; you might get in the first blow or two, but then good night! If I was one of those people down there I’d load my family and gear on my horses and start putting distance between me and that city.”
V
Fanns allri nannan som Ynglingen hanmilt som mjok (onar leene), stark som storm (men allri raste), vis som jodens salva annen.
A varelse var han, aj dykt.
[There was never other like the Youngling, mild as milk (his eyes smiling), strong as storm (but never raging), wise as the spirit of the earth.
And living man he was, not myth.]
Prefatory verse of THE JARNHANN SAGA,
Kumalo translation
The long low ridge extended eastward from the foothills a considerable distance into the open plain. Its cool north-facing slope was green with new grass. At intervals, shallow draws ran down it, thick with low shrubby oaks whose soft, late-emerging leaflets tinted their gray with pink. Along the crest, broken rock let rain and melting snow penetrate deeply, and a ragged line of scraggly shrubs grew there, overlooking a semi-barren south slope.
The sky was cloudless and immense, the sun warm. Gnats hung in the air, celebrating the absence of wind, and an eagle soared, tilting and swaying in the updrafts. A mouse scurried between two spiny shrubs and a sparrow hawk darted toward it, rising again with the furry victim in its small talons.
The two adolescents, prone within the screen of shrubs, watched the brief tiny drama with sharp eyes, then looked southward across the plain again. Sweat oiled their dirty foreheads. Gnats hovered and bit unheeded. After several minutes the younger said softly, “There is something else I like about this country; you can see so far.”
The other nodded curtly, and for a time they said nothing, did nothing except scan the plain.
“Look,” the younger spoke again, and pointed southward.
“Jaha. Men on horseback; it looks like three.”
They watched awhile. “There is one trotting ahead on foot,” the older added. “About a hundred meters ahead.”
The other squinted. “I see him. It looks as if they plan to cross the ridge over east, where it isn’t so steep.”
They crawled back from the crest, then ran downslope to their horses tethered to a clump of oak shrubs. Untying them, they scrambled to their backs and started eastward at a gallop. A kilometer farther they angled up the slope and tied their horses again, then ran toward the crest, wriggling the last few meters on their bellies to lie panting among some shrubs.
They were startled to see how near the running man was, perhaps seventy meters off. He stopped.
“He’s looking at us!” hissed the younger. “How can he see us?”
The man raised his hand, halting the others-two men and a woman.
“They are our people!” the younger added.
“I can see that!” the older whispered with irritation.
The warrior started diagonally up the slope toward them, trotting easily. They could see as he came how big he was, an agile giant, shirtless, glistening, thick muscles moving smoothly in torso and limbs.
“It’s the Yngling!” the younger whispered.
“You don’t know; you never saw him.”
They stayed on their stomachs, eyes large, until their necks were craned backward and the man stood above them. Sweat dripped from his nose and trickled down his grimy torso. Strong teeth showed between the long sparse tow-colored mustache and an even sparser growth on his chin.
“Just what we need,” he said. “Someone to guide us to the People.”
Both boys got up.
“You are the Yngling, aren’t you?” asked the younger.
“Some say so,” the man said grinning. “I am Nils Jarnhann, warrior of the Wolf Clan, of the Svear. And you are lookouts. Where are your horses?”
The older boy pointed. “But one of us must stay here on watch. I am the oldest, so I will stay. Alvar will guide you.”
Nils nodded and gestured for the others. “Fine. What is your name?”
The boy stood straight. “Ola Gulleson, sword apprentice of the Reindeer Clan of the Svear.”
They shook hands and then parted, Nils and Alvar walking toward Alvar’s tethered horse. “I am Ola’s brother,” Alvar volunteered. “He will be sixteen when the leaves fall, and I was fourteen when the snow was melting. I am a sword apprentice too.”
“Good.”
“You think I’m too skinny to be a sword apprentice, but things are different than they used to be. Lots of things changed this winter. And I am growing.” He untied his horse. “Do you want to ride him? I can walk. Many people say we young don’t want to do anything but ride. They say if we aren’t careful we will be weak-legged like the horse barbarians who can walk only a short way before they are tired out. I don’t want to be weak-legged. Is that why you were running? So your legs won’t lose their strength?”
“I was running because we have only three horses,” Nils answered matter-of-factly. “And as you say, it’s good to run. When we fought the orcss in the battle of the neck, we won despite their numbers because they tired.”
“You ride now,” the boy said decisively. “It will be my turn to run.”
The others rode up to them and the boy loped off. “The runner is also the scout,” Nils called after him, “so keep your eyes and ears open.”
Nils let Alvar jog some five kilometers, then called for him to wait. “I think we can do without a scout now, and I need answers to some questions. You can share Miska’s back with Ilse while we talk.”
As soon as he was aboard, the boy asked, “Where did you get such fine horses?”
“From the Magyars.”
“Did you steal them?”
“They gave them to us. I have friends among the Magyars; I was a soldier in their royal guard once. We wintered with them.”
“Why didn’t they give you four horses so you all could ride?”
Sten and Leif laughed aloud at the way the boy controlled the conversation, but that didn’t faze Alvar.
“There were five of us then,” Nils explained, “and they gave us ten horses, but bandits attacked us in the mountains and when they fled we were only four, with three horses.
“And now a question for you: How did the People winter?”
“The clans wintered separately, to get enough food. They were in many places in the South Ukraine. The Reindeer Clan was at a place called Kishinev. There had been villages but the orcs had burned them.” Alvar paused to make a face of disgust. “House burners and barn burners! They have no shame. And they’d killed most of the people. The ones that were left had made little huts in the forest, and that’s what we did too. All their warriors were dead or gone away, and the orcs had taken most of their cattle, but some had been hidden in the forest so there still were some for us to take. The Ukrainians would come and beg for food.
“After we made camp there, the Council of Chiefs decided that all men must train to fight because we had too few warriors; so many had been killed, you know. And we needed to practice fighting from horseback because we were not skilled at it. And all boys from thirteen to sixteen were made sword apprentices unless something was wrong with them. We trained as hard as the hunger would let us. I’ll let you feel my muscle sometime. Here.” He tapped Ilse on the shoulder and doubled his right arm. “You feel it.”
She turned in the saddle-awkwardly, for she was eight months pregnant-and squeezed his bicep. “It isn’t very big yet,” she said, “but it is hard as a rock.”