Fyvesdee, the 25th of Harvest, 768 A.E.

  Rolf descended the hill on the southern trail that led into the clan village of Harsbrukke. The trail widened from the deer trails and foot trails he’d been traveling to a rutted road wide enough to permit a wagon passage. Wagons would haul goods to the coastal towns, of which there were only two on this island: Norsjalde and Fjorlen. The small clan villages spread across the island all sent people to those towns to trade and get the things they couldn’t make on their own. Harsbrukke was no different.

  Rolf had been to each of them twice but found each of them to be too busy for his taste in habitation. To him, it seemed that the more people you packed into a small area, the more important each of them felt their time was. Why, it seemed as if you couldn’t even cross a street without inconveniencing one person or another.

  And the politeness… that was just outlandish and absurd. Some of those city folk wanted to be treated near on like princes. There were boys he’d grown up with who had left their clan village to go seek their fortune, and then they’d gone and decided they were better than him because they dressed in fancy clothes and lived in fancy homes.

  Rolf snorted as he thought of this. He could bet that these ‘domesticated’ Kerathi would be the first ones to declare war and the last ones to pick up a rifle to help. It’s how it always was it seemed. All the raids in the past few Yarres had been started by the merchant type of Kerathi, who insisted that such and such competitor, who controlled such and such commodity, should be attacked for the good of the settlement. Well, that was all fine and dandy, but when people started thinking more about money than honor, that was a step toward the Aynglican way. The soft merchants and city-builders would win if the Kerathi lost their fierce nature. The warlike mind was a large part of what made Kerathi who they were. To lose that was to lessen the value of the whole.

  These thoughts and more ran through Rolf’s mind as he strolled casually down into the valley where Harsbrukke lay nestled between hills covered thinly with hardwoods like the bristles of a balding broom or hairbrush. This was the result of generations of slowly cutting back the trees to expand grazing areas for the clan’s meager supply of goats, cows, and sheep. The wood from the trees would go to build new Familienheime, or family homes. The Familienheime were built in rings around the Stammheim, though more recently there had been an expansion of homes only in the northern direction, so the former circle now had a lobe protruding northward.

  The Stammheim was the center of a Kerathi village in more ways that one. It served as a fortress, as well as being the social and a religious center of the village. In the cellars beneath the Stammheim, the clan kept its excess ammunition and rifles, as well as supplies for the Saysuhn of White – the cold Munths. So, in this respect, it was also a storehouse and a granary.

  The Kerathi were a proud, even arrogant people, so it was that no sentries or guards challenged Rolf as he walked down into the town. They didn’t see the need for any such precautions since they were not currently at war with any other clans. The Kriegegesetze laid out how such conflicts could be run anyway, so there would be no surprise attacks in the middle of the Dee.

  Those sorts of tactics were reserved for outsiders, people who were not Kerathi. A Kerathi deserved to die seeing who among his kind he faced in combat, not surprised by rifle fire from behind a tree as raiders snuck into the village. There was greater honor in that. But outsiders, they weren’t worthy of such polite warfare. They’d fight dirty and kill attackers any way they could, so the Kerathi would do the same – only better and with more cruelty.

  As he walked, Rolf scattered a small flock of chickens, which he thought looked a bit scrawny for all their efforts to find grubs, bugs, and worms amidst the gravelly paths of the village. He frowned at the sky, looking around as he walked. Some of the chickens he scattered alighted upon the sod roofs of the homes of the village, where they continued their search for insects.

  Of the other homes, many of them had grey wisps of wood smoke rising from their smoke vents, perhaps from a third of the more than forty Familienheime in Harsbrukke. Each one of the modest wooden structures represented a family. When a man came of age, which happened at fifteen Yarres, a man would prove himself to his peers, which would allow him to choose a mate. If she would have him, the men of the village would pitch in to clear land and build a Familienheime for the new family. The Familienheime would expand when a child was born to the family, each of which would usually live with the parents until such time as they would start their own family.

  Then, there are those like Rolf, whose fathers die young and nobly in a raid on another clan’s village, and whose mothers chose another mate. And there are those too, who like Rolf find themselves unwanted in the Familienheime of this second mate of his mother. And, because he was of age, his mother and her new mate were not required to provide a roof for him to sleep under.

  This was fine by Rolf, since he disliked Beljd anyway. Of course, it helped that he had inherited his father’s Familienheime. It was considered bad luck to tear one down, especially one on the inner ring of homes that lay around the Stammheim.

  Having a dwelling of his own and being unmarried made him extra desirable to the available females of the town, who numbered exactly nine, varying in ages between fourteen and twenty-two, with one widow of forty-six Yarres of age. The widow was beyond childbearing age and would likely remain without a mate until such time as another woman of the village of similar age died. Women in her case usually step in to fill the void, physically if not officially through marriage.

  The unmarried woman of twenty-two Yarres, Cybele, was a bit touched in the head, which explained her rather old age for being unmarried. She’d suffered a fall as a young girl, and the resulting blow to the head had left her cross-eyed, mute, and a bit simple. Had she been born like that, she’d have been left out for the elements or the animals to dispose of, but she’d been born healthy, so no one did her the favor of ending her life. Her parents endured her existence in a state of mild social shame. Rolf had always found it sadly unjust that a woman whose name meant ‘mother’ would likely never have a chance to be one.

  The other girls, all seven of them, were highly sought after by a group of boys of similar numbers and ages, though each to a differing degree according to individual tastes. This meant that almost all of them would end up paired with someone from the village. And while it wasn’t unheard of to take a wife from another village or to become a wife in another village – the women, not the men, make the move to their mate’s village – it was just more likely that each of them would choose someone from within the village.

  “Hello, little brother.” A voice called from his left, interrupting Rolf’s silent contemplations, which were usually about the girls of the village of late.

  Rolf scowled immediately and kept walking without responding. When footsteps fell in behind him, footsteps that hurried to catch up, Rolf rounded on the boy. “We are not brothers, Lamont. There is not a single drop of similar blood that runs in our veins. Our fathers and mothers are both different, and don’t forget it.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The large youth laughed. His heavily muscled shoulders, built from endless hours of swinging an axe with his father and older brother, rolled beneath the coarse fabric of his shirt. It was a shirt that had seen better Dees, and from the smell of it, a laundering was due. Lamont’s square jaw was thick with reddish beard growth that contained bits of trapped sawdust. His large arms crossed expectantly in front of his large chest. “That may be so, little brother, but never forget that your mother is my father’s new woman.”

  Rolf’s eyes flashed darkly with anger as he struggled to keep his fists from flying at Lamont’s blocky face. He started walking again, making his way toward the center of town, where a wooden platform was sitting in front of the entrance to the Stammheim. “While we’re not forgetting things, why don’t we no forget who is holding a rifle right now?” Rolf called back over his shoulder.

  Lamont’s smile faded just a hair, and his step faltered, if only for a moment. “If you tried to kill me, I’d be justified in actually killing you. That would work out rather nicely though, since I’d inherit your father’s Familienheime then. It’d be a nice place to start a family with Anika.”

  “Anika?” Rolf snorted, trying to imagine the shapely girl with kohl-colored eyes and dark ringlets of hair with Lamont. “You’ve got a better chance taming a bear to play as your wife than you have of getting her.”

  “Is that so? Well, it certainly won’t be you. You seem to have failed in my challenge. By the time I’m done with you, you won’t show your face in this town again if you have any honor.”

  Rolf smiled and shook the Aurean arc-lance, still covered with his cloak, at Lamont. “We’ll see.”

  Lamont tried to hide a worried expression that crept across his face as he regarded the mysterious package but did poorly. “Killed a snake, did you? Found a nice walking stick perhaps?” He chuckled nervously.

  “Why don’t you shut that exceptionally large mouth of yours for once, no-brother-of-mine, and watch?” Rolf suggested, glancing at the larger man briefly before ascending to the top of the speaker’s platform.

  The platform was only a couple Mayters off the ground, and something like eight paces long and three deep. At one corner, there was a small brass bell that could be rung to draw in people as witnesses, either for an elder’s sharing of wisdom, or for challenges such as the one Rolf was participating in. He rang the bell twice and then stood there quietly waiting.

  Rolf did not look at the Stammheim behind him. He knew what it looked like, with its four Mayter palisades of sharpened posts and logs, and its earthy embankments that had shrubs and tall weeds starting to grow – not a good thing for something that should be clear of obstacles or cover. He also knew what the Stammheim itself looked like, a fifty Mayter long hall made of large tree trunks that had been cut in half, with the flat side pointing out; the entire surface had been carefully carved over the generations into effigies of battles won, honors gained, and of the gods that the Kerathi worshipped. Though since this was a relatively new and small clan, much of its walls remained free of carvings, waiting for new honors to be etched into their pristine wood.

  What he was interested in, were the grubby faces of his fellow villagers. They came from home, field, and forest to witness what he was about to show them. They were covered with sweat, dirt, and the grime of their trades. The men were all bearded, though some had beads, animal teeth, and other trophies tied into their facial hair. They were a large lot, broad-shouldered with strong features and hands meant for working. The women followed in the same vein, though in a more feminine way. They built for a life of labor and childbearing and not for daintiness and delicacy like the women in some of the other races. This is not to say that they did not have a sort of beauty to them, but many had seen hard lives, so the beauty many of them may have held earlier in life had faded considerably.

  Lamont joined him on the stage, being part of this challenge since he was the issuer. They looked out among the sixty-some faces that had arrived already, and the twenty stragglers that were still wandering in. Rolf swallowed nervously. Half the community had come to witness what he had done and found.

  “Well?” Lamont said at last, smiling easily at the crowd as he held out his open hands at Rolf. He did it in such a way that many among the crowd chuckled or laughed, catching on to Lamont’s doubt of the other man who stood before them.

  “I was supposed to go and kill a great animal… a hart, a bear, or a warthog perhaps.” Rolf began, his voice unsure at first, but steadying with each word he spoke. “In this, I nearly succeeded.”

  “Do you see? You see what I have said?” Lamont called out triumphantly. “Did I not say he would fail?”

  More among the crowd laughed or called out in agreement. Rolf favored them all with a hard look and silence. The effect worked. They quieted while he waited patiently and exuded a stern feeling of disappointment in their behavior.

  “I am surprised that so many of you were foolish enough to think I’d come up here with nothing to show, that I’d come back empty-handed and call you to witness such shame. I am surprised that I must deal with this man of empty words and empty promises beside me.” Rolf shook his head slowly. “I am surprised that I stand before you with something of great importance, and yet you’d all rather stand here and have your little laughs at my expense instead of waiting for its unveiling. When did we become a people that would rather listen to a braying jackass spewing his nonsense out among us rather than hear about something truly important?”

  The crowd shifted uneasily, as people do when they feel shame. A couple thought Rolf had gone too far, and he could tell so from their looks. They felt angry that he should be bold enough to berate the lot of them. He took this as a cue to continue, not wanting to give Lamont, who stood beside him looking red-faced with simultaneous embarrassment and fury, another chance to speak.

  “I had a ten-point hart in my sights,” Rolf exaggerated as he held up his rifle, “and something happened.”

  “Well, we know what didn’t happen! You didn’t shoot it!” Someone heckled from amidst the crowd, laughing. The people near him elbowed him to be quiet.

  Rolf recognized the voice as one of Lamont’s friends but could not pick out which one had said it. “No, I didn’t shoot it, because something came crashing down over my head, crushing branches and snapping trees off at the trunk for a quarter of a Kilome. It was a flying craft, an airboat unlike anything I have ever seen before. It broke apart in the crash, but I went to see what I could find. The chance was too valuable to give up.”

  “And it had men in it too!” He called out. He let them whisper amongst each other for a moment as they digested what he had just told them. “They wore bronzed armor and they were tall with pale hair and eyes like gemstones. I tried to speak with one before he died, but I could not understand what he said. He was not Kerathi or anything else I have ever met. Therefore, I can only assume that he was an Aurean.”

  “An Aurean?” Lamont said incredulously. “No one sees the Aureans. They keep to themselves. There is not a man alive on this entire island that has seen an Aurean in their lifetime. Even the elders and the chieftains have not seen Aureans.”

  “Then how do you explain their weapon which shoots lightning as if from a storm?” Rolf demanded, throwing aside his cloak to expose the arc-lance.

  A hush fell over the crowd as they regarded the lance. It was clear from the number of blank faces that most of them did not know how to respond. Many though, simply weren’t that impressed with the two Mayter flared shaft of silvery metal.

  Then Lamont burst out laughing. “That? You found some scratched up old lance in the forest and you concocted this elaborate story all to avoid the shame from failing on your hunt?”

  “You don’t believe? Shall I try it on you?” Rolf asked, smiling and hoping that Maletos would grant him this one favor. A beam of light to smite Lamont on the spot would be quite welcome.

  Now the larger man wasn’t exactly ready for this, but at the insistence of the crowd, who shouted for him to do it, he couldn’t back down without losing face. He shrugged it off as if it were nothing though. “Why not? Do your worst.” Lamont encouraged him. He stood with his arms out and inviting.

  “Don’t say I didn’t tell you the truth.” Rolf said with a smile, unable to believe his good fortune. He was pretty sure the lance wouldn’t kill Lamont, but the shame of being wrong might.

  Rolf lowered the lance, aimed right for Lamont, and squeezed the handle like he recalled trying before. For a moment, the tip looked like it began to glow and Lamont’s eyes widened in surprise. But that was it. Nothing happened.

  Rolf swore silently.