John Dalmas - Yngling 1 - The Yngling

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"Now suppose there was a land where all

men were thralls. No, less than thralls, because

thralls at least have some rights and protection in

law. Suppose all men were slaves except for one

master and his soldiers. And suppose that master had

the worst kind of madness, finding his greatest

pleasure in the misery and degradation, the torture,

of his slaves. An emperor who conquered only to enjoy

the cries, the whimpers, the begging for mercy of

those he ruled. A man who had lived very long and has

a great army." Raadgiver leaned toward Nils. "What

would you do if you lived in a land like that?"

"I have never thought of such a

thing," Nils answered. "Where is that land?"

"Right now it is far to the

southeast," Raadgiver answered. "But someday, perhaps

soon, it may include all of Europe, even Denmark.

"And what we want you to do is kill

that man."

Look for these other TOR BOOKS by John Dalmas

HOMECOMING

TOUCH THE STARS: EMERGENCE (with Carl Martin)

THE VARKAUS CONSPIRACY

THE SCROLL OF MAN (coming in January 1985)

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and

events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental.

THE YNGLINC

this book or portions thereof in any form.

Reprinted by arrangement with the Author A TOR Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, 8-10 West 36

Street, New York, N.Y. 10018

Cover art by James Gurney

First TOR printing: October 1984

ISBN: 0-812-53473-5 CAN. ED.: 0-812-53474-3

Printed in the United States of America

THE YNGLING

Nils Hammarson stood relaxed among a few

freeholders, thralls, and two other sword

apprentices, watching two warriors argue in the muddy

beast trail. In his eighteenth summer, Nils's beard

was still blond down, but he stood taller and more

muscular than any sword apprentice of the Wolf Clan

for many years. And sword apprentices were selected

at puberty from among all the clan, even the sons of

thralls, for their strength and keenness.

The argument they listened to was

personal and not a clan dispute. The clans of the

Svear had met to hold a ting, and trade, and take

wives. And though the ting now had closed, clan feuds

were in abeyance until the clans dispersed to their

own lands. Only personal fights were allowed.

The warrior of the Wolf Clan was smaller

and his beard more gray than brown, but he refused to

back down before his larger, younger adversary. The

warrior of the Eagle Clan suddenly shot out his large

left hand to the necklace of wolves' teeth, jerked

forward and down. The older man saw the move coming

and kept his balance, al-

though the leather thong bit hard into his neck

sinews. He swung a knobby fist with his heavy

shoulder behind it, driving a grunt from the younger.

For a moment they grappled, each with a knife in his

right hand and the other's knife wrist in his left.

Briefly their arms sawed the air, their bare feet

carrying them in a desperate dance, muscles bunched

in their browned torsos while callused heels strove

to trip.

Then strength told, and the warrior of

the Wolf Clan toppled backward. His breath grunted

out as his heavier opponent fell on him; his left

hand lost its sweaty grip and quickly the other's

blade drove under his ribs, twisted upward through

heart and lungs. For a brief moment, as his blood

poured over his opponent's hand and forearm, his

teeth still clenched and his right arm strained to

stab. Then his body slackened, and the warrior of the

Eagles arose, panting and grinning.

Most of the watchers left. But Ragnar

Tannson and Algott Olofson still stood, glaring at

the killer of their clansman, for they were sword

apprentices and nearly matured. There were narrow

bounds on what they could say to a warrior, however,

for warriors were forbidden to kill outside their

class unless the terms of the feud specifically

allowed. And this was not a feud at all yet, although

it would probably be proposed and accepted as one.

But the wish to kill was on their faces.

The Eagle warrior looked at them, his

grin widening to show a dead tooth that had turned

gray. "I see the cubs are beginning to feel like real

wolves," he said. His eyes moved to Nils Hammarson

who stood, still relaxed, a slight smile on his face.

"All but the big one, eh? A

thrall's son I'll bet, strong as an ox and almost as

quick. Or maybe your blood runs hot, too, but you

hide it."

Nils shifted his weight easily, and his

voice was casual. "Nay, Du." For a sword apprentice

to address a warrior with the familiar pronoun

bordered on insolence. "I was memorizing your face.

The old man lying there is my kinsman, Olof

Snabbhann, and in one year I'll be wearing warrior's

braids." He paused. "Not that everyone with braids

deserves to be called warrior."

The Eagle warrior's eyes narrowed in his

darkening face and he strode toward the youth. He

aimed a fist at the blond head. But the fist that met

him was quicker; his steel-capped head snapped back

and he fell heavily in the trampled mud, his head at

an odd angle. Algott Olofson knelt by him quickly,

then rose. "You've killed him," he said gravely.

But the ting was over and crimes between

clans would not be judged again until the next year.

Therefore, Nils was free to go home. He spent his

summer as any sword apprentice would, hunting bear

and wild bulls, rowing out into the long lake to draw

in nets, and particularly training, with his ring

mates. They lifted boulders and wrestled. They swung,

parried, and thrust at shadow enemies with heavy iron

practice swords twice the weight of a war sword. They

sparred with birch swords and weighted wooden

shields, and sent arrows at staves marked with the

totems of other clans.

But if his activities were normal, the

subtler things of life weren't. Everyone knew that at

the next ting he would be judged, and when one re-

membered this, it was sometimes hard to be at ease

with him. He could be executed. Or he could be

labeled a renegade, to live alone in the forest

without clan protection. In that case Eagle warriors

would surely hunt him down and kill him. The least

sentence possible was banishment.

Nonetheless, Nils Hammarson seemed about

as always-relaxed, mild-spoken and observant. He had

changed mainly in one respect. Before, in sparring,

he had usually been content to parry and counter,

seldom pressing a vigorous attack. Although he

invariably won anyway, the drillmaster had sometimes

thrashed him for this. Now, without ferocity but

overpoweringly, his birch club-sword thrust and

struck like the weapon of a Bärsärk, making his

bruised and abraded ringmates exceed themselves in

sheer self-defense. Their drillmaster, old Matts

Sväädkunni, grinned widely and often, happier than

anyone could remember. "That is how a Wolf should

fight," he would bellow. And he had a new practice

sword forged for his protege, heavier than any other

in the clan.

Late in September, when the cold weather

came, the sword apprentices butchered cattle,

drinking the steaming blood, smearing each other with

gore and brains, and draping entrails about their

necks and shoulders so they would not be squeamish in

battle. And in late October, after the first heavy

snow, they slipped the upturned toes of their ski

boots under the straps and hunted moose and wild

cattle in the forests and muskegs. After that, as was

customary for sword apprentices, Nils Hammarson

wrapped cheese and meat in his sleeping bag of

glutton skins, took his bow and short sword and went

for days at a time into the rugged,

uninhabited hills above Lake Siljan. But now he did

not hunt the wolf, their clan totem, with a ringmate.

In fact he did not hunt so much as travel, northwest

even into the mountains of what tradition called

Jämtland, where long glaciers filled the valleys. The

great wanderer of the Svear, Sten Vannaren, told that

the ice had moved down the valley more than three

kilometers in five years. Someday, he said, the ice

will reach the sea.

Nils would have liked to have seen the

glaciers in summer when the land was green, but he

expected never to be here again.

Not that he would be executed-struck

down like an ox to have his head raised on a pole at

the ting. The circumstances had not been that

damning. And this belief was not born of hope, nor

did it give rise to hope. It was a simple

dispassionate evaluation that would prove correct or

incorrect, but probably correct.

And if it came down to it, he would

escape. To his knowledge, no one had ever tried to

escape a sentence of the ting. It would be considered

shameful and jeopardize future lifetimes. But Nils

did not believe it would be shameful for him, nor did

his blood quicken at the thought.

He simply knew that he was not intended

to have his head lopped off before the clan.

In July, after the hay was cut and

stored, another ting was held. It heard a number of

complaints and disputes. Warnings were given. Feuds

were approved. Fines of cattle, potatoes and grain

were levied, and backs flogged. A hand was cut off.

And from a copper-haired head, runnels of blood dried

on a pole at the ting ground.

At the trial of Nils Hammarson, two

witnesses were heard: Ragnar Tannson and Algott

Olofson. They were Nils's friends and ringmates, but

no one would lie to a ting. After their testimony,

the council sat in quiet discussion in its tent for a

time, then emerged and mounted the platform of hewn

timbers. Warriors and freeholders covered the broad

and trampled field. Axel Stornäve, chief of the

Svear, arose from his carved throne and stood before

the clans in his cloak of white owl skins. His voice

boomed, showing little sign of his sixty years.

"Nils Hammarson angered a warrior," he

said. "But his speech was within bounds, though

barely.

"Nils Hammarson struck a warrior whose

attack on him was without arms and not deadly.

"Nils Hammarson killed a warrior,

though without intention.

"Nils Hammarson is stripped of all

rights but one, beginning with the second new moon

from now. By that time he must be gone from the lands

of the tribes. If he is not gone by the second new

moon, he will be declared a renegade. Notice of this

judgment will be sent to the Jötar and the Norskar,

and they will not take him in.

"One right is retained. Nils Hammarson

is in his nineteenth summer and has fulfilled his

sword apprenticeship. Where he goes he will be an

outlander, unprotected by clans or laws. Therefore,

when the ting is over, his hair will be braided and

he will leave the land as a warrior."

The Eagle Clan grumbled at this

leniency, but the ting had ruled. Three days later,

Ulf Vargson, chief of the Wolf Clan, plaited the hair

of the six Wolf

sword apprentices who were in their nineteenth

summers and gave them their warrior names. And Nils

Hammarson became Nils Järnhann, "Iron Hand."

Neovikings. The neovikings were members

of a primitive, post-plague Terran culture that

evolved in Sweden and Norway after the Great Death

that left less than 10-4 of the pre-plague population

alive. They consisted of three tribes: the Norskar in

southern Norway, the Jötar in southern Sweden, and

the Svear in central Sweden. ...

The term "neovikings" was applied to them

by the post-plague psionic culture known as the

"kinfolk." In some respects neoviking was not an apt

term, for they were not sea rovers. They were

primarily herdsmen, although hunting and fishing

rivalled livestock in their economy and they

practiced some agriculture. Perhaps their outstanding

cultural feature was their unusually martial

orientation, and in this they did somewhat resemble

the medieval vikings. Tribe warred against tribe, and

clans carried on bloody feuds.

They increased despite their love of

bloodshed, however. Taboos, tribal laws and

intertribal agreements restricted the causes of

fighting, its circumstances and practices. . . .

History. . . . The rapid climatic

deterioration finally became critical. They found it

necessary to store increasing quantities of forage as

the season of pasturage became shorter. Crops became

poorer, and some lands that had been farmed became

too waterlogged and cold to grow crops. Had this

happened three or four centuries earlier, they might

have lapsed into a purely hunting and fishing

culture, but they had become too numerous and

sophisticated for that. A coastal clan, familiar with

fishing boats, began to build vessels large enough to

carry effective raiding parties to other parts of

Europe. A rather close analog of the medieval viking

culture might have developed, had not. . . .

(From the New School Encyclopedia,

copyrighted A.C. 920, Deep Harbor, New Home.)

It was no fishing boat, but a broad

cargo ship made for the open sea and a full thirty

meters long. The prow turned upward, and the end was

carved and painted in the likeness of a sea eagle

with wings partly folded. The water was choppy, and a

brisk southwest wind blew. The ship's course being

southwesterly, the sail was furled and the crew

leaned into the oars, their brawny backs wet with

sweat. Through the blue sky moved flocks of small

white clouds. The sun sparkled off millions of facets

of sea surface, making Nils's eyes squint against the

glitter. A low shore, featureless at first in the

distance, drew gradually nearer, becoming low dunes

backed by rolling heath. Woods of stubby oaks took

form in some of the hollows. Nils Järnhann had never

seen the sea before, nor oak woods, and stood

absorbing the beauty and novelty.

A break appeared in the dunes and became

the mouth of a stream that flowed out of the heath. A

short distance up the stream, on its south side, a

town became visible past the shoulder of a dune. A

lookout called down from the mast, and the stroke

strengthened as the oarsmen began a chant, for this

was their homeplace.

When the ship was tied to the wharf of

oak timbers, the oarsmen became stevedores, and under

the captain's direction began to unload the pine

planks that made up their cargo. A movement caught

the captain's eye and he turned to see his passenger

approaching. The captain was a big man, but this

fellow was bigger-more than a hundred and ninety

centimeters tall, he judged, with muscles

impressively thick and sinewy even to one accustomed

to the sight of brawny oarsmen. His corded torso was

bare and brown beneath the simple leather harness

that supported his sword belt. Soft deerskin breeches

were wrapped close around his calves by leather

strips, and his callused feet were bare. A necklace

of wolves' teeth hung on a thong across his thick

chest and the skin of a wolf's head was laced onto

his steel cap. Straw-colored braids hung to his

shoulders. Obviously a warrior of the northmen, and a

new one, the captain thought, noting the sparse soft

beard and mustache so out of character with the

physique.

Nils addressed the captain. "Will you

hire me to help unload cargo?"

"When did warriors start hiring out as

labor?" the captain asked.

"When they have spent their last coin

for passage and need something to eat."

"All right. One krona when the cargo is

all on the wharf, if you work well and make no

quarrels. Otherwise, nothing, and the arrows of the

town wardens if there is trouble." The captain

believed in giving a man a chance and also in making

things clear from the beginning. And fear wasn't a

trait of his.

He matched Nils with a thick-armed man of

medium height, and without words they made a point of

pride in carrying bigger loads than any other pair

working. Even with the breeze, all of them were soon

dripping sweat-a familiar and agreeable enough

experience both to oarsmen and warrior. Soon Nils

removed helmet, harness, and sword, laying them with

his other things on a rowing bench forward.

Well into the afternoon one of the crew

suddenly shouted, "Hey! Stop!" A youth, who had

boarded unnoticed, leaped from the gunwale carrying

Nils's scabbarded sword. The captain, on the wharf

su-pervising the piling, bellowed, drew his knife and

threw it, but it clattered uselessly on the

cobblestones. Nils's bare feet hit the wharf running.

The thief was quick; he reached a corner and sprinted

out of sight. A moment later Nils made the turn, and

the thief realized he had dangerously underestimated

both the weight of the sword and the speed of a

barbarian who had spent much time running on skis. He

drew the sword as he ran, then turned and faced his

pursuer. Nils stopped a few meters from him, and

seconds later several of the crew ran up, panting, to

stand near.

"I can stand here as long as you can,"

Nils pointed out matter-of-factly. "If you try to run

away again with the sword, I will easily catch you.

And if you run at me to kill me, you won't be able

to. But if you lay the sword down and walk away, I'll

let you go."

The thief scowled and licked his lips

nervously. He was Nils's age, lean and wiry. Suddenly

he rushed

at Nils, the sword raised to one side in both hands,

ready to swing. The sailors scattered, and in that

instant Nils sprang high above the swinging blade. A

hard foot shot out, a powerful thigh driving the heel

into the thief's chest and hurling him backward. He

skidded on his back and lay still.

"What must I do now?" Nils asked.

"Is he dead?" asked the sailor that Nils

had worked with.

"He's dead all right," Nils assured him,

without needing to examine the body.

"Well then, there's nothing to do. A

warden's likely to come around and question us, and

we'll tell him what happened. He'll have the body

taken away and that'll be the end of it. There won't

be any trouble for you, if that's what you're

wondering about."

Nils and the sailor began walking back

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摘要：

"Nowsupposetherewasalandwhereallmenwerethralls.No,lessthanthralls,becausethrallsatleasthavesomerightsandprotectioninlaw.Supposeallmenwereslavesexceptforonemasterandhissoldiers.Andsupposethatmasterhadtheworstkindofmadness,findinghisgreatestpleasureinthemiseryanddegradation,thetorture,ofhisslaves.Anem...

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John Dalmas - Yngling 1 - The Yngling

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