Dalmas, John – Yngling 02 – Homecoming

“I’m not getting all that,” Nikko told the others.

“Something about a witch, apparently, a dojtsa witch, whatever that is.”

Again the big man spoke, in Anglic this time. “Who but the star people would come out of the sky? Besides, my wife foretold your coming; it is she the children called a witch. And also, your force shield does not stop thoughts.”

“Let me have the microphone,” Matthew said. Nikko handed it to him and he thumbed the switch. “What do you know about force shields?” he demanded.

“Only the little your thoughts have told me, and what I observe in the children.”

“Damn it, Matt!” Mikhail said. “Don’t you see what he’s saying? The man’s a telepath! He even knew that Nikko is the only one of us that speaks Swedish!”

Matthew digested that for a few seconds, then set it aside for the time. “Who is your ruler?” he asked. “We want to talk to him.”

“The Council of Chiefs has been sent for and should be here after a while. But I am the only one of them who speaks Anglic. My name is Nils Järnhann.”

The man sat his horse no more than six meters away, just outside the shield, and Matthew looked him over carefully. He’d stand at least 195 centimeters and mass 110 kilos. Even relaxed he gave an impression of great strength and virility, like a jungle cat. He wore soft leather breeches wrapped around his calves with strips. Short blond braids reached his burly shoulders. The thinness of his mustache and beard suggested youth, despite his physique and presence and apparent rank.

“How did you come to learn Anglic when your people don’t speak it?” Matthew asked.

“When we still lived in the north I was cast out for a killing, and wandered in countries where Anglic was spoken between those of different tongues.”

“How did you live in exile?”

“As a soldier and assassin.”

“And why did your people take you back again?”

“When they left our homeland they had need of an Yngling.”

Matthew turned to Nikko. “What’s an Ingling?”

She shrugged. “It used to mean a youth, a youngling, but that doesn’t fit the context here. It must have picked up a different meaning along the line, or a special connotation.”

Matthew switched on the microphone again. “What brings your people to this land which is claimed by the orcs?”

“Our homeland grows colder and wetter year by year. It was harder and harder to make a crop. The turnips rotted in the field and the rye molded in the shocks. People of middle age remember when cattle could graze for five or six months of the year. In recent years it was necessary to feed hay for eight months, while the hay crops grew poorer. In the north among the reindeer and glutton clans, things were even worse. Finally, a year ago, the ground was still snow-covered in June. The tribes made peace, united, and left—left a land that had been their mother but could no longer feed them.”

A land they knew and loved, thought Matthew. No doubt the only land most of them had been able to imagine. That must have been a hard decision.

“The People crossed the sea in boats,” the man continued. “We allied ourselves with the Poles and others and defeated the armies of Kazi that had come to conquer Europe. After a winter of hunger, the People came to this place. We like it here. It is rich in grass and cattle. There is timber for fuel and building. We will stay and drive the orcs away.”

“Are these your entire people, camped along this valley?”

“Yes.”

“There are many more orcs than there are of you. What makes you think you can drive them out?”

“The orcs are strong and dangerous, but not as strong as you think. They are like a great spruce tree, mighty, darkening much ground and shading out what takes root beneath them, but rotten and hollow inside. For outlanders they are skilled fighters, but now that Kazi is dead, there is nothing they live for and nothing they are willing to die for. They have pride, but even that is shallow. They obey because they hardly know how to disobey and they are afraid to disobey, but they find no savor in risking life, only in taking it.”

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