Now Baver heard hooves, soft on soft earth, and at the same time saw horses and riders approaching in the near night. Slowly he knelt, and without lowering his eyes, took out his recorder. A moment later one of the intruders was within the firelight’s edge. He stopped and dismounted, a burly man, perhaps 180 centimeters tall, Baver thought, and 100 kilos, with massive shoulders. He was dressed for serious fighting, with a semi-conical steel cap of Neoviking design, and short chain mail scavenged after fights with horse barbarians in the Orc War. Behind him, others dismounted too. For a moment no one spoke.
“So you’ve come,” Nils said, “women, children, and all.”
“We have no place,” the man answered. “We can’t leave my brothers’ death unavenged. And when we’ve taken our vengeance, and it becomes known, we’ll be outlawed.”
Nils still squatted. “What is your name? You’ll want me to know.”
“I am Olof Three-Fingers, Olofs son.” He held up his right hand; the little finger was gone.
“Ah.” Nils bit another piece from a strip of jerky. For a long moment he chewed without speaking. The newcomer waited.
“What form is this vengeance to take?” Nils asked it as mildly and calmly as if talking about some stranger.
“A fight to the death. Your death. You know that, if you hear men’s thoughts as they claim. We are not ambushers.”
Nils grunted. “It’s difficult to ambush someone who hears thoughts.” He chewed for a few more seconds. “And I’m to fight just the three warriors. Well. Tell the
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others to let my companions be then. If you kill the star man, his friends will hunt you down with their skyboat and wipe you out, root and seed, women and children. And the young one with me is a poet’s apprentice; he’s protected by the law of every tribe. Take them with you, and let them go when you’re well out of the country.”
Baver tried to picture Matthew and Nikko hunting down the murderers. It would never happen.
“Am I to fight you one at a time?” Nils asked. “Or all at once?”
Olof Three-Fingers regarded Nils darkly. “All at once. We are here for vengeance, not glory. Now. Are you going to stand up? Or must I kill you squatting on your haunches?”
Nils bit off another bite. “You have with you fifteen women, am I right? Plus children, and seven freemen. Let me advise you. Instead of simply killing me, let me challenge you to a duel. Hans Gunnarsson here, and the star man, will witness that I challenged the three of you at once. It will make no difference to the outcome, but your family will not be outlaw, and it will save them the blood penalty.”
One of the other warriors spoke then, angrily. “Do not agree to it!” he said. “He is trying to shame us!”
Olof Olofsson answered without turning to face the man. “Shut up. If he wishes to make that small amend before he dies, we will honor it.”
Nils paused in his deliberate chewing, his weird glass eyes directed upward at the warrior who stood in the firelight. “Good. Then I will challenge you, all three. As soon as I’ve finished my supper.”
“No!” said the one who’d complained before. “Finish his supper! Can’t you see? He’s stalling!”
Nils half laughed, half barked. “Stalling? To what effect? I am enjoying what may be my last meal. Have you eaten? Here! It will be your last, too.”
He tossed a piece of jerky toward the man, who stepped forward angrily, drawing his sword. Olof Three-Fingers barked him to a standstill, hand raised as if to
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strike him. Then Nils spoke again, to Mager Hans this time. “And you, Hans Gunnarsson, unnock your arrow. I intend to keep the killing between warriors. A poet is not to be wasted.”
Then a voice called from the rear of the family of Jäävklo. “Olof! Someone is coming! More than one!’
Looking back, the warrior swore. Nils got smoothly to his feet, his sword in his hand now. “Two of them,” he said. “One is Leif Trollsverd. You know of him. The other is my kinsman, Sten Vannaren.”