THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

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After eating, Nils and Hans went to the paddock of the chief, where their own horses were kept, those they’d arrived on, and horses that Kaidu had gifted them with. Then they rode out of camp a short distance to drill with swords, an activity Hans didn’t like to miss.

They did their forms for awhile, taking turns, Hans watching Nils and asking questions, Nils watching Hans and making comments. Soon they were sweating, though the sun had set and the cooling begun. When they had finished, they swung into their saddles and rode to the top of the rise beside them, to look out over the great encampment and drink water from a skin.

When he’d wiped his chin with his wrist, the appren­tice poet spoke. In Swedish, which he preferred but had not used much lately. “If Achikh’s people go to war for the emperor,” he said, “will you join them?”

Nils shook his head. “I did not come here to fight for any emperor.”

“Why did we come here?”

The Northman chuckled. “I only know that my weird sent me. You said you came so you would write my saga. And Baver—Baver believes he left the ting with you so he could let his friends know where I was. Later, he believed, he followed along because he couldn’t find his way back alone. And both were true for him. But mainly he came because his weird drove him to it; the rest were simply reasons to believe in and give. The star folk do not believe in weirds, so often they must strive to imagine explanations, and then convince themselves that what they imagine is true.”

Again they sat quiet, watching the dusk thicken while their horses grazed the feather grass and fescue. The details of the encampment blurred, and lost themselves in twilight. After a bit, Hans spoke again. “I do not un­derstand the star folk,” he said. “And Baver! He is so helpless!”

“Oh? He was at the start, but he does many things now. He’s learned much. He had never lived in the forest

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before, or on the steppes. He bad seen little of anything except towns, and nature was a stranger whom he’d heard about but didn’t know.

Hans scowled, not wishing to alter his position. “And he has no interest in training with the sword!”

“True. It is not something his people do. They are people of peace. And their ancestors abandoned blades long ago, for more serious weapons.”

Hans contemplated Nils’s answer. He hadn’t been along on the campaign against the Orcs, though he’d been one of the adolescents who’d hunted their survivors. The campaign itself had been only for the warriors. But he remembered what the warriors had said about the star folk’s weapons. They’d been more than effective, if killing was the goal, but there seemed little honor to be won with them.

Nils nudged his horse’s flank with a callused heel, and they started down the mild slope toward camp, the star folk still on Hans’s mind. He tried to imagine flying be­tween worlds. As they approached the first row of gert, he said, again in their own language, “I would like to ride in a skyboat sometime.”

“Perhaps you will, Hans,” the Yngling answered. “Per­haps you will.”

TWENTY-THREE

…. stod å titte sej på liken,

släkting till han, Olof Snabbhann,

å på den som dråpte gubben.

Titte på å log föraktfullt.

“Ju men Du ä modi kjämpe!

att Du dråpt’ d’ gråa gubbe,

mä din knivslag i sin järta.

Kansje vi kan mota när jag

kjämpeflätor ha i åren,

om Du stanna ikke hemma.

“Rytte då den rasne kjämpen,

slog på pojken mä sin näve.

Men den yngres näv var snabbre,

slog i kaken som en hammar,

brytte halsen, Iäggde kjämpen

låg i dyen, död som fiske.

Sa fick han sin kjämpenamne,

Järnhann for sin mäkti näve.

[. . . . looked upon the lifeless body

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of his kinsman, Olof Quickhand,

and at he who’d killed the old man.

Looked at him and sneered disdainfully.

“No real warrior shows his valor

in the murder of a graybeard,

in the knifing of an old man.

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