Sven led his party out of the settlement two New World days later. He needed to attend to some of his Old World needs first, and that had taken a few Old World hours.
It was a cloudy morning, and a spring thunderstorm broke soon after they'd started out on their journey to the copper mine. There was a decent amount of silver ore there as well, and even a few thin veins of gold. It wasn't something to be abandoned.
They plodded on determinedly through the pouring rain, divided into three groups. The three miners walked in the center, carrying big leather sacks filled with supplies: hopefully, on the way back they would be filled with gold and silver ore.
The armed escort flanked the miners, with three soldiers on each side. All six had been hand-picked by Sven, and kitted out with the best equipment available.
They all wore armor: copper and iron scales fixed onto thick leather tunics. They all had iron helmets. They all had sheepskin protectors tied over their knees and shins, with the fur on the inside. They all carried round wooden shields, swords or axes, and long, sharp knives. Two of them had throwing spears; two others carried bows.
Sven walked at the head of the group escorting the miners' left flank. Henrik and Ulla followed behind him; to his left was Lasse, a new recruit. Sven had chosen him specifically because back in the Old World, Lasse was a crack archer. But the bow he had in the New World was much, much worse than the Mathews Creed bow he had back home. The arrows were shit, too; badly balanced, they were almost guaranteed to miss at any distance beyond a hundred paces. An arrow from Lasse's Mathews Creed bow in the Old World traveled a hundred meters per second. The arrow from his New World bow - just under fifty.
On top of that, in this rain, the primitive plaited leather bowstrings would be useless. Sven wished he'd thought to get a couple of waterproof bow sheaths made. Yeah, a bowstring could be kept dry rolled up in a bag. But the time needed to string a bow when they came under attack ruled that out. It would be faster and easier just to charge whoever was attacking them.
He had no doubt they'd win in any hand-to-hand fight as long as they weren't outnumbered by more than three to one. All the Viking men and women had been well trained in melee combat. And unlike the bows, the swords and axes they had were excellent weapons. Tough, sharp, and beautifully balanced: Sven could throw his ax accurately enough to slice through a sheep's skull at twenty paces. He carried a sword, too: he was really good with that sword.
It stopped raining in the mid-afternoon, just as they reached the edge of the forest that stretched right up to the mine. The soil under their feet changed from mud to mud with stones. The track they followed began to weave between rises and swells, and towards the evening they had to cross a stream that was just a little too broad to jump across, and ran with a force sufficient to knock a man off his feet.
They set up camp for the night on its other side. Sven forbade lighting a fire; there were some mutters and grumbles. They ate smoked fish and a cold, lumpy gruel of crushed oats and dried diced carrots and bran. All of them sprinkled a pinch of herbs over the food, and some a little more than that. Sven took the first watch along with Lasse, and he heard the muted giggles and whispers start a couple of mind-phases later.
Sven measured time in mind-phases when he was in the New World. Back in the Old World, his success was due to the fact that unlike most people, he'd taken the trouble to get to know his own mind. He knew it naturally switched subjects every ten to fifteen minutes, and he let it run freely while dealing with any task that was at hand. He was a multi-tasker: that was what made him a successful man.
Of course, this time-measurement method was wildly inaccurate by Old World standards that set time in seconds, minutes, and hours. But it was the only right way to measure time in the New World.
In the New World, time was measured by heartbeats, breaths, sunrise and sunset; it was measured by the size of the moon, and the birth and death of life in all of its shapes and forms. In the New World, time wasn't measured in arbitrary units; each moment felt like a piece of life gone by.
When the moon was nearing the tops of the trees, Sven was relieved by Henrik and got a few hours sleep before dawn. He had no dreams; he dropped straight into a bottomless black pit. And then Ulla was shaking his arm and saying:
"Sven. Sven. It's time to get up."
"Okay," said Sven, promptly and clearly. He had programmed himself to do that, even when completely smashed. It was part of the myth that he'd created - that he was always alert, instantly awake. People didn't dare to fuck around with someone who was always alert, and highly skilled in the use of a wide range of weapons.
He washed his face bending over the stream, looking at the water skimming over the stones, foaming at obstacles: this was the flow of life itself. He noticed movement under the translucent, twisting film: he focused and saw the spotted back of a small fish disappear between the stones. The trees flanking the stream sighed and whispered. Every cell inside his body tingled with life. This was it. He'd never felt like that in the Old World.
When everyone had eaten breakfast, they all set off for the mine. It was a sunny morning this time; the trees threw long shadows that turned the surrounding forest into a dark maze.
The vegetation was too thick to to spread out. So Sven told his people to switch to a column, and led his team twenty paces in front of the miners. The rest of the escort brought up the back.
He knew something was afoot long before he saw it. His heartbeat quickened slightly; his eyesight sharpened along with his hearing. That was his personal radar, the talent that made him a natural leader in both worlds.
He raised a hand, waved it, and brought it down in slow motion. Everyone crouched and spread out, hands on weapons, eyes searching. Sven turned and said, very softly:
"Lasse. Come here."
When Lasse did, he told him:
"You go ahead. Keep an arrow ready. Kirsten and Ingrid will go along with you, carrying their sacks. We'll follow far enough behind to make sure they don't see us when they notice your group. When you make contact, run right back. Keep going down the track. We'll disperse to the sides, and intercept anyone coming after you. Got it?"
"This fucking bow," said Lasse. "It's a gamble to hit a cow at fifty paces."
"I know. I don't expect you to hit anyone, just make them scared enough to freeze for a few seconds. Have you ever had any military training, Lasse?"
"No."
"Well, let me tell you what the military calls an effective shot. An effective shot is a shot that makes the target incapable of action for a few seconds. That's all it takes to kill it for good. You don't need to kill anyone with your shot. You don't need to wound anyone. All you have to do is make them freeze for a moment. That's good enough. Someone else will finish the job for you."
"Okay," said Lasse. "I guess I can make them freeze for a moment. I might even get lucky, and hit someone with this piece of shit."
"That's the spirit. Let's go."
Lasee held a short, whispered conversation with Kirsten and Ingrid. Then they moved off, walking with Lasse at point, helmet on, arrow stringed. Sven followed next with his team. He'd put his helmet on, and signaled all others to do the same.
They'd barely walked a hundred paces before they heard the swish of a slingshot being swirled, and the first stone clanged off the side of Lasse's helmet. As agreed, Lasse loosed off an arrow at something Sven couldn't see. A yell rose from the trees in front and thin, scraggly shapes tumbled forth, arms waving crazily and sending stones hissing through the air.
The sun was behind Sven's back and he took maximum advantage, sending off people to chosen positions with flips and waves of his hand. He slid behind a convenient shrub, setting his shield onto the ground and whisking his ax from his belt.
The girls ran past first, the sacks bouncing on their backs. Lasse followed close behind, stringing a fresh arrow to his bow as he ran. He definitely wasn't a multi-tasker: he slipped and fell a few steps ahead of Sven's position, shouting out with anger and fear when he hit the ground.
Slingshot stones smacked into the soil around him. He got up to his feet and turned around, raising his bow. Sven heard a triumphant whoop and the thump of running feet, and his radar told him this was a bunch of lightweights approaching, just like the teenagers he'd had to punch and kick in his early days as a drug lord.
He was right. They came into view almost as soon as the girls went past, with Lasse right on their heels. They were a bunch of thin-limbed kids in rough animal skin shifts, barefoot and yelling as they swung their slingshots around in preparation for another shot. They looked thin and desperate and very easy to kill.
They were. Sven shouted and sprang forward from his hiding place and others followed suit, yelling crazily. The slingshot kids froze for a moment, and that moment was all that was needed, exactly as prophesied by warfare experts. Sven swung his arm, and his ax cartwheeled crazily through the air before splitting the skull of the nearest kid in a pink-red spray.
"Take the the rest alive!" Sven screamed, and that was enough for the kids: they lost the will to fight. They didn't even try to run. They dropped their weapons and allowed themselves to be punched and kicked into submission, stripped of all their possessions, bound and gagged.
There were just seven of them, and Sven instantly sent out a search party to look for others. Then he smacked and kicked the captives until they told him everything he wanted to know. The first guy he talked to tried to be a hero, and Sven had to chop off a couple of his fingers to get the conversation going.
It all became very easy from this point onward. Chop, chop, and it's done! The kids had a camp right near the copper mine. They were originally from Gallivare. There'd been a cube there, too, but the local cops had been swift and no one else had swiped any items.
It had all been fun, nothing else! They'd never wished any harm on anyone. Anyway, wasn't all this like a video game, this New World thing? No one could really die, could they? Whatever! They were all really very sorry for any aggravation they might have done.
Sven made sure they were all very sorry by cutting off the head of the teenage girl that seemed to be the brains of the gang. He did it close enough to their faces to get them all sprayed with her blood: he wanted to make a strong impression. Then he said:
"Listen, twits. You're going to take us to your camp now. Once we get there, you'll all get a choice. You can join us, and we'll make real people out of you. If you don't, we'll make real corpses out of you. As I said, it's your choice. All of you that want to become people, please raise your hands."
They were smart kids. If you can't beat them, join them! Sven looked at the shaky raised hands, and smiled. He turned to Ulla and said:
"Give them something to eat. They're starving."
Then he stepped away from everyone, and looked up at sky, and saw that the clouds were dispersing to reveal an optimistic, candy-blue view of the universe.
I've done good, he said silently to the sky.
You did, answered the sky.
All was well.
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