Urbis

It was well past midnight when the men returned to Vale. The work on the longhouse had gone well, and they had completed it just as it grew dark. They found the old men and the women and children in the longhouse.

Crispin, Arne and Gund scanned the faces before them, sensing calamity and anxiously seeking out their wives, while Ulf similarly sought out his daughter Greta. Strida, Ulf’s wife, pushed through the crowd and flung herself into his arms. “Our baby’s gone!” she moaned.

Dirk clasped his son to his bosom, but was immediately pushed away.

Crispin and the others approached Torfinn, who appeared even more dishevelled than usual. “Master Torfinn,” said Crispin. “What has happened? Where are our women?”

Torfinn looked sorrowfully into the young man’s face. “You must be brave, Crispin,” he replied softly.

Crispin seized the old man’s arm. Such effrontery would normally be cause for the fiercest rebuke, but Torfinn seemed not to notice. “This has something to do with that... thing! Doesn’t it?”

Sadly Torfinn nodded. “Flying machines. Two of them. They brought some strange magic to our village. A smoke that brings sleep. And when we awoke, they were gone. Greta, Sasha, Melissa. And Tana.”

Crispin’s chest heaved with emotion as he struggled to come to grips with the rising horror within him. “So,” he said, speaking in weighty, measured tones, “they have taken my woman.” He looked across at Tana’s parents, standing together in a huddle by the fire. “And yours, Arne. Yours, Ulf, and yours, Gund. And your granddaughter, Master Torfinn.” His voice rose. “Well, we shall get them back!” The heads of all those in the circle around him snapped upright. All turned to look at Crispin, wondering if they had heard correctly. “Shall we not?” Crispin continued, suddenly aware that a rescue mission might not meet with universal approval. Silence reigned, and Crispin confronted his friends. “Arne? Your beloved Melissa is gone, a prisoner to who knows who. Surely you will want to come and win her back?” Arne stared at his boots and did not answer. “Gund,” Crispin went on, “you have lost Sasha, your sweet, sweet Sasha, your wife of but a year.” Gund did not respond. “And Ulf. Your Greta is seventeen, barely more than a child. Think where she may be now, the plaything of some foul monster, his foul hands touching her...”

“Stop!” howled Ulf, tears streaming down his face. “Stop!”

Arne turned to Crispin, his body trembling, his face an imploring mess. “Crispin, this is madness. You have seen the machines! The power those men have! Machines far beyond our finest watermill in their abilities. They have taken a fearful revenge on us!”

Torfinn nodded quietly in approval. This was the reaction he had hoped for from the villagers.

Crispin seized on that nod. He stared at the respected sage, his brows knit in consternation. When he at last found a voice, the hunter’s words were tinged with sarcasm. “What do you propose that we do, Master Torfinn?” There was a murmur. No one had ever heard their leader addressed with anything but reverence.

Torfinn stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Nothing,” he replied at last.

Crispin was dumbfounded. “Nothing?” he echoed.

“Nothing. We bear the loss, and we will always remember these brave women. But life will go on in the usual way.”

Crispin’s eyes glazed. “Cowards!” he blazed. “Cowards! Every one of you! You are all afraid for your own skins.” He looked again at Torfinn. “Or of the dictates of a senile old man foe whom life, undoubtedly, will go on in the usual way.”

The shocked gasps became louder. Slowly, and with great deliberation, Torfinn raised his hand. It swung through the air and struck Crispin’s face loudly. “Enough of this insolence, Crispin!” cried Torfinn. “Go home until you regain command of your senses.”

Crispin rubbed his reddening cheek. He shook his head. “If you will not join me to search for your women, then I shall go after them alone.”

“I forbid it!” thundered Torfinn.

“I too!” blustered Dirk. “You bring unending shame on your father.”

“I am no longer yours to command, father,” Crispin declared with restraint. ”Nor yours, Master Torfinn.” He paused. “We know the direction the strangers came from when they killed the mammoths. That is the only thing we know about them, and that is the direction I will take. I will leave at dawn. Any man who wishes to join me is welcome.”

The four elders assembled for the second time in as many days. Torfinn was stamping.

“He has tried my patience beyond enduring,” he fumed. “Surely no village leader has ever been so insulted.”

“This may be so, Master Torfinn,” said Eirik, seeking to placate the patriarch. “But consider the extremity of the situation and forgive him.”

“We are beyond any question of forgiving, Eirik,” said Torfinn. “Crispin’s insolence towards me is but a minor matter now.”

“How so, Master?” said Lars.

“Do you not see where this will lead?” snarled Torfinn, rounding on him. “Have I not taught you of the great sundering that took place centuries ago? How the others went the way of machines, and divorced themselves from the ways of nature, and became those depraved sub-humans who wasted the mammoth meat, then, then... this monstrous act? And have I not told you how we remained true to our origins, and have persevered, living a life in true harmony with our surroundings? Do you not see that we have had a narrow escape? The simple folk we lead have had a brush with the machine society of the others.”

“And they have seen that it is evil,” said Lars.

“Pshaw!” spluttered Torfinn. “They might have got a fright from the flying machine, yes. But did you see the joy on their faces when they described the ease with which the cutting machine carved up the mammoth? They would love to shrug off the yoke of heavy toil, and if they came into lengthy contact with the others, they would be hopelessly seduced by the promise of an easier life. But it is the harshness of our life that keeps us virtuous, don’t you see? That is why we cut ourselves off so long ago.”

Gunnar scratched his head. “What does this have to do with Crispin?”

Torfinn heaved a sigh of exasperation. “The others have taken the women and gone. In all probability, that is the last we will see of them. But if Crispin goes after them, there is a possibility, admittedly remote, but a possibility, nevertheless, that he may establish further contact with them. They may be curious enough to come back in greater numbers, and for a longer visit. Our land would never be the same. And we, the elders, would be a power in the land no more.”

He gave the others time to ponder the implications. Gone would be the privileges of rank, the respect of their fellows, and all that made the position of village elder desirable. There would doubtless also be retribution from uncomprehending villagers angry at being kept in the thrall of ignorance for countless generations.

Lars was the first to break the silence. “Master Torfinn,” he began tentatively, “forgive me if I misunderstand you, but are you proposing to... murder Crispin in his bed?”

Torfinn shook his head vigorously. “No, no, nothing like that. That would raise far too many difficult questions among our people. But there is much difficult and dangerous terrain out there, and even a skilled hunter like Crispin might meet with an accident.”

At first light, Arne came and woke Crispin and gave him broth, just as Tana had done a mere twenty-four hours previously. His body had not yet recovered from all its exertion, and his mind begged for sleep as an escape from the hideousness of reality. But he forced his eyes open, forced his hands to take the bowl of broth, and thought he saw in Arne’s presence a ray of hope.

“Arne, my friend? You will come with me?”

Arne sadly shook his head. “I came to seek to persuade you against this most foolish venture. I hoped that in the light of day you would see the hopelessness of it.” Crispin shook his head in turn, and was silent. “Look at me, Crispin,” Arne said. “My eyes are as red from weeping as yours. My heart is as angry, my mind as confused. Don’t you think I too would love to wreak vengeance on those who have done this? But where are they? There is no hope, Crispin. There is no hope.”

“Cowards,” Crispin growled. “Cowards, all of you. Even you, Arne. Afraid of the dark, afraid of the unknown.”

He dressed and shouldered the knapsack of food Arne had provided for him, hitched to his belt a long length of rope and his hunting knife, picked up his crossbow and a satchel of bolts and walked to the door.

Outside, he was surprised to find the whole village waiting. When they saw him kitted out for a journey, their faces were filled with sadness. They were certain they would never see him again.

He looked at each one of them in turn, reading their thoughts, and thinking that in all probability he was looking at them for the last time.

He turned and clasped Arne.

“Crispin, you are a brave man or a fool, I don’t know which,” said Arne into his ear as he hugged him. “Take care, my friend, take care.”

Crispin released his grasp and looked at Arne. The man’s face was wet with tears.

“I will,” Crispin whispered. He pulled his hat down to shield his eyes and set off down the river valley into the rising sun. In spite of what he had told Arne, his heart was gripped with a dull ache of fear.