Should he kill all the inhabitants of the incipient settlement he was looking at, or should he enslave them?

There was no question of just leaving them alone. They had decided to settle right next to the iron ore deposit found a fortnight earlier by Viking scouts.

Enslaving them would make economic sense to Svenborg, the settlement his Vikings had founded just a kilometer or so from their original arrival spot. Located in a valley between two gently sloping hills, it was thriving.

Gra.s.s had already started to grow, and three dairy cows were nibbling at the green ground around the cl.u.s.ter of huts built out of wattle and dried mud. A dozen chickens, dozen sheep, and four horses completed the current livestock inventory.

Holm had been sending scouts to look for salt and iron practically from day one. A rich copper deposit was quickly found a few kilometers to the northeast. There was some silver and gold as well, which caused great excitement among the Vikings. Holm had to remind them of the priorities he had set.

"Gold and silver are nice, but what we need now are proper tools," he"d said. "Forget about the silver and the gold. We need clay, we need good old mud more than we need gold. We have to build a furnace for smelting metal, and a kiln to make pots and jugs and maybe bricks. Don"t you worry, we"ll all be wealthy - in due time."

They found clay just three days later - a handful of hours of Earth time. Working furiously, they managed to have a bloomery and a kiln up and running within another three days. There were shouts of joy when the the first bloom - a mess of molten copper and silver and gold mixed with carbon and ash - emerged from their primitive furnace.

The copper tools had helped a lot, but they weren"t durable. The scouts kept going out, and returning empty-handed. Then, about a month earlier, they"d found both salt and iron ore in close proximity to each other.

Sven estimated that the salt spring and the ore deposit were located about thirty kilometers northwest. It would be the ideal spot to found a second settlement. Like Svenborg, it had a lake and a couple of creeks nearby, all teeming with fish.

He had wanted to get a move on this right away, but complications ensued. It transpired that Lena and Ingrid, the two pioneering chicks joined by Olaf Berg in the first organized Viking venture into the New World - that both Lena and Ingrid were pregnant. Olaf Berg had f.u.c.ked them both on that occasion. And he"d managed to score two goals with two shots.

Of course, Old World Lena and Ingrid weren"t pregnant. However, they acted as if they were. They b.i.t.c.hed incessantly, finding fault with everyone and everything. Ingrid had even cracked a beer bottle on Olaf Berg"s head one evening back at the farm. Both her and Lena seemed to have taken a strong dislike to Berg.

Sven Holm didn"t punish her for this a.s.sault on a fellow Viking. He secretly applauded. Berg had become completely insufferable. He walked around all puffed up with pride as if he"d achieved something magnificent.

Sven had told him, somewhat caustically, that ma.s.s reproduction was a trait common among the less-evolved animal species. But this went right over Berg"s head. He continued to strut around as if he was the hottest guy in town.

The bottle Ingrid had broken on his head had forced him to readjust his worldview. Sven was grateful to Ingrid for that.

What he wasn"t grateful for was that the two pregnancies forced him to postpone establishing a second settlement. The Vikings invaded the Jokkmokk library once again, causing Max Dahl, the Jokkmokk police chief, some serious concern.

"I cannot make out what they"re up to," Max Dahl confessed to his police officers during the meeting he"d called to discuss the Vikings" new interest in reading. "Nine of them took out library cards last week. They were interested in books about medieval industry and chemistry and metallurgy. This week, we have an invasion of female Vikings who want to know everything about pregnancy and midwifery."

"Sounds like they are preparing to live in some sort of an isolated, primitive settlement," commented Lars Larsson, the most inteligent police officer on the Jokkmokk force.

"But this doesn"t make any sense! And there"s something else, something that worries me greatly."

Max Dahl suspended his voice dramatically, and glanced round the faces a.s.sembled for the meeting.

None were worried. Some were smug with self-satisfaction. Life had been pretty peaceful and lazy for them lately. The Viking visits had made the town"s rougher elements keep a low profile, and its many rowdy drinkers to become peaceful, quiet, introspective drinkers. The only crime or misdemeanor committed over the past ten days had been the theft of a nearly-new roll of toilet paper from the police station"s washroom.

Max Dahl said:

"They haven"t been drinking or doing drugs. They"re all glowing with health. And things are very peaceful and quiet at Holm"s farm. It"s very worrying. They must be up to something big, something really big."

"I had a good look at the farm the other day," said one of the policemen. "They have some sort of a disco light in the courtyard. And Holm"s acquired a flock of sheep."

"Sheep!" Max Dahl exploded. He made an effort to calm down. It always upset him greatly when he couldn"t even understand WHY he wasn"t able to understand something.

"You see?" he"d said to the a.s.sembled policemen. "They must be up to something megbig, megevil. Vikings and sheep!"

Everyone agreed there was something very suspicious going on. Peaceful, sober Vikings herding sheep! What was the world coming to?

Had they all known what the Vikings were presently up to, they"d have been much relieved.

Sven Holm had just made the decision to slaughter all seven inhabitants of the settlement that had sprung up right where he"d wanted to place his own. He had to keep things clean and simple. Keeping prisoners and slaves was bound to produce numerous complications.

There were just six Vikings in his party, counting himself and the two chicks he"d brought along with the men. Kirsten and Ulla, the two chicks, were capable fighters. But Sven was worried about their morale. They could feel killing a boy and a girl in their early teens was unnecessarily cruel.

He decided he"d leave the two chicks out of it. He"d tell them they had to guard the stores they"d brought along. He"d lead the three men he had against five adults - two of them women - and two teenage kids. The opposition counted only three men, and two of those had the soft, flabby bodies that spoke of a comfortable life back on Earth.

Sven slid back from his observation point behind a tree, and silently motioned for his Vikings to follow him. They all retreated well out of earshot of the settlers.

Sven said:

"Kirsten and Ulla, you"ll stay behind to watch over our gear. Defend it with your lives if you need to. Clear?"

The two girls nodded. They seemed to like the idea of staying behind to guard the Viking store of tools, fuel, and food. They would probably stuff their mouths with food while the men where fighting.

The whole party had left Svenborg in the middle of the night, and had marched steadily for five hours - enough to make one hungry. Sven had wanted to arrive at the destination just as the sun was coming up for its brief sojourn in the sky. It made sense to make maximum use of daylight when building a new settlement.

Sven knew his men were hungry too, as hungry as he was. But that was good. A hungry man was an angry man. Angry men fought well. Angry men killed women and teenage children without batting an eyelid.

He led his men some distance away from the girls before issuing orders. They were short and precise.

"We split into two teams, and attack like fighter pilots: a leader with a wingman covering his a.s.s. Lennart, you come with me. Vidar, take Henrik and take position there, behind that clump of trees. We"ll attack from two directions. Vidar, show yourself to me briefly when you"re in position. You attack when you see me attack. Clear?"

Vidar nodded. He was no longer resentful for having been punched by Sven, and made into a shepherd. Sven had made him his second-in-command of the expedition to found a new settlement. Vidar was determined to show Sven he was better than Olaf Berg. Like almost everyone else, he"d been irritated by Berg"s constant boasting about fertility and s.e.xual prowess.

"Okay," said Sven. "Now here comes the difficult part. We kill everyone as quickly and efficiently as possible. Got it? Everyone. Don"t damage those huts they"ve built, we can use them ourselves. Don"t kill any of the chicken and sheep they"ve got there, either. Just kill all the people. Use whatever weapon your prefer. Understood?"

He was looking at them closely while he was speaking. Vidar and Henrik were good. Lennart, his chosen backup man, looked shifty.

"What is it, Lennart? Speak up," said Sven.

"They might return with some friends later," said Lennart.

"So? We will kill them all over again. And anyway, they will be very careful not to return anywhere nearby. They won"t be eager to experience again what they"re going to experience now. Anything else?"

"Can we **** the women before we kill them? I mean, that"s what traditionally done. Tradition is important." That was Henrik. Sven had heard before that Henrik liked rough s.e.x. He smiled at him.

"No time for that, Henrik," he said. "And anyway, they"re both ugly hags. Have you looked at them at all?"

"The young girl is kinda nice."

"We don"t **** underage children," Sven said firmly. "We"re Vikings, but we are also civilized."

"So we just kill them all out of hand?"

"Correct. Is that all? Okay, let"s get moving."

A short while later, Sven saw Vidar appear briefly beside the trunk of a tree a hundred paces away. He waved, and hid behind the tree.

Sven gripped the handle of the copper axe in his right hand. His left hand held a short sword, resembling those used by Roman legionnaires.

Two of the men - the flabby ones - were busy lighting a fire in front of a hut. One of the women was sitting nearby, picking at her tousled hair. The other woman had disappeared into a hut a little while earlier. The two kids were walking among the dozen or so chickens, occasionally bending down to pick up a freshly laid egg.

The third guy, the younger man Sven had earlier identified as the most formidable opponent among the settlers, was nowhere to be seen. But Sven couldn"t wait until he showed himself. It was daylight already, and anyway he was really hungry. He would eat himself stupid when all this was over.

He broke cover and ran crouching towards the two men, hearing Lennart run right behind him. The two men were dressed in sheepskin shifts just like his own, but they were badly made. They moved clumsily and seemed to be in bad shape. This was going to be easy.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vidar and Henrik running to attack from the opposite direction. The men lighting the campfire saw Vidar and Henrik first.

They straightened up and just stood there stupidly instead of trying to save their lives. One of them shouted:

"Hey! Who are you guys? Relax! We"re all friends here."

No you aren"t, thought Sven. He was just a few paces away from one of the men. The woman sitting on the ground and plucking her hair looked up and saw him and screamed.

The man Sven had targeted turned round just as Sven raised his axe. He had a pudgy face and a thin beard. He began raising his hand and opened his mouth to shout.

He didn"t. Sven"s axe went into his head just above the left eye, slicing the eyebrow in two and producing a spray of blood. Then Sven"s short sword went in deep into the man"s stomach. He said "ah!" and toppled to his knees. The woman was screaming and scrambling to her feet.

Lennart had already skewered the second man with his spear, and was about to split his skull with an axe. Sven went for the screaming woman, missed with his first swing, and lost his balance.

The third man, the dangerous one, came rushing out of one of the huts. He held a large, jagged stone in his hand. He was about to smash it in Sven"s face when Vidar"s short sword pretty nearly cut his head off from behind, splashing blood all around.

Sven whirled round, caught up with the running woman with two giant strides, and brought his axe down. He didn"t miss this time, and he almost cut off her arm at the shoulder. She fell down, screaming, and he stabbed her in the neck with his sword. She fell silent.

He straightened up, and looked around. Lennart had already killed one of the kids and was now chasing the other one -the girl - with his spear raised high. As Sven watched, he threw the spear and hit the running girl in the middle of the back. She went down with a wail.

Sven turned away, hearing another wail suddenly cut short by Lennart"s axe. Henrik was standing in the entrance of one of the huts, holding the surviving woman by her hair. She was too terrified to make a sound. Her eyes silently pleaded to spare her life.

Sven looked at Henrik and nodded. Henrik chopped the woman"s head with the axe, spraying his face with blood. The woman died without making a sound. Henrik released her hair and the corpse fell to the ground in an untidy heap.

It was all over. They had won without any casualties. It was a triumph!

Sven raised his bloodstained sword and axe high up and roared and the others roared too, raising their bloodied weapons to the sky.

This was the life! This was what they"d been born to do. They all felt it clearly.

And they all knew that it would happen again, and soon. As soon as they came across some new settlers.

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