Conflict and Courage Read online

  “Enough,” she declared. “We need you, I need you.” : I need you Wilhelm :

  He stepped back and his eyes snapped open. Their eyes met. Wilhelm was unable to tear his gaze away. He did not want to.

  Mislya continued to stare at her vadeln-pair as she simultaneously sent telepathic instructions to Jsei : Go to their daga both of you. I and my vadeln-pair have much to talk about. We will follow later :

  Geraldine and Jsei crept away, jubilation in their hearts. Wilhelm Dahlstrom had accepted Mislya’s challenge.

  Geraldine was halfway through a glass of redfruit juice when Jsei relayed Mislya’s next message.

  : Start them packing : was his jubilant instruction : Vada has Weaponsmaster :

  Jsei also wasted no time in sending the news back to Asya. Geraldine had the more difficult task of explaining the situation to Wilhelm Dahlstrom’s wife and family.

  Their eldest son, also called Wilhelm, Wil for short, was the least surprised of them all and also the calmest. His mother Unda was upset, she knew that her husband’s acceptance of the Weaponsmaster’s position would mean yet another move and she was not happy about it.

  “We’ve worked so hard to get the farm, come all this way,” she complained, “and now we’re all going to have to uproot again.”

  “I’m staying here,” Wil announced. He looked at his heavily pregnant wife, who smiled at him, “Jane shouldn’t travel either. No need for us all to go.”

  “I want to go,” announced Wil’s younger brother Eitel.

  “We’ll see what your father says,” answered his mother, wondering what they were going to do about their possessions.

  “Please Mum.”

  “Father has to go,” said Wil in a tone that brooked no argument. He turned to Geraldine. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “There are living quarters available,” she agreed, “they’re not palatial, but are big enough for you and your four youngest children.”

  “Life isn’t that palatial here,” said Wil. “We’ve all spent so much time seeding and planting the cabin is still pretty rough and ready.”

  “How long will the journey take us?” asked Unda, “and how do we get there?”

  “You don’t need to rush it,” said Geraldine. “Wilhelm and Mislya will be leaving almost immediately of course.”

  “I would like to wait for the birth of my first grandchild,” said Unda looking at her daughter-in-law.

  “That could be arranged. It will take a while for the Lind to get here anyway.”

  “The Lind?”

  “How else would you be travelling?” teased Geraldine, “did you think we would expect you to walk?”

  “Will we ride?” asked Eitel in excitement.

  “Yes, unless you can work out a way to run as fast as the Lind can.”

  “Great!” Eitel rocked back in his chair in a state of bliss.

  Jsei poked his snout through the doorway.

  “Greetings from Susa of pack Jalkei,” he announced. “Congratulations too.”

  “How did they know?” asked Wil.

  “The Lind always know,” answered Geraldine. “The Lindar on patrol duty knew we were in the area as soon as we crossed the border and in all likelihood the reason why as well.”

  She looked at Jsei who was listening with interest to the conversation.

  “I told Jalkei Susa,” Jsei informed them. “It is good manners when we pass into another’s rtatha.”

  “What is that word?” asked the irrepressible Eitel.

  “Rtatha?”

  He nodded.

  “Pack-range,” explained Geraldine, “you will be learning lots of Lindish when you arrive in Vadath.”

  “But Argyll isn’t their pack-range,” protested Wil.

  “No, but they are the duty Lindar here. This area is their responsibility.”

  “Take it very seriously do you? Duty?” asked Wil of Jsei.

  “We are allies and friends,” answered Jsei, “it not only the Larg that make danger.”

  “Not only the Larg?” squeaked Unda. “What does he mean?”

  She glanced out of the window as if she expected large scaly monsters to be waiting outside to eat them all up.

  “Wral and gtran,” said Jsei, squeezing himself through the doorway. He sat down beside the others who moved their chairs aside to make room.

  Unda seemed rather nonplussed as she recognised the fact that here was a Lind sitting quite at home in her living room but managed to pull herself together. “What are they?” she asked.

  “Large and nasty predators that live in the north,” answered Geraldine. “They come south to hunt. I’ve never seen any myself and I hope the images of them I’ve seen through Jsei’s memories are exaggerated.”

  “I not exaggerate,” insisted Jsei, “I fought them.”

  “Some of the Councillors don’t think they are dangerous,” said Wil.

  “They also think the threat from the south is over and don’t believe we need the Lindars camped on our doorstep,” added Unda.

  Jsei laughed aloud.

  “We have some who think same,” he admitted, “they like not changes.”

  “Robert Lutterell is having similar trouble with some settlers,” added Wil, “it’s a small group, but a noisy one.”

  “Are these troublemakers colonising round Settlement area?” asked Geraldine with interest.

  “No,” he answered, “mostly up north, east of here, on the coast and inland a ways.”

  “Their opinion might change after they meet their first gtran.”

  Wil shrugged, “that remains to be seen and personally I am glad they are distancing themselves from the rest of us.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t cause too many problems,” said Geraldine, resolving to tell Francis and Jim about this development. She turned to Unda, “can I help prepare supper?” she asked. “I’m a dab hand at spicy baked root casserole.”

  Eitel’s eyes brightened with anticipation. “If Geraldine is helping that means I don’t have to,” he suggested to his mother.

  “After you have dug them up from the garden,” she answered pointing at the spade propped up against the doorframe.

  He got up from his chair with a sigh.

  Jsei watched him, caught his eye and winked. He stood up.

  “Leave the spade,” he instructed Eitel, “I will show you how we Lind do digging for roots.”

  Boy and Lind left the cabin together.

  On their way to the garden the two spied Wilhelm and Mislya. The duo hadn’t moved from the spot where they had met. Eitel didn’t think his father even saw them.

  “I wonder how we are going to fit everyone inside tonight,” mused Eitel. “It’ll be a bit of a squash, won’t it? You and Geraldine can have my room if you like. I can sleep in the barn.”

  His eyes brightened at the thought; Unda Dahlstrom preferred to keep her family behind the stout farmhouse walls when darkness fell. Sleeping in the barn would be an adventure and the first of many if Eitel had any say, his mother’s wishes to the contrary.

  Jsei nodded. Eitel was enthusiastic about the changes. Enthusiasm was, Jsei had noted, infectious amongst humankind. He had few worries about the future of the Dahlstrom family when they came to Vadath.

  * * * * *

  It was not only Wilhelm and Mislya’s lives that changed that summer. Other humans were meeting their vadeln-pair for the first time and some life-bonds were more unexpected than others.

  Much of Settlement, the haphazard township built when the colonists had landed on the planet, had been destroyed during the battle and the convict prisoners were helping to rebuild it. When the southern prisoners had been questioned after the battle they had been asked if they wished to be considered for an exchange with the women and children captured by the south. Of the three hundred or so prisoners a third had said yes. This group was held under high security within Settlement and worked under strict guard whilst the others had more freedom.

  Richa
rd Moreno set out for work the same day as usual. Wilhelm met Mislya. He and the other members of his work-gang were building the sewerage processing facility.

  An ex-member of Colonel Duchesne’s regiment, now Lord Duchesne if the rumours were true, he had liked his Colonel and had, like him, been sickened by the cruelty and bloodlust shown by some during the battle. He had watched, bile in his throat as Lieutenant Albert Borsley had set fire to the older male prisoners. He still dreamt about it, waking up in a cold sweat.

  When orders came that the Larg were in retreat and they were to evacuate Settlement, Richard had made a life-changing decision, better to face the wrath of the colonists than to remain with such people. He had hidden himself behind the wall of a smouldering outhouse and waited impatiently for the opportunity to surrender. He had not once regretted his choice.

  To his surprise, he had been treated fairly by his captors, amazing considering the circumstances. They had investigated his antecedents and listened to his terrified explanations, two Lind had been present at his interrogation, teeth bared and then classed him as a Grade Two prisoner, suitable for re-education and a possible commutation of sentence. Unlike those designated as Grade One and therefore dangerous, he and others like him, had been allocated to one of the lightly guarded work-gangs labouring outside Settlement proper, helping to construct the infrastructure that had been delayed due to the war.

  That morning Richard and another four were finishing setting the roof beams in place. They had only the lintel beams to go and were having a well-earned rest when they became aware of a commotion not far from where they sat.

  Richard looked up and saw the construction engineer deep in conversation with three yellow-striped Lind. The woman looked and sounded angry then she shrugged her shoulders and walked, visitors in tow, towards them.

  Richard strained to hear what they were saying. “Which one of them is it?” she asked, but the Lind did not answer.

  He scrambled to his feet with the other four, wondering what was up. Ordinarily they did not see many Lind, whose primary duty it was to patrol the coasts as a guard against any Larg war parties or scouts, who might feel inclined to attempt a suicidal revenge attack. The Larg were not emotionally suited to an acceptance of defeat.

  The five prisoners regarded each other with unease.

  Two of the yellow-striped Lind stopped some paces away and stood staring at the men. The other continued her unhurried yet steady advance.

  Richard braced himself for what was coming.

  He couldn’t breathe properly, his breath caught in his throat and he began to tremble. Like most men from the south he was terrified of the Lind.

  She stopped in front of him.

  Engineer Maria Anstell moved up beside her. Tall as she was, the tip of her head barely reached as high as the Lind’s withers.

  “Well Moreno, this is a day of surprises and no mistake,” she said.

  “Surprises ma’am?”

  “It appears that this lady Lind is anxious to make your acquaintance. I would assume that she has sensed something in your make-up that has eluded us. Do you know what a vadeln-pairing is?”

  “Yes ma’am,” gulped Richard, “we were told.”

  “She wants you to go with her,” she said in a tight voice.

  “Go with her?” Richard asked stupidly. “Go where?”

  “I imagine she wants you to go to the west, where the rest of those paired live. I don’t know what the Council are going to say about this, or what they’ll do to me for releasing you. Dahlya here says you must go with her now. She is very insistent. Says she has made her decision and nobody can gainsay her right to do so.”

  Dahlya was standing beside Maria. She cleared her throat. The noises that emerged did not sound at all threatening to Richard but his four mates stepped back a pace, just to be on the safe side.

  “Ceja Richard,” she greeted him in a husky voice.

  : Ceja Richard :

  Richard took one incredulous look at her, his Lind as he dimly realised and promptly fainted, much to the amusement of all who watched, including the annoyed engineer.

  He existed as if in a dream for the rest of the day. Of his unconscious acceptance of the vadeln-pairing, the arguments between Maria Anstell and the guards and the ride back to the Lindar’s dom he remembered not a thing.

  It was not until the next morning that he fully realised what had happened to him.

  His life was beginning anew.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 5 - RTATHLIANS OF THE LIND

  In the far away domta of Ratvei, deep within the rtathlians of the Lind, a young woman tried to teach manners to a youngster who had no intention of doing what he was told.

  “Ouch,” cried Jessica Howard.

  Gerry the colt had given her yet another playful nip on the shoulder then pranced away, his short tail waggling. The mares lifted their heads for a moment then dropped their heads back down to graze on the succulent grass. The colt’s mother ignored her son completely.

  “He’s getting quite impossible,” complained Jessica, “I wish Gerry was here. He would know how to handle him. I most certainly don’t.”

  She sighed. No word from or about Gerry during all these months since the horse handler had waved goodbye on the island and disappeared into the southern continent to keep an eye on what the convicts were doing and to try and find out what had happened to her and Jenny’s families.

  Jessica’s friend Jenny did not talk about her mum and little brother Gavin as much as she used to, but then Jenny had Savei, her Lind, the two having found each other not long after their arrival at the domta.

  The ‘Two Jays’, as Jessica and Jenny were called, were the only two humans living with the purple striped pack Ratvei. With the two girls were the six horses that had carried them during the partly successful escape from Fort the previous year, hours before the convict army had attacked the crew and the families of the WCPS Electra.

  Both girls knew that the convicts had successfully overrun the Fort, killing the male defenders and taking the women and children as prisoners, but not much more.

  They had talked about it from all angles during the long winter nights, concluding that Jenny’s father was probably dead, after all had Jessica’s not been viciously stabbed to death by the search party who had come chasing after them? Only Jessica, Jenny and Gerry had managed to evade the searchers.

  Jessica was feeling decidedly low this morning. She imagined that Gerry was, in all probability, dead too by now. All she could do was look after the horses he had entrusted into her care.

  She looked over at the colt, her eyes narrowing, and watched as he played butt and run with the filly at the far end of the field.

  Jessica knew she should be more resilient and get on with her life, but felt she was at a stasis, unable to move forward until she knew for certain what had become of her family and Gerry.

  If Jessica had known exactly what was happening within the new-found southern Kingdom of Murdoch she would have been even more worried than she was already.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 6 - KINGDOM OF MURDOCH

  It had not taken the self-appointed Lords of Murdoch long to begin to stamp their authority and rule over the country and its inhabitants. With the death of their self-appointed leader General Elliot Murdoch during the battle, the most powerful and influential of the surviving ex-convicts were able to do very much as they chose.

  Both Lords Baker and Smith thought they should be in charge, Smith because he had been Elliot Murdoch’s deputy for years beyond count, scar-faced Baker because he felt he was the best suited and able for the position. As the key to power would be control of the King, as yet unborn, they both began to court Anne Howard-Murdoch, angling for the position of guardian to the future king.

  They also began to form informal alliances with the other Lords and within weeks two rival factions had begun to emerge though no one was showing their hands openly as yet.

  Sam Ba
ker had a firm ally in Henri Cocteau who held the land immediately to his south and also Raoul van Buren, whose largely desert Lordship was situated to Cocteau’s east. Lords Smith and Brentwood formed a partnership and bullied the indolent Lord Gardiner until he agreed to support them in Conclave.

  That left Pierre Duchesne in the far northeast, who was being cultivated by both sides, each promising the world, but so far, he had managed to distance himself and had moved away to his own lordship as soon as he decently could.

  Pierre Duchesne had observed the other Lords and hadn’t liked what he saw and heard. On his western border lay the lands of old Lord Gardiner and his people largely remained on its eastern fringes, beside the more arable earth next to the river. To his south lay the desert area that Sam Baker, with Henri Cocteau’s support had decreed should belong to the king. It was uninhabited and likely to remain so for some time to come.

  In Pierre Duchesne’s eyes the good thing about his lordship’s location was the fact that it was far from prying eyes. As soon as he and the remainder of his people arrived from the encampment, he set about organising matters in a far different way than did Sam Baker and the others.

  He decided first of all that his first township should be built on the coast some forty miles from his eastern border, distancing him and his even further. This area was hilly forest and had a good supply of fresh water, an important consideration. The precise spot he selected was also defensible. If he built a tower on the highest rocky outcrop he would be able to see for miles. Pierre Duchesne did not trust Sam Baker.

  Henri Cocteau had allocated him a fair number of artisans from the encampment, some two hundred strong, who, when taken with what remained of his regiment, gave him around six hundred men. Lord Cocteau had not sent any females. As with the rest of the Kingdom, there was a worrying shortage of womenfolk and children.

  “Doesn’t want to lose his breeding stock,” was Michael Wallace’s comment.