Conflict and Courage Page 6

  “Now,” he said, “let us go hunt zarova together. All this talk make me very hungry.”

  Aglaya’s nose twitched in appreciation. She did so enjoy a hunt with her sire.

  * * * * *

  At domta Afanasei, some miles away, a small group was gathering.

  “The Avuzdel are sending four?” asked Francis of Jim. He and Asya had run north to speak with Jim and Larya about the mission to Fort.

  “Aglaya leads,” announced Asya. “She very good. I not know the other three.”

  “Louis and Ustinya are definitely going?”

  “Aglaya agrees, as long as the dye works,” Faddei added with caution. Ustinya’s violet-striped pelt would be especially noticeable in the south.

  “Louis is too young,” protested Francis. “I think Asya and I should go instead.”

  “No,” said Jim. “You know you are needed here and Fernei insists Maurice and Qenya must be the second pair.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “You have duties with the Vada,” said Jim. “Louis and Ustinya will go. She will keep him safe and I have faith in the lad. He has a remarkable sense of self-preservation for one so young. We have to find out what is happening, we need to know what the convicts are up to. The prisoners captured at Settlement have told us that boats are being built, more than we saw at the beachhead during the battle and I don’t think that we can assume the next attack will come over the island chain. The entire coastline is at risk. Robert Lutterell is worried though he pretends he isn’t. Many of the settlers believe that our foes will not return and are beginning to spread out, unheeding of his warnings.”

  “Pack Jalkei is still on duty at the peninsula?”

  “Yes and their Susa is also worried. He says he cannot protect them all,” said Larya. “No trouble yet but they dare not relax guard.”

  She turned to Francis and Asya. “How is Laura?” she asked.

  Francis smiled at her as he thought of his wife, pregnant with their first child, a child who would be called Thomas if he was a boy, named after one of the teenagers who had died during the battle.

  “Talya misses her,” Asya added referring to the Lind healer that had been working with Laura at the domta.

  “Both are well,” said Francis with a grin, “Laura is growing huge!”

  Asya wagged her tail, confident that the next piece of news would surprise all present.

  “I and Faddei expecting too,” she announced, stumbling a little over the fourth word. The Lind term for pregnancy was unpronounceable by the humans. In Vadath language patterns were shifting towards a common ground, the most easily pronounceable word being given credence and usage above the other. In fact, in Vadath, the human Standard was gaining in ascendancy and more and more Vadathian Lind were beginning to speak it, interspersed with Lindish. “Lin born will be at end of cold season.”

  “How will you manage with the Vada?” asked Jim of Francis, a twinkle in his eyes.

  “I expect things will be much as usual although we’ll not be leading any patrols for a while.”

  “We come visit soon,” promised Larya, her eyes alight with the promise of the birth of her first grandchildren, or grandlind as they were becoming known by the two-legged and the four-legged inhabitants of Vadath. The Lind pronunciation of the word for grandchildren was even worse for the humans than the one for pregnancy.

  * * * * *

  Some days later Jim and Larya appeared at the Avuzdel base. “Is there any news of Aoalvaldr?” he asked.

  Fernei gazed at Jim out of liquid brown eyes.

  “Good and bad,” he answered, “we were surprised to learn that he was not executed on the spot. The Larg are not known for being the most forgiving.”

  “He was reprieved then. That’s not good hearing. What is he doing? Is he still Commander of the army?”

  “No, the Largan did not go that far. Aoalvaldr is not at the Largan’s domta, that much we know. He appears to have vanished into the unseeing air.”

  “No leads then?”

  “Leads?”

  “None of your spies can find out where he is?” expanded Jim.

  “He has left Larg home-ranges, that is all we know.”

  “What do you think?”

  “He has gone north to the coast,” said Fernei, “he has a following, a group of Larg who are dissatisfied with the way the Largan has handled the situation, those outside his immediate circle. Aoalvaldr can still do much damage.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” said Jim with a sigh.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 8 - NADLIANS OF THE LARG

  The subject of their conversation was exactly where Fernei thought he was which says much for Fernei’s astuteness and grasp of the situation.

  Aoalvaldr and his followers had set up base camp some fifty miles east of the Duchesne lordship, Aoalvaldr having reasoned that was the best place for him and his retainers to keep an eye on the inhabitants of both the northern and southern continents.

  He frequently left the camp and sneaked back to the north, intent on finding out what his enemies were up to.

  With ease he would evade the northern patrols and make his way into the heartlands of the Lind, taking note as he went that the northern humans appeared to be spreading out up the eastern seaboard. The land too was changing under human management. Wild kura and zarova herds were now in the minority in the east but grew more numerous the further west he ran.

  During his third foray north and as he splashed through the river that marked the boundary between Argyll and Vadath, he got a shock.

  The previously empty land south of the rtathlians of the four warrior packs nearest to the island chain was a hive of activity, there were many humans and Lind, all working and apparently living together!

  He cursed the necessity as he took a circuitous route around them, pondering long and hard on what this meant, eventually realising that this was where the Vada must have decided to set up their base.

  The Vada, the cause of all his misfortunes. It was they who had turned his certain victory into a degrading defeat. They were the root cause of his present disgrace.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 9 - VADATH

  “I do not, I repeat not want the stronghold inundated with unattached Lind, all searching for their perfect partner,” exploded Francis when he heard, some days after his return to the stronghold, that yet another group was on its way.

  “How can you stop them?” asked Laura. “You can hardly set up barriers to keep them out and you do need more vadeln-pairs to get the Vada up to strength.”

  “They don’t understand that there is only a finite number of colonists available. The farmers especially are not going to be best pleased if all their sons and daughters desert them for the Vada.” He was pacing restlessly up and down their living area. “What am I to do?”

  “Get Asya to bespeak Larya,” she suggested. “Tell her and Jim to impose a limit on the numbers that can search from each pack. They will listen to them.”

  “Some have already left for Argyll,” he warned.

  “Let them be,” she counselled. “There are no more than sixty of them all told and these mostly from the four home packs. Just limit any further searching. I think many are jealous of those who have already vadeln-paired.”

  “The Vada is the place to be. Is that it?” was his amused question.

  “It is a novelty my love.”

  “Reports are that this group are all young, barely into adulthood.”

  “But old enough to have experienced their first battle and watched the Vada lead the Lindars to victory. Stop worrying. The novelty will wear off. Leave Jim and Larya to impose the limits and leave it there.” She grinned with a mischievous gleam. “I have an idea though. Why don’t you set the unattached to work right here at the stronghold? After they have dragged their first batch of trees in to help build the walls I’m sure their youthful enthusiasm will pall. Lind youngsters are much like our own in that respec
t. Word will get round the packs that a journey here might not be the holiday they think it is.”

  “We could sure use their help,” admitted Francis, “the walls are going up far too slowly for my liking.”

  “And the medical facility,” she reminded, “training will begin soon and there are bound to be injuries.”

  “It might work at that.”

  “Set my Faddei on to them,” she further suggested, “you and Asya are busy and most of my time is spent with the Holad. I think he’s finding time lying heavily on his paws.”

  “He would be the first ever Lind building supervisor,” laughed Francis.

  It has to be said, that when Faddei was told of the plan that evening, he was delighted at the chance (he found human building methods fascinating) and immediately left them and Asya for a chat with a human called Nils who was in charge of the building programme. Nils was also delighted, he had been worried about the slow progress and the winter cold was only weeks away.

  Faddei became as fully proficient as Nils at reading and interpreting the plans and progress was rapid after the unattached Lind joined the workforce. Faddei even designed some areas of the stronghold himself, although Nils had to do the actual drawings. Laura was very proud of him.

  Francis however, continued to fret about what the colonists would say when yet more of their children were claimed by the Vada. Even as he worried, eager young Lind were inside Argyll’s borders searching them out.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 10 - ARGYLL

  Duguld McCallum wiped his brow, the perspiration dripping off him as he toiled in the soon to be planted fields on the gentle slopes around the McCallum cabin. The building sat, stark in its newness beside the river that would irrigate the root crops. In the small paddocks browsed a small number of kura who provided the family with their dairy needs. Saplings of native fruit trees were settling into the ground of the embryo orchard.

  It was backbreaking work, tilling the soil for this first all-important planting. Duguld paused momentarily from his labours to wonder anew why his father had insisted that they plant, rather than do the same as their neighbours and concentrate on building up their kura and zarova herds. These farmers would rely on the wild roots and grains that grew in abundance in this part of Argyll, halfway towards the great inland lake that some were calling Lake Stewart, in remembrance of their late commanding officer who had died leading the defence of Settlement.

  Alastair McCallum would only declare that the future was with root crops.

  “Many will take the easy option,” he told his son often, “but the wild roots will not feed the population for ever. Believe me, within two years we will be well rewarded for our labours when the demand for staples like redroot and greenroot rises. Redroots this year and perhaps some of the wild maize. Bread is and will continue to be, a basic food. We will make our fortunes, you’ll see.”

  Alastair McCallum had great plans for both his farm and his only son Duguld’s future but he wondered sometimes if Duguld’s heart was in it. The boy had inherited certain tendencies from his mother that Alastair deplored such as her love of reading and music. This wouldn’t have been an insurmountable problem in itself but Duguld was, to his father’s chagrin, far too interested in the latter to the detriment of his farm work. The boy blew his mother’s old trumpet whenever he had a moment to himself and also when he was supposed to be working. Alastair was making plans to get rid of the instrument.

  He was not best pleased when he spied a lone dark-striped Lind approaching his farmstead, who asked in broken Standard if she could drink and rest for a while. She did so, appearing to ignore those who came to ogle and watch as she lapped up the fresh water. Instead of leaving as the elder McCallum thought she should, she appeared disposed to rest in the orchard for the night and settled down in a quiet corner.

  Knowing something of what the Lind were about, she was not the first Lind to pass this way, he warned his son to stay away from her and, with vim and point, ignored her presence, believing that as always Duguld would obey him.

  He was understandably angry when late that night on his rounds he spied Duguld and the Lind talking together.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, angry at the blatant disobedience and began to march towards them intending to let his son know all about it. Chastisement was in order.

  Ganya and Duguld’s heads turned towards him.

  “We were just talking father,” Duguld answered, edging away. He knew his father’s heavy hand of old, “Ganya here was telling me about her rtath. That’s the Lind word for pack you know.”

  “I do know,” Alastair replied through clenched teeth, “now you get off to the cabin where you belong and go to bed. We have a full day’s work ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Duguld left and Alastair turned to Ganya. “You can stay here tonight,” he said, trying to keep his anger in check, “but I want you well away from here at sunup, do you hear?”

  “It shall be as you wish,” she replied and lay down again.

  Alastair watched her for a while, wondering if it was possible to order her off his land but he was unsure of the law regarding trespass by a Lind. It had been their continent before mankind had arrived and Ganya was on the large side. He would most definitely come off the worst if he got into an argument with her.

  “Dawn,” he contented himself by way of warning as he turned away.

  Ganya opened one eye as she watched him disappear into the evening gloom then shut it again. She was also planning a busy day for the morrow.

  Alastair McCallum spent a restless night and in the morning his worst fears were realised when he discovered that Duguld was gone. His son had taken most of his clothes, a holo of his dead mother and his grandfather’s silver trumpet.

  His father set about preparing himself for a journey to Settlement, cursing all Lind and conveniently forgetting how much they had done for them all. He would arrange that his son be returned to him forthwith and if Robert Lutterell did nothing then he would do something about it himself.

  Alastair McCallum could not accept that his only son would not inherit the farm.

  He was doomed to disappointment. Robert Lutterell refused to take any action in order to repatriate Duguld and forbade Alastair permission to go to Vadath and retrieve his son himself. Alastair McCallum had been an awkward and argumentative passenger on the WCCS Argyll and Robert was secretly full of glee to hear that young Duguld had managed to circumvent his father’s wishes.

  That night Robert toasted Duguld and his newfound life-partner and wished the two of them all the best for the future.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 11 - VADATH

  At the Vada stronghold, after the office block, the medical facility, cookhouse and individual dagas had been built, the workgroups began building the cadet barracks, Susa Francis having decreed that the cadets needed a central somewhere to live. He did not wish the cadet vadeln-pairs strung out throughout the countryside, outside the safety of the walls.

  Brian and Sofiya were making themselves at home. They had been the first cadets to arrive at the half-built stronghold and took a proprietary interest in it since they had helped build it with their own hands and paws.

  The barrack was a long low building set near the centre of the stronghold and Brian described it to his family as ‘rudimentary and basic but it keeps out the weather’ which had the predictable effect of making his mother Janice even more worried than before about her younger son’s wellbeing.

  The building was split into two wings with a communal area in the middle. It was Laura Merriman who had insisted on a separate wing for boy and girl cadets.

  “They’ll be of an age when the opposite sex is of more than a passing interest. Lets try to keep their explorations down to a minimum,” was her wry comment. Francis had agreed. Asya and Faddei didn’t understand why Laura was so insistent. Courtship and play was an integral part of the way the Lind lived although sexual intimacy was not encourag
ed until they were at least sixteen summers old.

  Each wing had a central corridor with partitioned cubicles down each side. If Brian stood on his tiptoes he could just about look into his neighbour’s space. Within each partition sat a narrow bed for the human element of the partnership and a large low divan-like structure for the Lind.

  When Sofiya saw hers for the first time she whined in approval. Brian had laboured long and hard weaving the dried river reeds that made the divan most luxurious.

  “Why should I,” Sofiya said as she watched him arrange them, “lie on hard wood with bits of twigs and bits of jaggy greens for a bed when these reeds are so handy?” Then she had tried it out, “soft too,” she added, nestling in. “I be most comfortable.”

  Brian laughed and, bed arranged to her satisfaction, dumped his kitbag on the wide shelf designed for that purpose. A small rough table and a chair completed the furnishings.

  “Not exactly palatial,” he said, “but I suppose we’re in the army now. We’ve got time to add some rugs and other amenities if we can before most of the others arrive. The call hasn’t gone out yet. I’ll go to the commissary tomorrow and try to scrounge some.”

  Sofiya merely watched from her bed, laid her head down and prepared to fall asleep. “Ilyei here soon,” she agreed with a certain amount of satisfaction as her eyes closed.

  * * * * *

  “Hiya Emily,” greeted Brian when she and the said Ilyei entered the stronghold the following morning. She rode in beside Jim and Larya; Jim had a soft spot for the gentle girl. Larya and Jim had wished to see with their own eyes how the Vada base was progressing. “What kept you? You’ve missed all the fun.”