4

 

Val reached for a large mug of beer from the long oak table in the stone meeting room. There was nothing other than beer to drink, and although she knew better than to drink enough of it to become drunk, for now it would slake her thirst.

Eleven men from different regions of the country, including Trond, who had rushed to her rescue in the battle, stood with her. She had thanked him with a nod, and it had been all that was necessary. She knew his type: quiet and courteous…when not crushing an enemy’s skull. There were far too few men like him. Most were like Vebjørn, the mountainous thug that had tried to attack her from behind. He stood in a corner, drinking by himself, already alienated from the others by his inability to rein it in when the Jarl had blown his horn.

In an opposite corner of the room stood a man she knew of but had never met, Ulrik the Fearless. At almost a head taller than her and twice as wide, he radiated calm. But under his surface, she could sense menace. She noted that while the others all grabbed beers from the table before Halvard had started to speak, Ulrik had refrained. She also noticed that he hadn’t bothered eyeing her up or even looking at the others in the room, after he had briefly greeted Halvard. Instead, he had taken up his position, in the opposite corner from the Bear of the North, and his eyes never left the larger man. He wasn’t staring. Val thought most of those gathered in the room wouldn’t even realize what Ulrik was doing, but she understood it. He had assessed the occupants of the room and deemed Vebjørn to be the biggest threat. Ulrik leaned against the wall, as if he were disinterested and relaxed, but Val saw that his fingers were never far from the handle of his ax.

Among the others in the room was a quiet man with long, braided blond hair and a bow and quiver. His clothes were patterned like the leaves of trees, dyed many different colors, so he might blend with the forest pines. He said little, but his eyes were alert. She had not heard his name. There were a few others she didn’t know, and then there was Morten the Hammer and his friend Oskar. The former had introduced himself to her, while his friend had simply looked at her chest brazenly.

“Let us begin,” Halvard said, clearing his throat. “I am old, and I get tired quickly, so I will tell the twelve of you, and ask that you pass this information on to the others.”

No one spoke, but many heads nodded assent.

“Do any of you know much of the Utslettelse—the Great Annihilation?”

Again, no one spoke.

“Very well. Over one hundred years ago, nearly sixty years before I was born, this world was a very different place. You see the remains all around you. Stavanger was once a city of perhaps one hundred and thirty thousand people. Now there are but three hundred—and it is one of the biggest towns in the North, as you are all well aware. It was an amazing world. Men traveled the skies in flying metal birds. They spoke to each other across great distances through machines small enough to fit in your hand, and weapons could be sent around the world—Midgard—to kill entire nations of people.” Halvard sighed at the loss of the world’s technologies.

“How do you know these things?” Val asked him.

He turned to her, a man weary with the knowledge of things others did not know. “I was taught many things by my father. He was a scholar before me, and he learned these things from his father. And from many books. I too, learned many things from the books I could find in my travels.”

“You can read the old languages?” Morten asked.

Halvard simply nodded. “I can. The world was a very different place, but wars and sickness, and earthquakes and all manner of death attacked the world for many years.”

“Ragnarok,” Oskar the Laplander whispered.

“Not quite Ragnarok, but I am sure it must have seemed so to those who lived through it. You know that at least some of the humans of the time lived through the great cataclysms, because all of us are here.” Halvard sat at a long wooden bench and drank from his mug of beer. “There were people of many kinds in those days, but our people, the people of the North, managed to withstand the sicknesses the best. That is why we all have the same colored blond hair and blue eyes. People with different colored hair had weaker constitutions and perished.”

He looked around the room, as the gathered men all looked at each other and at Val’s long blonde hair, swept back over her black leather jacket. She still wore her red-lensed goggles—she kept them on at all times—but none of the men were interested in looking at her eyes. They either looked at her body, as Vebjørn did, or they avoided her gaze as Morten the Hammer did. She didn’t care for his hubris, but she appreciated the intelligence behind his eyes.

“There was a time when men had different colored hair?” Morten asked.

“Oh, yes,” Halvard said. “Different facial features, eye color, and even the tone of their skin could go as dark as tree bark.”

Some of the gathered men grunted at this. They had heard such things around campfires as children. Whether they believed the tales, Val could not tell.

“So why are we all the same now?” Ulrik’s voice startled the gathered warriors, as if they had all forgotten he was in his corner.

Halvard turned to him, rubbing his fingers on the bridge of his nose. “It has to do with a science called genetics. Simply put, it is like the way your farmers create the strongest wheat by mixing different seeds. People have different things in them called genes. When mixed in certain ways, you get different results. The babies of two people with blonde hair and blue eyes will probably look the same. After many generations of not introducing any different looking people, most will look alike. But if you met a woman with hair the color of mud, and the two of you had a baby, the child might have yellow hair like you, or brown like the woman’s.”

“That sounds like magic,” Morten said. “Or some strange curse.”

“Believe me,” Halvard said, “I have read the old books. It was a very normal thing once. But for many decades, the only people in the North have looked like us.”

Val spoke up. “So why have you brought us? What is this emergency? What is this human extinction you spoke of?”

“Right,” the old man said. “There is a problem with the genes we all have. At first they were strong. They let our ancestors survive the Uttslettelse and prosper. But too many years of the same genes, without the introduction of anything new, have led to stagnation. Much the same way a strain of weak wheat will remain weak if not crossbred with hardier strains.”

Morten’s face darkened. “You are talking about the barren women.”

Halvard nodded slowly. “Yes. You have all noticed a lack of successful births in the last many years. It is a problem with the genes. They are, for lack of a better word, dying. I have checked with many people around the North, and I have sent messages by carrier birds to other men of science around the world. The problem is everywhere. All humans have been unable to bring new children into the world, as of the last fifteen years or so. If we cannot find new genetic material—new seeds, if you will—then the human race will die. But if we find the correct genes, even if they are as small as a grain of sand, I know other men of science who can make the necessary changes to the genes in a laboratory. We can save the entire human race. Man and woman can continue into the future. But without the help of science, there will be no more children. We will all die, and there will be no more generations to follow us.”

“Please tell me,” Vebjørn said before belching loudly, “it is the Ålands woman.”

Val snapped her head up to look at Halvard, a scowl crossing her face.

“Of course not, no. I need you to travel far from the North, to a place where a man of science I write letters to has discovered something.”

“What has he found?” Ulrik asked.

“Genetic material that might just be the last hope for humanity. But the journey is far, and as you all know, travel by sea to the south is too perilous. Too many pirates prowl the waters. You will need to travel by land. And you will need stealth as much as strength. I think nine would be a proper number.”

Many of the gathered men nodded. Nine was a lucky number.

Val stepped forward. “Where is this ‘genetic material’ that we need?”

Halvard stood up and looked at her. “I have maps to show the way, and special equipment that will see you through. But first you’ll need to choose your leader and your group for this journey.”

“It will be easier if I choose men from this very room,” Val said.

Morten stood from the bench. “What makes you think you will be leading this mission? You are a woman. Clearly you can fight. We’ve all heard stories about you, but you have nothing to recommend you as a leader.”

Val walked around the table and stood in front of Morten. The red lenses of her goggles were an inch from his bandaged nose when she stopped, her hand on the handle of her ax. “I will lead, and you will follow. Once you agree to follow, the others will as well.”

“Sorry, but no. You will need to fight for the position of leader.” His hand slid down toward the handle of his longsword. The other men in the room remained motionless, tense.

Val tilted her head slightly, but never took her eyes from Morten. “I will not fight you, Morten the Hammer. I will need to put your craftiness to work on this trip. I do not wish to damage you, before you are of use to me.”

Morten smiled and was about to say something. She spoke first. “I will not fight you, because you will be valuable to me.” Val raised her arm, and without looking, she pointed at the corner of the room. “But I will fight him.”

Everyone turned to face Vebjørn, the Bear of the North, a man who stood two heads taller than Val and outweighed her by a hundred pounds of lean muscle. A man who was grinning at her outstretched finger, which was pointed directly at him.