Conflict and Courage (2 page)

Janice sighed.
Louis had returned from the Battle of the Alliance a most
self-assured young man and although only sixteen years old, had
matured beyond belief during the campaign, sobered forever by the
sights, smells and deaths on the battlefield. He and his Lind
vadeln Ustinya had chosen to remain with the Vada, a valued member
of the surviving two hundred and twenty pairs who made up the
cavalry arm of the northern army.

Louis was not
present at the family’s daga, or home, hidden amongst the leafy
trees that were pack Afanasei’s rtathlian, having departed some
days previously with the Vada’s advance party, intent on building
at least rudimentary cabins in the wooded area chosen by the them
as their permanent base before the winter snows appeared.

Janice Randall
had accepted her eldest son’s decision with a feeling of unease.
The Vada were the shock troops of the northern army and would
certainly be in the forefront of any battles of the future. She was
most displeased that her youngest son had decided to follow in his
older brother’s footsteps.

“They will not
attack again for a long time, years maybe. Francis McAllister says
that we will be mostly training and patrolling the coasts. The Larg
were well defeated and will think twice before trying again, but we
have to be ready for them. I want to help defend you and the girls.
Joining the Vada will let me do this. I tried to get Francis to
take me last month but he said fourteen was the youngest he would
train.”

“At least he
has some sense,” Janice muttered to herself.

Susa Francis
McAllister and his Lind Asya commanded the Vada and had led the
vadeln-pairs to bloody victory during the battle. The Larg had been
close to victory until Francis and Asya had led the charge of the
Lindars. It had not been without cost, a full third of the Vada had
died.

Young Thomas
Wylie and his Stasya, famous for being one of the original twelve
youngsters who had paired with the Lind during the first months
after landing, had died on the battlefield, although barely fifteen
years old. That he had disobeyed strict orders to remain behind the
front lines with the other teenagers was neither here nor there. He
had died and his Lind Stasya had death-wished shortly afterwards,
refusing the medical aid that might have saved her. She had not
wanted to continue without her Thomas.

An only child,
his parents had been devastated by his death, although Janice had
heard that his mother was expecting another baby. The extended
Wylie family had left domta Afanasei for the southern coast, there
to set up the first fishing facility of the joint lands, the large
expanse in the middle of the northern continent that was inhabited
and ruled equally by human and Lind.

Absently
stirring her cooking pot, she watched Brian walk over to the table
and sit down beside his three little sisters and her adoptive
daughter Tara, now thirteen years old. Janice frowned. Young Tara
was another casualty of the war, but in a different way.

As usual, Tara
sat picking at the food on her plate. She looked tired and drawn;
she wasn’t sleeping well, the dark hollows beneath her eyes mute
testimony to this. Janice made a mental note to ask Tara’s Lind,
Kolyei about her. She wasn’t responding to any of her adoptive
mother’s overtures at all.

Tara had been
the youngest soldier of the northern army and had been forced to
defend herself when a kranj of Larg had broken through the allied
lines. A battlefield was not a place for children but it had been
thought that she would be safe with the army’s communications
unit.

Thinking of
what the child must have gone through brought Janice’s thoughts
back to the subject of Brian. His announcement that he would be
leaving with Francis McAllister and the remaining Vada after the
impending conference had shaken Janice to the core. For the life of
her though, she couldn’t think of anything she could say to change
her son’s mind. Children grew up fast here.

I can’t stop
him going, he is of age.

Tara pushed her
unfinished plate of zarova stew away and looked up at her adoptive
mother. Mature for her thirteen years, she was wont to think much
and Janice returned Tara’s sympathetic smile with one of her own.
At least Tara would remain with the Randall family for a time.
After what the girl had experienced in the last year, she did not
think that she and Kolyei would choose the Vada as their
future.

* * * * *

Francis
McAllister, vadeln-paired with Asya and commander of the Vada
belched as he sat back on the comfortable couch in Jim and Larya’s
daga after their evening meal.

“Conference
tomorrow,” he said, “then the last of us can get off to the
stronghold.”

“Doesn’t it
have a name yet, this stronghold of yours?” asked Jim with
interest.

“We haven’t
even discussed it, truth be told. Some of the Lind are calling it
Francis and others Asya.”

“You’re joking
surely?” laughed Jim.

Francis looked
affronted. “It
does
have a certain logic to it. They do
after all call their packs after the incumbent pack-leader. I
suppose Asya and I are pack-leaders of a sort and they have some
difficulties with the human need for permanent place names. As far
as they are concerned, the place is who lives there and it is they
who are important, not the place itself.”

“It will be
interesting to listen to what they have to say about our
proposition for a name for these joint lands of ours then. Larya
chuckles to herself every time I mention it.”

“I don’t
understand why. It seems a perfectly reasonable name to me.”

Larya, who had
been dozing in the corner with one ear open, whined in
amusement.

“I think,” she
started to say, a wicked gleam in her large blue eyes.

“Don’t you
dare,” cried Jim in alarm.

“I
do
dare. It is big joke. Asya will find most amusing.”

“What?” asked
Asya, looking at her dam, her tail wagging nineteen to the
dozen.

“What I think
is good name for where we and the humans to live.”

“Tell me,” Asya
ordered with a sly glance at Jim.

Francis too was
enjoying Jim’s discomfiture.

Jim groaned
aloud. He knew what was coming. Larya had been teasing him about it
for weeks.

“Jimsland,”
Larya announced with glee. “It good human word.”

Asya gruffawed,
appreciating this astonishing proposal.

“So that’s what
she has been teasing you about,” Francis said through his chuckles.
“What a joke! Here was I embarrassed about some Lind calling a town
after me or Asya and here is your vadeln-pair calmly intending to
call what is, in effect, a whole country after you!”

“I have said no
loudly and often,” laughed the embarrassed Jim. “There is no way my
name is going to be used and that’s final. The Lind were here long
before we were, it will be a Lind name or nothing at all do you
hear?”

“Okay, keep
your hair on,” answered Francis, “but I can’t wait to tell Laura
and Faddei about this.”

“You can tell
these two but it goes no further. If word gets out I will be the
butt of jokes for ages, Kolyei especially, you know what a tease he
is.”

“Kolyei isn’t
laughing much these days Jim. He is too worried about Tara. He
tells Asya that she is not recovering well from the trauma of the
last year. I think we forget that she lost her entire family during
the cosmic storm on the
Argyll
and then she was thrust into
war without so much as a by-your-leave. Remember, she is only
thirteen years old.”

“That girl has
too vivid an imagination. Of course, that’s what makes her able to
write and tell stories the way she does. I wish we hadn’t been
forced to take them to the battle, but at the time, there wasn’t
anyone else able enough to take charge of the communications’
pivot. However, that situation shouldn’t happen again and no child
under fourteen will have to fight, they will be sixteen or even
eighteen if I can manage it.” Jim thumped his fist down on a nearby
cushion to emphasise this last point.

“You and I are
of the same mind on that score,” said Francis, “even in the Vada,
the under sixteens are to be designated inactive and will remain in
the stronghold.”

“How are you
going to manage that?”

“We’ve been
discussing it. Laura, Faddei and Asya worked it out. Under sixteen
will be junior cadets, sixteen upward seniors. Promotion to an
active troop when they are ready and only when they reach
eighteen.”

“The Lind
agree?”

“The Lind
consider their own young to be fully adult once they reach fourteen
summers old and some find the human concept of adulthood at
eighteen-years-old a difficult one to understand but even they
agree that untrained, unprepared and young cavalry vadeln-pairs are
more of a hindrance than a help. You know the Lind mindset –
protection of the young and vulnerable. Even the most experienced
of their warriors can’t fight the Larg and survive whilst keeping
one eye on the youngsters. I think too that at last the Lind are
beginning to understand that human youngsters develop differently
to theirs. A child doesn’t have the strength and stamina needed for
hours of close combat although I know that there will always be
exceptions.”

“Are young
Louis Randall and Ustinya a case in point? He is a well-grown
specimen and his sword-work is excellent,” admitted Jim.

“True,”
answered Francis, “but most of the youngsters, especially the
girls, need time to learn the skills required. That’s one reason
why we’ll be splitting the youngsters up by age. If they pair at
fourteen or younger, they will have at least two years in the
junior section before joining the senior. For a while though, we
may have to use the seniors on patrol. I can only field three full
troops at the moment, we are so under strength.”

“Talking about
training, have you persuaded that genius with a sword to leave his
farm to come to the Vada as Weaponsmaster yet? Last I heard Robert
Lutterell was not at all keen to let him go. He was champion fencer
on the ship for years. Strange how I always thought of it as an
archaic sport, not much use in the real world.”

“He always said
that it might come in useful one day. I took a few lessons from him
but never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be fighting large
vicious brutes of wolves for real.”

“None of us
did.”

“I have hopes
that he can be persuaded,” added Francis, “you know Jsei of pack
Ratvei, he who paired with Geraldine Fitzpatrick during the
battle?”

Jim nodded.

“Well, it seems
that he has a sister, from the same litter and she wants to join
the Vada. I’m sending her off to the Dahlstrom farm with Geraldine,
Jsei, Louis and Ustinya. I have a gut feeling that if Mislya finds
Wilhelm suitable, he might well find her persuasive powers
difficult to resist.”

“So you have
high hopes that he and his family will be joining you before
winter?”

“Most
definitely. Mislya is a most attractive female and as I’m reliably
told, very determined.”

“Jsei has
promised to tell me when,” interrupted Asya.

“When, not if?
You seem sure of success,” said Jim, turning towards her.

“I know Mislya.
She is a good fighter.”

“She fought
with the Ratvei Lindar in the battle?”

“Yes. Mislya
saw Wilhelm when he was fighting with the infantry but she could
not find him when Larg fled. Now Mislya’s hurts are better and she
goes to get him.”

There was a
distinct aura of satisfaction in Asya’s voice as she added, “we
need a human to teach you the best way to use sword. Vada need him.
Mislya will explain and he will understand and come to Vada.”

“I’ll keep my
fingers crossed,” promised Jim.

Asya looked
puzzled, a look echoed by Jim’s own Larya.

“What you mean
by keep fingers crossed? Why do you do this?”

Jim sighed and
proceeded to explain to the inquisitive Lind. They always wanted to
know and enjoyed putting their human partners on the spot.
Privately Jim thought that they understood such sayings well enough
and only asked for the explanations out of a perverse sense of
mischief.

Larya’s mental
chuckle confirmed his suspicions.

* * * * *

So here I
am
, thought Jim as he sat down beside Larya the next
morning
, whoever would have thought two years ago that I would
be sitting in conference on a planet light years away from my home
system with an alien species that resemble horse-sized
wolves?

The delegates
were ensconced in a sheltered clearing in the centre of domta
Afanasei. The humans present were seated on rough-hewn benches made
from fallen trees. The Lind made themselves comfortable on the
springy turf.

Delegates from
the four Lind packs or rtath that lived in the lands jointly
allocated to humans and Lind were present. Blue striped Afanasei,
newly elected leader of his pack after the death of his predecessor
Zanatei in the battle two months before, was present and beside him
Tarmsei, the recently promoted Susa, commander of pack Afanasei’s
Lindar, its fighting arm.

The leaders of
packs Malkei, Ranetei and Velsei sat nearby, together with their
own Susas. Interspersed with the pack representatives sat Francis
McAllister, his Asya beside him, as Susas of the Vada and James
Rybak and his vadeln-pair Rozya with her mate Matvei. To their left
sat Winston Randall, the only human present with no Lind
life-partner. All but Winston were fairly proficient in Lindish by
this time and even he had enough command of the language to follow
well enough. Making up the numbers was Kolyei, sitting close to the
veterinary surgeon, on paw to provide a translation if needed. It
had been decided that the conference should be held in Lindish
rather than Standard, the human tongue.