“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Elgar asked. The year was 853. Eanwulf’s six hundred men were gathered and ready to move out, though honestly this time it was closer to four hundred and eighty.

Eanwulf shook his head. “You went the last time. Pray that I have as much success as you had. Besides, all we are doing is helping Mercia against the Welsh and all the Welsh know how to do is attack like wild men, no line or formation of any kind.  As long as our line is solid, the outcome is decided before the two sides even meet.”

“I’ll keep an eye on things here in Somerset, and your sons,” Elgar said. but Eanwulf just shook his head again.

“We have kept the Danes from our land over these past five years since the Parrett River, and it was quiet for five years before that.”

“We have had a couple of raiding parties.”

“Small raids. Insignificant. And you handled them well,” Eanwulf smiled down from where he sat on his horse. “You just need to keep your eye on the coast and keep the Danes, the Welsh, the Irish pirates out of the Somerset and the rest will take care of itself.”

Elgar nodded for his brother and backed away from the horse. He stood for a while, watching Eanwulf and the army ride off in support of the king, then he mounted up and headed slowly back to Watchet on the coast. He had to think. The last report he got said the Flesh Eaters were beginning to eat the uncooperative Geats.  The Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes raised no objection. No doubt they all planned to move into Geat land once the Geats got removed. The morons did not realize that they might well be the next item on the menu.

Elgar felt he had to do something, but as usual, he was not sure what he could do.

Worse than eating the Geats, the Flesh Eaters appeared to be building a settlement in the mountains just south and west of Harjedalen in Scandinavia, roughly between Swedish and Norwegian lands. He feared they would start breeding soon enough, and then they would be very hard to get rid of. They produced children by the litter full.

Elgar stopped in Athelney, the fortress in the swamps. He remembered the path and how to get there safely through all the obstacles. He encouraged the monks there in the small abbey that held the island. He got workmen and their families to move to the island. They made a small hamlet and farmed the ealdorman’s land, what could be farmed. They also kept the fortress in prime condition. Elgar could not be sure, but somehow he felt the fortress at Athelney would come in handy at some point in the future.

“Wait and see,” he said to himself, and after a week, he finished the trip to watchet. He loved his wife, Aelfpryd. She was surprised and pleased at his attention and kindness toward her. She would be thirty soon enough and officially middle aged. But Elgar had been born to a middle aged mother, and despite his complaints about being raised by the girls, he imagined in the long run it had not hurt him. Aelfpryd might eventually have a son but even then, Elgar knew he could only love his daughters Wynn, Swip, Swith, and Flaed, though he might try to keep them from utterly spoiling the boy.

Aelfpryd found Elgar up on several nights. He stared at the moon as it grew to full size over those days, and when it was fully round, he commented to his wife.

“Round like a woman. I wonder what the moon may birth.”

“I’m not that old yet,” Aelfpryd responded, knowing what he was thinking. She stood beside him and slipped her arms lovingly around his middle while he continued to look at the sky. “We can still have a boy.”

Elgar looked at her. “Sadly, there are some that are not permitted to have children.” He turned again to look at the stars. “I feel in a way that I will be committing genocide, though it is not. There are still plenty out there. They still have plenty of opportunity to survive as a people.”

“You sound as if you are going away again.”

“I must,” Elgar said. “But only for a day. Maybe a week.”

“I will miss you when you are gone, and I will be waiting quietly for your return.” She planted a kiss on his cheek an turned to go inside to bed.

“Quietly? In a house full of girl? Ha!” He ran to get ahead of her. She let him win that race, but she would not let him steal all the covers.

~~~*~~~

Elgar met with the priest in Watchet for three whole days. It took him that long to confess himself and to give the priest an idea of who he was and what he was talking about. He was not sure why he went to the priest with his confession, but he had to talk to someone. He did not want to burden his family and friends and since confession was becoming a thing, the old priest got the call. After fifteen years since his first contact with the Flesh Eaters, Elgar was considering genocide. Fifteen years was more than enough time to leave the Earth, but before he acted rashly he needed a second opinion. In the end, the old priest did not really understand, but he said the thing Elgar needed to hear.

“In the beginning, everything was perfect. God said simply don’t eat the fruit of this one tree. That was all. But we did not believe him, or we did not trust him, or we wanted to see what would happen, or we wanted to decide for ourselves. We stepped off God’s path and into the bushes and thorns to hide ourselves. We really messed up, and what happened was we found there was no going back. We doomed ourselves by our disobedience, by our unbelief. Thank God that God did not abandon us to Hell. In the fullness of time, Jesus came and through him we have a second chance. God’s way is the way of love, joy, and peace. It is the way of Heaven and God will not mislead you. He has given us a guidebook to help direct our steps. Walk on God’s path, narrow as that path may be. Any alternative leads only to destruction, and there is a whole world full of alternatives. Just remember this. Everyone needs a second chance.”

“I will remember,” Elgar said, and he walked out the back door of the church He promptly traded places with the Nameless god and appeared in Scandinavia where the Flesh Eaters were building their colony. Of the nine hundred and eighty-seven Flesh Eaters on the mothership, twenty-six were female, but only thirteen were able to bear children. Of course, given that they had litters of three to five children at a time, it would not take many years to double that nine hundred number, and their numbers would increase exponentially after that.

The first thing he did was gather all of the Flesh Eaters from the settlement in the meadow where they parked their two transports, three fighter ships, and two three-man fighter-bombers. He made the Flesh Eaters stand still while he reduced the wooden structures they had built to sawdust to be blown away on the wind. He closed up the wombs of the females so they could not bear any children, though he made clear to them the restriction would be lifted once they left this planet. Then he transported the Flesh Eaters and all their ships to the supposed secret hiding place of the mothership.

Nameless had to think for a minute. Not everything was easy, even for a god. In this case, though, Nameless figured it should not be too difficult. In his mind’s eye, he reached back long before the Kairos was first born, hundreds of thousands of years to a different genesis planet, and he learned how to shape himself into a god of the Flesh Eaters, now no more than a distant myth in the Flesh Eater minds. Once satisfied, he called the captain, first officer, chief scientist, and chief military officer of the Flesh Eaters to appear before him. They all screamed and tried to hide themselves which is about what Nameless expected. Nameless spoke and made sure these flesh eaters heard.

“You have been told to leave this world. The time to gather your people is now over. You have been told not to eat the people. The Geats are people. No more eating them. Now, you must leave this world and not come back. This is your second chance. There will not be a third chance.”

He vanished from that place and appeared again in the back yard of the church. The priest came out and drew his breath in sharply on sight of a Flesh Eater god. Nameless quickly changed back to himself, then he traded places again with Elgar and the priest commented.

“I see what you mean, not of this world. I thought you were a demon.”

“They are not far from demons,” Elgar said. “They have a second chance and I hope and pray they will take it. I will be sorry when I have to kill them all.” He walked home, kissed his wife and his girls, and went to bed early.