THE

ORC WARS

THE YNGLING SAGA

BOOKS I AND II

John Dalmas

THE ORC WARS

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 1992 by John Dalmas

The two novels and novelette that compose The Orc Wars are copyright as follows: The Yngling © 1971 by Pyramid Publications; "Exodus ... Genesis," © 1992 by John Dalmas (a different version of this story appeared in Analog October 1970); Homecoming © 1984 by John Dalmas.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Book

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

ISBN-10: 0-671-72130-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-61824-045-3

Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas

First printing, August 1992

Distributed by

SIMON & SCHUSTER

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10020

Printed in the United States of America

EXECUTIVE HEADHUNT

"Now suppose there was a land where all men were thralls. No, less than thralls, because thralls at least have some rights and protection in law. Suppose all men were slaves except for one master and his soldiers. And suppose that master had the worst kind of madness, finding his greatest pleasure in the misery and degradation, the torture, of his slaves. An emperor who conquered only to enjoy the cries, the whimpers, the begging for mercy of those he ruled. A man who had lived very long and has a great army." Raadgiver leaned toward Nils. "What would you do if you lived in a land like that?"

"I have never thought of such a thing," Nils answered. "Where is that land?"

"Right now it is far to the southeast," Raadgiver answered.

"But someday, perhaps soon, it may include all of Europe, even Denmark.

"And what we want you to do is kill that man."

The Yngling

Dedicated to

FRANK KELLY FREAS

When I was young (and Kelly was too), I loved and looked forward to the Kelly Freas covers and inside illos that helped maintain Astounding SF as the core of science fiction, its center, the reliable monthly read.

He's been great since forever. (You want a great coffee-table book that is, at the same time, a short course in illustration? Get The Art of Science Fiction, by Frank Kelly Freas. The sonofagun writes as well as he paints!)

My very first novel, and very first sale, was to John Campbell and (Astounding) Analog, in 1969. It was the original Yngling. Bravely I wrote to the formidable Mr. Campbell and asked if Kelly Freas could illustrate it. To my delight, John wrote back that Kelly had the assignment.

His cover and lead illo caught the spirit of Nils Jarnhann and the neovikings perfectly!

* * *

Recently I resold the rights to Jim Baen, and not long afterward he told me he was having Kelly do the cover. I figure I must be living right.

I

Nils Hammarson stood relaxed among a few freeholders, thralls, and two other sword apprentices, watching two warriors argue in the muddy beast trail. In his eighteenth summer, Nils's beard was still blond down, but he stood taller and more muscular than any sword apprentice of the Wolf Clan for many years. And sword apprentices were selected at puberty from among all the clan, even the sons of thralls, for their strength and keenness.

The argument they listened to was personal and not a clan dispute. The clans of the Svear had met to hold a ting, and trade, and take wives. And though the ting now had closed, clan feuds were in abeyance until the clans dispersed to their own lands. Only personal fights were allowed.

The warrior of the Wolf Clan was smaller and his beard more gray than brown, but he refused to back down before his larger, younger adversary. The warrior of the Eagle Clan suddenly shot out his large left hand to the necklace of wolves' teeth, jerked forward and down. The older man saw the move coming and kept his balance, although the leather thong bit hard into his neck sinews. He swung a knobby fist with his heavy shoulder behind it, driving a grunt from the younger. For a moment they grappled, each with a knife in his right hand and the other's knife wrist in his left. Briefly their arms sawed the air, their bare feet carrying them in a desperate dance, muscles bunched in their browned torsos while callused heels strove to trip.

Then strength told, and the warrior of the Wolf Clan toppled backward. His breath grunted out as his heavier opponent fell on him; his left hand lost its sweaty grip and quickly the other's blade drove under his ribs, twisted upward through heart and lungs. For a brief moment, as his blood poured over his opponent's hand and forearm, his teeth still clenched and his right arm strained to stab. Then his body slackened, and the warrior of the Eagles arose, panting and grinning.

Most of the watchers left. But Ragnar Tannson and Algott Olofson still stood, glaring at the killer of their clansman, for they were sword apprentices and nearly matured. There were narrow bounds on what they could say to a warrior, however, for warriors were forbidden to kill outside their class unless the terms of the feud specifically allowed. And this was not a feud at all yet, although it would probably be proposed and accepted as one.

But the wish to kill was on their faces.

The Eagle warrior looked at them, his grin widening to show a dead tooth that had turned gray. "I see the cubs are beginning to feel like real wolves," he said. His eyes moved to Nils Hammarson who stood, still relaxed, a slight smile on his face. "All but the big one, eh? A thrall's son I'll bet, strong as an ox and almost as quick. Or maybe your blood runs hot, too, but you hide it."

Nils shifted his weight easily, and his voice was casual. "Nay, Du." For a sword apprentice to address a warrior with the familiar pronoun bordered on insolence. "I was memorizing your face. The old man lying there is my kinsman, Olof Snabbhann, and in one year I'll be wearing warrior's braids." He paused. "Not that everyone with braids deserves to be called warrior."

The Eagle warrior's eyes narrowed in his darkening face and he strode toward the youth. He aimed a fist at the blond head. But the fist that met him was quicker; his steel-capped head snapped back and he fell heavily in the trampled mud, his head at an odd angle. Algott Olofson knelt by him quickly, then rose. "You've killed him," he said gravely.

* * *

But the ting was over and crimes between clans would not be judged again until the next year. Therefore, Nils was free to go home. He spent his summer as any sword apprentice would, hunting bear and wild bulls, rowing out into the long lake to draw in nets, and particularly training, with his ring mates. They lifted boulders and wrestled. They swung, parried, and thrust at shadow enemies with heavy iron practice swords twice the weight of a war sword. They sparred with birch swords and weighted wooden shields, and sent arrows at staves marked with the totems of other clans.

But if his activities were normal, the subtler things of life weren't. Everyone knew that at the next ting he would be judged, and when one remembered this, it was sometimes hard to be at ease with him. He could be executed. Or he could be labeled a renegade, to live alone in the forest without clan protection. In that case Eagle warriors would surely hunt him down and kill him. The least sentence possible was banishment.

Nonetheless, Nils Hammarson seemed about as always—relaxed, mild-spoken and observant. He had changed mainly in one respect. Before, in sparring, he had usually been content to parry and counter, seldom pressing a vigorous attack. Although he invariably won anyway, the drillmaster had sometimes thrashed him for this. Now, without ferocity but overpoweringly, his birch club-sword thrust and struck like the weapon of a Bärsärk, making his bruised and abraded ringmates exceed themselves in sheer self-defense. Their drillmaster, old Matts Sväädkunni, grinned widely and often, happier than anyone could remember. "That is how a Wolf should fight," he would bellow. And he had a new practice sword forged for his protégé, heavier than any other in the clan.

Late in September, when the cold weather came, the sword apprentices butchered cattle, drinking the steaming blood, smearing each other with gore and brains, and draping entrails about their necks and shoulders so they would not be squeamish in battle. And in late October, after the first heavy snow, they slipped the upturned toes of their ski boots under the straps and hunted moose and wild cattle in the forests and muskegs. After that, as was customary for sword apprentices, Nils Hammarson wrapped cheese and meat in his sleeping bag of glutton skins, took his bow and short sword and went for days at a time into the rugged, uninhabited hills above Lake Siljan. But now he did not hunt the wolf, their clan totem, with a ringmate. In fact he did not hunt so much as travel, northwest even into the mountains of what tradition called Jämtland, where long glaciers filled the valleys. The great wanderer of the Svear, Sten Vannaren, told that the ice had moved down the valley more than three kilometers in five years. Someday, he said, the ice will reach the sea.

Nils would have liked to have seen the glaciers in summer when the land was green, but he expected never to be here again.

Not that he would be executed—struck down like an ox to have his head raised on a pole at the ting. The circumstances had not been that damning. And this belief was not born of hope, nor did it give rise to hope. It was a simple dispassionate evaluation that would prove correct or incorrect, but probably correct.

And if it came down to it, he would escape. To his knowledge, no one had ever tried to escape a sentence of the ting. It would be considered shameful and jeopardize future lifetimes. But Nils did not believe it would be shameful for him, nor did his blood quicken at the thought.

He simply knew that he was not intended to have his head lopped off before the clan.

* * *

In July, after the hay was cut and stored, another ting was held. It heard a number of complaints and disputes. Warnings were given. Feuds were approved. Fines of cattle, potatoes and grain were levied, and backs flogged. A hand was cut off. And from a copper-haired head, runnels of blood dried on a pole at the ting ground.

At the trial of Nils Hammarson, two witnesses were heard: Ragnar Tannson and Algott Olofson. They were Nils's friends and ringmates, but no one would lie to a ting. After their testimony, the council sat in quiet discussion in its tent for a time, then emerged and mounted the platform of hewn timbers. Warriors and freeholders covered the broad and trampled field. Axel Stornäve, chief of the Svear, arose from his carved throne and stood before the clans in his cloak of white owl skins. His voice boomed, showing little sign of his sixty years.

"Nils Hammarson angered a warrior," he said. "But his speech was within bounds, though barely.

"Nils Hammarson struck a warrior whose attack on him was without arms and not deadly.

"Nils Hammarson killed a warrior, though without intention.

"Nils Hammarson is stripped of all rights but one, beginning with the second new moon from now. By that time he must be gone from the lands of the tribes. If he is not gone by the second new moon, he will be declared a renegade. Notice of this judgment will be sent to the Jötar and the Norskar, and they will not take him in.

"One right is retained. Nils Hammarson is in his nineteenth summer and has fulfilled his sword apprenticeship. Where he goes he will be an outlander, unprotected by clans or laws. Therefore, when the ting is over, his hair will be braided and he will leave the land as a warrior."

The Eagle Clan grumbled at this leniency, but the ting had ruled. Three days later, Ulf Vargsson, chief of the Wolf Clan, plaited the hair of the six Wolf sword apprentices who were in their nineteenth summers and gave them their warrior names. And Nils Hammarson became Nils Järnhann, "Iron Hand."

II

Neovikings. The neovikings were members of a primitive, post-plague Terran culture that evolved in Sweden and Norway after the Great Death that left less than 10**-4 of the pre-plague population alive. They consisted of three tribes: the Norskar in southern Norway, the Jötar in southern Sweden, and the Svear in central Sweden. . . .

The term "neovikings" was applied to them by the post-plague psionic culture known as the "kinfolk." In some respects neoviking was not an apt term, for they were not sea rovers. They were primarily herdsmen, although hunting and fishing rivalled livestock in their economy and they practiced some agriculture. Perhaps their outstanding cultural feature was their unusually martial orientation, and in this they did somewhat resemble the medieval vikings. Tribe warred against tribe, and clans carried on bloody feuds.

They increased despite their love of bloodshed, however. Taboos, tribal laws and intertribal agreements restricted the causes of fighting, its circumstances and practices . . .

History. . . . The rapid climatic deterioration finally became critical. They found it necessary to store increasing quantities of forage as the season of pasturage became shorter. Crops became poorer, and some lands that had been farmed became too waterlogged and cold to grow crops. Had this happened three or four centuries earlier, they might have lapsed into a purely hunting and fishing culture, but they had become too numerous and sophisticated for that. A coastal clan, familiar with fishing boats, began to build vessels large enough to carry effective raiding parties to other parts of Europe. A rather close analog of the medieval viking culture might have developed, had not. . . .

(From the New School Encyclopedia, copyrighted A.C. 920, Deep Harbor, New Home.)

III

It was no fishing boat, but a broad cargo ship made for the open sea and a full thirty meters long. The prow turned upward, and the end was carved and painted in the likeness of a sea eagle with wings partly folded. The water was choppy, and a brisk southwest wind blew. The ship's course being southwesterly, the sail was furled and the crew leaned into the oars, their brawny backs wet with sweat. Through the blue sky moved flocks of small white clouds. The sun sparkled off millions of facets of sea surface, making Nils's eyes squint against the glitter. A low shore, featureless at first in the distance, drew gradually nearer, becoming low dunes backed by rolling heath. Woods of stubby oaks took form in some of the hollows. Nils Järnhann had never seen the sea before, nor oak woods, and stood absorbing the beauty and novelty.

A break appeared in the dunes and became the mouth of a stream that flowed out of the heath. A short distance up the stream, on its south side, a town became visible past the shoulder of a dune. A lookout called down from the mast, and the stroke strengthened as the oarsmen began a chant, for this was their homeplace.

When the ship was tied to the wharf of oak timbers, the oarsmen became stevedores, and under the captain's direction began to unload the pine planks that made up their cargo. A movement caught the captain's eye and he turned to see his passenger approaching. The captain was a big man, but this fellow was bigger—more than a hundred and ninety centimeters tall, he judged, with muscles impressively thick and sinewy even to one accustomed to the sight of brawny oarsmen. His corded torso was bare and brown beneath the simple leather harness that supported his sword belt. Soft deerskin breeches were wrapped close around his calves by leather strips, and his callused feet were bare. A necklace of wolves' teeth hung on a thong across his thick chest and the skin of a wolf's head was laced onto his steel cap. Straw-colored braids hung to his shoulders. Obviously a warrior of the northmen, and a new one, the captain thought, noting the sparse soft beard and mustache so out of character with the physique.

Nils addressed the captain. "Will you hire me to help unload cargo?"

"When did warriors start hiring out as labor?" the captain asked.

"When they have spent their last coin for passage and need something to eat."

"All right. One krona when the cargo is all on the wharf, if you work well and make no quarrels. Otherwise, nothing, and the arrows of the town wardens if there is trouble." The captain believed in giving a man a chance and also in making things clear from the beginning. And fear wasn't a trait of his.

He matched Nils with a thick-armed man of medium height, and without words they made a point of pride in carrying bigger loads than any other pair working. Even with the breeze, all of them were soon dripping sweat—a familiar and agreeable enough experience both to oarsmen and warrior. Soon Nils removed helmet, harness, and sword, laying them with his other things on a rowing bench forward.

Well into the afternoon one of the crew suddenly shouted, "Hey! Stop!" A youth, who had boarded unnoticed, leaped from the gunwale carrying Nils's scabbarded sword. The captain, on the wharf supervising the piling, bellowed, drew his knife and threw it, but it clattered uselessly on the cobblestones. Nils's bare feet hit the wharf running. The thief was quick; he reached a corner and sprinted out of sight. A moment later Nils made the turn, and the thief realized he had dangerously underestimated both the weight of the sword and the speed of a barbarian who had spent much time running on skis. He drew the sword as he ran, then turned and faced his pursuer. Nils stopped a few meters from him, and seconds later several of the crew ran up, panting, to stand near.

"I can stand here as long as you can," Nils pointed out matter-of-factly. "If you try to run away again with the sword, I will easily catch you. And if you run at me to kill me, you won't be able to. But if you lay the sword down and walk away, I'll let you go."

The thief scowled and licked his lips nervously. He was Nils's age, lean and wiry. Suddenly he rushed at Nils, the sword raised to one side in both hands, ready to swing. The sailors scattered, and in that instant Nils sprang high above the swinging blade. A hard foot shot out, a powerful thigh driving the heel into the thief's chest and hurling him backward. He skidded on his back and lay still.

"What must I do now?" Nils asked.

"Is he dead?" asked the sailor that Nils had worked with.

"He's dead all right," Nils assured him, without needing to examine the body.

"Well then, there's nothing to do. A warden's likely to come around and question us, and we'll tell him what happened. He'll have the body taken away and that'll be the end of it. There won't be any trouble for you, if that's what you're wondering about."

Nils and the sailor began walking back to the wharf.

"And what about his clan?" Nils wondered.

"What's a clan?"

"A clan is, well . . ." Nils had never thought about this before. It was as natural a part of life as eating or breathing. "A clan is like the family, in a way, but much bigger, and the members fight for each other and take vengeance if need be."

"In Denmark we don't have clans. Countrymen have lords. But townsmen and sailors are loyal mainly to their bellies."

"And I won't be judged at a ting?"

"Ting? I've never heard the word." The sailor paused. "Swordsman, let me give you some advice. The world you've come to is a lot different from your barbarian backcountry. Its ways and even its speech are different. You and I can talk together partly because Danish and Swedish aren't so different in the first place, but also partly because we sailors are used to going to ports in Jötmark and adapting our speech for Swedish ears. But most Danes have never heard a Swede, and you won't find it so easy to talk to them at first. And if you travel farther, to the German lands for example, you won't understand their ways or anything they say. If you're going to travel in civilized lands, you'd better learn something about their customs; otherwise, even a man like you will find only hardship and death."

* * *

The inn loomed two-stories high in the darkness and was made of planks instead of logs. The shutters were open, lighting the street in front of the windows and leaving nothing between the noise inside and the passersby outside. Nils had a krona in his pouch, strong hunger in his gut, and the sailor's words in the back of his mind as he moved lightly up the steps.

The noise didn't stop as he crossed the room, but the volume dropped a few decibels and faces turned to look. The innkeeper stared a moment at the bizarre but dangerous-looking barbarian wearing a pack with a shield on it, a slung bow, and a sword. Then he walked over to him.

"Do you want a bed, stranger?"

The sailor had been right. Nils understood the question, but Danish speech was different. He might indeed have trouble understanding longer speech or making himself clear. At any rate, he would speak slowly.

"No, only food," he said. "The ground will have to be my bed, or else I'll run out of money too soon."

The innkeeper eyed him narrowly and leaned a stout forearm on the bar top. "You plan to sleep in the open, if I take your meaning." He too spoke slowly now. "In that case, more than your money may disappear; your life's blood also. If you don't know that, then the world is a dangerous place for you."

"I have been robbed already today," Nils said. "Are there so many thieves in Denmark?"

"There are thieves everywhere, and towns have far more than their share. Are you the barbarian who crushed the chest of Hans fra Sandvig with his bare foot?"

"If that was his name."

"Well, that's a service worth a free meal and a mug of beer with it," the innkeeper said, and called a waiter. "Dreng, take this man to a table. Give him a mutton pie and a mug of beer, and when the mug is empty, fill it a second time."

Nils leaned over the pie with busy fork. He was aware that someone stood near the table watching him, and his eyes glanced upward occasionally as he ate. The watcher, of middle height, wore his yellow hair cropped close, and unlike the townsmen, carried a short sword at his hip.

After a bit the man spoke. "You are a Swede," he said, "the one who killed an armed thief with only your foot." He spoke a hybrid Swedish-Danish, from lips not at home with either, accented with a crisp treatment of the consonants.

Nils straightened from his plate. "Yes, I'm from Svealann. And you are no Dane either."

"No, I'm a Finn—in our language we say Suomalainen."

"I've heard of the Finn land," Nils said. "Svea fishermen are sometimes driven there by storms. What do you want of me?"

"I am traveling alone in the world, and it's healthier not to travel alone. You're traveling too."

"I'm used to traveling alone," Nils countered, "even in land without people, where wolves and bears hunt. I've slept buried in the snow without harm."

"Yes, but you're not in your homeland now. In Denmark there aren't any wolves or bears, but to the outlander, men are more dangerous."

"Where are you going?" asked Nils.

The Finn did not answer at once. "I don't know," he said at last. "I seek a thing of great value and go where my search takes me."

"Where your search takes you," Nils echoed musingly. "Suppose that's not where I want to go?"

"I believe it's as good as any for you," the Finn replied. "Because if I'm right, you don't have any place in mind. Also, you don't know the ways and tongues of the world, and need a guide and teacher."

Nils leaned back, a grin on his boy's face. "You're the third today who's pointed out my ignorance to me. I believe you must be right. But tell me, why do you think I have no place in mind?"

"Well, for one thing, I suspect you don't know of any places. But regardless, you're a warrior, and among your people it is good to be a warrior. Few warriors would leave the fellowship of their clan to wander alone in the world. Probably you were exiled, most likely for killing outside the bans."

"Sit down," Nils said, motioning to a chair across from him. "Now I'll ask another question." His speech was easy and assured, like that of a chief twice his age. "You say you seek a thing of great value. If it's so valuable, others may seek it with armed men. And if someone already has it, it may be strongly guarded. What will we do if we find it?"

"I don't know," the Finn answered. "I can only wait and see." He paused, started as if to speak, paused again, then said it. "You're a barbarian, young and very ignorant, but you are not simple. Not simple at all. Which is so much the better, for you'll be much more than a man to frighten robbers."

Nils ate, without saying any more, until the mug was empty and the plate wiped clean. He signaled the waiter with the empty mug. "I'll travel with you awhile," he said to the Finn. "For you were right about me in every respect; I am an outcast, and have nothing better to do. But there's a lot I'll want to know, about you and your quest as well as about the world, and I won't promise that our paths will continue together." He half rose and held out his large, thick right hand. "I am Nils Järnhann."

"Iron Hand. I believe it." The Finn retrieved his own. "And I am Kuusta Suomalainen."

IV

Nils and Kuusta walked all day, and never had Nils seen such farmland. The fields covered more land than the forests—broad fields of oats and barley, nearly ripe. Tame trees in rows, which Kuusta said bore fruit called apples. Large herds of cattle. Even the forests were unfamiliar to Nils. Most of the trees had broad leaves and were larger than the birches of home. And although some of the pines seemed familiar, most of the needle-leaved trees were strange, too, and large.

And there were sheep, which Nils had never heard of before. Kuusta said that sheep were foolish and easily caught and killed by wild dogs, which the Danes hunted relentlessly so that they were cunning and cowardly. In Sweden and Finland, he pointed out, it would be impossible to keep sheep because of the wolves and bears. But the fur of sheep, called wool, could be made into warm clothing, and it was this most Danes wore instead of hides.

Then Kuusta talked about the languages of men. They were as many as the kinds of trees that grow in Denmark, he said, and no one could learn any large part of them. But there was one that could be spoken by most people in most lands, at least to some extent, and was used by traders and travelers outside of their own countries. It was called Anglic, and was easy to learn. He taught Nils a few Anglic phrases, starting with: "I am hungry. Please give me food. Thank you."

During the day they saw two small castles. Kuusta insisted they avoid these, leaving the road and keeping to the woods or hedgerows to pass them.

In the early evening they made camp and Kuusta went out to set rabbit snares. While he was gone, Nils saw a deer, sent an arrow through it, and drank the warm nourishing blood. When Kuusta returned and saw the deer, he became ill at ease, saying the Danish lords forbade their killing by anyone but themselves. When they caught a peasant who had killed a deer, they ordinarily knotted a rope around his neck and pulled him off the ground to kick and jerk and swell in the face until he died. Then they'd leave him there, his toes a few centimeters from the ground, and the magpies or crows would relieve him of his eyes, and in the night wild dogs might come and feast on his guts.

Nonetheless, the deer was dead, and neither man was inclined to let it go to waste. They built a small fire, roasted the heart and liver and tongue, and ate while more meat roasted for the road. Then they put out the fire and rolled up in their sleeping robes.

"Now it's time for questions and answers," Nils said in the darkness, "about the thing you're hunting for."

Kuusta lay silent for a moment. "It's a thing my people had never heard of," he said quietly, "nor yours either, I suspect. As a boy I wanted to see the world, so I left home and traveled. I hired on a Danish ship as an oarsman. We went to Jömark for lumber and took it to Frisland, where the cattle are fat but there are few trees. We took cattle to Britain then, where Anglic is the native tongue, and got the black stones that burn and took them to Frisland. There I jumped ship and walked south through the land of France, then through the land of Provence to the Southern Sea. In Provence, where there is no king, the lords are always at war with one another, and I took service with one as a mercenary. They use lots of mercenaries, and for that reason the language of their armies is Anglic.

"And in Provence I heard a legend that I believe has its roots in truth, of a magic jewel called the esper crystal. Looking into it, a man is supposed to be able to see and hear things far away or things that haven't happened yet. It's even said that the holder can read the thoughts of others through it."

Then Kuusta lay silent again.

"And what would you do with this crystal if you had it?" asked Nils.

"Get rich, I suppose."

"Have you thought how hard it would be to steal a thing as valuable as that from a person of great wealth and power when that person can see and hear things far away, look into the future, and maybe even read the thoughts of those around him?"

Kuusta lay quiet for some time, smelling the dead fire, but Nils knew he was not asleep. "Yes," Kuusta said finally, "I've thought about it. But I need something to strive for; otherwise, life would have no savor."

"And where do you think this esper crystal might be?"

"I don't know. The story is that once it was in a land east of the Southern Sea. But if it really exists, and if a person travels and watches and listens, he may learn where it is. Something like that must leave evidence."

"I'm not like you," Nils said. "I need nothing to strive for. You were right, in the inn. I'd have been happy to stay with my clan, hunting, raiding, fathering a line of warriors, and watching the seasons follow one another. Taking an arrow in my time or possibly growing old. But it's in my nature to do what is indicated, without worry or pain; so I am also happy to sleep in a Danish oak forest and travel I don't know where. I have no desire for this esper crystal or to get rich. But I'll travel with you for a while and learn from you."

Within a few moments Nils's breath slowed to the shallow cadence of sleep, and in Kuusta's mind the esper crystal shone like a cut gem glowing white, occupying his inner eye, until there was nothing else and he too was asleep.

* * *

The early light wakened them and they ate venison again. Kuusta visited his rabbit snares to no avail, while Nils dragged the deer carcass into a thicket. Each put a portion of roast haunch into his pack—enough to last until it would be too foul to eat—and they set off.

Soon they came out of the forest again, and the road was a lane between hedges atrill with birds. Nils found the land pleasant. His eyes moved about, seeing things, interpreting, as he repeated the Anglic that Kuusta spoke for him.

He interpreted the rapid thudding of hooves, too, but the hedges at that point were a thick lacing of strong, thorny stems confining them to the lane until they could find a break. The horsemen came into sight quickly after the hoofbeats were heard, and Nils and Kuusta stood aside as they rode up, as if to let them pass. The five horsemen pulled up their mounts, however, and looked grimly down at the two travelers. Their green jerkins told Kuusta that these were game wardens of the local lord. Their leader, his knighthood marked by helmet and mail shirt, sat easily, sword drawn, smiling unpleasantly. Leaning forward, he reached a strong brown hand toward Kuusta.

"Your pack, rascal."

Kuusta handed up his pack, and the knight threw it to one of his men. Then he looked long and hard at Nils, who clearly was no ordinary wanderer. "And yours," he added.

Nils shrugged calmly out of his straps, took his shield off the pack, and handed the pack to the waiting hand. Kuusta tensed, suddenly convinced that Nils would jerk the man off his horse and they would die quickly by sword bite instead of slowly by noose. But Nils's hand released the pack and he stood relaxed. The men who opened the packs took out the roast meat and threw packs and venison into the dust of the lane. The knight licked his lips.

"Poachers. Do you know what we do with poachers?" he asked in slow Danish.

Poacher was a new word for Nils, although he took its meaning from context.

"What is a poacher?" he asked.

The knight and his green-clad men grinned. "A poacher is someone who kills the lord's deer," he explained. "Poachers are hung with their feet near the ground, and the dogs eat them."

"I have killed deer all my life," Nils said matter-of-factly. "Large deer called moose, and wild cattle, openly, and it has never been called a crime."

The knight studied Nils. His speech was strange and heavily accented; he was clearly a barbarian outlander of some sort. The knight had rarely seen foreigners before. The barbarian's sword, shield and steel cap were those of a man-at-arms, but his bare feet and torso were marks of a peasant. His manners were bolder than peasant manners, though. His size and brawn were those of a champion, but his young, unmarked face and scarless torso suggested green, unblooded youth.

"What are you?" the knight asked.

"A warrior."

"Of what wars?"

"Of no wars. Until this summer I was still a sword apprentice."

"Like a squire," Kuusta interpreted for the knight. "He is a Swede of the Svea tribe. There, ways are different than yours."

"Does your lord have use of fighting men?" Nils asked.

"If they are good."

"How does he test them?"

"They fight. With an experienced man-at-arms or a knight."

"Would he have use of two more?"

"I'm already of a mind to hang you from a tree as a warning to others who might have a taste for venison," the knight answered. "It is the custom here." He studied them further. "But with one as big as you it does seem a waste. It's possible you might fight well enough to serve his lordship. Certainly you're big enough, and bigger. If you can't, you can always serve as a thrall—or for public execution." He turned to one of his men. "Tie them," he ordered.

The man dismounted agilely with a long leather rope, and Nils and Kuusta submitted, wrists behind backs and loops around their necks. The horses trotted back down the lane then, in the direction they had been going, Nils and Kuusta running awkwardly behind, not daring to stumble. They were muddy with their own sweat and the dust kicked up by the horses, Kuusta cursing quietly but luridly in Finnish.

What kind of man is this Swede, Kuusta wondered? In town he seemed a great fighter, but here he had submitted as docilely as a thrall. Yet they were alive instead of stuck full of arrows like two porcupines. And the ropes around their necks had not been thrown over an oak limb.

They were put in a cell together in the barracks, but shortly a man-at-arms came and led them into the courtyard. A grizzled veteran stood there, with several other knights and squires, among them the knight who had brought them in.

The old knight glowered at the two prisoners. "So you claim to be fighting men," he said.

"I am a freeman of Suomi," said Kuusta. "I've served as a mercenary, and like all Suomalainet I am highly skilled with the bow. In our country we live by the bow."

The veteran grunted. "Make him a mark," he ordered.

A squire picked up a horse dung and threw it thirty meters.

"Give him a bow."

Kuusta bent the unfamiliar bow, testing its flex and strength. "Can I use my own?" he asked. The old knight said nothing, so he fitted an arrow, drew back and let go. It struck centimeters short.

The old knight himself picked up a horse dung then and threw it high. Quickly Kuusta had to nock and draw, letting the arrow go when the target had already passed the height of the throw and was starting downward. The arrow broke it apart as it fell. Kuusta concealed his surprise.

The veteran tried not to look impressed. "Now you," he said to Nils, and signalled a man-at-arms who handed Nils his sword and shield. "And you, Jens Holgersen."

The knight who was game warden stepped out smiling, his sword drawn. He was not in the least awed by the size and musculature of the youth he faced—a half-naked barbarian of some tribe he'd never heard of. Besides, he had handled the opponent's sword and knew it was too heavy to be used properly, even by such a big ox. On top of that, the barbarian was barely past squiredom, unblooded and with no armor except his steel cap. Hopefully old Oskar Tunghand would stop it before the boy lay dead. Such size and strength could be trained if he didn't prove too clumsy, and besides, he'd taken a liking to the barbarian's open and honest disposition. He'd make a good Dane.

They faced each other. The boy showed no fear; his face was calm and his stance easy.

"Fight until I say to stop," the old knight ordered.

Their swords met with a crash, and Jens Holgersen began to hew. The youth parried, using sword as much as shield, and the knight was impressed at the ease with which he handled the heavy blade. He increased his efforts and the barbarian backed away, defending himself easily, measuring the strength and skill of the knight. Sword struck on sword and shield.

The man is not too bad, Nils decided, and with that he attacked. The great sword began to fly, smashing the other's sword back, the shocks jarring bone and sinew so that the knight could scarcely recover before the next blow struck. His shield was cloven nearly to the center with the blow that knocked him from his feet, and he lay in the dust, thunderstruck, the point of the heavy sword touching lightly at the latch of his throat.

"Must I kill him?" Nils asked casually, looking across at the old marshal. "He was merciful and spared our lives when he might have hanged us from a tree."

Oskar Tunghand stood erect, his brows knotted in consternation, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, not threateningly but in shock. "No, don't kill him. He"—the words almost choked the old knight—"is one of our best swordsmen."

Nils stepped back, put a foot on the encumbering shield and freed his sword. His wrist relaxed then, the point of his sword in the dust, and Jens Holgersen climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes on the mild young face above him. He saw no exultation there, or even satisfaction. The eyes, squinting against the sun, were simply thoughtful. And to the astonishment of the watchers, when Holgersen stood again, the young warrior knelt, picked up the knight's fallen sword, handed it to him by the hilt and slid his own back into the scabbard.

"Peder! Take them back to the barracks," Oskar Tunghand said hoarsely. "See them fed and properly equipped." He turned to Jens Holgersen. "Come."

Nils and Kuusta had walked several steps with their guide when the old knight's rough voice called, "Hey you, big one!" Nils stopped. "Your name."

"Nils Järnhann."

The veteran gazed at him for a moment. "Järnhann." His lips tightened slightly and he turned to walk on with Jens Holgersen.

* * *

After Nils and Kuusta had washed and eaten, an artificer attempted vainly to fit Nils from his existing supply of mail shirts. "I don't want one anyway," Nils told him. "I'd feel ill at ease in it. Among my people it's the custom for men to go shirtless in warm weather. Would it offend your customs if I go as I am?"

"It is the custom for knights to wear mail while on duty, and Oskar Tunghand has ordered that you be equipped as a knight. And it's the custom of all but peasants to cover their bodies. It is strange that you don't know these things. But as none of these fit you, I'll have to make one that will. Meanwhile, you'd better wear a shirt of some kind or men will think you're uncouth and lowly."

Peder paa Kvernø, the man-at-arms in whose charge they were, found a woolen shirt that Nils could wear. Then Nils found a sharpening steel and began to replace the edge on his sword.

The job was hardly well started when a page came to take him to an audience. They crossed the dusty courtyard and climbed a flight of stone stairs to enter the great hold, one pikeman preceding them and another following. The corridor was wide, with a tall door at the far end and lesser doors along both sides. The tall door was of thick oak, banded and bossed with iron and guarded by two pikemen. For all its weight it swung easily when the page pushed on it, and they entered a high, dim room richly hung with dark tapestries. Polished wood glowed in the light that came through narrow windows high in the walls and from oil lamps burning pungently in braziers.

A tall man with a great forked beard sat richly robed upon a throne. To one side stood Oskar Tunghand, with Jens Holgersen behind him in clean hose and jerkin. At his other side stood a white-bearded man, slight but erect in a blue velvet robe, his eyes intent on the newcomer. Behind the throne, on either side, stood a pikeman.

Nils walked down the carpeted aisle and was stopped five paces from the throne by a pike shaft.

The man on the throne spoke. "Has no one taught you to bow?"

"Bow?"

"Like this, dolt," said Tunghand, and he bowed toward the throne. Nils followed his example.

The slight, white-bearded man spoke next. "You are in the presence of his lordship Jørgen Stennaeve, Greve of Jylland, Uniter of the Danes and Scourge of the Frisians. Name yourself."

"I am Nils Järnhann, warrior of the Wolf Clan, of the Svea tribe."

The Greve of Jylland rose abruptly to his feet, his face darkening even in the poor light of the throne room. "Do you joke with me?" he demanded. "There cannot be an Iron Hand in the land of Stone Fist."

"Your lordship?" It was the soft, strong voice of white beard again.

"Yes?" snapped the greve.

"The names given by barbarians to barbarians need not concern us. Their names are conceived in ignorance of the world outside their forests and meant without harm to their betters." He turned and gestured toward Nils. "Look at him, your lordship. There is neither guile nor meanness there. Let him be called Nils Savage, for he is a barbarian, and let him serve you. I sense in him a service to your lordship that no one else can render."

Slowly the greve sat down again, and for a moment drummed his big fingers on the arm of his throne. "And you wish to serve me?" he asked at length.

"Yes, your lordship," Nils answered.

Jørgen Stennaeve turned to the white-bearded man. "We can't have a mere man-at-arms who can defeat our best knights; such a man should be instructed in manners and knighted. But I have never heard of knighting foreigners, and especially not barbarians. What do you say, Raadgiver?"

The white-bearded counselor smiled at Nils Järnhann. "What is your rank among your own people?"

"I am a warrior."

"And how did you come to be a warrior?"

"I was chosen in my thirteenth summer and trained for six years as a sword apprentice. Then my hair was braided and I was given my warrior name, and I became a warrior."

Raadgiver turned to the greve. "Your lordship," he said, "it seems that his people, in their barbaric way, have something rather like squires, which they call sword apprentices. And in due course they are made warriors, somewhat equivalent to knights, although uncouth. It is my thought that he need be called neither man-at-arms nor knight, but simply warrior. Let him live in the barracks with the men-at-arms, for he is a barbarian, but let him go into battle with the knights, for that is his training and skill."

At this construction, a smile actually played around the scarred lips of the grizzled Oskar Tunghand, and Jørgen Stennaeve, too, looked pleased. The greve rose again. "So be it," he said. "Let Nils Savage, barbarian, remain simply 'warrior,' housed with the men-at-arms but riding with the knights. What do you say to that, warrior?"

"Willingly, your lordship."

"Then return him to the barracks, Tunghand, and have him instructed in his duties."

V

Outside, dim moonlight filtered through the overcast, but in the hut it was very dark. His senses strained for something, something he could not hear but faintly sensed. His scalp crawled. Dogs began to bark. And then there was a sound, a hooting that repeated—deep, toneless, directionless—and repeated again nearer. The barking became more shrill, then cut off, and a mindless terror that was not his but that he felt, a paralyzing terror, made them cower in their bed and pull the covers up so that they would not see what was coming for them. And the hooting was very near, in the lane outside, and he saw the door burst from the frame. Something huge and stooped filled the doorway, lurched toward the bed, and he yelled at the figures humped beneath the blankets and yelled. . . .

* * *

"Nils, wake up, wake up!" And Nils, trembling, clawed upright in bed, his heart pounding, eyes wild. "Wake up, you fool. You were roaring like a bear."

It was Kuusta, and other men-at-arms stood near, looking shocked and angry in their nightclothes.

"My blood, what a dream," Nils whispered. "What a dream." He sat clutching a twist of blanket in one huge fist, his breath deep and irregular. "What a terrible dream."

And for the rest of the night his sleep was troubled.

* * *

Surprisingly, when he awoke next morning, he could remember it clearly, although the terror was only an after-image, a shadow, remembered but no longer felt. Under Kuusta's coaxing he described it in the barracks, but by daylight it was not especially frightening. Peder paa Kvernø suggested that the fish at supper had seemed more overripe than usual.

Nils and Kuusta sat alone on a bench outside the barracks, digesting their breakfast of porridge and cheese. They talked in Anglic so far as Nils was able, which was considerable, for he grasped syntax almost instinctively, learned readily from context, and never forgot a word he had learned. And when he had trouble, Kuusta helped him. It was known that Jørgen Stennaeve planned to attack Slesvig, Denmark's southern province. Forces would be mustered from all his fiefs as soon as the harvest was over. If he forced the Greve of Slesvig to acknowledge his suzerainty, the Greve of Sjaelland would have to follow, and there would be a king again in Denmark.

"They don't prepare very seriously for war," Nils remarked. "At home each warrior has to make his living himself, yet he spends a lot more time practicing with weapons than most knights do. Sword apprentices in their sixteenth summer are more skilled than most knights. No wonder it was easy for me to beat one of their best. At home even freeholders have weapons and practice with birch swords, though more from tradition and in sport than from need. Almost everyone races and wrestles and shoots at marks, and everyone hunts. Children act out famous raids or make up their own. But here the knights and men-at-arms would rather drink or throw dice, and they don't practice with weapons nearly enough, most of them. Danes may be bold fighters, but they are not skilled fighters."

"They're as skilled as those I've seen in other lands," Kuusta replied. "I believe the big differences between these people and ours come partly from the land itself and partly from the laws. At home a man is his own master, to make a living or starve. In Suomi we do not even have thralls. There is all the land and all the game and a man can come and go as he pleases. He is free, and takes pleasure in contests. But in Suomi we don't have sword apprenticeship or a warrior class as your tribes do, and we make much less of raids and war."

"But there's another difference between the tribes and the Danes," Nils pointed out. "Here men can have only one wife, and the sons of knights become knights, while a thrall's son can only be a thrall unless he runs away to the free towns. At home a warrior can have three wives and many sons if he lives long enough. But his sons aren't necessarily chosen to become warriors, while the sons of thralls are chosen fairly often. Our tradition calls it the law of positive selection. And our people increase; they have spread northward below the mountains as far as . . ."

Galloping hooves sounded from the drawbridge, and a constable on a lathered horse pounded through the gate and across the courtyard. Every eye followed him. He dropped from the saddle and ran up the stone steps of the great hold, speaking hurriedly to the guards, one of whom went in with him.

"I wonder what that's all about," Kuusta said, rising. They walked toward the hold in case anything might be overheard there.

"My dream," said Nils.

"Your dream? What do you mean?"

"It has to do with my dream."

"How could your . . . ? I don't understand."

"I dreamed of something that happened last night, kilometers away," Nils explained. "That one just brought the report of it."

Before the sun approached midday the troop of mounted men-at-arms were well away from the castle, under the command of a knight, with Nils as his second. They had been told only that a large and dangerous beast had killed some peasants in a village and that they were to destroy it.

They found the villagers in a state of shock. A family of four had been killed. It wasn't possible to determine how completely they had been eaten; remains had been scattered about with sickening ferocity, inside and out. But the fear among the villagers was out of proportion even to such savagery. Some were fitting stout bars on their doors; a few had fled to a nearby woods; still others only sat and waited for another night to come. The tracks of the beast had been obliterated in the lane through the village, but Nils and Kuusta were experienced trackers and found where the beast had struck the lane. They followed the trail on foot, leading their mounts, the troop following on horseback. Where the tracks crossed the soft ground of potato field, they got a clearer idea of what the animal was like. It walked upright on two oblong feet that were as long as Kuusta's forearm from elbow to knuckles. The toes were somewhat like a man's, but clawed.

"A troll!" said one of the men in an awed voice.

The knight spurred his horse up to the man and almost knocked him from the saddle with a fist blow. "There are no trolls," he snapped, "except in the stories grandfathers tell." The men sat sullenly. "Who has seen a troll?" he demanded. There was no answer. "Who has even heard of a troll except in fairy tales?"

One of the men laughed. "A troll! My grandmother used to tell me troll stories to make me mind." Other men began to smile or laugh.

But when they began to follow the trail again and saw the tracks pressed deeply into the hoed earth, they did not laugh anymore, or even talk.

"What do you think, Nils?" Kuusta asked quietly. "I haven't believed in trolls since I was a little boy. And in all my travels I have never seen or heard evidence of such a thing. But those!" He gestured toward the ground.

"These tracks and whatever made them are real," Nils answered. "If anyone wants to call it a troll, it's all the same to me."

The tracks entered a heath and became slow to follow, but they seemed to lead straight toward the sea. So Nils left Kuusta to trail through the low, dense shrubs, and mounting, he rode toward the sea with the knight. In less than three kilometers they came to the beach, and quickly found where the tracks crossed it and went into the water. Not twenty meters away they found where they had come out.

"There," said Nils, raising a thick sinewy arm. "That is its home." His big callused forefinger pointed to a small island somewhat more than a kilometer offshore.

"How do you know?" asked the knight.

Nils shrugged.

The knight scowled across the quiet water. "You're probably right," he said. "And before we can get boats enough and go there, it'll be dark."

"If we start across, he might see us and escape anyway," Nils said. "Or it may be that he's good enough in the water to attack the boats from below. But he seems to like this place to leave and enter the water. Maybe we could lay behind the dune and ambush him."

The knight divided his troop. Half lay wrapped in their blankets back of the seaward dune, trying to sleep, while sentinels watched out to sea from behind clumps of dune grass that dotted the top. The other half, with the horses, took cover behind the next dune inland, ready to come in support if needed, or move parallel to the beach if the monster flanked the ambush.

With the ambush plans, the men began to feel more sure of themselves. The beast was big, no question of that, and savage. But most of them had been seasoned in combat and had confidence in themselves. And with bows, pikes and swords, they assured each other, they would make short work of it.

* * *

The moon was at the end of the third quarter and wouldn't rise until midnight. When the last light of dusk faded, the watchers could see little by the starlight. And the gentle washing of waves on the beach could cover the sound of anything emerging from the water.

"I don't like this darkness," the knight muttered softly.

"I don't think he'll come until after the moon rises," Nils answered in a whisper. "Last night the moon was well up before he entered the village. He probably likes more light than this himself."

"How do you know the moon was well up?"

"Because, looking through the window, I could see the moonlight."

"Oh yes, I heard about your dream," the knight said. "The story has gone around the castle." He turned to Nils, staring at him in the darkness, then looked back out to sea. Dimly he could distinguish the dark water from the lighter beach. "I don't believe in dreams," he added.

In spite of themselves they dozed now and then. Suddenly Nils jerked wide awake, startling the knight beside him. The half-moon stood above the rim of the sea and the night was light, but it wasn't that that had wakened him. The beast was coming, in the water, with a hunger for flesh and for more than flesh, for the current of life, spiced with terror, was nourishment as necessary to it as food. And Nils was in its avid mind, feeling with its senses. It felt the buoyancy and resistance and coolness of the water as it watched the dunes not far ahead. And it sensed that among the dunes was what it sought.

Nils shook his head and looked about him with his own eyes again. "He's coming," he whispered softly. "And he knows we're here."

The knight said nothing, but rose to one elbow and stared out to sea.

"It's not in sight yet," Nils told him, "but it will be soon." He slid down the back side of the dune and began waking the sleepers one-by-one with a touch and a whisper. They rolled out of their blankets, awake and taut, and followed Nils to the crest.

Nils sensed the knight's rigidity and looked seaward. The beast could be seen now, twenty or thirty meters from the shore, wading slowly in the shallow water. It looked immense, perhaps two-and-a-half meters tall, its proportions resembling those of an overgrown gorilla except that it was longer legged. But its hide, wet and moonlit, looked like chain mail.

It stopped for a moment where the waves washed onto the beach, turned briefly to look over its shoulder at the moon, then scanned the dune as if it could see them. An overanxious bowman loosed an arrow, and a hail of others hissed after it to fall from the beast's hide onto the sand. For just an instant it stood, shielding its face with a massive forearm. Then a line of shouting men charged from the crest, brandishing pikes and swords.

A hoarse hoot came from the beast, and something else. A great wave of something. Men staggered, dropped their weapons, and war cries changed to howls and shrieks of mindless terror.

Some ran, stumbling, rising, back up the dune or along the beach or into the sea. Others simply fell, wrapping their arms around their heads in catatonic helplessness.

Nils felt the waves of terror as on the night before, terror that was not his own but that shook him momentarily. The few arrows that had stuck in the beast dangled as if only the points had penetrated. He picked up a pike and charged down the dune again, the only one now, bulging arms cocked, and at three meters lunged with all his strength at the towering monster, his hands near the butt of the pike, and felt the head strike and break through. His follow-through carried him rolling onto the sand, diagonally and almost into the legs of the beast, the hilt of his scabbarded sword striking him painfully below the ribs. He rolled to his feet, stumbling as the beast rushed at him, bulky but quick, the pike shaft sticking out of its belly. There was only time to grab the shaft before the beast was on him.

The charge threw Nils backward, off his feet, sliding on his back across the sand, his grip like iron on the shaft, his arms and shoulders tensed with all their strength. Great clawed fingers clutched short of him, and the hoot changed to a roar of rage and pain as the beast dropped to its knees. When the pike had pierced its entrails it had been like fire bursting into it. But the collision, with the man grabbing the shaft, and the shock as he had hit the ground, transmitted through two-and-a-half meters of strong ash, did terrible damage.

Nils let go and rolled sideways to his feet, drawing his sword as the beast rose again. It wrenched the pike from its own guts, eyes raging, and charged once more. The sword struck once, into the rib cage, and they crashed to the ground together. One great forearm pressed down on Nils's throat and he grabbed desperately at the scaly neck, straining to keep its fangs from him. His last thought, fading but distinct, was that its blood smelled like any other.

VI

Consciousness came gradually. First Nils was aware of his body, then of voices. After a bit he focused on the voices, and their Anglic began to take meaning.

"So we have a psi who is also deadly," a female voice was saying. "But why does it have to be a filthy, ignorant barbarian?"

Nils opened his eyes.

Raadgiver, in his blue velvet robe, sat beside the cot looking down at Nils and smiling slightly. A young woman, taller than the counselor, stood at the window looking out, her black hair in a braid down her slender back.

"Signe, our patient is awake," Raadgiver said in Danish. He pulled on a velvet cord and somewhere a bell rang. Signe turned. She was not much more than a girl—perhaps no older than Nils—and handsome, but her startling blue eyes bespoke dislike.

"Nils Savage, this is my daughter and apprentice. I need not introduce you to her, for she has shared the job of watching over you since you were brought to the castle earlier this morning. I have been your other nurse."

Nils sat up on the edge of the cot thoughtfully. He wore only his breeches; his other things lay on a nearby bench. "I don't seem to be injured, only weak," he said. "The troll must have died almost as soon as I lost consciousness."

"Troll!" said Signe, turning to her father without trying to hide her scorn of such superstition.

"Do you believe it was a troll, Nils?" asked Raadgiver.

"Not in the sense of the fairy tales," he answered. "But it's useful to have a name to call it. It's not an animal from this part of the world; if it was, we'd know about it, and not by grandfathers' tales but by its deeds and attributes.

"Brave men who saw it and what it had done weren't terrified by the sight. They believed they could kill it. But when it howled, they were filled with terror, and their minds were like eyes that had looked at the sun. And it wasn't the howl that did it, really, at least not by itself. If I made the same sound, no one would panic."

Nils looked calmly up from his seat on the cot. "And I could see through its eyes, and knew it was coming before it was seen or heard."

"Why didn't you panic?" Raadgiver asked. "You were the only one who didn't, you know. Did you feel no fear?"

"I felt the fear all right," Nils replied. "But it wasn't my own. I think that somehow it was from the others as well as from the troll. It was like a wave washing over me without wetting me."

There was a rap on the heavy door of the chamber, and Raadgiver spoke. A servant entered and left a platter with a steaming roast, mushrooms, a loaf, and a large mug.

"Well," Raadgiver said, "we'll leave you with this, for we have eaten and will return when you've finished." He held the door for Signe, at the same time turning again to Nils. "Do you speak Anglic, Nils?" he asked.

"Some," Nils answered. "I've been learning it for several weeks."

Raadgiver almost grinned for a moment, and nudged his daughter as the door closed behind them. "I believe your 'filthy, ignorant barbarian' heard and understood that little remark just before he opened his eyes," he thought to her. "And what do you think of him now, my dear? He is hardly more than a boy, a very large boy, but he has a mind like a razor."

Signe's answer was a flash of irritation.

* * *

Nils chewed the end of the loaf, which held all that was left of the gravy, then tipped the last of the ale from the mug and wiped his mouth on the back of a thick hand. Standing, he pulled the bell cord and walked to the narrow window. The thick stone walls restricted the viewing angle, but the room was high and he could see over the castle wall. The patchwork of fields and woods, so different from the endless forests, bogs and lakes of Svealann, lay peaceful and warm in the sunshine of an August afternoon.

He did not turn when a servant entered and took out the platter. A moment later, Raadgiver and Signe returned.

Without preliminaries, Nils asked, "What is it you want me to do?"

"Why do you think we want you to do anything?" Raadgiver countered.

Nils, leaning casually against the wall, said nothing, simply folding his muscular arms across his chest.

Raadgiver laughed suddenly and addressed his daughter out loud. "My dear, this would be the man we need, even if he wasn't a psi. If I praise him, he won't be embarrassed because he'll know it's merely the truth. And if you insult him, he won't be irritated because it won't matter to him, being untrue.

"And besides, I can't read his thoughts except when he speaks."

Raadgiver lowered himself into a cushioned chair and looked up at Nils more seriously now. "Do you know the word 'psi'?"

"No."

"Psi is the ability to read minds, to converse silently or to look into the future. Very few can do these things. Small children with the potential to learn aren't rare, but in most cases the potential is lost if it isn't developed by the fourth or fifth year. Among the occasional adults who retain it, it is almost always erratic and usually weak, unless trained."

"I've had that sort of experience only twice," Nils said. "In my dream two nights ago, when my mind was in the peasant hut, and last night, when the troll was swimming from the island."

"Only twice strongly," Raadgiver corrected, "but perhaps many other times less obviously. I read the minds of those who were at your audience with the greve. You had handed Jens Holgersen his sword after beating him, and then you sheathed your own. Wasn't that reckless? He could easily have killed you then, and many men would have. Yet bravado and foolishness are as foreign to your nature as weakness is."

"I knew he wouldn't," said Nils.

"Good. But how could you be so sure? You hardly knew him," Raadgiver pointed out. "When we say that an untrained psi shows erratic ability, we refer to conscious psi experience. Most such people, or probably all, receive many other psi impressions unconsciously—that is, psi messages enter their minds, but they don't recognize them for what they are. But the information is in their minds anyway. That is—" He paused. "It's very hard to explain to someone who has no concept of the subconscious mind."

"I understand you," Nils said.

Raadgiver leaned back in his chair, his intensity suddenly gone. "Of course," he said. "You would."

"And now, back to my question," Nils reminded him.

"Ah yes. What we want you to do. We're working up to that." Raadgiver shifted in his seat, looking tired now and no longer meeting Nils's eyes. He spoke quietly. "What is the most important thing to a man next to life itself?"

"For many, what he really believes is true."

Raadgiver stared up for a moment, then looked down at his nails. "Only if he isn't suffering. If he's suffering enough, the most important thing is for the suffering to stop. It can be more important than survival. And if he lives in constant fear—fear of terrible pain, of the real and imminent threat of physical and mental torture—then the most important thing becomes freedom from that threat."

Nils had never heard of such a situation.

"Now suppose there was a land where all men were thralls. No, less than thralls, because thralls at least have some rights and protection in law. Suppose all men were slaves except for one master and his soldiers. And suppose that master had the worst kind of madness, finding his greatest pleasure in the misery and degradation, the torture, of his slaves. An emperor who conquered only to enjoy the cries, the whimpers, the begging for mercy of those he ruled. A man who had lived very long and has a great army." Raadgiver leaned toward Nils. "What would you do if you lived in a land like that?"

"I have never thought of such a thing," Nils answered. "It would depend on the possibilities."

"But suppose that lord offered to make you his lieutenant?" Raadgiver asked.

"The lieutenant would still be his thrall. Where is that land?"

"Right now it is far to the southeast," Raadgiver answered. "But someday, perhaps soon, it may include all of Europe, even Denmark.

"And what we want you to do is kill that man."

VII

Jørgen Stennaeve was tough, ambitious, and direct, but not particularly intelligent. Given cause for distrust, he could be suspicious and wary, but otherwise he tended to take things at face value and was also disinterested in details other than military. So when his chief counselor asked for charge of the barbarian, he asked few questions. Raadgiver simply explained that he believed the troll was sent by an evil power in a distant land. That evil power hoped someday to spread into Europe, perhaps even to Denmark. Nils withstood the troll because of a certain strength against that power, he went on, and Raadgiver wanted to train him and send him to fight it.

To the greve the menace seemed remote and the value of such a fighting man might be considerable in the impending invasion of Slesvig. But, on the other hand, the counselor's advice was almost always good, so he agreed to the request. Thus, Nils moved from the barracks to a small chamber near the apartment of Raadgiver and Signe, and began his lessons. Raadgiver instructed him, or Signe, when her father was otherwise occupied.

Most psi experiences are telepathy, Nils was told. Psis can read thoughts only when there are explicit thoughts to read—that is, when the mind is discursive—and psi conversation consists primarily of thinking words, feelings and pictures to one another. When the attention is on some sensory experience, that experience too can be shared, as when Nils looked at the beach through the troll's eyes and felt the water with its body.

Emotional states, including the finer nuances, are easily sensed, and a psi commonly receives a general but appropriate reading of overall personality at first encounter.

Psionic transmissions normally are subject to the inverse square law, but can be received at something beyond normal hearing distance when transmitted forcefully or in a psychically quiet environment. With training, the potentially psi-receptive mind reflexively develops selective damping, providing a large degree of protection against "psi noise." Damping can be cut selectively for screening transmissions, as for seeking one particular mind in a crowd. And when that mind is found, the attention can be focused on it while reception of others remains damped.

Damping is not very effective against transmissions directed specifically toward the receiver, however.

Unexplainable exceptions occur to the inverse square limitation. Occasional transmissions carry thousands of kilometers without apparent weakening. These are highly specific to a receiver or receivers, and the receiver need not be a trained psi. Little is known about this phenomenon and such transmissions cannot be made at will. They are, therefore, of little importance.

There is also a technological exception to the inverse square restriction. Before the Great Death, an instrument called a psi tuner was invented, permitting the narrow focusing of telepathic transmissions to another psi tuner. They are useful only to trained psis.

Precognition and premonition are the other known facets of psi. In the untrained psi these commonly are in the form of symbolic visions, but among trained psis they are usually explicit previews having the same quality and much of the impact of a sensory perception. Premonitions are not necessarily fulfilled, falling into the category of "what will happen if nothing intercedes." Precognition, on the other hand, seems to fall into the category of "what will happen regardless." Many trained psis state they can distinguish them. A strong philosophical case has been made, however, for the contention that there is no precognition in that strict sense, the difference between the experiences lying in the degree of probability that they will be fulfilled.

Premonition and precognition cannot be experienced at will. They occur rarely or possibly never at all to some psis, infrequently to most, and somewhat frequently to a few. Commonly occurring without context, the receiver often cannot understand what he "saw," and the event foreseen may be important or irrelevant to him.

Raadgiver also described the loose organization of psis that had grown up in Europe.

"In the year 2105 there were five billion people on Earth," he said. "Can you imagine that, Nils? That is a thousand taken a thousand times. And then that thousand thousand taken a thousand times again, and five times all of those. It is beyond comprehension. Single towns had more people than probably exist in all the world today. That is our tradition in the Psi Alliance. And then the Great Death came, and within a few weeks so many had died that a man could walk for days before he saw another living person.

"The ancients had great learning and made much use of machines. Machines pumped water into every dwelling through metal tubes, even to the tops of towers. People rode in flying boats faster than the fastest arrows. They even rode them to the stars, which are other worlds like this one. Subtle machines did their labor, drawing power from beams like sunlight but invisible and akin to lightning. But each machine needed men with special skills to take care of it, and it had to be told what to do. So when their keepers died, the machines became confused and soon they too began to die. And when the machines died that made the power, almost all the others died at once.

"And the people with the plague were seized with the desire to set fires, as a man with a cold must cough or sneeze. The few who survived inherited a smoking ruin.

"At first, they hoped that those who'd gone to the stars would come back someday and bring the machines back to life. But they never did, and it's probable that the plague struck them, too.

"One who survived was a trained psi named Jakob Tashi Norbu, who taught in a great place of learning called the University of Lucerne. In those days there was a powder that could be given to a person to tell whether or not he had psi potential, and he searched on foot through Europe, after the Death, looking for psis. He found three. He also searched the places of learning for psi tuners and found thirteen. Mine is one of them.

"It took him years.

"Father Jakob taught each of his psis and gave them tuners. They took mates and most of the children were psis. That was the beginning of the Alliance.

"Over the generations men's numbers increased, and lords and chiefs appeared. So the Alliance dispersed; it was becoming unsafe to be a separate community. Fourteen had psi tuners, and these worked themselves into the service of lords and chiefs as advisors. They kept their talents secret and used them to advance good lords or cause the fall of bad. Within the Alliance, those with psi tuners are called the Inner Circle. Over the centuries the Inner Circle has had an important influence on the ascension and the acts of rulers.

"Some without tuners also are advisors, and in most important towns there is at least one free merchant who is a psi. These we call the Kinfolk; some of us refer to the whole Alliance as the Kinfolk. And they, too, keep their talents a secret.

"Still others have become wanderers. We call them the Wandering Kin, but the peasants call them the Brethren. They wander through the countryside and among the villages as storytellers, teachers and magicians, speaking Anglic almost exclusively. This helps keep Anglic alive so that men of different lands can speak with each other. They awe the people by knowing their secrets and use their skills to seem supernatural. When available, the peasants call upon them to judge disputes. Their stories become traditions and their acts legends, and so far as their understanding and ability allows, they try to reduce the cruelty and injustice that men perpetrate on men.

"The Wandering Kin have their own tradition. They own nothing but the clothes they wear and a sleeping robe for when they must spend the night beside the road. The peasants feed and shelter them and give them clothes, regarding it a privilege. Only in unpeopled stretches do the Wandering Kin own even a hut, built by themselves in the wilderness, where they can shelter in bad weather."

* * *

Raadgiver also taught him how psis influence the thinking of non-psis. A psi cannot influence a subject to a conclusion or action incompatible with the subject's nature. But his reaction to a specific idea or event commonly can be modified. For example, the influence of a psi advisor on his feudal lord depends on:

1. Selection of a lord who is not particularly suspicious of him or adverse to advice, followed by the cultivation of the lord's confidence.

2. Sound insight into the lord's personality. An important element in psi training is training to interpret thoughts and emotions and to integrate them into a reasonable model of the subject's subconscious so his reactions can be predicted.

3. Correct reading of the lord's mood of the moment, which is automatic for a trained psi.

4. Ability to translate the psi's objective, or an approximation of it, into an objective harmonic with the lord's tastes or at least compatible with them.

Nils also was instructed in geography, map reading, and use of the psi tuner. Raadgiver also passed on odd bits and pieces of subjects from geology to philosophy. As far as possible, instruction and conversation were in Anglic.

The man Nils was to assassinate was a psi named Kazi. The Alliance had first become aware of him several decades earlier as the ruler of a powerful Near Eastern despotism. One of the Kinfolk equipped with a psi tuner had been sent to spy on him and was captured. Apparently he succeeded in suicide, however, for Kazi seemed to have gotten little information from him. But he clearly deduced the existence of a European psi organization. For a time Kazi had sent psi spies of his own into Europe, losing several but assassinating three of the Inner Circle. Apparently he concluded that so loose and nonmilitary an organization as the Alliance was no threat to him, for no more spies had been detected for a number of years.

Meanwhile, Kazi had expanded his empire to include much of the Balkans.

Reports and rumors gathered by the Wandering Kin in peripheral areas and from refugees indicated that Kazi's rule was one of deliberate depravity, and that he was clearly psychopathic. His subjects lived in a pathetic state of fear or apathy, and his army was thought to be invincible.

Legends described him as the Never Dying. Evidence indicated that he actually was either ageless, extremely old, or more probably a dynasty.

Apparently he intended to conquer Europe. He had planted a cult to Baalzebub throughout much of the continent, Baalzebub referring to himself. Under the influence of drugs, initiates practiced such obscene depravities that they felt themselves afterward totally alienated from their culture and either dedicated themselves completely to the cult or committed suicide.

It had few adherents now, however. Initiates were easily detected by the Kinfolk, and using the information they provided, the feudal lords had suppressed the cult harshly. And the Wandering Kin preached against it.

Recently trolls had appeared along the coasts of western and northern Europe, and the rumor had been spread that Baalzebub had sent them because the people did not worship him.

The Alliance had been looking for someone who might stand a chance of assassinating Kazi. Raadgiver told Nils frankly that success seemed less than likely, and that Kazi could well come to rule all of Europe.

* * *

Nils left the castle in the dry haze of an October day, alone.

"After two months you still dislike him, Signe," Raadgiver thought. "Shall I tell you why?"

"He has no sensitivities," Signe answered aloud.

Raadgiver continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Because he doesn't think as we do nor feel the same emotions. I sensed that in him when I first saw him, at his audience with the greve. He didn't think discursively except when he spoke. His mind receives, correlates and decides, but it does not 'think to itself.'

"Because of that difference you dislike him; yet if we weren't so different ourselves, we wouldn't know it. Everyone else at the castle likes him because he is so mild and pleasant.

"Signe, we are told that before the Great Death, when psi was not secret, many people disliked or even hated psis. And not because of the ways they acted or the things they said, but because psis were so different and, in a way, superior.

"Nils is still another kind of human, different and, in an important way, superior to us. It bothers you to hear me say it, yet you sensed that superiority at once, and watched it grow.

"Yet we have our part in it, for without us it would not have matured. His mind was impressive from the first, but its scope has broadened and deepened greatly during his weeks with us, and as he absorbs experiences through psi. . . ."

Signe's thought interrupted his angrily. "And he isn't even grateful!" she flared.

"True. He knows what happened, what we did, and accepts it as a matter of fact. That's his nature. And it seems to be yours to dislike him for it. But remember this while you're enjoying the questionable pleasure of indignation. At our request he is going to probable death without question or hesitation. And who else would have a significant chance of success?"

VIII

During his training under Raadgiver, Nils worked out for a time each morning, mostly giving Kuusta lessons in the use of sword and shield. The Finn already knew the basics and was strong for his size. Also, he had grown up in a relentless wilderness environment, as a hunter, with hunger or a full belly as the stakes. His senses were sharp and his reflexes excellent. By late September Kuusta had more than thickened in the arms and shoulders; he had become one of the best swordsmen among the men-at-arms, and afoot could have held his own against some of the knights.

Generally, however, the life of a man-at-arms had palled on Kuusta Suomalainen. First, it was dull. Under the gentle influence of his chief counselor, the Greve of Slesvig had been sufficiently impressed by the mobilization of Jylland forces to offer homage to Jørgen Stennaeve as King of Denmark. So there was no war. Second, Kuusta was homesick. He had compared the wide world with his memories of Finland and was beginning to find the wide world lacking.

Jens Holgersen had appreciated his woods cunning and assigned him to night patrol for poachers, which had been pleasant enough until the evening they had caught a peasant with a deer.

His main satisfaction was in training with Nils, sweating, aching, feeling the growth of skill and strength. So when Nils told him that he soon would be leaving, alone, Kuusta also began to think about leaving, and with Raadgiver's influence he was released from his service.

On the evening before Kuusta was to leave, he sat with Nils outside the castle, by the moat. "Why have you decided to go home instead of searching for the esper crystal?" Nils asked. He knew Kuusta's mind, but asked by way of conversation.

"The esper crystal?" Kuusta grunted. "It seemed real and desirable enough to me once, but now I'd rather see Suomi again. I want to hunt, sweat in the sauna, and speak my own language in a land where men are not hanged up with their eyes bulging and their tongue swelling while they slowly choke to death. And all because they wanted some meat with their porridge."

"And how will you get there?" Nils asked.

"I've seen a map showing that if I ride eastward far enough, I'll come to the end of the sea, and if I go around the end, I'll come to Suomi."

"And do you know what the people are like in the lands you'll pass through?"

Kuusta shrugged. "Like the people in most lands, I suppose. But being obviously poor and riding a horse somewhat past his prime, I won't be overly tempting to them. And since you've treated me so mercilessly on the drill ground, I'll be less susceptible to them. Actually, if the truth was known, I'm leaving to escape those morning sessions with you, but I wouldn't tell you that straight-out because even the ignorant have feelings."

"It's nice to have a friend so thoughtful of me," Nils responded. "We fully grown people are as sensitive as you midgets."

Kuusta aimed a fist to miss the blond head next to him, and Nils dodged exaggeratedly, rolling away to one side. Then they got up, went back into the castle, and shook hands in parting.

Early the next morning Kuusta Suomalainen rode across the drawbridge on the aging horse his soldier's pay had bought him, with a sword at his side, a small saddle bag tied behind him, and a safe-pass signed by Oskar Tunghand.

* * *

It was an October day on a forested plain in northern Poland, sunny but cool, with a fair breeze rattling the yellow leaves in the aspens and sending flurries of them fluttering down to carpet the narrow road. But Kuusta was not enjoying the beauty. Periodically he broke into coughing that bent him over the horse's withers and left him so weak he didn't see the man standing in the road facing him until the horse drew up nervously. The man wore a cowled jacket of faded dark-green homespun and carried a staff over one shoulder. His face approached the brown of a ripe horse chestnut, darker than the shock of light brown hair that looked to have been cut under a bowl.

"Good morning," the man said cheerfully in Anglic. "You sound terrible."

Kuusta looked at him, too sick to be surprised at having been greeted in other than Polish.

"Where are you going in such poor shape?" the man asked.

"To Finland," Kuusta answered dully.

"Let me put it another way," the man said. "Where are you going today? Because wherever it is, unless it's very nearby, you'll never make it. I've just come from a shelter of the Brethren very near here, and if you're willing, I'll take you there." He paused. "My name is Brother Jozef."

Kuusta simply nodded acquiescence while staring at the horse's neck.

The shelter was out of sight of the road, the path leading there being marked by a cross hacked in the bark of a roadside pine. It was built of un-squared logs chinked with clay, and had two rooms, a small one for occupancy and a smaller one for storage and dry firewood.

Jozef helped Kuusta from the horse and through the door. Inside it was dark, for he had closed the shutters earlier before leaving, but he knew his way around and led Kuusta to a shelflike bed with a grass-filled ticking on it, built against the wall. Then he disappeared outside. As Kuusta's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he raised himself on one elbow to look around. A fit of coughing seized him, deep and painful, and he fell back gasping. He began to shiver violently, and when Jozef came back in, he put down his armload of firewood and covered Kuusta with the sleeping robe from the saddlebag and then with another ticking from the storeroom.

In the night Kuusta's moans wakened the Pole. The Finn's body tossed and twisted feverishly in the darkness, his mind watching a battle. Jozef could see hundreds of knights on a prairie, fleeing in broken groups toward a forest. Pursuing them was a horde of wild horsemen wearing mail shirts and black pigtails, cutting down stragglers. Then a phalanx of knights appeared from the forest, led by the banner of Casimir, King of Poland. They launched themselves at the strung-out body of pig-tailed horsemen, who abandoned their pursuit and tried to form themselves against the challenge. In moments the charging knights struck, sweeping many of them away, and they broke into groups of battling horsemen, chopping and sweating and dying on the grassland.

Kuusta sat up with a hoarse cry, and the scene was gone. Slowly he lay back, his mind settling again into feverish sleep, only ripples and twitches remaining of the violent disturbance of a moment before.

But Brother Jozef sat awake, staring unseeingly at the glow that showed through the joints of the box stove. To his trained psi mind, the difference between the pickup of a dream and that of a quasi-optical premonition was definite and unmistakable. This traveler was an undeveloped psi.

IX

The weather had been almost continuously pleasant during Nil's journey, but on this late October day the sky was threatening. Earlier in the morning he had left a broad valley of farms and small woods for wild rocky hills, following a canyon that narrowed to pinch the road between steep, fir-clad slopes.

The first pickup he had of the ambush was the faint mental response of the robbers when they heard his horse's hooves clop over a cobbly stretch where the brook turned across the road.

He stopped for a brief moment. There seemed to be five of them, perhaps seventy or eighty meters ahead, but they couldn't see him yet. He slid from the saddle with bow, sword and shield, slapped the horse on the rump, and moved into the thick forest, slipping quietly along the slope above the road while the horse jogged toward the ambush.

He heard shouts ahead and moved on until, through a screen of trees, he could see what had happened. Apparently the horse had shied and tried to avoid capture, for they had shot it and were tying his gear onto one of the three horses that the five of them shared. Quickly he drew his bow and shot an arrow, and another, and another, two of the robbers falling while the other three scrambled onto the horses and galloped away. His third arrow had glanced from a sapling branch.

His horse lay still alive, four arrows in its body. He knelt beside the outstretched neck, cut its throat, and caught his steel cap full of the gushing blood. After he had had his fill, he washed the cap in the brook.

Then he searched the bodies. It was clear that robbers were not prospering in Bavaria. These two didn't even have the flint and steel he was looking for. He cut a long strip of flesh from his horse's flank, put it inside his jacket, and started walking down the road. A few big, wet snowflakes started to drift down. In less than half a kilometer they were falling so thickly that the ground's warmth couldn't melt them as fast as they landed, and it began to whiten. Within a kilometer visibility had dropped to a few score meters. The temperature was falling too, and soon the snow was no longer wet and sticky. By the time Nils had crossed a low pass and started into the next forested canyon, the snow was almost halfway to his knees.

These wild hills were extensive, and not a narrow range between two settled districts; by late afternoon he still had not come to shelter. The snow was thigh-deep and showed no sign of slowing, while the temperature still was edging downward. Under the denser groves of old firs the snow was much less deep, piling thickly on the branches. His sword striking rapidly, Nils cut a number of shaggy fir saplings and dragged them under a dense group of veterans, building a ridge-roofed shelter hardly waist-high. Next he stripped a number of others, stuffing the shelter almost full of their boughs and piling more at the entrance. Then, with his shield, he threw a thick layer of snow over it. Finally he burrowed into the bough-filled interior feet first, stuffed the entrance full of boughs in front of him, and soon was dozing, chilled and fitful.

By dark the entrance, too, was buried under snow.

Through the night he was dimly aware of time and of being cold, never deeply asleep, never wide awake. Later he was aware of dim light diffusing through the snow, marking the coming of day, but with the instinct of a boar bear he knew it still was storming. Twice he wakened enough to eat some of the raw horsemeat, and later he knew that darkness had returned, and still later that again it was daylight.

Nils sensed now that the storm was over, and he was stiff with cold. Burrowing out of the shelter, he stood erect. The snow was chest-deep under the old firs and deeper elsewhere. The sky was clear and the hairs of his nostrils stiffened at once with the frost. With his sword he cut two fir saplings, trimmed them on two sides and, with fingers clumsy from cold, tied them to his boots with leather strips from his jacket. On these makeshift snowshoes he started up the road again.

Moisture from his breath formed frost beads on his lashes and caked his fledgling mustache and beard. Although it was awkward, he walked with his gloveless hands inside his jacket, his fingers under his arms. His thighs soon ached with cold.

He was dressed only for a raw autumn day, not for an arctic air mass.

Hours passed, hours that would have killed most men.

Nils felt the cold as a physical-physiological phenomenon and knew that after a time it would damage his body severely, even lethally, if he did not find shelter soon enough. The cold would be much less severe if he sheltered under the snow again, but the constant chill would deplete his remaining energy reserves without bringing him nearer to safety. Dressed as he was, to hole up again might delay death, but it would also assure it.

With each step he had to raise his feet high to clear the clumsy snowshoes from the deep, fluffy snow, and as the kilometers passed, his strides became gradually slower and shorter. His feet were like wood despite the exertion, his hands numb and useless, and his body had stopped feeling the cold. The sun had set, and he crossed another ridge in growing darkness. He was not consciously aware of it when night fell.

Suddenly he became alert, smelling faint smoke, sensing the direction of the air movement. Moving slowly, he turned from the road, plowing a deep furrow as he went. Dimly he sensed a mind, felt it sense his.

The hut was half a kilometer from the road—a hump in the snow with the door partly cleared. Other eyes saw the door through his, and as he dragged toward it, it opened. A tall woman stepped out with a long knife, cut the snowshoes from his feet, and helped him inside.

* * *

Nils awoke rested and utterly famished. The woman turned to him, pulled back the covers and let him look at himself through her eyes. He knew his hands and feet should have been swollen and split and painful, but they weren't. The skin was peeling from them, and from his face and the front of his thighs, but they didn't seem really damaged.

"My name is Nils," he thought to her. "What is yours?"

"Ilse," she answered, adding, "you have been here three nights and two days."

"How did you do it?" he asked, thinking of the hands and feet that should have been in much worse condition and might well have been gangrenous.

"Through your sleeping mind."

"How?"

"I spoke to it, leading it, and your mind led your flesh to make new flesh in the layers that were dying. My father taught me how."

Ilse's father had been one of the merchant Kinfolk, she explained, and had sensed power in himself that the Kinfolk did not know about. So he had taken his wife and small daughter into the quiet of the wilderness to meditate and explore himself, while his eldest son took his place as a merchant and subtle force in the free town of Neudorf am Donau. Another son had joined the Wandering Kin.

Ilse had grown up in the forest curious and aware, free of the psi static that most psi children grew up with in towns. So she sensed the minds of animals. In most of them there was little enough to read—anxiety, desire, curiosity, anger, comfort and discomfort, all transient. It was a background to her days, like the breeze in the tree tops.

"And then," she thought to Nils, "one day I reached out and touched the mind of an old he-wolf, and he felt the touch. For in these hills the wolves have psi. If one is born without it, they kill it so that it will not suffer the handicap. They confer silently, using their voices only as an accompaniment. Next to man they are by far the most intelligent animals in the hills, and they compensate for the still narrow limits of their minds by their rationality and their psi.

"They experience emotions, in a sense, but the emotion simply happens, without building on itself. They feel fondness but never sentiment. When a wolf fears, it is a fear of something real and present, a response to an immediate danger, and he looks at it as he looks at hunger or a tree or a rabbit. It is there, and he acts accordingly, without confusion." Ilse looked at Nils in the dim light filtering through the scraped deerskins stretched over the windows. "In many ways," she added slowly, "the minds of wolves are like yours.

"I am the first human the wolves had ever shared minds with, at least in this forest, and we have done so many times. We communicate by mind pictures, to which we give emotional content when we want to, and we've developed considerable subtlety. It's pleasant for them, and for me, too. Through them I have run through the snow with starlight glittering it, and I've felt their joy in a warm scent. From me they sense new ideas, unthought-of concepts, and while they understand them only vaguely, it gives them a sense of mind-filling, like the feeling they get when they look at a clear night sky and sense a universe beyond understanding.

"So I've always been safe when wolves are about, and if possible they would protect me if I was threatened."

Ilse rose from the bench and took furs from a box—clothing and a sleeping bag, all large. "These are yours when you leave. Your skis are outside."

Nils's mind questioned.

"Yes, I had a premonition a year ago. After a great storm you woud come here, unless you were killed earlier. You would come here weak and frozen and unequipped for winter. And there was more. You will go to the great town called Pest and serve Janos, King of the Magyars."

Nils stayed with Ilse for several days, resting and learning.

X

During the days since he had left Ilse the arctic cold had eased a great deal, but winter still held strong. The snow had settled some, but there had been no thawing. He had passed through inhabited districts again. Peasants were out on skis, with their oxen and sleighs, hauling firewood or the bodies of cattle that had died in the storm. In Anglic they told him glumly that the surviving cattle would be on short rations by spring, for they were usually able to forage in the woods until near the solstice, but now they were eating their hay already. And the cold they had had was rare even in the middle of winter.

Nils still had some Danish coins in his money belt and twice stayed at inns, where he was warned that the Magyars did not like foreigners, that most of them did not speak Anglic, and that travelers in their land sometimes were badly used.

At length he crossed a high, rugged mountain range and skied out onto a broad plain, mostly treeless, that he had been told marked the beginning of the land of the Magyars. The mountains had shielded it from the worst of the storm, and men were able to move about on horseback through the four decimeters of wind-packed snow. As he was crossing a frozen river, he saw several mounted men riding along the high bank opposite him. They stopped to watch, and as he drew nearer, he saw that they carried lances. Suddenly one of them urged his horse down the bank and the others followed, charging toward Nils. The windpack allowed them to run their horses at a full gallop on the ice, and the leader dipped his lance as if to skewer the trespasser. Nils stood calmly without unslinging his bow or drawing his sword. At the last moment the rider swerved past him, his horse's hooves throwing snow on Nils, his left knee almost touching him. The others drew up in front of the northman while the leader pulled his mount around tightly and circled, looking down at him with eyes squinted against the snow glare. He spoke in a language unlike any Nils had heard and which he assumed was Magyar. Getting no answer, the man spoke again in what Nils recognized as German. In Anglic Nils said, "I am a mercenary who has come to seek service with King Janos of the Magyars."

The horsemen looked at one another, talking in Magyar. Nils sensed that none had understood him. Speaking slowly and deliberately he said, "Janos. King Janos. I come to serve Janos."

The leader scowled grotesquely at that, and Nils sensed his irritation. He spoke rapidly to his men, and one of them reached down to prod the northman with his lance and then to gesture toward the bank they had come from. They made way for him and he started toward it, two falling in behind while the others trotted their horses toward the point at which he had first seen them and disappeared.

They marched him for an hour and a half before he saw the large castle on the open rolling plain. He was taken to the guard room, where a man who was clearly an officer looked up at him and spoke with his captors in Magyar. Then, in good Anglic, he asked, "Where are you from?"

"From Svealann."

The officer snorted. "I have never heard of it," he said, as if that disposed of Svealann. "What have you come here for?"

"I heard of a king called Janos, and I have come to seek service with him."

Even as he finished the statement, Nils sensed that he was in trouble. "Janos, eh? This is the land of Lord Lajos Nagy, and there is no love here for the tyrant Janos." With that he snapped a sharp command in Magyar and one of Nils's captors pressed a sword tip to his back while a guard came forward with manacles.

The dungeon was simply a long spiral staircase that wound its way down underground. Instead of cells it had small open alcoves where prisoners could be chained to the wall by an ankle and wrist. They passed no prisoners as they went down, but from where he was chained Nils could easily sense others below. The only light came from smoky oil lamps, one of which was bracketed to the stone wall opposite each alcove.

The guard who brought him his evening gruel carried a cat-o'-nine-tails in one hand, its leather thong looped about his wrist. Carefully he sized up the new prisoner and took pains to come no nearer than necessary, putting the bowl down where Nils had to stretch for it. As soon as he had it in his hand, Nils threw the hot gruel at him. Reflexively the guard lashed at him, cursing loudly. Nils grabbed the whirring knout and jerked, the loop around the guard's wrist pulling him within reach of Nils's chained hand. Strongly though briefly the guard struggled, but did not cry out.

He had no key. Still chained, Nils took his cap, harness, short sword and cloak, tore strips from the bottom of the cloak and tied the corpse's arms and doubled legs against his torso. Then, one-handed, he threw the corpse down the steep stairs as hard as he could, listening with satisfaction to its rolling, bouncing descent. Next he put the cap on his head, draped the cloak over his shoulders, and squatted, waiting.

After some time the screech of hinges sounded faintly down the stone stairwell, and a voice called down questioningly. Nils huddled against the wall as if in pain—knees, one elbow and head on the stone floor, the short sword in his free hand concealed by the cloak—trying to look like a sick or injured guard in the semi-darkness, watching through slitted eyes. Within a few moments two guards appeared around a turn just above him, the first carrying a torch in one hand, both with short swords drawn. They were scanning the stairs ahead of them and might have passed entirely without seeing him.

Nils groaned softly as the second guard was passing the alcove. The man stopped and stared at him, then stepped in, bending and blocking the light. Quickly Nils raised his body, grabbing the guard's cloak with his chained hand and plunging the short sword into his abdomen and chest. For a moment he held the sagging form upright, letting go his sword to do it. The other guard sensed that something was wrong and moved into the alcove to see. Nils let the body collapse, reached out from beneath it with his manacled hand to grab an ankle, and groped for his short sword again. The struggling guard began to yell. Nils partly heaved the corpse from his back and, still clinging to the kicking ankle with an iron grip, hamstrung the man, pulled his falling body in close and began to chop at his back. The guard screamed twice before the blade split his rib cage.

Nils found a key and unlocked his manacles, listening intently both with ears and psi sense. The only pickup was a frozen intentness from farther down in the dungeon, where he had sensed other prisoners earlier. If the yells had penetrated the door above, anyone who'd heard them must have interpreted them as normal dungeon sounds.

Nils moved quietly down the stairs carrying the dropped torch and with two harnesses and swords over one shoulder and one at the waist. The first prisoner he found stared at him through hard eyes. The man had the build of a fighter, a knight, and looked as if he'd been there for a few days at most.

"Do you want one of these?" Nils asked, touching a scabbard.

The man's mind flashed understanding of his Anglic. "Let me have it," he answered grimly, and Nils freed him.

The next prisoner was gaunt and haggard. The first spoke with him in Magyar and turned to Nils for the key. "His leg is in bad shape where the iron has rubbed a sore on his ankle, but he can walk."

Farther down they found a third man, who only sat and stared, slack-mouthed, when spoken to. His bony chained arm was rotten to the elbow and he picked at it with filthy fingers. Nils looked into his mind for a moment, then put his sword to the man's chest and thrust.

At the bottom of the staircase they found a chamber with a rack and other instruments, and a stained block, but no door or corridor leaving the place. In one wall was what looked like a large fireplace, though there was no sign that it had been used as such. The first knight went to it.

"A shaft," he said, "for removing bodies secretly. You look able to climb it and there should be a windlass at the top."

Nils ducked into it and stood. Looking up, he could see nothing but blackness. He pressed his back against the front of it and muscled his way up like an alpinist in a chimney, moving as rapidly as possible. It was a long climb—as high as the stair. When he reached the top, he found the darkness barely alleviated by light diffused from somewhere down a corridor. As the knight had predicted, there was a windlass, and Nils lowered the sling. When the rope slackened, he waited until he felt a tug, then began to crank.

It was the injured man he raised. He had begun to lower the sling once more when suddenly there was a shout from far below. "Hurry! They're coming!" He jerked rope from the windlass then, sending the crank spinning, and stepped astride the narrow dimension of the shaft. There was faint shouting and a cry of "Pull!" Hand over hand he drew on the rope with long strokes, disdaining the slow windlass, and in a few moments the knight grasped the edge of the shaft. Together they hauled him out onto the floor, Nils's breath great heaving gasps from the violence of his exertions, and for a moment he failed to read the mixture of pain and rage in the man's mind. One foot and calf had been sliced by a sword, thrust after him as he had started up.

"Where are we, do you know?" Nils asked when he was able.

"I think so. But we can't get away because they know where we are. Even now there must be men hurrying to cut us off. But this time they'll have to kill me. I don't intend to end up like that one down there."

"I'm going back down," said Nils. "I may have a better chance where they don't expect me."

The two Magyars exchanged brief words. "Good luck then," said the one who spoke Anglic. "And I hope you kill many." They shook hands with Nils and limped away down the dark corridor.

Nils slid down the rope into the torture chamber and moved quickly up the stairs past the bodies of the dead prisoner and the three guards. The door at the top was not locked, and he peered out cautiously into the corridor. There was no one in sight. He opened the door no more than necessary, avoiding the abominable screech of hinges, slipped through, and took the direction away from the guard room.

Within a few strides he heard booted feet behind him, not yet in sight, but he did not hurry, depending on the poor disguise of his blood-spattered guard cloak and cap for protection if seen. Within a few meters a curtain hung to the floor on his left and he pushed through it, finding a flight of stairs. He bounded silently up, then stopped at the uncurtained opening at the top. Slippered feet scuffed the corridor he faced, and a female mind mumbled to itself in Magyar. The feet would either pass by the stairs or turn down them. At the same time he heard the voices of men below, stopped just outside the curtain. Nils realized he was holding his breath. A middle-aged woman passed the stairwell entrance without looking in. Waiting a moment to avoid startling her, he stepped into the corridor behind her and moved in the opposite direction. A door opened and closed, and he sensed the dimming of psi pickup from her.

The voices from below were louder now, as if someone was holding the curtain open while talking, and he hurried. This corridor ended at a window, through which he could see the frozen courtyard a dozen meters below. Without hesitation he turned, opened the door to the nearest chamber and walked in.

A tall bald man, wide-shouldered and wearing a long robe, sat before a fire. He turned his weathered, hawklike face to Nils and rose, speaking coldly in Magyar. Nils responded quietly in Anglic.

"I am a foreigner and do not understand Magyar. I had planned to seek service with King Janos but was imprisoned here because this lord has no love for his king. But I killed three guards and escaped, and now they are hunting for me. Call out and you're a dead man."

* * *

Nils, his hair cut and wearing the livery of Lord Miklos, sat a horse among Lord Miklos's guard troop. Miklos's voice spoke clearly in the frosty morning air.

"I will repeat the warning, Lajos," he said in Magyar. "You owe your fief to the crown, and homage, and the taxes and services prescribed by law. Twice you've failed those taxes and the respect that should accompany them. The next time Janos will send an army instead of an ambassador. Those were his words. Think about them. And if duty means little to you, consider how precious you hold your life."

With that he turned his horse and, followed by his guard troop, rode stiff-backed across the iron-frozen courtyard and over the bridge.

XI

Lord Miklos looked tired and grim when Nils was ushered into his chamber. The young barbarian didn't need psi to know the reason; Janos II had died unexpectedly during Miklos's absence and Janos III had ascended the throne.

"You traveled far to serve King Janos," Miklos said. "And now he is dead. And while I know little about you, what I do know I like. I will be happy to have you serve me, if you wish to."

"Thank you, my lord," Nils answered. "But I was to serve King Janos, and a Janos sits on the throne. Therefore, I will ask to serve him. If he refuses, and if you still want me, I will be happy to serve you."

Miklos walked to the window and stared out, then turned and spoke carefully in explanation. "Janos III is not the man you sought to serve, nor the same kind of man. If it wasn't for the family resemblance and the nobility of his mother, I could hardly credit the elder with the fathership. Janos II was a noble man, fair, firm, and honorable, a man well fitted to rule. The son, on the other hand, is at best shallow and petty, and it will seldom occur to him that there are considerations beyond his momentary whim. He is devious without the compensation of cleverness, gives no man his confidence and heeds no counsel.

"But the worst that is said of him is only rumor, I hope without grounds—that he will tolerate, if not actually sanction, the vile cult of Baalzebub. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that, for I've seen nothing that can stand as evidence. But I fear. Not the man, but what he may bring."

"Nonetheless," Nils replied, "I must seek service with King Janos. It was forseen by a seeress whose worth I value highly."

"You believe in seers?"

"I believe in this seeress, for I know her powers. They saved my life once."

"And so she commands you."

"No. But what she said seemed right to me."

"I see. Well, I will not recommend you to the new king. Any recommendation from me he'd take as grounds for suspicion." Miklos looked long and perplexedly at Nils, then rose and held out his hand. "But I give you my best wishes. If you are refused, or enter his service and wish to withdraw, let me know."

* * *

The sergeant was explaining to the guard master. "He said he'd come several hundred kilometers to seek service with King Janos. He doesn't even speak Magyar and I had to use Anglic with him. But he's a giant"—the sergeant motioned with his hand somewhat above the height of his own helmet—"and something about him gives me the feeling that he's a real fighter and not just an oaf. And you know how his Majesty likes size in his personal guards."

"All right, Bela, I'll look at him. His Highness is tolerant of foreigners. But he'll have to look very good before I'll ask the men to put up with someone who speaks no Magyar."

The big iron stove was hot, and Nils, after the manner of the neovikings, had hung both jacket and shirt on a peg. Disdaining a bench, he squatted with his back to the wall, paring his nails with a large belt knife. When the two knights entered the guard room he arose, calmly and with a smoothness of movement that made the guard master suspect he might do, at that. After a few questions he sent a guardsman to Janos, asking for an audience. Shrewdly, he had Nils leave his jacket and shirt on the peg and took him to Janos with his torso bare except for harness.

Janos was a man of ordinary size, his face dominated by the pointed nose and red mustache of his father's line. Nils sensed no evil in him, nor anything else remarkable, only a mediocrity of energy and smallness of vision. At the king's command Nils rose from his knees. Janos's blue eyes examined him minutely without his face betraying his judgment, but Nils sensed that this was a man who was readily impressed by physical strength.

"Where are you from?" the king asked at length.

"From Svealann, Your Majesty."

"Svealann. And where might that be?"

"Far to the north, Your Majesty. Beyond the lands of the Germans lies the northern sea. Across the sea the Jötar dwell, and north of them the Svear. Beyond the Svear, no one lives."

"Ah. And is it true that in the north, so far from the sun, the lands are colder and snowier?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then Svealann must be a terrible land. I don't blame you for leaving it. But why did you come all this way to seek service with the king of the Magyars, when there are other kings and realms, some closer?"

"A seeress told me that I would, Your Majesty, and so I did."

"A seeress!" Nils sensed that this impressed the king strongly. "And what seeress was that?"

"A woman who lives in the forest, Your Majesty, and talks to the wolves. Her name is Ilse."

Janos examined this indigestible bit and dropped it. "And do you fight well?"

"I'm told that I fight very well, Your Majesty."

Janos turned to the guard master. "Ferenc, let me see him tested."

For an instant the guard master was dismayed. Somehow he'd neglected to test the man! Suppose he was an oaf after all! "I will test him myself, if that will be all right, Your Highness."

"Fine. That will be abundantly demanding."

The guard master spoke to one of the throne guards, who went to Nils and handed him a sword and shield. Nils handled the sword lightly, its weight and balance registering on his neuro-muscular system. Then they faced each other with swords at the ready. The guard master began the sword play slowly, examining Nils's moves. Nils was content to parry and counter. The guard master's speed increased, and Nils sensed his growing approval. A sudden vigorous and sustained attack failed to make an opening, and the guard master stepped back, sweating in the heated throne room.

"He is very good, Your Highness," he said, turning to the king. "He's surprisingly quick and knows all the moves. His teacher must have known his business. If we'd been fighting instead of sparring, I would have been hard pressed, for then his great strength would have begun to count."

* * *

Later, in his chamber, the king ran for his privy counselor, a man whose role no others in the palace knew. And if any suspected, they kept careful silence. The man came at the king's call.

"Did you read the man that Ferenc brought to me for the guard?" Janos asked.

"Yes."

"What did you see in him? And was he telling the truth about a seeress?"

"He was truthful at all times, m'lord. I was limited in reading him because his native tongue is unfamiliar to me, but I assure you he was truthful. I believe he is unable to lie."

"You're joking!"

The counselor bowed slightly. "I never joke, Your Highness. There is that about him which makes me believe he is unable to lie."

"Amazing. That must truly be a handicap."

Sometimes you are almost discerning, the counselor thought to himself. And ordinarily I would agree with that reaction. I wish the swine held discourse with himself. I've never known anyone before who could stand fully conscious for several minutes and not talk to himself within his mind. And it isn't a screen. I will watch him carefully.

* * *

The guard soon accepted Nils as one of them, despite their normal animosity toward foreigners. In sparring he was never bested, but even so, the men sensed that he held himself in, and they interpreted that correctly as a desire to avoid making anyone look bad. His disposition was mild and harmonious. And he learned quickly, so that in a few weeks he could converse slowly on a fair assortment of subjects.

One day of his first week Nils was being instructed in Magyar by Sergeant Bela, when a boy in his early teens entered the guard room; he was dressed as a squire and spoke to the sergeant. Bela turned back to Nils.

"This is Imre Rakosi, Nils, a squire to the king. He wants to talk to you through me, as he doesn't have much confidence in the little Anglic he speaks. First he wants to know if it's true that you are a great swordsman."

"It is true," Nils said. He sensed an openness and honesty in the boy.

"And is it true that you come from a barbaric land far from the sun and have traveled in many lands?"

"That's true, too," Nils admitted. "Except that I have traveled only in several lands."

Bela repeated in Magyar, then turned back to Nils. "Imre would like to become fluent in Anglic. And he believes it would be better to learn it from you than from some other tutor. You cannot lapse into Magyar, and in the learning he hopes to hear about lands and customs that we know little of in our land. Will you teach him?"

"I'll be glad to."

The boy addressed Nils directly now, in Anglic.

"Thank you," he said carefully, holding out his hand. Nils shook it.

"He would like to begin after supper this evening," Bela said, "in the outer hall, for it's always open and the benches there are comfortable. If he can't be there, he'll get word to you. Is that all right?"

"Certainly," said Nils, and Imre Rakosi left.

"Are squires here the sons of knights only?" Nils asked.

"Usually. This one is the son of Lord Istvan Rakosi of the eastern marches."

"And was he sponsored earlier by the older king, Janos II?"

"No, he's been with Janos III for almost eight years, since the boy was seven and old enough to serve as a page. The king is a widower, and childless," the sergeant went on. "This boy is like a son to him. And he's a good lad, as Janos is a good master."

* * *

Nils had the third and fourth watches—from 0800 to 1600—and his duties were primarily two. When Janos held court, Nils was one of his personal guards, standing behind his throne to its right. At other hours, when Janos was in the throne room, Nils's post was outside the thick door.

And in a chamber behind the throne room, a lean, dark-brown man sat in a black robe reading the mind of the king's visitors. But always, whether Nils stood by the throne or outside the heavy door, the secret counselor monitored the big warrior's mind with one small part of his superbly sensitive psychic awareness. He received almost nothing in the way of either thoughts or emotions there, however, for mostly Nils simply received, sorting and filing data of almost every kind without discussing it with himself.

But the evidence was increasingly unmistakable.

One winter evening the counselor took from a small chest a gray plastic box, closed a switch, and patiently waited. He didn't wait long. As a hair-like needle twitched on the dial, a voice in his mind commanded him.

His mind reviewed the event of Nils's arrival and what he had observed, the little he had been able to learn from Nils's mind, and what he had learned from the minds of others when they had thought about Nils. "And there is no question," he thought, "the barbarian is a psi, and I feel he is not here accidentally. I don't know any details, for I can read nothing specific myself. But you could force him, Master."

His thoughts paused, as if hesitating, and there was a sharp painful tug at the counselor's mind that made him wince and continue.

"And today, as I watched, I became aware that he knows I am here, and that he let me know purposely, realizing I would know it was on purpose. Of course, he could easily know of me from the king's mind. But he knows more about me than the king does; it may be he knows all that I am.

"And he as an undisturbed as a stone."

* * *

That winter at Pest was the coldest of memory, Nils was told. Old people, and even the middle-aged, complained that winters were longer and colder than when they were young. But even recent winters had had frequent days when temperatures rose above freezing, weather when the surface of the ground thawed to mud. This winter it remained like stone. The snow from the great October storm had never been much deeper at Pest than a man's knees, and little new snow had been added. Yet until late March the ground remained covered, except on strong south slopes and near the south sides of buildings.

The River Danube, which the Magyars called Duna, froze deeply, and boys and youths fastened skates to their feet for sport, while people of every age cut holes through the ice and fished for pike and sturgeon. Not until April did the ice soften enough that several fishermen fell through to be carried away beneath it by the current.

By that time Nils had taken opportunities to examine maps, but had made no plans. When the time came, he would have a plan. Meanwhile, he worked, ate, slept, and learned, finding life quite agreeable. Imre Rakosi had learned to speak the simple Anglic tongue quite creditably, while Nils, living with the Magyar tongue, had substantially mastered its agglutinative complexities. The two youths had become close friends.

At the beginning of April they had the first days of true spring that promise summer. On one such day both were free from duty, and they rode together along a muddy, rutted road above the Duna, watching the fishermen standing in the shallow water that flowed across the gray and spongy ice. But on a shirt-sleeve day in April they found little inspiration in the sight of a river still ice-bound. So they left the bank and turned their horses up the rubble-paved road to Old Pest.

Old Pest had been immensely larger than the present town. Around Old Pest lay the open plain, grazed in summer or planted with wheat. But Old Pest itself was an extensive forest, mainly of oak but with other broad-leaved trees, its openings overgrown with hazel brush. The rubble and broken pavement prevented cultivation, at the same time concentrating rainwater in the breaks so that trees could sprout and grow. Here and there parts of a building still stood above the trees. The rest had fallen to storms and the gradual deterioration of material. Over the centuries many building stones had been hauled away to be used in the growth of New Pest, and concrete had been crushed for remanufacturing. Even steel construction rods had been broken and hauled away, to be stacked in smithies for cleaning and reuse. And the paving stones of New Pest came from the rubble of the Old.

The present town had grown up several kilometers from the edge of the old city. Neither merchants, nobles, nor commoners cared to house near its ancient ghosts, nor to the cover it provided to bandits and other predators.

Imre had never been in Old Pest before. Bears, wolves and wild dogs actually were few there in these times, for herdsmen organized hunts, with hounds and scores of armed and mounted men, to hold down depredations. And bandits usually were only transient there, for soldiers of the king hunted them. But explorers occasionally disappeared and were not seen again or were found dead and sometimes mutilated.

Imre and Nils poked cautiously about in one building whose lower levels still stood, and wondered whether it could ever have housed men. There were no stoves or fireplaces, or anything to take away smoke, or anything to see except debris. "I like it better outside than in here," Nils commented.

"You're right. Let's go back out. Anyway, there's only one building I really want to see. I've looked at it from a distance through the palace windows and the whole immense thing seems still to be standing. It may be farther than we have time to go, though, and maybe we wouldn't be able to find it in this wilderness anyway."

They mounted and went farther on among the trees. "Do you mean the building with the huge dome?" Nils asked.

"That's the one. It is said to be a church."

"And what is, or was, a church?" Nils wanted to know.

"Well," explained Imre, "in the olden times men believed in imaginary beings who were thought to be very powerful and therefore had to be given gifts and sung to, and in general the people had to debase themselves before them. Even the nobility; even kings. And great palaces called churches were built and dedicated to the chief of those beings, who was called Christianity."

"I'm surprised I never heard of him before," Nils said.

"It is said that belief in him died out before the Great Death. Perhaps in your land even the memory was lost, or perhaps it never existed there."

They were passing the base of a great hill of rubble upon which stood only scattered shrubs and scrubby trees, but numerous stalks of forbs lay broken, suggesting that in season it would be alive with wild flowers. Turning their horses, they rode toward its top, hoping to get a better directional fix from its elevation.

"I've heard," Nils remarked, "that some Magyars now believe in a supernatural being called Baalzebub. Have any churches been built to him?"

"There can't be churches to Baalzebub. It's against the law to follow that cult."

"But wasn't it the elder king who decreed that? There is a rumor that Janos III tolerates it."

"It's a lie," Imre said decisively. "For my lord has told me that the cult of Baalzebub is vile and that if I ever have anything to do with it, I will be exiled." He paused and looked upward. "I guess our sunshine is gone, and this rising wind is cold. Do you want to go on or shall we go back to Pest?"

"Let's go back," Nils answered, and they rode briskly down the slope into the trees.

"Nils, why did you ask about Baalzebub?"

"Not through any wish to offend you, I promise you that."

"I believe you," Imre said. "But let me explain something that may make things clearer to you. There are those who dislike our lord because he is not the strong and open man his father was, and they pass evil rumors about him. But I've known him since I was a little boy, almost as long as I can remember, and he has been a second father to me. I know his faults, but I also know he is a good man."

"Did he take you with him on his trip to the lower Duna?"

"No. He took none of his household except for five guards. I was only ten then. And he went only as far as the Serbland, not the lower Duna."

"Was it from there he brought his dark-skinned counselor?"

"Dark-skinned counselor?"

"The one named Ahmed."

Imre looked strangely at Nils for a moment, before his frown dissolved into a smile. "Oh, I see. Ahmed is not a counselor, Nils; he is only a personal servant."

"Ah. He is so secretive and his appearance so sinister, I thought he might be a servant of Baalzebub, given to the king to influence him without the king knowing it."

Imre laughed. "Civilization must seem strange to someone from the wild north. No, Nils, Ahmed is not secretive, only shy. And as for sinister, others feel the same about that as you do. But it is only his blackness, for which he can thank a scorching eastern sun."

A strong gust of wind rattled the bare branches above them. "Look, snowflakes!" Nils said. In a few moments the air was swirling with them, and Nils and Imre spurred their horses to a trot, where trails permitted, until they came out of the forest. Then, faces glowing from exhilaration and wet snow, they galloped down the road to Pest.

And from that time Nils was prepared for a trip down the Duna, possibly in chains, unless of course, he was murdered. For Ahmed would certainly read Imre, and Kazi would either want to examine this barbarian psi himself or have him dead.

* * *

Within weeks the message came to Janos by a courier in livery richer than the people of Pest had even seen, along with a troop of tall, swarthy horsemen on animals that awed even the great Magyar horse breeders. Kazi sent it this way instead of through Ahmed in order to keep the psi tuner secret from Janos.

* * *

"Ahmed," Janos said, "I won't stand for it. Why does he want me to send the boy to him?"

Ahmed looked thoughtfully at the soft bleached parchment as if he hadn't already known what would be written there or why. "Perhaps he doesn't trust you."

"But that's nonsense. Why shouldn't he trust me? I've done nothing to earn his distrust."

"I don't know that he distrusts you, but that would explain his request. Remember, you are hundreds of kilometers away from him, and so he has no way of looking into your mind. He is used to knowing the minds of everyone around him, and is impatient when he doesn't."

"So he wants the boy as a hostage, then," Janos snapped. "He can't have him."

"Why not?" Ahmed asked. "You know he'll treat him like a prince, for he depends on you, and youth enjoys the adventure of strange lands. You could send the giant barbarian with him as bodyguard and companion, for they are close friends."

Janos sat quietly for a few minutes, his face still angry at first, then gradually grim, and finally thoughtful. "All right," he said at last. "I'll do it. Imre and the barbarian on my royal barge, and a detail from my guard. I will also provide a barge for the courier troop and they can leave their horses with me as a gift." He looked at Ahmed, thin-lipped. "But I do not like this hostage business, for I gave him my word and I am not used to being treated like this."

XII

While a man was chief of the Svear, his home village would be known as Hövdingeby, the Chief's Village. During the chieftainship of Axel Stornäve, Hövdingeby was in perhaps the greatest farm clearing in Svealann, called Kornmark for the barley that once was grown there. Now barley could not be relied on to mature its grain, and it was rye that filled the bins after harvest.

Kornmark covered a somewhat irregular area of about two by five kilometers, broken here and there by birch groves, swales, and heaps of stones that had been picked from the fields. There were three villages in Kornmark, one near each end and one near the center, each covering a few hectares. Each was a rough broken circle of log buildings—the homes, barns and outbuildings of the farmers—surrounding a common ground. In the middle of the common was the longhouse, which contained a feasting hall, guest lodgings, and the communal steam bath.

It was late May, when the daylight lasts for more than eighteen hours. Normally in that season cattle would have been in the fields, fattening on new grass, and the air would have been pungent with smoke as the boys and women burned off last year's dead grass in the surrounding pasture woods. But this year the fields were still soft brown mud, while along the leeward sides of the stone fences there still lay broad, low drifts of granular snow.

A thin, cold rain drove out of the west against the backs of two warriors who were walking across the clearing on the cart road. Their leather breeches were dark with rain, and the fur of their jackets was wet and draggled. In the forest, where spruce and pine shaded the trails, they had run on skis. Now each carried his skis on one wide shoulder, with his boots slung over the other, and the deep tracks of their tough bare feet filled at once with icy water.

Big flakes of snow began to come with the rain.

Near the east end of the clearing, above the high bank of a river, was Hövdingeby, which also was called Vargby because it was the original home of the Wolf Clan and its major village. The long-house there measured thirty meters, and many men could sleep in its steep-roofed loft. Its logs had been squared with broad ax and adze so that they fitted almost perfectly, and even the stones of its smoking chimneys had been squared. At each end the ridgepole thrust out three meters beyond the overhanging roof, curving upward, scrolled and bearing the carven likeness of a wolf. Hides covered its windows, scraped thin to pass more light, but on the westward side the shutters were closed against the rain.

The two warriors walked up its split-log steps and scraped their muddy feet on the stoop. One rapped sharply on the plank door with the hilt of his knife, and a stout thrall woman let them in. It was cold and gloomy in the entry room. Though Svear, the two warriors were not of the Wolf Clan, so they waited there with the silence of men who had nothing new to say to each other and were disinclined to talk for the sake of breaking silence. Shortly a tall old man, Axel Stornäve himself, came out to them wearing a loose cloak of white hare skins. "You are the last to arrive," he said. "I'm sorry my messenger took so long to find you." The hands that gripped could have crushed necks.

"We are often gone from our homes," one answered. "Reindeer are not cattle. The herds must range far for forage."

The old man ushered them into the hall. "We have dry clothes for you," he said. "I'll have food warmed, and the stones are hot in the bath house. When you have bathed and eaten, I suggest you rest. We will meet together at the evening meal, and it may be late before the talking ends."

* * *

The men at the evening meal were the chiefs of the three tribes, with their counselors, and the clan chieftains of the Svear, each with his lieutenant. They ate roast pig, that most savory of flesh, smoked salmon, and blood pudding thickened with barley and sweetened with honey that had found its way there from southern Jömark. And there was fermented milk, and ale, but no brannvin, for these men were sometimes enemies who had put aside their feuds to meet together. Axel Stornäve did not want the blood to run too warm in their veins.

When the platters were taken away, Stornäve rose, the oldest man of them, and they all listened, for warriors and raid leaders did not live as long as he had without skill and luck and cunning.

"Some in my clan," he said, "and in all the clans of the Svear, have talked in recent years of leaving our land. They have heard of lands where the summers are longer and warmer. And I have heard it is the same among the Jötar and Norskar." He turned toward the bull-like form of Tjur Blodyxa, chief of the Jötar. "I have heard that in Jömark the Sea Eagle Clan began last summer to build large boats, ships in which to send strong war parties to find a better land. It was also told at the last ting of the Svear"—here he turned grimly to Jäävklo of the Gluttons—"that our own northern clans whisper of breaking the bans and trying to take away land from the clans to the south, unless we willingly make room for them.

"And now we have had this winter unlike any before, and our people wonder if we can make a crop. We have had to kill many cattle, poor in flesh, because the hay barns were becoming empty, and it's better to kill some than lose all. But we have butchered the seed, so calves will be few. And we cannot live on wild flesh, for there are too many of us." He paused and looked around at the faces turned toward him. "So I believe the Sea Eagles have the right idea," he went on. "The time has come to leave.

"But the lands to the south are peopled already. We have all heard wanderers who have been to some of them. A wanderer of your Otter Clan"—he turned again to Tjur Blodyxa—"has told us stories in this very longhouse of the Daneland where he had lived, where the clearings are greater than the forests, and the warriors have high stone walls to protect them. And when I questioned him he said that in the Daneland, too, people complained that the winters were growing longer and harder.

"And from your Seal Clan"—he turned to Isbjørn Hjeltesøn, chief of the Norskar—"a wanderer told us of the Frisland, south across the sea, where the people speak a tongue he could not understand, where there are few trees, and the pastures and haylands are so wide a man can't see across them. There they complain that each year they must build their haystacks bigger and haul more wood from the distant forests.

"Is the whole world freezing? Or are there really lands where the summers are long and warm? We all have heard rumors of them. But how does one come to such lands? There is one man of the Wolf Clan who may be the greatest traveler of all. Last fall he returned from four years of absence, telling tales of the lands he had visited. He is Sten Vannaren; you can talk to him later and ask him questions. He brought with him what you see on this wall." The old chief turned and pulled a bearskin from the pegs on which it had hung, exposing a map of Europe. "This is a map the craft of whose makers far exceeds ours. It is said to be a copy of a map of the ancients and is made on a stuff called linen. North is at the top, as on the maps we make ourselves. Here"—his big finger circled—"are the lands of the tribes. The blue is the sea."

Axel Stornäve looked around the table. All eyes were on the marvel before them, so he continued talking and pointing. "Sten journeyed across several lands and finally came to this southern sea. And he found that what we had believed is actually true: that as you continue southward the sun gets nearer and higher and the climate warmer. The lands around that sea are never cold except high in the mountains, and even in the heart of winter the snows lie on the ground for only a few days at a time, or a few weeks at worst.

"It is a land where the clans could be happy.

"There are two ways to reach that land. One is by sea." He traced a route from the Skagerrak across the North Sea, southward along the Atlantic coast and through Gibraltar. Grim eyes watched. "Although perhaps we would not have to go that far. This might serve as well." He pointed to the coast along the Bay of Biscay. "But if every fishing boat left filled with warriors, they still would be too few. By the time the boats could make a second trip, those few would be dead at the hands of the tribes who live there now.

"The second way is across the land, after boats have made the short trip here." He ran his finger along the shores south of the Baltic. "The tribes of each land we entered would fight, of course, and their people are very numerous, so there are many of them for each one of us. In some of those lands the chiefs hire foreigners in their armies, so Sten never went hungry for food or fight. And their warriors, which they call knights, are less skilled with weapons than we. Also, their warriors do not care to go on foot. If they must go into battle on foot, they prefer to delay. He even found some who would hardly be able to fight after a day's march. Do not be mistaken. They have fierce men, men not afraid to die"—here the old chief paused for effect, then spoke slowly and clearly—"but never did he find any knight who was a match for one of our warriors.

"Even so, if the Sea Eagle Clan landed here"—he pointed to northern Poland—"at the nearest place to their homeland, and started south, the knights of that district would attack them on horseback and kill many. And the chief of that land would gather a strong army, of many hundreds, and attack until no man of the Sea Eagles was left alive, they would be so outnumbered. And what then of their women and children and the spirits of their dead?

"But here is a place of low sand hills along the coast, covered with forest, and only a few fishermen live there." He pointed to a stretch of Polish coast. "And behind the sand hills are marshes, where knights cannot cross on their horses. If the Sea Eagles landed there, it is likely that they would not be strongly attacked so long as they stayed there.

"And what if the Otter Clan followed, and the Bears, and then others? This district behind the coast," he continued, his big finger circling inland, "also has large forests. If enough warriors landed on the coast, they might march in strength and defend and hold some of the forest while still more of the people landed—freeholders, women, children and thralls. If all the clans landed there, I believe they could then cross the lands to the south, regardless of the armies raised against them, and take and hold a land near the southern sea."

The old chief looked around the split log table for a moment without speaking, and a small smile began to play around the corners of his wide mouth. "I see that Jäävklo of the Gluttons wants me to sit so that he may speak. He wants to ask me how I propose to move the tribes across the sea in a few score fishing boats that cannot take more than a dozen men each, besides the oarsmen.

"I led the Wolf Clan before I was chosen chief of the Svear, and I have talked about this to the warrior who now is chieftain of the Wolves, Ulf Vargsson. He in turn held council with his warriors and freeholders. And it is agreed. The Wolf Clan will send out half a dozen fishing boats of warriors with Sten Vannaren to guide them. They will find this place I spoke of," he pointed, "land the warriors and come back for more.

"But on the second trip, all our boats will go, and most of them will go here"—he pointed to a harbor on the Polish coast—"where there are ships large enough to carry a hundred men besides the oarsmen. And they will seize such of those ships as they can, returning here with them."

Strong yellow teeth began to show in the torchlight around the table.

"The Wolf Clan would go alone if they had to, but I know they won't have to. I know the other clans too well, from many raids and fights. And the Sea Eagles had decided to go before we did. If all the clans unite, our combined strength can bring us to the southern sea.

"Look!" Axel Stornäve knelt for a moment and picked up a bundle of pine branches that had lain on the floor behind his seat. He held one branch up and snapped it in his hands. "By itself it has little strength," he said. "But now"—he took as many together as he could wrap his huge hands around, with a great effort strove to break them, then held them overhead unbroken.

"Which of you will go back to your people and join them with us?"

Every man around the table stood, most of them shouting approval. Axel still stood, with one hand in the air, and in a few moments the others settled to the benches again, aware that he was not done.

"I knew it," he said. "And when you take this matter to your people, they will agree to it, for this winter has caused every man to think. But we can't delay. If we can make no crop this summer except of hay, and if next winter is at all like this one has been, we will be weak and hungry in another year. We must all be gone before winter comes again. Nor can we winter across the sea except in force, for we must be able to take what we need by force from the people there.

"Our harbor is free of ice now, at last. Our people already have been killing the rest of the cattle and drying the meat over fires. We will send the first boats on the day after tomorrow, the weather willing. After our first war parties have landed, two boats will go here." He pointed to the island of Bornholm, between the Swedish and Polish coasts. "One will wait to guide the first boats of the Jötar to the landing place." He looked down the table at one old enemy, Tjur Blodyxa, and then in the other direction at another, Isbjørn Hjeltesøn. "The other will guide the first boats of the Norskar." The old man grinned. "Maybe you can get the Danes to 'loan' you some ships."

A scowl had begun to grow on Tjur Blodyxa's surly face, and he stood without leave. "And who will lead this expedition?" he asked.

Axel Stornäve said nothing for a moment, savoring the surprise he had for the Jöta chief. "Not me," he said. "I'm too old. That leadership is what we must decide next."

* * *

It was past midnight. They had agreed that the tribes would act independently in moving their own people, except that the Wolf Clan of the Svear would pick the place. But the war leader of those who had landed would also be of the Svear. Then the clan chieftains of the Svear elected Björn Ärrbuk as war leader. He was the tribe's most famous fighter and its most famous living raid leader. Afterward, they questioned Sten Vannaren about the place they would land and the country where they hoped to go.

Now they were going to bed. Axel Stornäve stepped out the door to look at the night and found new snow ankle-deep on the ground.

XIII

KAZI, TIMUR KARIM (A.D. 2064-2831), psionicist and emperor. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, he received a Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the University of Lucerne in 2087; lectured at London University, 2087-2090; was professor of psionics at Damascus University, 2090-2094; and held the Freimann Chair of Psionics Research at the University of Tel Aviv, 2094-2105.

In 2096, Kazi developed the "esper crystal," which became the functional element of the psi tuner. At age forty-one, although in chronically poor health, he was one of the few survivors of the Great Death of 2105. He also survived the difficult and primitive conditions that followed the plague, presumably by dominating other survivors.

Seriously afflicted with asthma and without effective medicines, he eventually developed a process of ego-transfer believed to involve the use of drugs and the psi tuner, transferring his ego from his aging and debilitated body to one younger and healthier.

As a child, Kazi had been offensively egotistical, effectively alienating himself from normal human relationships. This trait intensified with his brilliant scientific successes and his increasing ability to read minds and dominate others. His development and use of ego-transfer, with the near immortality it provided, probably furthered the pathological deterioration of his personality.

Sometime about the middle of the twenty-second century, Kazi disappeared. He seems to have developed a self-controlled psionic means of suspended animation. It has been suggested that he used this to mark time until an increased population and further socio-economic development provided something more gratifying to dominate. Legends indicate that he was worshipped as a god at the time he disappeared and that periodic living sacrifices of young men were made at his tomb, believed to have been a cave in the Judean Hills. Perhaps they were used for ego-transfers. If so, he may occasionally have emerged to maintain the legend and select his next body.

He became active again sometime about 2750, and from that time our picture becomes less conjectural again. Gradually he came to dominate the Middle and Near East as far south as the Sudan, as well as much of the Balkans, ruling some of the territory directly and some of it as tributary provinces.

Kazi developed a culture specifically for his army. Each level practiced a harsh domination of the lower ranks, and all ranks brutalized slaves and subject peoples. The utmost in cruelty was not merely permitted, but demanded of the soldiers. Discipline was based on fear, the fellowship of mutual depravity, and a supersititous awe and terror of the ruler. He called them "orcs," after an army of subhuman monsters in a classic of pre-plague fantasy fiction, The Lord of the Rings. (See Tolkien, J.R.R.) After the first or second generation, all orcs resulted from forced matings between his soldiers and captive women, the offspring growing up in vicious camps whose regimens were designed to eliminate the weak and to produce the orc personality.

This was Earth's largest post-plague army, and its only standing army. Its men were better disciplined and trained than their feudal contemporaries and could be relied upon to fight viciously and skillfully. It was also versatile, serving as both infantry and cavalry during a time when feudal armies and most barbaric tribes despised foot warfare.

Kazi himself built in its major weakness when he designed its culture. Its primary orientation was not fighting, but occupying and brutalizing. It was supreme in breaking conquered peoples and served its master's psychopathic compulsion for unbridled depravity, but it lacked the fervor and vigor necessary for a really great army in an age of edged weapons and close combat.

Kazi relied on auxiliaries to supplement that shortcoming. Many small tribes of "horse barbarians" ranged and fought one another in the steppes and arid mountains of south-central Asia as far west as Turkey. By combinations of privilege, flattery and threats, he was able to unite and command the use of large numbers of those tribesmen when he wished, mostly to control other similar tribes. The horse barbarians sometimes lacked discipline and unit coordination, but they were skilled and reckless cavalry whose passion was fighting. . . .

(From The New School Encyclopedia, copyrighted A.C. 920, Deep Harbor, New Home.)

XIV

The Duna had carried them out of the Hungarian prairie through forested mountains, and then eastward for several days through open grasslands again, with hills to the south and broad plains and marshes to the north. Occasionally they passed herds of cattle accompanied by mounted horsemen, and when they were near enough, Nils could see that they carried no weapons, except short bows to protect their herds from wolves. He realized they must have entered Kazi's realm.

Nils and Imre had carefully studied the map that Janos had given Imre. Therefore, they were expecting it when the river turned north and the barges left it to enter a great canal, built by the ancients, that left the Duna and struck eastward like an arrow toward the sea. On its north bank would stand the City of Kazi.

After a number of kilometers, an obsidian tower could be seen glistening blackly at a distance, and as the current carried them rapidly along, they soon saw other buildings of dark basalt. They were passing kilometers of barbarian camps on the north side of the canal, with the banners of many tribes moving in the wind above the tents. Men in mail or leather shirts, or their own leathery skins, rode at sport or in idleness, sometimes stopping to watch intently the richly ornamented barges.

In a sense the City of Kazi was a military camp, for its purpose was to house his orcs. But it was much more than a camp, for no town could match its engineering and order. From the palace with its tower, rows of dark stone buildings radiated outward like the spokes of a half-wheel.

The steersmen now were running close to the north bank, and they passed stone granaries and warehouses where stone steps led up from the wharves. Ahead was a balustraded wharf of dark and beautifully figured gneiss, with broad stairs of the same rock climbing to a gardened courtyard in front of the palace. Their steersman shouted, and for almost the first time the oars were wetted, backing water briefly to slow the barge almost to a halt as they approached the wharf. Naked brown men, some nearly black, handled the line, while others, wearing harness and weapons, waited for the passengers. A gangplank of dark burnished wood was laid across the gunwales, and Imre and Nils landed. A fat toga-clad man with a sharp beak of a nose bowed slightly to Imre. In almost falsetto Anglic he announced, "His Holiness has instructed that I escort you to your apartment. Baths and fresh clothing await you there. When you are refreshed, His Holiness would like an audience with you, and I will return to conduct you to him."

"And may my friend accompany me to that audience?" Imre asked.

"His Holiness has specified that both guests should attend, unless"—the steward bowed slightly again—"your Lordship wishes otherwise."

He led them across the courtyard to the palace and up exterior steps to a terrace garden, where, looking eastward into the distance, they caught sight of the sea and a harbor with many ships. Inside, the walls of their apartment were veneered with white marble and hung with soft lustrous blue material. The glazed windows were open and the heavy curtains drawn back so that the rooms were light and airy.

The steward dipped his head again and left.

The white stone baths were as long as Nils's reach and set below the floor. Steps entered them. Imre knelt, dipped his fingers into one, and his breath hissed between his teeth. "My blood!" he gasped. "Are we supposed to bathe or be boiled?"

Nils grinned like a wolf and began to strip. "In my homeland we take steam baths and then roll naked in the snow."

"Huh! I'm glad we're here instead of there then. What do you call it again? I'll be careful never to go there."

"It's called Svealann, and the real reason I was exiled is that they don't tolerate midgets. My growth was stunted from missing too many steam baths." Very carefully he moved down the steps into the water. "I've never confessed it to anyone since I left there," he added, "because it's embarrassing to a northman to be a midget, and I've been keeping it a secret. I hope you won't tell anyone."

* * *

Imre had scarcely settled on the sitting ledge in his bath when a dark girl entered the room. Without speaking she set a dish of soap on the low curb beside each bath and left.

"Well!" Imre stared after her indignantly. "They certainly have strange customs here, where women come into a man's bath—and a young, pretty one at that. Say, look, the soap is white! It is soap, isn't it? And smell it. Like a woman's scent. Can stuff like that possibly get us clean?"

Nils stood and began to lather his torso, the sinews in his arms, shoulders and chest flexing and bunching as he washed. Imre stared. "You know," he said, "I'd take steam baths, too, and roll in the snow, if I thought it would grow me muscles like yours."

Nils grinned again, squatted to the neck, lathered his pale hair, and submerged. When he came up, Imre was staring past him in distress. Two young women had entered and stood quietly, holding long fluffy towels. Nils emerged calmly and stood while one of them dried him. Then she left, again without a word. On each of two benches lay clean white clothing, neatly folded. Nils walked to one of them and dressed in loose white pantaloons and a white robe that came to his knees. There was no belt or other ready means for fastening on as much as a dagger.

Imre's expression was pure consternation. "Go!" he said to the remaining girl. "I will dry myself." She turned. "No. Wait." He looked grimly at Nils and climbed quickly from the bath to be dried. He did not speak until he had dressed himself.

"I've never heard of such shameless customs before," he said tightly. "And I'm going to demand that they keep those women out of here before we become degenerate and useless. I . . ."

The soft-faced steward had quietly entered the room and made his slight obeisance. "Your Lordship, the chief of your guard, who calls himself Sergeant Bela, awaits your pleasure."

"Awaits our pleasure!" Imre exploded. "That's more than you know enough to do. Haven't you ever heard of announcing yourself before entering? After this, knock or use a bell or something."

The steward bowed more deeply.

"Now you can tell Bela I'll be happy to see him, and then have some food and drink sent up."

With another bow the steward left, and a moment later they heard firmer footfalls. There was a sharp rapping, as of a dagger haft on the wall beside the door.

"Bela?"

"That's right, m'Lord."

"Come in then. I thought it was you. None of these people around here have the manners to knock."

Bela glanced around the apartment and his lips pursed in a silent whistle. "M'Lord, we're to leave at once, and I wanted to see you before we went. His Highness will ask me if you were properly received, and I wanted to see for myself."

"Why do you have to leave so soon?" Imre asked.

"They've fed us and have horses saddled and waiting—beautiful horses, too, they are. People who breed horseflesh like that can't be all bad. Anyway, they say there aren't enough of us to ride back safely after we leave their borders, because of bandits and other swine. But they have a small caravan bound for somewhere near home, and they've held it for us. They want it to leave right away."

"Well, I guess that's reason enough," Imre said reluctantly. "But I'll miss hearing my own language and seeing good, honest Magyar people. Compared to these people, Nils will seem like a native Magyar. And unless I talk to myself, his is likely to be the only Magyar speech I'll hear." He grinned. "If the next time you see me I speak our language with a sing-song, blame it on our little friend. Meanwhile, tell His Highness that we've been hospitably received and beautifully housed, and I expect that when they've adjusted to our differences in custom, we'll be quite happy."

They walked out together and Bela shook their hands and left.

When Imre and Nils had finished a light meal of sweetened fruit and cream, the steward returned, announcing himself this time with a small bell. Not only his black eyes and bland face were unreadable; the man covered his mind with a wash of no-thought. The household staff here might need to develop that for survival, Nils realized.

"If your Lordship is ready," the steward said, bowing again to Imre, "His Holiness will see you now."

The throne room was in the tower, and even its inner walls were obsidian, but it was well lighted by large windows. The ceiling was no more than four meters high, and its length and width about six meters, to enhance the size of its master. The throne was upholstered and the floor carpeted with rich furs. There were four men there. One was a chamberlain—a thin, pale, expressionless man wearing a toga. Two were tall muscular black men wearing loincloths and holding broad curved swords; one stood on each side of the throne room.

The fourth man was Kazi.

The steward dropped to his knees outside the door and crawled two meters inside, moving his forehead along the floor. Nils had never read such genuine unalloyed fear before. "They are here, Your Highness," he announced in his falsetto, and then crawled out backward, his eyes still directed at the floor.

Outside the door, Imre looked nervously at Nils, uncertain what to do next. Nils stepped forward, entered upright, and bowed, then stood aside as if ushering Imre in. Imre braced himself, set his face, and followed.

Kazi arose. He was easily the largest man either of them had ever seen, something more than two meters tall, and utterly naked. He was neatly jointed but hugely muscled, and grossly, almost unfeasibly, male. His skin was dark—not brown but almost gun-metal blue, like some of the natives of southern India. The lean, aquiline face was a caricature of evil, and a slight, mocking smile showed perfectly white teeth. He appeared to be about thirty years old.

The air was heavy with the power he exuded.

He gestured toward two low cushions on opposite sides of the chamber, each in front of a guard, and remained standing until his visitors were seated. Then he lowered himself to the throne and rested his eyes on Nils.

"I have awaited you with interest."

The Anglic words came from the lips of the chamberlain, but the chamberlain's mind was completely blank, and there was no doubt that the words were from the mind of Kazi.

Nils nodded.

"And you planned that I should have you brought here. Did it occur to you that that would be very dangerous?"

Not a muscle moved in Nils's relaxed face.

"Unless, of course, you came here to take service with me?" Ahmed was right, Kazi thought. He does not screen; his consciousness simply does not talk to itself. I have never seen this before, except in idiots.

"You wouldn't have me in your service," Nils answered calmly.

"Why not?"

"Because you can't read my mind."

Kazi's flash of anger staggered his chamberlain, and even Imre, sitting ignored and bewildered, felt it strongly, blanching. Now Kazi's own lips spoke. "I can read your mind to the finest detail if I wish, if you should survive long enough."

"You're not likely to do that," Nils replied matter-of-factly. "You brought me here because you're extremely curious about me, and there is little in the world that is interesting to you anymore. And you are very old and do not age; time is not important to you. You will wait and explore me with your wits and questions rather than destroy me."

Kazi allowed his brows to raise for a moment, then turned to Imre. "Your large friend thinks I am very old. How old do you take me for?"

Imre was almost afraid to speak. "Thirty?" he replied hesitantly.

"The boy says thirty," Kazi looked at Nils with something like amusement. "Then why do you say I am very old?"

"I sense it."

"You can't see into my mind."

"No, I simply sense it. And if you are very old but look thirty, then it follows that you do not age."

Kazi gazed intently at Nils. "I could have you killed in an instant."

"I have died before."

Kazi's eyes narrowed. "I have heard of that belief. But if it is true, yet you do not remember from one life to the next, what use is it? Meanwhile, you are young and gifted with a great pulsing body that has much yet to enjoy. You do not know how much." Kazi paused, intent for some mental response that did not come, then went on. "And your mind may be one of the two most unusual minds that exist. It would be enormously interesting to see what could be made of it. You can be a ruler in this world if you wish, have and do almost anything you want."

"I have looked at the great glaciers in the valleys of the north," Nils replied. "It is said they are growing toward the sea and that they have grown before and covered the whole land with ice and then disappeared, time and again. Even you won't live until they melt one time, because you couldn't stand it that long. I have looked at the stars on a clear night. They are said to be so far away that from some of them the light I saw has been a thousand times a thousand years coming. So what is this you offer?"

Kazi stared at him for long seconds, then his mind shot out a command. One tall guard raised his sword and swung with all the strength of his powerful right arm and shoulder. Nils was lunging from his seat on the cushion, but the weapon moved too quickly. Imre's head struck the floor without rolling, the carpeting was so thick and soft. Nils felt sharp steel against his back and stared as Imre's body toppled slowly sideways, blood spurting from the neck.

"So. You are subject to emotion, after all," Kazi said pleasantly. "The difference is that there is no positive feedback. It flashed and died. Have you ever thought of yourself as . . ." He paused. There was no word for it which would have meaning for a barbarian, or for any man of this age. "As a computer?" he finished.

Nils sat, relaxed again, watching Kazi without answering.

"And where did you learn about ice ages and the distances between stars?"

"From a wise man."

"Of your own people?"

"No. My people have lost such knowledge. I learned it after I began my travels."

"And why do you believe such strange stories?"

"Because they are true."

"And you sense truth?" Kazi gazed thoughtfully at him for a long minute. "I will think about you for a while. Return to your apartment. And if you want anything—drinks, girls, someone to answer questions—strike the gong you find there. Tomorrow you will attend the games with me. You will find them interesting."

* * *

Imre's things still lay on a bench when Nils entered. He struck the gong softly, and very soon a girl appeared to stand silently. "Take these things away," he said. "Their owner is dead."

Apparently the girl understood Anglic because she bent and picked them up.

"Also," Nils added, "I would like the company of someone who can answer my questions."

"I will tell the steward," she said, her voice quiet and accented.

Nils went into his own chamber then. Its window faced west, and the evening sun shone in. He became aware of a sense of depression, and looked at it for a few seconds so that it went away. Drawing the heavy curtains he lay down and closed his eyes, seeming to fall asleep at once. But a part of him remained aware, and after a time he knew that someone was coming up the stairs to the terrace outside. It was a young woman, a psi, and she was coming to find him.

He swung his powerful legs over the side of the bed, got up and walked to the door. The sun had just set, but the western sky was so cloudless and free of haze that it showed little color other than silver blue. The girl was just outside, and stopped, facing him as his big torso blocked the way.

"You were resting; perhaps I came too soon." She phrased her thoughts in Anglic, not speaking. "I am Nephthys. My father directed me to come to you and answer your questions if I am able."

She was awesomely beautiful.

His answer was also unvoiced. "I was waiting, not resting." He stepped back into the room.

She followed, and sat gracefully on a couch. Nils had hardly needed the brief mental identification of "father" she had given him. Her color, psi, and fine-boned face indicated that she was Kazi's daughter.

Nephthys could not read Nils's interpretation, but her knowingness anticipated it. "In a sense he is not my father," her thoughts continued. "The body he wears now is that of a half-brother. But at one time he wore the body of my father—his is the mind, the ego-essence, the continuity of experience, memory and identity, that was, is, my father. It is as father that I think of him. Do you understand?"

"I'm beginning to. He does age, then, but before he becomes old, he somehow occupies a new body without . . . without dying, without forgetting. And he fathers a series of bodies to equip himself properly, the way the lords of the Danes and the Magyars breed special lines of horses in order to have good mounts."

She nodded. "He has two harems, small but highly select. One is of beauties, for pleasure; my mother was one of these. The other is to provide young men from which he can select a physical successor."

"And does he change bodies for special purposes, as a knight may use one horse to travel on, another for hunting and a third for battle?"

"No," she answered, half-smiling at the analogy. "The transfer is difficult, requiring days of preparation, and the drugs for both bodies are unpleasant. His emotions at such a time, and those of the other, are of men fighting with death."

Nils moved to another subject. "And I suppose he plans to march north with his armies very soon."

"How did you know?"

"He concentrated this army of horse barbarians for a reason. And he won't keep them here long because of the problems of feeding them and keeping them from fighting each other out of idleness and boredom. And he already rules these plains and all the lands to the south, while in the west the mountain tribes of the South Slavs give him tribute and slaves. And up the Duna are the Magyars, whose king has agreed to strike north and west with his army at your father's command, into the lands of the Germans and Bohemians. I learned that from the mind of the Magyar king himself. But north of here are the lands of the Ukrainians and Poles, still independent, with rich pastures and farms and large herds of cattle and horses. And a good route to western Europe; there aren't any mountains to cross. But I have only a vague idea of how many men Kazi has."

"I've heard him say he has ten thousand orcs ready to march. That doesn't include garrisons that must be left behind to control the empire. And those ten thousand are equal to twice that number of any other soldiers, in fighting effectiveness. Beyond that he has gathered twenty thousand horse barbarians. Their loyalties are to their chiefs, but he has made those chieftains his."

She stopped then, looking at and into Nils. "This place is deadly for you," she said. "Why did you come here?"

He looked intently back at her, and even her dark skin flushed, because his thoughts were clearly on her and she could not read them.

"Let me ask instead why you came here," Nils countered. "Why did your father send you instead of one of his officers who could answer questions that you can't."

"You know already."

"Only by inference, and not deeply."

"His girl children, if they are beautiful enough, he trains as prizes or gifts or bribes for chiefs and kings. And when they have accepted one of us, they are caught. For there are no others like us, and we are psis. We are trained not only to please them but to influence and control them. But although you are a man, you are a different sort of man, and not predictable. The reason I was chosen instead of another is that I am receptive at this time. Father believes he may have to kill you and that it would be a shame if you died without issue, your genes lost." She looked at Nils without embarrassment. "But as you can see, the thought is not unpleasant to me. I have never known anyone like you. You intrigue me. And my father is right; if you must die, your genes should not be lost."

Nils's mind spoke again to the girl, but his thoughts were framed primarily for her father, whom he knew must be monitoring them. "Kazi senses an attribute in me that he doesn't understand, and he wants it. If not from me, then from my offspring. Despite his own experience he thinks it is heritable. And I'd give it to him if I could, for it would change him." Nils sat with his mind still for a few moments, then thought again. "Your father has more on earth than any other man, but he finds little pleasure in it. And although he may conquer Europe, he won't rule it long, because he is getting ready to die."

In his chamber, Kazi stared unseeingly out at Mars, the evening star, above the horizon. The thoughts he had just overhead were clear enough in his mind, but it refused to analyze them.

XV

In the early morning sunlight the steward discreetly rang his little bell on the terrace, but Nephthys had already left. Nils looked out the door instead of calling him in. "What do you want?" Nils asked.

"I have been sent to waken you so that you may eat before you go to meet His Holiness."

Nils grinned at him. "I'm awake. Where is the food?"

Calmly, without speaking, the steward turned and left. This morning Nils's bath was cool instead of hot. When he had dressed, the quiet girl who had served him the day before brought a tray of soft-boiled eggs, sweetened porridge, berries and milk. He had hardly finished when he heard the steward's little bell again.

As they walked along the terrace and down the stairs, Nils looked out across the city. There were many orcs on foot in the street, while among the distant tent camps outside the city rose the dust clouds of thousands of mounted men. Movement was in the direction of a large stone structure, of a type unfamiliar to Nils, in an open space at the end of the city's widest street.

Just outside the courtyard a large bronze chariot waited, ornamented with gold and harnessed to four magnificent black horses. In front and behind were elite guards on comparable animals. Nils was directed to sit in the carriage, and after a few minutes Kazi appeared with his two personal guards. He was naked as before, except for jewelled harness and an immense sword and dagger, and rode standing, grim-faced and cold, a huge obscene satyr figure preceded and followed by a roar of orc voices in the street and a great surge of emotion that Nils read as an overwhelming broth of fear, adoration and hopelessness.

The large stone structure was a stadium. The open ground around it had row upon row of hitching posts, where thousands of horses stood in a haze of dust raised by hundreds more being ridden into the area by horse barbarians.

The arena itself was an oval of about forty by seventy meters, encircled by a wall five meters high. Around it rose tier upon tier of seats rapidly filling with armed men. The north-facing side, which held the royal box, was clearly reserved for orcs; the rest of it held horse barbarians. Kazi's throne was on a low pedestal. To each side, slightly ahead and a half-meter lower, were several other upholstered seats, obviously for guests. Only one was occupied, by Nils. Behind Nils and next to him stood Kazi's two personal guards. Others of the elite guard stood around the perimeter of the box.

Near one end of the field was a stone pillar eight or ten meters high, topped by an open platform.

Squatting chained on the platform was a large beast, a troll, deformed, with a great hump on its back and one arm that was only partially developed, ending in a single hooked finger. A man stood beside it.

Kazi looked at it through Nils's eyes, and his question entered Nils's mind without having been verbalized.

"It's a troll," Nils answered. "I was told it's probably a species brought from the stars by the ancients."

"Your teacher was an astute man." Kazi turned his own eyes toward the grotesque. "By nature it's a hunter, broadcasting terror vocally and psionically to confuse its prey. This one comes from inbreeding a voiceless mutant strain, and is only able to echo and amplify emotions that it senses around it. The man beside it is a psi, who directs its attention to the victims in the arena so the spectators can fully enjoy their fear and agony. It's one of the greatest emotional experiences possible to them."

"Can trolls be used as fighters?" Nils asked.

"No. Even from carefully selected breeding stock they proved too stupid, and they terrify the soldiers." Kazi turned and looked steadily at and into Nils. "None of this seems to disturb you. We'll see how you like the exhibitions; there may be hope for you yet."

* * *

The seats were nearly full now; only a trickle of men still moved in the aisles. Nils believed nearly all of the men Nephthys had mentioned must be in the stadium. Kazi stood, raising an arm and sending a psi command. Trumpeters at the parapet raised long brass horns and blew, the high, clear note belling loud even in the uppermost seats.

At one end of the arena a gate opened. Four very tall, slender man, almost black, strode onto the field, the gate closing behind them. The troll immediately picked up their emotions—uncertainty, caution, a contained fear. They were naked and unarmed. A single trumpet blew, and a gate opened at the other end of the field. Ten tiny figures trotted out, no larger than children. Each carried a stabbing spear about as long as himself, fastened to his wrist by a chain. The troll's mind turned for a moment to the pygmies and poured out their cold, implacable hatred for the tall persecutors of their race, then picked up the shock of recognition and alarm from the victims.

The pygmies consulted for a moment and then formed a row, trotting toward the tall men, who separated, two running toward each side of the oval. Instantly the pygmy line turned toward two of them. One continued running along the base of the wall. The other turned toward the closed gate, and the line followed him. His fear turned to desperation as he saw himself singled out, and his long legs flashed as he tried to run around them. The crowd experienced his dismay as he was cut off, and he stopped, spun, doubled back and stopped again. Then he took several driving steps directly toward the pygmies and hurdled high, clearing the nearest by a meter, but a broad blade stabbed upward and the flash of shock and terror almost drowned out the flame of pain in his groin and lower abdomen.

The next tall black that the pygmies singled out was a different cut of man. Cornered, he feinted, drawing a thrust from the nearest pygmy. With an explosion of savage joy he grabbed the shaft of the spear, spun, and jerked the tiny man off his feet, snapping the chain. But he was armed too late. Another spear sliced across the back of his ribs and sank into his upper arm. His surge of rage and frustration filled the stadium as he spun again, slashing and stabbing, and went down beneath a flurry of thrusts.

During the melee another of the tall blacks had rushed into the rear of the pygmies, striking with a calloused foot driven by a long sinewy thigh, killing pouring from him, and when he went down, he had broken two small necks.

The remaining tall man stood near the center of the arena, watching the five surviving pygmies trot toward him. His mind was fogged with fear, unable to function. For a moment the troll was tuned again to the hunters, and the crowd sensed that they intended to play with the last victim. He broke then and ran toward the wall. His leap upward was a prodigy of strength, but his fingers found only smooth stone. He fell to the sand and knelt with his forearms across his face, paralyzed. The pygmies killed him quickly in disgust, and the crowd roared.

A gate opened, and after a moment's hesitation they trotted out of sight, while a cart rolled across the sand and the bodies were thrown into it. Meanwhile, two men with spades dug a hole in the middle of the arena.

When the cart had left, the trumpets blew again. A horse walked into the arena dragging a post. Spiked to it and braced were two cross pieces, a large X with a man spread-eagled on it, robust and hairy. The post was hoisted, dropped into the hole and tamped into place.

"An officer of mine," Kazi commented, "with a mind given to disloyal fantasies."

The man hung there in the bright sunshine, and his amplified emotion was a roiling cloud of hate that filled the stadium. A single trumpet sounded and two men walked onto the sand, followed by two others with a small chest fitted with carrying poles. They came from the gate that the victim faced, and the crowd felt his grim recognition and the defiance and determination that followed.

The two men were artists, and defiance and hatred were quickly displaced. At informal affairs they might have made him last for hours, for he had a constitution like a bull, but now they had a schedule to keep, and their purpose was a maximum of agony and emotional degradation while time trickled in tiny white grains through the narrow waist of their glass.

When the sand was cleared again, four robed and hooded figures were led out by a soldier. Two men with megaphones followed.

"They are members of a religious sect," Kazi's mind remarked to Nils, "with very strong superstitions and taboos. This will appeal especially to my orcs."

Each man with a megaphone explained in two languages what would happen. At each recitation some part of the crowd burst into coarse laughter. The emotional pickup indicated that the women understood the last language. The crowd waited expectantly and again the single trumpet blew. Kazi leaned forward intently.

The initial flood of shock and loathing that the troll had echoed dropped to a low wash of almost unbearable fascination and dread that gripped the crowd for slow moments, swelling gradually and holding them silent. Then their minds were torn by pain and shrill terror. The guard beside Nils was staring forward, oblivious to anything but the spectacle, his sword arm bent rigidly, his knuckles tight. Nils rose, thrusting back hard with an elbow into the man's groin as he turned, grabbing the sword wrist with steel fingers. He tore the sword from the man's agony-loosened grip and thrust it into the guard on the step behind him. The disarmed guard beside him, though half-doubled and gasping with pain, wrapped burly arms around Nils's waist and lunged forward, throwing him against the throne pedestal.

In that moment Kazi became aware and turned. In a shock of surprised fear he struck wildly but powerfully with a huge fist. A metallic taste, and blackness, filled Nils's head as he fell sideways and lay still.

* * *

Nils awoke from the wetness of a pail of water thrown on him. His hands were tied behind him, and the side of his aching face lay on packed sand foul with the smell of animal urine. He heard the muffled sound of trumpets, and rough hands pulled him upright to send him stumbling through a gate into the dazzling brightness of the arena. Bars closed behind him and a voice growled in Anglic to back up to them so that his bonds could be cut. He did. A short sword was tossed between the bars and he picked it up. Glancing back, he saw three bowmen standing behind the gate with arrows nocked on sinews.

His loose pantaloons and robe were gone. Moving out of line with the gate, Nils stayed close to the wall, waiting. The troll found only a high calm to echo, and the crowd, after a moment, began to murmur in puzzlement. A single trumpet blew.

Four great wild dogs came through the opposite gate. They stood for a moment, dazzled and confused by the bright sunlight and the chaos of sounds and smells, then saw him and approached at a tentative trot.

Nils stood relaxed and waiting, and the dogs stopped a dozen meters away. They were hungry but also curious and wary, for they had never encountered a man who acted like this one. The largest sat down on the sand, facing Nils, tongue lolling, and the crowd began to grumble. The dogs looked up toward the noise and anger, forgetting for a moment the curiosity on the sand before them. Things began to land around them—iron knuckles, knives, even helmets. Suddenly the leader stood, teeth bared, hackles raised, looking up into the stands. From behind the bars arrows hummed, striking deeply, and the beasts lay jerking or dead, making bloody patches on the sand.

Then nothing. The sun burned down. Nils waited silently and at ease while the stands murmured. Somewhere someone was improvising. At length a single trumpet blew again, and a gate opened. A male lion trotted out, in his prime and unfed, and like the dogs stood dazzled for a moment. His gaze settled on the dead dogs, perhaps drawn there by the smell of blood, and then moved to the solitary man. Nils touched its mind and found hunger and anger. It stood for a moment, tail switching from side to side, then stalked slowly across the sand. Still the troll echoed no fear, and the crowd watched fascinated. Thirty meters away the lion stopped for a long moment, tail lashing now, staring at the man before it, then suddenly rushed forward with shocking speed. Nils crouched, not knowing whether it would spring or simply charge into him. At the last instant he threw himself sideways, twisting and striking as he fell away. The lion struck the wall and turned, snarling, a wound pouring blood from the side of its neck, and a cheer arose from the stands.

Nils had landed in a crouch, but had barely set himself when the lion moved toward him again, at close quarters now, boxing at him with a huge and deadly paw. It was a feint so quick that Nils did not have time to be drawn out before the animal lunged at him. Nils sprang back, striking again, the sword laying back the flesh of the lion's cheek and jaw so that for an instant it recoiled, and Nils attacked, striking again and again in an astonishing fury that stunned the stands. The lion fell to its side with a broken sword in its skull, its sinewy body and hindquarters flexing and jerking, while Nils's arm chopped twice more with a bladeless hilt.

He stood then, chest heaving and sweat dripping from the charge of energy that had surged through him, stunned by the simple fact of life, while the stands came apart with noise. He realized that he was not even scratched, and stood calmly again, the tremor fading from his hands and knees, waiting weaponless for what would come next.

* * *

He didn't wait long. When the third trumpet blew, a narrow gate opened and an orc officer entered the arena. Tall, muscular, he strode several paces out onto the sand, then stood grinning around at the stands and brandishing his sword overhead. From the orcs there rose a storm of cheers and whistles that drowned out the murmurs and scattered hoots from the seats on the other side. The troll focused its psi sense on the mind of the sinewy, sun-bronzed orc, broadcasting the sadistic anticipation it found there. Then it gave its attention to Nils, where it found only watchfulness. The orc was still fifteen meters away when a barbarian in the stands threw a long curved sword at Nils's feet. He pounced on it and, as quickly as the lion, charged at the startled officer. For a moment steel clashed against steel while the crowd roared. But only for a moment. Nils's blade sliced through neck and chest, shearing ribs like brittle sticks, the force of the blow driving the man to his knees and carrying Nils off-balance so that he staggered and caught himself on one hand in the blood-slimed sand. He looked at it and arose, grim and fearsome, above the nearly bisected corpse.

And the cheers died. Kazi stood dark and terrible in his box, holding the troll's mind with his like a club—buffeting the crowd with his rage until they huddled cold with shock and fear . . . orc and barbarian alike. He turned to Nils then, and in that instant Nils struck with his own mind, through the lens of the troll, a shaft of pure deadliness that he had not known he had, so that Kazi staggered back and fell, consciousness suddenly blacked out by the overload.

Men lay sprawled against each other in the stands or sat slumped, stupefied. Nils sprinted to the gate and reached a brawny forearm between two bars to grasp and turned the heavy bolt latch. He stepped across the tangle of archers while a burly orc sat slumped against a wall, staring dully at him. Nils traded sheathless sword for the orc's harness and weapons. Sensing the return of awareness in the man he ran him through, then loped across the chamber and up a ramp. The unlocked gate at its end yielded easily to his pull and he was in a concrete chute that led into the open. He loped up that and climbed a gate. A few horse barbarians were outside, none near, moving uncertainly through the rows of horses or staring up at the stands. Nils could sense the slow return of consciousness behind him. Dropping to the dusty ground, he sauntered casually in among the nervous stamping horses, careful to avoid being kicked.

Near the outer edge of the horse park he chose a powerful stallion whose great haunches would not tire quickly under his weight. Standing before it, he tuned to its simple, nervous mind, holding its bridle and stroking its velvety nose until it stood calmly, eyes on him and ears forward. Then he stepped beside it, reached for the stirrup with a foot, and hoisted himself easily into the saddle.

It guided much like a Swedish pony, but it was much more—the mount of a chief of horse barbarians—and Nils urged it into an easy trot down a broad, dusty lane separating the camps of two Turkish tribes.

XVI

The sun was a red ball hanging two fingers above the horizon. When the guard on a gate tower could no longer see its blood-colored upper rim, he would blow a horn and that gate would be closed.

The road outside the south gate of Pest was crowded with peasants on foot and in carts, and a few horsemen, leaving the city while the gate was still open. A smaller number struggled against the current to enter. An impatient merchant threatened them with the bulk and hooves of his big gelding, striking occasionally with his quirt at some peasant head as he pushed his way, cursing, through the crowd. Just ahead of him a huge peasant in a ragged cloak half turned and, taking the bridle in a large, thick hand, slowed the horse. Incensed at the impertinence, the merchant stood in his stirrups, quirt raised. The blue eyes that met his neither threatened nor feared; if anything, they were mildly interested and perhaps very slightly amused. Reddening, the merchant sat down again, to be led through the gate at the pace of a peasant walking in a crowd.

A little inside the gate, Nils let go the bridle and turned down the first side street that circled inside the city. He had several purposes: kill Ahmed, tell Janos what had happened to Imre, and take Ahmed's psi tuner. But it would be dangerous to try to enter the palace until Ahmed was asleep. The man's psi was remarkably sensitive and alert, and he had henchmen in Janos's guard, one of them a psi. If he detected Nils either directly or through the mind of someone who saw and recognized him, he could be expected to act instantly to have the northman murdered.

Walking the streets was as good a way as any to kill time until Ahmed should have retired.

Pest was a very large town for its time, with a wall eight kilometers around. The narrow, cobbled outer street was walled on each side by two-storied buildings broken only by intersecting streets and an occasional small courtyard or dark and narrow passage. Most of the buildings were dwellings—some tenements and some the homes of merchants or artisans with their places of business. Near each of the city gates the dwellings gave way to taverns, inns and stables. There the night air was heavy with the pungency of horses and hay, the rancid odor of dried urine from walls and cobblestones, and the faint residual sweet-sour smell of last night's vomit.

Nils took a slow two hours to walk around the outer street and was approaching the gate by which he had entered, when several knights came out of a tavern. They were at the stage of the evening when their inhibitions, never the strongest, were negligible, but their coordination was not yet seriously impaired. The smallest of them, oblivious to everything but the gesture-filled story he was telling, almost walked into Nils in the semi-darkness of the street, then suddenly recoiled from the near collision.

"Peasant swine! Watch where you're going!"

"Excuse me, sir, I meant no harm."

The knight's eyes narrowed. Truly a very big peasant. "Excuse you? You almost walked into me, you stupid clod." His sword was in his hand. "I may excuse you at that, though, if you get down on your knees and beg nicely enough."

The knights had surrounded Nils now, each with drawn sword. He sensed a severe beating here, with injuries possibly serious, unless he did something to forestall it. He began to kneel, slowly and clumsily, then lunged forward, left hand clutching the sword wrist of his accoster, his right crushing the knight's nose and upper mandible as he charged over him. Stumbling on the falling knight, Nils caught himself on one hand and sprang forward again to flee, but the point of a wildly swung sword sliced one buttock deeply.

Even so, within fifty meters the knights gave up the chase. But in the intersection just ahead was a patrol of wardens, bows bent. One let go an arrow at Nils's belly. Reacting instantly, he dodged and ran on a few paces, another arrow driving almost through his thick left thigh. He stopped, nearly falling, aware that if he didn't, the other wardens would surely shoot him down. The knights behind him came on again, and Nils turned to face them.

"Wait!" one shouted. "I know this man."

And now Nils knew him, not by his appearance, for he had shaved his beard and wore jerkin and hose, but by the picture in the man's mind. He had been one of Lord Lajos's border patrol that had intercepted Nils on the river ice when he had first entered Hungary.

"You heard the clod talk," the knight said. "He's a foreigner. I remember him by his size and yellow hair. The one who escaped from the dungeon last year and killed several of the guards doing it."

"That one! Let's finish him."

"No!" The man who had recognized Nils grabbed the other by the arm. "He's worth many forints to us alive. We can take him to the palace and have him put in the dungeon for attacking a knight. He won't escape this time—not in the shape he's in. Then we'll send word to Lord Lajos. He'll want the foreigner, and he's the king's guest. The king will oblige, and you can bet that Lajos will pay us all well."

Quickly they threw Nils to the cobblestones, pushed the head of the arrow out through the back of the thickly muscled leg, and broke the shaft in front of the feathers. Then they pulled it out and stuffed pieces of his rags into the hole to slow the flow of blood.

* * *

Ahmed sat straight and intent at his desk. There could be no doubt about it; the prisoner just brought into the palace was the big barbarian, and his friends in the palace guard would not be happy about it. He had better act now. Opening a little chest on his desk he took out a sheet of parchment and hurried from the room.

* * *

Nils lay in a cell neither shackled nor locked in. One of the guard knelt beside him cleaning the wound with big, careful hands. Nils's calm gray face showed no interest in the sudden commotion down the passageway.

"The King!" a voice shouted.

"That'll do it," said the guard, standing. "He'll get you out of here."

But Nils did not sit up. He saw the king's mind clearly.

In a moment Janos stood before the cell, his voice grim with hate. "You filth! You swine! The boy would have given you almost anything, but you wanted what he would not give—his decency." Janos turned to the physician who had hurried, wheezing, behind him. "See that he's able to walk again by the next holiday. I want him to walk to the gallows. And I want him strong enough to take a long time to choke—he'll learn how Imre felt being strangled."

For a moment more he glared at Nils, then turned and walked swiftly away.

* * *

Janos stood at his window, staring unseeingly into the early June dawn. In his grief and bitterness he had not slept. Yet he was past the peak of it and could think again. He had liked his big barbarian guard and had never sensed his weakness. But you couldn't know what a barbarian might do.

There was a rap on his chamber door. He turned.

"Yes?"

A guard opened it apologetically. "I could hear you moving around, Your Highness, and knew you were awake. Sergeant Bela would like to talk to you."

"At this hour? What about?"

"The barbarian, Your Highness."

The king stared at him with narrowed eyes. "All right, let him in. But you and Sandor stay with us."

Bela was ushered in and dropped immediately to one knee. The words began to pour out. "Your Highness, I've heard what has been said about the barbarian—what you have been told. And I've talked to him." Without a pause he told about the friendship between Nils and Imre, their joking closeness, of being with them continuously on the barge and of his farewell to them in the City of Kazi. "And Your Highness, I know it's not true. He couldn't have been that way without some of us seeing some sign of it and speaking of it. He just couldn't have done it. It would be impossible for him. He says that Kazi himself had Imre killed, on a whim. And it's true, Your Highness; I know it. By my life I swear he is telling the truth!"

"Shut up!" shouted Janos. "By your life, eh? Guards, take this lunatic out of here and lock him up." The shaken guards put the points of their swords to Bela's chest, and he stood.

"I swear it, Your Highness," Bela said in little more than a whisper. "Nils is telling the truth. He doesn't know how to lie."

* * *

The door of Ahmed's chamber opened quietly and Janos's two guards stepped in and to the side. The king entered behind them and walked up to the cot of the sleeping Sudanese. Drawing back the blanket he placed his dagger point at Ahmed's throat, laying his hand on the dark arched brow so the man would not lift his head abruptly.

"Ahmed. Wake up."

Ahmed awoke fully alert at the words and knew his danger instantly. He touched the mind of his own bodyguard, fading in death outside his door. The king's mind was cold and hard, and he knew that this time it could not be cozened.

"You said the letter came yesterday. Why didn't you show it to me until tonight?"

"As I said, Highness, I couldn't bring myself to give it to you at first. I knew how terrible the news would be for you."

"Liar! You have never had a merciful thought. And why did Kazi send it to you instead of to me?"

Never a merciful thought. He is almost right, Ahmed realized. Not for many years. The Sudanese was suddenly tired and didn't particularly care what happened to him, but he answered anyway, sensing it would do no good.

"He sent it to me so that I could use my judgement as to whether or when to give it to you."

The king's eyes were slitted, his grim face pale in the dawn light. "The barbarian has said that Kazi had the boy killed. How do you answer that?"

"The barbarian lies."

Janos's voice dropped to a hoarse undertone. "And do you remember what you told me after you first looked into his mind, early last winter?"

Ahmed simply looked at the king, too tired to answer. He felt the mind explode at him in the same instant the blade plunged in, watched in dim and heavy apathy as his body first stiffened, then slowly relaxed. It . . . could . . . not . . .

Tears of release and grief washed down the king's cheeks as he spoke to the dark corpse. "You said he didn't lie—that he wasn't able to lie. Now I know who the liars were, and have been all along, and I sent my son, the boy who was like a son to me, to be killed by him."

He turned to his guards, who stood with their jaws hanging in gross astonishment. "Get this carrion out of here," he rasped. And pointing to the corpse of Ahmed he added, "And see that that one is fed to the swine."

XVII

Early in the morning, under the fussy directions of the asthmatic physician, the strong hands of guards lifted Nils onto a litter and carried him from the dungeon to a softer bed. He gave them almost no attention, for he was busy using a skill Ilse had taught him. He was healing his body.

Ilse was aware of the cellular structure of tissues—the Kinfolk had maintained all they could of ancient knowledge—and the circulation of the blood was known by everyone. That knowledge was not very functional, though, in the sense that she could do much with it. It served mainly to provide a sense of understanding. But the body itself understands the body much better than any physiologist ever had. The ability her father had developed and taught her was the ability to impose conscious purpose on autonomic physiological processes.

Therefore, Nils didn't try to think of a cell or a tissue. He simply fixed his attention totally on a whole and undamaged thigh and buttock, with a completeness of concentration that Ilse had developed through disciplined practice but that he had mastered almost as quickly as the possibility had been demonstrated to him.

Although his eyes were closed, his other senses received the thoughts, sounds, smells and touches that encountered them. But in his trancelike concentration, that part of him which screened sensory data for referral to action centers or to the higher level analytical center, operated on a basis of passing only emergency messages.

The physician sat beside him, aware that the wisest thing to do was nothing. For despite the profoundness of Nils's trance, he clearly was not in a coma. His breathing was deep and regular, his brow neither hot nor cold, and his heartbeat was strong.

Beginning about midday Nils awakened periodically for water and nourishment. After eating lightly and drinking, he would return to his healing trance.

By early on the fourth day healing was far advanced, and Nils walked with Janos to Ahmed's chamber. A servant with hammer and chisel broke the hasp on the chest they found there. Nils opened it, took out a gray plastic boxed stamped with the meaningless symbols:

PROP INST MENTAL PHEN

UNIV TEL AVIV

and flipped the switch.

The instruments once used for "finding" other tuners had used electricity and had long since been inoperable and lost. Without knowing the setting of a particular tuner there was no real possiblity of tuning to it. Nils's memory was precise, however; he set the coarse tuning, then the fine, and then the microtuner. Finally, carefully, he set the vernier. Then he looked at the number stamped on the case and held in his mind the clear picture of a series of digits: 37-02-103-8. He waited for several moments. It was the time of day when members of the Inner Circle communicated.

"Nils!" Raadgiver had recognized his mind. The wait had been the time necessary to duplicate the setting Nils's mind had held for him. "Where are you, Nils? And what set is that? I've never heard of that number before."

Nils reran the audio-visual sequence of relevant events for Raadgiver's mind, beginning with the ambush in the Bavarian forest.

Raadgiver digested the information for a few moments and then began. Kazi had begun his invasion, landing his army from a fleet of ships on the north coast of the Black Sea. His advance forces had easily broken the resistance of local Ukrainian nobles. The Inner Circle had a substantial picture of events. One of the Wandering Kin, with a psi tuner, had been sent from the court of Saxony to King Vlad of the South Ukraine in the expectation that Kazi would strike there first.

In spite of the atrocities being committed, Vlad was not seriously trying to defend his kingdom, which was mostly open steppe. Instead he was pulling back his army of nearly four thousand knights to join with Nikolas of the North Ukraine, numbering about twenty-five hundred. They hoped to make a stand in the northwest, where the grasslands were interspersed with forest, providing an opportunity for a cavalry guerrilla and the prospect of help from the neighboring Poles.

"The best army in Kazi's way," Raadgiver continued, "is that of Casimir of Poland. It has been a curse to the Balts, the Ukrainians, the Saxons and Prussians for years, and when fully gathered, it numbers perhaps six thousand. Most important, it is disciplined and well led. Casimir is gathering it now, and the Prussians and Saxons are gathering theirs. We have spread the word everywhere.

"But now there is another invasion, in northern Poland, by the northmen, your own people. There are still only a few, perhaps two hundred, holding a tiny area on the coast, but their position is impossible to attack on horseback because of marshes, and a force of knights sent against them on foot was routed. And more are expected, for they have stolen several Polish and Danish ships.

"When enough have landed they will surely try to break out of the section they hold now, so Casimir is sending a strong army that will attack them when they move. And the King of Prussia is holding his army to fight them, too. And by holding these armies from joining with the Ukrainians, the neovikings are destroying what little chance we have against Kazi."

Raadgiver read the question in Nils's mind. "It was the winter that caused it," the counselor explained. "In Denmark it was the worst ever. In the northlands it was so bad that your tribes felt they would hardly survive another. We captured several wounded when Norsk raiders took a Danish ship, and I questioned them and read their minds. The three tribes have joined in this and plan to move all their people before winter if they can.

"It's not northern Poland they're interested in. They hope to cross the continent to the Mediterranean. They'll never make it, of course; all of them together are far too few. They underestimate the Poles and the Germans. But they are weakening us at a critical time."

Nils interrupted. "Who is their war chief?"

"A man called Scar Belly."

"Ah, Björn Ärrbuk! I would rather fight the troll again, or even the lion. And he is the greatest raid leader of the Svear, as my clan has learned by experience. You would take the tribes more seriously if you knew him better.

"Now, listen to me; this is very important. The tribes can be your salvation instead of your ruin, if they are led against Kazi. But you'll have to keep war from starting between the Poles and the tribes—keep them from wasting one another. For the tribes do what few armies do. They fight on foot more than on horseback, and stealth and cunning are their pride.

"Once you told me that one of the Inner Circle, a Jan Reszke, was counselor to Casimir. Is he still?"

"Yes."

"Good. Tell him I'm coming north to turn the tribes eastward against Kazi. Tell him to keep Casimir from attacking them. Have him urge Casimir to send as many troops as possible against Kazi."

"Are you telling me you can get the tribes to abandon their plans and follow you against Kazi? You're only a youth, and an outcast at that."

"We have a legend in the north," Nils answered. "Once, when the tribes were younger, the Jötar made war on the Svear, and the Jötar were stronger so that it seemed they would destroy and enslave the other tribes. But then a young warrior arose among the Svear who became a raid leader and led several brilliant raids. In one they surprised and killed the chief of the Jötar and several of their clan chieftains.

"This demoralized the Jötar and heartened the Svear, so that the tide was turned. And then the young warrior disappeared, but in their successes no one missed him. For several years the Svear prevailed, burning villages and haystacks and destroying cattle, as the Jötar had before them, until it appeared it was the Jötar who would be destroyed and enslaved.

"And then a young warrior among the Jötar was made a raid leader and led a daring raid which left the chief of the Svear dead, along with several of their principal raid leaders. It was then that both tribes realized this was the same youth who had saved the Svear earlier, but until he wanted them to, they had not been able to recognize him, because he was a wizard. And he said he was not of any clan or tribe but was simply a northman.

"Then he called a council of all the warriors of the three tribes, and they came without weapons, as he told them. And in the council he put before them the bans, and after they had counciled with one another they approved them. They would still fight, for that was their nature, but they would not take each other's land. They could kill men, but not women or children. They could not burn barns or dwellings, but only longhouses. They could burn straw stacks, but not hay stacks. They could steal livestock, but they could not kill what they could not drive away. And they could kill in vengeance only for specified wrongs and within approved feuds.

"And all the clans agreed to this and praised the young warrior, and all the warriors lined up to honor him and clasp his hand. But one warrior hated him because he did not want to change, so he hid a small poisoned knife in his breeches. And when he came up to him, he struck him with it, killing him.

"Then, instead of making a burial mound, they put the body in a canoe and let it float on the river, although they didn't know why. And it floated down the river to the sea and out of sight.

"And then they realized that no one knew his name, so they called him The Yngling. I know that, in Danish, yngling means a youth, a youngling. But among the tribes it has not been so used since, for it can only be used as his name.

"Although some of the details are fanciful, the story is basically true, history as well as legend. And the tribes believe that The Yngling will come again in a time of great need. Maybe this is the time."

For several seconds Raadgiver's mind framed no response, and when it did, it was through a sense of disorientation and some unease. His skin crawled. "I will send one of the Wandering Kin to them, a Dane who has been in Jömark. He will be able to talk to them. But will they believe?"

"Most will neither believe nor disbelieve. But that isn't important. What is important is that they will watch for me, prepared to listen. Can you give me the name of one of the kinfolk near Pest, and how I can find him?"

Nils followed Raadgiver's mind while the counselor looked into the ledger where he kept the names and whereabouts of the more settled kin, as best he knew them. His eyes stopped at a name and location for Nils to read.

"Good. Here is what I'll do before I start north. The Magyars are good fighters, well mounted. I'll send them northeast over the mountains to join the Poles and Ukrainians. Let the Poles and Ukrainians know this. And if your psi, Zoltan Kossuth, is willing and able to go with them, I'll give him this psi tuner. That will give the Magyars contact with the others. He'll get in touch with you later for the settings of any tuners you think he should contact."

I will lead the tribes against Kazi. I will send the Magyars. A weakness, a gray fear, began to settle over Raadgiver. In his long life he had heard big boasts and hollow promises, had even been privy to the minds of megalomaniacs. But those, he told himself, had not been men on whom so much depended. Yet his fear had grown from more than that, and less, grown from something inside him that he did not see, could not look at. Nils's thoughts had seemed insane, but yet they had a sense of certainty and the feel of clear and powerful sanity. And that was impossible. That was insane. The old psi's stable data were dissolving, the keystones of his personal world.

Nils helped him on both counts with a new and simple stable datum, putting it out as if the thought were Raadgiver's own, and the man took it. This is the New Man, maturing. Who knows what He can do? The weakness fell away, replaced by hope.

"Is there anything more you have to tell me?" Nils asked.

"Nothing more," Raadgiver replied.

They saluted each other and Nils replaced the tuner in the chest.

* * *

During the long, voiceless conversation Janos had begun to grow irritated, understanding only that Nils was sitting there silently ignoring him. But he had not interrupted. When it was over, Nils turned.

"Your Highness," he said, "I can do what Ahmed did. I can look into minds and speak without sound to others like me. This—" he gestured to where he had replaced the tuner—"is a means by which two like me can speak to one another with the mind, at great distances. Ahmed was not only a counselor loaned to you. He was also a spy against you, reporting everything to Kazi through this. I was using it now to speak with my teacher on the shore of the northern sea."

There was a copy of an ancient topographic map of Europe on the wall, with the modern states outlined on it. Nils walked over to it. "About here is where Kazi's army is now, with thirty thousand men," he said pointing. "The Ukrainians are far too few to hold him, even if the Poles arrive soon to help. But if you took your army over the mountains, here, your combined forces could delay and damage him until other kings can gather theirs."

Janos frowned. "But Kazi's army is more powerful than all the others put together. Otherwise, I'd never have allied myself with him."

"That's what he wanted you to believe," Nils answered. "And in open battle it would be true. But in that land you could work as small units, striking and then running to cover to strike again elsewhere."

Janos's face sharpened. "And who asked your advice?" he said coldly. "Have you forgotten that you're a foreigner of common blood?"

Nils grinned. "I'm young but not foolish, Your Highness. Yet I do indeed advise," he continued more seriously. "And deep in your mind you know my advice is good, because if you don't combine armies, Kazi will eat you up separately. But you are a king, used to listening to advice only when you've asked for it, and so my boldness offended you. Yet I'm only a foreigner, a commoner, a barbarian, and a mere youth to boot. You wouldn't have asked for my advice, so I had to give it uninvited."

The king stared at Nils for several seconds before a smile began to break his scowl. "You're a scoundrel, barbarian," he said, clapping the warrior's shoulder. "But allowances must be made for barbarians, at least for those who are giants and great swordsmen who can look into the minds of others and speak across half a world and heal dirty wounds in three days. You're right. We must move, for better or for worse, and if need be we'll die like men, with swords in our hands. And you will come with us, and I'll continue to listen to your unasked-for advice."

"Highness," said Nils, suddenly solemn, "with your permission I'll go instead to my own people and lead them against Kazi. They are not numerous, but they fight with a savagery and cunning that will warm your blood to see."

"All right, all right," the king said, shaking his head ruefully. "I bow to your will again. If your people are all like you, they can probably talk Kazi into surrender."

* * *

Janos sent riders ordering the nobles to gather at the palace on the sixth day, which was as soon as the more distant could possibly arrive if they left at once. The orders specified foreign danger to the realm, in order that there would be no delaying by independent lords who might otherwise be inclined to frustrate him.

After two more days spent resting and healing, Nils submitted his newly knitted thigh and hip to a saddle and rode a ferry across the Duna to the town of Buda. He didn't want to send a messenger to Zoltan Kossuth, the psi, in case the request be interpreted as an invitation to a trap.

Nils led his horse off the ferry and spoke to a dockman. "Where can I find the inn of Zoltan Kossuth?" he asked.

"Would that be the Zoltan Kossuth who is called the Bear? Turn left on the outer street. His is the inn just past the South Gate, under the sign of the bear, and the stable next to it is his, too. It's the best inn in town, if you like your inns orderly. The Bear is notorious for throwing out troublemakers with his own tender hands, although"—he sized Nils up with a leer more gaps than teeth—"He'd have his hands more than full trying to throw you out. Not that I'm calling you a troublemaker, you understand, but if you were."

Nils grinned back, mounted, and started down the cobbled street. "And the fare is good for both man and horse," the dockman shouted after him.

Nils strode into the inn, which was quiet at that hour. The keeper was talking with two men who were telling him more than they realized. Tuned for it, Nils had detected the man's psi before reaching the stable, but engrossed as the Bear was in the words and thoughts he was listening to, he wasn't aware of Nils until the barbarian came through the door.

Zoltan Kossuth was not admired for his beauty. His round head had no hair above the ears, but his black beard, clipped somewhat short, grew densely to the eye sockets, and a similar but untrimmed growth bushed out obstreperously through gaps in the front of a shirt that had more than it could do to contain an enormous chest. He was of moderate height, but his burly hundred kilos made him look stubby. Just for a moment he glanced up balefully at the strange psi, then seeing a servant move to wait on Nils, he returned to his conversation.

Nils sat in an inner corner nursing an ale and a bowl of dry beef. He felt no need to interrupt the Bear's conversation, but saw no point in waiting needlessly if the innkeeper's interest in it was not serious. Therefore, he held in his mind for a moment a clear picture of the Bear holding a gray plastic psi tuner, at the same time naming it in case the Bear would not recognize one by sight.

Zoltan Kossuth scowled across at Nils, excused himself from the table and disappeared into a back room. "Who are you and what do you want?" he demanded mentally.

"I am Nils Järnhann, on business of the Inner Circle and the king."

This alarmed the Bear. Covering his intentions and actions with discursive camouflage, he walked to a crossbow hanging on the wall. "I'm not aware that a king of Hungary has had dealings with one of the Inner Circle since old Mihaly, counselor to Janos I, was murdered by an agent of Baalzebub when I was a boy." The Bear cranked the crossbow and set a dart to it. "What I would like to know is how you can be on business which is of both the Inner Circle and of Janos III."

"Put down your weapon, Innkeeper." And Nils ran through his mind a rapid montage of Kazi, of Kazi's guard lopping off the head of Imre Rakosi, and of vile acts in the arena. And the identities of all were clear, although Zoltan Kossuth had not known what Kazi looked like until that moment. And it was clear, too, what Nils's mission had been. Then the picture was of Janos leaning over a cot, slicing open the throat of Ahmed.

The innkeeper was a suspicious man for someone who could read minds, but he accepted this intuitively. Removing the dart, he pulled the trigger with a twang and hung up the crossbow. "And what do you want of me?" he asked.

* * *

When Nils was finished at the inn, he resaddled his horse and left Buda through the West Gate, riding leisurely toward the castle of Lord Miklos, which dominated the town from a nearby hill. Miklos was the town's protector, deriving an important part of his wealth from its tribute. Prairie flowers bloomed along the climbing dusty road, and the moat surrounding the castle was green with the spears of new cattail leaves that had crowded through the broken blades and stalks of last year's growth. The shallow water, already thick with algae, lost as much to the sun in dry weather as it gained from the overflow of the castle's spring and the waste that emptied into it through an odorous concrete pipe.

The countryside was at peace, the drawbridge down, and the gatekeepers at ease. "Who are you, stranger, and what is your business here?" one called genially as Nils drew up his horse at the outer end.

"I want to speak to Lord Miklos. My name is Nils."

The man's mind told Nils that he might not remember such an outlandish name long enough to repeat it to his master's page.

"Tell him it's the big barbarian he rescued from Lord Lajos's castle," Nils added.

A grin split the guard's brawl-sculptured face and he saluted Nils before he turned to carry the message. The ill-feeling between the two nobles was shared by their retainers.

Lord Miklos was sitting on a stool, stripped to the waist, when Nils was ushered into his chamber. One servant was washing the nobleman's feet and ankles while another towelled his still lean torso. "Ah-ha, it is you. Sit down, my friend. I've been in the fields this morning inspecting the work, and that's a dirty occupation in such dry weather. I'm afraid our talk will have to be short, as my vassals are waiting to meet with me at the noon meal. For business. Have you come to join my guard?" He eyed Nils's expensive clothes.

"No, m' Lord." Nils looked at the servants and spoke in Anglic. "I have news for your ears alone."

The old knight straightened and spoke to the servants, who speeded their work and left. "What is it?" he asked.

"I've come to tell you of the king and Baalzebub, but there's quite a bit of it and it will take time. Also, it's best if King Janos doesn't learn about my visit here."

"Plague and death!" Miklos strode to a bell cord and pulled it. In a moment a page entered. "Lad, I don't want to be disturbed until I ring again. Tell my guests I'll be delayed. Tell the steward to hold the meal . . . no, tell him to feed the guests. I'll come later."

The page left and Miklos turned to Nils. "All right, my big friend, tell me everything."

Speaking Magyar, Nils told him of Kazi the Conqueror who was the basis in fact for Baalzebub, of Kazi's military strength and psi power and of his intention to conquer Europe.

"And you say this creature has lived since ancient times and looks into men's minds?"

"Yes. And there are others who can read thoughts," Nils answered. "I'm one of them." Without giving Miklos time to react fully to that, Nils told him of Janos's visit to Kazi's city some years earlier, of his conviction that Kazi could not be withstood and of his decision to ally himself to Kazi when the time came to assume the throne of Hungary. Then, without being specific or complete, he told of the kinfolk, of his commission to murder Kazi, and of his brief service with Janos. And he told of Ahmed, who also was a spy set to report on Janos through the psi tuner.

The old knight's eyes were bright with anger as he arose from his chair. "So this Ahmed looked into our minds when we had audiences with Janos and told him what we thought to keep secret. A lot of things are becoming clear to me now," he said grimly. "We'll have to overthrow him."

"I have not finished, m' Lord. The king has killed Ahmed with his own hand."

Miklos sat down again, confused and prepared to listen.

Nils told of his friendship with Imre Rakosi, of Kazi's demanding the boy, and of their going.

"And Janos sent him! The man is gutless!"

Nils went on to tell of Imre's murder. "But I was lucky enough to escape and returned to Pest to tell the king, and Janos cut Ahmed's throat. And Ahmed had a magic box he used to talk to his master's mind from afar. I know the use of such boxes, and used it to speak to my teacher who lives near the Northern Sea. He told me that Kazi has struck north against the Ukrainians. Casimir of Poland is gathering his army to join the Ukrainians, but he in turn has been invaded by barbarians from the north, so he can send only part of his army against Kazi."

Miklos was on his feet. "Why, man, we should go. Before we are alone. Throw down the traitor and go ourselves. There are no finer fighters in the world than Magyars. I . . ."

Nils interrupted. "That's what Janos plans to do. It's the reason he's called for his nobles. 'We must move for better or for worse,' he said, 'and if need be we'll die like men, with swords in our hands.' "

Miklos stared. "Janos said that? This Janos?" His gaze sharpened. "Why did you come here to tell me this when I'll hear it from Janos himself in a few days? And why did you ask that your visit here be kept secret from him?"

The nobleman's mind was suddenly dark with suspicion.

"Because you've distrusted and despised Janos and might not believe him, while you might well believe me. And you'll be the key man among the nobles. For you are not only the most powerful of them; you're also the most respected, even by your enemies. If you respond with belief and approve the king's plan, the others will follow. But if Janos knew I'd taken it on myself to come here, he'd be mad. My forwardness has already tried his patience."

Miklos looked shrewdly at Nils. "I'll bet it has, at that. I look forward to seeing more of you, northman, for you're as crafty as you are strong, and I enjoy craft in an honest man."

"You'll be disappointed then, m'Lord, because I'm leaving tomorrow. The barbarians distracting Casimir are my own people, and I have to try to bring them in with us instead of unknowingly against us. If you see me again, it will be with them, the tribes of northmen, who, I have to tell you frankly, are the greatest fighters in the world."

It was then Miklos tested Nils. You've said a lot today, he thought silently but deliberately, most of it hard to believe, and asked me to accept it as true. You've asked me to trust Janos, a man I've always distrusted with what I know now to be good reason. So tell me, can you really read my mind?

The grin came back to Nils's face. "Yes m'Lord, and the honest doubts that go with the thoughts."

And Miklos smiled, the first smile Nils had seen on him. "That settles it. I'll do as you ask." He put out a big knobby hand that Nils wrapped in his.

"Thank you, m'Lord." Nils started to leave, then turned at the door. "And sir, don't underestimate the king. His mind does prefer the devious, just as you once told me, but he is no coward."

* * *

That evening Nils introduced Zoltan Kossuth to Janos, and the Bear showed no sign of surliness, for he was nothing if not shrewd. And they talked until late.

* * *

In the morning Nils rode north from the city astride a large strong horse, a prize of Magyar horse breeding. And with him rode Bela and a tough guard corporal also named Bela, differentiated by the guard as Bela One and Bela Two. Fourteen days later seventeen hundred Magyar knights left the fields outside Pest, with Janos and the western lords. By the time they reached the northeastern end of the kingdom and were ready to start over Uzhok Pass for the Ukraine, they had been joined by the eastern lords with twenty-one hundred more.

XVIII

A strip of wet meadow, roughly half a mile wide, bordered the brook. Several knights stood looking south into it, hands on sword hilts, watching three men ride toward them. One of the knights turned toward an awning stretched between young aspens and shouted in Polish. An officer ducked out from beneath the canopy, moving easily despite his heavy mail shirt, buckling on a sword. His helmet covered his ears and the back of his strong neck, and from the temples two steel eagle's wings projected.

The three men had approached near enough now to be recognized as a mixed lot. Two were knights, lanceless but wearing mail shirts and swords, their shields strapped behind one shoulder. The third was clearly one of the northern barbarians, a shirtless giant thickly muscled, with his blond hair in short braids, the skin of a wolf's head laced over his steel cap.

All three were well mounted, with a string of spares behind, and horses and men looked to have traveled a long way in a hurry.

The officer swung onto his mount. "Halt!" His command was in Polish, but the meaning was plain. "Identify yourselves!" That was not so clear but could be guessed.

Bela One spoke loudly in Anglic. "We are from the court of Janos III, King of the Magyars, who has gone with his army to fight the hordes of Baalzebub. We have come to see Casimir, King of the Poles."

The Pole scowled. "You have a northman with you."

"True. He has been in the service of Janos," Bela replied, "and has come to lead the northmen against Baalzebub. His name is Iron Hand, Järnhann in his language, and your king knows of him."

Nils spoke then, his voice casual but strong and easily heard. "You mistrust us. We'll give you our weapons if you want; we don't need them among friends. And send word to Jan Reszke that we've arrived."

The hard-eyed knight stared narrowly at them for a moment, then turned and shouted abruptly toward the awning. A younger officer emerged buckling his harness, and mounted the horse led him by a squire. Several other knights rode out of the woods, their faces curious or distrustful.

"Your weapons," the officer ordered in Anglic. The two Belas turned worriedly to Nils, but he was unbuckling his harness so they reluctantly surrendered theirs. The officer then led them through a belt of woods and into a trampled meadow that sloped gradually toward a marsh some five kilometers away. On the far side of the marsh, which seemed two or three kilometers across, Nils saw a long broken line of low dunes, dark with pine, where he supposed the northmen were.

A stream flowed out of the woods nearby and toward the distant marsh. On both sides of it were orderly ranks of colored tents and tethered horses covering scores of hectares. They rode among them and soon saw what they knew must be the tent of Casimir. Like the others, its canopy was brightly striped, and the sides were rolled up to let the air through. But its diameter was at least twenty meters; it was surrounded by a substantial open space, and the banner above it was larger and stood higher than any other. Their guide stopped them a short distance away and one of their escort rode ahead. Some knights came out of the king's tent and squinted suspiciously at them through the bright sunlight. Then one swung onto a saddled horse and rode the few score meters across to them. He stared truculently at Nils.

"Dismount!" he ordered loudly in Anglic. "And follow me." The three swung from their horses and started forward. "Just the northman," the knight snapped. "The other two swine stay here."

Nils strode over to him and looked up through slitted eyes. "Listen to me, knight, and listen carefully." His voice was soft but intense, and somehow it carried. "I've had too much hard mouth since I came here, and you'd better not give me any more. Either my friends come with me or I'm going to pull you off that horse and break your neck." He sensed the listening Poles.

The two men locked eyes, one an armed and mounted knight in linen shirt and spurred boots, the other a barefoot and unarmed youth on foot, his torso smeared with sweat and road dust. For a moment the knight's hand hovered above his sword hilt, but he did not grasp it. He looked back toward the king's tent; Casimir had emerged and was looking across, as if waiting for them. The knight swore in Polish and turned his horse. "Come then, all three," he said hoarsely, and they led their horses toward the king while the escort that had brought them looked at one another, impressed.

In his prime, Casimir had been a famous fighter. He was still a strong man, but so overgrown with fat that he had to be lifted onto his horse. But his brain was not fat, and the fiery recklessness of his youth had given way to an uncommonly logical pragmatism. He was not yet forty and, given a reasonable life span, might have ruled much more than Poland, had not Kazi come into the picture. He stood in a robe of bleached linen embroidered with gold thread, and a light golden circlet sat on his brown hair. One fat hand wearing a huge signet ring rested casually on the golden haft of a dagger, a sign of authority.

Jan Reszke, his chief counselor, contrasted sharply. A gangling stork of a man, his two meters of height made him one of the tallest men in Europe, but he weighed much less than Casimir.

As they neared the king, the knight barred their way with his drawn sword.

"Who are you and what do you want?" the king asked in Anglic, although he'd already been told.

"I am Nils Järnhann, warrior of the Svear, recently in service to King Janos of Hungary. My friends are from Janos's guard.

"I have visited the court of Baalzebub, fought in his arena, and seen his vileness. My greatest feat was escaping alive.

"I've been told that you're sending an army against Baalzebub and would send another except for the northmen landing on your shore.

"Word was to be sent to the tribes that I am coming. Baalzebub's land is broad and rich. I've come to lead the tribes against him, and when he's destroyed, we'll take his land." Nils folded his thick, sinewy arms across his chest and looked calmly at the king, his speech finished.

"And why should I believe you can do that?" Casimir asked.

"You're not damaged if I fail and a lot better off if I succeed."

"You mistake my meaning, barbarian," Casimir said, "or misuse it, more likely, if what I suspect of you is true. Never mind. Most likely you'll have a chance to prove yourself."

Nils shot a question to Jan Reszke. "Yes," Reszke thought back, "he knows—has known for years. He deduced psi without ever having heard of it, from listening to my council and considering the possible sources of my knowledge. Since then I've shown him the tuner."

Casimir glanced from one psi to the other, his narrow, full-lipped mouth amused in the gold-streaked brown beard, then spoke in Anglic. "Guard Master!" The surly knight stepped forward hopefully, sword still in his hand. "Jan Reszke and I will confer privately with the northman. I don't want to be disturbed unless there is an emergency. Meanwhile, see to the comfort of these two knights." Casimir gestured toward the Belas. "They have ridden hundreds of kilometers in haste, and I doubt they've had a proper meal in days. When they're refreshed, quarter them with my household knights. And Stefan," he added, gesturing toward Nils with his head, "you have called the barbarians a pack of wolves. Don't curse the wolves 'til we see who they bite."

* * *

They entered the royal tent and Casimir lowered himself onto a cushioned seat, gesturing toward two seats facing his. "Sit there. I want to see your faces while we talk. I'll ask again the question that you didn't answer when I asked before. Why should I believe the northmen will follow you? And why should I believe they will fight Baalzebub if I let them out? And finally, why should I believe they can make a difference, as few as they are?"

Nils looked squarely back at him. "The tribes elect their leaders. Chiefs are chosen by all free men for their wisdom and justice. Raid leaders are chosen from among the warriors, by the warriors, for imagination and cunning. War chiefs are selected from among the raid leaders.

"Now the tribes are migrating, and I know something about the world they are entering—much more than almost any of them. They have no doubt selected a war chief already, but they'll listen carefully to anyone with experience here. Also, you have guessed what I am and know the advantage it gives me.

"And finally, I expect to go to them with your oath that you will let them pass untroubled if they in turn give their oath to join you against Baalzebub. And if they give it, they'll keep it. Besides that, I will tell them truthfully that if they don't fight him now with powerful allies, they will have to fight him later with little help and less hope.

"As for their value as allies—haven't some of your people fought them? Why did you bring this army here instead of a small force? When all the warriors have landed, there should be two thousand of them or more. And if you chose ten of them blindly, by lot, you couldn't match them with your ten champions. Our freeholders will fight too, if needed. They are skilled bowmen and familiar with swords.

"If you furnish them ships, they will surely ally themselves with you, and they could be landed faster and be ready to move sooner."

"All right," said Casimir. "You sound as if you might pull it off at that. Jan has already made a strong case for you, and if I didn't respect his judgement, I wouldn't keep him around. Besides, when things are bad enough, one does things he might not do otherwise. As for ships, I've already furnished some unwittingly, but I can send more. I'll order them landed to take on guides from among your people. But see to it that they are met peacefully and the crews well treated. If you fail me in that, I will see you all dead. I'll send a messenger now. When will you go to your northmen?"

"Let me ask a few questions, then feed me and I'll go," Nils answered. "But let my two companions stay with you, for among the tribes almost no one knows Anglic. And among your people they'll find customs much more like their own. They came with me only to help discourage robbers along the way."

"Tadeus!" Casimir bellowed, and a page hurried into the tent. "See that food is prepared for the northman and me. And have a fast messenger sent to me, prepared for a hard ride to Nowy Gdansk. Go!" He turned to Nils as the boy hurried out. "And when you talk to Jan, talk out loud."

* * *

"Jan," said Nils, "ask Raadgiver to have Danish ships sent to harbors in Jömark and Norskland to help move the tribes. It may be hard to do, but we need to speed things as much as possible. And have you heard from the Magyars?"

"The western lords have left Pest. They are on their way."

"And what about the fighting?"

"We've lost contact with our man with the Ukrainians. He's probably dead. Yesterday we had a message by courier but it was a week old. Our army under Lord Bronislaw still had not come to any Ukrainian troops; apparently the fighting is well to the south yet."

"How large are the combined forces against Kazi?" Nils asked.

"The Ukrainians began with over six thousand and there will soon be another four thousand in action under Bronislaw, including nearly a thousand Saxons under the banner of Duke Hermann. The Magyars will add thirty-eight hundred or so. We have three thousand here and Albert of Prussia is holding fifteen hundred against the northmen, all of which can be sent when we have an agreement with your people." He paused. "And later, of course, your two thousand northmen." The latter had been hard for him to say; it still was not real to him that Nils could settle this confrontation of Poles and neovikings and bring his people in. "Some of the independent west German nobles are raising their armies too," he went on, "but it's hard to know how many they'll come to or when they'll start."

Casimir interrupted. "You've been in Baalzebub's land. What do you know about his army? How big is it, and how good?"

Nils looked at him squarely while answering. "It numbers about thirty thousand and it's supposed to be very good. Twenty thousand are horse barbarians, eastern tribes that have allied themselves with him. The other ten thousand are his personal army, men he calls orcs, who are proud of their brutality. I expect the horse barbarians are very dangerous in the open, but it may be they won't fight as skillfully in timber, especially if they have to get off their horses. The orcs are probably as good on foot as on horseback. Some of the orc officers are psis; they'll be hard to ambush, and if they have tuners, they'll be able to coordinate their units better in battle."

Casimir pursed his lips and scowled. "The odds sound more rotten all the time. Maybe it would be better to surrender."

"Kazi—Baalzebub, that is—wants to conquer and rule for just one reason. He loves to debase and destroy. Public tortures are his entertainment and the entertainment of his orcs. You'd be far better off to die in the saddle than in the arena, and in the meantime there will be the game of war to enjoy."

Casimir grunted.

"His strengths are obvious, but he has weaknesses, too," Nils went on. "At one time he must have been a thinker and planner, but now he doesn't seem able to hold one matter in his mind and concentrate. And he acts foolishly. One of his whims turned the King of Hungary from a reluctant ally into a total enemy. So we are four thousand stronger and he's four thousand weaker.

"I won't try to mislead you, though. With his power he can make mistakes and still win. But there is a chance, and it's the northmen that make that chance real."

Casimir looked glumly at nothing while Nils turned his eyes to Jan Reszke. "Has Raadgiver had a man among the tribes?"

"Yes, and he's reported to me. He spread the word among them that the Yngling was coming from the south to lead them to a land of rich grass and fat cattle. He's a master wordsmith. They called a council and listened to him. Now they're waiting to see what happens."

"I'll go and eat," Nils said. "And I'll want to take three squires to use as messengers."

* * *

Nils walked rapidly through the marsh, his bare feet automatically finding the firm places where there were any and slopping nonchalantly in the water or ooze where there were not. Three young Poles hurried behind, apprehensive, muddy, and unhappy.

Nils's eyes searched the forest edge ahead. Their approach was open and it was certain they'd been seen. He had spotted brief movement once and could sense watchfulness; now he began to pick up the quiet thoughts of men speaking.

"It's one of ours. Do you know him?"

"No. From here he looks big; if I knew him, I'd recognize him. What are those outlanders with him? He doesn't seem to hold them prisoner. Knut, go and get Leif Trollsverd; there's something strange about this."

"My blood. He is a big one. If he was to wrestle a bear, I'd bet against the bear."

The edge of the marsh was a ribbon of slough into which a pine had fallen from the forest margin. Nils sprang to it and picked his way through its branches toward the dry ground. The tallest of the squires sprang too, missing with a splash. The other two simply waded glumly in.

"Halt!"

The squires stopped abruptly in surprise, standing almost to their crotches in the dark water. The forest was fringed with alder shrubs, and they hadn't seen the two warriors who now stepped out to the water's edge.

"What have you got there?" The speaker's blond beard hung in two short braids, and over his steel cap was the headskin of a bull seal. Both the totem and the accent were unfamiliar to Nils and he supposed they were Norskar.

"They are messengers loaned to me by Casimir, the Polish king."

The warrior's brows raised. The Polish king? That would be their chief, he thought. "Well, tell your messengers to get out of the mire before they sink out of sight," he said. "We were posted here as sentries, and while three Polish sprouts in the keeping of a warrior hardly amounts to an attack, you'd better wait here a bit anyhow. I've sent for our group leader."

Nils and the young Poles walked into the woods with the sentries and sat on the ground. Within a minute two more warriors of the Seal Clan trotted down through the pines, and Nils arose. Leif Trollsverd was rather small for a warrior, a young man whose thin skin and sharply defined muscularity gave him a startlingly sinewy and aggressive appearance. His dark complexion and black hair looked more Mediterranean than Scandinavian.

"Have you got prisoners there?" he asked Nils; even his words were quick.

"No. They are messengers loaned to me by Casimir, the Polish king."

"And who are you? I've never seen you before."

"I am Nils Järnhann of the Svear, and I've never been here before. I've come here from a kingdom far to the south, the land of the Magyars, to speak to the war council."

The group leader looked Nils over from head to foot, his sharp eyes absorbing a score of details. "From the south. Come then. I'll take you to Björn Ärrbuk, our war leader. He is of your tribe." Leif Trollsverd turned and loped off, followed by Nils and the discouraged-looking squires.

The seaward dunes too had long since stabilized here and were forested, and the camp of Björn Ärrbuk was on one of them. The war leader stood with his runners on the beach, watching a captured Polish ship work its way around a sandspit offshore.

He turned as they approached. "Ha, what are these?" he asked, looking at the young Poles.

"They came from the Polish camp. With him," Trollsverd said, indicating Nils with his thumb. "He is Nils Järnhann of your tribe, who has come here from the south and wants to meet with the war council." The Norwegian looked meaningfully at Ärrbuk, then turned and trotted away into the woods.

Björn Ärrbuk was of middle height and middle age, his barrel chest, short, thick legs and long arms giving him an apelike look. Even his hair was an orangutan red. A scar crossed his abdomen diagonally from the lower left to the rib cage, providing his surname. A physician of eight hundred years before might have wondered how he survived such a cut without twenty-first century technology, or surviving, how he could have become fit again. But he was fit and enormously strong, with the vitality of the bear that was his totem and his life name, and given to impulsive wrestling with any warrior at hand.

He glanced sideways at Nils. "I've seen you somewhere," he said, and turned to watch the ship again. Its sail was furled against an offshore wind, and strong arms pulled the oars. "It's from Svealann," said the war leader. "Of the three tribes, six hundred warriors have landed. But the only way we'll get all the people ashore before winter is to steal more ships, and that's costly business. They're heavily guarded at the docks now, and flee from us at sea."

"The King of Poland is sending us ships," Nils replied. "They'll land here in a few days for guides to take them to the tribes so we can land people faster. And it may be that Jørgen Stennaeve of the Danes will also send ships, to Norskland and Jömark."

Björn Ärrbuk turned and stared at the tall warrior beside him. "The King of the Poles? You must be crazy. The King of the Poles has brought an army to try to wipe us out when we leave this place."

"I'm not crazy," Nils answered calmly. "I've just talked with him and he gave his oath. But it's not a simple story and he wants something in return. I came to tell it to the war council, but if you want me to, I'll tell it to you now and again to them later."

The burly chief stepped back from him, perplexed and a little irritated, his body half crouched in unconscious response, "What's your name again?" he asked at length, straightening.

"Nils Järnhann. You were at the ting a year ago when I was banished. When I was a sword apprentice, I struck a warrior and killed him. A great deal has happened to me in that year. I've traveled far and learned a lot."

"I remember. Yes. Some of the Eagle Clan believed we should have decorated a pole with your head and that Axel Stornäve favored you because you were of his clan." Arrbuk chuckled. "Actually Kalle Blåtann was a bully and braggart, and even in his own clan there were those who thought he had gotten what was overdue to him. Had the law allowed, we might have let you off free." He turned serious then. "What you say about the Polish king is hard to believe, but we have heard things about you. I'll call the council—all that have landed. Isbjørn Hjeltessøn is here, and the chiefs of several clans as well as group leaders. I'll gather them for the evening meal. But now I want to see who lands with this ship."

Seventy warriors of the Reindeer Clan landed—all that clan had, for it was the smallest of the Svear. Then the ship sculled out past the sandspit, powered by the strong arms of Sea Eagle clansmen. Its sail was hoisted into the offshore wind and it started north for the Glutton fishing village of Jäävham.

Bjorn showed Nils the council circle, then trotted off with his runners to find the members of the war council while Nils gathered twigs and piled them carefully among the ashes and char of the fire site.

XIX

The long double file of neovikings was not very impressive as they rode down the dusty road. They numbered twenty-two hundred warriors and four hundred freeholders—filthy, shirtless, and riding bareback on nondescript workhorses that Casimir's officers had commandeered from the farms of northwestern Poland. Now they were entering the northern Ukraine. Kazi's army had advanced far during the summer, and the northmen moved with scouts ahead and on both flanks. One of the lead scouts galloped back into sight and fell in beside Björn Ärrbuk and Nils.

"We've run into some knights," he reported laconically. "Our Pole thinks they're Magyars because he can't understand anything they say."

The few northmen besides Nils and Sten Vannaren who knew appreciable Anglic had been assigned to scout groups. And Casimir had early assigned several knights—men who knew some Danish—to the neoviking army to serve as contacts and interpreters.

Nils and Björn dug bare heels into their horses' sides and galloped heavily up the road. In less than two kilometers they caught the lead scouts, with their Pole and five Magyar knights. The Magyars were in bad shape, three of them bandaged and all five tired and demoralized. They were remnants of a group that had ambushed a large force of horse barbarians. Badly outnumbered to begin with, they had planned to strike and then ride to cover in the forest, leaving part of their number among the trees as archers to give them cover when they disengaged. This had been more or less effective before. But the horse barbarians had been bait, and when the Magyars had ridden out in attack, their archers had been surprised from behind by a company of orcs. The whole party had been caught between the two enemy forces.

"There were three hundred of us, nearly," their officer added, "and as far as I know, we're all that's left." The man stopped talking for a few seconds, his haggard face working. "And I doubt we killed fifty in the fight."

Nils sensed that these men no longer had hope of victory or even survival; they hoped only to sell their lives dearly. This time they had failed even that.

"You're the first Magyars we've come to," Nils said. "How many of you are left?"

"I don't know. I only know our losses have been heavy. But we don't operate as an army. At the beginning we separated into ten squadrons of three to five hundred each. We've done some regrouping since, as chance allowed, to bring the strength of the squadrons back up to that. Probably more than half of us lie dead, and Janos one of them."

"What of the other armies—the Ukrainians and Poles and Germans?"

"I've seen them several times but never talked to any. I speak no Anglic. But those who do say they've lost heavily, too, especially the Ukrainians, who were in it from the beginning." The man stopped again, looking like he might have cried had there been any tears in him. "We've probably lost more than the enemy, and we were a lot fewer to begin with.

"But I'll tell you this. After what I've seen, if I could get out of this safe, I wouldn't do it. I want to die with my teeth in a throat."

* * *

At midday, when the column stopped to water and rest their horses, a grim Magyar was assigned to each scouting group. That night they camped in a forest and stayed there the next day while scouts on their best horses searched the country ahead, where large prairies were interspersed with forests and woods. In the late afternoon they returned to report a large encampment of horse barbarians.

Björn Ärrbuk gathered several groups, a total of three hundred warriors, and rode quietly out in the gathering dusk. After a time they saw enemy fires in the distance; clearly the enemy was not afraid of attack. Hooding their horses they lay down to rest.

Gradually the distant fires burned down and most of the warriors slipped out into the prairie on foot, disappearing into the darkness. The men who stayed behind with the horses watched and listened intently. Once they heard a mounted patrol pass at some distance in the darkness, and then it was quiet again.

Suddenly there were distant brassy blasts from foreign war horns, and fires blazed up. They pulled the hoods from their own mounts and sprang onto their bare backs, ready, nervous to know what was happening. In a few minutes they could hear the thunder of approaching hooves, the hooting of neoviking war horns, and then shouts in their own language. A herd of horses galloped past, driven by whooping northmen, and they rode in among them individually, changing mounts in the tumult.

When morning came to the neoviking camp, the group leaders counted their men. All but twenty-one had returned, straggling in on fine horses and driving others, blood on their swords and grins on their faces. They could not say how many they'd killed, but they thought a hundred at least, and they'd scattered a large part of the horses that they had not been able to steal. Once mounted, they had cut a spiral swath through the enemy camp before fleeing, and they all agreed it had been worth the long trip from the homeland.

Björn Ärrbuk sent out two of his Poles and two Magyars to hunt for others of their own forces and spread word of the victory. Meanwhile scouts were dispatched again, much better mounted now, if still bareback, to get a better understanding of the country and the location of enemy camps. Groups not chosen for the first raid were impatient for action.

Another large encampment of horse barbarians was reported about twenty kilometers away. A few kilometers from it was a dense wood of several score hectares, forming a small island in the prairie. Björn Ärrbuk called a council.

"Nils Järnhann tells me we may be able to surprise horse barbarians but never the orcs, because the orcs have mind readers like himself who could sense our coming. If we want to kill orcs, the best thing is to have them come to us at a place of our own choosing. If we surprise the barbarian camp in the dark and then take cover in the woods nearby, they can surround us. They can attack us there if they want, but their horses will only be a hindrance to them in the timber and we can butcher to our hearts' content. Nils thinks they will send for orcs, though, to root us out on foot, and we can find out just what these orcs are made of.

"There's a spring in the woods for water, and it's less than three kilometers from a large stretch of forest, so that we can sneak out and escape by night when we want to.

"We'll be both bait and trap, and when we're done they'll have learned to hate and fear the northmen."

They broke camp at sundown and rode by moonlight to the woods near the enemy camp without encountering a patrol, then lay down to sleep until the moon set.

* * *

This time the raiders moved out on horseback, four hundred of them, silent until a patrol challenged them less than five hundred meters from the enemy camp. With loud whoops they charged, striking at anyone on foot as horse barbarians ran among the tents. Through the camp and back again they rode, chopping and striking in the confusion and darkness, then broke up and rode away hard into the concealment of night. Their shouts and laughter as they straggled into their own camp might have kept everyone awake until dawn if the group leaders hadn't insisted that they quiet down and rest.

Soon after daybreak several thousand horse barbarians were circling the woods and looking grimly into its thickets while more arrived periodically from other camps. Several times impatient groups charged their horses toward the woods, breaking off when swarms of arrows met them near the trees from freeholders stationed among the branches and from warriors on the ground.

About midday a large army of mounted men wearing black mail came into sight in broad, ordered columns, dismounting out of bow shot. Men in the treetops counted the width of the columns and the number of ranks and shouted down that there were about four thousand. The freeholders were ordered out of the trees. The orcs formed a line of battle, several deep, opposite one side of the woods and then, shields raised, began to walk forward. At thirty meters a war horn blew from among the trees, triggering a flight of arrows, and the orcs began to double time toward the woods.

Once engaged, the warriors drew back, tightening their protective line around the freeholders and the horse herd. The battle continued until midafternoon between the mailed and grimly silent orcs and the shouting, grinning northmen, and as the hours passed, the orcs became grimmer. Finally trumpets sounded and they began an orderly retreat. The northmen permitted them to disengage and followed them with twanging bows until they were out of range in the prairie.

For the rest of the day the neovikings moved among the trees, taking scalps, equipping themselves with black mail shirts, and dragging orc bodies to the edge of the prairie where they piled the mutilated corpses for the enlightenment of the watching horse barbarians, shouting their counts to the tallymen and exchanging clouts of exuberance. The scalps numbered seventeen hundred and thirty-seven. Their own dead came to a hundred and ninety-six, and they released sixty-five more whose bodies were too badly wounded to ride.

"So those are the orcs." Björn Ärrbuk laughed. "You told me they are the toughest we'll see on the ground. Surely that can't be true."

Nils nodded. "It's too bad they broke off when they did; they were getting tired faster than we were. And we may have trouble getting them to fight us again on ground of our own choosing."

Björn turned to his runners. "Make sure that enough sentries are out and have the men eat and get some sleep. We'd better get out of here tonight. When the moon sets we'll sneak across to the big body of timber where we can move around again."

* * *

The next day the northmen camped in the forest. Their nighttime crossing hadn't gone undetected for long, but they had maintained stealth even among the questing squadrons of horse barbarians, moving through the blackness in small groups or singly, breaking into a gallop and fighting only when they had to. Many abandoned their horses for diversion and slunk across on foot. They scattered everywhere, reassembling in the forest with the locational sense of the wilderness-bred. At daybreak they counted ninety-seven missing and were in a vile mood.

The day was spent napping and filing the nicks out of their swords while small mounted patrols went out to explore the forest. One patrol found a band of fewer than thirty Poles and Ukrainians, all that were left of a mixed force of three hundred who had fought a pitched battle with a large force of orcs two days earlier. Another patrol watched an attack on horse barbarians by a large number of Magyars, who seemed to have abandoned their small-unit tactics for hit-and-run attacks by larger forces. The battle was brief and bloody, and about eight hundred effectives reached the cover of the trees where, after brief fighting, the horse barbarians had broken off the engagement.

Men of the patrol led Nils to the Magyars. They had reassembled deep in the forest and were camped by a brook, sharpening their weapons and nursing their wounds. Nils recognized their commander and the burly psi who squatted beside him, eating their horsemeat in the shade of a linden.

"Lord Miklos!" Nils called. "Zoltan!"

The tall knight got up slowly. "Nils. So we do meet again." He spoke and thought like a man half-asleep. "We heard that the northmen had come and that they'd even night-raided the very camps of the enemy. Butchering him and running off his horses. You can't be as good as we've heard, but we enjoyed the stories." He sounded apathetic, as if he had not actually enjoyed anything for a long while. "Did you know that Janos is dead? In our first battle."

Tears welled in the dull eyes. "I'm all used up, friend; I didn't realize how old I'd become. But I won't need to last much longer. As far as I know, the eight hundred you find of us here are all that are left of thirty-eight hundred that crossed Uzhok Pass. We've done our best, but we've been outnumbered time and again, and our spirits are dying with our friends. We have no hope. Even our hate is dulled; the fire is dead in it."

"If you'd been with us yesterday, it might have been relit," Nils said quietly. "We got four thousand orcs to attack us in heavy timber, and when they pulled out, they left more than seventeen hundred dead. We took scalps enough to have made a large tent, and our own losses were two hundred sixty."

The gray Magyar looked up at Nils for the first time. "How many of you are there?"

"We started with twenty-two hundred warriors and have lost four hundred, while seventy more have wounds bad enough to impair their fighting. We released the spirits of those who were badly wounded. We couldn't take them with us and wouldn't leave them for the enemy."

Miklos nodded. "We, too. We've seen what they do to their prisoners. What will you do next?"

"We're exploring, patrolling, so we can decide what's to our advantage. We always look for an advantage. Come with me and meet our war leader, Björn Ärrbuk. You can help us plan." The invitation was a gesture; he knew, approximately, what the answer would be.

"How old are you, big friend?"

"This is my twentieth summer."

The old knight shook his head. "Perhaps tomorrow, if I can. If nothing happens. But today I must rest."

* * *

By evening another patrol reported two small forces of Poles and Ukrainians in the forest, totalling two hundred and eighty effectives. The various reports also gave a picture of the tactical situation. This forest too was almost an island in the prairie, but a big one, about twenty kilometers long and mostly five to eight wide. It connected with more extensive forests to the west by a neck of timber about a kilometer wide. Strong forces of horse barbarians patrolled the prairie on both sides and an army of orcs were digging a ditch and piling a barricade of felled trees across the neck.

Björn Ärrbuk called his officers together. "Have the men break camp. We're going to move out right now so we can travel while the moon is still up. We'll camp about a kilometer from the orc line. Nils, go to your friend, the Magyar chief, and to the others, the Poles and Ukrainians. Tell them we are all surrounded and we're going to break out at sunup. Tell them we want their help, but we won't wait for it. If they won't come now, we'll leave them to fry in their own grease. Meet us at our new camp." The war leader grinned and punched Nils's shoulder. "Tell them we're going to kill lots of orcs tomorrow and they can watch."

* * *

With dawn came the first freeze, crisping the grass. The Slavic and Magyar cavalry, along with neoviking freeholders and wounded, were in flanking positions as the light grew, ready with bows to repel any horse barbarians who might try to enter the woods and intervene. Orc psis had picked up the approach of the warriors in the growing light, and they were ready.

Initially the northmen, attacking up the ditch bank and across the barricade, took heavy losses. But they broke the orc line in places and soon pushed it back. Some of the orcs were clearly afraid of the northmen, but their ranks were deep and their officers ruthlessly permitted no withdrawal. The battle continued without slowing until mid-morning, when the orcs began to unravel from exhaustion and their casualties began to increase rapidly. Then, without warning, hundreds of fresh orcs counterattacked, keeping up a relentless pressure for half an hour. Suddenly orc trumpets sounded and their survivors withdrew with a semblance of order.

The northmen did not pursue them. Instead, they pulled off the mail shirts they weren't yet accustomed to and sprawled in the shade or wandered limply around, foul with sweat, hands cramped, their hoots and crowing almost giddy with fatigue. Gradually their group leaders got them organized again, got outposts manned, and the scalping began. Some of the knights came, their faces shifting out of dullness as they watched. A few wept quietly, bitterly, as if reawakening into awareness and grief. Others turned grim and straight-mouthed and went away. As the number of scalps grew, the barbarian vitality began to reassert itself, with counts shouted back and forth from squad to squad. More knights came on horseback now, to drop loops around the necks of scalped orcs, dragging the bodies into big piles. And soon almost every northman, even Nils, had a mail shirt that fitted.

The final count almost equalled that of the earlier battle—fifteen hundred and sixty-eight. But the northmen killed by the orcs or dispatched by their comrades numbered four hundred and eighty-nine, chief among them being Björn Ärrbuk. After the tally the war council met to choose a new war leader, and a group leader of the Jötar arose.

"In both battles my group has fought next to a group of the Norskar whose leader is called Leif Trollsverd. I was too busy to watch others much, and anywhere I looked I saw great sword work. But I can tell you why he is called Trollsverd; his blade seemed truly enchanted. If we had an army of Trollsverds, there'd be no orcs left at all. I say we should make him our new war leader."

Leif Trollsverd got up, bloody and filthy, looking around the council, and his words were not as fast as usual. "I have always known I was good," he said. "I could see it for myself and I've always been praised for it. But until this week I never realized how good I had to be to stand out among the rest—not until I saw how much better they were than these orc swine who are supposed to be the best of any other army.

"But also I've always known that there are others around me who are much more clever than I. I have never led a major raid, for there have always been others who could see possibilities better and plan more cleverly. They are better fitted than I to be war chief, even though my sword may kill more orcs.

"Look around. Who is the most knowing among us? Who was it Björn Ärrbuk questioned about the enemy before deciding his moves?

"The Danish poem-smith said The Yngling would appear among us, and I think he was right. And many others believe the same. I say we should make Nils Järnhann war chief."

* * *

That night the living northmen slept almost as soundly as their dead. But before their new war leader slept, he went to visit the Magyars and Slavs. He sensed the turgidity of feeling among them. They were alive again. They had seen great killing of a hated enemy that day and their emotions were stretched with a desire to do the same.

* * *

In the morning several thousand horse barbarians approached to within a kilometer of the timber's edge. Without council or command, a group of Magyar knights galloped out toward them, and within moments the whole force of Magyar and Slavic cavalry poured after, spontaneously, almost helter-skelter, forming a loose line of attack as they charged. The horse barbarians formed to meet them, shouting war cries, but the knights penetrated them deeply, fighting like berserkers.

The northmen, those still with horses, mounted and watched from the timber's edge. They had neither lances nor saddles, nor were they the horsemen the others were, so Nils commanded them to stand unless he signaled.

The battle broke into clusters of knights and horse barbarians wheeling and chopping, the savagery of the knights submerging groups of the enemy time and again, until a large number of horse barbarians disengaged, regrouped and charged. That wave broke, but it took good men with it, and the surviving knights at last gave way, riding for the timber while a rearguard stood for brief moments. Then the horse barbarians raced eagerly after them.

Looking around him, Nils raised his war horn. When the enemy was near enough, his people would loose their arrows, and any horse barbarians who attempted pursuit into the forest would die. But in that moment a new force appeared out of the timber's edge nearby, Polish and Prussian cavalry under the banner of Casimir. Without warning they launched themselves at the horse barbarians, who were strung out loosely in pursuit, and swept them away. Their horses were fresher, and they rode after the now-fleeing barbarians with a blood lust that had never been properly satisfied before.

* * *

For the rest of the morning, while the northmen helped themselves to horses, saddles and lances and refilled their quivers with arrows of Asian pattern, the allied cavalry enjoyed the grim satisfaction of counting enemy dead and killing enemy wounded. The count was more than twenty-one hundred. Perhaps the horse barbarians could afford twenty-one hundred more easily than the allies could afford the six hundred and eighty knights they had lost, but as Trollsverd remarked to Nils, the battle had changed their friends. They were a force to contend with now.

Lord Miklos had said he would not last much longer, and he had been right. The gaunt old warrior was found with a broken sword in his hand and his helmet split.

* * *

That afternoon, camped deep in a forest and with patrols out, the allied commanders met in council.

Of the nearly forty-five hundred Polish and Prussian knights that had ridden east with Casimir about two thousand effectives remained. Of the Magyars and Slavs who had launched the battle that morning, fewer than three hundred were still able to fight. The neovikings numbered thirteen hundred warriors fit for combat and nearly four hundred freeholders. Not counting the freeholders, the allied armies totalled less than thirty-seven hundred.

They estimated that Kazi's army, on the other hand, still must number twelve to fourteen thousand horse barbarians and more than six thousand orcs.

Zoltan Kossuth and Jan Reszke had been in contact with members of the Inner Circle and reported on other armies. The Danes and Frisians together had already started out with seventeen hundred knights, while an army of Austrians and Bavarians believed to number as many as two thousand had left or was about to leave. The lords of Provence, on the other hand, were still fighting one another. Casimir remarked wryly that they would be doing that until doomsday, which might be nearer than they appreciated. The French king had refused to commit himself until his exasperated nobles finally killed him. As soon as they could agree on a new king, which might take some time and fighting, they could provide an army of as many as five thousand.

When the two psis had finished their report, Casimir stood up and looked around. He had lost a lot of weight and a lot of men. "Who wants to bet that Kazi's army won't cross the French border before the French do?" he asked. "The fact is that those western cretins, the whole obscene bunch, sat around sucking their thumbs while we've been fighting. So we're still on our own, what there are left of us, while they squawk and flap their arms, and I guess we all know what that means."

Nils stood and answered the Polish king quietly. "You knew from the start that Kazi's strength was much greater than ours. But you chose to fight because the only other thing to do was worse. It still is. Now we can hurt Kazi most by killing more orcs. Without a strong army of orcs he'll lose his power over the chiefs of the horse tribes. But we can't get anything done by sitting here in the woods waiting to be attacked or letting him ride past us into the west. Tomorrow we need to send out a number of small patrols to learn where the enemy is camped and what he is doing."

"And then what?" Casimir challenged. "What will we do then?"

"We'll know when they come back. But it will be . . . as much as you could wish."

"Do not underestimate what I can wish, Northman."

Nils laughed, not derisively nor tactically but in open pleasure and admiration, startling the knights. "Let me correct my words," he said. "We will do as much, at least, as you might hope for."

"And how do you divine this?"

"I don't divine and I cannot say how, but it will happen."

* * *

By the following evening the patrols were returning. Several had found newly abandoned enemy campsites while two reported a huge new camp. Bunches of cattle were being driven there, and the fumes of many fires suggested that meat was being smoked.

"It sounds to me," Casimir said gruffly, "as if Kazi has gathered his whole army together to pass us by and move west. Apparently we're too few to trouble with any longer." He looked at Nils. "What do we do now, Northman?"

A sentry hurried into the circle of firelight. "M'Lords," he broke in. "A patrol has brought a prisoner."

"When did we start taking prisoners?" Casimir growled.

"Not an enemy prisoner, Your Highness. It's a foreigner. There are a lot of them, sir—men, women and children—and this patrol ran into some of their scouts. The one they brought in speaks Anglic and offered to go with the patrol so that we wouldn't attack his people."

"Attack his people? We've got too many enemies already. What kind of people are they?"

"The one the patrol brought in says they're Finns, Your Highness, whatever Finns are, and that the whole race of them left their homeland in the north."

"Bring him here," Nils ordered. "I know a little about Finns. Maybe there'll be some help for us here."

The man was Kuusta Suomalainen; Nils sensed his idenitity and also his psi before he could see him. The man had been trained.

The Finns totalled nine thousand, including nearly two thousand fighting men, but none were knights or warriors in the neoviking sense. They were roughly equivalent to the neoviking freeholders—independent, vigorous and tough, but with modest weapons skills except for excellent marksmanship. With a few others, Kuusta had been scouting a day ahead of the main body of migrants and saw the end of the battle between the knights and the horse barbarians. They had returned to their people then, and their headmen had elected to continue into the war zone, taking their chances on getting through safely.

"There is no safety," Nils told him. "Not anywhere in Europe while Kazi is alive. He has perhaps twenty thousand men while we have about four thousand. Sit and listen awhile, old friend. Maybe before the council is over, you'll offer your help."

The others deferring to him, Nils questioned the patrol leaders carefully. The Kazi camp was near the west bank of a river, in a long stretch of prairie some four to six kilometers wide that extended from great marshes on the north southward along the river for tens of kilometers. On the east side of the river, and protected by it from prairie fires, stood a forest.

Local knights knew the place. The river, although sixty or eighty meters wide, could be easily crossed at this season, when water levels were low and currents weak. But the steep banks were troublesome.

When no one else had any more information, Nils outlined his plan. There were more unknowns in the situation than any leader would like, but there was no time to scout the site himself. "This is our chance," he said. "We don't know how long they'll stay there, and if we miss it, we're not likely to get another as good. Tomorrow we'll rest and tomorrow night we'll ride." He turned to Casimir. "And don't feel left out, good friend. You'll have other chances, and the firesetters will be yours. But this action takes stealth and foot soldiers, so it has to be ours."

* * *

The next day Kuusta Suomalainen arrived with four hundred volunteers, brown-faced and sinewy, their quivers stuffed with arrows. The rest of the Finns would wait for the survivors to return.

* * *

The waxing moon gave good light until nearly dawn. Crouching quietly in the forest some distance from the river bank, the northmen tested the air for a breeze. Too many things could go wrong. At least there did not seem to be an east wind, although down among the trees a light breeze might go undetected. But they could smell the enemy horses across the river to the west. And while the clear night had lowered the temperature almost enough for another freeze, the air was dry enough that, even in the open, there was likely to be little dew on the grass.

Nils had slipped ahead and lay in the brush at the top of the riverbank, two meters above the water. Psi sentries would not detect his single quiet mind. In the dim light of dawn he could see thousands of horses in a great paddock that lay between the far bank and the enemy tents.

Finally the sun rose, brightening the kilometers of tall tawny grass beyond the enemy camp. Orcs and barbarians began to stir among the horses. A breeze came up, a good west breeze, and Nils could smell the horses strongly.

Back in the forest, men lay with the patience of those who hunt for their living.

Foreign thoughts mumbled faintly at the fringes of his awareness, a psionic background to the morning. As the sun slowly climbed, the breeze became brisk, and then he saw several lines of smoke across the prairie. They grew as he watched, coalescing.

He wiggled backward through the brush, got up, and slipped back to his men. The order passed down the line in both directions, in soft Scandinavian and by gestures to the Finns. Quietly, then, they moved toward the river, the freeholders and Finns selecting suitable trees along the bank.

Through the screen of vegetation they could see and hear some of the growing excitement in the enemy camp. Trumpets blew and men hurried about. The smoke of the distant prairie fire had grown to a tall curtain. Northmen and Finns reached back over their shoulders to make sure their arrows were within ready reach and came easily from the quiver. Barbarians and orcs began to trot into the horse park carrying saddles and gear, while others caught and soothed nervous horses. The freeholders and Finns started up their chosen trees with helpful boosts, keeping behind the trunks. Within a few moments a unit of orcs had mounted and were moving down the bank into the water. When they were two-thirds across, a war horn blew.

For half an hour arrows hissed into the ranks of soldiers. At first there were both orcs and horse barbarians in roughly similar numbers. Some made it across piecemeal, to die fighting at the top of a bank that grew slippery with splashings of water and blood. After a bit the horse barbarians stopped coming and could be seen riding along the bank in both directions, trying to outflank the long wall of flame accelerating toward them. But the disciplined mail-clad orcs kept coming. Many took arrows and disappeared. Some drowned in the deeper water when their horses were killed under them. Many scrambled out on foot, slipping and swearing, to face the deadly blades above them, or spurred dripping, falling horses up the bank. One by one they established bridgeheads and fought to expand them. Freeholders and Finns began to jump from the trees, quivers empty, running back through the forest to the place where the horses were tied. A war horn signalled that the enemy was crossing in force below the south flank of the neoviking line, and the warriors too began to run for their horses, shouting and crowing.

They galloped away almost unmolested, then slowed, jogging their horses northward through the forest until they approached the marsh. Scouts sent down to the river reported large numbers of horse barbarians on the opposite side who had outflanked the fire, perhaps by swimming their horses down the river. Nils had his men abandon their horses, and they moved into the marsh, hidden in the wilderness of tall reeds and cattails and safe from any cavalry attack.

Not far downstream they found a ford, crossed the broad, sluggish current, and started westward. They moved concealed well within the marsh's edge. It wouldn't do to be detected. If they were, there'd be no chance of reaching the remounts they'd left the night before.

"What do we do if someone's found the horses?" asked a blood-spattered warrior.

Nils grinned at him. "You're spoiled by all the riding we've done in this country. Imagine you're back in Svealann and be ready to walk. We'll know in a few kilometers."

After a bit a scout came through the reeds to him. "Nils," he said in an undertone. "We can see the woods where we left the horses. It's crawling with enemy."

Nils turned to his runners. "Hold the men up. I'm going to see what possibility there is of drawing them into a fight. I don't think they're foolish enough to attack us in the marsh, but we don't want to miss any chances."

He moved to the marsh's edge and lay on his belly in the muck, looking through a screen of reeds across the narrow band of prairie separating him from the woods. There were hundreds of mounted orcs in the vicinity; it would be suicide to try to reach the horses. Then he recognized a banner and his eyes narrowed. They were the elite guard.

* * *

Nils called out strong and clear in thought. "KAZI! (He projected an image of himself, sword bloody, foot on a dead orc.) HOW MANY MEN DID YOU LOSE TODAY? THREE THOUSAND? MORE! AND I DOUBT WE LOST MORE THAN A HUNDRED."

There was a commotion among the orcs as several psi officers caught the taunt, and a huge figure in glistening black mail rode out from the trees on a magnificent horse. Although Nils lay concealed, the face looked exactly at him.

"So it's you, Northman." The thought entered Nils's mind, cold and quiet. "Have you come to die?"

"Not me. We're enjoying ourselves too much." Kazi's utter calm alerted him for some deadly surprise. "You like to watch butchery, Kazi. Why don't you send your orcs into the marsh?"

The great cold mind fixed on his without discernible thought or emotion, only deadly presence. Finally it spoke. "Will you fight me, Northman?"

"What assurance can you give that your men won't attack me if I come out?"

"I'll come most of the way to the marsh's edge," Kazi answered. "We'll be closer to your men than mine."

Again their minds locked for a moment, like eyes, and Nils read no sense of treachery there. Only grimness. He turned to his scouts. "The black giant is Kazi, the one called Baalzebub. We've spoken through the mind and agreed to fight, the two of us. If any of his people ride out toward us, blow a war horn and cover me so I'll have a chance to run for it."

Then he looked out through the fringe of reeds again while a line of archers formed behind him. Kazi was speaking to the officers with him in what seemed to be Arabic. Some of them rode in among the troops, but still Nils sensed no treachery.

After a moment Kazi dismounted and walked toward the marsh, slowly, his iron mind locked shut. When he had covered somewhat more than half the distance, he paused, and Nils came out of the reeds. They walked toward one another. To the northmen peering out, Kazi looked immense, emitting an aura of utter and indomitable force. When only a few meters separated them, they raised swords and shields, and then they met.

Kazi's first stroke would have severed a pine ten centimeters thick, but it was easily dodged, so that his sword nearly struck the ground and he barely caught Nils's counter on his shield. Shock flashed through Nils's mind: the man knew little of sword work. Kazi's second stroke followed too quickly after a feint, so that it lacked force and left him extended. Nils's shield deflected it easily and he struck Kazi's thigh, cleaving flesh and bone, knocked the black shield aside as Kazi fell, and sent his sword point through mail and abdomen, feeling it grate on the spine. A third quick stroke severed the head, and Nils turned and trotted for the marsh. But no orc rode out and no arrow followed him.

XX

The northmen and Finns slogged westward along the edge of the marsh until, in early afternoon, the prairie beside it ended in forest. They turned south among the trees, rested awhile and went on. When night fell, they were still walking, following game trails by instinct and moonlight. At length Nils sensed thoughts that indicated Polish conversation. Leaving his men, he approached until he could hear quiet voices and called out an Anglic. "Ahoy. We're the northmen, back from the ambush. Where is Casimir?"

A knight moved warily through the shadowed moonlight, peered closely at Nils and recognized him. "The army is scattered and Casimir is with us. I'll take you to him."

He found Casimir squatting dour and tired beside the dying embers of a fire. The king's eyes fixed him in the darkness. "Well, they're through us, and that's that. Thousands of them, about midday, riding hard. We jumped them, and it was hot and heavy for a while, but we were getting too scattered and cut up, so I had retreat blown and we fought our way back into the timber the best we could. They disengaged then and rode west down the road through the forest."

"Were they all horse barbarians, or were there orcs with them?"

The king sat silently for a few seconds as if looking at the question. "All horse barbarians. We didn't see an orc all day."

"You probably won't. I killed Kazi, and the orcs took heavy losses at the river. Without Kazi I expect they'll turn back. He was the very source of their being, and they'll be lost without him."

"Kazi dead! Then we've won after all!" Fatigue slipped from Casimir as he got to his feet. "Without him the horse barbarians will split into raiding tribes, feuding with each other, and scatter all over Europe. Given time, we can destroy them or drive them out, and rape and destruction we can recover from."

"Yes," said Nils, grinning in the moonlight. "And you can bet the western kings will get their share of fighting now."

* * *

During the next few days the allied forces regathered and recovered. Knights counted bodies while northmen and Finns scoured the countryside rounding up the horses of the dead, replenished their stock of arrows, and smoked racks of horsemeat over fires. A head count showed nineteen hundred allied cavalry able to ride but fewer than four hundred dead or badly wounded, leaving about a hundred unaccounted for. One of the dead was the gangling Jan Rezske. The bodies of nearly six hundred horse barbarians were tallied.

The northmen had lost seventy-eight and the Finns nine.

* * *

It was dusk. Zoltan Kossuth and Kuusta Suomalainen squatted on the ground with Nils, a psi tuner beside them on a fallen tree. Nils was giving Raadgiver a resume of the fighting, ending with Kazi's death and the westward movement of the horse barbarians, bypassing the allied forces. "There'll be some ugly fighting yet, and the western kings can't rely on the Slavs to do it for them any longer. You need to hold the western armies together now, especially the French."

"And what will your northmen do?"

"We're going back to northern Poland until our people have finished landing. They have only freeholders there to protect them. We'll see more fighting yet. Then we'll go to Kazi's land, or the others will. I'll follow them later, with a little luck."

Briefly Raadgiver's mind boggled. The ragtag northern tribes with only twelve hundred warriors surviving were deliberately going to Kazi's land. And without their guiding genius. So Kazi was dead; his empire still was powerful. The old psi felt a wash of dismay: they would do this in the face of sure destruction, yet seemingly with full confidence! It threatened his reality.

"My people are more able than you think," Nils responded calmly, "and you overrate my importance to them. As for myself, I know the woman I want to live with and have children by. She is one of the kinfolk. I'm going to Bavaria to find her."

Kuusta interrupted. "Are you going alone, Nils? The country'll be dangerous with horse barbarians. I'd like to stay with my people, but if you need a companion . . ."

"I don't expect to go alone," Nils replied with a grin. "When I mention it around, some of my people will offer to go with me."

* * *

The next morning the northmen started west with their new horse herd.

BUT MAINLY BY CUNNING

I

The four neoviking warriors walked their horses easily along the dirt wagon road through the woods. Although their eyes moved alertly, they seemed neither tense nor worried.

The leaves had fallen from the beeches and rowans, but firs were master in these low Bavarian mountains, shading the road from the haze-thinned October sun of Old Wives' Summer. A shower had fallen the day before, and tracks of a single wagon showed plainly in the dirt, but around and sometimes on them were the marks of unshod hooves. It was the hoof prints that had sharpened the riders' eyes and stilled their voices. Independently they judged that nine men had followed the wagon, and none of the four felt any need to state the obvious.

Topping a rise, they saw the hoof tracks stretch out, where the riders ahead had begun to run their horses, and in a short distance the wagon tracks began to swerve, where the animal that pulled it had been whipped to a gallop. The northmen quickened their own horses' pace and, rounding a curve, saw the overturned wagon ahead.

Its driver lay beside it, blood crusted on his split skull. His horse was gone. The northmen circled without dismounting, looking down and around. Two cloaks lay beside the wagon, one large and one smaller. The tracks of the raiders' horses left the road.

The four conversed briefly in their strongly tonal language. "Less than an hour," Nils said. "Maybe as little as half an hour. With any luck they'll stop to enjoy the woman, and we'll catch them off their horses with their weapons laid aside." He rode into the woods then, eyes on the layer of fresh leaf-fall ahead, and the others followed, grinning.

The tracks led them into a deep ravine, dense with fir and hornbeam, a trickling rivulet almost lost among the stones and dead leaves in the bottom. After drinking, they slanted up the other side and followed a ridge top where pines and birch clumps formed an open stand. They continued along the crest for about five kilometers, and the tracks showed that the raiders had not stopped except, like themselves, to drink.

"Look!" Leif Trollsverd spoke quietly but clearly, without stopping his horse, pointing down the slope on the east side of the ridge. Angling toward the top was another line of tracks, of leaves scuffed and indented by hooves. The northmen quickened their mounts again until the second set of tracks joined those they'd been following. Sten Vannaren, who was in the lead now, slid from his saddle and walked back down the second set, half-bent.

"At least five," he said. "Maybe eight or nine. Hard to tell in the leaves." He came back and swung his big frame into the saddle again. "Looks as if they came along after the others had passed." He urged his horse ahead, leaning forward and looking past its neck. "And look. Here they trotted their horses as if to catch up." He stopped and looked back. "What now, Nils?" The blond giant stared ahead thoughtfully for a moment. "They are more of the same, and enough to let be."

Sten, somewhat the oldest of the four, nodded and swung his horse off the trail. Without further words they urged their horses at an angle, southeastward down the ridge side.

* * *

They had ridden several kilometers through cleared farmland, the road now rutted by wagons, when they saw the village ahead, the bulk of a small castle standing a short distance past it. The huts were typical—of logs, with thatched roofs. As the road entered it, they saw that here the peasants were bolder. They didn't scurry away as had those at the smaller clusters of huts between there and the forest, although they still drew back from the road. Beside the inn the stable boy gawked at them until a brusque word jerked him to duty, and looking back over his shoulder, he led their horses into the stable.

The rim of the sun was an intense liquid bead on the forested ridge top to the west when they pushed open a door and entered the subdued light and complex smells of the small inn. The babble of conversation thinned to one beery voice, and then that face too turned toward the large barbaric-looking foreigners. The place fell still except for the slight, soft sound of their bare feet and the sounds from the kitchen. They steered toward one of the unoccupied tables, Nils's eyes scanning the room looking for the psi. He spotted him, a solitary young man sitting near the wall, the hood of his homespun Brethren cloak, faded dark-green, thrown back from a lean, strong-boned face. His eyes, like everyone else's, were on them. His mind was on Nils, recognizing his psi, and suddenly started in recognition. He knew of this barbarian, had been given a mental image of him by someone with whom he shared special affinity.

"You are Ilse's next oldest brother," Nils thought.

"Yes, I am Hannes. And you're Nils, the northman who came to her hut after the Great Storm, the one she had foreseen in a premonition."

Nils's mild, calm mind validated his knowing.

"Stories have passed among the kinfolk about the things you've done since then, you and your people. Incredible stories. Is it true that you yourself killed Baalzebub?"

The innkeeper was standing beside the table. Nils ordered for himself, scarcely pausing in his silent conversation. Sten ordered for the other two, who spoke no Anglic.

"Yes, I killed Kazi, or Baalzebub, if you prefer. Now I've come to find Ilse."

"She's had your child."

The northman's mind did not react. It was a datum.

"And she's still at her hut."

"That's not good," Nils responded calmly. "There are horse barbarians in the hills."

Now that the alarming-looking strangers were sitting quietly, the peasants had returned to their conversations and beer. Suddenly Nils began to speak aloud, in Anglic, so that they could hear, while Sten interpreted in an undertone for the other two warriors. "Brother Hannes! The horse barbarians have come to the district—a strong force of them, we believe. They are scouting the countryside from the hills. What defenses are there here?"

Across the room the sun-browned psi stood up slowly, surprised by this unexpected speech. Conversations had died abruptly as worried faces turned toward the neovikings. Hannes spoke carefully so that the peasant with the most uncertain knowledge of Anglic could follow his words. "The baron here is Martin Gutknekt. He is a mild and honest lord, but well known for his skill at arms. He keeps a dozen knights, and since the battle on the Elbe he's kept a few dozen other armed men at the castle as well."

"And who will protect the peasants if the horse barbarians come suddenly, like rabid wolves with curved swords for teeth, to attack the villages? Maybe a hundred or more of them?" Nils's mind caught the shock of fear from the peasants.

Irritation flashed through Hannes. "Why did you say that? It was vicious," his mind accused. But as he thought it, he realized there had been no tinge of viciousness or sadism in the northman's mind. And the character pattern he read would not support that interpretation. But he neither corrected himself nor apologized. Either would be redundant to another psi. Instead, he stood there, gazing with his mind at Nils's. "Ilse described what you are like," he said at last. "Now I see more clearly what she meant."

Nils smiled slightly, and as the innkeeper approached with roast meat and a stew of vegetables, he returned to the point. "We've seen signs of two bunches, one of nine and the other possibly as large. They behaved more like scouting parties than like vagrant bands. They didn't even stop to rape the woman they caught." His mind pictured the wagon for Hannes, with the two cloaks and the dead man, a picture more precise than any intentional memory Hannes had ever seen. It was as if the northman had complete access to his memory bank and his subconscious. His sister's mind was the finest he'd ever seen before, but it wasn't like this one.

Nils's calm thoughts continued relentlessly. "That suggests a strong force of them nearby. And they are fighters by nature. As individuals they're as good as your knights. A village is a better place to winter than in the forest, and they're reckless men. If there are as many as fifty of them, they can easily take and hold the village against the force your baron has. The knights are far too few to drive them out, and outside the castle walls the men-at-arms are no match at all for horse barbarians. Will the castle hold all the peasants?"

Hannes's mind thickened in the face of the problem. It had been generations since there had been such a need, and castles had not grown with the population.

* * *

Night had fallen and the air already felt frosty. The moon was two nights past full and would not rise for a while. In the darkness the northmen rode slowly on the short stretch of unfamiliar road between village and castle. Their horses' hooves, thudding softly on the earth, emphasized the stillness now that summer's night sounds had passed. In front of them the castle stood black against a star-strewn sky. Only a few windows in the gate tower showed lights above the wall.

Nils reached out and sensed the minds of the gate guards. As he came beneath the wall, he was near enough to see the spots on the cards through their eyes and the rough plank table. He sensed thoughts and voices in German without knowing their meaning, felt their emotions which were quiet and poorly defined. At the gate he drew his sword and hammered the hilt sharply against the timbers three times, calling in Anglic, "Open the gate."

The immediate responses were starts and flashes of irritation, followed by suspicion, probably with the realization that the hail had not been in German. Nils could not read the German thoughts, but his mind presumed them. Except for the Brethren and foreigners, who would hail in Anglic? And would one of the Brethren ever use such a preemptory tone? A torch was held over the battlement and a dim face looked down from an embrasure more than twenty feet above them. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"We're northmen come to see Martin Gutknekt. Let us in!"

"Come back tomorrow when the gate is open."

Nils pounded again, almost violently, bellowing, "Open! Open!"

"Peace, peace," the voice hissed from above. "If your racket disturbs the baron, you'll wish you hadn't got in. I can't let armed men in at night, unknown men, without his leave. Why can't you wait until morning?"

"Two reasons," said Nils, his voice suddenly mild.

"First, northmen don't wait unless they want to, although they'll wait forever if it suits them." With each mention of "northmen" the man's mind had reacted, Nils noted. Apparently stories of them had reached here from the war in the Ukraine and were known by more than the Brethren. He continued. "The second reason: we have information for your baron of horse barbarians near here. We will either tell him what we know right now, or we'll leave and your blood can mark your ignorance. Your scurfy district here means nothing to us that we should cool our heels."

Sten grinned at Nils, chuckling in his throat as the torch was withdrawn, and spoke softly in the northern tongue until their companions too wore wolfish grins. Then they waited silently for a span of minutes. At length Nils sensed the gateman approaching with others, one of them hard and especially self-assured. The baron, or perhaps his marshal if he had a marshal.

A narrow gate opened beside the main gate, and the gateman beckoned to them. It was almost too narrow for a horse to pass through, and low enough that the northmen dismounted to enter. The other three loosened their swords in their scabbards cautiously, but Nils, finding no treachery in the waiting minds, had taken his horse's reins and preceded them. Inside the wall the tunnel-like gateway was no wider, and where it opened into the courtyard there was another gate, a raised door of heavy bars. In the courtyard a cluster of knights waited, dimly seen. Nils's glance counted eight, and he looked at the one whom he sensed was the leader.

"Come," the man said curtly and, turning, led them, the other knights falling in behind.

The keep loomed in the darkness, perhaps twenty meters in diameter and several levels of rooms in height. Probably with a dungeon below ground level, Nils decided.

* * *

Martin Gutknekt's audience chamber was small, in keeping with his position as one of the lesser nobility. He was a freckled, small-boned man of medium height, but chunky and strong-looking. Although he met them seated, the elevation of his chair allowed him to meet Nils's eyes on the level.

"So you are northmen. The Saxons told us of your feats against the enemy far away in the east. They also told us you were going south from there into unknown lands. What are northmen doing in Bavaria?"

"I've been in Bavaria before, as a wanderer. Now we've come to find a seeress who saved my life after the Great Storm. We plan to winter in the land of the Magyars and then pass down the Donau to the sea, where our people are going."

"To the land of Baalzebub? Then it is true what we heard. You must be great fighters indeed to have defeated his army and killed him."

"No others can match our weapon skills. But there were a lot of the enemy; we won mainly by cunning. Now Baalzebub's orcs are dead or fled, and the last I saw his head, it was lying beside a Ukrainian Marsh a full meter from his neck. But his horse barbarians are still plundering, in spite of the beating you people gave them at Elbestät, and you don't need to go farther than the hills west of this valley to find some."

"My man told me you had news of horse barbarians near the district. Where, and how many?"

Nils described what they had seen and what they had made of it, and the baron indicated his acceptance of their interpretation by not disputing it. "But they can't take the castle," he answered. "A few score men can hold it against hundreds, unless the hundreds have siege engines."

"They don't need the castle."

"But they can be driven out of the village."

"Not by you. There aren't enough of you."

For just an instant Gutknekt realized that the comment should have irritated him and hadn't. "My lord the graf can drive them out. His vassals include three barons besides myself, plus his own knights."

"How many men?"

The baron grew thoughtful. "Five dozen knights, perhaps, and bowmen to support them. We all took losses at Elbestät. In fact, the old graf himself died there, and his cousin is the graf now."

"Five dozen? Not enough," Nils said, sensing the same thought in the baron's mind. "Not if the horse barbarians number as many as a hundred."

"But the graf could get help from others."

"How long would it take that help to get here?"

"Two weeks, maybe less. We could easily hold out that long."

"You could. But what about the peasants? Could you bring them all inside the walls and shelter and feed them? The weather can turn bad any time now. The horse barbarians will take the village, kill the men and take the women captive. And if an army comes to relieve you, and it's strong enough, they may not even stay to fight. They may ride into the mountains and come back when the graf has left, or go somewhere else and take another village. That's what I'd do."

"And what do you want me to do?" The baron's voice reflected the anger of frustration that Nils read in his mind. "You say I don't have the strength to stop them, but I don't have the space to keep most of the peasants inside."

"Bring in as many as you have room for. Put sentries out with horns. Have the peasant men climb on their roofs when they hear the horns and use their bows. And give them whatever swords you can. They won't be much use to them as weapons, but they may help to stiffen their spines."

"It's against the king's law to give swords to peasants. And I can't call them men-at-arms; I already have as many as the law allows."

Nils didn't answer.

The baron sat down again, thoughtful. "Surely you don't think the peasants can hold the village." It was a statement, not a question.

"No. But there'd be fewer horse barbarians when it was over, and the peasant men, those not within the castle, will be killed anyway. It's not just a matter of this village, though. There are thousands of horse barbarians plundering through Europe, and your troubles with them won't end until they're dead or driven out. When they were in a few large armies, you marched against them, and they stood and fought and you beat them. But now that they're a lot of scattered packs, you don't know what to do about them. After Elbestät you might have kept after them and hunted them down, but you demobilized and came back to your castles to lick your wounds. Now you don't know where or when they'll strike next, or how to defend your villages. The peasants . . ."

"But would the peasants fight? They're only peasants, after all."

Nils shrugged. "Talk to the Brethren. They know the peasants better than anyone else does. There's one staying in the village now, a Brother Hannes."

Martin Gutknekt stared thoughtfully past the northmen, the discourse within his mind a slow, complex pattern of German. After a bit the brown eyes focused on Nils. "Well, Northman, I'm not used to someone else doing my thinking for me, and I'm not overly fond of it, but I thank you just the same. Will you and your friends stay here tonight? I can feed you better than they would at the inn, and the straw in the beds will be cleaner."

"Our thanks, Baron, but we'll sleep in the open. Cream draws flies. Who knows? The attack could come at sunup, and we don't want to be trapped in the inn and be butchered or in the castle and be delayed." He held out a huge hand. "We wish you luck, and the blood of your enemies."

II

When the sun reached the meridian, the four warriors came to a crossroads. To the south they could see a larger castle in the distance. Instead of continuing in that direction, they followed the lesser road westward toward the wild forest that began with the hills. The October sun was warm, almost hot, and although they were used to wearing mail and to sweating, it felt pleasant to ride into the shade at last. At a suggestion from Leif Trollsverd they swung out of their saddles and strode along, leading their horses up the slowly climbing road, stretching their own legs, giving the animals a rest. Here the road was little more than a trail, wide enough for a wagon but humpy with stones and outcrops of bedrock.

In their own lands they were more used to going on foot or skis than on horseback, and they hiked for four hours in unbroken forest, the road curving more north than west. Soon after they'd mounted again, Nils led them off the road at a blazed tree and along a little path that led to a cabin. He held up a hand and stopped them as soon as he could see the cabin through the trees. His careful eyes saw nothing wrong. His subconscious, remembering perfectly, comparing in detail, saw nothing different that could not be accounted for by the passage of time, by the change of seasons from one winter to the following autumn. But he knew unquestionably that something was seriously the matter.

They sat without moving, all but Nils aware of the occasional movements of their horses, their eyes carefully examining the cabin and the woods around it. Their ears were alert for meaningful sound.

Nils's questing awareness assured him that no one was there now, and that it was safe. When he led them forward again, it was still with a sense of something wrong. The shutters were open, and the interior was lit by autumn sunshine filtered through thin-scraped deer hides stretched over the windows. The place had been used by horse barbarians, apparently in a rain, for one had voided in a corner. Blood had dried on the split logs of the floor. The expressions of the three mirrored their separate characters as they looked from the blood to Nils.

The blond Jöt, Erik Bärsärken, showed covert pleasure, his eyes gleaming in anticipation of vendetta. In Leif Trollsverd's darker face the jaw muscles were knotted; there was a blood debt here. Sten Vannaren, keen-minded and long on experience, merely watched his big young friend to see what his reaction might be; he had decided some time before that Nils Järnhann was a new kind of man, whose acts he could not yet predict but would in time.

Nils walked slowly through the cabin's two rooms, his eyes missing nothing. Then all four went outside and examined the ground.

"They were here yesterday, and once a few days earlier," he said at last. "Maybe some will come tonight. We'll bed within hearing, in a thicket."

As they led their horses downwind of the cabin, they smelled rotting flesh. By a clump of hazel they found the body of a baby, skull smashed, its flesh gnawed by polecats. In a draw behind the cabin they found Ilse's spring, and the tracks where horse barbarians had ridden up the brook. They staked their horses some distance away and returned, holing up in a grove of old firs ringed with sapling growth that screened them from the nearby cabin. From their saddle bags they took dried meat, cheese and hard bread, and ate without talking. When they were done, they stretched out on top of their sleeping robes and relaxed like wild animals.

Soon the sun had dropped behind the crest of the ridge in back of them. All heard the voices at the same time, loud and in a language that was not German. They lay quietly, listening to the careless sounds. This time the horse barbarians came down the draw above the spring. Soon the voices were lost within the cabin's walls.

Nils spoke for a moment in an undertone, answered by nods and narrow-eyed grins. They buckled on their harnesses, took swords, shields and bows, and slipped through the trees to where they could see the cabin clearly. It still was full daylight, even in the shadow of the ridge. The horse barbarians had tethered their horses on leather ropes, to browse the twig ends of the brush, and after a brief intent examination of the surroundings the northmen decided that all were inside. The smoke of a young fire was starting from the chimney.

Each side of the cabin had openings. There was a door in front and one in back, and each side wall had two windows, one into each room. Leif Trollsverd, an arrow nocked, took a position from which he could cover the back door and the windows in one of the side walls. Sten knelt behind a tree diagonally opposite, covering the front and the other side. Erik slipped smoothly across the narrow strip of open ground to the side of the house and around the corner, stationing himself beside the back door, his teeth exposed in an ugly grin.

A moment later Nils appeared from the other side. He had a dry fir branch in his right hand, one end wrapped with blazing birch bark. As he ran up to the wall, he threw the branch onto the shake roof, then darted around the corner, shifting his sword from his left hand to his right. He could sense the sudden intentness inside; they had heard the thump of the torch.

Just as Nils reached the side of the door, a swarthy youth stepped out, started, jumped back, but the sword stroke caught him as he moved and he fell backward into the cabin with his rib cage cloven. The short shouts from inside meant nothing to Nils, but the thoughts that reached him were of anger and alarm. He stood shoulder to the wall, waiting for another, but none came. There were sounds of men scrambling, of swords being drawn from scabbards, and Nils sensed one of them standing by the wall, just inside the door, waiting for someone to try an entrance.

"That's one!" Nils shouted.

They were talking inside now, urgently and with undertones of fear. Through Sten's eyes, Nils saw flames begin to blaze up around the torch, but those inside were not aware of it yet because of the loft that separated them from the roof. From the rear of the cabin a brief clashing of steel sounded.

"Make that two!" came Erik's cheerful bellow.

Through the eyes of the man inside the door, Nils watched a lean youth draw a knife, slash the sides and top of one of the window coverings, and thrust his head and shoulders through. Uttering a bleating cry he fell backwards, and with a convulsive jerk pulled an arrow from the muscles of his neck. He rolled over onto hands and knees, retching, blood gushing from the wound and from his open mouth, then collapsed forward on his face. With an abrupt roar, another man ran and hurled himself headlong through the open window. Rounding the corner he ran at Nils, drawing his sword, fell forward to his knees, rose slowly, and fell again as a second arrow drove through his mail shirt.

Nils's mind counted the consciousnesses inside. "That's four," he shouted. "Two for Sten. There are six left." A victorious whoop came from Sten's position among the trees.

Inside, too, there was talk, and one horse barbarian stationed himself by each window and door. Their tough minds broadcast uncertainty, with various mixtures of anger and fear. They had no clear idea of what they were up against and no concerted idea of what to do beyond defending themselves. Again through Sten's eyes, Nils watched the flames on the roof, burning higher now and starting to spread.

Suddenly there was a mental shock of alarm from inside, then quick words of instruction. One of the window guards left his post, and Nils's mind went with him up the ladder, raising the trapdoor and gazing into the dark loft. Above he saw the bright flames burning through the roof. At that moment some burning material fell near him and the man dropped from the ladder to the floor below, yelling.

A few hoarse words drew them all into the front room; Nils in turn shouted to Erik. All six rushed for the open door. Nils's stroke caught the first as he emerged, sweeping below the shield and cutting his legs from under him. The second hurdled him before Nils could strike again, and attacked with berserk rage while a third ran out behind him. From inside came oaths and grunts as Erik fell on them from behind. Sten put an arrow through the third man out while Nils killed his furious assailant and went crouched through the door to help Erik.

Erik needed no help. One lay struck dead from behind and a second was down, bleeding and helpless, cursing. The blond Jöt stood watching through the open window; the last of the enemy patrol had jumped through it and was running into the woods, holding his right shoulder where an arrow was embedded. A grinning, red-haired figure pursued him out of sight among the trees. In a minute Sten reappeared, waving his bloody sword, and they left the burning cabin.

* * *

When Nils's eyes opened, they focused first on the skeletal crown of a naked beech, its major limbs dimly resolved against the night sky. A few stars of larger magnitude were visible between the black masses of fir tops, and moving his head, he could see the lopsided moon past the meridian, telling him that dawn wasn't far off. Its pale light washed patches of ground and filled others with dense black shadow. Forty meters away, between the stems of trees and brush, he could see dull red where the collapsed heap of the cabin still smoldered. Its smell was strong but not unpleasant. Frost from his breath coated the fur at the upper edge of his sleeping robe.

He had wakened wide, not from the cold or the moonlight but from something that lay calm and watchful in his mind. Without ever having experienced it before, he knew it was the consciousness of a he-wolf, probably one of Ilse's familiars, but he didn't know how to communicate with it.

The wolf had sensed his waking telepathically and had waited until Nils was aware of him. As if it had sensed Nils's psi power even when the northman was still asleep—as if it had recognized what being was there. And then it held a picture of Ilse in its mind for Nils to see. The picture zoomed in on Ilse's face and seemed to go right into her mind where there was a physical and mental image of Nils. And with that as an almost instantaneous background, the picture was again of Ilse, hands tied, being taken away by a patrol of horse barbarians. As Nils sat up in his sleeping furs, the picture became one of a large man, Nils, on horseback, with undefined representations of companions, following a large wolf through the forest.

The picture faded and the emission of the wolf's mind changed to a quiet formlessness, as Ilse said his own did. Nils acknowledged, then lay back down and went to sleep almost at once, not to awake again until the gray wash of dawn.

He wakened his companions and the four warriors squatted hunched beneath their robes, silently gnawing cheese and dry bread, bodies stiff with cold and sleep. The only speech was Nils's quiet voice. They were glad to lead their horses up the dim slope to the ridge crest; the exertion warmed them before they mounted and rode away.

When the sun was two hours high, they lay beneath the low branches of a thicket of sapling firs. Farther downslope a fire had consumed the undergrowth two or three years earlier, leaving an open clumpy stand of older trees. A good campsite. Forty-two teepeelike tents stood on the gentle toe-slope—more than one hundred men and perhaps close to two hundred. Secure in their strength and hidden site, the horse barbarians had become careless again about sentries.

"Leif, run down there and bloody your sword," Erik breathed with a grin. "We did all the work yesterday."

Trollsverd grunted an obscenity.

Sten chuckled. "That's the price of a big reputation; they kept away from him. And when did fighting start to be work?"

Nils ignored their whispered chaffing. They were within the range of normal telepathic pickup from the camp—close enough that loud voices could be heard. He had intended to reach Ilse with his mind, but now he did not dare a forceful telepathic call to get her attention. For there were two psi minds in the camp—hers and one that belonged to a horse barbarian.

"This place is dangerous," he whispered. "There's a psi down there." With that they wriggled back out of the thicket and slipped away.

III

The castle was much larger than that of Martin Gutknekt and had a moat with brown billows of dead algae. The gate stood open in the sunlit morning as the neovikings walked their horses across the drawbridge. The gate guards scowled at the strangely garbed and equipped riders but did not move to stop them. As the warriors approached the great squat keep, the two guards at its entrance lowered their pikes, and one called down to halt. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

Nils stared up the stone steps at them, one enormous hand spread on a thick thigh, making the most of his size and imposing physique as they stared back at him. "Who is your master?" he responded.

This question for a question stopped the slow-witted guard. After a moment he answered, "The graf, Karl Haupmann."

"Tell him four northmen are here to see him, with information about a strong force of horse barbarians in the country."

The sun-browned face stared suspiciously at the big northman, jaws working with indecision. These strangers obviously were not nobles, or even knights. Nils helped him. "Or would you rather be staked out in the sun and flayed?"

The guard stepped back, then turned reluctantly through the open door. His partner's mind squirmed with discomfort at being left alone to face the four big warriors, a discomfort that the three could read in his face as certainly as Nils read it in his mind.

"At home men like that would be thralls," Leif Trollsverd said.

"That's about what they are here," Sten answered.

The remaining guard stared at them, perplexed by the unfamiliar tonal syllables. He knew German and Anglic, but had never heard any other language and was uncertain whether this was truly speech or not. After several minutes a burly knight came out of the interior and squinted down at them in the bright sunshine. He snapped fast words in German, and they sat looking impassively up at him until he repeated in Anglic. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"We are northmen and want to see the graf," Nils said dryly. "We've seen a large force of horse barbarians near the district of Martin Gutknekt."

The knight sneered. "Show a skin-clad savage a peasant riding on an ox and there's no telling what he'll think he saw."

The usually imperturbable Sten rose in his stirrups and had his sword half out before Nils put a hand on his wrist and spoke softly in Swedish. Turning back to the knight, Nils said with mild calm, "Then let us tell him what we think we saw."

Without saying anything more, the man led them inside and to a throne room some fifteen meters long. Entering, they passed two guards with pikes and swords who stood by the open door. Five mail-clad knights stood on the dais near the throne; three were breathing deeply as if they had hurried to be there. Karl Haupmann sat upright and hard-faced, as his marshal, followed by the barbaric-looking warriors, strode to the foot of the dais and stated the particulars in German.

Nils recognized an unforeseen problem here. The graf was a cruel and ruthless man with a pathological suspicion of foreigners.

He looked at them. "Northmen, eh? What is this about horse barbarians?"

"There's a large force of them, between one and two hundred, camped in the mountains near the district of Martin Gutknekt. We think they plan to take his principal village."

The graf's emotional pattern was ugly, but his speech, if curt, was civil. "Why do you think they'll try to take Doppeltanne?"

Nils sensed here a xenophobe who might have them attacked on the spot if he thought it safe. And lacking any tactical advantage, the odds of nine to four did not appeal to Nils, especially with the two door guards behind them. He stated his answer matter-of-factly, in a voice of utter assurance. "First, I didn't say 'try.' There is no question of their ability. Second, they'll need food and shelter for the winter, and the village has both. Third, they're camped near Gutknekt's district. And forth, they're in tents, making no effort to build huts against the winter."

"And why should I listen to you?" The graf's control cracked for a moment. "You are foreign barbarians yourselves. What are northmen doing in Bavaria, unless . . . ?"

"We're going to Baalzebub's land. Our army beat his and killed Baalzebub himself. Now we will take his country."

"But we'd heard you were passing far to the east, far east of the Czechlands." The graf stared intently at Nils through narrowed eyes.

"The rest of our people are. The four of us have come this way to see to some business."

"What business?"

To say "a woman" might amuse and relax the graf, but it might also make them seem ludicrous and weak. On the other hand, while to say "our own business" might offend him dangerously, it might also impress him with their fearlessness and make him cautious.

"Our own business."

The graf darkened and, turning, spoke to his marshal in German for a full minute. The marshal nodded curtly and left. The other knights tightened.

"Then why do you come to tell me about horse barbarians? They're no business of yours, are they?" There was a note of triumph in the graf's voice.

"Maybe they shouldn't be. Not here at any rate." Nils looked at the others. "Let's go," he said in Swedish, "but be ready to fight." They turned to leave.

"Wait!" The graf stood up. "You saw their camp. How can we find it?"

They stopped. "It is in the mountains west of Doppeltanne," Nils answered. There are three main ridges between the valley and their camp, or maybe four. They are camped along the east foot of the next ridge west. Or they were. They may be in Doppeltanne by now."

The man was stalling for time, Nils realized.

Sitting back down, the graf asked more questions about the condition of the enemy and their horses and what Nils thought their tactics might be. After several minutes he arose abruptly. "I am keeping you from your journey," he said. "Thank you, Northmen, for your information." His eyes were like chips of flint, and a smile played at one corner of his mouth. "And travel in peace."

Nils nodded, and the four warriors started toward the tall broad door of the chamber. Halfway there Nils sensed that the knights were moving; glancing back, he saw them sauntering from the dais. Though seemingly casual, they were taut inside, and nervous. Nils paused briefly in the doorway, then started down the wide corridor.

"When he sent his marshal out," he said rapidly, "it was to set a trap. After that he was stalling for time. The ones behind us are the smaller jaw."

The short flight of stairs leading down to the entrance of the keep was only half as wide as the corridor. They would be bunched there, with no room to maneuver. Just short of the stairs, Nils quietly said "Stop," stepped to a window and leaned out on his stomach through the thick-walled opening to scan the courtyard. Outside stood a phalanx of bowmen and a group of mounted knights, facing the door.

The knights following the northmen had continued a few paces and stopped uncertainly. "Take them," Nils said, and they fell upon them.

At the sounds of fighting and the shouts of the knights, the entrance guards below began to shout. The unexpectedness and ferocity of the northmen's attack overran the knights, three of whom fell while the others gave way and let them pass. One of the guards at the throne room door dropped his pike and ran into a side corridor while the other, cursing, stepped quickly through the door and tried to close it. It burst open in his face, throwing him to the floor as the four warriors rushed in.

The graf stood in front of his throne, drawing a short sword, but Nils met him at the foot of the dais and bisected him casually in passing, then led them through a curtained doorway behind the throne and up a flight of stairs. This took them to a suite of rooms above, where they found a woman, obviously the grafin, and a boy in his early teens. Startled, the boy drew a knife, but Leif grabbed his wrist and the knife clattered on the flags as the boy yelled with pain.

Erik covered the stairwell then, and Leif and Sten held their two prisoners while Nils gagged them. They could hear someone shouting in the throne room, and while Nils snatched a bow and quiver of arrows from the wall, angry voices and shod feet sounded from below. Strong-arming their prisoners, they hurried out of the apartment into another corridor and from it into a climbing stairwell that wound within the outer wall.

Voices surged into the corridor they had just left, and Nils shouted down in Anglic to stop, that they had the grafin and the boy. Pursuit stopped, although the voices only paused, and the northmen went on up the stairs until they emerged onto the top of the keep. Erik and Sten stayed by the trapdoor, tying the woman with strips of her petticoat. Leif pushed the boy ahead of him to the parapet and lifted him bodily into an embrasure where he could be clearly seen, powerful fists holding him firmly by belt and jerkin. Nils laid the bow and quiver against the parapet and leaned through an embrasure next to the one the boy was in.

A growing crowd stood below in the courtyard, including some of the archers and a knight, but their attention was on the entrance, and they had not yet seen the figures in the embrasures above. For a long minute things hung like that, as if the world had slowed down, until a knight jogged shouting out of the entrance of the keep, followed by others, and all eyes turned to the top. Briefly there were angry shouts from the courtyard, but Nils kept still, monitoring emotions, until a waiting near-silence had settled. Then he spoke, loudly, so that he was clearly heard twenty meters below.

"We came in peace to warn the graf of an army of horse barbarians camped within the country." A babble of voices rose that Nils waited out. "As our reward he tried to have us murdered." He paused. "Now he is dead, and we have his wife and boy hostage."

Although the crowd remained quiet, Nils stopped until he could sense unease below, and the beginning of impatience, then called down again. "Who was the marshal of the old graf? The graf killed at Elbestät? Step forward if you're here."

The faces below turned to a tall, square-shouldered knight who stood looking grimly upward before striding out in front of the archers.

"And the man who is marshal now. Let him step forward."

The burly, sneering knight came into the open beside the other.

Without speaking, Nils stepped back from the embrasure out of sight, nocked an arrow and bent the bow. Then, stepping to the embrasure again, he let the bowstring go and the new marshal fell with an arrow in his chest.

The crowd made a sound like a many-voiced sigh, but no one else moved. In that instant of shock Nils shouted down, "The marshal from before is now the ruler of this castle until the king names a new graf. Come up and parley with us, and then we'll leave."

IV

The northmen spent the night at the forest's edge on the eastern side of the valley, partway to Doppeltanne. At dawn they rode on, gnawing cheese and hard bread as they rode through frost-rimed grass. The timber's edge was grazed and open, alternating between heavy-limbed oaks and groves of gray beeches as hollow as chimneys, their fire-scarred bases doors to squirrels and polecats. After some hours they could see the castle of Martin Gutknekt, and then Doppeltanne. Cattle foraged in the stubble fields tended by boys with long sticks, so the neovikings rode out openly and came to the castle before noon.

The sun was warm now, and outside the walls sweating peasant youths swung swords in a clumsy parody of drill, rasped by the cutting tongue of a knight. Rapt children and glum old men stood watching. In the courtyard were dozens of peasant women squatting around small fires, preparing the noon meal. Shelters of poles, hides and woven mats were being built.

The northmen found the baron in the armory, sparring with his marshal with shields and blunt swords. He stepped back and turned a sweating face to them. "Too damned crowded to practice in the courtyard." He wiped his face with a rag. "I thought you'd be far gone by now. Do you have any news? I sent men out yesterday, good hunters, and they found tracks."

"If they'd been with us, they'd have seen more than tracks," Nils answered. "We found their camp a few hours west of here. There are more than a hundred of them, judging by their tents. Probably closer to two hundred. We took the news to the graf, and frankly we thought we might find the village taken by now. Do you know where we might find Brother Hannes?"

"He may be in the village. We talked two days ago, and then we both talked to the peasants. Since then he's been riding around the district encouraging them, and he chose the men we issued swords to. He says they're the likeliest to fight."

"The Brethren know the people's minds as if they could see into them," Nils commented. "I'll go look for him. With your leave I'd like to talk to both of you together."

As soon as Nils rode out the gate, he sensed Hannes; he had come to watch the peasants drill. Hannes was clearly depressed; he knew that soon many of these people would die. Turning at the approach of the warriors, he sensed at once that Nils brought bad news, and guessed.

"She's dead?"

"No. Prisoner."

"Gentle Father Jakob."

After seven centuries the memory of Jakob Tashi Norbu, the Tibetan-Swiss psionicist, still was revered by the kinfolk. The lean telepath breathed his name now partly in gratitude, partly in pain.

"But I intend to get her back," Nils said. "Now let's go talk to the baron. We have plans to make."

Hannes looked at him with sudden appreciation. There seemed no emotional content to anything he had heard Nils say or think—his emotions had to be a lot different than other people's, just as his mind was. But he knew that if it wasn't for Ilse, Nils would have left his warning and been two days gone from the district by now. Hannes held up his hand to Nils and, half-jumping, half-hoisted, mounted behind the warrior.

* * *

Nils stepped back from the rough map he had drawn. "And that's where their camp is from here, as best I can show you. But they won't stay there much longer. I've never seen or heard of horse barbarians starting anything at night, although that doesn't mean they won't. There are different tribes with different tongues, and this bunch may be different from those we've had experience with. Or they may have changed their tactics since last summer. But it's my guess they'll attack by daylight. And after they take the village they'll probably get drunk. If Hannes and Sten took your armed peasants into the forest east of the valley after dark tonight and camped there . . ."

* * *

Nils, Leif and Erik ate and replenished their saddlebags, saluted Sten in casual farewell, and left. They rode several kilometers south down the road to where a finger of forest approached it on a low spur ridge from the west. Beyond it they angled southwesterly and entered the forest. This route, they hoped, would bypass possible enemy scouts. Gradually their course curved until, near sundown, they were following the upper west slope of the fourth major ridge and heading north.

The horse barbarians were raiders from the deserts, steppes and arid mountains of the Middle East, whose tradition was open-mounted attack or simple ambush. The neovikings, on the other hand, were raiders of the Scandinavian forests, whose style was cunning and stealth. And at home they'd made an important part of their living hunting on foot with bows. Thus their senses missed little and their minds remembered and correlated what they saw and heard and smelled, like the Iroquois of twelve hundred years earlier. So this stretch of ridge was familiar to them, though they'd seen it only once before and from a different approach. After a bit they rode into the bottom of the heavily wooded valley west of the ridge and tied their horses in a stand of young fir that was littered and almost fenced by the blown-down bones of ancestors. It was not the kind of place a rider was likely to wander into.

Then, on foot and with their sleeping robes in bundles on their backs, they climbed back up the long slope as dusk began to settle, and slipped toward the enemy camp. Nils sensed no sentry. When he decided they were approaching the range of normal telepathy, he left Leif and Erik in a tangle of blowdown and moved quietly on until he was receiving the casual, though to him unintelligible, thoughts of the Turkic tribesmen nearby. After determining his line of withdrawal, he lay beside the slightly raised disk of roots and soil of a pole-sized fir that had partly uprooted and lodged in the top of a beech. Come morning, the gap beneath the roots would give nearly perfect concealment if needed.

His mind stilled as no other human mind could, as indiscernible to a watchful psi as possible. Soon it was dark, and yellow campfires danced nearby. His body relaxed within his robe as his mind received, correlated and stored.

After a time he permitted himself to sleep. A unit of awareness monitored the environment to awaken him if necessary.

At dawn he awoke without moving and let his eyes sweep the gray-lit woods within their range, his ears and psi sense alert, his subconscious carefully sorting sensations. He was aware that the two psi minds in the camp were awake too, along with many others. Ilse and the other psi were together, but far enough from Nils that he couldn't receive passive optical impressions from either of them. From the male, Nils recognized the patterns of a strong but undisciplined mind.

She was speaking Anglic to him.

The light was growing stronger. Slowly Nils slid into the dark opening under the tipped-up roots. Breakfast fires were being lit. Soon early-morning taciturnity disappeared among the enemy tribesmen as fires and movement warmed them. Their eating took some time, and Nils could hear them talking and laughing, the sounds mixed with the patterns of telepathic emissions that were their natural accompaniment.

He continued to lie there, his mind focused on the two psis, other minds relegated to background. He knew which tent was theirs. Then a man came from it and the bearings of the two minds separated as he walked through the camp. Soon men and captive women began to strike tents, rolling them into bundles. Others trailed down the gentle toe slope toward a long meadow that bordered the creek in the valley bottom and returned leading strings of horses.

Nils saw Ilse then, pulling down the tent, folding and rolling it. The man returned when she was done and helped load it on a horse. Within an hour all gear had been loaded. The horse barbarians mounted, their voices lively and boisterous at the prospect of action. The psi led them in a loose column through the trees, eastward toward Doppeltanne. Pack animals, spare mounts and colts followed. A score of women sat the nags of the string bareback, waiting while the pack train moved out. Behind them were mounted guards.

By the time the women started moving, the chief of the band was perhaps a kilometer ahead. Nils called to Ilse telepathically. She did not turn; only her mind responded.

"Nils!"

"Are they going to attack Doppeltanne?"

She wrenched her mind to the question. "Yes. And be careful. He's a psi you know, and he understands a fair amount of Anglic; he's been learning it since Poland." She began to ride more slowly, letting most of the women pass, until one of the rearguard shouted at her and gestured with his lance.

"I'll try to get you free tonight," Nils thought after her.

"Don't take chances. Perhaps I know how to kill him."

"Tonight," his thought followed her. "We'll make our move tonight." He watched her out of sight. The information should be safe with her, if she'd been able to submerge and screen well enough to work out a murder scheme without her captor reading it. One of Kazi's psi officers must have discovered the man's potential and had him trained, as Raadgiver had done with him. Operational telepaths very rarely just happened.

* * *

Several tents remained. Two women worked around them, and two guards sat beside a fire, talking and laughing. A man came from one of the tents, helping himself with a crutch. Very carefully Nils moved from his post toward the hiding place of his companions. Softly though he moved, his approach awakened Erik, whose hand moved quickly to his sword as he sat up. Leif grinned. "I let the growing boy sleep late," he said softly in his lilting Norwegian.

"They've broken camp," Nils said, "and they're riding toward Doppeltanne. They left some wounded behind, with a pair of women to look after them, and a couple of guards. We'll get our horses and then ride in and take them."

The northmen hiked over the ridge top and down to their horses, saddled them and fastened the bits in their mouths, all without hurry. Then they rode back and walked their horses toward the camp.

When one of the guards heard their approach and looked their way, they kicked their mounts into a gallop and cut the men down while they scrambled for their bows. One of the women half-choked a scream and then both stood by, frightened. These savage foreigners in deerskin breeches and black mail, with bare-fanged totems on their helmets, seemed just a different variety of horse barbarian. While Erik sat with arrow on bowstring, covering, Nils and Leif rode around cutting the lodgepoles with their heavy swords and knocking down tents. As the occupants ducked or crawled out or lay humped beneath the hides, they were killed.

One stared as Nils charged at him, a shock of recognition on his dark, scarred face, and Nils reined hard left to avoid trampling the man. A picture had flashed through the horse barbarian's mind, of this same giant warrior with straw-colored braids standing naked and weaponless in an arena, stalked by a grinning orc officer with sword in hand. It was this man. Nils realized, who had thrown his own curved sword down onto the sand.

"Let that one be!" Nils shouted, and left the man on hands and knees beside his crutch while they finished their killing.

The women stared in shock and fear as Nils turned his horse and looked at them. "Can you ride?" he asked in Anglic.

They nodded dumbly.

"Then get on those horses. Ride to the top of that ridge and go in that direction." He pointed. "Do you understand?" They nodded again. "Stay on top of the ridge until you come to a road. It will take two or three hours or maybe more. When you come to the road, ride down the road with the sun on your right shoulder. Your right shoulder. When you come out of the forest, you'll soon arrive at a crossroads. From there you can see a castle. Go to the castle. Tell them that the enemy is in Doppeltanne. Doppeltanne! Now tell me what I said."

Hesitantly and with help they repeated his instructions, then walked to the horses and rode away, glancing back repeatedly until they were out of sight.

"Think they'll get lost?" Leif asked.

"I don't think so," Nils answered. "They had the directions well enough." Then he turned and looked at the man he'd spared.

The stocky barbarian stood now, staring at them, not knowing what to expect. He didn't imagine that Nils knew who he was. He'd been one among tens of thousands shouting in the stands, and when he'd thrown the sword, the giant had been looking the other way.

Nils dismounted and walked over to him. "You gave me a chance to live," he said. "Now we are even." The Swedish words meant nothing to the man, but the tone was not threatening. The other northmen looked at each other. Nils jabbed the man lightly on the shoulder with a thick, sword-callused forefinger, then pointed to the man's side where his sword would have hung. Next he moved as if drawing a sword and made a throwing movement. Pointing to himself, he bent as if to take something from the ground, then held out his hand as if armed. The man stared with awed understanding.

Nils remounted then and they rode leisurely to the meadow where the horse barbarians had kept their horse herd. There the northmen hobbled their mounts and let them graze until after noon, while they napped in the autumn sun.

V

It was night. The horse barbarians had loosed their horses in a field fenced on three sides with rails and on the fourth with a tight hedge. The fence wasn't high enough to hold horses like theirs, so they had hobbled them.

Their chief had posted four guards on horseback to patrol outside the paddock, and they were disgusted to be pulling guard duty while they could hear the drunken shouts from the village. So when buddies sneaked out to them with two jugs of schnapps, they didn't hesitate. It wasn't as if vigilance was needful. The fighting men in this land had all the stealth of a cattle herd.

Dismounting, they tethered their mounts to the fence and squatted down together with their backs against it to test the schnapps. The chief, they agreed, would be too busy enjoying himself to check on them. Or if he did, it was very dark and the moon wouldn't rise until after midnight. They'd be able to hear him before he found them.

The three northmen lay in the tall grass at the edge of a ditch, listening to their murmuring and quiet laughter.

* * *

He had read his peasants well, Hannes realized. The thirty he'd chosen, most of them youths, had more violence simmering in them than he'd realized they could generate, partly a result of being armed. To strengthen their anger, he had purposely moved them close enough, shortly after the village had been taken, to hear the shouts and occasional screams. Then he'd pulled them back, for Nils had warned him that one of the horse barbarians was a psi. Probably their chief, Hannes decided. Now he listened to the thoughts and emotions of his men. Some were angry enough that they were not even nervous, only impatient. A few were managing to doze, but the night was too cold here behind the hedge to sleep soundly, and their homespun blankets were not for out-of-doors.

He looked at the big northman beside him, Sten. The face was turned eastward. Occasional patterns in unintelligible Swedish drifted through the man's mind, with fragmentary and partially visualized scenes, but mostly the neoviking's mind was nearly motionless, though awake and quietly serene. To a degree it reminded Hannes of a cat they'd had at home when he was a boy. Or of Nils.

At the thought of Nils he turned and looked westward past the village toward the low black mass of mountains defined against gleaming stars. Had the three northmen survived their scouting expedition? Had they found the paddock? If they hadn't . . . Shivering partly with cold, he tried to shake off the line of thinking, but thoughts of death came back to him. If they had died or otherwise failed their mission, the rest of them would be dead by morning. Except perhaps Sten; Sten might escape.

Would Sten feel grief if his three friends were killed? There was clearly strong affinity between them. Yet somehow Hannes didn't think Sten would. It would be like his cat, when he'd been a boy. She'd loved her kittens, in her way, and defended them, but when one was killed, she'd sniffed it and then walked casually away without sorrow. That was how it would be with Sten; Sten was somewhat like Nils.

Nils. Someday the big psi-warrior would die, probably violently, but somehow he didn't believe he was dead yet.

* * *

Zühtü Hakki lay on his side on the straw-filled tick, staring through the darkness at the dim form of the woman on the heap of hay across the room. She lay still, but her mind was awake, her thoughts an unintelligible mental murmuring in German. From somewhere outside he heard coarse laughter. Drunk, every mother's son of them probably. Probably even the paddock guards. All but Mustafa and his detail. It's a good thing the enemy are all bottled up inside the castle, he thought. Old Mustafa will keep his boys sober and in the saddle, and the dogs in the castle won't try to sally out past that pack of wolves. Mustafa never drinks. The older men say he never did. Wonder why? Almost unheard of, a man who doesn't drink. Besides Mustafa I'm probably the only man here who's voluntarily sober, and I've had a pull or two. Funny that since my psi was trained, I've had no desire to get drunk. Other desires, but not to get drunk. He opened his eyes again and looked toward the woman. There were prettier women; plump ones. But I'll stick with this one. You can get tired of a pretty woman, but this one has a mind. Funny. Until my psi was trained, I never cared if a woman had a mind. And tonight she'd been different. No wonder I'm tired. Very tired. Loose and relaxed and very, very tired. And safe here. Very safe here. Very safe and very secure. My eyes are heavy. Very, very heavy. They keep wanting to close. Can't keep them open any more. No need to. Now they're closed. And I can't open them. Couldn't open them if I tried. Don't want to try. Sleepy. Very sleepy. Very, very sleepy. I'm falling asleep. Falling deeply asleep. Deeply asleep. It feels so good to fall deeply, deeply asleep.

Ilse kept the thoughts running through her/his mind, surrounding them with full, soft inner feelings and pictures of sinking through clouds. She took him deeper and deeper. And now I can't move, her mind murmured. Don't want to move. Can't move. Very peaceful here, and I refuse to move, or see, or hear, or feel.

She continued this briefly. Then she rose quietly, rolled the comatose chieftain off the straw tick and pulled his war harness from under it. And usually, she thought, he sleeps as lightly as a cat. The curved sword was not heavy and her arms were strong. There was light enough from the dying fire. She kept her eyes on the neck and swung hard, then, with a shudder, threw the blade on the tick and wiped her hands on her greasy homespun skirt, although there was no blood on them. Her mind shifted outside where it found a drunken guard sleeping on the cold doorstone. Fumbling in the gloom, she got the knife sheath off the harness and fastened it to the strip of homespun that served her as a belt.

Then she opened the shutters on a side window and climbed out. A peasant body lay beneath it, where it had fallen from the roof during the brief afternoon battle, and she stumbled on it. A ladder still leaned against the thatched eaves. She climbed it and huddled grimly against the stone chimney.

A few men could be heard, or sensed, still wandering or staggering between the huts or down the village street. She heard the sound of violent vomiting, followed by roars of laughter. But most of them were inside now, out of the cold, sleeping. She could barely sense their sleeping minds through the log walls.

It wouldn't do to be here when the sun rises, she thought. If nothing happens by the time the moon is halfway to the meridian, I'll have to try to get away by myself.

* * *

Two of the horse guards had fallen asleep and the other two squatted murmuring and laughing. They were too dulled to hear the bowstrings. One slumped to his side. The other rose unsteadily to his knees, looking stupidly at the arrow in his belly, then fell forward.

When they had finished with them, the northmen pulled down the top rails from a section of fence, throwing them out of the way. Then they mounted three of the guards' horses and rode them into the paddock. The animals there were conditioned to the smell of blood and sounds of death, and for a while they didn't take alarm as the warriors quietly walked their mounts around, casually killing horses with their swords. After a little they spooked, however, milling in the darkness, and the northmen worked faster. Some found the place where the fence had been lowered, and Erik stationed himself there as guard and executioner. It didn't take them long to panic then, hopping clumsily in their hobbles and whinnying in the light of the half-risen moon.

* * *

The reddish moon, shaved to slightly less than half a disk, had risen almost entirely above the hills, throwing a pale light over the valley. The sentry atop the gate tower strained his eyes northward. Something was going on over there with the enemy's horses, but it was much too far to see by moonlight. The swine outside heard it, too, he thought. One of them was shouting orders, and three trotted their horses down the road in that direction.

When the first limb of the moon had shown, he had hissed the news down to the courtyard, and the knights had mounted their horses. The sounds of their low voices had stopped, and they sat in hard and silent readiness. All he could hear now was the occasional impatient sound of a hoof stamping on the packed ground or a creak of leather.

Suddenly there was another sound, startling him, distant shouts and whoops, as of horsemen riding into the village from the east. The enemy outside turned, staring in that direction but unable to see a thing except the buildings standing dimly in the moonlight across the fields. Their captain trotted his horse a few tentative steps in that direction, stopped for a brief moment, then spoke a command. The whole body of them broke into a gallop toward the village.

The sentry called down quietly and heard the dull sound of well-greased chains as the portcullis was raised. The gates opened and the knights trotted out, then spurred their horses forward.

* * *

Sten led the peasant charge, and just outside the village his whoop signalled theirs to begin. Briefly they stormed through the village, chopping at the occasional enemy caught outside, before those inside roused and began to stumble out of doorways. Sten knew there was nothing like danger to clear the fumes from a drunken brain, but still, the enemy was afoot, confused, and slow of reflexes, and the clumsy hate-filled peasants rode hewing among the huts.

Then, more quickly than he'd expected, the angry, sober troop that had stood watch outside the castle were on them, and he shouted and heard Hannes shout to ride, ride for the forest. Peasant blood-lust turned to panic before the onslaught, and they fled, or tried to, streaming out into the field with clots of horse barbarians cutting them out of their saddles. Wishing he were the horseman the enemy were, Sten drew alongside Hannes, guarding him because the man was something to Nils.

The knights had bypassed the village to the east. There were only twelve of them, but they were strong and battle-hardened and they hit as a solid wave, unexpectedly, rolling up the flank of the already occupied enemy. The remaining peasants rode on in unmolested terror as their pursuers turned to face the assault. As the horse barbarians rallied, the knights began to give back toward the castle.

And from a roof, a huddled half-frozen girl cried out with her mind, "Nils, Nils, come and get me."

VI

This gray dawn was the coldest yet, and the horses' hooves sounded sharply on the frozen ground. There were no clouds. To the east the sky shone yellow along the line of hills as they rode southward down the road. Ilse was draped with a sleeping robe dropped at a door by a horse barbarian and snatched up by Nils as the three warriors had galloped through the village to get her. Now Sten, having circled eastward, caught up with them.

Hannes, he said, had stayed with his surviving peasants, leading them into the forest.

"And what will happen to them?" Ilse asked. "Will the enemy hunt them down?"

Nils smiled. "The first thing the enemy will do is see what horses he can find. It won't be many; mostly peasant plow horses." He turned to Sten. "How many horse barbarians died, do you think?"

Sten answered in Swedish so that Leif and Erik could understand. "I'd guess maybe twenty were killed this afternoon with arrows from the roofs, but that's just a guess. I watched from a hedgerow, but not very close. And tonight Hannes's peasants must have tallied twenty or more killed. Killed or maimed, that is. Their strokes weren't too accurate, and I kept worrying they'd fall off their horses. But even peasants can be effective with an advantage like that.

"The knights must have killed ten or a dozen when they hit, and maybe a few more getting back to the castle. And the archers at the castle might have gotten lucky in the moonlight and knocked off a few more if they followed too close to the walls. How many does that come to?"

"Fifty or sixty," Nils answered. "And we killed four paddock guards and maybe half a dozen in the village when we rode in to get Ilse. And we killed horses until my sword arm got so tired I had to switch hands."

He turned to Ilse. "We'll have to teach you Swedish now. Our people don't know Anglic."

"Perhaps we should teach Leif and Erik Anglic, too." She smiled when she said it, but Nils sensed something behind the words. "I had a precognition weeks ago," she went on. "Men will come out of the sky in a starship, men like the ancients, speaking Anglic, and they will come among your people."

Exodus ... Genesis

I

The Carters were on the balcony above theirs, arguing again, saying ugly vicious things to one another, and starting to get loud. Ted Fralich looked at Eve, his wife. She nodded. They picked up their drinks and left the pleasant July night. Before he stepped inside, he looked toward the west. The Front Range, marked here and there with light clusters, lay black below the star-filled moonless night.

Wincing at an obscenity, he let the door close behind him.

"I'm glad I married you," Eve said.

He grinned. "Hold that thought. Actually, I'm lucky to have a neighbor like that to be compared with. I wonder what they were thinking about, getting married to one another."

"Don't you know? What they were thinking about?"

He sat down across the table from her. "Yeah, I guess I do at that. But most of us thought about other things, too. Some of the time, anyway."

He sliced crumbly yellow cheese, laid it on a rye cracker from a polished wooden bowl, and capped it precisely with another. As he did, his vision hazed slightly. A sudden small pain made him frown and touch his forehead.

"Is something the matter, dear?"

"A sharp little pain in the forehead. I felt it once out on the balcony. Too much tridee. What in the world did people do in the evening before . . . ?" He stopped, showed his teeth, and finished the canape in one bite.

Her eyebrows arched. "You're feeling a little frisky tonight for a man your age, aren't you?"

"At my age you have to make hay while the sun shines. Or the stars."

In an age of minimum interaction with nature, it didn't occur to him to wonder how that archaic expression came to be.

* * *

His restless movements wakened her just before he threw up. In the darkness, the violence of his vomiting was shocking, so that her cry of "Ted!" was louder than she intended. He lay with his head hanging over the side of the bed, shuddering. Raising herself on one elbow, she reached across for his forehead. Her fingers felt sweat.

"You're sick! Really sick!" It was surprising, something no longer common. "Let me call the med. And don't get up!" she added, swinging her feet out of bed. "I'll clean the floor later." Sitting there, she rapped out the med number on the building comm.

As she did, Ted lunged upright and out of bed with an abrupt violence that shocked her so she didn't even call out, simply stared, round-eyed. He lurched from the bedroom without hearing Eve's muted words to the med. In the kitchen was a towel dispenser, and he began to jerk sheets from it one after another, rapidly, violently. When he had an armful, he pressed a switch. Eve peered in at him. A burner glowed quickly red on the stove, and he thrust the towels against it, glaring as they began to burn in his hands.

"TED!"

Her scream and clutching hands had no effect. Knocking her aside was trivial, perhaps inadvertent, as he moved about the living room, thrusting burning paper among cushions, into shelves and a basket of newsfax, while his pajamas reluctantly took fire. Eve followed him, snatching at the paper towels, her pleading drowned by the smoke alarm. Staggering he opened the hall door, his pajamas flaming now, strewed burning fragments on the carpet, and collapsed before the elevator.

II

It had been a shocking day, shocking and deeply frightening. Joe Melic crossed the shaded mall with numerous other pedestrians, his consciousness turned inward. He'd been a child when the plague of the '70s had taken his grandparents and nearly two billion others—the greatest trauma humankind had ever gone through—but it hadn't been as terrible as today. Today's deaths had been so damned concentrated!

Considering what most things are made of, he thought, you wouldn't think so many things could burn. But then, the human body is seventy percent water.

He sucked a deep breath and exhaled shakily. Their burns had been incidental, he told himself; they'd have died anyway. And whatever it was, it killed quickly, sometimes too quickly for its victims to find fire. He began to look around him now as he walked along the resilient, grass-edged walk. The people he passed looked as preoccupied and shaken as he was.

He needed a drink before he went upstairs; Karin would be in worse shape than he was. She was at home in her last trimester, and had probably been watching the news all day. The lounge on the ground floor was dark, and patronized almost entirely by tenants. Ordinarily there weren't many customers this early, but today most of the stools and half the booths were occupied. All faces were turned to one of the several tridees.

Joe took one of the remaining stools. The face on the screen was familiar and calm, but less relaxed than usual. "The first cases appeared last night in several parts of the world, the very first apparently in Brussels at 2255 Eastern Time." The newsman winced, then continued. "By 0200, numerous cases were being reported, the reports accelerating to a flood by breakfast. The remarkably simultaneous worldwide appearance of the outbreak suggests two things in particular: first that the disease has an incubation period of at least several days; and second that people infected with the disease can transmit it from early in the incubation period. At any rate, if you're susceptible, you've very probably been infected already."

The bartender looked a question at Joe, who shook his head. He didn't want a drink after all.

"The World Health Organization in Zurich reports that the virus was verified today at 0912 Eastern Time, and laboratories worldwide are proceeding rapidly toward a cure. Shuttles . . ."

The commentator winced again and pressed his fingertips to his forehead. He turned and gestured urgently, then stood and stepped out of camera view. The camera shifted almost at once, and another familiar face looked out at them, picking up the report without missing a beat. "Shuttles are on standby, and air traffic clearances will go into effect as soon as a cure has been developed. . . ."

After a few minutes they went on to other news, as if anyone cared, and Joe got up and drifted into the lobby. Even if they develop a cure quickly, he thought, and no doubt they will, how long will it take to make enough of it? A week? Even if it only takes two days . . . He crossed unseeingly to the elevator foyer and stepped into a waiting capsule. More to the point, he asked himself, how many people are susceptible? Because that's how many are likely to die.

Upstairs, the apartment door opened to his familiar touch, and his skin crawled, hair bristling. He couldn't see Karin, but he could hear her vomiting.

III

Denver's skies had seen little of smog for more than a century, since the orbiting power stations had written finish to the age of fossil fuels. Now, though, standing on the roof garden, David Sebastion could smell foulness, the stench of putrefaction. Even at fifteen stories and with a fair breeze, he thought with dismay. Leaning against the polished, pseudo-granite balustrade, he looked out and down. The city stretched in every direction—groves and lines and arcs of leafy trees and square miles of grass—a pattern of "villages," tall buildings arranged in separated circles and ovals. David was a floral arranger, sensitive and alert to patterns, colors, and contrasts, but now his eyes saw without seeing.

For a week he'd holed up, waiting to die. The first morning of the fires and the dying had been spiced with the thrill of fear, and they'd been swamped with orders at the flower shop. But they'd kept the tridee on, tuned to a news channel. Then Rodney had thrown up, and a minute later had gone berserk, running around with the sharp knife he used to cut stems with, crashing into things while people screamed and scurried and bled. A uniformed security woman had stunned him as he'd run into the lobby; no doubt he'd died within minutes. Then excitement had hardened to dread, and Marylee had gone home, leaving him to handle the shop alone.

After work that day, he'd gone straight upstairs, to find Helena in a daze, almost catatonic, and little Trissy shut in the bathroom, dead. It had been up to him to call the police and have the body removed. They'd taken more than an hour to get there, and then they hadn't been policemen, but two men in the coveralls of the Sanitation Department, looking drawn and haggard. The Sanitation Department! It had seemed to him terribly insensitive.

The next morning he'd taken Vincy down to daycare; Helena had been too distraught to look after him. David had been the only employee at the flower shop that day, but he hadn't had many orders to take care of. When he'd stopped at daycare afterward to get Vincy, a policeman was guarding the door, and the place reeked with smoke. Some of the children had been taken away by the police, some by ambulances, and others by parents.

Upstairs he'd called the police station, but no one there knew anything about a Vincent Sebastion. The officer who'd answered said thousands of children had been hauled from schools and daycare centers to sports arenas, and there'd been no chance to take names. He might check with Kiowa Arena; that seemed likeliest for a child from Cherry Village.

He'd called Kiowa then. The woman who'd answered sounded weirdly calm. They had several hundred children there, she told him, but she had no idea what their names were. Some were in shock, she said, some were hysterical, and some were dead. After 1430, any who'd been brought in had been sent elsewhere, to neighborhoods less hard hit. If he'd care to come down, they'd be happy to have his help; several of their adults had died, and she'd had a twinge of headache herself a minute earlier.

David hadn't gone. Instead he'd poured himself a drink, and when he'd finished that one, poured another. And some more after that.

Sometime that night, Helena had gone into the bathroom and cut her throat.

Cut her throat! He remembered finding her there. With her usual tidiness, she'd done it in the shower with the water on. Just a glimpse had been too much for him; he'd fled howling. Building services, shorthanded from deaths of its own and overwhelmed by requests, had not responded; Mr. Contreras across the hall had carried her corpse away for him. Tears flowing, David weakly kicked the massive planter, and as if in response, the automatic sprinklers came on, bathing the plants with mist. She might have lived, like me! We might still be together!

He felt pretty sure now that he was immune to the plague, unless the cold he'd had these last few days was a weak expression of it. If he'd been going to die, it would have happened already. Two days earlier, from the air-conditioned shelter of the apartment, he'd tried phoning everyone he knew, then started through the directory beginning with Aaberg. After about fifty calls—down to Abbot, Norman—he'd given up; there'd been no answer from other than servos. Even the tridee had been blank for three days—no, four. The same day when, from there on the roof, he'd heard the last siren, and seen a police van crash into the athletic field.

He looked down at the oval below, sights registering again, seeing benches and swings quiet in the greenness where bodies lay rotting. He wanted to go out and hunt for people—there had to be someone alive besides himself—but he couldn't bring himself to go out there with the bodies.

His eyes pinched shut, but no tears squeezed between his lids; he'd cried himself out days ago. He leaned against the balustrade, utterly forlorn and hopeless. If she just hadn't killed herself! Am I the only one? Am I all that's left?

Almost as if in answer, he heard the voice, and opening his eyes, leaned over the balustrade to look downward, down at the grassy oval fifteen stories below. Down at the small figure walking slowly across the mall. Without the laughter and shouting of playing children, the soft but neverending sound of traffic overhead, he could hear her calling. He shouted once—he'd never shouted before in all his adult life—then turned and ran to the elevators. In less than three minutes they were looking embarrassedly at one another across twenty meters of lawn and pavement, and he was glad he hadn't stopped shaving. She burst into tears and ran to him, this woman he'd never seen before, embracing him so strongly, he thought she'd spring his ribs.

* * *

Marie moved in with him. Her husband had set fire to their apartment, and it was smelly and dirty. At first they stayed inside, where they didn't have to see things, and the air-conditioning lessened the stench. They'd sleep late, and after showering and dressing, ate sparingly in order to postpone the inevitable trip to the dispensall on the ground floor. They read a lot, things that he and Helena had had around. David started to grow a Vandyke, explaining that the patriarch of the new human race should be bearded. He said it to be funny, then realized that he really felt that way.

They'd intended to mark off each day on the calendar so they wouldn't lose track of the date, but got confused. He'd marked off a day, and was pretty sure she'd marked off the next date that same day. They'd had their first bad argument over that. On their ninth day together, or maybe their seventh or eighth, hunger forced them down to the dispensall.

The first part wasn't as bad as he'd feared. Mr. Contreras still lay in the hallway, his face nearly black, but he'd deflated a lot, and the smell wasn't as bad as when they'd seen him last. Mold was spreading on his clothes. David wished there was someone to drag Mr. Contreras away.

Riding down in the elevator capsule, it occurred to him that he'd always intended to read Les Miserables. On paper. So they decided to walk across the mall to the library before getting groceries. His first few steps outside were hesitant, then he straightened and walked almost briskly. He hadn't realized how good it would feel to get outdoors again. Unlike Mr. Contreras, the bodies outside had collapsed inside their light summer clothes. They seemed to be mostly bones now, bones and skin and hair, with very little smell. He decided the flies must have made the difference. Inside the building, the insect repellent field had protected what had been Mr. Contreras.

It was a clear, pleasant morning, but the flowerbeds disturbed him. Not the lawn. Lawns were of grass varieties that didn't need mowing. But in some of the flowerbeds the plants had gone to seed and needed replacing, and weeds were growing up through them, and tree seedlings. Hybrid elms, he decided; they produced such quantities of seed each spring.

The library was the size of a small shop, and it was empty. There wasn't even a body inside. He spoke carefully into one of the order phones, the way he'd heard the librarian do it: "Hard copy, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo." He pronounced the French noun like the English adjective. Marie had taken a paper magazine from a rack, and they sat down to wait. After five or six minutes a bell rang, and it occurred to him that there was no one to wait on him. Self-consciously he put his ID away, walked behind the counter to the receiver door, and got his book. The right one; book center servos were not fastidious about pronunciation.

Crossing the mall again, they'd stopped by a splashing fountain to watch the goldfish. He'd been afraid they might have starved, but they seemed all right. He was sitting with Marie, quietly watching, when he heard the distant voice. A heavyset man was walking across the mall in their general direction, and even at a hundred meters there was something frightening about him. Without saying a word, they lowered themselves behind the fountain.

At that, the man passed so near that David wondered they weren't seen. Passed them like a poorly-adjusted automaton, his unshaven face working, and from his mouth curses flowed: loud obscenities and ugliness, and horrible threats delivered toward God. He brandished what David assumed to be a tool, a wrench of some sort—David wasn't familiar with tools—slapping it against the palm of his left hand. When he'd passed on out of sight, they'd hurried into their building and upstairs without stopping at the dispensall. Timidly, David went out again later, for groceries.

They spent the summer and autumn following a series of routines. For a while after they'd seen "that man," they'd stayed in and drank a lot, going down to the lounge on the ground floor every two or three days to replenish their supply. Then there was a period when they took daily walks. That was after it occurred to David to snoop the office of building security, where he found and appropriated two stunners. They stayed near their own village though, fearing to get lost from it.

Also they painted; like most people, they'd had considerable instruction in the arts. Marie painted faces mostly, with painstaking care, and sometimes cried, but David preferred to paint scenery and flowers. He'd set the easels up in front of the ClearWall and when they wanted to paint, pressed the transparence switch to let the daylight in.

They had an unusually long Indian summer, but in mid-November the weather turned cloudy and wet. For two days, mist and drizzle blew against the ClearWall, punctuated now and then with spatters of rain. David was at his easel, trying to capture the variations of gray in the sky, when Marie spoke.

"I'm hungry," she said.

Since she's been pregnant, she's always hungry, David thought, and she's getting fat. He squinted critically at his board. "Get something to eat then."

"I want milk and fried eggs and bacon. And buttered toast. Real, not processed!"

He thinned his lips. The dispensall hadn't had "real" milk or eggs or bread for months, and it was unlikely there'd be bacon. There was a seemingly endless supply of processed foods of numerous kinds, but . . ." There isn't anything real," he said. "Not any more. You'll have to try something else."

"But I don't want something else! Real food's better when you're growing a baby!"

He stood frustrated, helpless. As if a fetus could distinguish between, say, riboflavine or lysine in fresh milk and that in a powdered drink. Marie read his expression and changed her approach. "Let's try another village," she said. "Maybe they'll have real food."

He didn't think so. He suspected that all the villages were serviced by the same master servo, though he wasn't certain. He d never worried about things like that. "It's raining," he pointed out.

"Lots of people like to walk in the rain. They do it for pleasure. And we haven't walked for days now."

He didn't feel like correcting her tenses, and a walk might do them good. "I'll get slickers," he said nodding. He got Helena's for her, put on his own, and they left. There was no "real food" in Apple Village either though, and he told her what he suspected about a master servo.

He agreed to try one more; that's how they found the asthmatic. He was in front of the pharmacy section, kneeling on the floor with his head and arms resting on the arm of a partly burned-out sofa. They stood staring at him, and at first they thought he didn't know they were there, even though they'd been talking when they came in. David's hand slipped into a pocket and came back out with his stunner, just in case.

They could hear the man's labored breathing, a gasping inhalation followed by a short gusty exhalation, almost a grunt. Then slowly, laboriously, leaning his hands on the sofa arm, he pushed himself upright while they stared at the thin unfolding body. He turned to them.

"Asthma," he whispered. "And my prescription's . . . run out . . . I can't . . . get any more . . . pills. Not here . . . not anywhere." The words jerked out slowly a couple at a time, separated by short painful breaths. "I put . . . my prescription . . . card . . . in the slot . . . but . . . nothing comes out."

Marie stepped hesitantly to the man, almost touching him with her hand. "Can we do anything?"

For the first time, David felt real love for her.

The man shook his head slowly, twice, as if that was all he had the strength for. Then, surprisingly, he chuckled slightly. "Make . . . the sun . . . come out."

The attempt at humor touched David as much as the evident suffering. He'd seldom seen a truly sick person before, not even during the Death. People hadn't really gotten sick then. They'd just sort of frenzied and died. "Why don't you come with us to our place," he heard himself saying. "At least you'll be with people, and we can take care of you."

They left together. Wet white flakes were coming down with the rain now. The asthmatic shuffled slowly, coughing occasionally in short weak spasms that sometimes ended with retching. He stopped often to lean on dripping trees, and it took a long time to get to their apartment. There David learned that the asthmatic couldn't lie down—not and breathe. He sat slumped while they talked. Now and then he said something, just enough to show he was listening, and that he appreciated being with them. David didn't turn on the ClearWall, but before it got dark he peered between the curtains on the balcony door. The air swirled with snowflakes. They went to bed early, closing their bedroom door so they wouldn't hear their guest's effortful breathing.

When they got up the next morning, he was gone. They checked the bathroom and hall, and after they'd gotten dressed they rode a capsule down to the lobby, where they found him face down in his own blood. It seemed to David he must have had a knife, or taken one from their kitchen, and he wondered that the man had had the physical strength to kill himself.

"Why did he do it?" Marie asked.

David looked at her, surprised. "You heard what he sounded like."

"I didn't mean why did he kill himself. I meant, why did he come down here to the lobby to do it? It must have been hard, getting down here without help."

David stared at the crumpled body. "I guess—I guess he didn't want to be any trouble to us."

* * *

The rest of the day they drank. They were in reasonable practice, so they actually got to bed instead of passing out on the floor. It was cold when David woke. When he sat up, pain hit him in the forehead, deep and high. For a heart-stopping moment he was afraid the plague was claiming him after all, but then he recognized his hangover for what it was.

Slowly and carefully he swung his legs out of bed, hoping he wouldn't throw up. The room was chilly, too. Marie must have turned the thermostat down, he thought irritably. And the night light was out; the room was lit only by moonlight filtering through the bedroom blinds. He stood, frowning back the pain. Moonlight. The storm must be over, he told himself, and shuffled to the bathroom.

The bathroom light switch didn't work, and for a moment he stood perplexed. Then anxiety struck. He tried the bedroom light; it didn't work either. Hurriedly, forgetting his hangover, he strode through the apartment to the balcony doors and opened them.

The -20° cold would have been shocking, except that his mind was wholly held by what he saw. The night was beautiful, and it laid icy hands on his heart. There was not a light anywhere except in the sky, the cold sky swept clear of clouds. As if Edison and Tesla had never been born. David had never seen virgin sky before. There'd always been window lights, and city glow, and the lights of traffic overhead. Now there was only the moon and stars, and the glow of moonlit snow.

And waiting death, come to gather the leavings of his Plague. David was aware of Marie looking past his shoulder. "What is it?" she whispered.

"The power's gone," he said simply, "and the lights and the heat. And the dispensall—the food. And I don't know what we're going to do."

IV

Katey pulled the lever and tipped the last scoop of manure into the compost pit. Then she backed and turned the loader toward the gateway, two tubular posts interrupting the fence. As the red loader rolled toward it, steers and heifers backed away in vague semi-alarm at the commonplace activity. The field broke as she touched the control, and snapped back into place when she'd passed through.

A lot of nice beef, she thought bleakly, and no one left to eat it. She wheeled down well-worn tracks to the equipment shed and parked the loader, then walked to the house, crossing green lawn past two small mounds with the sods neatly replaced, each mound with a small bed of flowers at the north end. The unfelt insect barrier let her into the house, re-forming behind her. Scanning the contents of the pantry, she decided (1) that strawberry shortcake would make a nice dessert; it was a favorite of Pete's. And (2) that she'd better get some more shortcakes when she went into town. But she wouldn't go in alone; no way. Pete would have to go with her, the first time at least.

Passing the tridee controls, she almost reached to turn it on, then remembered. Instead she picked up a magazine. There hadn't been a broadcast for three days, and the last she'd heard, it seemed as if everyone else in the world was dying. For all she knew, she and Pete were the only ones left in the world. None of their friends answered their phones, not locally, not long distance.

Occasionally she looked up at the clock, at first casually but later restlessly. For an hour she forced herself to sit there, then got up and went outdoors. The air was still. Midday thunderheads were building over the Front Range, as they usually did this time of year, and above timberline she could see distant snowfields glinting white. But here the sun shone down hotly on cornfields and sugarbeets, and rows of dark, shiny-leaved cottonwoods. The air was humid from irrigation and moist soil, and pungent from the feedlot and compost pit.

She stood staring across at the equipment shed, her nails pressed into the heels of her hands, her face stiff. She couldn't decide which machine to take. The manure loader seemed like the only one feasible, but she couldn't make up her mind to use it.

So she went back into the house and lay down for a while. She didn't sleep, but was conscious only in a sense of the word.

Distant thunder got Katey onto her feet again; it was after 1400 hours, and there was no more doubt in her. Mechanically she went out, hosed and scraped the residual manure from the loader, climbed onto the seat and drove out of the yard. The road was dirt but not dusty, bound with lignite waste from the papermill at Loveland, a shady green tunnel between rows of large cottonwoods. Five hundred meters down the road she turned into a gap in the line of trees. The loader bounced on fat tires and shock absorbers as she crossed the covered mainline irrigation canal and into the corn field. Once she'd passed the row of trees, she could see the rig with its big tank of virus suspension, its spray booms like tubular wings spread wide. It was stopped at the end of the field, and she turned the loader toward it, carefully skirting the outside row of meter-high corn, until she saw her husband lying on the moist loam.

She got down, limbs wooden, mind wooden, and grunting, rolled Pete's big body into the loader, oblivious to the flies that swarmed up from him at the disturbance. Then she climbed back onto the seat, raised the loader, and turned the rig back toward the gap in the cottonwoods.

Parking in the yard, she got a spade, and carefully dug up the sods from a long rectangle of green lawn. Carefully she piled them to one side. With the backhoe she dug a pit, like the two Pete had dug, but a lot larger. When it was as deep as the backhoe would make it, she drove the loader up and tipped it. Her husband's big body thumped heavily into the hole. Then she leaned against the steering wheel and wept bitterly for several minutes, loud wracking sobs. When she was spent, she lowered the loader to push dirt into the hole and tamp it. With the spade she put the last of the soil on the top and patted it down. Then she laid the sods back on neatly, watered the mound, and fastidiously washed away the soil that she hadn't been able to scrape up with the spade.

When she was finished, she went to the flowerbed that bordered the driveway, dug up some petunias and dwarf phlox, and planted them at the head of the new grave. It was after 1530 hours when she was done, and only when she'd put the loader away did she remember that she hadn't eaten since breakfast.

* * *

Katey didn't prepare a meal, only a hurried sandwich. She would leave this place. Not permanently, she thought, but for now, for the time being. She didn't think her mind could survive the night there. She had no notion of where else she might stay, but not there, not in the home she'd made with Pete. The edge off her hunger, she showered and put on clean clothes: jeans and a twill shirt. The last thing she did before leaving was turn off the feedlot gate so the feeder stock could get out and forage. Then she drove the pickup down the road toward Sheldon, riding smoothly on a cushion of air.

From the broad swell of land above Sheldon, the town looked much as it always had, like a dark irregular open woodland, with silver maples, hybrid elms, and cottonwoods lining the streets and guarding the houses. There were red and blue and green roots, glimpses of walls, and behind it a row of prairie skyscrapers—grain elevators.

But entering it on the county road, it looked very different. Some—most—of the older homes had burned to the ground, browning the foliage of nearby trees. The composition walls of most newer homes were strongly fire-retardant, but in many of them the windows were blackened eyes. Here and there on pavement and lawn lay bodies, some bloated, some ravaged. And even living next to a feedlot was no preparation for the stench.

Slowly she began to circle through the streets. Birds chirped and sang. Boat-tailed grackles flashed dark iridescence, and magpies rose chattering from bodies as she approached. Turning a corner, she found three vultures at a meal. They were too gorged to fly, and hopped away grotesquely while she stopped and threw up through a hastily opened door. When she saw a pack of dogs worrying something beside a porch, she broke and accelerated away, holding down her horn as she fled.

She hurtled out of town, past the lumberyard, the horn a shrill trumpet of fleeing sound. She'd driven three miles before she was aware of the pursuing truck in her rear-view mirror. Briefly she kept her speed, then slowed, and as it drew nearer she pulled over and settled to the ground.

She stood beside the door and watched her follower get out of his cab. They looked at one another for a minute across five meters of silence, and she was surprised at her thoughts. He was—not small, but twelve or fifteen centimeters shorter than Pete and perhaps thirty kilos lighter.

He spoke first. "God but I'm glad to see someone! I wondered if I was the only person left! I was at the lumberyard when I heard your horn. Loading supplies to build a cabin in the foothills, and—" He stopped. "My name is Art Feldman. I'm a—I was the history teacher at Sheldon High."

She found herself answering. "I'm Katherine Maustaler." She paused. "Build a cabin? When you can live in any house in town?"

"None of them will be livable when the Mountain States power system breaks down. And there's no way we can maintain or service an orbiting power station. Eventually, maybe in years but maybe just months, all the installed backups and bypasses will be engaged. After that, the first thing that goes wrong and—" He shrugged. "There's probably not a house around here that can be decently heated except by electricity. Even fireplaces are hard to find nowadays, and they're gluttons for wood but not much for heat. I want to build a snug shack in the foothills, where there's lots of timber for firewood." He gestured at the truck cab behind him. "I've got a rifle and cartridges to get meat with, and tools . . ."

Of course, she thought, and build a brick stove and chimney, and an outer wall of lodgepole logs for added insulation. "I'd like to help you," she said.

He looked at her without answering, looking suddenly solemn, a little as if he might cry. Then he held out his hand and they got in his truck.

V

"Would you like to see our control room?"

His father held out his big hand, and they floated together down the corridor into the large, hemispheric nerve center of the spaceship. People stood or sat silently at instruments, their faces vague. There was gravity in the control center, and with its pressure, Jim realized he had to go to the latrine. A man sat at a console, and they went over to him, "Jimmy, this is Commander Hamilton."

The strong coffee-brown face turned to him and smiled. Commander Medgar Hamilton! Who'd been skipper of the Leif Erickson, the first deep-space ship! Jim looked down at himself, dirty and unshaven, and wished he could bathe and change his clothes.

". . . last surviving human on Earth," his father was saying. "Luckily he had the presence of mind to go to the spaceport and wait for us to come home."

He had to find a latrine! He'd seen a sign somewhere along the corridor: MEN. Then he saw it again, down a little alley behind some garbage cans. He had to push hard to get the door open, and when he got in, he saw that trash had been piled behind it. It gave him a sinking feeling.

The latrine was large, even had rows of shower stalls, but everything was unpainted galvanized iron, with blooms of corrosion, and streaked and fouled with excrement. He was shocked. He wandered up and down innumerable aisles looking for a place to use, but everything was too filthy to approach.

James Carrigan woke up and it was daylight. He hated dreams that ended like that. The skin of his face told him it was cold, and briefly he considered going back to sleep. He knew he couldn't, though. With a groan he crawled, bleak and uncomfortable, from under the layers of drapes that served him as bedding. His dad had been in the dream; he couldn't remember just how. He'd died when Jim was twelve, but after twenty-five years he still dreamed of him now and then.

Shivering, he relieved himself at the head of a dead escalator, then shuffled to the bank of soft chairs in front of the viewing wall and slowly sat down. The landing area was a reinforced concrete field, dotted with storm drains and studded irregularly with abandoned shuttlecraft and asteroid tugs. Yesterday's skim of snow was starting to melt in the morning sun. He remembered what he'd promised himself the day before, when he'd finished the last two candy bars from the last shop in the terminal. But he feared leaving, even temporarily. Someday a ship was sure to come back from space. Deep space; if any crews in-system were still alive, they'd have come back by now. But there weren't many deep-space ships: three he thought, or maybe four. If he left the terminal, he might miss the only chance he'd ever have.

He'd suppressed even the thought that the deep-space ships too might have carried the plague with them, might be caught in hyperspace with their crews dead.

He had to have food though, and if he waited, he'd get too weak to hunt. A ship would do him no good if he lay dead of starvation. He should have hunted yesterday. No ship had come yesterday.

He went to his water pitcher for a drink, but it was frozen. He'd eat snow while he hunted. He could build another fire when he got back, and thaw it then.

He'd planned his hunt in advance. Beef was the most practical game. He got the heavy ballpeen hammer he'd found in the terminal machine shop. Cattle weren't wild like jackrabbits or deer. He'd walk up to a cow and slug it on the head with the hammer, hit it with all his strength. He patted the pocket with the knife in it. When he'd killed it, he'd cut a piece off, a big piece, and bring it back with him.

* * *

He went out through a service door; the public exits had been electrically operated, and were immovable now. Coming out of the shadow of the building, he was surprised at how warm the sun felt. Bending, he packed a small ball of snow and let it melt in his mouth. Bread and water for breakfast; hold the bread, he thought, and chuckled, then started west across the landing area. A kilometer farther on he stopped. The chain link fence ahead was beyond his ability to climb; he needed to find a gate. There was one around on the east side, but that was a long walk away. He'd been living on candy bars ever since the power went off, and was weak from malnutrition. He saw a gate a few hundred meters north, and despite already being leg weary, he hurried to it. It was ajar, its electromagnetic lock dead.

The sunshine was transient, and as he walked across the rolling plain, gray clouds cut it off. The crisp tawny bunch grasses—grama and buffalo grass, mostly—were frozen humps beneath his feet, causing him to stumble occasionally. Even so he began to feel better, stronger, from the unfamiliar activity and circulatory stimulation. And misread this, thinking he'd gotten a true second wind. Also, the exercise had dulled the hunger that had gnawed him. Raising his gaze from the ground, he looked around for cattle. He'd already noticed manure: old dry disks of it, and some not so old. Ahead in the distance lay the mighty Front Range, rearing tilted white planes above timberline, hiding its rugged peaks in clouds. Behind him lay the terminal building, perhaps two and a half kilometers away now. The distance sent a pang of anxiety through him.

Ahead was a barbed wire stock fence, typical of those still used on native ranges. When he came to it he rested briefly, standing so he wouldn't get his pants wet. He found a place where the top wire was low and a bit slack, and pushing down on it, swung first one leg over and then the other. A barb caught in the sleeve of his outermost shirt, and shivering, feeling threatened, he carefully disengaged it. His brief sense of strength and well-being had evaporated.

A kilometer and a half farther, the ground sloped down moderately into a shallow, rounded draw. When he reached the bottom and started up the other side, he tired badly, and actually began to sweat a little. At the top he stopped to rest, breathing heavily, head down. Wind had begun to blow across the bare grassland from the east, and he was quickly chilled. It occurred to him that he might not find any cattle, and the thought filled him with despair. If he didn't, he might starve. He should, he thought, have gone hunting a week ago, with candy bars in his pockets to give him strength.

Doggedly he went on then. Just ahead was another draw, deeper and steeper, and as he crossed the curving hilltop, he saw cattle grazing along the lower slopes and in the bottom, where the dead grass was taller. There were about ten of them; he didn't trouble to count. Slowly, carefully he walked down, gripping the hammer tightly, weakness forgotten. As he came nearer, they raised their faces to stare, and several took tentative sidling steps away from his line of approach. Then one old range cow turned away, trotting off smoothly, and they all began to run, breaking into a rocking gallop when the scarecrow figure charged after them. Their strong haunches carried them easily up the opposite slope, or up the draw or down it as they scattered.

Carrigan rushed on after the nearest, across the rounded bottom and a little way up the other side, until the cruel pull of gravity burned his thighs and lungs. Stopping, he almost fell, then let himself drop. The slope faced east, and earlier the sun had thawed the snow away there, leaving a skin of mud beneath the thin grass, a thin grease atop a frozen base. He sat there for a while. His anger and frustration had lasted no longer than his sudden burst of energy, and been replaced by dull resignation.

"Ah, bay, tsay, d' Katt schlafft in d' Schnee. D' Schnee geh fit, und d' Katt schlafft in d' Dritt." Or something like that. ". . . the snow melted and the cat slept in the mud." It must have been thirty years ago he'd learned it. What was that kid's name? His family had talked German at home.

Painfully James got to his feet and forced himself on up the hill. From the top, the land sloped toward a creek maybe two kilometers ahead, bordered with cottonwoods. Beyond the creek, the foothills began with a long hogback, ridges rising behind ridges in a series of increasing height. There was forest on the east-facing slopes. Several of the cattle he'd chased were grazing on the dead grass not far below, and they paused to look up at him.

These were no penned dairy cows. He'd been foolish, he realized, to think he could just walk up to one and kill it. He looked back at the terminal building, small in the distance, and shivered hard, uncontrollably. A few snowflakes had begun to ride the growing wind, and suddenly anxious, he began to walk back down into the draw, toward the terminal. A man could live quite awhile without food, he told himself. Long enough for a ship to come.

Before he started back up the other side, he rested, tired and weak, gathering his will, dreading the moderate climb, then plodded slowly upward, stopping every four or five steps. By the time he'd hauled himself to the top, the snowflakes had thickened, and the increased wind bit into him. The ground was white again, and the stems of grama waved in the wind. He tucked his hands beneath his crossed arms and started on again, stumbling occasionally.

Soon there was only flat land between him and the terminal, flat land and slanting snowflakes. He lowered his head into the wind and pushed on, the snow halfway to the tops of his low-cut shoes already. His eyes were fixed on the ground a meter or two in front of his feet, but blankly, and he walked right into the barbed wire fence before he saw it, the barbs puncturing trousers and skin. He recoiled and fell backward into the snow, a tight whining moan welling from his throat. Eyes squinting, hugging his slightly injured legs to him, he swore softly, almost sobbing, a wave of self-pity washing over him. He didn't get up until the snow soaked through the seat of his two pairs of pants.

When he arose, he was shivering again, and looked across the fence into the blowing snow. The terminal wasn't there! Dismay turned his bones to water, until he saw the terminal somewhat to his right. The wind had shifted to the northeast, and he'd continued to head into it.

His hands were bitter cold now, stiff and clumsy as he took hold of a fence post to climb over. He put his left foot on the second strand, next to the post, and began to raise himself. As he swung his right leg over, the strand that held his weight slipped downward, and he fell heavily against the top of the steel post. The pain was shocking, and he came apart with it, falling back against the top strand with the back of his right leg, then rolling off into the snow, tearing his outer trousers. Again he hugged his knees to him, rolling back and forth in pain and frustration, eyes closed, tears running down his grimy twisted cheeks.

He had to roll over onto his knees and use his arms to get up. His eyes, blurred with tears, searched through the snow squall at the half-obscured terminal. Then, trembling and whimpering, he approached the fence once more. This time he'd crawl through. His hands were too cold to clutch with, the fingers unresponsive now. He used them like sticks to push down on the strand of wire next to the top. Slowly, clumsily, he thrust his right leg between the wires and felt ground beneath the foot. Almost at once his outer shirt was caught. He tugged tentatively, but the barbs held. Any kind of angry lunge would have carried him through, freeing him, but suddenly he had nothing left. He simply crouched there, wretched in the blowing snow, clothing snagged on the small barbs. He had a foot on the ground on each side of the fence, and his freezing hands were hooked woodenly over the wire.

A thin keening noise came out of him, a sound of utter despair, while the wind and snow blew and the temperature dropped.

VI

Guy Romaine wore an old-fashioned sheepskin jacket, sheepskin chaps, and elkhide mittens with woolen liners. His horse trotted easily through the decimeter and a half of snow. After the storm and the three days of arctic cold that had followed, it was good to get out of the cabin and move around. The midmorning sun was bright, and the temperature promised to rise above freezing.

He saw cattle grazing near the fence, pawing the snow, and turned his horse in that direction. He made a point of cutting fences to give livestock more freedom of movement. A lot were likely to die before spring, if the winter was at all bad, but if they could wander around freely, moving ahead of the storms, feeding on bared south slopes and taking shelter in canyons, they'd stand a lot better chance. And so would he: the more cattle got through this first winter, the better the hunting would be through the years to come.

Some distance ahead, he saw something hanging on the fence. He trotted over to investigate, and sat looking down at a frozen bundle of snow-covered rags half on the ground, shirt and trousers still held by the barbs, and torn by the weight of the rigid body. He breathed deeply, a breath of emotion that was three parts sadness and one of disgust, and wished he'd come along a few days sooner. A waste, a waste, he thought. There are so few of us. I could have taught him. Leaning down with the wire cutters, he clipped the strands to form a gap, then rode on, the cattle shying as he passed, less concerned at a man on horseback than if he'd been on foot.

He heard distant crows off to the west. The view in that direction was magnificent, the jumbled crest of the Front Range silhouetted sharply white against the clear blue sky. Might as well just cut fences today, he decided. He wasn't going to Denver, even though Mary and Jeanette wanted him to. Whoever might have been left there, after the Plague had run its course, would be gone now, one way or another. When the power went off, they'd either left or died, and if they'd stayed that long, it would have been too late to leave.

He followed a fence transverse to the first, leaning down with the cutters now and then, and rode his horse out of a draw. Ahead, a long gentle slope stretched down to a frozen creek lined with cottonwoods and backed by the first hogback. And empty of humans; that was the norm now. He'd grown up on a Wyoming ranch and had always liked being alone, which was one reason he'd become a wildlife biologist. But now he wanted to find other people, not for company so much as to group together for mutual help and security, and to provide a bigger gene pool.

The sound of a rifle cracked across the snow, startling man and horse, and the crows paused in their cawing, to resume more energetically a moment later. After half a minute there was another shot, and this time his ears assigned a good bearing to the sound. Eyes alert, he thumped the horse's sides with his heels and trotted southwest toward the creek.

* * *

They were in a break in the hogback, a boy and a girl, both riding. A rope was attached with half hitches to the boy's saddlehorn, its other end looped around the heels of a dead calf; the calf left a bright crimson trail in the snow. They didn't see Guy Romaine until he hailed them; then the boy sat watchfully, a trifle sullenly perhaps, the rifle across his horse's withers, not saying anything as the man rode up to them.

"Morning," Romaine said. "Groceries?"

"That's right."

A big thirteen, Romaine decided, or maybe fourteen, no more; his voice hadn't changed yet. The girl he judged at no more than eleven. Surviving alone, by the looks of it. He sensed the boy's distrust. "How'd you two get along through the cold weather?"

"All right. We're getting along," the boy answered.

The girl looked at Guy and decided. "He made a tiny little log cabin," she said, "with dirt piled against it to keep the wind out, and plastic over the roof, with poles to hold it down. We've got kind of a fireplace, too, but the roof leaks when it rains or the snow melts, and the cowhide door lets wind in."

She paused to look at the boy, who was scowling now, his face flushed.

He looked at the boy with different eyes, impressed. That had taken some thought, as well as strength and persistence. The natural tendency would be to hole up in a house somewhere and freeze. "Built your own cabin, eh? Well I'll be darned!"

The boy softened slightly. "Not a very good one, I guess, but I've got ideas now to build a better one. We're learning. Another year and we'll get along good."

"Looks like you're not doing half bad now: a place to hole up through storms, and meat for the table. How'd you like to learn to soften hides and tan leather?"

Despite himself, the boy's interest showed.

"After I built my shack," Romaine went on, "I hauled in a bunch of books from the university library in Boulder. Things like Edible Plants of Colorado, hobby books on tanning and blacksmithing—things like that. If you two would like to live neighbors to us, I'd be glad to help you build a new cabin. Then we could take those books and learn to do a lot of stuff."

While Romaine looked tactfully back down the canyon, the boy gathered his feelings and looked at the girl. Her yearning was obvious. He nodded to her.

"Reckon I'd like that," he answered. "My name is Bill and hers is Celia."

The man reached across and gripped the thin grimy hand that extended toward him. "Glad to know you, Bill, Celia. Mine is Guy. I think we're going to do real well together."

the beginning

Homecoming

Dedicated to

POUL ANDERSON

When I was young and dumb, I worked in Minnesota logging camps in winter, when the woods were bitter cold. In the summers I sailed on the Great Lakes. Not on deck, where it often was cool, but in the boiler room, where in summer, 110° F. was a pleasant day, and you worked with a scoop shovel and a 50-lb. slice bar.

In those days, despite my addiction to the tools of ignorance—the Irish banjo (shovel) and the Swedish fiddle (crosscut saw)—I was a devoted reader of SF. I (saints forgive me!) gobbled up its stories with scarcely a glance at the names of the authors I was reading. Unless—Unless it was a story I truly loved.

In the summer of 1953 I was firing on the Steamer Hollaway when it tied up at the ore dock in the little port of Huron, Ohio. In dire need of an SF fix, I hurried around the slip into town, to Dickhaut's Drugstore, and returned to the ship with Three Hearts and Three Lions. When I got into it a bit, I knew it was something very special, and looked to see who wrote it. "Poul Anderson" it said. I have been a devoted Anderson admirer ever since.

When Homecoming was first published, I dedicated it to Poul. I'm repeating that dedication here, to a real giant of SF, an author who has written long, written abundantly, and written splendidly.

* * *

Long odds aren't a certainty, they are a judgement. And while they can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, the very fact of odds implies that the favorite may be upset. Especially if the underdog's skill and decision pull in help—from a paranoid bystander, for example, or a pregnant witch.

I

Nikko Kumalo seldom saw the bridge on night watch, and its beauty affected her. It was "night" now by the ship's chronometer and their own circadian rhythms, and all passageway lights were muted accordingly. The bridge itself was lit mainly by the cool luminescent characters on the black computer screen and dim blue night lights in the bulkheads, with an overall effect of soft velvet. Ram had cut off the unobtrusive wake tone that kept the bridge watch alert in the dimness, and it seemed to Nikko that to speak would break a spell.

On the viewscreen were two other lights, gibbous demi-discs bright and prominent against a backdrop of black space. Her eyes fixed on them and she knew what they were.

Ram spoke quietly. "You said to call you."

"They're beautiful, Ram, just beautiful." Her husband Matthew, standing beside her, said nothing, just looked at Earth and its satellite. After more than seven centuries, men from New Home were looking at the planet from which their ancestors had come. Back in normal space after weeks in jump phase, they could measure her distance in millions of kilometers instead of parsecs.

He shivered. What would they find there? Something drastic had happened—must have happened—long ago to have ended without warning all traffic between the mother planet and her then still infant primary colony. Blue and white showed on the screen—there were still seas and clouds. Perhaps a virulent disease or transstellar conquerors were waiting for them, as the geophobes back home had feared. Right now, he thought, we know no more than when we raised ship, except that Earth is still here, still blue and white in space. Later today we'll begin to find out other things.

So many generations had lived and died since his many-times removed great grandparents had left Earth that he hadn't expected to feel this much emotion. Briefly in the muted darkness, all four stared at the viewscreen, Nikko and Matthew hand in hand, Ram and the computerman in their duty seats, seeing what men from New Home had seen only in their imaginations since the last ship from Earth had left it 780 New Home years before.

* * *

The culture of New Home was basically agrarian, and its people in general were calm and methodical. So planetary analyses waited until general duty hours to begin. The analyses were much the same as those made by the ancient charting ships—the Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. But this time they were not being made routinely, impersonally, of new and unknown planets. The subject was the mother planet, Earth. Spectral readings indicated a planetary temperature approximately two and a half Celsius degrees below twenty-first century levels. The absorption spectrum indicated no significant change in atmospheric CO2, and a reduction in water vapor compatible with the temperature change. Albedo seemed high, suggesting greater than old-normal cloud cover, but the existing level was not outside the limits of twenty-first century variability.

What everyone was really waiting for were exploration flights within the atmosphere. It was the northern hemisphere spring—the computer said May 24 by the Gregorian calendar—and as the shadow of night moved out over the eastern Atlantic, the Phaeacia began a close survey pattern 900 kilometers above sea level. Carefully she scanned for the radiation signatures of cities. And found none.

Pinnace Alpha launched at ship's midday and began scouting the sunlit Americas from within the troposphere. She sighted villages reminiscent of early American Indian villages, in openings seemingly cleared by fire. Baby ice sheets glistened whitely in Keewatin, the Ungava Peninsula, and the Canadian Rockies, and forests covered the eastern half of North America from the Gulf of Mexico to north of Lake Superior.

In 2100 A.D. there had been more than 1.47 billion people in the western hemisphere. Matthew Kumalo radioed that there would hardly be more than five or ten million now.

"Duty days" yielded in part to the dictates of the solar day on Earth. Low-level flights followed the sunrise into eastern Asia and across the Eurasian land mass; its ancient cities were rubble or less, many grown over with forests. There were no new cities; there were only pretechnology towns.

After several days the exploration team decided on Contact Prime—the town where first contact would be made with the people of Earth. It stood beside the old Danube ship canal, a short distance from the Black Sea. Single-masted ships lay in its harbor. Though not the largest of the new towns—it was four kilometers across—it seemed clearly the most advanced. Most towns looked like something from the Middle Ages: haphazard, ugly, and surrounded by hostile stone bastions. This town, by contrast, was rigorously geometrical, with a harmonious kind of severe beauty, an angular regularity that demonstrated the existence there of mathematicians and planners. And unfortified. Its stadium would accommodate tens of thousands, Matthew thought. A tall black tower rose from a palace with terraced roof gardens, the most impressive structure they had seen either here or at home.

Whatever had happened to mankind on Earth, Matthew thought to himself, it was rising with a new civilization. He felt cautiously eager to visit Contact Prime, to begin learning what had happened, and what was happening now.

II

Something was making the cattle restless. Their normal foraging movements had stopped, their heads raised to stare southward. It had started a moment earlier with some old cows at the south edge of the herd, and spread. He stood in his stirrups, old calves sinewy, strong bare toes supporting his wiry weight, to scan the irregular sea of grass in that direction. Perhaps wolves were moving down the draw from the forested ridge a kilometer away, hoping to take a new calf from the fringe of the herd.

Casually he took his short bow from its boot and strung it. There was no cause for concern. Last year's grass had been broken and flattened by winter snows, and the new grass was still young spears not long enough to conceal a hare. They could not move out of the draw without becoming targets for himself and the others.

It did not occur to him to think beyond wolves. But it was men who rode out of the pines, and he sat back, watching them. Horse barbarians, he thought, predatory and wild, but constrained by their fealty to the Master from attacking his herds or his herdsmen. Horse barbarians. They were of different tribes and tongues, from as near as the Southern Desert and as far as the Great Eastern Mountains, wherever those might be. But he hadn't seen any like these before. His keen eyes took in details. These were large men, some with yellow hair, and they carried no lances.

They separated, moving casually as if to encircle or half encircle the herd, and he started toward them to warn them away. They began to shout, to drive the cattle, and he called angrily at them, shaking his bow. One of the nearest raised his own bow and the herdsman stared for a shocked moment before slumping to the ground, his callused toes losing their grip on the stirrups.

The other herdsmen fled, and the intruders made no effort to stop them. They simply drove the herd across the arm of prairie toward the mountains rising to the northwest.

III

Space is deep and beautiful,

ruthless but predictable,

Inhuman.

The men of Earth

are only some of these.

From—EARTH, by Chandra Queiros

Han var Ahmed, son t' Ahmed,

han var såd a Kassis spihunn

i Kyng Janos hov på Pestad.

Svarthud var han likså faren,

långsynt åsa som d' älren,

slug å kail i pann som faren.

Laste ikke tankar tväätom,

såg han aj i själ som faren,

fäsen tävelte om makten

i d' sajkarl hövdingringen.

Ikke fegling som d' älren,

dolte aj i prysi jömme,

kjämpe han, jääv likså vasam,

hövding han blann orkahodern.

Hätte rival, luden Drekå,

han som gläde sej i törtyr,

sjalson t' d' aset Kassi.

[Ahmed was he, son of Ahmed,

was the seed of Kazi's spy-dog

the Magyar court of Janos.

Black-skinned was he like his father,

patient also like the elder,

ruthless, cunning, as his sire was.

Was no telepath however,

read not minds as had his father,

though he strove to rule the psi men.

Was no coward like his father

skulking in a velvet covert,

a warrior hard and wary,

was a chieftain in the orc horde.

Had a rival, hairy Draco,

he whose pleasures lie in tortures,

Draco, soul-child of dead Kazi.]

From—THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation.

* * *

The buckled lattice of leather straps reached high on the ankles, as on Roman sandals. The leather soles were needlessly thick and hard, however, and noisy with metal bosses and heel plates. They clattered harshly in the stone corridor, driven by five pairs of strong purposeful bare legs, and turned a blind corner without caution. Two slaves, warned by the unsynchronized tattoo, already stood clear with their backs to the wall. It was basic to remain unnoticed, and their minds were carefully blank as the officers passed, erect, hard, and arrogant.

The man who strode at the front of the group was clearly in command. One of the others, despite the pace and hard decisiveness of their march, tried to speak confidentially into the leader's ear but was cut off with a brusque gesture. The chamber they entered had no door to be opened. The corridor simply ended in it, with glass doors opposite standing open on a sun-lit balcony. Unlike the corridor, the chamber was not walled with dark polished basalt, but veneered with marble, hung with rich indigo fabric, and carpeted with furs.

Five men awaited the five, and they too had an obvious leader. All ten dressed much the same: boots, short-sleeved tunic, and light harness with an ornamental breast plate, silver for the leaders, polished bronze for the others. Their visible weapons were short swords, ceremonial but also lethal.

The waiting leader, Draco, was Mediterranean in appearance, ugly-handsome, with olive skin, thick close-cropped curly hair, and a mat resembling black fur curling on his forearms and bare legs. He looked like a compact gladiator, mean and muscular, brutal and deadly.

The leader of the second five, Ahmed, was taller and more slender—fine-boned, actually—giving somehow the simultaneous impressions of smoothness and lean muscularity. His coloring was coffee brown, his hair a skullcap of fine kinks. He was cool, contained, and calculating, and the impression of deadliness he gave was different than Draco's—if there was gloating to be done it would follow, not anticipate the act.

"Your men are the garrison force," Ahmed opened coldly. "You clean them out. If you can."

Draco smirked. "The region north and west of the Danube is your responsibility. The Master himself assigned the sectors." He stared amusedly at Ahmed, the tilt of his head suggesting that he, the telepath, was listening to more than the Sudanese wanted to tell him.

Ahmed knew better. To him, screening was no effort; it was just there. Words came to his dark lips and action to the slender-strong fingers with seeming spontaneity. Only that effortless screening enabled him to compete successfully with ruthless telepaths for leadership.

"Have you forgotten his final instructions to you?" Ahmed replied. "Let me quote them. 'Draco, I know you have the taste and wits for the job, and I am leaving you plenty of men. I also know you're lazy, careless, and inclined to overkill when left alone. Do not forget, while I am gone, that I will return. When I do, everything must be in order. I hold you responsible for any revolts, or incursions by wandering tribes. Also keep in mind that dead slaves are of no further use except to the commissary department, and beef is much cheaper.' "

It was a remarkably close quote, delivered with the same contemptuous condescension as the original. Only the emphases were Ahmed's. And the quotation carried a background, a context not apparent in the words themselves. Both of Kazi's lieutenants, bitter antagonists, had wanted field command in the Russian campaign, and Ahmed had been chosen.

Draco's face darkened with anger. "But he did not come back. His field commander led the army to defeat and allowed the Master to be killed. Now the situation is different. I am my own master and make my own decisions. I have no more responsibility north of the Danube."

Ahmed smiled slightly. "This city is north of the Danube. Do I command it alone then?"

Draco's eyes bulged with sudden anger, his left hand clutching reflexively at his hilt. "We are south of it!" he snarled. "Are you completely ignorant? The City is north of the canal but south of the Danube!"

"A quibble. The Master treated the canal as the eastward extension of the river." Ahmed's tone became more reasonable now, almost conciliatory. "Besides, my defeat you remind me of left only a ragged few hundred of their warriors alive. Not every Northman is a warrior; not even most of them. The great majority are peasants. Consider then that my army did its part when we butchered so many of them in the Ukraine. We have paid our share of the cost. And you do not want it said that Draco preferred to leave the fighting to others."

Draco did consider, screening from the psis on Ahmed's staff. Perhaps this was an opportunity. Ahmed had failed in the Ukraine, but he had not been an experienced field commander; his position had come from his father's influence with Kazi. While he, Draco, had risen through the ranks.

His patrols had several times encountered Northman patrols and raiding parties with results ranging from exasperating to shocking. But those had been chance engagements, not part of a systematic campaign. And the Northmen were no longer a free-roving war party, vulnerable only in their persons. Their whole nation was with them now, peasants, women and children, making them a much easier nut to crack. If he destroyed them he would be recognized as the new Master.

"I'll think about it," he answered stiffly. Ahmed would not have set this before him without having trouble or treachery in mind, but that he could handle when the time came.

* * *

Ahmed relaxed alone in his windowless chamber, its thick stone walls effectively shielding his thoughts. Draco had taken the bait. Like tough meat, the Northmen would take forever to chew up. And Draco was unstable: the frustration would destroy his judgment. He would undoubtedly eliminate the Northmen as a problem, but by then his army would be reduced and demoralized and his prestige broken.

IV

Pinnace Alpha was by no means the most sophisticated craft ever built. New Home had inherited the technical and scientific knowledge of late twenty-first century Earth, much of it, stored in books and tapes. But her culture was agrarian and her high tech industry non-existent, whether cybernetics, intramolecular, biosynthetics, or electronics. Sophisticated components couldn't be ordered from a contractor; there were no contractors. They were handcrafted in the shop or the lab, or done without. It hadn't even been possible to go out and buy much of the requisite shop and lab equipment; they'd had to be handcrafted too.

But she was easy to fly.

Now Alpha coasted downward through the ionosphere along a gravitic vector extending through Contact Prime, the AG coils generating only enough to hold acceleration within safe limits. As they approached the F1 layer, Matthew eased in the accumulator, slowing for entry and continuing to decelerate. Soon they were no longer approaching a planet; they seemed instead to be above the ground and dropping downward.

At four kilometers above the city Matthew slowed and began spiraling toward it in broad loops.

"I almost said that's a handsome city," said Nikko Kumalo, "but I think impressive's the better word."

"I'd go for both," said Mikhail Ciano. "Whoever built it was a damned good engineer."

At two hundred meters they leveled off and circled, and Matthew switched the hull to one-way transparent. Below they could see growing clusters of people staring upward toward them. He fingered a dial beneath the viewscreen and a group on a rooftop snapped into large magnification.

He whistled silently. "What do you think of that?"

"Soldiers!" said Chandra Queiros.

Matthew shifted the view from place to place; soldiers were present or even prominent almost everywhere, straight-backed and hard-faced. Mikhail Ciano watched thoughtfully. "They look like Roman legionaries. I'll bet I know now why this city isn't walled. They're not only the best engineers and organizers around; they've probably got the best army."

Matthew pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully, then slid the pinnace into a climbing northwesterly course, leveling off at a thousand meters.

"What is it, Matt?" asked Anne Marie Queiros. "Why are we leaving?"

"I'm not ready to make real contact yet. We've given them a look at us—given them something to think and talk about. That'll be enough for now."

He looked back at the others. "We're not prepared yet, psychologically, to deal with what looks like a military society. At least I'm not. I need to digest what we saw back there. Back home we've had seven centuries of peace and relative sanity; we haven't had dealings with foreign cultures of any kind. Our responses aren't conditioned to people like those back there."

He looked ahead again at the broad grassland across which they flew. "Besides, there's no hurry. I want more data, and some time to think about it."

"There's one thing I'll bet I already know about them," Chandra said.

"What's that?"

"They didn't build that city with heavy equipment. They built it with slaves."

For a while they flew without further talk. "How far have we come?" Nikko asked after a bit.

"From the city? A hundred and forty-one kilometers."

"We haven't seen so much as a village in the whole distance. Nothing more than a few tent camps near the cattle herds."

"Well there's something over there," Mikhail said pointing. "About three hundred degrees from course azimuth."

They peered at a low cloud of distant dust, then Matthew turned the craft in a broad arc, climbing as he did so. Mikhail targeted the viewscreen and set it on automatic hold. In a little more than a minute they were hovering at 4,500 meters, too high to be noticed when motionless.

From there they watched two mounted companies approach each other a little distance apart; Nikko reactivated the camera. Abruptly both sides broke into a gallop, and Mikhail increased magnification. The smaller troop, of perhaps thirty men, rode in a near-perfect line with lances raised. The other line was ragged, its riders lanceless, and a flight of arrows coursed from it, and another. Lancers and horses began to fall, and their ranks closed to fill the holes. Then the bowmen's line fragmented, its riders veering in pairs to the sides, drawing swords, forcing the lancers to slow and turn, losing the momentum that made their lances effective. Some lances dipped to strike regardless while others were dropped in favor of swords, and Mikhail raised the magnification again. Horses and men milled in concentrated violence amid billowing tawny dust, striking, colliding, falling.

They watched with shocked fascination. In moments the surviving lancers broke away to flee. Bowmen pursued them, loosing arrows. Three lancers dropped from their horses. Six horses fell, tumbling their riders. None escaped. The bowmen rode near the unhorsed, stopped casually to take aim, then shot them and dismounted. Mike zoomed the lens to full magnification. Even through the resultant image waver they could see the grins as the victors scalped the fallen. Shifting the focus showed other scalpings at the battle site nearby.

"Talk about savages," Chandra whispered.

"Let's break out the automatic rifles and run them off," Mikhail suggested. "Maybe shoot a few of their horses to give them the idea."

"No." Matthew's voice was thoughtful but positive, and he tilted the pinnace in a descending spiral. "We don't know which side are the good guys yet." Shortly they hovered only twenty meters above the grass, at an oblique angle convenient for viewing through the craft's side. The scalpers had stopped, standing erect to watch the pinnace, and a glance at the viewscreen showed their magnified faces narrow-eyed, intent, without apparent fear. They were strong-necked and hard-faced, wearing braids and short beards, their shoulders heavy in mail shirts, thighs powerful in soft leather breeches. After a few still moments followed by some verbal exchange, one unslung his bow, strung it, and fired at the Alpha while the others watched.

On board they could hear the faint rap as the arrow struck. "Incredible!" Chandra breathed. "They're insane!" After a short pause, other raps sounded. Then the bowmen gathered, talking with frequent glances upward. Most mounted and sat with an eye on the pinnace while several still on foot moved about working efficiently with their knives. Then they too mounted, and all fanned out to collect the loitering horses of the fallen of both sides. Slender ropes uncoiled, and when they rode away, with occasional backward looks, a number of them had a spare horse trailing.

Matthew lifted and they quickly climbed out of sight to six kilometers, watching the viewscreen.

"Total savages," Chandra said. "I can hardly believe there are actually human beings like that."

"Also totally efficient," Mikhail replied drily, "and we'd better believe it." He turned to Matthew. "What was it old Gus Fong said? We'd bring back stories that would change the world."

"Something like that." Matthew read the polar azimuth of the barbarians' course and moved ahead of them in that direction far above their view. Forest-dark mountains drew near, moved beneath, and pinnace Alpha slowed to a near hover. His deliberate hands manipulated and the landscape below slid smoothly across the viewscreen, magnification low as he transected the terrain. Within three minutes he found what he sought, a long grassy valley between forested ridges, with clusters of rude huts strung out for several kilometers. He dropped slowly, zooming the pickup for close examinations, retracting it for perspective.

The people's identity seemed unquestionable. Like the warriors, many were light-haired, though most were not so strongly built. Women carried water and wood. Children helped or followed them or played and wrestled. Men and youths tended cattle from horseback, speared fish in the stream or swam in its pools. Others shot at marks, and many, on foot and on horseback, trained with swords.

Matthew read their position to the servo-mech, then instructed it to locate the homing beam and return to the Phaeacia. As they started their rendezvous trajectory he sat back pensively.

"What are you thinking about?" Chandra asked him.

Matthew tugged thoughtfully at his chin. "The barbarians. They look temporary, like a people in migration. No garden patches, nothing permanent looking . . . I wonder if they know what they're getting into?"

"I see what you mean," Mikhail said. "They're badly outnumbered and outclassed, regardless of how tough they might be."

"Right. I'd say the fight we saw was something like attacking a dire bear with a stick; you might get in the first blow or two, but then good night! If I was one of those people down there I'd load my family and gear on my horses and start putting distance between me and that city."

V

Fanns allri nannan som Ynglingen han—

milt som mjök (önar leene),

stark som storm (men allri raste),

vis som jodens sälva annen.

Å varelse var han, aj dykt.

[There was never other like the Youngling,

mild as milk (his eyes smiling),

strong as storm (but never raging),

wise as the spirit of the earth.

And living man he was, not myth.]

Prefatory verse of THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation

* * *

The long low ridge extended eastward from the foothills a considerable distance into the open plain. Its cool north-facing slope was green with new grass. At intervals, shallow draws ran down it, thick with low shrubby oaks whose soft, late-emerging leaflets tinted their gray with pink. Along the crest, broken rock let rain and melting snow penetrate deeply, and a ragged line of scraggly shrubs grew there, overlooking a semi-barren south slope.

The sky was cloudless and immense, the sun warm. Gnats hung in the air, celebrating the absence of wind, and an eagle soared, tilting and swaying in the updrafts. A mouse scurried between two spiny shrubs and a sparrow hawk darted toward it, rising again with the furry victim in its small talons.

The two adolescents, prone within the screen of shrubs, watched the brief tiny drama with sharp eyes, then looked southward across the plain again. Sweat oiled their dirty foreheads. Gnats hovered and bit unheeded. After several minutes the younger said softly, "There is something else I like about this country; you can see so far."

The other nodded curtly, and for a time they said nothing, did nothing except scan the plain.

"Look," the younger spoke again, and pointed southward.

"Jaha. Men on horseback; it looks like three."

They watched awhile. "There is one trotting ahead on foot," the older added. "About a hundred meters ahead."

The other squinted. "I see him. It looks as if they plan to cross the ridge over east, where it isn't so steep."

They crawled back from the crest, then ran downslope to their horses tethered to a clump of oak shrubs. Untying them, they scrambled to their backs and started eastward at a gallop. A kilometer farther they angled up the slope and tied their horses again, then ran toward the crest, wriggling the last few meters on their bellies to lie panting among some shrubs.

They were startled to see how near the running man was, perhaps seventy meters off. He stopped.

"He's looking at us!" hissed the younger. "How can he see us?"

The man raised his hand, halting the others—two men and a woman.

"They are our people!" the younger added.

"I can see that!" the older whispered with irritation.

The warrior started diagonally up the slope toward them, trotting easily. They could see as he came how big he was, an agile giant, shirtless, glistening, thick muscles moving smoothly in torso and limbs.

"It's the Yngling!" the younger whispered.

"You don't know; you never saw him."

They stayed on their stomachs, eyes large, until their necks were craned backward and the man stood above them. Sweat dripped from his nose and trickled down his grimy torso. Strong teeth showed between the long sparse tow-colored mustache and an even sparser growth on his chin.

"Just what we need," he said. "Someone to guide us to the People."

Both boys got up.

"You are the Yngling, aren't you?" asked the younger.

"Some say so," the man said grinning. "I am Nils Järnhann, warrior of the Wolf Clan, of the Svear. And you are lookouts. Where are your horses?"

The older boy pointed. "But one of us must stay here on watch. I am the oldest, so I will stay. Alvar will guide you."

Nils nodded and gestured for the others. "Fine. What is your name?"

The boy stood straight. "Ola Gulleson, sword apprentice of the Reindeer Clan of the Svear."

They shook hands and then parted, Nils and Alvar walking toward Alvar's tethered horse. "I am Ola's brother," Alvar volunteered. "He will be sixteen when the leaves fall, and I was fourteen when the snow was melting. I am a sword apprentice too."

"Good."

"You think I'm too skinny to be a sword apprentice, but things are different than they used to be. Lots of things changed this winter. And I am growing." He untied his horse. "Do you want to ride him? I can walk. Many people say we young don't want to do anything but ride. They say if we aren't careful we will be weak-legged like the horse barbarians who can walk only a short way before they are tired out. I don't want to be weak-legged. Is that why you were running? So your legs won't lose their strength?"

"I was running because we have only three horses," Nils answered matter-of-factly. "And as you say, it's good to run. When we fought the orcs in the battle of the neck, we won despite their numbers because they tired."

"You ride now," the boy said decisively. "It will be my turn to run."

The others rode up to them and the boy loped off. "The runner is also the scout," Nils called after him, "so keep your eyes and ears open."

Nils let Alvar jog some five kilometers, then called for him to wait. "I think we can do without a scout now, and I need answers to some questions. You can share Miska's back with Ilse while we talk."

As soon as he was aboard, the boy asked, "Where did you get such fine horses?"

"From the Magyars."

"Did you steal them?"

"They gave them to us. I have friends among the Magyars; I was a soldier in their royal guard once. We wintered with them."

"Why didn't they give you four horses so you all could ride?"

Sten and Leif laughed aloud at the way the boy controlled the conversation, but that didn't faze Alvar.

"There were five of us then," Nils explained, "and they gave us ten horses, but bandits attacked us in the mountains and when they fled we were only four, with three horses.

"And now a question for you: How did the People winter?"

"The clans wintered separately, to get enough food. They were in many places in the South Ukraine. The Reindeer Clan was at a place called Kishinev. There had been villages but the orcs had burned them." Alvar paused to make a face of disgust. "House burners and barn burners! They have no shame. And they'd killed most of the people. The ones that were left had made little huts in the forest, and that's what we did too. All their warriors were dead or gone away, and the orcs had taken most of their cattle, but some had been hidden in the forest so there still were some for us to take. The Ukrainians would come and beg for food.

"After we made camp there, the Council of Chiefs decided that all men must train to fight because we had too few warriors; so many had been killed, you know. And we needed to practice fighting from horseback because we were not skilled at it. And all boys from thirteen to sixteen were made sword apprentices unless something was wrong with them. We trained as hard as the hunger would let us. I'll let you feel my muscle sometime. Here." He tapped Ilse on the shoulder and doubled his right arm. "You feel it."

She turned in the saddle—awkwardly, for she was eight months pregnant—and squeezed his bicep. "It isn't very big yet," she said, "but it is hard as a rock."

Alvar blushed. "You talk funny," he said. "You are not of the People. Even the Sydnorskar talk better than that."

"True," Ilse said. "I am Deuts, and I've only been learning your tongue since last fall. But now I also am one of the People because Nils is, and I am his wife."

They rode without talking for a bit, but shortly Alvar asked: "Are you a thought reader, like Nils, that can look into people's minds?"

"Yes."

Alvar blushed again.

"But I have always been able to do that," she went on, "all my life, and I'm used to people's thoughts. I think you are a fine boy with a good mind. Before long you will be a good man and an able warrior. I tell you that honestly."

Nils grinned across at her.

"Our sword master curses me sometimes," Alvar launched on. "Quite often in fact. But he curses most of us a lot. He curses Ola least of all, and one of the Ukrainians the clan adopted that we have named Tryn because his nose is so big. They are the two best with swords in our whole ring.

"By the time the snow started to melt though, we were too hungry and didn't train much. And the horses were thin. Some of the old people died, and many of the Ukrainians. We left as soon as the ground was bare enough in the open and the horses could eat the dead grass. Ukrainian grass is very nourishing for horses. And as we traveled we ate everything we came across—deer, wild cattle, wild horses, wolves, hares—everything. The acorns bound up our bowels so that everyone was sick." He grimaced. "Then we made bark soup to loosen them, and that was worse. But since we arrived in the orc land we have had all the cattle we can eat, and fresh blood and milk to drink, so we are all hard-fleshed again and everyone feels strong.

"The People like this land. They didn't want to stay in the Ukraine because it was so poor in cattle, and the warriors say it is shameful to rob the Ukrainians who have so little." He shook his head. "But it's a pleasure to raid the orcish herds. And here we can live where the mountains meet the Great Meadow, with all the timber we need and endless pasture. We will force the orcs to attack us and then kill them. Kniv Listi is our war leader now. He is of the Weasel Clan, of the Jötar."

They were riding up a narrow foothill valley now, and Nils looked it over with interest. Its walls were forested, the south-facing with open pine stands, the opposite mostly with dense fir. The valley floor was meadow, encroached upon from the sides by pines and broken with groves of birch and aspen. A stream meandered about its midline, swollen by melting mountain snow.

Alvar chattered on. "Some of the mountain people attacked a party of us when we first camped here. They liked to hunt in this valley and wanted to drive us away. We let two of them go, and afterward a chief came who spoke some Anglic and talked with some of our people who speak it. The mountain folk are terrified of the orcs and do whatever they tell them, even deliver their prettiest girls. We told them we are going to kill all the orcs we can and drive the rest out of the country. We told them if they don't bother us we will not kill them, that it is only the orcs we feud with, but they must not spy on us for the orcs. A few of their young men have come to join us, and they are teaching us the country and some of the language."

Emerging from a birch grove they came in sight of a large encampment of tiny huts with low log walls, in loosely ordered rows instead of the customary neoviking ring. The clan totem stood near the center, a crude representation of an otter.

"We have not built real villages yet," Alvar explained. "It was decided we probably will have to move: we must be light on our feet. And the orcs will burn whatever we have built."

* * *

That night the Council of Chiefs and the War Council, from all the neoviking clans, met around a tall fire beneath the stars. A chieftain, referring to him as the Yngling, suggested that Nils Järnhann replace Kniv Listi as War Leader.

Nils stood in the circle of firelight, greasy braids resting on his wide heavy shoulders, and looked around him. "I thank Ulf Vargsson for his faith in me. But I know of Kniv Listi, of his cunning and resourcefulness. His raids have been told of in the longhouse of my village. I prefer to leave the leadership in his experienced hands and act as counsel to him, as I did to Björn Ärrbuk when he led us in humiliating the orcs and horse barbarians time and again.

"Having said this, I will ask something of you. I would like to search the tribes for those who have prophetic dreams, or who sometimes seem to know what another will say before he says it. Some few of them will prove to have psi-power, as I have, but undeveloped. Trained, their minds can be as valuable to us as swords or bows."

VI

Tolkien conceived of Mordor,

stinking Mordor, wasteland, blasted,

land of vile depravities unnamed;

washed with reeking acid rain,

too corrupt for any greenness,

splintered mountains round a fissured plain.

For how could Mordor, foul, perverted,

smile beneath a sun?

How lie green with fragrant grass?

How lie spotted white and gold

with gently nodding flowers,

atrill with birdsong, sweet with loveliness?

From—EARTH, by Chandra Queiros

* * *

The Phaeacia resembled a giant guitar pick—a reflective ellipsoid seventy-one meters long, thirty-three wide, and somewhat thicker aft than foreward. Functional outriggings broke but did not spoil the symmetry of her lines. Much of her volume was occupied by the drive units, life support system, and a hangar for the two pinnaces. Living and working space for her crew of thirty-one and the sixteen members of the exploration team was adequate but tight.

A gong signalled three bells in the "afternoon" watch. The full exploration team and the ship's two ranking officers crowded into the narrow conference room to sit shoulder to shoulder around the polished hardwood table. When everyone was seated, Matthew Kumalo stood up. Conversation died and seventeen pairs of eyes settled on him.

"I've called us together to review the situation down below and how we'll approach it. If any of you think I'm wrong about it, I know I can trust you to tell me."

There were smiles around the table.

"Now I don't see us in any real danger down there if we're careful and use our heads. There is no possibility whatever that anyone on this planet has anything that can break our force shields. Any comments?"

"Yes." The speaker was Alex Malaluan, historian, who had studied everything available on research methods in archaeological anthropology. On New Home, of course, there was no such field, but the university library had material on it dating from old Earth. "Contact Prime stands on a part of the site of the old Romanian city of Constanta. So let's call it Constanta instead of Contact Prime. It sounds more like a place where people live—more human."

"Okay," said Matthew, "Constanta it is."

"What happened to the old city?" someone asked. "It hasn't been much more than seven hundred Earth years since it was a going concern."

"I expect the rounded hillocks we've seen, grown over with grass, are all that's left of it," Alex replied.

"How come? On some sites there are still some old buildings standing and a lot of recognizable rubble piles. Why are others like Constanta so smoothed over?"

Matthew interrupted. "Can you answer that in one hundred words or less, Alex? We need to get on with other things."

"Sure. Most towns and cities were built largely of materials not intended to last. They built buildings to knock down in twenty years or so, and replaced them with new ones that had newer engineering. They rejuvenated the material chemically and physically and remolded it for reuse. In some cities they made a point of maintaining selected old buildings or neighborhoods of stone or concrete construction, out of a sense of tradition; in fact a few old historical cities were quite largely maintained that way, although they were ringed with tracts of later, disposable-type construction. Those of us who flew over old Budapest were very impressed with the ruins there. But Constanta must have been virtually all late construction."

"And that's a subhumid climate they have there," Chandra put in. "Maybe even semiarid. Over the course of seven centuries they must have had some severe drought periods, some maybe lasting for decades. There would have been a lot of soil drifting over and around the rubble heaps in open country like that."

"Okay," Matthew cut in. "That was our hundred words. Now, the weapons chests aren't the place for the weapons any longer. Before we land we'll mount them where they'll be easy to get at if we need them."

"If we're going to have weapons handy," Chandra said, "we'd better start with the clear understanding that they're a last resort. We came here to learn, not to intimidate anyone or make war."

"I think we're clear on that," Matthew replied mildly. "But if for some unforeseen reason we need weapons to keep from getting killed, then we'd better have them ready. Obviously though, our real security lies in being careful, using our heads, and keeping the force shields on except for leaving and entering the boats.

"Now a few last reminders. Don't land so close to any Earth person that he'll be inside your shield when you activate it. Unless of course you want him inside. And raise your commast before you activate. Otherwise you won't be able to hear or communicate with anyone outside without deactivating. And without the commast up it can get mighty stuffy inside the shield, fast.

"Also, at least to begin with I don't want both pinnaces to have people away from them at the same time without clearance. At least one has to be able to leave the ground at once, in case of emergency. The pinnaces, after all, are the only atmospheric flight capacity we have.

"And finally, everyone will wear a loaded pistol at all times when outside a shield, and carry two frag grenades with him, except in circumstances where it's clearly undesirable.

"Any questions or comments?"

"Yes."

The tone was heavy, dark, and all eyes went to Skipper Ram Uithoudt as he got to his feet. "Before we were treated to the discourse on archaeology, you said there was nothing whatever down there that could open our force shields. Well there is, and I'll bet there's a lot of it in everyday use."

The room was quiet for a moment before Matthew said, "What's that?"

"Trickery," Ram answered. "Trickery."

* * *

It was decided that Alpha would make first contact, with the same crew that had reconnoitered the city two days earlier. When she launched, she had a newly installed rack with automatic rifles ready for quick use. Two large open-topped bags hung beneath it, half full of fragmentation and blast grenades.

* * *

Draco rode with practiced ease. He'd spent thousands of hours in the saddle in his forty-four years, the first few hundred under the merciless eyes of hard-nosed drill instructors. Forty-four was rather old. Most died younger in battle or brawl, stabbings or beatings. To be not only forty-four but a consul was proof of outstanding ability and utter ruthlessness.

Right now he couldn't see the sky chariot; it was behind a hillock. When it had shown itself the other day, he'd been confident it would come to earth here sooner or later. He wondered if there were others.

He knew little about the ancients, but the old stories told of great power. They could smash a city flat with no more effort than a man squashing a bug beneath his foot. The only reasons they could have for returning were to rule or collect tribute. They might want a regent to administer for them here, or a go-between, someone who knew situations and possibilities.

He turned to scowl at Ahmed's small group paralleling his own a dozen meters away. It was a nuisance to have to screen out here on the steppe. To preserve his privacy and vanity, Draco had no psi on his immediate staff, relying entirely on his own powerful talent. But the non-psi Sudanese dog kept two of them with him everywhere but in harem, including that insolent eunuch, Yusuf the Turk.

Topping the low rise, he could see the sky chariot atop the next gentle hillock, shining brightly in the sun. Did they use slaves to polish it, he wondered, or did their arts keep it so? The last few score meters they rode warily, observing with care. A few meters from the sky chariot was a curved line of crushed grass and broken flowers, as if, for some reason, people within it had come out and trampled an exactly circular path around their craft.

The two groups of horsemen had almost come together now, converging on the pinnace. Ahmed was a length ahead when Draco, about to spur even, saw Ahmed's stallion recoil, its powerful haunches bunched, and try to back away as if it had bumped into something. Draco reined to an abrupt stop and watched while Ahmed brought his now-rearing mount under control, using the spade-bit brutally.

Tentatively Draco moved his horse toward the pinnace with short steps. At the line in the grass it jerked its head and nearly squatted as it took a reflexive step backward. Then both men turned their nervous animals and sidled toward the craft, each with one hand outstretched. Something hard was there that they could not see, something unyielding that rose from the ring of flattened grass.

At that moment the sky chariot turned to glass before them, and Draco could see the people inside—five of them. Strange clothing covered them from foot to neck, fitting their limbs loosely. Surrounded by an invisible wall, they wore no body armor. And no swords; perhaps the small objects belted to their waists were weapons of some kind.

They were looking at him and his people.

Probably the invisible wall would allow weapons to be wielded outwardly by those inside, even though it apparently would let nothing penetrate from without.

But it did not block thoughts effectively. And they thought in Anglic; that was a stroke of luck! The Master had made his officers learn the language because it was widely used in Europe between people of different native tongues.

Abruptly a voice spoke, loud and clear, seeming somehow to come from a spar extending above the chariot. The tone was slightly metallic but clearly a woman's. Her aura was not one you would find about a slave; among the ancients, as among some peoples on Earth, women must rank as men.

* * *

The audio pickup in the commast seemed to be working well, Matthew noted. It was directional, and right now was focused on two who appeared to be the leaders and who sat their horses side by side. Their breast plates were burnished silver instead of bronze, and their helmets more luxuriantly plumed. The shorter of the two replied to Nikko's question.

"Yes, we speak Anglic, but it is not our native speech."

"What is your native speech?" Nikko asked.

His answer meant nothing to her, but Anne Marie said softly, "Let me have the mike." She spoke into it in an unfamiliar language, listened, then turned to the others. "Arabic," she said, "or rather, a twenty-ninth century derivative. It's not much like the computer extrapolations of what Arabic might have become. More like a pidgin Arabic, as if . . ."

"What did he say?" Matthew interrupted with some irritation.

"It amounted to flattery and a formal welcome. They are honored to talk to the ancients, and something about helping us in any way they can. That's the gist of it."

Their scabbards were conspicuously empty. They're bound to be impressed with the pinnace, Matthew told himself, and they probably have legends of laser weapons, nuclear bombs, the whole ancient armory, though God knows what transformations they may have undergone over centuries of oral tradition. It's just as well they don't know we don't have such things today.

Mikhail voiced similar thoughts. "Eating out of our hands, sounds like. I wouldn't let them know how little we have in the way of ordnance and men; they might turn less respectful."

Matthew nodded. "Anne, tell them we've come from a world of the ancients, in a great starship that's hovering five hundred kilometers directly above their city. They may not know what a kilometer is, so explain to them that the ship is above the sky, where there is no air to breathe and it's always night. That should impress them."

"I'm not up to that on short notice, Chief. I'll need some review before I get very ambitious."

"Use Anglic then. It should help strengthen our psychological dominance if they have to use our language. Tell them we don't want to harm them. Say we want to know more about them and . . . no, wait. We'd better sound more business-like. Ask who their ruler is."

As Anne Marie spoke, Matthew watched the two leaders. They consulted briefly in whispers too soft for the pickup to adjust to, but he got the impression that they were not friendly to one another.

The one who answered was not the one who had spoken before. "I am Ahmed and he is Draco. We rule together since the death of our great Master, Kazi, who was already great among the ancients, your forefathers. He fathered our people and ruled them from their beginning."

"Wow!" Anne Marie exclaimed when he was done. "Sounds like they have some fantastic traditions. I can hardly wait to find out about them."

"And they rule together," Matthew mused. "Somehow I don't believe that's a happy and stable arrangement. Ask them the name of their nation."

The shorter man answered again, back straight, head high. "Our nation is the Empire of Kazi. That is the City of Kazi and we are the Orcs."

"Orcs," Nikko said to herself, and frowned thoughtfully. Somewhere, she was sure, she had read or heard of orcs. Her mind sought back through courses in history, Earth geography, anthropology, but nothing came to her. Whatever orcs had been though, the word stirred aversion and distrust within her.

"Tell them we want to know more about them," Matthew was saying. "Tell them we're going to send two ambassadors among them. Tell them . . . tell them they are to treat our ambassadors as royalty and to answer all questions honestly and completely, or we will be angry with them. Got that?"

Anne Marie repeated it before switching the microphone on. Matthew searched the unreadable expressions of the listening orcs while she broadcast.

"I never knew you were so tough," Mikhail murmured with a grin.

"Power is something these people obviously understand and appreciate," Matthew answered. "If they think we have a lot of it, we'll hold their respect. And as far as that's concerned, can you imagine what we could do to them with our grenades and automatic weapons from an aircraft?"

Mikhail grunted. "The threat's the thing though. Tough-looking characters like that would never imagine we wouldn't follow through."

The orc leaders consulted in whispers for minutes before answering; finally the one called Ahmed faced the Alpha again. "It will be necessary to prepare a proper apartment for our royal guests. We will be ready to receive ambassadors tomorrow."

"Tell them we'll be here at midday," Matthew instructed, "with two ambassadors, a man and a woman. We'll expect them to be furnished everything they wish in the way of comforts and servants. Tell them we are used to the best, and will expect the best when we are among them."

Abruptly when Anne Marie finished, Matthew deactivated the shield and lifted Alpha vertically with sudden speed, out of sight without farewell.

Nikko raised her eyebrows at her husband. "You're not exactly a paragon of courtesy today."

He didn't smile. "We'll let the ambassadors be the diplomats. I want them to think of me as hard and mean."

"Who are your ambassadors going to be?" Chandra asked expectantly. "They ought to include someone who speaks the language, don't you think? And her husband?"

Matthew glanced over his shoulder at Chandra's grin, and his unaccustomed grimness passed. "I tried to fix it so you wouldn't even have to pack. Assuming Anne is willing."

Anne's voice and face were sober. "Of course. This is the kind of thing we came all this way for."

"Like royalty," Chandra said, rubbing his hands together. "I think we're about to learn what the term 'Roman splendor' means."

* * *

Draco glanced sourly toward Ahmed nearby, into whose ears Yusuf was pouring all they'd gleaned from the thoughts of the star men. Amazing that the ancients exposed their thoughts so freely. It was obvious they had no awareness at all of telepathy.

They rode on toward the City, both Draco and Ahmed digesting what they had learned, their earlier awe of the ancients replaced by a compound of greed and caution. Now they would have to agree on where, in the palace, the ambassadors would be quartered. It might take an adjustment of sectors to find a suitable apartment in a neutral location; neither would willingly let the other have control of them.

* * *

Nikko Kumalo's searching had reached a dead end. She could not place the word orc.

In their small cabin aboard the Phaeacia she listened to Matthew's slow even breathing. Usually she fell asleep quickly, but tonight her riddle had kept her awake. She had asked the computer what the word meant. It had printed out—ORC: ANY OF SEVERAL LARGE FISH-LIKE MAMMALS OF EARTH, ESPECIALLY GRAMPUS GRISEUS.

But her subconscious insisted that was not the source of the word's familiarity.

It would come to her eventually, she was sure.

VII

Within the City of Kazi were approximately 22,000 slaves.[127]

In a totally despotic society it can be difficult to define "slave"; in a sense, everyone below the ruling class is a slave. Within the context of the orc society, I have classified as slaves all who were not orcs.

A majority of the slaves, roughly 18,000 of them, were women and girls who served several purposes. They did most of the common labor and almost all of the domestic service. They provided the major sexual outlet for the orcs and were the source of almost all the vicious boy children who grew up, or more often died, in the rigid and brutalizing orcling pens. The orcs were the children of the slaves, and it was the orcs who victimized the slaves.[128]

Slaves also provided the skilled labor and professional services upon which the city depended. They were the stone masons, smiths, armor artificers, mechanics; the civil engineers, physicians, accountants and bureaucrats. Skilled slaves enjoyed a degree of protection from the capricious cruelty and casual abuse of the soldiers, the degree of protection depending on the importance of the slave and the rank of the soldier. Slaves who were important enough were allowed to have families—in a very few cases even small harems or androecia—and given apartments. The consul Ahmed was the son of one such slave, although to apply the term "slave" in such a case rather stretches the concept.

But except at the uppermost level, security was tenuous even for the slave elite. An imprudent thought monitored by an orc telepath, an unintended offense to an officer, a momentary lapse in one's servility, could collapse that small "private" world and expose the slave to the full force of orc brutality.[129]

In such a society one might expect an underground to exist. But in a society using telepathic surveillance and ruthless repression—given to uninhibited and in fact mandatory sadism—that underground was certain to be small, fearful, and largely ineffectual.

Over the years there must have been innumerable small acts of opportunistic sabotage carried out on the spur of the moment by individuals and involving no conspiracy.[130] But the term "underground" does not include such unaffiliated individuals. The real underground, in the sense of conspiratorial groups, consisted primarily of artisans and bureaucrats, slaves with some degree of private life—a slave intelligentsia, so to speak. It also included a very few orcs who had been sensitized by attachment to some slave and who had reacted against the culture which ravaged the slave.[131]

Apparently the underground groups were all very small and not generally in contact with one another.

A substantial part of their small total membership seems to have consisted of telepaths. In the underground, telepaths would seem to have a better chance of surviving than non-telepaths. And perhaps telepaths tend to have more empathy for other humans, although Kazi, a remarkably able telepath, was nothing less than satanic.

Interestingly, one of the principal members of the underground was one of Kazi's daughters, Nephthys. Nephthys was also the prized and privileged jewel in the harem of Draco, one of the two ruling consuls after Kazi's death.

From—A HISTORY OF THE ORCS, by Reinholdt Malaluan. A.C. 876, Deep Harbor, New Home

VIII

Orc officers were skilled in subterfuge and concealment of purpose. They practiced them unceasingly in the vicious politics of command. But in those politics, character concealment was neither troubled with nor possible; they were too much alike, and too many were telepaths.

Now, when it might have been possible to conceal their character from their visitors, they didn't know how. Both assigned hosts wore togas instead of uniforms, but their arrogance, hardness, and utter lack of compassion were increasingly apparent with continued contact.

In contrast, Chandra and Anne Marie were conspicuously innocent, earnest, and benign.

The driver, standing against the dashboard of the polished and topless bronze chariot, was like none of his passengers. He was a non-personality whom his masters would notice only in failure or error, unless one of them was looking for someone to abuse. To Chandra and Anne Marie, he was silently informative, a source of inner discomfort.

Their first afternoon had been spent with their two hosts beneath an awning on one of the roof gardens of the varied-level palace. What had been anticipated as a session of questions and answers had proved to be a round of frustration. It became clear that their hosts would not be frank, and they in turn dared not be. But the orc telepaths had learned abundantly from their unspoken thoughts and reactions.

At Chandra's request, much of the subsequent two days had been spent seeing the city, and their cameras had been busy. Yesterday they had visited the squat cylindrical granaries and seen how barges would be unloaded in harvest time. Blindfolded oxen trod in circles, turning a heavy capstan that powered a conveyor screw. The cats that policed the granaries seemed as arrogant and efficient as the orcs.

Today's visit had been to a slaughterhouse where women cut up carcasses of beef, their strong bare arms smeared with blood. The floors were mortared stone, sloping to drains and scrubbed daily with lye. From the slaughterhouse the ambassadors had been taken upstream to the water intake plant, where the long vanes of windmills pumped canal water into tanks resembling the granaries. The stout bald man in charge had bowed and smiled and rubbed his hands. A man of responsibility, he nonetheless wore numerals tattooed on his forehead, like their driver and the women in the slaughterhouse and every other unarmed inhabitant they'd noticed.

Afterward Anne Marie had ridden in preoccupied silence. Now she looked around again. From the air I thought this place was handsome, she told herself, but it's not. It's ugly. Nothing green, nothing growing except on and around the palace. Just stone buildings and hectares on hectares of pavement. At least they'd had the foresight to install lots of storm drains. But why no soil, no grass, no trees? Two-storied row buildings of precisely fitted stone blocks crowded the wide streets. Their windows were small in the thick walls, giving built-in tunnel vision.

From the air they had seen substantial grounds separating the buildings from those behind them. She thought she knew now what they were: drill grounds. She couldn't remember whether they had looked paved or not, and tried to glimpse them through the alleyways between buildings. But the alleyways were long and narrow; from the moving chariot her eyes were rewarded by nothing more than momentary slots of light.

The hard-faced officers sat facing them; she and Chandra thought of them as "the Centurions." What were they thinking, sitting so expressionlessly?

Chandra broke the silence. "Why have most of the workers we've seen been women?"

"The men have been taken into the army," one of the officers recited. "Barbarians threaten the country, and we must defend it."

"From the sky we saw a fight between barbarians and some of your cavalry. Then we flew over their encampment. There aren't enough of them to endanger the Empire of Kazi or this city."

Neither "centurion" spoke for perhaps a minute. Finally the second one replied. "Many thousands more are scattered through the country northwest of the sea. They have laid waste the country there, butchering the inhabitants and burning the towns."

"Where do you keep the children?" Anne Marie asked. "All I've seen are girls at least ten years old. I haven't seen any boys at all. Where do you keep them?"

The two faces turned to her, and somehow made that simple act a communication of contempt. "Children are kept separate so that the women may work without hindrance. They live in separate quarters."

"But who brings them up? Who takes care of them?"

"Those who are assigned."

She persisted. "When can we visit them?"

"I do not know."

They were grateful to reach the palace grounds, to be led by a steward to their luxurious quarters.

* * *

The upper levels of the palace consisted of numerous segments of terraces, some of them entirely gardens, others with one or more apartments opening onto gardens. Chandra and Anne Marie had a terrace, with its apartment, to themselves. After supper they found their reclining chairs had been moved into the shade of three neatly sheared cedars where they could sit out of the evening sun. A small olive-colored bird sang energetically in a low waxy-leaved tree.

Anne Marie gestured at the chairs. "Moved again. I'm afraid our privacy is fictitious."

"The price of service, I suppose. At least they're quiet and inconspicuous."

"And efficient."

"The whole outfit is efficient." With a grunt Chandra lowered himself into one of the chairs. "I don't know why I ate so much, unless it was to make up for a lousy day."

"I suppose frustration is part of being an ambassador," she replied. "And it hasn't been a total loss. We're getting a pretty good idea of their technology and the kind of people they are. And a lot of good video footage."

She walked to the balustrade and looked northward across the city's roofs. "What kind of games do you suppose they play in that big stadium?"

"The word is arena. A stadium implies athletic contests. I'd be surprised if they didn't set tigers loose on the slaves over there. I've got the feeling they'd feed them babies without blinking."

"Do you suppose they're going to let us see the children?" she asked.

"I doubt it. The boy children are probably in barracks somewhere, getting military training. I think the women are slaves and most of the men are soldiers. Mike was right: This city has no walls because it has a big tough professional army. And who but slaves would wear numbers tattooed on their foreheads?"

They both remained silent for awhile.

"Maybe we shouldn't be so critical of the orcs," Anne Marie said thoughtfully. "They have to cope with a pretty hard and warlike world. Like those barbarians."

"Don't blame the barbarians for the orcs; not that pack of barbarians anyway. The orcs said they're just arriving, but this city and its culture have been around for awhile."

He got to his feet. "I think it's time to call Matt again, and this time I won't mince words."

* * *

On the Phaeacia, Matthew looked unseeingly at the instrument panel for a long moment after Chandra broke transmission.

"Huh! Whatever those people are, they've made a rotten impression on Chan and Anne. What do you make of it?"

"Well," Nikko answered, "when he said that about 'feeding them babies,' I remembered what orcs were. Orcs in ancient literature, that is."

"Oh? What?"

"An army of subhuman monsters."

Matthew looked at her, perplexed.

"It was in a fantasy I read when I was about fourteen or fifteen—a trilogy, The Lord Of The Rings. In the story there was an evil sorcerer, a super sorcerer, who'd lived for centuries. Millennia, in fact. And he'd bred an army of sadistic subhuman monsters called orcs, and tried to conquer the world with them. He even had a black tower, like the city down there."

"Isn't that a little—improbable? Ancient literature—fantasy literature, anyway—is unlikely to have survived down there. They must have gotten the word from something else. Don't you think?"

Nikko shrugged. "All the computer had to say about 'orc' was, a fish-like marine mammal of Earth. And there are an awful lot of parallels between what's down there and what's in the book. What I'm concerned about is the kind of society it would be that tried to emulate the land of Mordor."

Matthew leaned back and pulled briefly on his chin. "I think I'll call a team meeting for oh-eight hundred tomorrow," he said reflectively. "Maybe we need a different contact, for a little perspective."

"A different contact? With whom?"

"How about some simple straightforward savages this time? The barbarians. It ought to be interesting and even informative. And there shouldn't be any danger in it. We can just sit in the pinnace with the force shield on and talk to them from there."

IX

Sags d' forste a en pojke

dä d' svävte uppi himlen

jussom örn ör lunna vannen

när d' stirra ned p å jedden

simne upp t' jämna ytan.

Röpte höd å pekte uppe.

"Dä jussom kjämpnar tälte om,

som döjtsa häxen sejte

bärar gamlarna fra sjäänor."

[It was first a child that saw it,

saw it hovering in the morning

like an eagle over water

watching ready for the salmon

rising to the quiet surface.

Called aloud and pointed upward.

" 'tis the thing the warriors spoke of,

that the German seeress told us

carries ancients from the stars."]

From—THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation

* * *

It settled slowly like a polished silver bowl, oblong, inverted, and with stubby legs, while children of all sizes ran toward it through the meadow, looking upward. The audio pickup brought calling voices and the barking of a few dogs. Three meters from the ground, Matthew had to stop descent; there wasn't enough room to set down and activate the shield without trapping children inside.

"How about that!" Mikhail said. "They're not a bit afraid. You'd think space craft landed here every week and passed out candy."

Matthew picked up the microphone and, with the volume turned high, ordered them to clear room for landing. The only effect was to increase the volume of shrill voices.

A number of men and women were approaching now on foot and horseback, most of them moving casually, neither hurrying nor hanging back. As they reached the vicinity they formed small groups behind the children, watching with apparent interest and talking easily among themselves.

"Should I transvise?" Mikhail asked.

"Sure, go ahead," said Matthew, and the hubbub swelled as the mob of children could suddenly see through the hull.

More adults and children were arriving. A very large man on horseback picked his way through the children, who opened a path for him. When he reached the center he raised both arms overhead and the tumult subsided a bit.

"T'baka Du!" he called. "Gö klar för skybaåten!"

"I understood that!" Nikko said excitedly. "He told them to move back and give us room. It's something like Swedish; I'll bet I can talk to them!"

The children were backing away, with some of the older boys taking charge, giving orders and gesturing. When the loose throng had become a circle, Matthew put the Alpha down and instantly activated the shield. Then they sat without speaking, watching the children discover the shield and test it with curious hands.

"All right," Matthew said at last. "Try your Swedish on them and see how it goes. Say we wish them no harm and do not like to use our great weapons which can kill large numbers from a distance."

Nikko pressed the microphone switch and an "Ah-h-h" ran through the crowd as she began speaking slowly in a tonal cadence. When she had finished, the man who'd moved the children signalled the crowd to quiet once more. He hadn't taken time to saddle his mount, but sat it bareback, sideways now. His left foot dangled; his right leg was cocked up on the animal's back. It would have been hard to look more nonchalant.

"We are pleased you speak our language," he said, speaking it himself for the crowd. "It is very rare to find a foreigner who does. But it will be better if I talk in Anglic; then we need not wait while the woman translates for you. I will tell my people afterward what was said. They are glad you have come. We want to be friends with the star people."

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd while Nikko translated.

"Ask him how he knows we are star people," Matthew instructed. Nikko spoke, still in Swedish, and many of the children looked back toward the nearby huts, pointing and calling out.

"I'm not getting all that," Nikko told the others.

"Something about a witch, apparently, a döjtsa witch, whatever that is."

Again the big man spoke, in Anglic this time. "Who but the star people would come out of the sky? Besides, my wife foretold your coming; it is she the children called a witch. And also, your force shield does not stop thoughts."

"Let me have the microphone," Matthew said. Nikko handed it to him and he thumbed the switch. "What do you know about force shields?" he demanded.

"Only the little your thoughts have told me, and what I observe in the children."

"Damn it, Matt!" Mikhail said. "Don't you see what he's saying? The man's a telepath! He even knew that Nikko is the only one of us that speaks Swedish!"

Matthew digested that for a few seconds, then set it aside for the time. "Who is your ruler?" he asked. "We want to talk to him."

"The Council of Chiefs has been sent for and should be here after a while. But I am the only one of them who speaks Anglic. My name is Nils Järnhann."

The man sat his horse no more than six meters away, just outside the shield, and Matthew looked him over carefully. He'd stand at least 195 centimeters and mass 110 kilos. Even relaxed he gave an impression of great strength and virility, like a jungle cat. He wore soft leather breeches wrapped around his calves with strips. Short blond braids reached his burly shoulders. The thinness of his mustache and beard suggested youth, despite his physique and presence and apparent rank.

"How did you come to learn Anglic when your people don't speak it?" Matthew asked.

"When we still lived in the north I was cast out for a killing, and wandered in countries where Anglic was spoken between those of different tongues."

"How did you live in exile?"

"As a soldier and assassin."

"And why did your people take you back again?"

"When they left our homeland they had need of an Yngling."

Matthew turned to Nikko. "What's an Ingling?"

She shrugged. "It used to mean a youth, a youngling, but that doesn't fit the context here. It must have picked up a different meaning along the line, or a special connotation."

Matthew switched on the microphone again. "What brings your people to this land which is claimed by the orcs?"

"Our homeland grows colder and wetter year by year. It was harder and harder to make a crop. The turnips rotted in the field and the rye molded in the shocks. People of middle age remember when cattle could graze for five or six months of the year. In recent years it was necessary to feed hay for eight months, while the hay crops grew poorer. In the north among the reindeer and glutton clans, things were even worse. Finally, a year ago, the ground was still snow-covered in June. The tribes made peace, united, and left—left a land that had been their mother but could no longer feed them."

A land they knew and loved, thought Matthew. No doubt the only land most of them had been able to imagine. That must have been a hard decision.

"The People crossed the sea in boats," the man continued. "We allied ourselves with the Poles and others and defeated the armies of Kazi that had come to conquer Europe. After a winter of hunger, the People came to this place. We like it here. It is rich in grass and cattle. There is timber for fuel and building. We will stay and drive the orcs away."

"Are these your entire people, camped along this valley?"

"Yes."

"There are many more orcs than there are of you. What makes you think you can drive them out?"

"The orcs are strong and dangerous, but not as strong as you think. They are like a great spruce tree, mighty, darkening much ground and shading out what takes root beneath them, but rotten and hollow inside. For outlanders they are skilled fighters, but now that Kazi is dead, there is nothing they live for and nothing they are willing to die for. They have pride, but even that is shallow. They obey because they hardly know how to disobey and they are afraid to disobey, but they find no savor in risking life, only in taking it."

"How do you know so much about the orcs?"

"I have been in their city, been their prisoner, talked with Kazi himself and fought in their arena. Their language is strange to me, but I could see their pictures and look through their eyes and know their feelings. And of course, we have met them in war."

Matthew changed direction. "And you were an assassin? How many men did you kill?"

"As an assassin, none. I was sent by the Inner Circle of the Kinfolk, the Psi Alliance, to assassinate Kazi, but I failed. It was in war I killed him."

Inner Circle. Psi Alliance. I'm glad we're getting this on tape, Matthew thought.

The big Northman sat quietly for a moment, and Matthew felt the man's gaze. Then Nils Järnhann spoke again. "I have answered your questions. Now I will tell you things you have more need to know. You have left friends, people you love, a man and a woman, with the orcs. They are not safe. The orcs find their pleasure in giving pain, in breaking the body and mind. Especially tender minds. Your friends, if they are like you, must be very tempting to them."

Until then Matthew had affected a faint hauteur; it was replaced now by wary intentness. The Northman continued, his voice seeming to grow louder, driving the words into their minds like a hammer.

"And how could that happen to the Star People? But you are few, and your weapons are not so powerful as you pretend. And you are not hard-minded: killing, violence, are foreign and unnatural to you, difficult to do or even to think about.

"And the orcs know that. They have many telepaths. They know every thought your friends have had since they have been among them, every word they have said in privacy. They have heard with their ears and seen with their eyes and felt their feelings. And they have shared their rememberings."

A coldness washed through Matthew, a desolate sense of naked helplessness, a nightmare feeling of isolation hundreds of light years from the safe space of home. He was gripped by an urgent need to escape the Northman's words and the mind that looked so relentlessly into theirs.

"Let's get out of here," he said to the others. "We need to think and talk." Looking through the hull at Nils Järnhann, he thumbed the microphone switch again. "We'll be back in an hour—before the sun is much higher." With that he deactivated and sent Alpha sharply upward, not stopping until they were above the troposphere. He parked on the encampment vector, eighteen kilometers above the surface, and for a long moment no one spoke.

"Does anyone here have anything to say?" Matthew asked.

"Maybe we'd better get Chan and Anne out of that city," Mikhail suggested, "while they're still ambassadors instead of hostages. It would be damned attractive to the orcs to trade them for a pinnace complete with automatic rifles and grenades. And consider what that would mean in ruthless hands like theirs!"

Carlos Lao was a biologist who didn't often say much. He spoke now. "We don't actually know that the barbarian was telling the truth."

"He must have been," Nikko replied. "It fits with what Chan and Anne told us about the orcs, and with the implications of their calling themselves orcs in the first place."

"You misunderstand me," Carlos told her. "What I meant was, we don't really know the orcs have telepaths."

"I'm accepting it as a working assumption," Matthew said. "There's no doubt the barbarian's a telepath, so why not some orcs too? Now, accepting that the orcs have telepaths monitoring them, how do we get them out? We can't let Chan or Anne know what we're doing. Otherwise the orcs will know too."

They discussed the matter a little longer. "Okay," Matthew said, "I think we know what we have to do. Now, in a few minutes we'll be on the ground again, talking to the barbarian. We're going to follow up this contact; as short as it was, it's already been extremely valuable. But I don't want to commit anyone else as an ambassador. What would you think of inviting them to send someone with us to the Phaeacia?"

"As long as he leaves his sword at home," Mikhail said. "And his scalping knife."

* * *

This time the meadow held hundreds of adults, both men and women. The children formed a loose ring outside them now, partly watching and partly chasing and tussling like two-legged puppies. In the middle of the throng an opening had been left perhaps twenty meters across, and Matthew landed there. A group of men, mostly middle-aged or older, moved in to form a semi-circle just outside the shield. Nikko assumed they were the Council of Chiefs. Three of them, presumably the principal chiefs, were uniquely dressed and stood together. One was a very tall old man wearing a long cloak of white bird skins, with the skin of a white wolf's head as a headdress. His beard completed the theme of white. A second was nearly as tall, with a short cape of heavy white fur and a headpiece Nikko tentatively identified as from an arctic bear. He was missing a hand, but his exposed legs still were strongly muscled, his red beard only streaked with gray. The third too favored white, a short cape of white fur spotted with black, which Nikko recognized from old pictures as ermine. Instead of head fur, he wore a steel helmet onto which great curved steel horns had been fitted. He was shorter than the other two but still taller than average, his body thick with the muscles of a man of fifty who continues a hard and strenuous life.

Nils Järnhann stood next to the tallest of the three, and about as tall. Järnhann. The name was easy for Nikko to remember because she knew its meaning—Ironhand. He spoke a few quiet words to the man in the feathered cloak. The old chief answered quietly, then turned his proud face to Alpha and spoke slowly and distinctly in Scandinavian.

"We are the Council of Chiefs. Nils Järnhann tells us one of you speaks our language, though not well. We hope you will speak it now so that all of us understand."

Nikko held the microphone, phrasing as well as she could in twenty-first-century Swedish what the four of them had agreed upon before coming back down.

"We want to be friends with your people, and with all the people of Earth. This was the world of our forefathers. We come to you from a world called New Home, whose thousands of thousands of people sent us to see what had become of this world, which we call Earth."

The old man's sober expression had not changed. "We are pleased that you have come among us, the People. You chose well. We are not numerous, but we are first in honor and cunning and weapon skills."

When Nikko had finished interpreting, Carlos grunted. "Every culture is honorable in its own eyes. What brand of honor goes with pride in cunning, I wonder?"

Nikko spoke again to the Northmen: "We wish to know all the people of Earth, to learn what they believe, what they honor, and how they live. We hope that one of you will come among us for a short while to tell us about yourselves and also to learn about us."

"You should stay among us, instead," the old man answered. "That is the way to learn how we live and act, observing as well as asking questions."

"Perhaps we will, later on."

The man with the horned helmet spoke this time, his tone surly and his words too quick for Nikko to follow until he repeated them. "How do we know you would treat that person honorably and send him back? You are not of the People. You are foreigners. We do not know whether you are honorable."

"At least one of you can read our minds," Nikko answered, "the one named Nils Järnhann. Let him say whether we are honorable."

The chiefs looked at Nils, waiting for him to speak. A woman had stepped beside him, big with child, and he put an arm around her. "My wife says she would willingly go with you. But while I sense no treachery in you, who knows what may happen tomorrow that might take you away from our world, and her with you? I would not let her go unless one of you stays with us—the woman Nikko, who speaks our language."

Matthew stared at him as Nikko finished translating. The bastard! Cunning, they'd said. What was the man up to? Nikko's hand was on his arm, and he looked at her. She wanted to go; her earnest eyes left no doubt. "I can't let you," he said. "It could be dangerous."

"She's willing to put herself in our hands, and he's willing to let her. On this world we'll never have better insurance than that."

Matthew groped mentally for a reason to refuse. "If you stayed here, who on Phaeacia could talk to her?"

From the audio pickup a woman's voice interrupted them in Anglic. "I volunteered because I would like to learn from you also. And I speak your language. I must tell you first, however, that I did not grow up among the Northmen. I am German."

Matthew eyed her carefully. Big-boned, young, and very very pregnant. The man was risking his wife and his child too.

"But I have come to know these people well," she continued, "and understand them, because I am a telepath. I can also tell you about my homeland and its people, and about the Psi Alliance, for I am of the Kinfolk. It is the Kinfolk who have kept alive the stories of the past."

"Careful, Matt," Carlos warned softly. "She's a telepath. Why should she push the exchange like that unless they're up to something? She may not even be his wife!"

Nikko turned sharply to the biologist. "Don't get paranoid on us, Carl! Remember, Ram's a telepath too, if only now and then! And as for pushing it—she wants to know, to learn. That's what we're supposed to be doing; that's what this expedition is all about!" She looked back to Matthew. "Remember what the children called his wife before? The Döjtsa Häxen—the German witch! Only I didn't recognize their word for German because instead of the old Swedish word, tyska, they used an approximation of the German word, deutsche. Matt, she'll be a treasure chest of information!"

Matthew looked around at the others. "She's right; it's what we came here for. It's a rare opportunity, and she'll be as much security for Nikko as Nikko is for her."

At least I hope so, he added somberly to himself.

X

Stor tidragen han t' flikkor,

ofta kjikt i ham på sölstig

blikkor fölte ham på midda,

nog dröd när en mö i sjymning,

viskte bjääli t' vä ellen.

[Fascinating he to women,

often glanced at him by morning,

followed him their eyes at midday,

lingered near sometimes at twilight,

whispered to him in the firelight.]

From—THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation

* * *

Each low hovel of small unsquared logs had two doors through which one passed crouching, and sod roofs with a central smoke hole. Inside they reeked of wood smoke.

Women moved about the camp carrying wood or water or simply going somewhere, often accompanied by small children or older girls. Other children followed Nils and Nikko, and she tested her Swedish on them, turning to Nils for help when she failed to understand or be understood. Already she was beginning to see patterns in the language changes; as she learned them she'd communicate more effectively.

Her pocket video camera was often in her hands.

She looked up at Nils. "Why did you make a temporary camp if you expect to drive the orcs out of the country?"

"Because the orcs will probably come and destroy it. It wouldn't be realistic to defend it. And when they leave the country we'll spread out by clans, perhaps one clan to a valley. We're too many to live so close very long, but for now we stay together so we can gather forces quickly when we want to. Would you like to see some of our men training?"

She said she would, and they left the proximity of the huts for an open grassy field where sweating boys and men with wooden swords and leather shields thrust and parried. They ranged from early adolescence to middle age. Drill masters moved among them, stopping individuals, talking to them, demonstrating, occasionally berating. Nearby were irregular groups of little boys with sticks and small shields, frequently watching, often sparring or shadow-sparring, and sometimes racing or wrestling. She realized now why these people were so strong.

"Why are some of the instructors younger than so many of the men they're training?" Nikko asked.

"The instructors are warriors, some as young as nineteen. The older men in training are freeholders—farmers not trained before to fight. Warriors learn their skills from boyhood by training long days, until every act, every move and response, comes quickly and correctly without thought. These farmers will never equal warriors, but they are strong and proud, and the best will be as good as most orcs. Until they are thirteen or fourteen, most of them spent a lot of time practicing with sticks, like those little fellows out there, earning lots of sore spots. And as bowmen they're already very good. All their lives they've shot at marks, and hunted game to help feed themselves and their families.

"In the past the bans protected them from war, but the bans mean nothing to orcs. And while the warriors will protect them as much as they can, the freeholders must be ready to protect themselves if they need to."

"Freeholders," Nikko said. "Do you have slaves then?"

"We used to—warriors taken prisoner from other clans in raids. But after we united, the thralls returned to their own clans. Now all men are freeholders."

"Don't you mean all men are either freeholders or warriors?"

"In a sense. Warriors are freeholders too, but a warrior is special. In the homeland he worked his own land, but had the help of slaves to give him time to practice with weapons."

"And I suppose warriors consider themselves better than other freeholders."

Nils nodded. "To be chosen by the clan as a sword apprentice, to become a warrior, was a great honor. And a warrior is proud of being a warrior. But a warrior's father often is simply a farmer, yet the son honors him. Also, a warrior's sons often will not be chosen, will simply be farmers, yet they are his sons and he will love and respect them. And a warrior will have been simply a farmer in past lives, and perhaps a slave in one to come."

That startled Nikko Kumalo. "Do your people believe in rebirth then?"

"Of course."

"And do you remember, uh, past lives?"

"No. To die is to forget. Sometimes a little child remembers, and occasionally an old person, but it is usually a little glimpse, unclear and often uncertain."

So, she thought, they may not be afraid to die. "How do you decide who will be a warrior?"

"In their thirteenth or fourteenth summer, boys were selected for size and strength, and skill in war-play, to become sword apprentices. In their nineteenth summer they became warriors. But that is changing now."

"Why haven't your people killed each other off over the years?"

"The bans set limits and rules for fighting between clans and tribes. Few but warriors were killed."

"But then, warriors must be more likely to die young. If you select the strongest and quickest to become warriors, in the course of time your people will become weaker."

He shook his head, smiling. "Warriors can have several wives, other men but one. And it isn't unusual for women to seek the attention of a warrior. Among our women, warriors are considered desirable lovers."

"And what do their husbands do if they find out?"

"Beat them."

"Beat the wife, you mean?"

"Yes."

"But why the wife?"

"The wife has insulted him by turning to another man, so he beats her."

"And nothing is done to the warrior?"

"No. He has honored the woman's husband by finding his wife desirable."

"But . . ." Nikko started to protest, then realized the futility of it and asked instead, "What if an unmarried girl gets pregnant by a warrior?"

"Unless the warrior marries her, the child is taken from her and grows up in the warrior's family as his child. Then, because she was desirable to a warrior, other men will want to marry her."

"How many wives do you have, Nils?"

"One."

"Only one?"

"There may be others later. Ilse will remain the principal wife."

They had left the training field, wandering along the river to a high cutbank where children were swimming.

"The orcs looked very tough and disciplined, and there are a lot of them. Do you really expect to beat them?"

Nils nodded. "We beat them badly in every fight. Partly it was weapons skills and partly endurance; fighting is very hard work and to become too tired can be fatal. But without cunning we'd have been destroyed. It's important to fight at an advantage. In the Ukraine we were careful always to fight them in the forest; we were no match for them on horseback. Now we are correcting that. Would you like to see warriors train on horseback?"

"Oh, yes!" Nikko answered. "I love horses and riding."

"I'll have someone take you tomorrow morning then. But now I'll show you your tent. It should be built by now, and I have things to do before the sun sets."

The tent frame had been set up—long saplings cut, bent, and lashed into the form of a tortoise. Several women and girls were covering it with hides. Temporary-looking and small, she thought, for someone who was temporary and alone.

"You will take your meals at the hut of Ulf Vargsson," Nils told her. "Ulf is chief of the Wolf Clan. He has two daughters still at home, helping his wives, and they will be pleased to ask questions and answer yours."

She looked up at his strong well-balanced face. He couldn't be older than his mid-twenties, she decided, much younger than her own thirty-four years, yet somehow she reacted to him as her senior. There was something compelling about him, some inner difference beyond the telepathy and the sometimes disconcertingly direct intelligence.

"When will I talk to you again?" she asked. "There are so many things I'd like to know: about your travels, and the Psi Alliance, and Kazi."

Nils grinned at her, taking her by surprise, and in that moment he seemed like any large good-looking athletic youth. "I'll be back before dark. Ilse and I have a tent too, the cone-shaped one by the birch grove." He pointed. "I copied its form from the horse-barbarians. Come. I'll introduce you to Ulf's family."

Horse barbarians. That's another I'll have to ask about, she thought.

She felt impatient for the evening.

* * *

The broiled meat required strong chewing, and Nikko stopped eating not because she was full but because her jaws and cheeks could chew no more. No wonder these people have such strong faces, she thought; they develop a bite like a dire bear's. A congealed reddish pudding had also been served, which she decided not to ask about; if it was made with blood she preferred not to know yet. Her palate insisted it was partly curdled milk.

Conversation had gone haltingly. The girls, especially, kept forgetting to speak slowly and often had to repeat themselves. None of the family spoke any Anglic at all and there was no one to clarify words for either side. But an hour of this improved Nikko's ability noticeably.

Then Ulf raised his thick-shouldered form and stretched. "I have to sleep early tonight. I'll be training all day tomorrow, learning to fight in the saddle like a horse barbarian, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Ho! Listen to him," his principal wife said fondly. "I've seen him spar with a man half his age and make the young one dizzy with his sword play."

The chieftain laughed. "But the young ones can fight all day and make love half the night." He poked the woman playfully with an elbow. "I could too, when I was twenty. Now I need my sleep."

Nikko thanked them and left for her own tent a few dozen meters away. It was still daylight, but the sun had set. Inside the entrance dry wood had been stacked, along with birch bark for kindling. There was also a heap of leafy green twigs, its purpose unknown to her. Dry grass lay piled as a bed against one side, and she unrolled her light sleeping bag on it. Next she opened the small field chest and re-inventoried, then switched on the little radio and checked in with the Phaeacia, giving Matthew a resume.

That done, she left. She found Nils sitting cross-legged on the ground outside his door, his expression one of relaxed serenity, a young pagan god, blond and tan. It was dusk now, and mosquitoes were foraging in numbers but he did not seem to notice. Her hand snapped upward as she approached, smashing one on her forehead.

Nils stood and gestured her into his tent.

"Sorry," she said. "We have biting insects a lot like these on my world, but I'm not used to so many of them."

"I'll light a fire," he said. "They don't like smoke." He smiled. "You'll get used to them though, and they take very small bites. On warm still nights they were worse than this in the homeland." With flint and steel he quickly had a small wad of tinder glowing, blew it into a tiny fire and built it up with birchbark and branchwood.

"Will your people learn to like this land as much as the old?" Nikko asked.

"Most already like it better. It's a richer land, easier to live in, and very beautiful. We call the old land 'homeland' because of the memories and—" he groped momentarily—"traditions, but we are glad to be here."

The fire flamed briskly and Nils piled leafy twigs on it. The burning slowed and smoke billowed. He took two bundles of furs from the grassy bed opposite the entrance and set them near one another for seats.

"What would you like to hear about first?" he asked.

"One thing we'd especially like to know is what happened long ago that cut off travel from this world to ours, and why there are so few people on Earth today."

"Ah, the Plague. The tribes have only the word for it, and a few vague stories, but the Kinfolk—the Alliance—speak of it in detail and certainty."

Nils told her of an epidemic that had hit suddenly, that the ancient healers could do nothing about and which spared only a scattered few. When someone sickened with it he was taken with a terrible urge to make fire, to burn things, and soon died. The cities reeked with smoke and rotting flesh, and before many days it was over. The few who survived could search for a day or more before finding someone else alive. Soon the little moons that circled above the sky died because there was no one to take care of them, and when the little moons died, the machines died that had made life easy for men.

As he talked, her eyes searched his face, and whether he told of death and burning or of the gradual gathering and regrowth of mankind, his expression and voice remained casual. Yet he didn't seem uncaring, and his calm was due to more than remoteness of the events in time. It reflected something in him that she had never known before.

"Are others of your people like you?" she asked. "Or other telepaths? Who think like you and look at things the way you do?"

"No," he said. "I do not know of any other who sees as I do, although Ilse is coming to."

"When did you become like you are?"

"Somewhat, I have always been. Then I killed the troll and was almost killed by it. When I woke up afterward, I knew."

"When you killed the troll?"

He nodded, and for a moment she was shaken, wondering if, after all, the difference in him was that he was insane. He laughed, she blushed, and he began to tell a story. It began with a boy, a sword apprentice in his eighteenth summer, who killed a man with a fist blow, was dubbed Ironhand, and exiled. A boy-man, naive, ignorant, but almost unmatched with the sword. At first things happened to him. Before long he happened to them. And there were trolls, which the chief of the Psi Alliance believed had been brought in ancient times from the stars.

She stared as he talked, her eyes growing full of him, exploring him, his smooth skin molded over muscles that were tiger-like in their power and grace, relaxed but explosive and possessed of more than human strength, ruddied by the settling fire. He turned his eyes to her, and suddenly her desire for him flashed into intense consciousness. She had shifted closer to him, unaware, and found herself leaning toward him. The realization jerked her upright, confused and frightened. Scrambling to her feet she scurried crouching through the low entrance into the night. She actually ran for a few meters, fought back the edge of panic and slowed to a walk, then stopped and looked around. It was dark and she could see no one. Her tent was over there, and she walked toward it, heart hammering. Had he hypnotized her? No. It had come from inside her, from within herself, an expression and surfacing of some deep inner response to him. She was still shaky, her pulse rapid from the shock and unexpectedness of it. She'd never imagined anything like that.

Inside her tent she opened the field chest. Humming mosquitoes were finding her in vicious numbers. She located the little battery lamp by feel, and with its soft white civilized light found the small cylindrical fire-lighter. She needed only to twist the top off, thumb the slide, and . . . She gripped it harder but still the top wouldn't turn; she gripped it as hard as she could, futilely. Using her handkerchief made no difference, and there were no pliers in the kit. "Damn damn damn," she gritted, then almost cried, and finally sat on her bed of grass, listening to the humming, feeling the stings.

After a minute's despondency she crawled outside again, walked slowly to Nils's tent, and ducked into its ember-lit interior. He still sat as he had, as if waiting.

"I can't light my fire," she said in a low voice.

He nodded silently, got up, and left with her. Side by side they walked through the darkness and entered her tent. She lit the small lamp again and he did not comment on it.

"If you could open this . . ."

He held the small cylinder in his palm, looking at it, and it occurred to Nikko that he had never seen a screw cap before. But he knew. Gripping the top, he turned it easily, handed it back, and watched silently while she made a small rough pile of birch bark and twigs. In a moment she had a fire burning. At that he left, and she knelt for a few minutes, feeding the rising flames, then piled on leafy twigs as she'd seen Nils do.

She felt a sense of relief as the smoke diffused through the tent, and lay down in her jump suit atop the sleeping bag. Dark humor sparked briefly in her mind: I wonder if he'd have jumped and run if I'd reached for him. But the humor died. I'm no different than I was yesterday, she told herself. I just know something about myself I didn't know before. Now that I know, I won't be taken by surprise again.

Had he known before it surfaced? Then why had he gone on talking? But what else should he have done? Told her to get out before she made a fool of herself?

How many naked souls had he seen? What understanding must he have?

With that she felt better, but her mind would not be still. What would have happened if he'd reached out, put his hands on her, drawn her down onto the bed of grass? The thought requickened her pulse, tightening her throat; that was her answer. But he hadn't, and the sag of disappointment reinforced that answer. He could have but hadn't. Maybe the fact that she was older . . . but she was still quite pretty. She liked to look at her face in the mirror, and at her small neat figure.

Or perhaps he'd sensed the guilt she'd feel if she had had sex with him.

Were his reasons either of those or was she simply talking to herself? What mattered was that nothing physical had happened. She pictured Matthew's face then, and somehow the feeling that followed was of sober relief. Tension drained from her, and for a few minutes her thoughts were deliberately of years and dreams and tenderness shared, until she fell asleep with pungent smoke in her nostrils.

XI

Anne Marie zipped her jumper over her swim suit, then turned to the large window to look across city and prairie toward the sea.

"I wonder if there are sharks in the Black Sea?"

"Probably. It's hooked up with the Mediterranean and the world ocean. You know, these Earth sharks are a lot like sharks back home, even to the cartilaginous skeletons." Chandra looked at his watch. "No use making Matt wait," he said, reaching to the small radio.

"Phaeacia, this is Chan. Phaeacia, this is Chan. Over."

"Good morning, Chan. How's everything down on Planet Earth?" The voice was Matthew but the false heartiness wasn't.

Chandra raised an eyebrow at Anne Marie. "Just fine," he answered. "We plan to spend the day swimming and beach-combing along the Black Sea."

"Say, that sounds great! I should have given myself that job. Taking a picnic lunch too?"

There was an awkward lag before Chandra replied. "Matt, we're wasting our time here, and we've had our fill of it. How about pulling us out?"

"I don't think we want to do anything like that, Chan." There was a pause. "I'll tell you what I do want to do though. We're having a conference tomorrow of the whole exploration team, and I need you two to be in on it. Have the orcs bring you out to the landing spot at ten hundred local time tomorrow and we'll pick you up. That's the same spot we landed at before. At ten hundred hours. We'll have you back there twenty-four hours later."

"Sounds great, all but the last part. For all the good we're doing here, you'd have done better to leave us back on New Home."

"Okay, that's enough of that." Matthew sounded distinctly annoyed. "We all agreed that Constanta would be Contact Prime. You'll just have to stay with it down there until they trust you. You'll feel different about it then. So no more argument, okay?"

Anne Marie looked perplexedly at Chandra.

"Okay, Matt, you're the boss," he said. "Tomorrow at ten hundred hours local time and back the next day."

"Good." Matthew sounded mollified. "And Chan, no need to pack. Just leave your stuff there. But bring your radio with you so one of the technicians can go over it. It fades a bit now and then."

"Sure. Leave our personal gear and just bring the radio. Anything else, or should I sign off?"

"That's all for now. And no use checking in again unless you have something special to report. We'll see you tomorrow at ten hundred hours. And sorry I blew my top. Have a good time on the beach today, both of you."

"Sure thing. Chan over and out."

"Accepted. Phaeacia out."

Chandra stood up. "Huh! What did you think of that?"

"I don't know what to think of it. It was Matt's voice, but he certainly didn't sound like himself. He sounded—out of character. Do you suppose something's wrong up there and he doesn't want to tell us?"

Chandra pursed his lips and looked thoughtfully at his nails. "I'll tell you what, and I'll bet ten credits I'm right. He doesn't plan to bring us back here once he's gotten us away, and he doesn't want us to know it."

"But that doesn't make any sense," she objected. "Why wouldn't he want us to know? He knows we'd be overjoyed to hear it."

Chandra shrugged. "I've played cards with him; he's the world's most transparent faker. Think about it: The big hearty opening; that told me right away that he was going to withhold something from us. Then the big emphasis on coming back. His reaction when I suggested we shouldn't. You know what I think? I think he's decided these people are dangerous to us and he wants us out of here. And he thinks if we don't know it we'll act normal so the orcs won't suspect anything."

Anne Marie looked doubtful. "Well, I guess we'll find out for sure tomorrow. He did sound strange, there's no doubt about that."

* * *

Draco clapped his palms and the slave moved smoothly to refill his cup. reacting with neither expression nor thought to his ill humor. The consul had resented having to make a critical decision on nothing more than suspicion and supposition. The star man supposed they wouldn't return.

Well, he should know his commander.

And apparently Ahmed believed him. He'd proposed they not take the couple back to the sky chariot, but hold them hostage. They would threaten to torture them if a sky chariot, with weapons, wasn't given to them. They would promise to return the hostages as soon as they had delivery and had been shown how to drive it and use its weapons.

What particularly bothered Draco was that Ahmed wanted to meet the chariot when it landed tomorrow. That could prove dangerous and seemed totally unnecessary; they could use the hostage's "radio" to make their demands. But Ahmed had said he'd go alone if need be. He'd had the gall to imply that Draco might be afraid, and insisted it was the only way to know the star men's thoughts when they learned the situation. The reasoning was trivial—they didn't need to know their thoughts—and the Sudanese knew damned well he'd see through it.

Then, just a few minutes ago, Draco had been informed that, when the pair had been taken into custody, Ahmed's men had questioned them, had wanted to know how to enter a sky chariot if the invisible wall was not in place. A few screams from the woman had broken the man's refusal.

So the Sudanese dog planned somehow to capture the sky chariot tomorrow, unless this was a red herring covering still another intention.

It might be hard to counter Ahmed's plan without knowing what it was. The best thing to do, Draco decided, was to make a move of his own. At least he was forewarned. When they went to the landing place he'd be fully alert, ready to react quickly if necessary.

And while they were gone, his own people would strike down the men who guarded Ahmed's interest in the prisoners. Then they'd be solely his hostages, in his own dungeon. It was risky—Ahmed might even go to war over it—but he couldn't let Ahmed have the initiative alone.

His hostages. The thought excited him. The woman had screamed and then sobbed, when all they had done was jerk her arm up behind her back and twist it, and strike her in the abdomen once or twice.

* * *

Ahmed slipped his helmet on his proud head and was turning toward the courtyard when his spy entered, obviously with something to tell him.

"Make it quick!" he snapped. "I have no time for trivia now."

"In private, Lordship," the man said, and that in itself proved its urgency. Ahmed strode into his chamber, Yusuf and the spy with him, and closed the heavy bronze door, leaving his retinue behind.

"Speak!"

"Draco plans to have the man and woman taken for his own! It will be done as soon as you've left the city to meet the sky chariot."

The hardness in Ahmed's mood eased discernibly. "Good."

Yusuf's expression sharpened.

"Our move is risky," Ahmed explained. "Its success could seem to give us too great an advantage, and Draco might strike with his army immediately, before we could make use of it. His army is the stronger now. And if we kill him today, when perhaps we have a chance, his lieutenants would strike at once. He has been careful to give power to men who hate us as much as he does, and fear us more.

"But now he'll have his own coup." Ahmed jabbed the spy's shoulder painfully with a rigid finger. "You must see to it that he is not foiled. Our success today can be decisive in the long run only if there is a long run, while his will mean little except to his vanity. If he succeeds in this he'll be pleased with it, and unlikely to strike at us for awhile. By the time he sees its emptiness, it will be too late for him.

"Now let's get out of here." The heavy door was delicately balanced and opened easily at his pull. "We cannot be late."

* * *

It was a beautiful carriage, delicate-looking, incongruous on the prairie; it would have been more apropos in a fairy tale. Its erect oval body, completely enclosing, was an opalescent pearly white, like the magical egg of some fabulous bird. The ornate crown around its top was gold plated and its tall wheels marked with gold. The pair of light geldings pulled it almost as easily as they would a sulky, and its springs were so well made that it rocked only modestly at their walking pace, hardly bouncing as it crossed the prairie's humpy surface.

It was a parade carriage for captured royalty; its upper sides could be slid down for viewing prisoners. Had the detailed carvings of the crown been noticed by the men in the high-hovering Alpha, the triumphant depictions of butchery and rape might have shaken them.

Mikhail and Matthew were alone in the pinnace, watching the view screen. "Trojan horse," Matthew muttered.

"How's that?"

"I said 'Trojan horse.' It occurred to me that that carriage down there is big enough to conceal several soldiers. Let's keep that in mind."

* * *

The carriage was on a different course to the landing site, a longer, smoother route, and Draco eyed it suspiciously. It was probably the key to Ahmed's scheme, though it might be nothing more than a ruse to hold the attention of those in the sky chariot, making them less likely to notice that the people in jump suits were not their people after all.

He looked them over. Ahmed had done a good job of selecting stand-ins; they were very close to the hostages in size and build. And the mellow brown of the star people's skins had been easy to match. But they . . .

And then he read what was in the carriage, his gaze jerking toward it in alarm.

* * *

Ahmed was intent, and perhaps more anxious then Draco. For him the point of no return was well past, and he knew how easily things could go wrong in this. If the star men waited to land until the party was close to the landing spot, as they had the last time, then the odds were good. Unless of course they discovered the substitutions before they landed. In that case he would be a dead man; they all would.

But if they landed too soon and activated the force shield, there'd be little he could do. That would almost surely mean failure, and also probably death.

* * *

They stopped at the base of the little hillock, twenty meters from where the pinnace had landed before, and watched the Alpha begin to settle. One orc, at the rear of the party, dismounted.

Seated at the front of the parade carriage, his mind screened, the telepathic driver strained briefly to sense the minds of the star men above. His hand was on the lever which controlled the side panels. The rods had been shortened. When the lever was pushed they would drop abruptly instead of lowering slowly.

He directed his attention, his and that of the arena troll enclosed behind him, to Ahmed's taut mind. His stomach was a clenched fist. His mind would hurt, as it had hurt in the arena when Kazi had held a troll's mind with his own and buffeted the cowering crowd with his rage. More. It would hurt as it had when the giant Northman, naked on the bloody sand, had torn the troll's mind away from the Master and slammed the throng into unconsciousness.

The sky chariot was almost down, and it would hurt badly.

"NOW!" Ahmed thought to him, and the panels dropped, and a burst of sheer rage and violence exploded from Ahmed into the troll's mirror mind. Instantly it burst back, greatly magnified, and Ahmed wasn't even able to clutch his stallion's mane before dropping like a sack from the saddle. Horses bolted at the thunderclap of psychic rage, or staggered and fell, and some of the unconscious party were dragged bouncing across the prairie. The Alpha landed with a bump, Matthew and Mikhail senseless on her deck.

The only man left conscious was the orc who'd dismounted earlier. He was that rarity, a man totally psi-deaf, selected by Ahmed for this job. The hard-bitten veteran swaggered to the pinnace, deactivated the lock, and within a minute had dragged two shackled bodies out into the tall grass. Then he squatted in the shadow of the Alpha to wait. It wouldn't be long. He could see the horsemen galloping toward him some distance away. They had been far enough off that the star men would not relate them to the landing, far enough that the thunderbolt from Ahmed's mind, magnified by the troll's, was a distant signal, not a felling blow.

There'd be a reward in this for him; perhaps he'd ask for a pretty slave girl from the palace household.

* * *

The squawk box was urgent. "Captain Uithoudt to the bridge please! Emergency! Captain Uithoudt to the bridge please! Emergency!"

Ram Uithoudt jabbed the acknowledge button, spit toothpaste into the washbowl, took a moment to rinse it down the drain, then pulled on his jumpsuit, zipping it as he strode down the passageway.

"The radio, sir," the bridge watch told him.

"Ram here," he said as he hit the command chair.

"Commander Uithoudt?"

The unfamiliar voice was quiet but hard, its words accented.

"That's right. Who are you?"

"I am Ahmed, consul of the Empire of Kazi. I have your, ah, pinnace in my control—the one called Alpha. I also hold prisoner the two men who flew it, Matthew Kumalo and Mikhail Ciano. I plan no harm to them, as long as you do not try to interfere with me. My fight is not with you. But if you try to interfere, their death will be your responsibility, and it will be a slow and most unpleasant death. I have experts at that.

"You will also leave your radio on at all times; I will want to contact you again."

Abruptly the signal ended. The two men on the bridge stared at one another.

XII

Each human instinctively and unconsciously develops the equivalent of computer programs in his mind—a set of more or less integrated and often incompatible programs that together crudely simulate the world. Your programs collectively constitute the world as you know it, and the state of those programs at any given time makes up the only world you know. They are the means through which your brain, your organic computer, operates. You make decisions and take actions on the basis of the printouts of that computer, printouts from programs which are part of your model of the world.[3]

Hendricks has discussed the deficiencies of the system at length. Only one of them seems directly relevant to our discussion here—the egocentricity of those programs. The focal point, the emotional center, of the programs constituting your world, is occupied by your enthroned ego. It colors not only all you think and do, but all you "know" as well. It makes your subjective world what Kuznetsov dubbed the ego world.[5]

It has been suggested that this centrality of the ego is essential as an integrating reference point and for survival of the organism; that without it, man would lack, among other things, a survival instinct.[6] The ego may indeed have begun as a reference point for the integration of data, and its growth may have been a by-product of the survival instinct, but it seems unessential to either. Descriptions and analyses of the barbarian telepath, Nils Järnhann, all point to his lack of an ego, as the concept of ego is defined today.[7] Yet even allowing for some small degree of exaggeration in the reports of the expedition, Nils did an exceptional job of integrating information and surviving remarkably hazardous situations.[8]

To be convincing, any refinement of ego theory must now consider Nils Järnhann. Which is to say, it must consider the probability of a strong and effective survival mechanism and an integrating center of reference independent of any powerful, albeit unconscious, emotional image of the self as the center of the world.

At the same time, of course, we must reject the "explanations" of the New Movement gnostics.[9] These are essentially pre-technological theology in pseudo-scientific trappings, with the unlikely premise that the human ego is the "spirit" or "soul" in a somehow degraded condition. Nils Järnhann, then, is "explained" as a case in which the degraded condition was somehow miraculously dispelled or perhaps avoided! . . .

. . . Operating with a set of seemingly objective programs, a non-egocentric world model, Nils showed unique ability to learn. Mrs. Kumalo found existing intelligence tests inadequate for precise determination, but established that he did in fact possess "substantially superior mental equipment."[12]

An alternative, or more likely complementary, explanation might be that his objectivity itself enabled him to discern, learn, and reason more effectively than the great majority of men.

Of course, his direct access to the thoughts of others must have helped, but most other telepaths seem not to approach him in ability to learn or to make correct decisions.

All in all there was that about him which makes one uncomfortable when trying to explain him scientifically. And that is entirely aside from the interesting apocrypha that have grown up about him. It seems as if he was playing a joke on us by being what he was.

Mrs. Kumalo questioned him in a specific effort to understand his gestalt (sensu Watanabe). She stated categorically that she never succeeded, but felt she could characterize certain aspects of it.[13] She wrote that, among other things, he did not have or use a conscious mind in the usual sense of the term. Yet he was obviously very conscious indeed. He was more sensitive to what happened around him, more aware, than anyone else she had ever known, an impression of him shared by the expedition generally.[14] Nor was he a cold hard logic machine—a biophysical computer so to speak. He has been described as cheerful, considerate of others, charismatic, and possessing a sense of humor,[15] which, to me at least, is reassuring.

Even more than with most men, the productive work of his mind apparently took place at a subconscious level. And he does not seem to have reviewed its "printouts" consciously. Whatever monitoring of them he may have done seems, like the computing itself, to have been subliminal. His printouts were available, however, for what we might call conscious expression. That is, he could explain his reasons better and more simply than most of us explain ours, and I suspect that if he were writing this, it would be much simpler and considerably more enlightening.

I can at least hope that if he were reading this, he would not laugh, and might even approve.

From—Human Consciousness in the Light of the Barbarian Telepath, Nils Järnhann, by Muhammad Chao. Pages 39-57, in ADVANCES IN PHILOSOPHY FOLLOWING THE FIRST TWO EARTH EXPEDITIONS. Kathleen Murti, ed. University Press, A.C. 867.

* * *

Nikko ducked into her tent and laid the armload of green-leaved willow twigs beside the firewood she'd brought earlier, then hung her canteen from one of the saplings that formed her tent frame. Her light field shoes were wet from the marshy ground where the willows grew. So this is the simple life, she thought. Not bad, as long as someone else provides the food and prepares it. A lot more agreeable than the life Anne and Chan described in the palace. The key difference, she decided, was the people.

As she took the radio from the field chest she wondered what Matthew would assign Chan and Anne to, now that they'd left the orcs, and whether contact with the orcs would be abandoned.

"Phaeacia, this is Nikko. Phaeacia, this is Nikko. Over. Over."

"Nikko, this is Ram. Over."

"Good morning, Ram. It really is morning here, you know. The sun is up, birds are singing—you should have heard their chorus about daybreak. 'Din' is a better word for it. I just finished my morning duties as a bearer of the wood and drawer of water. And my watch says oh-seven-oh-five local time, which makes it official. We had tough broiled meat again for breakfast, and my jaws are getting so strong I'll soon be able to hang from a rope by my teeth."

"Nikko, I've got something to tell you." He said it in a flat even tone of voice, cutting her communication, and it froze the breath in her chest. Fragments of thought splashed through her mind—Matt hurt in a pinnace crash; Ilse, her safeguard, dead in childbirth; something irreparable gone wrong with the space drive. She waited, not asking.

"Matt and Mike and the Alpha were captured by the orcs yesterday. We don't know how. I was afraid something was wrong when they didn't come back on schedule with Chan and Anne and we couldn't raise them on the radio. But we didn't know anything for sure, and I didn't want to alarm you when you checked in last evening.

"Not long after I talked to you I had a call from an orc headman named Ahmed. He said they had the Alpha, and Matt and Mike. He said they don't regard us as enemies and won't harm them as long as we do nothing to interfere. He didn't say what we shouldn't interfere in, but I guess we'll know when the time comes."

He paused. "I'll send Beta down with Ilse later today and bring you back up."

"No."

"No? What do you mean?"

"I mean no." She listened to her words as if someone else was speaking them. "I'd be no good up there to myself or anyone else, and everyone would be walking on tiptoe around me. Let me bring Nils to talk to you, if I can find him. He knows a lot about the orcs and might have something to offer—information or even advice. I'll switch off and be back as soon as I can, but I'm not sure how long it will be. Okay?"

"All right, Nikko, go ahead. But listen: After this don't use Band D anymore and watch for multiple receiver signals. We don't want eavesdroppers. Phaeacia over and out."

"Okay. Nikko out."

From high above, Ram heard her set go dead, and sat feeling grimly miserable. That was a hell of a fine woman. He wondered if it was true that, in a pinch, women were likely to be tougher than men. And he wondered about Anne and Chandra. The man named Ahmed hadn't mentioned them. They must be prisoners too. There was hardly anything else they could be, except dead.

Nikko walked swiftly to Nils's tent. He wasn't there. She turned toward Ulf's then, and he was gone too. Nikko explained, and the principal wife sent her youngest son, a boy of nine, pelting off to look for Nils.

"He'll ask other boys," she said, "and before long there'll be a small army hunting for him. If he's anywhere near, he'll hear their minds; it shouldn't take long. Why don't we go to your tent and wait for him?" She put a large strong hand on Nikko's shoulder while giving instructions to the youngest wife. Then they left.

They sat down on the ground beside Nikko's tent. "It's natural to feel afraid," the woman said. "But if your man is still alive, he may get back all right. And if he doesn't, it will pass. You are still young and pretty. Not strong-bodied, but pretty none the less. Any man would be glad to take you into his cabin. Besides, you star people have sky boats, and ancient weapons to threaten the orcs with. Nils will know what to do. Even the chiefs turn to the Yngling for his wisdom."

They sat in silence then, Nikko's mind curiously calm. To the south rose the ridge that bordered the valley, at that distance looking more black than green. Along its crest she could distinguish the tops of individual pines and firs, small against the sky. The omnipresent smell of wood smoke was around her, but beneath it were the subtler fragrances of meadow flowers. And there was birdsong. She felt high and strong and sure—not afraid at all—and while she knew the feeling would prove transient, that was all right too. She was enjoying it now.

When Nils arrived she arose with composure, and the principal wife left. Nikko told him what Ram had said. Then they went into the tent and she recontacted the ship.

"This is Ram. Over."

"Nils is here, Ram. Ilse's husband. He's a member of the War Council and an advisor to the Council of Chiefs—sort of an affiliate member. He speaks Anglic well."

"Okay," Ram said. "Do you have questions to ask him, or how will we handle this?"

"Why not just have him say whatever comes to him? If any questions come to my mind, he'll know. He's a telepath." She handed the microphone to the Northman, who held it as if he used one every day.

"Tell me what the orc said, as exactly as you can," Nils instructed.

When Ram was done, Nils took over. "Kazi ruled when I was there, and I don't know this Ahmed. But you can be sure he's cruel. No man could rule the orcs who was not cruel and ruthless."

You bastard, Ram thought, did you have to say that? In front of her?

"He may be more sane than Kazi though," Nils continued, "and therefore perhaps more predictable. And it sounds as if he wants something more from you. That's hopeful for the hostages, for now. But when he asks for more, you'll have to make some answer. To say 'no' will put the hostages in danger, but 'yes' may not be an answer you can give. Prepare yourself for that.

"In deciding your answer, remember that orcs love torture, and they are masters at it. They know how to torture the mind as well as the body . . ."

And so do you, thought Ram, you barbarian son of a bitch.

". . . and when a hostage has served his purpose, they may use him to amuse themselves. Unless of course they're afraid to, afraid of heavy vengeance. You might make a show of force, to make them fear you. But warn them first, so they don't think they are being attacked and perhaps kill their captives. Don't threaten them; just show them what you can do. Attack a herd of cattle.

"They know a lot about you from the minds of your people. Undoubtedly they have decided you are weak-willed."

Thanks a lot.

"Show them they're wrong and they'll become more cautious.

"They already have a sky boat"—Nils paused momentarily, catching Nikko's unspoken correction, "a pinnace, with its weapons, so their need for hostages is less than it would be otherwise, and they may be more willing to kill them. It would be much better if you could get the pinnace back. Maybe we could do that for you. If you would take a party of our warriors in the other pinnace, perhaps we could get it back for you."

Yeah, Ram thought. Then you'd have both Alpha and Beta, the orcs would still have four of us, and we'd have nothing to bargain, or even land, with. Instead he answered, "We can't do that. First of all we don't know where the Alpha is. We reconnoitered first thing this morning and couldn't find a trace of her. They've either got her under cover in the city or they keep her somewhere well outside it. And second, if they're as bad as you say—and it fits what Chan and Anne thought—they might retaliate against the hostages if we try to get Alpha back that way."

Nikko reached out and Nils handed her the microphone.

"What do you have in mind then, Ram?"

"Nothing. I hate to say it, but not a damned thing. We'll just have to wait and see what develops, and take advantage of any opportunities."

She looked at Nils but his face told her nothing.

"Are you sure you won't come back up?" Ram asked. "We'd feel better if you were here, and you'd know at once if we hear anything."

"You won't," she answered softly. "Nothing good. Nothing good will happen unless we make it happen."

Five hundred and ten kilometers above her, Ram's expression was dismal.

"No, I'll stay here," she continued. "I'll be doing what we came here to do. Up there all I could do would be wait and imagine and feel sick and afraid. But thanks, Ram. And I know if there's anything you can do, you will. Nikko over and out."

"Accepted. Phaeacia out."

* * *

Ram stared at the colored image in the big screen, a broad span of Eurasia tan and white, the Black Sea's cobalt blue, unmarked by clouds. "Welcome home," he said bitterly. "Welcome back to Earth."

* * *

Nils sat on a fallen tree in the forest, head bowed, thick forearms resting on powerful thighs. He wore a loin cloth like a horse barbarian. Sten Vannaren stood over him intently, razor in hand, now and then hissing slightly between his teeth.

Nils had made a decision. The probability of full success was not high, but he saw no real alternative.

The orcs had a pinnace, with weapons and a supply of ammunition. Nils had gathered a substantial picture of what could be done with them. And with a combination of questioning, telepathy, psychology and pain, the orcs would soon know how to use them. Then they'd be able to: (1) attack and harass the People; (2) prevent effective cattle raids; and (3) scatter the herds the People had already gathered. They could force the clans to disperse and leave the country. Furthermore, if they could coerce the star people to provide additional ammunition, which was likely, they might well try again to seize Europe, using extortion, war, and potential allies among short-sighted, opportunistic feudal lords.

The best chance of preventing this, perhaps the only chance, was to get control of the Beta. If they could recapture Alpha with it, success would be almost assured. But just getting Beta would improve the odds. When the time came they'd attempt it by holding Nikko hostage. The star people seemed psychologically unable to retaliate by harming Ilse. He had advised Kniv, and Axel Stornäve, not to give the star woman up if she decided after all to go back to the ship.

Now he would try to find where Alpha was kept.

Sten stepped back and grinned at Nils's newly bald head. "There! It's done. And without drawing too much blood. It'll be a long time before it grows out enough to braid again." He folded the razor and put it in his pouch. "Are you sure you don't want a man or two beside you in this? That crazy Trollsverd would cut his hair for the chance, maybe even his throat. And if you talked hard enough you might get me to go."

Nils grinned back at him. "Fighting isn't the purpose of this trip, and one Northman is hard enough to conceal among foreigners. Two or three would be impossible. Besides, you speak Anglic; I want you to keep Nikko happy. Answer her questions, talk freely, tell her your travels. She'll be learning, which is her purpose, and more content to stay, which means the star people will be less angry at us when the time comes. Talk to Ulf about having her take meals with your family. Once they know her, Signe and Hild won't be jealous when you spend time with her, especially if it's with them by their own fire."

The two warriors shook hands then, untied their reins from the hazel bushes, and swung onto their horses. Sten turned back toward the encampment. Nils rode south.

XIII

Psionicists regard Ilse as the human cornerstone of psionics in the new renaissance. Her students remember and revere her as the calm, charismatic, and knowing listener who helped them find new dimensions within and outside themselves. Sean O'Niall insists that, in other times and circumstances, a new religion would have grown up around her memory, [31] and indeed one might wonder if one hasn't. Increasingly, philosophers recognize her as a major cultural transmuter, one whose unique insights and influence are moving mankind a step farther toward what we will become. [32]

It is interesting to consider that she was a very primitive young woman on a primitive and often violent world. The neoviking composer of the Järnhann Saga, in one of the occasional departures from his usual meter that provide a parenthetical quality, gives us a sharp clear image of the young Ilse in action while describing her capture by horse barbarians in Germany. He may well have exercised his culturally conditioned imagination, but the characterization seems basically correct. Here is the original, for those who can read it, along with Professor Kumalo's faithful translation. [33]

D' döjtsa häxen käste ned

böjen, näpte bagen upp

Å spennte senan, önar stadi,

pilan vjentanne mä fäädi döjn.

[The German seeress threw aside

her bucket, quickly took her bow

and drew the string taut, cool eyes steady,

arrow waiting then with ready death.]

From—ROOTS OF THE NEW MOVEMENT, by Mei-Ti Lomasetewa

* * *

Dr. Celia Uithoudt stepped into the little cabin.

"Ram?"

"What?" He responded without looking away from the tape screen.

She looked at her husband thoughtfully before continuing. "Did you read my mind just now?"

"You know I can't do that at will." He turned to her. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you sound grumpy—like a refusal waiting for a request. I thought maybe you knew I was going to ask you to do something."

"I guess maybe I did. Do what?"

"Talk to Ilse."

"What point is there in that?"

"Courtesy, if nothing else." For those four words her tone had sharpened. Now it softened again, but the words were candid. "Ram, you should know what the point is without being told. With Matt gone, you've undertaken to direct the off-ship activities as well as the ship itself. And Alex is willing to let you, even though he was Matt's second, because he's not the command type and doesn't feel up to the circumstances. And because you're willing and he has respect for your . . ."

"And you don't like the way I'm handling things," Ram interrupted roughly. "Maybe you ought to try it."

"Let me finish talking, you sarcastic bully!" Her burst of open anger startled Ram, even shocked him. She seldom argued, rarely criticized bluntly, and he'd never seen her blow up before. He respected and appreciated her patience even more than her intelligence. To have broken that patience alerted him to how badly the situation had affected his frame of mind.

At a deeper level she had jabbed a hidden sore of self-distaste. He sometimes did use sarcasm to bully her, and despised this trait of his.

"Sorry, Cele," he said quietly. "I'll listen."

She stood uncomfortably for a wordless moment, her anger gone. "If you're going to make the decisions," she said at last, "you need to know as much as possible about the people and circumstances you're dealing with. And Ilse is a storehouse of information. She may seem like a primitive—I guess she is, in one sense of the word—but she's from a pretty wise culture. The Kinfolk have kept alive quite a bit of the old knowledge. They're scattered throughout feudal Europe and keep one another more or less informed of what goes on there. They're sophisticated politically and they've been influencing feudal politics and culture for generations, so they have a lot better feel for intrigue and conflict than we do. They've retained a lot of twenty-first-century objectivism and rationalism, too, and on top of that she's learned a lot about the Northmen and at least something about the orcs.

"Besides, with your occasional periods of telepathic sensitivity, you might find it interesting to know a trained and highly functional telepath."

"You're right," he said. "And I will talk to her. I guess I let my frustrations get me down."

She bent and kissed her seated husband on the forehead.

"I've never seen you so impressed by anyone before," he went on. "Certainly not on just a few days' acquaintance."

"Don't let the greasy deerskin breeches mislead you," Celia said. "Besides, I've had some things sewn together for her, a bit lighter and easier to clean. She's too pregnant for any of our jumpsuits.

"You'll be impressed with her too, I promise. She's not only highly intelligent and magnetic, but she seems so, so integrated. When I talk with her I feel positively—outclassed—and you know inferiority isn't part of my self image."

Ram shook his head.

"Listen, Cele," he said. "For whatever it's worth, I apologize for being such a lout. Introduce me to Ilse. I've barely met her, and I need you to start me out. I hope she's used to people that run off at the mind. I can usually control my mouth, but . . ."

* * *

Cele had been right: magnetic was the word. And striking, almost handsome. On New Home, with its centuries of racial blending, her honey-blond hair and high color would have drawn immediate attention. But her real impact was of strength and composure. Even advanced pregnancy failed to make her seem weak or vulnerable. Yet she was very much a woman—swollen but physically attractive. And the sense of presence she radiated had affected Ram before she'd said a word.

He'd been surprised at her Anglic. On New Home, with its cultural conservatism and literary tradition, the language had not changed much, but he wouldn't have expected so little change in it on Earth. The Psi Alliance had kept it as their primary language, she explained. It helped maintain unity among the farflung members.

They'd nurtured it also among the people around them as a second language understood almost everywhere in feudal Europe. The Merchant Kin and the powerful Inner Circle had been instrumental in establishing Anglic among the upper classes, where the advantages of an international language maintained it. The monastic "Wandering Kin" had even kept it alive, if not exactly vigorous, among the peasantry. A deliberate policy of linguistic homogeneity, plus a strong oral and literary tradition, had kept it largely unchanged for more than seven hundred years.

And Ram could not doubt her telepathy. For the most part she waited for him to voice his questions and statements, but she'd openly anticipated him several times.

Although they did not seem pertinent to his problem. Ram found the Kinfolk especially interesting. "Do you mean to say," he asked, "that there are hundreds of psis in Europe forming a complete and intercommunicating culture and the populace as a whole doesn't know it?"

She nodded. "They know of the Wandering Kin of course, but they don't realize what they are. The peasants regard them as seers and counselors, and look to them for advice, and that is as close as anyone comes to understanding them. Members of the Merchant Kin and the Inner Circle are thought of simply as shrewd individual merchants or advisors."

"And the Northmen don't know either?"

"Only Nils does; they have known of telepathy for only a few years. They were isolated for a long time in their northern land, and the Kinfolk have never been among them."

"What do they think of telepathy?"

"Their Yngling is a telepath, so they accept it. And it's their nature not to fear the new and unfamiliar. They have great confidence in their resourcefulness, their ability to handle whatever comes up. They may reject something as undesirable, but not from fear of its strangeness."

"You said their—something. Their Ingling? What's an Ingling?"

"Many of them believe my husband, Nils, is the Yngling. Long ago 'yngling' simply meant a youth in their language. Anciently, Anglic had a cognate, 'youngling.' All three Northman tribes share a legend of a young man, an yngling, who appeared in a time of danger perhaps three hundred years ago, when constant warring threatened to destroy them. They had no warrior class then; all men fought. The southern tribe, the Jötar, had gained the upper hand. It seemed they would kill or enslave the Svear, and perhaps the Norskar as well. But an yngling appeared among the Svear who became a great raid leader and war chief, and before long it seemed they would destroy the Jötar instead. Then an yngling came among the Jötar and saved them. Soon he made himself known as the same yngling who had saved the Svear and Norskar. He said he belonged to no tribe or clan, but to all Northmen. And he had great power over them by his wisdom and truth and justice, and gave them the bans that set limits on warring and feuding, the bans that let them live as men without fear and hate.

"But the yngling was killed by a Jytska chief who did not want to change, who hated him for the bans and struck him with a poisoned knife. And instead of making a burial mound, they put the body in a canoe and set it on the Jöta Alv, which floated it down to the sea.

"Only then they realized that no one in all the clans knew his name, so they called him the Yngling. After that it was no longer used as a word, but reserved to be his name. And it was widely held that if the tribes were ever in such need again, he would be reborn. A year ago the need was great, and Nils, who had been exiled earlier for a killing, returned and led them through their danger. So many of the People believe he is the Yngling."

An interesting bit of folklore. Ram thought. "And from what you said a bit ago," he commented, "I gather that all you know about the orcs is what he's told you."

"Not exactly; I have it by more than telling. He can re-picture things just as he experienced them, when he wishes. So he has rerun most of the time among the orcs for me to see, and hear and feel. It is much like having been there as him."

"Feelings and all! Do you experience them as the participant, or do you retain your separate identity with feelings of your own?"

"I perceive his feelings but remain myself."

"Has it been hard to adjust to Northman customs and thoughts?" he asked. "After all, your own people are much more advanced."

She smiled slightly. "All my life many ways of thinking have been exposed to me. And knowing Nils, experiencing him, has changed me. I am much like he is now. I know as he knows."

And what was that like, Ram wondered? Was she losing her identity? Becoming a female mental reflection of a sweaty telepathic warrior? I know as he knows. As, not what. But it was himself she looked at now, seeing into his mind as if his skull were glass, his thoughts a reading tape. The realization embarrassed Ram, not because of his exposure but because she might be offended by what he'd been thinking.

Her eyes and mouth joined in smiling, and he felt relief.

"Ram," she said, "I believe you're the only one of your people on this ship who has meaningful psi potential. Perhaps I can teach you to use it, if you'd like."

* * *

"What did you think of her?" Celia asked.

"Pretty remarkable. Damned remarkable. Thanks, Cele, for pushing me. She's not only a walking reference library; she's going to train my psi potential."

"I thought you found your occasional flashes of telepathy painful—wished you didn't have them."

"You know the background, the reason for that. But it's like having sight and keeping your eyes closed; I need to face up to it now, to what I am and can be."

His expression changed. "Would it bother you, Cele, if I became a functional telepath?"

"I can't be sure. You're—not always nice, Ram, and I don't know how it would be, not being able to keep secrets from you. But I think you ought to do it. We'll work things out later if we need to."

He looked at her soberly for a moment. "Good," he said quietly. He kissed her gently on the corner of her mouth where it nestled against the smooth curve of her cheek. "I guess I better go to the bridge now."

XIV

The Alpha skimmed swiftly up the narrow valley sixty meters above the ground, began braking at the first sight of huts, slewed in a tight 360 degree turn above them while angling upward to a hundred meters, then moved upvalley again, but slowly now. Had Nikko seen it, she'd have known that none of her people were piloting. It had been flown with a hard arrogant snap.

She didn't see it though, only heard the alert as she knelt beneath the pines, helping Hild rake tubers from a fire before a lean-to. A sentry had spotted the pinnace and blown a signal on his great ox horn, a signal repeated in a series up the valley.

Her face tightened. There had been little doubt it would happen. Now it had. And she was afraid neither Matt nor Mike had given in easily.

* * *

Alpha continued up the line of clan encampments. Hard eyes scanned the landscape, finding no one. No one ran into the huts or from them. No one fled into the forest. No smoke rose from the roofs. She swooped parabolically to 2,500 meters, and a hairy brown hand adjusted the visual pickup. Then they drifted back down the valley.

There could be no question; the Northmen had abandoned their camps. They probably hadn't gone far though. There were hints of smoke, as of campfires, above the canopy of the timbered ridges, though nothing justifying the expenditure of ammunition.

With a jerk of acceleration the pinnace shot toward the valley mouth. They still would go home blooded. They would disperse the herd of Northman cattle they'd seen on the prairie beside the forest's edge, and shoot up the herdsmen, before returning to the city.

XV

An endless undulating sea of grass, the prairie dried beneath a towering sun. A caravan crept across its vastness, raising a train of dust to mark its passage. Carts and wagons, grinding drought-baked ruts and clods to flour, lurched and jolted clumsily, their teamsters swaying more or less awake. Armed guards rode beside the wagons, spitting gray grit, cursing the lack of breeze, cursing the merchants whose pay had brought them here, cursing their fellows who rode as scouts or flankers away from the choking dust.

Milio Gozzi shifted his bulk fruitlessly in the silver-inlaid saddle and thought of his younger brother who sat at home envying his wealth. Envying at home on a cushioned chair, fanned by a servant, tended by a lovely girl-mistress eager for position, a girl with young breasts like lemons and small dimpled hips.

He shifted again and grunted. Wealth grew only partly from shrewdness. It also required will, the exercise of correct judgment, and attention to details.

Seldom, but occasionally, he wished he was the younger brother. Eat as one might, riding in the hot sun for long days was to feel the fat melt from one's bones, trickling down over sensitive skin to gather and turn to butter in the loosening creases around the torso, marinating and stinking. The worst was behind and the worst was ahead. The mountains had been more dangerous, sheltering bands of brigands, but the days of open steppe ahead promised to be hotter and dustier.

It was hard to make an honest credit today. Since the orcs had lost their emperor, the peace had not been kept as well. Brigands had grown bolder, forming larger, more ambitious forces. His escort was three times as large as in years past, and cost ten times as much, because the danger was greater and because he would keep them all the way to the City. In other years the orcs had not allowed an armed escort to come more than a day's ride past the mountains. Nor had it been necessary. Now bandits had attacked even farther out than this, it was said—two full days beyond the foothills. And it was rumored that barbarians had come into the country from a land of ice, infesting the mountains farther north and riding out to attack orc patrols!

One could hear anything, of course, but even lies often had roots in truth. The most disturbing evidence was that they had been advised to bring their escort to the City.

No one had encountered Northmen this far south yet. Gozzi laid a fat fist on the hilt of his short sword. He had no wish to be the first.

He squinted back along the string of wagons at the grimy toughs who rode in the dust, some with lances, some with bows, all with a shield slung alongside and a sheathed sword. A band of surly cut-throats who rode guard instead of raiding only because the pay was surer and because the orcs hunted brigands. They'd fought well though, that time below the pass.

Some rode shirtless. It would be better if they kept their mail on, but he did not press the issue. He'd lost several in the fight and couldn't afford desertions.

The caravan master pulled his black Arabian alongside Gozzi. It was Gozzi's caravan and Gozzi had hired him. The other merchants were lesser men who'd paid to join their wagons with Gozzi's.

"Padrone," he said, pointing toward the sun, "it is midday, and there's a creek just ahead. It would be a good place to stop."

Gozzi nodded and the man jogged his horse down the long train of wagons, calling instructions. When the first wagon reached the stream, the caravan stopped. Teamsters unhitched their horses and walked them in harness to drink below the trail. No fires were lit; they cooked at dawn and again at evening, but lunch was quick and cold.

The mercenaries ate together in a loose cluster of small groups, all but the outriders, joking and gibing in Anglic as best they could, for their own languages varied from Greek to Slovak, from Catalan to Croat. They believed themselves better than teamsters because they were more deadly and better paid. They considered themselves better than the merchants for half the same reasons, but kept it to themselves because they could not trust one another.

As they ate and talked, they paid little attention to what went on nearby. Vigilance was the duty of outriders; their own job was to discourage raiders by their presence, and to fight if need be.

Milio Gozzi, on the other hand, was alert by disposition and practice. As he chewed, his eyes in their creases followed a man trotting his horse toward them from the east. Nudging the caravan master, he motioned with his head.

"I haven't seen that one before. Who is he?"

"I don't know," the man answered after a few seconds. "He's not one of ours."

The personal guards of the merchants rose to their feet.

A giant, thought Gozzi, and a resourceful one to have gotten past the outriders. The man dismounted four-score meters away, as if to reassure them, and led his horse, a stallion built to carry weight. Like a Turk, he wore only a breechclout in this season, though the merchant's shrewd eyes knew he customarily wore more. His legs were tanned less deeply than his torso, and neither was as dark as his face, while his stubbly scalp was flaking from recent sunburn.

He looked as powerful as his horse.

The giant wasted no time. "I'm looking for hire as a fighting man."

Gozzi wasn't surprised. His eyes had noted the line of sword callus on the man's right hand, like a ridge of horn from thumb to the end of the index finger, better developed than he had ever seen before. As for scars, he wore an ugly one on his left thigh, probably from an arrow, plus a trivial crease on the right bicep, but nothing more. Either he was inexperienced or very good, and the merchant was willing to bet that he was very good indeed.

"I've never heard that accent before," Gozzi said. "Where are you from?"

"From Svealann, a country of broad forests and great fighters." He grinned when he said it.

Gozzi sucked his upper lip thoughtfully. "Never heard of it," he said. "Suppose I tell you I have all the men I need?"

"One seldom has too many really good men. And you have one less man than you broke camp with this morning."

"You killed one of my men?"

The stranger shrugged. "He attacked when I only wanted to ask a question. And consider: I've saved you his pay and brought you a better man to replace him."

"One of the others still should have spotted him before he got this far," the caravan master said.

"And might have, if I'd been an armed band. But there are many low places where the grass grows tall, and my horse lies down on command. And perhaps your scouts were thinking about other things."

"You're hired," Gozzi said abruptly. "But not as an outrider. Outriders must be men you trust." He nodded to the caravan master. "He will ride beside the wagons."

* * *

Except to water the horses, the caravan didn't stop again until the sun was low in the west.

"Svealann? Never heard of it." The speaker was a smallish sinewy man with a short brown beard parted on the left cheek and jaw by a scar. "They must grow them big there."

"Some big, some small."

"And you're one of the little ones?"

The group of mercenaries broke into loud laughter.

Nils smiled easily. "I'm big in any company. Bigger in some than in others."

"What do you mean by that?"

The tone was belligerent. The man who asked was almost as tall as Nils, with shoulders muscled nearly to his ears. An outrider, he'd been scowling since they had made camp and he'd first seen the newcomer. Tražja had always been the biggest, wherever he was, and the strongest, and he had always dominated, from his first service as a mercenary when he'd been but seventeen.

Nils shrugged, and his very nonchalance antagonized the big Montenegrin. "Here!" Tražja held out his waterbag. "It's empty! Fill it!"

Nils said nothing, and did not reach to take it. The command combined insult and threat, and there was something eerie about his utter lack of reaction to either. His smile did not fade nor widen nor go stiff; he seemed truly as relaxed as before.

"I am the overman here," Tražja insisted, and shook the waterbag for emphasis.

"The caravan master is boss," Nils answered. "He said nothing to me about any other."

Tražja's lips pursed with anger and his eyes became slits. "I am the overman among us by my strength, not by the say of some master. Ask any of these." He motioned slightly with his head. "Ask any of them to deny I am the overman."

The men watched bright-eyed with anticipation, saying nothing.

"Then tell one of them to bring your water."

With an angry snarl, Tražja flung the leather bag at Nils's chest. "Fill it!"

Nils's posture changed slightly and his head moved with a small deliberate negative. When Tražja pounced, the blow that met him was quick but heavy; he dropped to the ground and did not move. The others stared, stunned at the sudden totality of it.

Nils bent, picked up the waterbag and held it out to another man. "Fill it for him," he ordered. The man took it and trotted away toward the creek.

"You'd better kill him," said the smallish man with the brown beard, nodding toward Tražja. "He'll knife you now if he gets the chance."

Nils shook his head. "Not him. He'd never knife a man from behind or in his sleep. If he tries to knife me it will be from the front, and with warning. That's the kind of man he is."

* * *

The caravan park was at the west edge of the City. Drivers and mercenaries stretched awnings beside the wagons, cursed the lack of other shade, and waited for Gozzi to find out whether or not they would be allowed to go into the City. They'd all heard how merchants were entertained there, and while none seriously imagined such things would happen to them, they hoped to find taverns and houses where exceptional experiences might be met.

They watched the merchants talking with two orc officers and their accountants, and cursed the waiting and the thirst. Finally they saw the bulk of Gozzi walking toward them, the caravan master at his side.

Gozzi knew mercenaries and did not deny them needlessly. So he told them the simple truth and let the orc reputation do the rest. They were free, he reported, to walk about the City as they wished.

But there were no taverns, none at all, and they were to enter no building. Also, they were forbidden to carry weapons. A foreigner found with even a small knife would be arrested, and there was nothing anyone could do for him then except to wish him a quick death. If they chose to enter the City they would have to depend on the street patrols for protection. But the orc officers had said frankly there was a good chance they'd be attacked by playful soldiers when no patrol was nearby.

Gozzi promised, however, to see if liquor and girls could be sent to them. He did not actually intend to ask about liquor. Alcohol and idle mercenaries were an imprudent mixture in a place like this.

* * *

Nils awoke when he'd intended. The lopsided moon had descended to about twenty degrees above the horizon. He rolled out of the light sleeping robe, rose, and walked casually but silently toward one of the enclosed sleeping wagons used by the merchants, parked somewhat away from the freight wagons.

Ottoro, companion and clerk to one of the merchants, slept alone tonight while his master was in the City. He awoke in near blackness to a large hand over his mouth, and his eyes bulged with fright until he remembered his promise. He nodded, was released, sat up and felt for his ink pot and quill, then ducked through the rear door. The giant mercenary squatted in the edge of the shadow, moonlight on his calm face, and carefully Ottoro inked five numerals on the man's forehead.

When it was done the man stood, gripped the clerk's thin shoulders in silent thanks, and left.

Ottoro watched him out of sight among the shadowed freight wagons, and shivered. He didn't know what the giant had in mind but sensed it was dangerous. And he didn't want him to die—that magnificent animal body, those calm eyes. He was the only one of the mercenaries that Ottoro wasn't afraid of, the only one that neither leered nor sneered. The man had spoken to him but once, to ask this favor, yet Ottoro felt stricken at the thought he might never see him again.

Nils took a small bundle from his kit, strode quietly to the nearby latrine and sat cross-legged in the shadow behind it until the moon had set. Then silently he slipped through the blackness, out of the area and through a night-filled street to a nearby warehouse. Beneath a ramp he lay down. He'd waken again at dawn, or sooner if there was need.

* * *

In the warehouse district Nils was less conspicuous than might be expected; many warehouse slaves were large powerful men. In other respects they resembled most male slaves, with shaven scalps, tattooed foreheads, and unbleached cotton tunics. Slump-shouldered, expressionless, he had passed or circled every warehouse and granary on the riverfront before midmorning. Eyes, ears, and telepathic sense had been alert for any clue that Alpha was concealed in one of them. She wasn't, and he felt she hadn't been.

The arena seemed a possibility. Some of the beast pens might be large enough to hide a pinnace. If it wasn't there, he would try the warehouses at the harbor.

Nils walked faster now, and before long glimpsed the palace through a cross street. The pinnace might also lie beneath an awning on one of its numerous roofs. He remained intent, scanning for clues.

The four orcs had just turned a corner when they noticed him ahead.

"Look at that," one said pointing. "No slave ought to be that big. There's no one in the whole cohort that big."

"Yeah. Maybe we ought to shorten him."

"Which end?"

"How about the middle?"

They laughed.

"Now listen, you dog robbers," one of them warned, "take it easy. The brass has been getting mean about crippling slaves."

"That's right," said another. "Don't cut off anything that's any good to anyone."

They laughed again.

Although they were forty meters behind him, Nils had sensed their attention, and in a general way their intentions. He started diagonally across the broad street, not speeding up but heading now for the palace. Soldiers were unlikely to make a disturbance on the palace grounds. But the orcs had no reason to keep their pace slow, and they gained on him, grinning, their strides eager.

"Doesn't look like a eunuch."

"Not yet."

Their laughter was husky with anticipation. Nils sensed how near they'd drawn. He'd never reach the palace without running, and running would draw deadly attention. He turned through a doorway. Had it been a barracks, he might possibly have been safe, for no one might have been there, and his pursuers would not have invaded the territory of a different cohort. But they recognized it as a building housing female slaves! It was unbelievable that the big bastard would do that; only orcs had freedom of entry.

The first two followed him in quickly. Nils, standing against the wall beside the door, struck the second, his heavy-bladed knife entering below the ear. There was a choking gasp, and the man's partner, turning, had his ribs stove in by a calloused heel. A third orc blocked the doorway, pulling at his sword, then pitched backward, doubled, down the low steps. Nils emerged after him, with a sword now, and the fourth orc roared to see the slave cleave the fallen man. Very briefly they fought. When the man went down, Nils fled, while other shouting orcs ran toward him. Two blocked his way, then jumped aside when he didn't stop, following in pursuit when he was past. He turned a corner and the palace lay across a square. Tossing the sword away he sprinted hard, dodged between two groups of slaves, then stopped abruptly in their lee.

Before him stood a street patrol, staring, nocking arrows or leveling pikes. The hard-faced officer with the small deadly smile was a telepath. His eyes were intent on Nils's sweaty face with its numbers blurred and running as black rivulets down his face.

Quickly Nils threw off the tunic, to stand barbaric and proud in his breechclout, at the same time holding a clear mental picture of himself in the arena. If the telepath recognized him, he'd hardly have him killed on the spot.

The man barked a command and the patrol moved to encircle Nils. Angry soldiers were running up, and the officer shouted at them, his voice dangerous, commanding. They sheathed their swords, flushed and indignant, then stood at attention while he questioned them. More orders were barked. Nils was manacled, and a pike prodded his ribs. Accompanied by two of Nils's pursuers, the patrol marched toward the palace.

XVI

The dire bear crawls obscenely from the tower

to haunt the involuted caves of night,

feeding on fear and love and tenderness,

ravening the vulnerable flesh

and quivering mind.

"Take me, take me instead!" I cry, but goes

shambling and chuckling in the darkness

out of sight with someone else.

And all the pores inhale

the terror of the unimaginable,

imagining.

From—EARTH, by Chandra Queiros

* * *

He had been to his cell, looked him over carefully, considered his aura, and questioned him. There could be no doubt: it was the same barbarian the Master had been interested in, who'd fought in the arena and escaped. Apparently the same man who'd killed the Master in single combat months later and a thousand kilometers away. He was thought to be a chief among his people.

Draco ground his fist on the cushioned arm of his chair. There must be a way to profit from such a catch. What bargain might be made with the Northmen? Perhaps the man was not a major chief. But he must be—one who could do what he had done. He felt dangerous even in a cell with chains on ankles and wrists.

Less dangerous that way than free. The troops still talked of what had happened in the arena.

Moreover, the man was a lunatic. He'd heard that the orcs had a sky boat, as he'd called it, and said frankly that he'd come here to steal it. Said it as matter of factly as a man would admit eating breakfast.

Such madness, combined with cunning and superlative weapons skills, was something to consider. What would a whole army be like, of men like that? They were bad enough as they were.

And how had he learned about the sky chariot? Presumably from Ahmed's overflights of their camps. But only three days had passed between Ahmed's first raid and the man's capture. Could he have been in the City for some reason, posing as a slave? And for what reason? It was hardly possible. Without speaking orcish, his disguise could hardly have lasted more than a couple of days.

Or did he know orcish?

You could question other men, and their answers, verbal or sub verbal, told you what you needed to know. With a little mild torture, screening could be broken. But this man made no useful response unless he wanted to. When his joints were twisted and a hot iron pressed to his cheek, his only reaction was simple awareness.

He would spare him for now. Surely some use could be made of him, some advantage gained, and it might be best if he wasn't damaged.

Though Draco didn't recognize it, he was awed by Nils, was hesitant to torture or damage him further, and would not do so except under stress.

Even if he could make a pact with the tribes of Northmen, Draco reminded himself, the real danger was Ahmed, and only inside the City could he now match the Sudanese. Outside on the open plain the non-psi dog, with his sky chariot and its weapons, would frustrate and defeat any enemy. And the possibility of getting it from him by force or trickery seemed essentially zero.

Meanwhile Ahmed undoubtedly had some plan in motion aimed at forcing a showdown where his advantage would be decisive. Unquestionably that was why he'd used so few bullets on the Northmen; he was saving them to use nearer home. Psi eavesdroppers had reported that operations against the Northmen had been restricted to scattering their herds and stopping their forays onto the plain.

It was irksome to have no knowledge or even hint of what Ahmed planned. Secrets of importance were usually short-lived in the City; this one was remarkably well-kept. And without knowing at least something of it, counter-measures would be difficult to design. In a situation like this, the only defense was to take the offensive.

What he really needed was a sky chariot of his own.

With sudden resolve he got up and strode purposefully from his sanctum to a small chamber on the same floor. There on a table sat the radio of the star people. Beside it sat the officer assigned to monitor broadcasts. The effort had been of no value so far. Only one band could be monitored at a time, so the set was tuned mainly to Band D, which Chandra had used, with occasional brief scans of other bands.

"Out!" snapped Draco. "Wait in the hall."

The man rose to attention, saluted, and closed the heavy door behind him when he left.

"Star ship! Star ship! This is the Lord Draco!"

The answer came promptly in a carefully neutral voice. "This is the star ship Phaeacia. Over."

"I want to speak to your captain! At once!"

"Captain Uithoudt is in his quarters. I'll call him."

Draco drummed his fingers on the table, waiting.

"This is Captain Uithoudt. Over."

Draco's voice turned oily, like concentrated sulphuric acid. "Captain, I am sure you recall that I hold certain of your people in my dungeon. I believe you are fond of them. Certainly they are fond of you. They are so far unharmed. Their continued well-being is your responsibility."

He paused for long seconds, letting his words sink in.

"I need your other sky chariot, the one called Beta. It should have all the guns you have, and all your . . . ammunition and grenades. You must be careful not to cheat me in this. When I am done with it, you can have it back. I will free your people to return it to you. You will land it tomorrow on a roof of the palace at the same hour as your previous landings. A large red flag will mark the correct roof. Do you have any questions?"

Controlled anger was apparent in the star man's voice. "I can't send Beta to you. Without it I can't land to pick people up, or do anything else on the surface."

"If you do not send it, with weapons, you will have no people to pick up."

Again there was a pause, Ram Uithoudt's this time, while Draco enjoyed the man's dilemma. When the answer came, Ram's voice was husky, the words hard and separate like footsteps. "Tomorrow at midday," he said, "I will want to hear the voices of each of my people on this radio so I can know they are all right. I will want to talk with each of them at that time. Otherwise I will send down the Beta with weapons more powerful than grenades and automatic rifles, to show you what I can do to you. I'll be listening at midday tomorrow."

The broadcast signal cut abruptly. For seconds Draco sat staring at the set, his face flushed and scowling. Then he got up and strode from the chamber. The fool up there was wasting his bluff; he had no great weapons. And apparently, as he'd suspected, the man didn't even realize his people were held by different factions.

The die was cast. Draco disliked caution. Now he had put things in the hands of fate, and fate almost always smiled at him. The star man would hear the voices of his people, all right. Two of them. He wouldn't talk to them nor they to him, but he would hear their voices, clear and loud. That could be guaranteed. Perhaps afterward the man would be willing to bargain.

* * *

Ram sat back in the command seat, face drawn, staring at his knees. What else could he have done?

The orcs respected only power. But what would their response be? He felt in his guts that he'd never see the prisoners again, whether he gave up the Beta or not.

Tomorrow morning he'd call Nikko and insist she return to the ship. That would broaden his options. He could change his mind about Beta then without stranding her. If he had to lose the others, he at least would not have to leave her behind.

XVII

Svarta fagren, sajflikk henne,

trant i glumen för d' lunna

Yngling, far t' tvillingarna

på befanningen a Kassi

ty han villa äga jener.

Gryma Kassi, feg erövren,

Belsabubb han åsa hette,

stamfar han a orkahodern.

Imperator, döjd vä kjäären,

klöv ijäl a mäkti Järnhann,

huven ligganne i dyen

hel sväädlent fra blori halsen.

Alste hon d' mäkti kjämpe,

dråvare a hennes far,

han som stypte jätten Kassi.

ålste Ynglingen å villa

riska livet, bli d' nödi

å befria ham fra Drekå

[The dark seeress, black-skinned beauty,

yearned to hold again the calm-eyed

Youngling, sire of her twin infants

by command of the Lord Kazi

so that he would hold his genes.

Cruel Kazi, cowardly conqueror,

Baalzebub had been his byname,

founder of the orcish armies.

Caesar, rotting by the reed fen,

smote to death by mighty Ironhand,

proud head resting in the muck now,

sword's length from his severed neck lay.

Yes she loved the mighty warrior,

loved the man who'd slain her father,

he who'd felled the ogre Kazi.

Loved the Youngling and was willing

to risk death if that was needed

to deliver him from Draco.]

From—THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation

* * *

Moshe the Cerberus was responsible for the security of all prisoners during his watch. Very personally responsible. Should one escape or suicide, Moshe's punishment would be slow, excruciating, and terminal. So he disliked anything not routine and would not tolerate confusion. Confusion made it difficult to monitor thoughts and feelings—nearly impossible to read the subtler nuances.

When the Master was still alive, the danger of escape had been academic, and cerberus—dungeon captain—had been an envied job, comfortable and often enjoyable, while the hazard of prisoner suicide could be minimized by denying means and by monitoring.

During the present power struggle however, two attempts had been made to free men from Draco's dungeon, and rumors of plots were heard almost weekly. Security had been tightened and drills held regularly.

The night watch had been on duty for only minutes when the signal whistle shrilled. It was no alarm, only a signal from the entry guard above, but the two guards at the foot of the stairwell quickly nocked arrows while others clattered out of the guard quarters with pikes or drawn swords.

Moshe stepped to the speaking tube. "What is it?"

"It's the Lady Nephthys, Sir. She wishes to come down with her attendants. She wants to look at the star people and the barbarian."

"Wait twenty breaths, then let them pass."

The Lady Nephthys! The clearest evidence that the Master had favored Lord Draco over the dog Ahmed was his gift to him of Nephthys. Moshe had seen her only at a little distance, but it was said that, close up, her aura was so compelling that statues had lost control of their parts and as punishment had been unmanned with hammer and chisel.

He pulled the lever releasing the entry lock, then strode out of the guard office. Protocol demanded that such a personage be met by the officer in charge. Within the tall stone stairwell he snapped his way through armed men, stopped two paces back from the stone stairs, and stood at attention, a bowman at each side with arrow ready but pointed downward. Behind them were two pairs of swordsmen. Next were four pikemen shoulder to shoulder behind tall shields. Last, just outside the doorway, two men stood by a lever, ready to drop a heavy iron door into place to shut off the stairwell should an attack threaten to succeed.

Three new men, replacing others wounded in an off-duty brawl, had been assigned to standby in the guard room until Moshe could drill them properly.

His stance became more rigid as footsteps sounded softly above; there were no orc boots in her company. Her bodyguards turned into sight—two magnificent blacks, giants, stripped to the waist, armorless except for helmets. Fleetingly beneath his screen, Moshe wondered if they were entire. They must be, he decided, for their muscles were fatless and strongly defined beneath their skin. Entire, then, and well supplied with girls so they could walk tall and haughty, their auras cold and proud despite her nearness.

As soon as she turned into sight behind them, hers was all the aura he was aware of—power, commanding beauty, and a cool sexuality that numbed his will. For seconds he was actually unaware of the presence of her female attendants. As she descended, so gracefully, her visual beauty became one with her aura, and there was no swagger at all to the stiff-spined dungeon captain when he greeted her.

"My Lady!" He couldn't tell whether he'd spoken or only croaked.

Perfect teeth showed briefly, coolly, in her smooth-skinned black face. There was no hair, not even eyebrows, and the shape of her unadorned head was perfect on a strong, regally slim neck. She was slender, rounded, taller than himself, with a filmy white gown caught artfully about her, skin as jet black as her father's. Beside her, her bodyguards were only dark brown, and for the first time in his life Moshe was self-conscious of his own light skin.

It took an effort to maintain his screen so near her. The poor bastards behind him weren't up to it at all, and the wash of flustered awe and fear and male response was a psychic stink. Perhaps behind her cool reserve she laughed.

She spoke, and he led the party from the stairwell, past the rigid standby, to a dully-lit passage between two rows of cells. Some were empty; in others inmates stared or slept. Before the cage of Chandra Queiros she stopped, and slowly he sat up, huddling within his own weak-folded arms. In his unscreened mind, despondency, pain, and dull fear partially gave way to wonder and a vague sexual stirring.

"Ah! The star man," she said. "I hear my Lord had use of him today. I'm told he sings." She examined him deliberately, body and soul, then laughed, a throaty arpeggio in the cell block, and the prisoner, in sudden self-awareness, covered his nakedness with his hands.

"He's a poor thing," she observed as they walked on. "Where is the woman?"

"She has not been returned. Perhaps she's being retained for entertainment." For a moment the orc's mind, unscreened, was outside Nephthys's spell and suddenly sadistically avid.

Dark eyes glanced at him in amusement, and the cerberus's mind withdrew in confusion behind its screen again.

The barbarian was in the farthest cell.

"Hmm. So this is the Northman, the one who escaped the arena." She seemed to purr. "Draco won't give him a chance to do that again."

The Northman rose with insolent carelessness, his unscreened mind a meaningless hum discernable among the others only by concentrating. His aura, subdued now and unobtrusive, was none the less one of strength, detachment, purpose.

"He looks different," she commented. "His scalp wasn't shaved then." She turned to one of her bodyguards. "If you faced each other with knives, Mahmut, could you kill him?"

The black face did not change expression, but keen hardness glinted from his mind. Moshe realized then that the man had no tongue, could not speak aloud.

"I'm surprised he seems uninjured," Nephthys continued. "I thought my Lord questioned him."

"Not roughly, my Lady. His face is blistered, as you see, and I'm sure his knees are painful, but that's all."

"No doubt he has plans for him." She examined the prisoner for additional seconds. "I'm disappointed. He isn't as much as I'd heard, close up. There are others as big, and he is only flesh after all. When Draco wishes, he will become quivering flesh."

* * *

When the royal party had left, the guardsmen relaxed in their quarters. Alone in the guard room the cerberus took the flagon from his table and drank, but not deeply. That would be unwise on duty. Then he sent it into the guard quarters. As a commander he tried to be generous as well as hard; the combination made for loyalty as well as discipline. When the bottle was returned he swirled what remained, considered briefly, drank again and corked it.

Within an hour the drugged wine had felled all but three—the new men, who'd only feigned drinking. These with swords dispatched the others, walked quickly to the last cell, whispered with their minds to the Northman and took the chains from his ankles. At sword point they led him down the passage. The prisoners who saw felt brief pity, or dread, or nothing, as he passed.

They paused at the guard room long enough to free his wrists, had him don a tunic and black cape, and pulled the hood over his skull, shadowing his face. At the head of the three long flights of stairs, one turned the lock in the entry door and opened it. The guard outside was bored and thinking of other things; he did not expect danger from below, and the telepathic rebels screened well. Although a telepath himself, he was pulled through the door and dead in seconds. One of the three stood in his place to give the others time.

The remaining two walked briskly down the corridor with Nils, in step, orc boots clopping, and soon turned through a plain inset door. Narrow stairs angled sharply upward to a passage whose stone walls were moist with condensation. Occasional oil lamps bracketed on the walls flickered sluggishly in the stale air, and twice they passed manholes dogged into a wall, each with a massive lock. After some two hundred meters they pulled open a trapdoor and lowered themselves on metal rungs into another passage. Here the air was fouler, the lamps so low and far apart it was like night. His guides took off their boots, slung them over their shoulders, and led him quietly through the darkness. At length they climbed upward into an unlit room, re-donned their boots, and exited beneath stars. Alert for the sound or sense of a possible soft-shod night patrol, they entered a nearby alley. One straddled a manhole, gripped the stone cover by a ring with both hands, and removed it with a grunt. He lowered himself and disappeared.

"Now you," the other whispered to Nils. "I must stay up here to replace the cover."

Nils lowered himself, hung by his fingers for a second, then dropped into blackness. His tortured knees buckled at the bottom, sprawling him onto rough stone paving. Carefully he rose, and heard the manhole cover being lowered into place.

His remaining escort whispered to him in Anglic. "I'm taking you to a storm sewer that you can follow to the canal. They have gratings across them at intervals that a man can't crawl through; this joins one of them below the last grate. If half that is said of you is true, once you cross the canal you should be able to get away without any trouble."

Psychically Nils nodded. The man was barefoot again, and they padded through the narrow tunnel in utter darkness, his guide with a sense of knowing the way. Before long they came to an end, a door, and the Northman sensed the other feeling for a latch, finding it. It would not move. He grasped it with both hands, still couldn't budge it, and fear surged through him. Nils nudged him aside, explored with his fingers, closed powerful fists on it and pulled, then jerked. Then he pushed, finally lunging against it with a heavy shoulder. The orc took out his sword and pried, carefully at first, then desperately so that the point snapped.

His fear dulled to despondency. "We're trapped," he said with his mind. "This route's been blocked. And we can't get back out the way we came; it's too high."

Nils's mind questioned.

"No, the other way is a dead end just beyond the shaft we came down."

Reaching up, Nils found he could touch the overhead. "Let's go back to the shaft," he thought. "There's something I want to try."

Mentally the man shrugged. Nils led, one hand following the wall, the fingers of the other brushing along the overhead until they found the emptiness of the shaft down which they'd dropped. It was perhaps a meter and a half wide, and round, impossible to climb. He dropped to one knee, hands against the damp wall. "Squat on my shoulders," he instructed. "When I get up, put your hands on the side of the shaft and stand. See if you can reach the cover."

Slowly Nils stood with his burden, and carefully the orc rose to his feet; with the return of hope had come fear again.

"I can't reach it."

"Stand on my hands and I'll lift you."

The man raised his left foot, put it on one of Nils's palms, then repeated with the other, steadying himself shakily with his hands against the wall. Nils grasped both feet firmly, and slowly raised him to arm's length overhead. He sensed the orc reaching upward almost hesitantly, touching pavement above, fingers feeling for the edges that defined the cover, finding them. Nils braced his legs, the thick muscles of his arms and shoulders swelling as the man pushed upward against the heavy disk. It gave a little, a centimeter, then the man's arms were fully extended and could lift no higher. Nils raised up slowly on the balls of his feet, and for just a moment they gained a little more. Then the orc fell backward, striking his head against the side of the shaft before landing heavily on the stones below. There was a stab of pain in his left elbow.

Nils knelt beside him. The orc radiated hopelessness. "I couldn't raise it," he whispered. "Not enough. It must be eight centimeters thick."

Nils's mind acknowledged. "Now what?" he asked.

"We stay here until they come for us."

"Come for us?"

"They have dogs. For tracking, a dog's nose is better than telepathy. When they find what happened in the dungeon they'll track us down."

Nils sensed the man fumbling through a belt pouch, hunting for death. He pressed an object like a pebble into Nils's palm. "Swallow it," he instructed. "You'll go to sleep and there will be no wakening. If they take us alive, after what happened . . . When they have done with us, even dying would bring no peace. The agony would follow beyond death itself."

Nils regarded him calmly, and after a moment the other mind shrugged. The man put the pill in his dry mouth, far back on his tongue, swallowed, shuddered, then breathed deeply and relaxed. Nils sat beside him. Presently the orc slumped against him and Nils cradled his head and shoulders. The mind was drifting, fading, the breathing shallow. Before long Nils was alone.

XVIII

Orcs still filed into the arena, into sections reserved for each legion, subsections for each cohort. The sunny side was empty; there were now no horse barbarians to fill it. After the battle of the burning prairie and the death of Kazi, almost a year earlier and so far away, their hordes had deserted the orcs. They'd careened into central Europe a disorganized mob, been decisively beaten by the united Germanic knights, and broken into scores of marauding bands. So said the reports.

There were more Asian tribes, thought Kamal the Grim, eastward on the desert steppes and plateaus and barren mountains, but there was no longer a Kazi to gather them. He turned and scanned the shady side, which in summer was the orc side. Even here many upper rows would be empty, reflecting the bleaching bones scattered in the northern Ukraine.

The command box was already filled, with chiefs of cohorts and legions circulating, conversing, shadowed by their bodyguards. They'd associated freely while the Master still lived, when future and conquest had seemed assured and factionalism remained embryonic. Some had served together in old campaigns. Now those of opposing factions saw one another almost only at the games. At any other time it would suggest dangerous disloyalty to their consul.

The situation aggravated Kamal. Reduced as they were, and without allies, they were still easily the strongest military force in the known world. They'd suffered a defeat, a severe setback, but they still had the power to conquer. Their present ineffectiveness, he told himself, was their own doing. Paralyzed by factionalism, they couldn't even sally out in force to scatter the Northmen on their fringe. For that required, if not union, at least the forbearance of one faction while the other did the job.

And that wouldn't happen without the victory of one faction or the other. They all knew it. But most wanted their own faction to win; for command officers there was mortal danger in defeat. And for those inclined to risk conspiracy, spies and other telepaths made it too dangerous.

Union would come eventually though, and when it did, orc power would be felt again. Europe would fall.

Once more he scanned the stands. It might be better, Kamal thought, if we didn't hold games for awhile. A stadium two-thirds empty reminded the men of their reduction in strength. Few realized the abstract—that their force was still great, their potential overwhelming. They knew only what their eyes and memories told them: a year earlier they had been one great army which, with its allies, filled these stands. And the games had been presided over by the Master, all-powerful, feared, adored, and he'd been called the Undying. Now they looked across at empty seats, and were presided over by himself—a soldier, not a god. His role as master of the games was a demonstration of weakness, a symptom of division. The lowest soldier knew that Kamal the Grim was the only high-ranking officer trusted by both consuls.

Draco swaggered over to him and clapped his shoulder. "How stands it with the Games Master? I seldom see you anymore, Kamal."

"That's no fault of mine," Kamal answered sourly.

Draco's eyebrows rose. "No fault of yours? I think it is." He lowered his voice as if half the men in the command box were not telepaths. "If you changed allegiance we could see a lot of each other. I appreciate a good man and a real orc. As it stands, you command a legion but have no seat in the council of your commander. With me it would be different.

"By the way, I don't see our friend Ahmed here. Is he sick? Surely every orc is here unless duty forbids, or mortal illness."

Kamal's expression was grumpy. "I'm a soldier, not a power seeker or politician. I have no wish to sit on any man's council. I'll let others decide what should be done, as long as they give me a share in the doing."

Draco's mouth smiled. Kamal, he thought, you non-psi dog, you screen as well as most telepaths but you're a poor liar. Your only guile is silence. I not only know how you think, old comrade, but often what you think, without needing to read you.

"No wish for influence? I can't believe that. You haven't fully considered your answer. You have a sense of right and wrong. You know the plans the Master had and what he held to be important. This, for instance." Draco gestured about at the stadium. "He had it built while the army still lived in tents. It had priority over dwellings; only the palace preceded it. Before either of us was born, he presided here. The games and entertainments are to demonstrate our superiority, and in his time, attendance was compulsory. Now that the Master is dead, your dear Ahmed is above the law and doesn't trouble to come. Not surprising perhaps—his father was a slave, not an orc, and he grew up in the comfort of his father's apartment, not an orcling pen. How can you stomach a man like that?"

"I have no complaint with him. He is a strong and able leader, and he gave me my legion."

"Hah! You led the Imperial Guard cohort, the elite of the army! Are you sure it was you Ahmed wanted? Or did he want your cohort, promoting you to gain them? With me you'd have influence along with rank. I have real orcs for counselors, too, not a fat eunuch slave like that damned Yusuf. And I haven't abandoned the Master's dreams and plans."

"The Master himself had slaves as counselors; Ahmed's father was one of them."

"The Master was the Master! There is no comparison!" Draco almost hissed now with intensity. "Listen, old comrade, I know the kind of orc you are, and I hate to see you back a swine like that. I knew you when we were boys together. And when we were centurions in the same cohort I saw the kind of man you'd grown to be, the kind of leader you were becoming. A real orc, but not a common orc. An orc with high intelligence and a sense of destiny, providing his own discipline, thinking beyond the next orgy.

"You should sit in the councils of power. Don't let go the Master's dreams and give yourself to the ambitions of a slave's son who abandoned the Master as soon as he was dead."

Kamal answered coldly. "Perhaps I know Ahmed better than you do. His heart is an orc's even if his stomach isn't, and his brain is an orc's. He is as loyal to the Master as anyone is."

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure? Who did the Master entrust the empire to when he went to war, and who was it he took along to keep his eye on? Think about it.

"And which of us did he plan to make his chief lieutenant? Who did he give Nephthys to?" His voice softened, his words slowed. "Now there was a gift. You can't imagine. She is like a banquet, and the others are dry bread. When she touches me . . ." His shiver seemed involuntary.

"It's too bad I don't have others like her, to reward my chief lieutenants with. Sometimes I wonder if I should share her. It was to me she was given of course, and a gift like that should not be used carelessly. But on the other hand I am the consul, and a man of great power. I can take or give as I see fit."

Kamal said nothing, and his face remained sober, but when he stood at the railing to begin the ceremonies he was licking dry lips.

Yes, old comrade, Draco thought behind his screen, I know you well. I know your strengths and I remember your weaknesses. You and your legion are as valuable as a pinnace, if used correctly, and I believe you'll be mine. You're no fool; you saw through my words. But you won't be able to forget them.

XIX

But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza; and bound him with fetters of brass . . .

HOLY BIBLE, Judges 16:22.

* * *

Three kilometers below, the nightbound prairie registered mostly featureless gray to the infrared scanner. Darker patches were marshes, with the black lines of creeks here and there. A half-dozen night flights and several sessions with the two starmen had made the pilot a fair novice infrared interpreter, and the consul relied on him.

Ahmed stared morosely without seeing. Capture of the pinnace had seemed an important victory. Certainly it had involved a major risk. But he'd been unable to take real advantage of it. Or perhaps unwilling to, he thought. When a man has a resource like the pinnace he may become too cautious, afraid to risk, hesitant to make the next move.

Major decisions usually were difficult for him, and he preferred to delay them. He could always see a score of possible disasters waiting. Draco was different; he jumped to decisions. To a disgusting degree the man ignored possible side effects, complications, uncertainties. That was his major strength and major weakness.

It was less comfortable to sense countless unknowns, to try logically and objectively to balance a score of unpredictables, staring fruitlessly at a half-seen web leading to various possible results, many of which were intolerable. And when he could delay no longer, Ahmed recognized, too often he had to ignore the complications anyway and, like Draco, act regardless.

The plan he'd decided on was more dangerous than any he'd seriously considered before. It could well abort, of course, and nothing would be lost but time. The odds were strong that the Northmen wouldn't agree. Perhaps it had been a subtle way of postponing longer, for if they refused, he'd have to come up with something else—a new plan, another perhaps slow decision.

But if they did agree—if they did—a course of action would begin that would end either in quick victory or utter defeat. The numerous small dangers of indefinite maneuver would be replaced by the stark danger of an early showdown. Success would depend on timing, secrecy, and more than anything else on the reaction of his legions.

He hoped the Northmen would agree. It occurred to him that something inside him might be seeking a quick end instead of a quick victory, release instead of success.

His always stiff spine became fractionally stiffer. When he finally decided, he did not hesitate to act. And his decisions, if slow, were none the less likely to be bold, unpredictable by a clod like Draco.

The gray on the viewscreen darkened, marking the canopy of a forest rooted below drought and rich in cellular water, its irregular upper level and countless billions of needles an intense complexity of evaporating-radiating surfaces. A lighter strip marked an open valley in their line of flight.

The pilot zoomed the viewer, and in seconds found the men they were to meet, a cluster of white dots in the grayness. They were waiting a little distance from their small signal fire, away from its small light. It would be good, he thought, to swoop down and chop them to pieces in the darkness; what a surprise that would give them.

Instead he raised the commast and started settling earthward.

* * *

Nikko sensed the quickening of the chiefs and the men who waited with them. It was a slight straightening of backs, a movement of heads, an awareness and heightened readiness that required no psi to sense. But when she strained her ears and peered upward she saw nothing.

And then it was there, fifty meters from them, settling to the ground, a blacker darkness in the moonless night. They got up quietly and started toward it, spreading out a little in caution. She followed close behind until they formed an open semicircle not far outside the force shield.

The voice from the commast was quiet in the waiting night, speaking Anglic. Its softness surprised Nikko.

"I am Ahmed, consul of the orcs. I have an offer to make you, one you will find hard to refuse."

Sten Vannaren translated for the gathering—primarily the Council of Chiefs and the War Council, which in part were the same men. His reply was terse: "Tell us your offer."

"I rule a strong army, half of all the Northern orcs. My enemy, Draco, rules the other half. Soon he and I will war with one another, and I want your help. He hates Northmen. If he defeats me, he will march against you and destroy you."

When Sten finished the translation, old Axel Stornäve spoke. His words were dry and bored, and Sten put the same quality into his Anglic. "Orcs have marched on us before, and many did not live to regret it. Why should we be concerned if they march again?"

"When we fought before," Ahmed replied, "you were only an army of warriors. You could move freely, and we didn't succeed in trapping you, although we came close. Now you have your women and children with you, and many others who aren't warriors, whom you must protect. And you must protect your cattle or starve.

"And if Draco defeats me he'll have the sky chariot to attack you with. Unfortunately it will be of little use to me against him if he keeps the fighting within the City. As he knows."

This time it was the deep growl of Kniv Listi that Sten translated. "If orcs fight orcs until one side wins, there will be many dead orcs. We don't object to that. And after you have butchered one another, how will you destroy us?"

"You don't appreciate our numbers," Ahmed replied. "Only one of our armies was in the Ukraine. Our soldiers are as numerous as all your people together, including your women and infants. And if Draco wins, there will be the sky chariot. Also, we know now how you fight, the kind of tactics you use. If Draco makes war against you, he will not be ignorant and careless as we were at first in the Ukraine.

"And finally, though Draco and I hate each other, our men do not. Before our losses become great, one side will win a clear advantage. When that happens, the soldiers of the weaker side will throw down their leader and acknowledge the rule of the other.

"But if you ally yourself with me, I will surely win, for although you are not numerous, you are skilled and savage fighters. And if you help me, I will reward you. When I have won, I'll take my army away and leave this country to you. Our empire is very large, and much of it lies south of the Black Sea and the Great Sea. For a long time our soldiers have grumbled at the winters here, and for me, I do not love this land."

The chiefs drew back a bit, dim in the darkness, talking quietly, Nikko listening at the fringe. After a bit Sten spoke again to the orc. "To fight at your city we first have to get there across the Great Meadow. How do you propose we do that without being trapped in the open?"

"Since I have the sky chariot, Draco dares not send out patrols, even at night. The sky chariot can see in the darkness. So he probably will not know you are coming. If his spies find out, and he is foolish enough to go out to attack you, I can scatter his legions with fear and death. My sky chariot will be your protection until you get there. Then, of course, you'll have to fight."

"You say you'll protect us on the Great Meadow. How can we know you won't attack us instead? How can we know it isn't a trap you offer instead of a country?"

There was a short lapse before Ahmed answered. "I have left my mind perfectly open as I talked with you. Have you no telepaths?"

There followed quiet conversation among the Northmen. Three of their newly trained telepaths were there. "We can't read their thoughts," one said, "because they think in orcish. But we can read mood and feeling, which are more reliable if less explicit. The one who spoke is ruthless and unpredictable. At present he intends to keep his word, but he is not a man to trust. All three of us read it the same."

After a few moments of thought, Kniv Listi spoke, full-voiced, with Sten translating. "Our telepaths tell us you mean what you say. But once you have won, you will command all the orcs, and we will be far from our forests. You will have no more need of allies then, heavily out-numbered allies who could be attacked from the sky. What proof can you give that you won't change your mind and turn on us?"

While the two Northmen spoke in turns, Scandinavian, then Anglic, Nikko felt herself filling with impulse, excitement, determination. As quickly as they were done she called out loudly and clearly. "Ahmed! Will you give up your hostages as a sign of good will? If you turn them over to these people, perhaps they might trust you."

She felt unseen eyes around her while Sten translated for the Northmen.

"The hostages are star people," the consul answered coldly, "and mean nothing to the Northmen. You are a hostage yourself, and a fool, not a chief. Beware of talking out of turn. They are indulgent with you but their patience is not limitless."

She felt small and alone, intimidated, among the tall grim chiefs who scowled at her in the darkness.

"Not all your hostages are star people," she answered. "You have Nils Järnhann in your prison, the Northman giant who escaped from your arena once."

Sten abandoned protocol. "They have Nils? How do you know?"

"Ilse told me," she replied. "Now that I'm a hostage you don't let me use the radio anymore. But just after you left for this meeting, the signal started buzzing, and I showed Hild how to turn it on. It was Ilse, and you weren't there, so she asked to talk to me. She'd had a vision of Nils held captive by the orcs. And it wasn't a premonition; they have him now. She wanted you to know."

She stood shivering while Sten translated for the Northmen and Kniv questioned the telepaths. They agreed she had not lied. The chiefs were utterly intent now as Sten spoke for Kniv Listi.

"Why didn't you tell us you hold our Yngling prisoner?"

For long seconds the orc did not answer. "I don't hold him prisoner," he said at last.

Kniv questioned the telepaths again. "He speaks the truth," one said. "We are agreed. But he doesn't tell all he knows."

"What else then?" Sten demanded for the war leader. "Have you killed him?"

"I have never had him prisoner and I have not killed him."

"Then perhaps your enemy holds him!"

Ahmed didn't answer. "You struck deep with that one," the telepaths told Kniv. "His enemy does hold the Yngling."

Listi scowled thoughtfully. "Nils Järnhann can do what other men can't," he said to Sten. "While he lives there is hope for him. But if we war against the orc that holds him, he won't live long. Tell this Ahmed if he can return our Yngling to us alive and whole, then we will talk about alliance. Otherwise we will let the orcs kill each other."

"Sten, wait!" Nikko broke in. She spoke his language now. "There is more about Nils! Ilse saw more than I told you!" She listened in fright to her own words tumbling out, afraid of what she was saying, afraid she was making a terrible mistake in telling it here and now. "Sten, Ilse saw them . . . she told me she saw them . . . pierce his eyes! Nils is blind, Sten! Nils is blind!"

* * *

Ahmed stood tensely, staring through the transparent hull at the indistinct group in the darkness.

"Whatever the star woman told them that time," Yusuf said quietly, "it made them very angry. Not at her, but very angry."

Listening to them, Ahmed didn't need telepathy to know they were angry. Grim and angry. At last the one who spoke Anglic addressed him with a deadly voice.

"We will fight your enemy. He has put out the eyes of our Yngling. We will ride from here at the second dawning. You will tell us how to know your soldiers from the others so we do not kill them by mistake. And when your enemy is captured, he is ours to settle with. Ours. Do not forget that. Be very careful that you do not forget that."

* * *

Alpha sledded swiftly through the night sky.

"Indeed, my Lord, I was surprised at their rage," Yusuf was saying. "I'd read them as a hardheaded people, men with control of their passions, or indeed with little that we ordinarily think of as passion at all. I tell you frankly, I never expected that they would agree to your offer. That act of Draco's cut some very deep taboo."

Ahmed's mood swelled with grim pleasure. "They've shown a weakness. I see them differently now. Perhaps when it is over we will stay after all. At any rate the die is cast."

Yusuf withdrew into contemplation and they rode briefly in silence. "My Lord," he said finally, "let me offer unasked advice. Be careful of the Northmen. When the star woman told them what had been done to their hero, their anger was not ordinary rage that destroys wit and logic, however reckless their decision seems. There was a terribly deadly intention; they reeked of danger. They felt like the storm from the steppe that sucks up men and horses and spits out broken rags."

Ahmed pursed his lips in the darkness. "You are always somber, my friend, but now you dramatize. That's not like you. The Northmen are nothing to trifle with, I grant you. That's why even their small numbers will make the difference and assure us victory. But angry men, vengeful men, make mistakes."

Yusf stared gloomily into the night as if watching something. "It wasn't hot anger to thicken the wits. Their rage was cold, with an edge like a razor."

Now Ahmed brooded also. After all, Yusuf was psychic, and there were many dangers. What whisper might he hear from the future?

The barbarians had grinned in battle—laughed and crowed aloud and fought with the strength and vigor of the possessed. And they always won. Now perhaps they were possessed. Gooseflesh rose on his arms and crawled across his scalp. He wondered if they'd grin in the battle to come, and what their laughter might then be like.

Yusuf was right. He would take no liberties.

XX

Her world was bright and clear and detailed. Her senses were more than sight and hearing, more than touch, taste, heat and smell, more than awareness of orientation and gravitic vectors—the usual data sources. With her, even the ordinary senses were more sensitive, more aware.

Her mind lacked some of the usual barriers; she was less constrained by past pain and hurtful emotions, more open to data at variance with general beliefs.

Hers was a world of discovery and growth. Possibilities became accessible to her.

Her eyes had closed; she felt no need for visual input just then. The fetus moved within her body, shifting uncomfortably in the cramped quarters, found a new position and became quiet again. She was aware of it but gave it no attention.

She did not grieve at the blinding of Nils, although at first the knowledge had shocked her. And she did not worry over what might happen next, although she was by no means indifferent. Simply, she would see what she could do. Now her attention focused on a question and remained there, examining.

Celia Uithoudt knocked lightly on the cabin door, waited, then knocked again.

"Ilse?"

Her waiting reflected uncertainty. By now the whole crew knew what the young Earth woman had reported to the surface. After a moment Celia turned the knob and looked in. Ilse sat on a small folded rug, her straight back to the door. Celia's eyes rested on her briefly. Softly she closed the door again and went down the corridor to the dispensary.

As a safety margin the Phaeacia carried two physicians. So far they'd had little to do. She leaned back in the dispensary reading chair, punched in the novel she'd begun, and relaxed. For a while she read quietly with only the small movements normal to sitting, but before long became restless. Finally she put the tape on hold and turned to scan the room. She was alone.

She got up, stepped hesitantly to the door of the small laboratory-pharmacy and peered in, then looked into surgery. No one. Shaking her head she went back to the chair and began reading again.

* * *

The possibility had occurred to Ilse and she'd tried it. It turned out not to be difficult for her. She'd done something a bit like it before, in healing, when she would focus her attention on the sick or injured part and concentrate on its wholeness and normal functioning. In this case she'd focused on Celia, concentrating on being beside her. Suddenly she'd been there, surrounded by white enamel and stainless steel, next to the woman who'd become her friend.

She'd been surprised when Celia sensed her presence. Although the woman had shown no sign of being even a latent telepath, she had sensed the psychic presence.

Then Ilse was back in her own cabin, in her still erectly seated body. It had remained upright, the heartbeat slow and regular. But it seemed to her that, without her attendance, the body might not long survive.

And Celia had felt her, although she had not known what it was she felt. So presumably would almost anyone except the totally psi-deaf. Apparently the psyche was sensed more strongly when away from the body.

Again she put herself in the dispensary with her friend. Celia's mind was composed, absorbing the lines of print. Gradually Ilse impinged more strongly, until the mind beside her showed hints of disturbance. The eyes did not scan as rhythmically. A grain of unease irritated the mind, which tried to shut out the irritation.

Ilse withdrew again to her body and examined results. She could enter the space of a non-psi and be noticed or not noticed at will, according to impingement, intention. But could she enter the presence of telepaths and be unnoticed? Or be noticed selectively, by one and not another? Nils would probably be guarded by a telepath.

Ram was the only telepath on board besides herself, a fitful and very limited one who could provide only a limited test. Subconsciously he still tended strongly to reject what his talent picked up.

Carefully, lightly, she focused on him. He sat in his command chair, glancing back and forth from computer screen to keyboard as his index finger moved deliberately, punching out questions from a checklist. His mind was restless, only a trivial part of it occupied by the routine task. It reflected a sense of futility, and the tinge of paranoia she had noticed.

His unconscious awareness of her was so vague that she recognized it only because she was looking for it. It was not an awareness of another being in his space, but simply of something not quite right, warily ignored.

She withdrew to her body again, for a few moments monitoring its functioning, then focused her attention away again, this time on a place. The tent was gone, and she was on its site, in a circle of yellowed grass around a bull's eye of wood ashes. Tiny huts hunkered around her, low and drab in the long rays of evening sunlight. There were no voices or any trace of human minds.

She hadn't tried to move about disembodied before in any way analogous to walking. She found now that she could, and looked into a nearby hut. It was stripped, as she knew it would be.

She conjoined again, instantaneously but softly, raised her body from the rug and drank at the washbowl. So she could project to a distance, to either familiar people or familiar places, and "move around" while there, but she did not feel safe to stay away from the body too long.

She needed experience, she decided, and to test herself against competent psis. Perhaps Hannes was still alive; she hadn't heard of her brother since the battle at Doppeltanne, a thousand miles and eight months ago. He was an excellent telepath, as sensitive as almost anyone, and no harm would be done if he discovered her.

XXI

It was dangerous, but not nearly as dangerous as the alternatives. And if it worked—if it worked he'd have a double victory, over Ahmed and over the Northmen.

The greatest danger was now. Draco ground his teeth unconsciously. Where was the gloomy fool? The consul's irritable jumpiness did not lessen the intentness with which he monitored. To be caught here on Ahmed's territory . . . A centurion's helmet and breastplate made a thin disguise for a well-known man, even at dusk. And he couldn't be sure the note had gone through unintercepted. Carried in the mouth it was safer than a spoken message, if the bearer didn't know what was written on it and remembered to swallow if stopped. But if the swallowing was seen and interpreted, a slit gullet would quickly give it up.

More sets of orc boots approached the alley mouth, but this time it was Kamal who strode past, accompanied by his psi-aide and one other. A quick thought flicked, and when Kamal was a dozen meters farther on, Draco and his companion fell in behind them. Two hundred meters farther and Kamal turned, strode up a low flight of entry stairs, and entered a building. Draco followed.

Kamal was waiting just inside. Otherwise the hallway was deserted, but Draco sensed frightened awareness behind thin wooden doors, a listening to the sound of iron heel plates. Slaves were slaves, whether like these they had status and an apartment or were common drudges crouching in a slave barracks. He spit. They lived powerless and in fear—bloodless, breath-in-throat, honorless fear.

Kamal paused at a door, shoved it open and strode in. Those inside had interpreted the sounds and pauses, and stood waiting. The man was middle-aged, the woman young. They exuded propitiation and submission toward their user-protector. The man hesitated, then bobbed his head and disappeared through an inner door while the woman remained.

Draco grinned. Old Kamal! She was a beauty, and certainly never showed herself in the streets. A dancer, by her looks, who probably performed for her neighbors. One of them had no doubt reported her beauty and grace to Kamal in hope of some reward.

She was undoubtedly an exceptional lay, with something of a hold on the hard-bitten legionary, if he let her live here with her husband instead of taking her into his harem. Or perhaps he found pleasure in humiliating the man by using her here in his presence.

Yes, she was a good one. It showed less in her aura than in Kamal's irritation now in having business to transact instead of pleasure. But it was a good place for it.

"Get out," Kamal said drily to her. "We want to talk."

She stood confused.

"Take her out of here," he snapped at his orderly. "And I don't want them listening at the door."

The man nodded, gripped her arm and led her to the door through which her husband had passed.

"And Dmitri! Do not molest her! Remember who she belongs to."

The soldier turned, saluted, and closed the door behind him.

Kamal looked at Draco and spoke in an undertone. "This had better be important. Meeting you secretly like this could mean my bones."

The consul smirked, and kept his voice low too. "It's important, all right. But first, before I forget, Nephthys instructed me to give you her warmest greeting. I can't, of course. She hopes you'll be our guest soon." He turned and clapped the shoulder of the soldier who'd accompanied him. "And now, Artos, I want you to tell my friend what you've learned."

Artos was small for an orc, but sinewy and shrewd-looking. "As a centurion in the Second Legion," he began, "I was known as one of the most sensitive telepaths in the army. So when this happened—" he held out a wrist with no hand—"my Lord Draco made me the monitor of his psi tuner.

"I came to have a feeling for the tuner, a feeling I can't describe. So with my Lord's permission I removed the crystal from it. I'm not free to say what experiments were made or what I did, but the crystal has been recut and reground so that my mind is now in resonance with it."

Draco interrupted. "It no longer looks like an esper crystal." He grinned widely. "It's just another stone in a jewelled goblet now, in Ahmed's wine pantry. It's been there for weeks, and in his room several times, but until last night it told us nothing worth knowing." He nudged the maimed telepath with his mind. "Tell us what you read last night, and keep your voice down."

The man nodded. "It was about midnight," he murmured. "Ahmed had wine and a girl brought to him. He was preoccupied, and finished with her rather quickly, but the goblet stayed while he sat and thought.

"He'd been away in his sky chariot. He'd used his, um, radio, you see, to talk to the Northmen. They have a star woman hostage, the Northmen, and her radio; the star people are total cretins. And Ahmed knew about the radio.

"So after dark he'd flown to a meeting he'd set up with the Northmen scum, and sitting safe in his chariot he made an agreement with them. They are to send their army here and Ahmed promised to use his sky chariot to protect them from attack in the open, in case my Lord learned of their approach. When they reached the City, they're to join with Ahmed's legions to attack us.

"And he promised that when he's the master he'll take the army away to Egypt and leave this country to the Northmen. The City of Kazi a barbarian sty! That's to be their reward. And it's uncanny, but he really means to do it, give the country to them!"

"Garbage!" Kamal snorted, then lowered his voice. "I know him better than that. Your story's a fable." But as he said it he turned questioningly to his psi-aide. It was almost too preposterous to be a lie.

The aide looked at him squarely. "The man left his mind wide open to me while he told it," he answered flatly. "He told truthfully what he read in Ahmed's mind, altering nothing and holding nothing back. There is no question about it."

Kamal scowled thoughtfully for a time. "What is it you want me to do?" he asked at last, and his voice was as hard as his eyes.

"Take Ahmed prisoner for me. Trusted as you are, you can move the men you need close to his apartment. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out how; you know the situation much better than I."

Kamal's flinty eyes fixed on the consul's and he made no answer.

"All right," Draco spat out, "kill him then, if you think he'd be too dangerous as a prisoner. Then announce his crime—treason against the Master—declare yourself commander of his troops, and join me against the Northmen."

The legionary continued to stare wordlessly at Draco, his eyes glittering now.

"She remains mine," Draco growled at the unspoken demand, "but you will be our guest from time to time."

For a moment Kamal still stood motionless, then nodded and drew his sword.

"Dmitri!"

The door opened quickly at his call.

"Kill them in there," he murmured. "I must be sure there is no leak."

The orc turned, pulling at his hilt. There were no screams, but they heard the husband grunt, and the woman whimpered briefly. When the orderly reappeared he was wiping his sword on a piece of her gown. As soon as he'd sheathed it, Kamal cut him down.

"No leaks," he said meaningfully.

The one-handed Artos darted for the door but Draco was on him, thrusting with his short sword.

"No leaks," Draco husked. "What about him?" He nodded toward Kamal's psi-aide.

Kamal shook his head. "He's as close to me as my own breath. Whoever kills him answers to me."

Draco's response was inward and screened. Already you grow insolent, old friend. I'll kill him myself when the time comes, and you'll watch. Then I'll kill you.

* * *

The audience chamber of Timur Karim Kazi had been unused since he'd left to conquer Europe. It was small—six meters square and four high—with walls of glossy obsidian and carpeted with thick black furs so cleverly joined they looked like a single huge pelt. There was only one seat, the throne on its dais, but pillows lay around the other three walls. Tall narrow windows let in light.

So he's using the Master's audience chamber already, Kamal thought. That arrogant filth. If he sits on the Master's throne I'll kill him here and now.

Draco, sensing his anger and suspecting its cause, did not approach the high seat.

"I'm told you did the job with your own hand and he gave you no trouble," he said. "I appreciate the gift of Yusuf. I prevailed on him to tell everything he knew. I never imagined the Turk could be so talkative, so co-operative. The Northmen should be leaving their mountains at daybreak. I'll observe them from the pinnace, which they think of as their protection. The young men who flew it for Ahmed are happy to fly it for me.

"I'm appointing you field commander and leave the final say on tactics to your judgment. I suggest though that you plan to meet the Northmen at least two day's ride from here."

Kamal nodded. "Four or five days from now, depending on how fast they travel. I'll let them ride into a sack and pull the drawstring on them in the morning to have as many hours of daylight as possible. Otherwise some of them might lose themselves in the darkness and escape. It should be easy to time it, with you sitting in the sky keeping track of them. I suggest you attack them before I do, from the air, as soon as they're aware of us. That should disorganize them and we'll chop them to pieces with minimum losses of our own."

Draco smiled and held out his hand. "It sounds beautiful—more like slaughter than battle."

And when it's over, old comrade, I'll drop down and pick you up—to take you where none of your men are at hand. You're too dangerous—and too powerful now, and possibly ambitious after all. You'll give me the pleasure you denied me from Ahmed.

"And Kamal," Draco said, "when the Northmen are destroyed, I want you to spend some time with me in harem. Someone there is hungry to see you."

XXII

Nils lay motionless on the stone ledge that was his cot. Because of his wounds, straw had been piled on it and he had a coarse woolen blanket to crawl under. Draco was saving him for something.

For four days he'd lain quietly, rousing only for food and water. He had thirsted often. But mostly he'd been in a trance-like state, his mind focused quietly on healing nerves and outraged tissues. During the last few hours, however, he'd been doing something else.

It was fortunate that the dungeon captain was a psi. Otherwise there'd be no chance at all.

The dungeon captain sat in the guard room at the end of the cell block, monitoring subconsciously while he thought of other things. Occasionally he brought his attention to it, sorting among the emanations of the prisoners, sifting their thoughts, moods and emotions through his critical mind.

Nils's awareness had entered it too, but undetected, formless, a slight and undefined watchfulness no more than vague smoke at twilight. He could afford no misstep. If the orc discovered what he was doing, there would be no second chance.

He assumed the orc didn't know of the technique and wouldn't be on guard against it. Even Raadgiver, shrewd old psi of the Inner Circle, apparently hadn't known of it. It was Ilse who'd discovered it, used it to murder Zühtü Hakki and escape the horse barbarians.

Carefully, patiently, he followed the orc's thoughts, feeling their tone, their hue, absorbing the essence of the man.

Sometimes Yitzhak focused on a specific mind; he could discern details and sense subtleties better that way. Now he turned his attention to the Northman. The aura was subdued, less powerful, but essentially unchanged. Usually a man's aura deteriorated utterly when he'd been maimed, and blinding was one of the most devastating maimings. When someone was blinded, locked in a dungeon, and facing certain torture without hope of escape, his aura was the aura of death.

Beneath the Northman's aura was only a soft and meaningless psionic hum. Thoughtfully Yitzhak scratched his cheek, unaware that the impulse was not his own.

His attention shifted to the star man. Until today the mind had been a study in raw sensitivity. Usually it was difficult to keep someone so responsive for long; they became comatose. This one, however, they had returned to delicious rawness repeatedly, by abusing his woman. Then, during Khalil's watch, he'd been taken away for an hour or so. He'd been returned with his mind deeply collapsed, although they hadn't used him very roughly. It even seemed he might actually die without serious physical injury.

Something touched Nils's consciousness softly, and softly he withdrew from the mind of the orc. It had not been a thought; almost it had been nothing at all. A presence, the faintest presence of Ilse. He knew she wasn't there physically, and grasped intuitively what she had done. She strengthened, and through her he saw himself a supine body beneath the coarse gray wool. A touch from his mind warned her and she drew back to the edge of thereness. Anything either of them transmitted—thoughts, pictures—might be picked up by the dungeon captain. Jerkily Nils transmitted then, gusts of Scandinavian as in a troubled dream, still picturing himself on the sleeping ledge, the image wavering, collapsing.

So the eyeless barbarian dreamed. Yitzhak viewed briefly until the mind settled back into its even and featureless hum. It would be interesting to know what Draco had in mind for that one. The patrol commander who'd found him had made a serious mistake, putting out his eyes. It was commonplace to blind a fugitive slave out of hand. Blind him or her and let the creature wander sightless about the streets, pushed, dragged, worked over with knife tips, fists, whatever orc ingenuity and humor came up with until they died of shock, pain and exhaustion.

But only a fool would blind a personal prisoner of the consul.

He'd stop at the Square after watch, Yitzhak decided, and see if the stupid bastard was still alive. Maybe there'd be enough consciousness left to be worth watching. Probably not though. The common soldiers generally got carried away and lost whatever finesse they had when given a patrol commander to play with.

(Yitzhak got up and sauntered into one of the cell-block lanes. A man needed to move around now and then.)

He wondered what Draco would do to the cerberus on watch if the Northman died. Or suicided! The hardened captain shuddered. (Absently he unlocked the door to Nils's cell and, sword in hand, stepped in to peer cautiously at the large covered body, the ruined eyes sunken in discolored sockets. When he backed out he somehow forgot to turn the key before withdrawing it.) If the Northman suicided on his watch, he told himself, he'd quickly follow him. But it would not happen.

Next he looked in on the star man, who lay curled in a ball, staring as unseeingly as if he'd been blinded too.

The weight from the big wall clock hung down about three decimeters, and he wound it back up. After midnight. A mental glance into the guard quarters found them all asleep, with no dreams worth watching. Briefly he considered waking them for an attack drill, but no, the man who really needed to be alert was the guard at the upper door. Yitzhak walked to the lower door and pulled the lever. When it had raised he walked thoughtfully up the three long flights of stairs. He had never before checked the upper door guard—that was the responsibility of the corridor patrol. But it was his bones if the man was caught off guard and someone else got hold of the speaker tube and tricked his way in.

For a moment he stood at the door, mind screened, hand on the latch lever, then threw it and pulled. The door swung open abruptly and the guard outside leaped back from it, fright in his eyes and ready sword in hand. The two orcs stared at each other, the guard recognizing the captain but uncertain and still ready to run him through. Standard procedure was to signal from below and inform him through the speaking tube.

What am I doing? Yitzhak thought suddenly. "You're awake I see," he said. "Good thing. If I ever catch you sleeping here . . ."

The guard leaked no thought, but his eyes . . . Yitzhak screened his embarrassment as best he could. Ahmed was dead, and no one else would engineer a breakout! What had he been thinking of? He'd made a fool of himself to the door guard!

Engaging the lock behind him, Yitzhak clopped back down the stairs. He needed a drink. The escape of a few nights ago, and the murder of the watch, must have thrust him deeper than he'd realized. The door guard thought he was a fool. He'd have to shut the dog's mouth before he spread the tale around. Maybe Hassan the Shark . . . Hassan owed him a favor, and he'd enjoy paying it in such a way.

* * *

By the time Yitzhak had returned to have his wine and make his plans, Nils was well inside the air duct that opened into the guard room wall. He didn't know where it led, except out of the dungeon. And there'd been the problem of getting into it. He'd had to jump from the heavy table at an opening he could see only through Ilse's psychic sight, and he wasn't coordinated to operate well that way. Then, with only a hand-hold to start with, he'd had to pull his bulky body into the small opening.

Inside he wriggled six meters to where it ended in a cross duct, then paused to rest. The ordeal of pain and shock and the demands of healing had weakened him. There Ilse whispered in his mind. While he'd been crawling, she had scouted the ventilator system to its roof opening. He needed to turn left. In such cramped space, that took effort. Ilse was gone again, back to her body; there had been a sense of urgency in her.

He pulled himself along, feeling without eyes the utter blackness. Before long the duct opened into a vertical shaft about a meter square. He stood up in it, leaned his upper back against one side, placed his bare feet against the other, and began working his way upward.

Ilse was back. "I can only stay for a moment," she thought to him. "I'm in labor and it's coming fast. I . . ." She was gone, drawn by the pain in her body.

Fifteen grueling meters higher, his shoulders felt the edge of another side duct entering the shaft; he slid into it and rested. After several minutes he continued upward, stopping in yet another duct not far above.

Ilse was with him again. "Rest well here," she told him. "There won't be another chance and you have a long way to climb. The top is in a roof garden. When you get out, circle the shaft—it's like a chimney—keeping one hand on it and reaching out low with the other. You'll find a low-walled thing of soil there, with thick bushes growing in it. Crawl beneath the bushes and hide. I'll try to have someone come down and get you."

He was alone again. Wriggling back into the shaft, he started climbing. Warm air moved softly upward around his sweating body. His shoulders soon were raw from rubbing on rough dry stone; his legs and back were tired again. It was far. The dungeon was deep underground and the roofs high. He could not rest braced within the shaft; it would take strength to stay in place, draining his energy without progress. His sense of time blurred as he labored upward; there was only long concentration, and pain, and growing fatigue. Very largely he could put himself outside the pain, but exhaustion progressively slowed him.

At length he had to stop. There was no way to tell how much farther it was. With an effort of will he gathered himself, then jacked himself higher, half a meter, a meter.

And smelled fresh air! In moments his back-pressed head reached an opening.

The shaft was capped and the side-ports small. He reached an arm out, and then the other, exhaling and pushing powerfully with his legs to force his chest through. After pausing for a moment on the small of his back, he grasped the cap of the shaft, pulled, wriggled, and tumbled to the roof. For scant seconds he lay there, greasy with sweat, then turned over and crouched. There was no watchfulness nearby—no mind of any kind except for insects and sleeping birds. The planter was in front of him, fragrant with blossoms, and after standing for a moment, Nils crawled beneath its cool-leaved shrubs, to lay on the dry-surfaced soil.

A part of him watched while he slept.

* * *

The hull was on one-way transparent and Ram reached out to the instrument panel. Although it was against safety regulations, he pressed the key that slid the door open, to feel the air.

The City swung closer beneath, its rows of buildings defined by black shadow and the weak light of a slender, newly-risen moon. This was night on a planet, not the perpetual blackness of space, and it felt rich and beautiful, with an unreal reality that tingled. There were people down there, too, breathing, sleeping, dreaming—people whose existence was not quite real to him.

The whole scene felt unreal; he was acting in a dream fantasy at the request of his own hostage. Perhaps she had hypnotized him; the story she'd told between contractions sounded like sheerest lunacy. Though Celia had urged him, she hadn't needed to. This was action, something to do about something, something to accomplish after the waiting and frustration.

He maneuvered by thin moonlight rather than radar. The palace was easy to find, its tower and multiple roofs rising well above the buildings around. The cover of night wouldn't last long; it might be he could see a suggestion of dawn already, a possible lightness on the northeastern horizon. And it wouldn't do to be seen, to be associated with the escape. They still had hostages down there, unless they were dead.

Their spiral had brought them down until the tower loomed above them as they circled. Ram leveled off, gave the controls to his copilot, and crouched in the door. How in the world do you find a man hiding in the night beneath a bush on one of a multiplicity of roof gardens? A man that can't see you?

"Nils! Nils Järnhann!" he called with his mind. Penthouses, planters, small trees and shadowed shrubs swung silently beneath, and the man at the controls took her lower while Ram's eyes strained to see. "Nils! Nils Järnhann!"

"Here!" The answering thought was faint but distinct.

Ram commanded the copilot and they stopped, locked on a gravitic vector.

"Where?"

"Here!"

This time Ram was ready for the answer, and his psi-sense gave him a bearing on the silent call. He moved to the controls himself, silently slid Beta into position twenty meters above a roof, then gave them up again. From the door he saw a figure step out of shadow.

"I see him," he said quietly, and closed the switch that lowered the short flight of landing steps. "There! See? Take her down slowly until I say stop."

The barbarian stood like a statue, face aimed at the open door as the Beta settled. Ram knew the man was orienting himself through his eyes.

"Stop," Ram murmured, and crouched on the upper step. The air was sweet here, with a fragrance like pink lularea. He kept his eyes directed at the Northman to guide him, and could see the darkness of sunken sockets. A chill passed through him. The man moved deliberately to the ladder, reached for the hand rails, and pulled himself onto it with startlingly muscular arms. Ram reached out to him, their hands met, and he backed into the cabin with Ilse's husband following. Goose flesh crawled on the captain's skin.

The door slid shut and Ram stood in the darkness smelling the barbarian's stale sweat. There was something different in it, a taint that some long-buried memory in Ram's mind identified. It told of terrible injury and pain. The body seemed strong now but the odor lingered.

"You're a father," Ram said quietly. "It's a healthy girl. Willi, let's get our tails out of here before someone spots us."

XXIII

Kniven låg i slappa sommen,

söv på sidan a sin stridshäss,

söv iblann sin drömna kjämper

slumranne på stilla sletten

i d' lägren trygg å sikker,

slutan om a vakna posser

å a smylla hässpatryller.

I knivens panna pette viske,

snydde vä å blaste drömen

bort, då satt han upp å stärde.

Ingen vaken såg de onar.

Plyssli i d' mörka natten,

någon vita, jenomsynli,

sej t' Knivens springor.

Såg han makti Järnhanns spöke,

kjennte Ynglingen i ånnen

viskanne i sjäänli stillen.

[Listi lay relaxed and sleeping,

lay beside his horse in slumber,

lay among his dreaming warriors

sleeping on the silent prairie

in their war camp strong, protected,

guarded round by watchful sentries

and by stealthy scouts on horseback.

In his mind there came a whisper,

touched and broke his fragile dreaming,

sat up then and looked about him.

Nothing waking caught his vision.

Then within the darkness flickered

something thinly white, transparent.

As he stared with eyes thin-slitted,

saw the ghost of mighty Ironhand,

saw the spirit of the Youngling

whispering in the starlit stillness.]

From—THE JÄRNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation.

* * *

"Nils! Have you seen her?"

"Yes, through Ram's eyes before I slept. She's beautiful. Not all red like many newborns."

Ilse held out her hands and he took them, smiling down at her. "Darling," he said, "you are as remarkable at growing a baby as at every other thing."

Celia left them, closing the door behind her while the two conversed silently in a rich and subtle mixture of images, feelings, and unspoken words. After a bit Ilse showed him how to leave his body. He lay down on the deck of the small sick-room and after a minute she could not detect him; only his body was there. Then he returned.

"Was he aware of you at all?" she asked.

"Not consciously."

"His mind is tense and inward," she said, "and easily threatened. Mostly he allows his psi to function only with verbalized thoughts, and that only guardedly.

"And your sight—could you see when you were out of the body?"

"Better than with eyes. More finely, and in every direction at once."

She nodded. "And now?"

"I'm going to the two star men, Matthew and Mikhail, and see how things are with them—what the situation is."

Concentrating but without effort he edged into thereness until he could see Matthew. He sensed at once the familiar feel of Draco's dungeon, which he had not expected. He'd assumed they were Ahmed's prisoners, and it had been clear earlier that Draco and Ahmed were enemies. Scanning, he sensed Mikhail nearby, the still catatonic Chandra, and a female with Chandra, desolate and in pain, that had to be the one called Anne Marie. The hostages had been brought together.

A dungeon captain, ill-at-ease, psi intent, was moving sword in hand down the alleyway between the rows of cells, and Nils withdrew. For only a minute he stayed in his body, sensing Ilse's awareness, then left again.

Nephthys was alone at her loom, looking critically at a half-completed tapestry. She was conscious of him almost at once. Carefully she looked around, saw nothing meaningful, and took her lip thoughtfully between her teeth.

"I'm not asleep," she thought. "Is it you? Can the dead return?"

He acknowledged that it was him. "Is the one called Ahmed still alive?" he asked.

"No. Draco had him killed and rules the entire army now." She hesitated. "Do you know about your people?"

"What about them?"

"Ahmed made an alliance with them. Oh Nils, I heard they'd blinded you but I didn't know you'd been killed."

"They blinded me." His mind was gentle but persistent. "What about my people?"

"They sent out an army to help Ahmed overthrow Draco. Ahmed had promised to protect them with his sky chariot if Draco tried to attack them in the open. They believed if Ahmed won he'd take us all to Egypt and leave this country to them. But now . . ."

She paused and he finished for her. "And now Draco has the sky chariot and the whole orc army and plans to destroy us."

Mentally she nodded.

"When?"

"I don't know. As soon as his army reaches them. It left this morning."

She looked around her again.

"I can see you now, barely, as if you were made of pale light. Can you let me see you better?"

He made a stronger facsimile of his body until it appeared almost like flesh. Nephthys reached toward him and touched . . . nothing. "Can't you take me in your arms then?"

Gentle negative.

"You have sons. Two of them." She walked to a slender silvered cord and somewhere a bell rang. Nils withdrew to near absence, and in a moment a servant entered.

"Bring the babies," Nephthys ordered.

The slave girl curtsied and left. In three minutes she was back, pushing a large-wheeled crib of simple elegance, and left it. Somewhat, Nils reappeared.

"They are not light-skinned like you," Nephthys said, "but they have hair."

Nils smiled softly in her mind.

"I wish they could have known you." She was suddenly forlorn. The response she read in him had nothing of regret or unhappiness, only a soft awareness akin to love. He began to fade.

"When Draco comes back from killing your people, he will die," Nephthys thought alter him. "I promise you."

He was gone.

Nils conveyed to Ilse what he had learned, then got up from the deck. "I need your help to bathe," he said. "I smell of injury and old sweat."

Ilse sat up and put her feet on the floor. "I'll take you to a bathing place; they call it a 'shower.' It is very pleasant; you can have the water as warm or cold as you want. Come, I'll help you."

* * *

For lack of clothes to fit him, someone had cut and hemmed a sort of toga from a bed sheet until something better could be sewn. The man looked, Ram thought, like an artist's conception of Alaric, the Visigoth chief, after his barbarians had sacked Rome. Alaric with his skull shaved and grown to disreputable stubble. Alaric with empty sockets ugly in his face. He'd have to have eye patches made.

"It's time we talked about getting Nikko Kumalo back from your people," the captain said brusquely.

"It's time to get all your people back."

Easily said, Ram thought cynically, then reminded himself that this was a man who had escaped a dungeon while naked, unarmed, and blind.

"Get them back? How?"

"Land your pinnace on the roof where you picked me up, close to the air chimney so it will be inside your shield. Then send men down on a rope and bring the prisoners up."

"Aren't there armed guards down below? I can't risk sending men into that!"

"Let some of my people go down. It's their nature and pleasure to fight."

"It's no one's nature to fight—not in mortal combat!"

"It's some people's nature."

"And what if the orcs come in the Alpha and attack us while we're sitting on the roof? We wouldn't have a chance. All we could do would be to sit there inside the shield. And the orcs would think of things, like attacking the commast to make us pull it in, and then sending smoke up the ventilator. Then we'd have to deactivate, and they'd hit us with grenades from the Alpha before we could get away."

Nils flowed admiration at the man's quick mind, but Ram could not accept admiration now, so the Northman eased off, saying, "That couldn't happen if you captured or destroyed the Alpha first."

Ram stared at him.

"There were two or armies," Nils continued, "one ruled by Ahmed, the other by Draco. The two men were deadly rivals. Ahmed made an offer to my people: if they would help him attack Draco, then when he'd won control, he'd take the orcs to another land and leave the country to us. Now, my people wouldn't willingly meet a large army in open grassland where orc numbers could overwhelm them. But Ahmed promised to use the Alpha to keep Draco from riding out against them.

"And they agreed.

"But somehow Draco overthrew Ahmed, and the entire orc army left the city today to attack my people, and the Alpha will also attack them.

"The men in the Alpha will be looking and thinking downward, not upward. They think of you as cowardly and will hardly expect you to attack. That would be a good time to strike with the Beta. If you succeed, you could borrow warriors from my people to raid the dungeon.

"You are not used to war and violence, and ruthlessness is foreign and terrible to you, so naturally you feel uncertain and afraid. But you are a man who's faced and overcome difficulties before. You helped build this star ship, and that was not easy. If you concentrate on how to take the Alpha, you may very well succeed. The advantage is yours, because you know what your, your science, is able to do."

Ram's face reflected a hardening commitment now, a decision made. "All right," he said, "I'll do it. I think I already see how; I just need to work out the details. Meanwhile I'll have someone take you down to your people to warn them."

"No, I can go myself without a pinnace, the way Ilse went to help me and the way I went back to the city today and learned what I just told you."

Ram was jarred inwardly by Nils's words. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder how this man had gotten his information. Damn! I shouldn't have overlooked that, he told himself. In this world of savages I'm a baby, credulous and naive.

But I'm damned well also a first-class engineer, and there's no one at all down there to match what I can do with that.

* * *

At 3,500 meters the pinnace cruised slowly, as if gloating, checking the progress of the Northman army. It was a loose assemblage of mounted platoons covering many hectares of plain, conspicuous to the naked eye even though yesterday's rain had laid the dust.

A second pinnace sledded out of the sun behind the first, braking sharply as she approached; her pilot was not an experienced gunner and couldn't expect a second chance if he wasted his first. A shimmer in the target told him its hull was on one-way transparent, increasing the risk that he'd be seen. Even so he continued slowing, relying on the sun to hide him. At thirty meters his sights would coincide exactly with his line of fire. He rode his sights in, thumb poised, until at thirty-five meters their focus sharpened suddenly. He hit the makeshift firing stud, sticked back and banked sharply.

A hundred meters to starboard now the Alpha still floated as she had.

"We did it!" the pilot said. "We must have! Otherwise she'd be taking evasive action. Ivan, get ready to board."

Ivan nodded, pulled a mask over his face and adjusted the straps. "Okay, Willi, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I just hope this mask works like it's supposed to."

"It will. Dr. Uithoudt tested it herself."

"Okay. But let's be careful with me, huh? I'm a motor tech, not a bloody daredevil."

The Beta moved delicately alongside Alpha, matching speeds. Ivan Yoshida leaned far out, reaching, the other hand gripping tightly to a rail, slapped a magnetic disk on the hull alongside, and then another. A line ran from each disk to his belt. "There must be a better way to do this," he muttered, then called, "Move a little closer—half a meter."

Willi gave him a few centimeters. After taking up the slack in his safety lines, Ivan jumped, landing with his feet against the Alpha's hull, and Beta drew away, ahead and to starboard. Some highly toxic gas would come out of Alpha when Ivan activated the door.

They saw the panel slide back, and after a short pause to peer inside, Ivan pulled himself in. A minute later his voice came from the radio. "All dead in here except me. You not only socked her in the air intake; you must have put her right down the nostril. The way the fan sounds, she penetrated the control unit and rammed part of it into the circulator. I turned it off so she wouldn't burn out."

"Okay. Better leave the door open then, speed her up, and fly around for a few minutes before you start down. That'll blow her out more than good enough. And it wouldn't hurt to run up the commast and turn the snorkel on. Just don't be in any hurry to take off your mask."

Willi turned to the silent Northman seated by the aft bulkhead. "I'll call the ship now, Nils, and tell them we've got Alpha back. That'll make the skipper happy. Then, if you're ready, we'll go down and get on with it."

* * *

The Northmen stopped and sat their horses casually as they watched the two pinnaces settle half a kilometer ahead of the lead elements. Then Kniv Listi, Sten Vannaren, and four others walked their horses toward the landing spot.

Beta touched down and Willi Loo activated the door and landing steps. "Help Nils, Charley." The other man guided the blind warrior, although he no longer needed help.

"That's sure a pretty prairie," Willi said to no one in particular. "I wish my dad could see it. He loves good land." He touched the send switch again. "Ivan, when you set Alpha down, activate your shield, drag the bodies out, shift a hundred meters or so and reactivate. Then check out the damage to the circulator, and any other possible damage the rocket may have done."

Charles DuBois was coming back up the steps and Willi activated his shield. Six Northmen were riding up to Nils, and the audio pickup brought the tonal unintelligibility of their speech. One dismounted and led his horse while he walked beside Nils; all seven went to the Alpha and watched Ivan unload. When he'd lifted again they inspected the corpses.

He'd heard they scalped their enemies, but they did not bother with these.

Meanwhile a second party of six Northmen had ridden up to Beta's shield. Five dismounted and tied their reins to a leather rope held by the sixth. The five wore swords but had left their shields attached to their saddles. These must be the ones, Willi thought, the rescue commando. They were grinning as if they really looked forward to it; there was no trace of grimness.

Nils and the group with him were returning now, and they too grinned. Willi eyed Kniv Listi and guessed it was he who commanded this army; but the insignia he wore were his eyes, his body, his bearing, and maybe subtle things. He looked not cruel, not even unfriendly. But hard. I wouldn't want to tangle with that one, Willi thought. He looks like he could disembowel a man with his fingertips.

"One of the dead men is Draco, the orc ruler," Nils called. "Maybe Ram would like to know that. Send Charles out to us now. I'm going over the plan with the rescue party, and he should listen. Sten will translate for him. Then, if Ivan is ready, we'll load and get started. And tell Ram I'll fly with you instead of in the Alpha."

"With me? Then who'll guide the rescue party?"

"I can leave my body with you as surety and still guide the raiders. I will project my spirit so that they can see it, and hear my thoughts. Ram has misgivings, because once our warriors are aboard the Alpha, they could take it over if they decided to, and your people with it. But if I'm with you in the Beta, then I am his hostage."

It all sounded strange to Willi, regardless of which pinnace Nils was on. He'd heard how Nils was supposed to have escaped, and that he'd come down in the spirit to plan with the Northmen, but that didn't make it feel real. On the other hand it didn't distress him. Willi was a very practical engineer; his ultimate criterion was not how well something fitted his pre-existing notions, or its explainability. It was its workability that counted. And this blind man, by whatever means, had escaped a guarded dungeon.

"Ivan," he said into the radio, "come over and be ready to take on the troops. Nils will stay with me, but he says he'll still be able to guide you."

There was a pause. "Huh! Well, I guess that's not much weirder than if he was here with me, considering . . . How's he going to manage that? I'm no telepath."

"You'll have to wait and see, I guess. He seems totally confident about it. Captain Uithoudt, have you followed this transmission?"

"Affirmative. What was that about Nils staying with you?"

"He says you'll feel better having him in our control when his warriors are occupying Alpha with some of our people."

Ram grunted. He had felt concern, but he wasn't sure how much this relieved it. "All right," he said. "Just make sure you are in control."

Of one thing Ram was certain. He was committed, done with waiting, and he wasn't going to back down now.

* * *

When the two pinnaces had taken off, the Northman army began to move. They didn't continue eastward however. Two platoons of warriors turned back in the direction they'd come from. The remainder, roughly eight hundred warriors and one thousand bowmen, divided into two equal forces. Half rode north, the other south.

XXIV

The city appeared on the horizon and seemed to move toward them, spreading, the black tower dominant even at a distance, marking the palace. And now what? Ivan thought. He glanced at Charles DuBois sitting beside him, wiry, muscular, the perennial handgun champion at the Deep Harbor harvest games. Sidearms were belted to his waist now and the pockets of his mechanic's coveralls bulged with grenades. The man's hobby was guns and his reading was of war. Probably he'd regretted living on New Home instead of, say, twentieth-century Earth.

Ivan reduced their air speed as they approached the first rows of buildings, and suddenly he was aware of something between Charles and himself. The Northman knelt there, or seemed to, and on the other side of him—through him—he saw Charles staring narrowly.

"Go slower and circle the tower not far above the higher roofs," Nils instructed. The voice was not a voice, Ivan realized; it spoke within his mind. He cut both speed and altitude and swung around the tower.

"Closer and slower. Then look down and watch for me." And he was gone. Seconds later Ivan saw him atop a ventilator cap, and floated down beside it, not quite landing. Nils disappeared. Charles jumped out, hurriedly placed four small charges, and jumped back aboard. The pinnace veered away some seventy meters, there was a sharp blast, and the ventilator cap spun into the air, accompanied by shards of rock and pieces of mortar.

Quickly Ivan moved the pinnace back to the spot, landed, and activated the shield. Speed was important now. Charles was out again, with a collapsible tripod, and swiftly began setting it up, its pulley over the shaft opening. The six Northmen crouched in the pinnace, still grinning, waiting.

Nils was there again. "It's not blocked," he said, gesturing at the shaft. "They don't know how I got out. The noise alarmed them just now in the guard room, but they don't know what it was or what it means. I'll go back down and distract the guard officer. The longer it is before they know what's happening, the less chance they'll have to bring in more soldiers."

He disappeared again.

Charles pulled slender cable off a winch newly bolted to the pinnace deck. It had loops at five-meter intervals. "All right, out!" he said to Sten, who gestured to the other Northmen. Ivan knelt by the winch control and watched first Charles and then the Northmen start one by one down the shaft. The last two were still on top when orcs came streaming from a stairway onto the roof with swords drawn, charging the pinnace and ventilator. The first several crashed into the unseen shield as into a stone wall, falling back stunned. Those behind stopped short and stood uncertainly, their eyes shifting from the final disappearing Northman to the pinnace door, through which they could see the kneeling Ivan. Their leader spoke sharply. Two of his men trotted to the head of the open stairs and out of sight. Then he looked thoughtfully at the commast: Ivan moved to the panel and lowered it to safety.

At the bottom of the shaft, Charles crawled quickly into the narrow horizontal duct. Nils was waiting at the junction ahead and directed him into the branch that led to the guard room. The eyeless Northman was a pale light that illuminated nothing; the walls of the duct were as black as if he wasn't there. When Charles had negotiated the turn and started toward the opening, he heard an angry voice ahead, with a tone of command.

"The guard captain is a telepath," Nils whispered in his mind. "He's sensed you; be ready. They'll shoot arrows into the duct as soon as they see anything."

A cold hand had gripped Charles' gut as he crawled. Now it turned to a feeling of utter paralysis through which somehow he continued to crawl forward. The square of light ahead grew quickly until it was an opening almost within reach of his hand.

And almost miraculously the fear disappeared. Now he felt only calm and alert, quick and strong. He lay there long enough for the warriors to close up behind him, at the same time pulling a grenade from a pocket. Sten squeezed his foot. He pulled the pin, let the safety lever snap free, and deliberately counted to three before awkwardly tossing the grenade through the opening. An arrow zipped into the duct and rebounded, slicing his calf with its sharp-edged head, and there was an explosion in the guard room. Quickly, furiously, he scrambled head-first into the opening, and, without taking time to look or think, he rolled onto his back and pulled his upper body out with his hands. Sten grasped his feet and pushed, and in one spasmodic moment he was being lowered head-first, then dropped. The stone floor crashed into him, striking his extended hands, then his back, and he rolled to his knees beside a shattered orc, drawing his autopistol. An orc in a doorway was pulling his bowstring. Charles snapped a shot, and saw him fall as the arrow struck the high ceiling.

There was an instant's silence, then a thud and a grunt and Sten rolled into him. Instantly the Northman was on his feet, reaching up to help the next man who was sliding out of the duct, back arched, like some grotesque steel-mailed myth birthing from a stone womb. A hurried arrow darted from the doorway, striking Sten's steel cap and deflecting. Charles fired three more rounds, drew a second grenade, let the safety go, then fired another short burst as he rushed and pitched the grenade around the corner of the door. It roared, fragments whirred, and he darted in. There were cots and fallen men. One man was still on his feet against a wall, eyes and mouth wide, and he shot him down.

The key! He was supposed to get the key! Charles ran out again, saw an orc with a breastplate sprawled by the table, knelt, and shot off the ring that held the single large key to his belt.

There were shouts then, like voices in a well, words neither Anglic nor Scandinavian, and two of the Northmen ran past him into a short corridor toward the sound, swords in their hands. He started after them.

"No!" The wraith of Nils cut him off. "The other way! Quickly! The corridor to your left, and let your people out of their cells!"

For just a second he hesitated, confused, staring after the two warriors, then turned, dodged another rushing Northman, and ran with the key in his hand. But behind his eyes was what he'd started toward a moment before—orcs, a mass of orcs spilling through a doorway and the two Northmen hacking at them. He'd be killed. They all would. They were trapped down here like rats.

"Here!" The wraith was ahead of him again, pointing. Charles thrust the key into a lock and turned it.

"Watch now. There are two more farther on—Matthew and Mikhail. Quickly!"

The two men were at their cell doors, amazement in their eyes as Charles ran up and let them out. They started down the corridor, stopping to obey when a ghost called to them to help Chandra and Anne Marie.

Charles sprinted past them, pushing a fresh magazine into his pistol grip, then brought out another grenade. Pulling the pin with his teeth, he careened through the guard room and into the corridor where the two Northmen had been fighting.

It was over. Three Northmen stood there now by a litter of bodies. A heavy iron door had dropped into the opening from which the orcs had been issuing, nearly severing some bodies that lay across the threshold. Sten leaned grimly on a lever near it, a bloody sword in his hand. Three of the dead were Northmen.

Charles realized he had an armed grenade in his hand, walked back through the guard room and peered into the room with the cots. An orc knelt there, wounded, trying to stem the flow of blood from a comrade with the corner of a blanket.

Damn! thought Charles. No place to throw the damned thing. What in the hell do I do with . . . Abruptly the kneeling orc was on his feet, a knife in his hand, and Charles as quickly shot him, then backed from the room and lobbed the grenade around the edge of the doorway. The five seconds were forever before it exploded.

In the guard room, Matthew and Mikhail stood beside Anne Marie, staring at a Northman scalping an orc. Matthew had the slack-bodied Chandra over his shoulder. The other two Northmen strode in, hands and wrists smeared red.

"Let's get out of here," Charles said urgently, "before something happens."

Sten looked at him, nodded, and gave an order in Scandinavian. They moved the heavy guardroom table beneath the ventilator. One Northman was boosted up and pulled himself into the duct. Then one after another they all were helped until only Sten was left to jump for it.

When they were gone, the only sound was the soft moaning of a twice wounded orc still alive in the guard quarters. The prisoners in their cells were as silent as if a threatening guard might come momentarily and punish them.

XXV

"Alpha, this is the captain. Alpha, this is the captain. Over."

"This is Alpha. Over."

"Ivan, have you returned the Northman raiders yet? Over."

"Not yet, Captain. We've been overflying the two armies—the orcs and the Northmen—at about six kilometers. The Northman in charge of the commando—his name is Sten—is sizing the situation up, seeing where the armies are relative to one another and to the Danube. And man, let me tell you, there's an awful lot of orcs down there. Must outnumber the Northmen eight or ten to one, and . . ."

"Damn it, Ivan! I didn't send you down there to carry out a military reconnaissance! Your orders were to get our people back and bring them up here! Unload those Northmen as fast as you can and get our people back to the Phaeacia; they may need medical attention critically! Have you got that straight?"

"Right, Captain. Sorry. Nobody seemed that critical, and I figured that five minutes . . ."

"ARE YOU A MEDIC?!?!" Ram's voice was suddenly shrill. "Who told you you could make medical decisions?" The violence of his own reaction startled and shook him.

"Yes, sir. I'm on my way to unload the Northmen at once, sir."

"Let me talk to him," Matthew said softly. "Phaeacia, this is Matt Kumalo. Over."

There was a brief lag, and the voice, when it answered, was husky and earnest. "God but I'm glad to hear your voice, Matt. How are you? How are all of you?"

"Mike and I seem to be all right, Ram, considering. And Anne Marie says she's all right too. But I expect Jomo and Celia had better check us over when we get back up. Chan's the one in bad shape. Catatonic. He was curled up in a tight ball when Charles and the Northmen got us out, and I had to clip him pretty hard to loosen him up enough to carry."

"Okay. Sounds like it could be worse," Ram said. "Look, Matt, about the Alpha: I'm really concerned that we don't get mixed up in their war down there. What I want is to get all of us back on board, including Nikko."

"We're already mixed up in their war, Ram," Matthew said mildly, "or maybe I should say they're mixed up in ours. Three Northmen were killed getting us out of that hell-hole—three out of six."

There were seconds of silence. "It was their choice," Ram answered. "They like that kind of thing; they wanted to go. And I didn't plan to tell you yet, but the Northmen are holding Nikko hostage."

This time the communication lag was Matthew's. "Hostage?"

"To pressure me for help when the orcs had the Alpha. But we've got Ilse and her baby of course, and Nils is on board the Beta. So now that we've got Alpha away from the orcs we ought to be able to trade and get Nikko back."

"Ilse's husband on board the Beta? Are you sure? I'd swear he was dead. This may sound crazy, but everyone else seemed to see what I did—Mike and Anne Marie did anyway. His ghost was in the dungeon during the fighting."

"I believe you, all right, but he's not dead. It's just something he seems to do, some wild psi talent. Ilse does it too."

Ivan interrupted. "Matt, you'd better sit down now. I'm going to land in just a minute. Sten says their big chief is down below."

"Right. Did you hear that, Ram?"

"I heard it."

Beta was in sight now, a bit above them, as if she'd been waiting; she made no move to land. Alpha sat down gently. Charles opened the door and sent the landing steps out. At once two powerful arms wrapped tightly around him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides, and carried him helpless from the pinnace. A second Northman picked up Anne Marie and carried her unprotestingly out. Quickly Ivan activated the shield.

"You're trapped," he said. "I turned the shield on; you can't get out."

"Then turn it off," Sten said reasonably.

"I thought we were friends," Matthew said. "What are you doing this for?"

"We need your sky boat. Don't worry; we're not orcs. We won't hurt you. Get out now—" He gestured at Mikhail. "—you and him, and take the unconscious one with you."

Matthew looked at the Northman's scarred face for a moment, finding neither threat nor relenting in it. "Okay," he said, turning. "Help me, Mike." They picked Chandra up and carried him outside.

Sten and Ivan were alone then. "Open your invisible wall so we can take them away," Sten instructed. "Then do what is needed for me to talk to Nils Järnhann in the other sky boat."

Ivan hesitated and the Northman's sword slid from its scabbard to touch lightly on a switch, deactivating the shield. Ivan's eyes caught on the congealed blood that remained where the blade met the handguard. Obviously the Northman's attention missed little, and his competence and willingness were beyond doubt.

"Beta and Phaeacia, this is Ivan. Beta and Phaeacia, this is Ivan. The Northmen have taken us prisoner. The Northmen have taken all of us on the Alpha prisoner and one of them wants to talk to Nils now. Over."

Willi broke in from the Beta. "Captain, this is Willi. Captain, this is Willi. Okay to let Nils talk to him? Over."

Long seconds passed without answer.

"Phaeacia, this is Beta. Phaeacia, this is Beta. Are you receiving? Are you . . ."

"Let the goddamned savages talk to each other!"

The anger was like a hammer, shaking the spacemen, but after a moment Sten began speaking calmly in Scandinavian; Nils answered in the same language. After several minutes Nils switched to Anglic.

"Captain Uithoudt, this is Nils. Sten says he and our war chief, Kniv Listi, want both pinnaces to help them fight the orcs. He says the man called Charles is skilled with your weapons and they want him to teach some of our people so they can shoot orcs from the sky when the battle comes."

Again the reply came after a long pause. "And what if I tell him to go to hell?"

"Hell?"

"Hell! What if I refuse to give him the Beta?"

"He says the army will take your people with them, and if the army is destroyed, the orcs will kill or recapture your people. But if we have the pinnaces to help us, we will surely win, and your people will be safe."

Again there was no immediate answer. Ivan got nervous but Sten seemed relaxed enough.

"I'll go this far," Ram said at last. "Your people already have the Alpha, so I'll agree to let Ivan fly it for them and Charles can show them how to shoot and use grenades. But I won't give up the Beta. I'll let her fly air support—that is, I'll let her fight the orcs—but she'll have no Northmen on board. My own people will fly her and do the shooting. Under no conditions will I let the Beta out of my control. Over."

Nils and Sten conversed briefly.

"Captain," said Nils, "Kniv agrees to your offer. Also he will let the Beta pick up two of your people, Anne Marie and Chandra. He says the woman is sick and the man should not die among strangers. He says the Beta will not be molested when it lands."

"Hah! Why should I believe that?"

"Has one of us lied to you?"

"What assurance can you give me?"

"Assurance?"

"Pledge," Ram said, patiently now. "What pledge can you give me that your people won't try to take over the Beta when she picks up Chan and Anne?"

"We are offering you two of your people back, the two you were most worried about. My people will stand well away when Willi picks them up. And finally I give you this oath. If they don't let the Beta fly away freely with your people, I will take my own life, or you can take it if you prefer. I have said it. Over."

Sten spoke quietly to Kniv, who narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Ram's voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. "Willi, land and pick up Chan and Anne Marie, and bring them up immediately. And be careful. Call me as soon as you're off the ground with them. Over."

"Right, Captain. I'm to land, pick up Chan and Anne, and bring them to the ship immediately. And call you as soon as I'm off the ground again. Yes, sir."

"Affirmative. Phaeacia over and out."

"Beta out."

* * *

Ram pushed open the dispensary door almost violently, his expression so bitter it frightened his wife.

"Welcome home! Welcome back to Earth!" he said, glaring at her. "If I ever get them all back on board I'll leave this rotten planet so fast it'll make your bloody head swim!"

XXVI

And it came to pass . . . that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.

HOLY BIBLE, Joshua 10:10.

* * *

There was no longer even a semblance of a road, and on the high plain they needed none. Their formation was a great oblong checkerboard of cavalry units several hours into the morning's ride, with the dew now dried by the sun.

A scout trotted his horse toward them, riding smoothly, proudly erect, sunlight glinting on plumed and polished helmet and black mail, upright lance tilted a correct ten degrees forward. Another orc detached himself from the small lead formation and galloped to meet him.

Kamal had been experiencing misgivings; something seemed to have gone wrong, perhaps seriously. Draco had not contacted him all of yesterday, either directly or by radio, which was disturbing in itself. As a consequence he'd had no information of the enemy in that time. Judging from the last report, he'd expected to meet the Northmen before noon today, and in fact before now. He'd even made camp early the day before, to help ensure they'd not meet in the evening.

Having decided the preceding evening that he could not rely on aerial reconnaissance, he'd sent scouts out before dawn to fan widely through the countryside ahead. With one of them returning now, his concern was replaced by hard-eyed attentiveness. His aide-de-camp rode back with the scout at heel.

"They've found where the Northmen were."

"Were? So they learned about us and turned back! We'll have to catch them then!"

The aide-de-camp turned to the scout and gestured for him to speak.

"They don't seem to have turned back, my Lord," the man said. "They split into two forces, one turning north, the other south. Yesterday, by the signs. We have riders following both groups."

"Yesterday! How far ahead was this?"

"About seven kilometers."

"How large a force? Their entire army?"

"I don't know, my Lord. A large one, surely; the grass was widely trampled."

So! And where was the high-flying Draco, the eye of the army? He wished now that Dov, in command of the City garrison, had been left a radio, but there were only three for the entire field army. He also wished for a few squads of horse barbarians, for scouts. They'd have told him how many Northmen had been there and when. It should have been fairly late in the day, for them to have gotten so far east, but one couldn't be sure, especially with Northmen. If they'd broken camp before dawn yesterday, or forced the march . . . But why would they force their march? They were too smart to wear out their horses without good reason.

Now he had to decide in ignorance. He had the nasty feeling that the Northmen were in charge of the situation, maneuvering him into doing what they wanted; he'd had too much experience of them in the Ukraine. But how could they even know he was out here on the march? The sky chariot should have seen and killed any far-ranging Northman scouts or patrols.

And the sky chariot should have contacted him the evening before and again this morning.

He looked up as a rider approached at a canter, calling to him. "My Lord! Another scout is returning!"

Kamal squinted westward at the scout, still distant, and ordered out his aide-de-camp to meet him, while a trumpeter halted the army. Minutes later his aide galloped back hard, with something on his lance tip.

"My Lord!" he snapped, and held out a stinking severed head to his commander. "One of the scouts found the bodies of our Lord Draco and others near the place where the Northman army divided. He brought this as proof because the bodies had been stripped and there were no insignia."

"And the sky chariot?"

"Not there."

"Any sign of it?"

"He didn't say."

That was an answer of sorts. Had it been there, the scout would have told of it. But how else could Draco have gotten there? And yet, how could the Northmen have moved it? Surely they couldn't fly it; it had taken training by the star men to enable Ahmed's men to fly them, and the Northmen were barbarians.

The scout was trotting up to them. "Man!" Kamal shouted at him, "don't you know anything except that they're dead?"

"Yes, my Lord. Their bodies bore no wounds. They had no marks of arrow, sword, or knife, and they had not been scalped."

Kamal swore, looking again at Draco's discolored face. The hair was still there, and the Northmen always scalped anyone they killed. "How many bodies?"

"Four, my Lord."

All four! "And no sign of the sky chariot?"

"None, my Lord."

Too many questions were unanswered; there were too many unknowns. But this he did know: he had to deal with the Northmen without help from the air.

"The army will turn back toward the City," he said finally. "Apparently the Northmen know about us and out-flanked us in the night. And there are only five cohorts left in the City in case they attack it."

It struck him then. Five cohorts—1,500 men. Draco had rough-counted the Northmen from the sky. Five cohorts were almost as many as the whole Northman army, and they were orcs—trained, disciplined, fighting orcs!

The neoviking mystique, their reputation for supernatural cunning and invincibility, had been overblown, he told himself. And Kamal had no respect for a commander whose automatic response to an enemy was caution, defense. Out here the Northmen had no forests to hide in or attack from, and they bled and died like other men. He'd killed one himself—skinned him and watched him die. Another he'd crucified, to groan to death beneath the Ukrainian sun.

He changed his decision, in part.

"We're between the Northmen and their people now, so the Third Legion won't go back with us. They'll continue to the mountains, to where the Northman army left its people, and wipe them out. They will take no prisoners except girl children and young women."

Kamal began to expand and glow as he continued. "Couriers to each legion. Inform the commanders. Have each of them signal when he's been informed. I will then signal the First, Second, and Fourth to begin the return. The Third will stand, and its commander will ride here to me for instructions. I'll catch up with the rest on their first break.

"Is that clear?"

It was, and the mnemonically trained couriers galloped off to repeat his instructions exactly. Within ten minutes the army was moving.

* * *

The men of the Third Legion considered themselves privileged. Instead of riding like the others to battle, they were riding to sport. When they stopped that evening, sentries were posted, and patrols circled the camp, but this was Standard Operating Procedure, not a response to possible danger. And rather than each man sleeping by his picketed horse, the animals were hobbled and picketed within a single large rope corral around which the men camped.

To the Alpha's infrared scanner,the paddock was conspicuous in the night.

* * *

For the Northmen, archery was more than a lifelong sport and sometime tool of war. It had also been an important means of feeding themselves, and its use had developed in them a fine sense of general marksmanship. They knew and used without questioning the basic principle that the way to hit something was to have a target and intend to hit it, not questioning your ability.

Charles had explained the automatic rifles to the four men assigned to him, through the bilingual skill of Sten Vannaren, had demonstrated and given them some dry firing. Finally each had fired several short bursts, and their targets were quickly rags. Afterward, waiting, they'd dry-fired from the door of the grounded pinnace at imaginary orcs, shouting "da-da-da-da-da-da!" like little boys. Charles had grinned at the sound as he worked beneath the nose of the craft.

* * *

The targets beneath them now were live, but the barbarians felt no qualms. A floodlight from above startled the sentries; then automatic rifles roused the camp. Slowly the pinnace circled the paddock as two riflemen fired into the horse herd. When one had emptied his magazine he threw an H.E. grenade from the door while another man seated a new magazine in the rifle and took his place. Hobbled horses pulled their pickets, milling madly or crowhopping through the confused camp and into the open prairie.

The well-spaced orc patrols, circling two to three kilometers away, stopped in the darkness to stare at the distant light, listening to the strange and somehow dangerous sounds. In a general way they realized that the camp was being attacked, and fearful and isolated though each squad felt, they did not ride toward the disturbance.

The distant floodlight blinked out, the explosions stopped, and they felt their aloneness even more in the silent and unrelieved darkness.

The darkness did not hide them. To the Alpha they were bright clusters of oblong lights. The pinnace settled undetected above one patrol and two grenades were tossed out, one H.E. and one fragmentation. Then it moved silently on to the second. The patrols were victimized by their separation; only three of the ten realized what the occasional scattered blasts meant and whipped their horses at last toward the crowded anonymity of camp.

Nearly 3,000 orcs huddled in the night, too disciplined to panic, too shocked and bewildered to plan, afraid to go out and hunt their horses. Not until dawn did they round up their animals and count them. Nearly a hundred had been killed or disabled by the Northmen from the air. Hundreds more, wounded or dangerous with panic, had been killed by the orcs to still their frantic hooves. Many, in the open prairie, had been felled with swords by night-covered Northmen riders.

The legion could not seek help or advice; there had been neither radio nor psi-tuner to send with them, nor apparent need. The commander and his staff agreed; they could reach the shelter of foothill forests with two days of steady riding—with only one more night beneath the open sky. Then perhaps they still might carry out their mission.

The eight hundred on foot might make it in four days of hard marching, but they'd be on their own. The men on horseback would not stay with them.

As the climbing sun began to heat the day, the orcs started westward again, heavy with foreboding. The prairie now seemed huge and hostile, with no help to be had, and home almost a four-day ride behind them. To go west, as they were, might be logical, but psychologically it was devastating. Especially to the men on foot as they saw the cavalry move farther and farther ahead and out of sight.

* * *

That same night the First, Second, and Fourth Legions had camped on the last extensive dry ground west of the Danube's old west channel. They numbered 7,300 instead of 9,000; the five cohorts guarding the City had been assigned from the Fourth Legion and were half of its roster.

The old west channel had long been merely a marsh, with a series of lakes and sloughs connected by flood channels. Between it and the river the country was mostly more marshes and wet meadows. Across the marshes the orcs had built a military road to the Danube, of squared stone slabs laid on gravel. It crossed flood channels and creeks on low causeways. On the east side of the river it continued again to the City. The river itself was not bridged; men customarily swam their horses across.

The Northmen had not taken this road, and again Kamal was puzzled and mistrusting. They had followed instead an old road southeastward. This second route was really a cattle trail located to take advantage of what firm ground there was, filled with broken rock in the worst places, with a rough causeway over the main flood channel. It reached the river about six kilometers upstream of the military road, at rough stone docks. The dock location took advantage of the current in barging cattle to the City via the ancient ship canal.

It was disturbing when a shrewd and deadly enemy did the illogical for an unknown reason. It smelled of trickery. The best explanation Kamal could think of was that the Northmen feared meeting a strong orc force on the military road—feared being caught between armies where the marshes would frustrate their freedom of movement. They would have to abandon their horses in order to flee.

That was probably it, Kamal decided, and felt better. The Northmen were always wary of traps and couldn't know there wasn't another orc army. Kamal sent a light scouting patrol pounding down the Northmen's trail while his army rested their mounts. Three hours later they returned on lathered horses. The Northmen, they reported, had followed the route to the river and entered it below the docks.

Kamal still wasn't sure, but now this was beginning to smell like the overdue stroke of luck that could ensure success. For where the Northmen had crossed would put them on the South side of the ship canal, and the City was on the north side. When they discovered this they'd have another crossing to make, an impossible crossing. The bridge above the City was easily defended, and its center section could be raised. As for fording, the canal's smooth current was strong, and except for easily defended boat landings, its sides were too steep for horses.

He had his trumpeter signal a speed march. Thousands of horses began an easy trot, taking the military, not the cattle, road. Within an hour Kamal was at the river, its dark water nearly a kilometer wide. Nagged again by misgivings, the grim-faced orc stared across for a bit. But he had to cross somewhere, and this was the logical time and place. Trumpets blew and the lead cohorts spread to form ranks along the shore. With the next signal, the first rank urged its mounts carefully down the rip-rapped bank and began swimming.

* * *

Hovering an oblique six kilometers away, Ivan Yoshida switched the visual pickup from the waiting Northmen to the orcs swimming their horses toward the ambush. When the first rank of their tiring horses had no more than fifty meters farther to swim, arrows began to sleet into it.

After a moment's confusion the line of orcs straightened, still moving forward, the second rank advancing steadily behind them. Three thousand orcs were in the water now. Trumpets blew, and in less than a minute Kamal knew about the ambush. He realized at once what had happened. The Northmen must know the country after all. They had baited him by taking the cattle road, then had swum their horses downstream as they crossed, to land on the north side of the canal after all. He snapped a command. His trumpeter signalled a flanking movement and certain cohorts began letting themselves be carried farther downstream.

Alpha slid through the sky, quartering gravitic vectors, braked, and flew down the fourth rank of orcs at twenty meters, about eighty meters out from the east bank. Charles alternated short bursts from the two automatic rifles he'd mounted beneath the hull. His Northmen leveled oblique fire from the doors.

The run was completed in seconds, chopping up the third, fourth and fifth ranks. Many of the survivors continued their advance, but some milled in confusion and many others turned their horses downstream. Alpha banked and circled for another run. The first two ranks had taken heavier losses to neoviking archery and a few were fighting on the bank. Kniv had platoons of mounted warriors in reserve to hit any bridgehead the orcs might establish.

Meanwhile Beta had also entered the action, flying a deadly first run near the west bank. The orcs swimming there broke and turned back, as much because of a screaming siren mounted on the pinnace as the streams of deadly bullets. Troops not yet in the water held back their horses, looking nervously toward their trumpeters.

Ram himself flew the Beta. His second run was down the river's midline, siren shrieking again, but he withheld the fire from his mounted guns although his door gunners took their toll. He would be content to break the crossing without maximum kill.

All the swimming ranks began breaking up now in turmoil, trying to get back to the west bank or escape downstream. After his third run, Ram flew to hover seventy meters above the junction of road and river. His voice boomed from the partly raised commast.

"Orcs! Do you surrender? Do you surrender? Dismount, stack your weapons, and line up unarmed, and I will spare your lives." He paused. "Shout your answer! I will hear it!"

There was no immediate answer. Ram glared across at the Alpha still moving busily up and down the river killing orcs.

Kamal's aide-de-camp looked worriedly at his commander.

"No!"

"But my Lord, we have no choice! We have no way to fight back!"

"Orcs have never surrendered. Never! I will die first."

As if in answer, Alpha skimmed across the water toward them, spewing bullets. The command staff threw themselves from their saddles and embraced the ground among stamping hooves and falling horses. When they got up, those who did, Kamal raised his fist to shake it at the banking Alpha, then pitched forward with a dagger between his shoulder blades.

"We surrender!" bellowed his aide-de-camp. "We surrender!"

"Stack your weapons beside the river in big piles," commanded the voice from the sky, "then line up on the road and picket your horses."

Beta floated watchfully as trumpets blew and couriers galloped. Alpha was downriver again, killing orcs. Along the banks grew piles of lances, swords and bows. A sluggish stream of mounted orcs flowed onto the road, still disciplined but without their arrogance, finally picketing their horses along the shoulders and forming ranks on foot.

Downstream the short bursts of gunfire from the Alpha retreated to the edge of hearing. Suddenly she was back, strafing the long and unarmed ranks upon the road while fragmentation grenades tumbled from her doors. She made but one run; the orcs scattered into the marsh grass to flee or hide. Ram was screaming invective into the radio, spitting with rage, then shot forward and banked toward Alpha.

Nils shouted in warning; "Alpha! Ta flykk!" Alpha shot into an accelerating climb, and after a moment Ram halted, turned to Nils and poured obscenities on him. When his surge of rage had passed, he stood panting, face red, eyes bulging.

"You didn't ask my people whether they were willing to let the orcs surrender," Nils responded bluntly. "You made your peace with them, but you do not speak for my people. You presumed too much. To the tribes and many other people, the orcs are a deadly enemy who would destroy them if they could and enslave the survivors.

"And how had you intended to deal with your thousands of prisoners? You have no place to take them, nothing to feed them, and you could not control them for long. Your action was without thought."

Ram glared. "And Ivan!" he said hoarsely, "that treasonous bastard! He could see what I was doing, and still he strafed them."

"Why Ivan?" Nils asked. "Sten Vannaren can fly her and probably did. I told him to make sure he learned."

"I'll bet you did." Ram fixed him with his eyes. "I'll bet you were behind the whole rotten treacherous thing. Well, that's it, you barbarian filth! Hostages or no hostages, you'll get no more support from me; no air support and no more ammunition. Absolutely none!"

"Then I'd better explain to Kniv Listi."

The response had been completely matter of fact. Ram hesitated briefly, then reached for the transmitter switch. The exchange in Scandinavian took several minutes, then Nils turned to Ram. "Listi asks no more help from the Beta, and will kill no unarmed prisoners in your control as long as they are in your control. He retains the right to kill any others. Meanwhile you must bring more ammunition and grenades or he will keep your people."

"But I have your vow!" Ram snapped. "And your woman and brat! You think I won't do anything to you. Don't be too sure."

Nils's mind stared mildly into Ram's, and although the captain usually kept outside thoughts from his consciousness, he felt it opening now to the Northman.

(Ram, Ram, you have become dangerous to yourself. A minute ago you were willing to kill two of your own people; in your rage you didn't care. If you'd killed them, you would have destroyed yourself as well.

(The tribes are not your enemy. They withhold your people because they see your help as the fastest and least costly method of driving the orcs away. Without it, many of my people will die, and, many others in other lands.

(So go back to your ship before you do something you will not forgive yourself.)

Ram shivered, feeling physically ill. The word-thoughts flowed on with sure calmness. (The land of the orcs is not the place for you. Ugly things happen here—evil things. Perhaps Chandra and Anne Marie will tell you a little of that someday. Perhaps.

(You are Ram Uithoudt, master artisan, maker of wonders, who sails between the stars. You are not prepared to live with war. Let Matthew Kumalo lead your people down here beneath the sky. He is not as smart as you, but he is wiser, and he has a stronger stomach.)

While the two had faced each other in pregnant silence, the crew had looked on soberly. They had not needed to hear speech to know that something decisive was happening or who was prevailing.

Their captain turned now to the co-pilot.

"Take us back up, Lee," he said quietly, "back to the ship."

* * *

When the Beta had disappeared, Sten made a run along the bank, spraying the orcs who had crept out of the reeds and tall grass and were rearming themselves from the piles. It was time, he decided, to see if the incendiary grenades could really set the heaps aflame, as Charles had told them.

XXVII

Corporal Sabri had felt it in his bones that today would be different. They'd walked more than forty kilometers yesterday in the trail of the cavalry. Forty kilometers and no sign of the sky chariot that had attacked them in the night, or of Northmen. It was as if they'd been lost track of.

But then, twice in the night mounted men had pounded through the fringes of camp, trampling and slashing. They hadn't been overlooked after all, and he knew that something very bad would happen this day.

So far it hadn't, and the sun was past midday.

The prairie was hilly here. A route along a river would be level but there'd be marshes and meanders to detour, adding miles. If they camped by a marsh it would be harder for horsemen to attack them, or if they camped in a marsh. But then they'd be eaten alive by mosquitoes, and it would make little difference to the Northmen anyway. He'd been in the Ukraine; the Northmen always found a way. Masters of trickery, surprise and ambush, they fought head on only when they had to, and then they were the worst of all. Never corner a Northman.

Probably if they captured their women they'd find them all with poison barbs in their loins.

It was heavy work walking uphill through thick knee-high grass, even though the cavalry had ridden it down the day before. Here in the lead rank, locusts rose at their approach, flying jerkily, clicking and buzzing. And increasingly there were flies. The horsemeat they carried was beginning to stink. They'd have been better off to take time to smoke it, if the Northmen weren't going to harass them any more than they had. Probably they were harassing the bastards who still had horses; serve their asses right for riding off like that. Orcs shouldn't ride off like that and leave their buddies. They hadn't even left them any mounted scouts; just abandoned them.

The slope was leveling off, and a trumpet blew the halt. He raised his eyes and looked around. They had climbed a long rounded ridge, affording a view of the previous one behind them and the next one waiting ahead. Above was a vault of pale blue without a speck of cloud to shield them from a baleful sun. And no puff of breeze today, even here on top. Usually there was a breeze, but that too had abandoned them. He wiped sweat from his eyes with a hairy gritty wrist and reached for his canteen.

The murmuring around him changed tone and he looked again toward the west. One of the scouts was approaching, striding steadily toward them against the grade. "What is it?" men called out. "What did you find?"

Sabri couldn't hear his reply, but got it in installments as murmurs crept through the ranks. The cavalry had camped just ahead the night before. There were hundreds of bodies there of men and horses. Served them right, he told himself, the dirty dog robbers.

And there was more to report. The men who'd been left without horses there had not marched on westward; their tracks turned south.

It was a longer break than usual. When the trumpets raised them to their feet again, they too were ordered southward. Any pretense of marching to attack the Northman villages was dead. The idea now was to escape.

* * *

The sun was low and they were tired, and impatient to make camp, when the sky chariot came. They stopped, upright and helpless, watching it approach. As it passed overhead, small objects hurtled from it to burst with a roar, and death hissed and warbled. Ranks broke, squads scattering. It circled, swooped, and more of the death stones were hurled at clusters of orcs. The clusters broke, men running singly and in twos and threes and fours, scattering outward, away from each other. The chariot continued to circle low, seeking groups, making loud sharp claps and staccato rattling sounds, and men fell with bleeding holes.

When night came, orcs were scattered over several square kilometers. In the darkness they encountered one another to form small bands. Some moved back to make isolated camps along a creek they'd crossed earlier. Others spent the night where they were. Still others moved on in the darkness seeking safety in maximum separation. No longer were they an army; they were fleeing refugees.

* * *

Eight of them were swimming a small river, pushing bundles of reeds that floated their equipment and boots. Helmets and mail had been abandoned; they'd kept only harness, swords and packs. Sabri felt soft mud with his toes, kicked a few strokes farther and waded ashore.

As a horseman he'd been lean; after four days on foot he was leaner. A man could eat rotting horse-meat, but he ate no more than he needed, and maybe less. When all had reached the bank he led them slopping through the tall reeds, carrying his boots. Black muck coated his legs halfway to the knees.

Reeds gave way to waist-high grass, and muck to springy soil. Not far away, carrion birds took flight and he angled toward the spot, the others following. Five orc bodies lay there, just starting to swell. The arrows had frugally been cut out of them and their skulls had been peeled.

It was good, he thought. If Northman searchers had passed through already, perhaps they were safe for a time. The eight sat down, wiped the mud from their feet and ankles with grass, put on their boots, and left.

* * *

A trickle of water seeped from the slope. One of them had scooped a hollow with his tough fingers. They were drinking and filling their canteens when they heard the shout from behind. Ten Northmen were on a low rise. They jogged their horses forward, stopping forty meters away with arrows nocked. Boys they were, snot-nosed punks maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, with the visible beginning of beards on a couple of them.

And they were grinning! Sabri gripped his sword, a snarl twisting his face, and started toward them, but for only a few steps before he fell.

XXVIII

The edge of night had passed the Balkans, twilight darkening the Mediterranean as far as Sicily, when Beta floated through the gaping portal and settled gently into her cradle. The doors came together slowly and perforce quietly behind her, shutting space outside. Air bled back into the hangar.

When their gages indicated pressure and temperature ship-normal, Willi, Alex, and Nikko got out. Ram was waiting for them, and they walked together toward the briefing room.

"What's the word on Matt?" asked Nikko.

"Jomo says he may have to go in after some tissue and regenerate a new kidney," Ram answered. "He'll know in a day or two. Not that there's any danger—there's not—but I think you'd better stay aboard tomorrow. What'd you find below?"

The quick change of subject did not escape Nikko. He hadn't wanted to give her time to disagree about staying on board.

"Things weren't much different than yesterday," she replied, "but we have a fuller picture now. And a few more magazines of video tape. The Northmen took a prisoner for us—a centurion who speaks Anglic. Apparently all their officers do. Did. He said the army he was part of was the orc Third Legion. They were supposed to destroy the Northman villages while their warriors were away. A legion is 3,000 men, incidentally. After two nights of air attacks, they were in pretty poor shape, and then the irregular army of mounted farmers and adolescents began hit and run attacks, and finally mop-up operations. He was pretty bitter about Alpha—said if it wasn't for her they'd have cleaned out the Northmen. As it was, he doubts that more than a couple hundred mounted orcs reached the forest, and by that time no one knew where anyone else was.

"He got there with a band of six other men, and when he told them they should try to join up with others and find the villages, they refused. Said the only sensible thing to do was get out of the country. He was pretty bitter about that, too."

"How about the men on foot?"

"The same picture as yesterday, only worse. They're scattered all over the prairie, heading south. But they're a lot fewer today. There are whole troops of freeholders and kids on horseback out hunting them. The kids are the worst—hundreds of them, all would-be warriors eager to take an orc scalp while there are any left. And lots of them have, I guess, some of them three or four. Some fifteen and sixteen-year-olds got carried away with themselves and dismounted, to take on a band of orcs sword to sword. Sten says they didn't do too badly, considering, but several were killed. He seemed to think it was mildly amusing.

"I'll tell you frankly, Ram, I doubt if five dozen orcs on foot will get out of the country alive, and they'll be the real survivor type."

They went into the narrow conference room and sat around one end of the hardwood table.

"What about the main orc army, that we caught at the river?" Ram asked thoughtfully.

"Most of the survivors must be back in the City by now. We spotted a couple of mounted bands ourselves, riding toward the City from the north. Sten says his people took more than a thousand scalps, and estimates several hundred other orcs must have died in the river, shot from the air or by archers or had their horses killed from under them. With mail shirts on, most that got unhorsed must have drowned; some probably managed to shuck out of them.

"We saw some survivors in the delta country today, too. It looked as if they'd taken over a couple of villages there—as if they weren't even trying to get back to the City. I mentioned it to Sten, thinking he might say something about going to chase them out, but he didn't; I guess to the Northmen the delta fishermen don't mean much."

Ram's eyes were withdrawn. "What do the Northmen plan to do about the City?" he asked.

"I asked him about that. He said they won't attack it in force or besiege it, but they're rounding up the rest of the orc cattle. They also intend to burn the wheat fields when the grain is ripe; he believes they can starve the orcs out. And from a couple of things he said, some raid leaders will probably try to make names for themselves by raiding into the City at night, independently."

"Do you still like the Northmen?"

She did not hesitate. "Yes I do, Ram. They're friendly honest people, even if they are bloodthirsty and ruthless toward their enemies. I know you're feeling a kind of sympathy for the orcs, but compare the way they treated their hostages with how the Northmen treated me. And consider what the orcs would have done if they'd broken the Northman army."

Ram shook his head without irritation. "It's not a matter of feeling sorry for the orcs," he said quietly. "But each orc is a human being, with one life that's his, and with feelings. And there's the matter of feeling joy in killing, like the Northmen obviously do; that's something I find depraved. From the skimpy picture I've got, partly from you and Charles but partly from Ilse too, an important part of their culture is a set of rules that allows them to enjoy killing their fellow Northmen without destroying their society or suffering from guilt."

"Making a game out of war was an improvement," Nikko answered mildly. "According to tradition, they used to fight each other really ferociously and ruthlessly, tribe against tribe and clan against clan, and really threatened to destroy themselves. Making it a game was progress, not degeneracy."

"They didn't go far enough," Ram said dryly. "They should have written off war altogether. And that's no game they're playing with the orcs." He stopped Nikko's response with a gesture. "Okay, I admit that last wasn't fair; it'd be suicide to play games with the orcs. Did they say when they'll be done with Alpha?"

"Sten talked to the chiefs about that. They say we can have it back when they've taken the city."

"Taken the city! Good Lord! That could be months from now!"

Nikko shrugged silently.

"And no assurance we'll get it back then."

"I think we have some assurance," Willi put in. "They've been pretty honest with us so far. Slippery maybe, but they've kept their word. They gave us back all their hostages when you gave them most of our munitions."

Ram grunted, then turning to Nikko he changed the subject. "Do you have all your tapes transferred to the computer?"

"All but today's."

"Good. Matt wants a full session sometime soon, and a full team review of everything that's happened. I want you to start working with Monica tomorrow on a subject retrieval program."

"If I'm doing that, then who'll be in charge of the landing team?"

"I'm going down tomorrow," Ram answered.

"You're not qualified to be in charge," Nikko said.

"I'm going alone."

There was a moment's lag. "Alone?"

He stood, nodding, and turned away from them, walking toward the door. "Alone," he said.

Wordless, they watched him leave. He went to his little office and sat back to think about the day to come.

* * *

Sight of a pinnace no longer excited the children, for this was the village of Sten Vannaren, who often landed there. But when the hull went two-way transparent, they stopped to watch, for it held a star man instead of warriors. It settled to the ground, the hydraulic leg-cushions sighed, and the dominant boy of the group trotted off through the morning-wet grass to tell Nils Järnhann.

The Yngling sat cross-legged in the sun outside his tent. It made the boy uncomfortable to have the blind sockets turn toward him as he trotted up, as if there still were eyes in them. All the orcs should die for that, he told himself.

"Nils," he said, "a star man has come in a sky boat."

Nils smiled and rose with easy strength, and the boy moved to take his arm.

"No, I can see."

"Really?" He'd heard what the Yngling seemed to do, but it had not been real to him.

"Really. I wouldn't tease about something like that." He started toward the landing place, the boy hurrying beside him.

Ram sat in the pinnace door, his feet on a step, looking solemnly at the other children, who had come to the foot of the landing steps and were looking back at him. He had spoken to them in Anglic, and they to him in their language, a reflex of the desire to communicate. Neither expected to be understood. A long pause followed each exchange, then either the man or one of the children would speak again.

"This must be a good place to be a child," Ram said. "For two cents I'd take my shoes off and join you."

"Har Du vat å sjutit ijäl orker?"

Pause.

"I'm sorry I can't understand you. I'd like to be your friend though."

The smallest child touched the ladder, then turned to the one who'd done the talking. "Tror Du å vi få fuga på sjybåten?"

To get a ride in the sky boat! The twelve-year-old eyes turned thoughtful; it hadn't occurred to him. But how to ask?

A heavy shout crossed the meadow, and the children looked across toward a standing warrior figure, then abruptly toward the grove of aspens at which he pointed. A man sat on horseback there, wearing black mail and a plumed helmet. Suddenly the horseman spurred his mount toward the pinnace.

The shout had chilled Ram and he stood, peering toward its source, recognizing the pointing giant despite the hundred-meter separation. The children were scattering like quail.

The shout repeated. "ORC!"

He turned then, saw, and sprang toward the instrument panel to activate the shield, changing intention in mid-stride.

The children!

He snatched a rifle from the rack without taking time to check the magazine, leaped from the door, stumbling as he landed, spun, thumbing the safety, and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked slightly as 5-millimeter H.V. slugs spurted. The horse plunged heavily and skidded, hurling the orc from the saddle less than twenty meters from the star man. Staggering to his feet, he drew his sword, and Ram squeezed his trigger again.

Then he turned away and vomited.

"Han spyr! Sjäänmannen spyr!" said one of the children [He is vomiting! The star man is vomiting!]

"Jaha," said the twelve-year-old knowingly, "dä sån sjäänfåken visa haten mot orkena." [That's how the star people show their hatred of the orcs.]

Ram rinsed his mouth while waiting for Nils Järnhann, spitting the water into the grass. His hands were shaking and he shoved them in his pockets. The children were examining the dead orc, one lifting the sword from the grass for a clumsy two-handed swing. Ram turned from them and walked to meet the eyeless warrior. Other adults were coming from the encampment now, drawn by the shouts and the shooting.

"Thank you," Nils said, "for saving our children's lives." He paused. "What is it you came to ask?"

"I want to—I think I can get the orcs to leave the country—I hope I can—to leave on their ships and leave their slaves behind. At least I want to try. And I want you along."

Ram sensed that if Nils had had eyes they would be examining him intently, as his mind must be. "Why?" asked the Northman. "Why do you want me along?"

Ram had already asked himself that; asked it in the pinnace as he'd approached the meadow to land. It seemed important to know, but there had been no answer.

"Will you come?"

Nils nodded.

Just then one of the children touched Ram's arm. He looked down. A red-smeared hand held out a crudely hacked scalp to him.

"Dä Din."

"He says it is yours," Nils explained. "It was you who made the kill."

Ram stared. The boy was about twelve, his eyes direct, in attitude resembling a miniature warrior.

Ram took the scalp. "Thank you," he said soberly, and made a slight bow. The boy bobbed in return, then trotted off to where his friends were pulling the mail from the dead torso.

* * *

Slowly Beta circled the black tower. No one showed themselves despite the voice booming from the commast. "Orcs! Orcs! I am the commander of the star ship that floats above the sky. I make you an offer. I make you an offer."

After two minutes no one had appeared. The voice resumed. "I have an offer for the orcs. I offer you your lives. If you refuse, the Northmen will give you death and destruction."

They continued circling; the orcs made no sign. "Why don't they show?" Ram muttered.

"It's a large palace," Nils replied. "Someone would have to take word of us to the commander. He might then want to think for awhile, and after that there are long corridors and stairs to walk. Why don't you talk to them some more? There'll be other interested ears, if not the ruler's."

Ram repeated, waited, repeated again. Moments later three men emerged onto the highest roof garden and stared grimly at the pinnace without speaking. At last one of them called, "I am Dov the Silent. I rule the orcs."

"Here is my offer," Ram's voice boomed. "If the orcs leave their slaves behind and go from this city on their ships, they will not be molested."

The face in the viewscreen was a harsh mask, eyes narrowed, mouth a gash. "Why should we do that? We need our slaves to do for us, and we are a great army. The Northmen cannot dig us out of here, although we hope they try."

Nils reached out his hand, and after a moment's hesitation Ram gave him the microphone.

"Orc, I am Ironhand, the Northman who killed a lion and a strutting coward in your arena, blasted the throng through the troll's mind, and escaped. Who killed Kazi with my sword. Captured and blinded, I escaped your dungeon and led my warriors into the bowels of the palace to take your hostages from you.

"So listen to me. You are bunglers. Your brave words are hollow, like your soldiers. Your people have fought Northmen time and again, with great advantage of numbers; you have never won. Your soldiers know they cannot beat us.

"Each time we've fought, you've been weakened. Where are the thirty-five thousand you boasted of a year ago? Thousands are bleached bones in the Ukraine. In one day you shrank by half, when the horse barbarians abandoned you as men already doomed.

"Ten days ago ten thousand orcs rode out to destroy us, with a sky chariot to help them. Today we have the sky chariot. We took eleven hundred scalps near the river, and even close to your city. Hundreds of orcs feed the fish. Flies blow in the corpses of the Third Legion; not three hundred of them are alive, little bands of fleeing men hiding by day and skulking southward by night. They do not take ten steps without looking backward."

Ram stared at the blind barbarian with something like awe. What a speaker, and in a language not his own!

"And ruler, where are yesterday's rulers? Kazi, who lived many lifetimes, dead by my sword. And what became of the strutting Draco when he flew out to destroy the Northmen?

"You defy us to dig you out of your city. Why should we trouble to? Can the orcs eat stone? Where are your cattle? Who guards your grain fields now that the Northmen fly abroad in the sky? Your horses swell and stink in their paddocks since our sky chariot visited them; they feed the worms. Will you eat your slaves then? They won't last long. Then you will have to eat each other.

"Listen to the star man, orc. He is a rare one, a man who does not want to see the orcs all dead."

The orc shouted back, his voice hoarse, defiant. "Then why does a Northman speak for him? If the Northmen can starve us out, then why do you, a Northman, want to let us leave freely and unmolested? Because you're afraid of us after all! We are still the orcs, mighty and great in numbers!"

"Afraid of you after all what? After all your defeats?" Nils's voice was bored now. "No, there is nothing there to fear. We'll be rid of you one way or another, and the Northmen owe the star men a favor. So the captain of the star men has claimed the right to save your lives if you will depart and leave your slaves behind."

"How do we know you won't fly down and attack us on our ships?"

"You have only our oath; you take a chance. But if you stay, you face a certainty: cannibalism, starvation, and death."

The orc stood sullenly, both aides talking to him at once. He snarled and they backed away; then he looked up at the pinnace again and shouted in Anglic:

"Kazi said it to our fathers! 'This will be the place of the orcs as long as the tower shall stand!' The Master's spirit will strengthen and save us! He is undying!"

At that moment Ram knew what to do. Siren shrieking, he twice swung Beta around the tower as he lifted away. As he rose even with its top, he cut off the siren and answered Dov the Silent, the commast speaker on full volume now. The words rolled like small thunder over the palace.

"AS LONG AS THE TOWER SHALL STAND? THEN THE TOWER WILL FALL!"

* * *

The night was clear and moonless, with a chill breeze. Mikhail Ciano led the task force—men in asbestos suits and oxygen masks. Orcs shivering on roof tops stared fearfully at the grotesque forms at the base of the tower, at the beams of laser drills and the glow of molten rock. The snorkel worked ceaselessly at handling the heat that built up within the shield. At intervals, when the build-up became excessive, the shield was switched off for a moment to let the night wind blow the heat away. Finally the glow died, and shortly the shield switched off again. There was a series of small explosions as coolant was jetted into bore holes; then the shield was reactivated and all was quiet. At last the pinnace lifted and disappeared into the night sky.

Nothing happened. The soldiers, who had watched almost without speaking, began talking softly among themselves, and a few started leaving the roofs. Abruptly a stupendous roar shook the night as great gouts of flame shot from the base of the tower. Its dim bulk seemed to lean, did lean, like a colossal tree whose roots had rotted, fell with a stupefying shock of sound across the roof gardens, caving in whole sections of the palace, and rumbled into the square below.

The death of its echoes left silence and deafness for long seconds, while orcs rose first to knees and elbows, then trembling to their feet on nearby roofs. A single voice began to wail, was joined by another, growing to a chorus that thickened the night.

XXIX

But if on Earth mankind had died,

Satan lived there still,

Like Onan cast his seed beside that sea

as dragon's teeth,

up there sprang

orcs.

Nursed on battered breasts

to monsters grew,

their arrogance,

swollen with sadism,

sustained by screams,

restored through massacre.

In such a universe

how can I live?

And yet unhumaned

do not die,

memories like maggots

crawling through my damaged brain.

From—EARTH, by Chandra Queiros

* * *

There was defeat in Dov's face, in his voice and his manner, although his back was still straight. All slaves would remain in the City except skilled seamen to work the sheets and lines. Orcs themselves would row.

The exodus began early the morning following the agreement. Beta hovered within sight of those below, shifting now and then. All day formations of orcs marched to the harbor, boarded galleys and left. The team watching from the pinnace was impressed with their order, the sharp rectangularity of their units.

And there was no sign of cheating, no hint that slaves were being smuggled in orc garb. None among the marchers lacked the ramrod spine, the erect head, the quick strong in-step stride of an orc. Or the sword. Without exception all were orcs, remarkably rehabilitated after all their defeats.

Nor had any slaves been smuggled to the harbor in the night; the IR scanner vouched for that. Besides, the galleys were open, undecked except for forecastle and poop; there was little room for concealment.

Apparently the threat of embargo and starvation had set deep hooks in the orc chief's mind, and he probably knew of the monitoring ability which the pinnaces had.

By nightfall only a few hulls remained in the harbor. The rest were strung out over many kilometers of sea, running near the shore and working southward. By morning many would be passing the wooded coast of what once had been Bulgaria. The Beta's crew stood solitary introspective watches through the night. With the sun the same few hulls were still empty beside the docks.

"That's right, Captain," Mikhail said into the radio. "Apparently they're either excess or not seaworthy. I suspect it's the latter; the orcs seemed pretty crowded on those they sailed in.

"No, we're all pretty sure they didn't take any slaves with them except for about six per ship as agreed on. We used a magnification that gave us a good look at them: typical lovable orcs, arrogant in spite of all. Pretty remarkable, considering. We got a good count, too; about seventy-three hundred in perfect military order. Just about as many as we calculated there should be."

They exchanged a few listless comments then and broke communication. Beta hung tiresomely at three kilometers through the long sunny morning and past midday, watching. The city below seemed dead. They were not sure whether their vigil was over or there was more to watch for. Mikhail considered suggesting they ask the Northmen to land a patrol, but decided to wait.

Charles stared narrowly at the screen.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"There's something fishy down there."

"I know. The Black Sea."

Charles glanced at him with irritation. "Why don't we see any slaves?"

Mikhail didn't answer, but his expression changed.

"There ought to be thousands of them moving around down there," Charles went on. "Celebrating or something. I haven't seen more than a handful."

They looked at one another, the thought shaping itself in both their minds. Mikhail reached for the controls and the pinnace began to drop; all of them were alert now. Briefly they circled the palace at a hundred meters, then settled toward the rubble-heaped square.

"Me and Ivan," Charles said, "if it's all right with him."

Ivan nodded, patting the grenade-filled pocket that bulged on his right thigh.

"Okay," said Mikhail, "but be careful. We'll try to cover you if there's any need."

The snorkel sucked it in as they lowered farther, and they smelled it strongly when they opened the door. Charles and Ivan, pistols in hand, started toward the nearest building, and the Beta rose to ten meters, ready. The two disappeared through a doorway, emerged two minutes later and did not call to the pinnace. They checked two more buildings before stopping in an intersection and signaling. The Beta landed again.

"They left 'em behind, all right." Charles' face was an improbable gray. "The ones we saw moving around must have found hiding places and come out afterwards. Massacre must have been night before last; the maggots have hatched already."

"Are you going to tell Ram?" Ivan asked quietly.

"I'll have to," Mikhail replied.

"Can he take it?"

"I hope so. He's had a better grip on himself lately—the last few days."

Ivan continued to look at him, his eyes sober. Mikhail reached for the radio switch. "Wish me luck."

XXX

There were nineteen people in the narrow conference room, with Matthew and Ram at one end of the table. Ram had said little, and Matthew presided in his usual style, loosely.

Carlos Lao was enjoying the adversary role. "Use a little vision, Nikko. They have a whole city open to them. Other tribes, in Earth's old history, became civilized in a single generation when they moved into a conquered city and began living there."

"Come on now, Carl," said Alex Malaluan, "you don't seriously think it was the buildings and streets of Rome that civilized the conquering Visigoths, do you? It was the Romans themselves."

"What makes you think the fifth-century Romans were any more civilized than the Visigoths who conquered them?" Nikko asked.

Alex persisted. "And the Northmen would be moving into an empty city. What sort of skills and manpower would it take to keep it operating? To keep water flowing in the ducts? Keep sewers repaired and functioning, provide labor and the transportation of goods? Warriors and hunters and herdsmen don't know how to do those things, and they're probably not inclined to learn. Slaves were the engineers and accountants and laborers, and almost all of them are dead. When they died, the city died; those buildings are the bones."

Carlos sighed noisily. "All right, I was wrong. And anyway," he added, smirking at Nikko, "the Northmen would have to be flexible, willing to change, even if the slaves were still available."

"And?"

"And according to you, they have their poet laureate writing an epic hymn celebrating the victory of the Northmen and their way of life over the corrupt orcs."

"They are willing to change though," Nikko corrected. "They have changed, and are changing. Fifteen months ago they were forest dwellers in Scandinavia who rode horses rather little and not very skillfully. They didn't even have a word for prairie or steppe—didn't even know there was such a thing. They've settled for calling it storäng, great meadow. They were an assortment of clans and tribes raiding and feuding with one another. Now they're united—even refer to themselves collectively as the People—and in less than a year's time they turned themselves into first-rate cavalry.

"But in a sense you're right. They do resist change in what they consider cultural basics. They still believe that life as herdsmen and farmers, hunters and warriors, is best for personal and cultural health and vigor. Their changes amount to adjusting their old life-ways to new circumstances and a new physical environment, without changing their principles.

"I'm not sure how smooth and easy it will be for them. They're getting ready now to explore the foothills and mountains all around the prairie, all the way around to northern Bulgaria. They're a people used to lots of room, who've been crowded together for months. They'll need to decide on new clan and tribal territories.

"And a tougher job will be to decide on whether and how to change the laws governing feuds and wars among themselves. A lot of them feel they shouldn't raid each other like they used to. They feel a lot closer to each other since they first met the orcs, and lots of them feel there are plenty of outsiders they can fight. But others feel that outsiders are too easy, that real warrior merit can be earned only by fighting worthy opponents—namely other Northmen. They'd fight outsiders only from necessity.

"And of course there's the likelihood that if they fight other people too much, the others will pick up Northman tactics and methods of training and so forth and become a lot more dangerous."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "That last bit of reasoning sounds pretty sophisticated," he said. "Are you sure you didn't think of it yourself? It doesn't strike me as a product of the barbarian mind."

"No, I heard it down there, although I have to admit it was Nils who mentioned it. But there were primitives long ago who were fairly sophisticated in some respects, and we also need to keep in mind that these people may have carried down certain concepts and attitudes from the civilized past.

"At any rate they discuss their problems quite openly; it's a remarkably open society. Even when I was a hostage they let me wander around camp freely. I talked to whoever didn't seem too busy, and most of them were happy to visit with that naive and curious star woman. I learned to handle twenty-ninth century Scandinavian pretty well, too. The major changes have been simplifications. For example they've dropped the neuter gender, changed the past tense of almost . . ."

"Whoa, stop! Enough!" Matt said. "No linguistic analyses." He looked down the two lines of familiar faces for a moment before continuing. "Ram told me before we came in that one of the things we need to talk about is when we're going to start home, and this is a good time to get into that. Ram?"

Ram leaned back in his chair. "I'll let Jomo tell you what he told me," the captain said quietly. "He's got the major reasons for a prompt departure."

The chief medical officer stood up. "Anne Marie and Chandra need treatment we can't give them here. Especially Chan. All we can do on the Phaeacia is keep him alive, and I'm not sure we can do that for very long. Somewhere within that coma there seems to be a profound wish, or willingness at least, to die; his physical injuries are not actually severe. We need to start for home as soon as we can."

"Not we, Jomo," Matthew said. "Chan and Anne. And all they need to take them there is the ship and crew. The exploration team came here to learn, and most of us have hardly set foot on Earth.

"With a landing grid waiting back home, you don't need the pinnaces; they can stay here with us. Nikko wants to spend more time with the Northmen, and I can base my operations with them. She swears that Big Nils is a new kind of human being, maybe a major new step in human evolution. Incidentally, did you know he's only twenty-one years old? And there are the Psi Kinfolk that Ilse sprang from—a whole culture of telepaths scattered throughout central and western Europe."

"The Kinfolk would really be interesting," Celia broke in. "I wish I could stay and study them myself. From what Ilse told me, they must be a living repository of post-plague history and political lore."

"And there are the orcs," Nikko added. "Some of the surviving slaves are educated people, and one of Kazi's daughters is with them. There'll be a lot we can learn about the orcs from them, and especially from her.

"Nils insists that Kazi was born before the plague and was one continuous personality, one unbroken ego—memory sequence—he terms it 'one being'—reincarnated time after time by taking over selected bodies. It sounds preposterous, but it would explain some of the things about orc culture, including the name orc and the black tower of the palace, both right out of the old twentieth-century fantasy classic, Lord of the Rings. And last night I found corroboration of sorts in the history bank. There was a Timur Karim Kazi born in 2064, Earth Reckoning, in Kabul, Afghanistan—a neurophysiologist and professor of Psionics, of which there probably weren't more than a few dozen on the planet. He was something of a genius."

"We hoped there'd be a lot to learn here," Matthew put in. "Now we're beginning to appreciate how much there is. That ingrown little culture of ours is in for one heck of a shot of ideas."

Ram looked rueful. "That was Gus's idea in pushing this project for so long, God rest him. Then, when we got here, too much happened too fast.

"And one thing about leaving you behind—when we get home, they'll have to let us come back here. It makes an ongoing operation out of it, not an abortion.

"One other thing: Jomo and Cele agree that an optical transplant should be possible for Nils, back home, although apparently it would be more cosmetic than anything else. He is definitely able to see without eyes. But we can take him with us, if he'd like."

* * *

Three days later the Phaeacia's mass-proximity drive winked, sending her on the first phase of her trip back to New Home—their real home, their own culture, not a home of ancient history and sentiment. While the Alpha and Beta rode down into the troposphere on a gravitic vector through the Northmen's encampment.

XXXI

(From an interview with Professor Nikko Kumalo on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday.)

You might have thought that experiences like those we'd gone through would have made us more cautious, even frightened us off. But it didn't work that way. The orcs had been our great bête noir—Draco our Gog and orcdom our Magog so to speak—and the orcs had been broken and we were disengaged from them. Thanks to the neovikings and that remarkable young man they called their Youngling.

Oh, we all realized there were other hazards as deadly as the orcs, if somewhat less horrible: brigand bands and horse barbarians and feudal lords, as well as others we presumed must exist but didn't know about. But we committed ourselves to stay—Now I don't want you to imagine we were being brave and noble in the service of science or man. It was more a sense of adventure and destiny and something like innocence. It seemed like the only thing to do. So we turned and went back down, with no real misgivings or fear. We were still somehow eager to learn more, and for experiences that would make us feel even more alive, albeit at some risk of becoming dead. You have to remember that our engineered and programmed agrarian democracy had become deadly dull for people with the life and spirit needed to get into that first space program.

I mentioned a sense of destiny. That was part of it. And the feeling wasn't just mine, or something an old woman has added to the rememberings of her youth. We've all reminisced on it together many times, those of us who could.

It's good that we did go back, of course, despite the cost. Our world and our future would be quite different if we hadn't—much less interesting. Much less promising. But even so, it's well that we don't know our future, or at least not clearly or with any certainty. First of all it wouldn't be much fun that way. And secondly—no, there isn't any secondly. It just wouldn't be much fun. That's why people like change and resent those who try to prevent it. To a large degree, quality of life is a function of not knowing what will happen, of trying to influence it, and experiencing some amount of success.

That, young man, is what makes a rich life: uncertainty, and anticipation, and succeeding when it counts most. But some people simply can't tolerate much richness. I can, and I've had a fine full share of it. The only person I've ever envied is Nils Järnhann, not for his marvelous talents but for what he would eventually undertake.

Table of Contents

The Yngling

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

BUT MAINLY BY CUNNING

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Exodus ... Genesis

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Homecoming

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI