by John Dalmas
XIX
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.
XX
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, afrai
d 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 Stornave 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 Jarnhann 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 Jarnhann 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!”