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 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 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.
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 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 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.