Dalmas, John – Yngling 02 – Homecoming

“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.

“Da 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?

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