The Yngling

19.

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 Bjorn Arrbuk 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 Bjorn 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.

Bjorn Arrbuk 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.

Bjorn Arrbuk 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. Bjorn Arrbuk called a council.

"Nils Jarnhann 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." Bjorn Arrbuk 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."

Bjorn 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, Bjorn Arrbuk. 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.

Bjorn Arrbuk 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 Bjorn Arrbuk. After the tally the war council met to choose a new war leader, and a group leader of the Jotar 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 Bjorn Arrbuk 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 Jarnhann 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.