John Dalmas - Homecoming

“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 a sjutit ijal 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 a vi fa fuga pa sjybaten?”

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! Sjaanmannen spyr!” said one of the children [He is vomiting! The star man is vomiting!]

“Jaha,” said the twelve-year-old knowingly, “da san sjaanfaken visa haten mot orkena.” [That’s how the star people show their hatred of the orcs.]

Ram rinsed his mouth while waiting for Nils Jarnhann, 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.

“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?

“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.”