John Dalmas - The Yngling

Casimir interrupted. "You've been in Baalzebub's land. What do you know about his army? How big is it, and how good?"

Nils looked at him squarely while answering. "It numbers about thirty thousand and it's supposed to be very good. Twenty thousand are horse barbarians, eastern tribes that have allied themselves with him. The other ten thousand are his personal army, men he calls orcs, who are proud of their brutality. I expect the horse barbarians are very dangerous in the open, but it may be they won't fight as skillfully in timber, especially if they have to get off their horses. The orcs are probably as good on foot as on horseback. Some of the orc officers are psis; they'll be hard to ambush, and if they have tuners, they'll be able to coordinate their units better in battle."

Casimir pursed his lips and scowled. "The odds sound more rotten all the time. Maybe it would be better to surrender."

"Kazi-Baalzebub, that is-wants to conquer and rule for just one reason. He loves to debase and destroy. Public tortures are his entertainment and the entertainment of his orcs. You'd be far better off to die in the saddle than in the arena, and in the meantime there will be the game of war to enjoy."

Casimir grunted.

"His strengths are obvious, but he has weaknesses, too," Nils went on. "At one time he must have been a thinker and planner, but now he doesn't seem able to hold one matter in his mind and concentrate. And he acts foolishly. One of his whims turned the King of Hungary from a reluctant ally into a total enemy. So we are four thousand stronger and he's four thousand weaker.

"I won't try to mislead you, though. With his power he can make mistakes and still win. But there is a chance, and it's the northmen that make that chance real."

Casimir looked glumly at nothing while Nils turned his eyes to Jan Reszke. "Has Raadgiver had a man among the tribes?"

"Yes, and he's reported to me. He spread the word among them that the Yngling was coming from the south to lead them to a land of rich grass and fat cattle. He's a master wordsmith. They called a council and listened to him. Now they're waiting to see what happens."

"I'll go and eat," Nils said. "And I'll want to take three squires to use as messengers."

Nils walked rapidly through the marsh, his bare feet automatically finding the firm places where there were any and slopping nonchalantly in the water or ooze where there were not. Three young Poles hurried behind, apprehensive, muddy, and unhappy.

Nils's eyes searched the forest edge ahead. Their approach was open and it was certain they'd been seen. He had spotted brief movement once and could sense watchfulness; now he began to pick up the quiet thoughts of men speaking.

"It's one of ours. Do you know him?"

"No. From here he looks big; if I knew him, I'd recognize him. What are those outlanders with him? He doesn't seem to hold them prisoner. Knut, go and get Leif Trollsverd; there's something strange about this."

"My blood. He is a big one. If he was to wrestle a bear, I'd bet against the bear."

The edge of the marsh was a ribbon of slough into which a pine had fallen from the forest margin. Nils sprang to it and picked his way through its branches toward the dry ground. The tallest of the squires sprang too, missing with a splash. The other two simply waded glumly in.

"Halt!"

The squires stopped abruptly in surprise, standing almost to their crotches in the dark water. The forest was fringed with alder shrubs, and they hadn't seen the two warriors who now stepped out to the water's edge.

"What have you got there?" The speaker's blond beard hung in two short braids, and over his steel cap was the headskin of a bull seal. Both the totem and the accent were unfamiliar to Nils and he supposed they were Norskar.

"They are messengers loaned to me by Casimir, the Polish king."

The warrior's brows raised. The Polish king? That would be their chief, he thought. "Well, tell your messengers to get out of the mire before they sink out of sight," he said. "We were posted here as sentries, and while three Polish sprouts in the keeping of a warrior hardly amounts to an attack, you'd better wait here a bit anyhow. I've sent for our group leader."

Nils and the young Poles walked into the woods with the sentries and sat on the ground. Within a minute two more warriors of the Seal Clan trotted down through the pines, and Nils arose. Leif Trollsverd was rather small for a warrior, a young man whose thin skin and sharply defined muscularity gave him a startlingly sinewy and aggressive appearance. His dark complexion and black hair looked more Mediterranean than Scandinavian.

"Have you got prisoners there?" he asked Nils; even his words were quick.

"No. They are messengers loaned to me by Casimir, the Polish king."

"And who are you? I've never seen you before."

"I am Nils Jarnhann of the Svear, and I've never been here before. I've come here from a kingdom far to the south, the land of the Magyars, to speak to the war council."

The group leader looked Nils over from head to foot, his sharp eyes absorbing a score of details. "From the south. Come then. I'll take you to Bjorn Arrbuk, our war leader. He is of your tribe." Leif Trollsverd turned and loped off, followed by Nils and the discouraged-looking squires.

The seaward dunes too had long since stabilized here and were forested, and the camp of Bjorn Arrbuk was on one of them. The war leader stood with his runners on the beach, watching a captured Polish ship work its way around a sandspit offshore.

He turned as they approached. "Ha, what are these?" he asked, looking at the young Poles.

"They came from the Polish camp. With him," Trollsverd said, indicating Nils with his thumb. "He is Nils Jarnhann of your tribe, who has come here from the south and wants to meet with the war council." The Norwegian looked meaningfully at Arrbuk, then turned and trotted away into the woods.

Bjorn Arrbuk was of middle height and middle age, his barrel chest, short, thick legs and long arms giving him an apelike look. Even his hair was an orangutan red. A scar crossed his abdomen diagonally from the lower left to the rib cage, providing his surname. A physician of eight hundred years before might have wondered how he survived such a cut without twenty-first century technology, or surviving, how he could have become fit again. But he was fit and enormously strong, with the vitality of the bear that was his totem and his life name, and given to impulsive wrestling with any warrior at hand.

He glanced sideways at Nils. "I've seen you somewhere," he said, and turned to watch the ship again. Its sail was furled against an offshore wind, and strong arms pulled the oars. "It's from Svealann," said the war leader. "Of the three tribes, six hundred warriors have landed. But the only way we'll get all the people ashore before winter is to steal more ships, and that's costly business. They're heavily guarded at the docks now, and flee from us at sea."

"The King of Poland is sending us ships," Nils replied. "They'll land here in a few days for guides to take them to the tribes so we can land people faster. And it may be that Jorgen Stennaeve of the Danes will also send ships, to Norskland and Jotmark."

Bjorn Arrbuk turned and stared at the tall warrior beside him. "The King of the Poles? You must be crazy. The King of the Poles has brought an army to try to wipe us out when we leave this place."

"I'm not crazy," Nils answered calmly. "I've just talked with him and he gave his oath. But it's not a simple story and he wants something in return. I came to tell it to the war council, but if you want me to, I'll tell it to you now and again to them later."

The burly chief stepped back from him, perplexed and a little irritated, his body half crouched in unconscious response, "What's your name again?" he asked at length, straightening.