"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.

"Nils Jarnhann. You were at the ting a year ago when I was banished. When I was a sword apprentice, I struck a warrior and killed him. A great deal has happened to me in that year. I've traveled far and learned a lot."

"I remember. Yes. Some of the Eagle Clan believed we should have decorated a pole with your head and that Axel Stornave favored you because you were of his clan." Arrbuk chuckled. "Actually Kalle Blatann was a bully and braggart, and even in his own clan there were those who thought he had gotten what was overdue to him. Had the law allowed, we might have let you off free." He turned serious then. "What you say about the Polish king is hard to believe, but we have heard things about you. I'll call the council-all that have landed. Isbjorn Hjelteson is here, and the chiefs of several clans as well as group leaders. I'll gather them for the evening meal. But now I want to see who lands with this ship."

Seventy warriors of the Reindeer Clan landed-all that clan had, for it was the smallest of the Svear. Then the ship sculled out past the sandspit, powered by the strong arms of Sea Eagle clansmen. It's sail was hoisted into the offshore wind and it started north for the Glutton fishing village of Jaavham.

Bjorn showed Nils the council circle, then trotted off with his runners to find the members of the war council while Nils gathered twigs and piled them carefully among the ashes and char of the fire site.

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."