Nils knelt beside him. The orc radiated hopelessness. “I couldn’t raise it,” he whispered. “Not enough. It must be eight centimeters thick.”

Nils’s mind acknowledged. “Now what?” he asked.

“We stay here until they come for us.”

“Come for us?”

“They have dogs. For tracking, a dog’s nose is better than telepathy. When they find what happened in the dungeon they’ll track us down.”

Nils sensed the man fumbling through a belt pouch, hunting for death. He pressed an object like a pebble into Nils’s palm. “Swallow it,” he instructed. “You’ll go to sleep and there will be no wakening. If they take us alive, after what happened… When they have done with us, even dying would bring no peace. The agony would follow beyond death itself.”

Nils regarded him calmly, and after a moment the other mind shrugged. The man put the pill in his dry mouth, far back on his tongue, swallowed, shuddered, then breathed deeply and relaxed. Nils sat beside him. Presently the orc slumped against him and Nils cradled his head and shoulders. The mind was drifting, fading, the breathing shallow. Before long Nils was alone.

XIX

Orcs still filed into the arena, into sections reserved for each legion, subsections for each cohort. The sunny side was empty; there were now no horse barbarians to fill it. After the battle of the burning prairie and the death of Kazi, almost a year earlier and so far away, their hordes had deserted the orcs. They’d careened into central Europe a disorganized mob, been decisively beaten by the united Germanic knights, and broken into scores of marauding bands. So said the reports.

There were more Asian tribes, thought Kamal the Grim, eastward on the desert steppes and plateaus and barren mountains, but there was no longer a Kazi to gather them. He turned and scanned the shady side, which in summer was the orc side. Even here many upper rows would be empty, reflecting the bleaching bones scattered in the northern Ukraine.

The command box was already filled, with chiefs of cohorts and legions circulating, conversing, shadowed by their bodyguards. They’d associated freely while the Master still lived, when future and conquest had seemed assured and factionalism remained embryonic. Some had served together in old campaigns. Now those of opposing factions saw one another almost only at the games. At any other time it would suggest dangerous disloyalty to their consul.

The situation aggravated Kamal. Reduced as they were, and without allies, they were still easily the strongest military force in the known world. They’d suffered a defeat, a severe setback, but they still had the power to conquer. Their present ineffectiveness, he told himself, was their own doing. Paralyzed by factionalism, they couldn’t even sally out in force to scatter the Northmen on their fringe. For that required, if not union, at least the forbearance of one faction while the other did the job.

And that wouldn’t happen without the victory of one faction or the other. They all knew it. But most wanted their own faction to win; for command officers there was mortal danger in defeat. And for those inclined to risk conspiracy, spies and other telepaths made it too dangerous.

Union would come eventually though, and when it did, orc power would be felt again. Europe would fall.

Once more he scanned the stands. It might be better, Kamal thought, if we didn’t hold games for awhile. A stadium two-thirds empty reminded the men of their reduction in strength. Few realized the abstract-that their force was still great, their potential overwhelming. They knew only what their eyes and memories told them: a year earlier they had been one great army which, with its allies, filled these stands. And the games had been presided over by the Master, all-powerful, feared, adored, and he’d been called the Undying. Now they looked across at empty seats, and were presided over by himself-a soldier, not a god. His role as master of the games was a demonstration of weakness, a symptom of division. The lowest soldier knew that Kamal the Grim was the only high-ranking officer trusted by both consuls.

Draco swaggered over to him and clapped his shoulder. “How stands it with the Games Master? I seldom see you anymore, Kamal.”

“That’s no fault of mine,” Kamal answered sourly.

Draco’s eyebrows rose. “No fault of yours? I think it is.” He lowered his voice as if half the men in the command box were not telepaths. “If you changed allegiance we could see a lot of each other. I appreciate a good man and a real orc. As it stands, you command a legion but have no seat in the council of your commander. With me it would be different.

“By the way, I don’t see our friend Ahmed here. Is he sick? Surely every orc is here unless duty forbids, or mortal illness.”

Kamal’s expression was grumpy. “I’m a soldier, not a power seeker or politician. I have no wish to sit on any man’s council. I’ll let others decide what should be done, as long as they give me a share in the doing.”

Draco’s mouth smiled. Kamal, he thought, you non-psi dog, you screen as well as most telepaths but you’re a poor liar. Your only guile is silence. I not only know how you think, old comrade, but often what you think, without needing to read you.

“No wish for influence? I can’t believe that. You haven’t fully considered your answer. You have a sense of right and wrong. You know the plans the Master had and what he held to be important. This, for instance.” Draco gestured about at the stadium. “He had it built while the army still lived in tents. It had priority over dwellings; only the palace preceded it. Before either of us was born, he presided here. The games and entertainments are to demonstrate our superiority, and in his time, attendance was compulsory. Now that the Master is dead, your dear Ahmed is above the law and doesn’t trouble to come. Not surprising perhaps-his father was a slave, not an orc, and he grew up in the comfort of his father’s apartment, not an orcling pen. How can you stomach a man like that?”

“I have no complaint with him. He is a strong and able leader, and he gave me my legion.”

“Hah! You led the Imperial Guard cohort, the elite of the army! Are you sure it was you Ahmed wanted? Or did he want your cohort, promoting you to gain them? With me you’d have influence along with rank. I have real orcs for counselors, too, not a fat eunuch slave like that damned Yusuf. And I haven’t abandoned the Master’s dreams and plans.”

“The Master himself had slaves as counselors; Ahmed’s father was one of them.”

“The Master was the Master! There is no comparison!” Draco almost hissed now with intensity. “Listen, old comrade, I know the kind of orc you are, and I hate to see you back a swine like that. I knew you when we were boys together. And when we were centurions in the same cohort I saw the kind of man you’d grown to be, the kind of leader you were becoming. A real orc, but not a common orc. An orc with high intelligence and a sense of destiny, providing his own discipline, thinking beyond the next orgy.

“You should sit in the councils of power. Don’t let go the Master’s dreams and give yourself to the ambitions of a slave’s son who abandoned the Master as soon as he was dead.”

Kamal answered coldly. “Perhaps I know Ahmed better than you do. His heart is an orc’s even if his stomach isn’t, and his brain is an orc’s. He is as loyal to the Master as anyone is.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? Who did the Master entrust the empire to when he went to war, and who was it he took along to keep his eye on? Think about it.

“And which of us did he plan to make his chief lieutenant? Who did he give Nephthys to?” His voice softened, his words slowed. “Now there was a gift. You can’t imagine. She is like a banquet, and the others are dry bread. When she touches me… ” His shiver seemed involuntary.