Alpha slid through the sky, quartering gravitic vectors, braked, and flew down the fourth rank of orcs at twenty meters, about eighty meters out from the east bank. Charles alternated short bursts from the two automatic rifles he’d mounted beneath the hull. His Northmen leveled oblique fire from the doors.

The run was completed in seconds, chopping up the third, fourth and fifth ranks. Many of the survivors continued their advance, but some milled in confusion and many others turned their horses downstream. Alpha banked and circled for another run. The first two ranks had taken heavier losses to neoviking archery and a few were fighting on the bank. Kniv had platoons of mounted warriors in reserve to hit any bridgehead the orcs might establish.

Meanwhile Beta had also entered the action, flying a deadly first run near the west bank. The orcs swimming there broke and turned back, as much because of a screaming siren mounted on the pinnace as the streams of deadly bullets. Troops not yet in the water held back their horses, looking nervously toward their trumpeters.

Ram himself flew the Beta. His second run was down the river’s midline, siren shrieking again, but he withheld the fire from his mounted guns although his door gunners took their toll. He would be content to break the crossing without maximum kill.

All the swimming ranks began breaking up now in turmoil, trying to get back to the west bank or escape downstream. After his third run, Ram flew to hover seventy meters above the junction of road and river. His voice boomed from the partly raised commast.

“Orcs! Do you surrender? Do you surrender? Dismount, stack your weapons, and line up unarmed, and I will spare your lives.” He paused. “Shout your answer! I will hear it!”

There was no immediate answer. Ram glared across at the Alpha still moving busily up and down the river killing orcs.

Kamal’s aide-de-camp looked worriedly at his commander.

“No!”

“But my Lord, we have no choice! We have no way to fight back!”

“Orcs have never surrendered. Never! I will die first.”

As if in answer, Alpha skimmed across the water toward them, spewing bullets. The command staff threw themselves from their saddles and embraced the ground among stamping hooves and falling horses. When they got up, those who did, Kamal raised his fist to shake it at the banking Alpha, then pitched forward with a dagger between his shoulder blades.

“We surrender!” bellowed his aide-de-camp. “We surrender!”

“Stack your weapons beside the river in big piles,” commanded the voice from the sky, “then line up on the road and picket your horses.”

Beta floated watchfully as trumpets blew and couriers galloped. Alpha was downriver again, killing orcs. Along the banks grew piles of lances, swords and bows. A sluggish stream of mounted orcs flowed onto the road, still disciplined but without their arrogance, finally picketing their horses along the shoulders and forming ranks on foot.

Downstream the short bursts of gunfire from the Alpha retreated to the edge of hearing. Suddenly she was back, strafing the long and unarmed ranks upon the road while fragmentation grenades tumbled from her doors. She made but one run; the orcs scattered into the marsh grass to flee or hide. Ram was screaming invective into the radio, spitting with rage, then shot forward and banked toward Alpha.

Nils shouted in warning; “Alphal Ta flykk!” Alpha shot into an accelerating climb, and after a moment Ram halted, turned to Nils and poured obscenities on him. When his surge of rage had passed, he stood panting, face red, eyes bulging.

“You didn’t ask my people whether they were willing to let the orcs surrender,” Nils responded bluntly. “You made your peace with them, but you do not speak for my people. You presumed too much. To the tribes and many other people, the orcs are a deadly enemy who would destroy them if they could and enslave the survivors.

“And how had you intended to deal with your thousands of prisoners? You have no place to take them, nothing to feed them, and you could not control them for long. Your action was without thought.”

Ram glared. “And Ivan!” he said hoarsely, “that treasonous bastard! He could see what I was doing, and still he strafed them.”

“Why Ivan?” Nils asked. “Sten Vannaren can fly her and probably did. I told him to make sure he learned.”

“I’ll bet you did.” Ram fixed him with his eyes. “I’ll bet you were behind the whole rotten treacherous thing. Well, that’s it, you barbarian filth! Hostages or no hostages, you’ll get no more support from me; no air support and no more ammunition. Absolutely none!”

“Then I’d better explain to Kniv Listi.”

The response had been completely matter of fact. Ram hesitated briefly, then reached for the transmitter switch. The exchange in Scandinavian took several minutes, then Nils turned to Ram. “Listi asks no more help from the Beta, and will kill no unarmed prisoners in your control as long as they are in your control. He retains the right to kill any others. Meanwhile you must bring more ammunition and grenades or he will keep your people.”

“But I have your vow!” Ram snapped. “And your woman and brat! You think I won’t do anything to you. Don’t be too sure.”

Nils’s mind stared mildly into Ram’s, and although the captain usually kept outside thoughts from his consciousness, he felt it opening now to the Northman.

(Ram, Ram, you have become dangerous to yourself. A minute ago you were willing to kill two of your own people; in your rage you didn’t care. If you’d killed them, you would have destroyed yourself as well.

(The tribes are not your enemy. They withhold your people because they see your help as the fastest and least costly method of driving the orcs away. Without it, many of my people will die, and, many others in other lands.

(So go back to your ship before you do something you will not forgive yourself.)

Ram shivered, feeling physically ill. The word-thoughts flowed on with sure calmness. (The land of the orcs is not the place for you. Ugly things happen here-evil things. Perhaps Chandra and Anne Marie will tell you a little of that someday. Perhaps.

(You are Ram Uithoudt, master artisan, maker of wonders, who sails between the stars. You are not prepared to live with war. Let Matthew Kumalo lead your people down here beneath the sky. He is not as smart as you, but he is wiser, and he has a stronger stomach.)

While the two had faced each other in pregnant silence, the crew had looked on soberly. They had not needed to hear speech to know that something decisive was happening or who was prevailing.

Their captain turned now to the co-pilot.

“Take us back up, Lee,” he said quietly, “back to the ship.”

When the Beta had disappeared, Sten made a run along the bank, spraying the orcs who had crept out of the reeds and tall grass and were rearming themselves from the piles. It was time, he decided, to see if the incendiary grenades could really set the heaps aflame, as Charles had told them.