“There seems no reason for your counsel,” remarked Julian.
“We have not yet come to the grove,” said Otto.
“I do not understand,” said Julian.
“The Ortungs have borrowed certain practices from the Timbri,” said Otto.
In this area, the path was, now, less muddy, and, to some extent, graveled. Clearly this was a path now, a real path, or walk, one bearing some signs of attention, no longer a simple track, such as might have been consequent on the passage of some party in single file, their numbers obscured, deliberately perhaps, by the linearity of their progression. The soles of their sandals, as they followed the path, pressed, here and there, small stones deeper into the soft soil. Tiny alkaline trickles of water, whitish, made their way, sometimes haltingly, in no more than a sudden succession of intermittent drops, backward, behind the walkers, down the slope, among the tiny, awash, dislodged stones.
The Vandalii or Vandal nation, consisting of its five tribes, the smallest and least auspicious among them the Wolfungs, were not untypical of barbarian peoples. Such tended, almost as a matter of habit, and surely of custom, to enjoy uneasy, if not actually hostile, relations with their neighbors, wherever they might be found, which was often at hand, given the frequent movements, the periodic migrations, of such folk. These enmities tended to be long-lasting, and the hostilities involved, though intermittent, as one group might be forced to give way to another, tended to be pursued with vigor and cruelty. The surviving, successful tribes, particularly as lands, and worlds, became more scarce, tended, through culture, breeding, and tradition, through trials and raids, and the lessons of songs and deeds, to become stronger, prouder, less patient, quicker to anger, more cruel and more warlike, as the less adept, gentler, weaker, more pacifistic tribes, in accordance with the decrees of reality, recorded in the judgments of history, tended to be ruthlessly supplanted, destroyed, enslaved, made tributary, such things. In the light of such considerations, and in order that a fuller understanding of these matters may be conveyed, we mention that the Alemanni, of which the Drisriaks were a tribe, and the Ortungs a secessionist tribe, were a particularly successful people. It should also be pointed out that the Alemanni and the Vandals, another of the fiercest, and once one of the most successful, of such barbarous nations, were traditional, hereditary, enemies. The empire, of course, introduced into these scarlet equations new and terrible variables, its own existence and ambitions, new, powerful, unfamiliar weaponry, discord, bribery, intimidation, treachery, and such. In some generations of war with the empire the Vandals, despite some initial successes with weaponry furnished by enemies of the empire, were gradually reduced and decimated, the tribes scattered, denied significant weaponry and such. The remnants of the Wolfungs, for example, generations ago, had bee transported to an exile world, far from familiar spacelanes. Its name was Varna. There they had been left, it seemed forgotten, though doubtless their presence was noted on some imperial records, that in case, for example, in some byway of time or politics, it might seem suitable for the empire to recollect them and recall them, perhaps as federates, or as woodsmen, to clear worlds, or peasants, to sow and reap, to supply produce, perhaps to remote stations, or to the limitanei, the far-flung border troops. The Alemanni, it might be noted, on the other hand, had never had more than a series of terrible skirmishes with the empire. Always they had managed to draw back, and then wait, and then begin again their testing, their probing, their sniffing and prowling at the imperial borders. Sometimes, even, their ships had penetrated to the capitals of provincial worlds. Had the Alemanni been differently situated, in both space and time, and had they encountered the empire earlier, and under conditions comparable to those of the Vandalii, it seems not unlikely that their fate might have been similar. But they had not. It was only in the last generation that they had significantly appeared on the horizon of the empire.
“You need not have come with me,” said Otto to his companion, Julian. “The matter obtains between the Ortungs and the Wolfungs.”
“I am curious to see how these things are resolved,” said Julian.
“It will not be difficult to understand,” said Otto.
In the records of the empire this world had only a number, and not a name, as many worlds. We do not know the number, nor are we sure, today, of the world, for much which might have been useful for making such determinations has been lost. The number of the world would have been, as we do know, the number of its star, followed by a numerical suffix, giving its position, counting outward from the star. The world presumably still exists, of course, on which the events took place which we are recounting. We just do not know which world it is. Possibilities have been proposed, but they remain confessedly conjectural. The world did have a name in the logs of the Alemanni, but, even so, the matter remains obscure. The Alemanni name, cumbersomely transliterated as ‘Tenguthaxichai’, is said to mean “Tengutha’s Camp,” or, perhaps, “The Camp of Tengutha,” the nature of the genitive indicator being a matter of dispute among scholars. I personally favor “Tengutha’s Camp” as there is some reason to believe, from other constructions, that the expression transliterated as ‘ichai’ in Alemanni may have meant a hidden camp, or lair. We do not know who the Tengutha in question might have been, but the name itself was common in several of the barbarian nations. We choose to avoid these various problems by referring to this world as the Meeting World, to be sure a title which might serve to designate almost any world. Meeting worlds, however, at least worlds chosen for meetings of the sort with which we are concerned, where disputes among barbarians were to be resolved, worlds rather like, in a sense, those of lonely beaches on desert islands, or those like the surface of barren skerries in the icy sea, were normally isolated, uninhabited worlds, worlds where detection and interference, you see, were unlikely.
“You did not bring weapons,” said Julian.
“It was I who issued the challenge,” said Otto. “It is they who will choose the weapons.”
The remnant of the Wolfungs, exiled on Varna, now armed with no more than primitive weapons, and eking out their living in the forests, in the ancient manners, had been discovered by scouts of the Drisriaks, the parent tribe, or conjectured such, of the Alemanni nation. Much pleasure had it given the Drisriaks to discover their ancient enemies in such straits, in effect, disarmed and at their mercy. Many of the Wolfungs had been slaughtered, in the festivals of blood, saving, of course, the fairest of their daughters, which constitute always delicious, pleasing spoils for the conquerors. The Wolfungs had then, kneeling, denied chieftains, their heads to the dirt, humbled to the yoke of their masters, been permitted to survive, as a tributary people. This tribute was regularly collected by envoys of the Drisriaks, a tribute consisting largely of produce, amber, resin, precious woods, furs, herbs, and women. Some two years ago, however, Ortog, a prince of the Drisriaks, with followers, and ships, declared his house secessionist, and himself king of a new tribe, the Ortungs, or Ortungen. Ortog then, as he had when a prince of the Drisriaks, plied the crafts of his people, in such matters as piracy, trading, reaving where feasible within the empire, collecting tributes, and so on. It was shortly before his envoys, now in the name of the Ortungen, came to collect the tribute from the Wolfungs that the two aforementioned life rafts, or escape capsules, from a sacked and gutted, then destroyed, putative cruise ship, the Alaria, had beached on Varna. Ortog, who had earlier fallen into the hands of bounty hunters and traitors, and had been turned over to imperial forces at the remote station of Tinos, had been a prisoner on the Alaria, being transported to the Telnarian worlds, when she was overtaken by his ships and disabled.