Janina looked gratefully at the chieftain. So, too, did the brunette, so small and helpless, stripped before the men, on the pelts.
“I do not understand,” said Gundlicht.
“I have shown you hospitality,” said Otto. “It is now time for you to return to your camp.”
“But the women, the tribute,” said Hendrix.
“There is no more tribute,” said Otto. “We have brought these things here, the furs and such, and outside, the produce, and such, merely to give you some understanding of the wealth of the Wolfungs, to indicate to you that we might pay an excellent tribute if we were so minded, but we are no longer so minded.”
“No tribute?” said Hendrix, incredulously.
“No tribute,” said Otto.
“It seems,” said Hendrix to Gundlicht, “that the Wolfungs have had a chieftain long enough.”
“Before you pull the trigger,” said Otto, regarding the pistol in Gundlicht’s hand, “I suggest you look to your right and left.”
Glancing about Hendrix and Gundlicht saw, to their left, a fellow with a Telnarian rifle. The Wolfungs on the other side of the hut moved well away, out of the range of fire, for a blast from the rifle would take the wall itself from the hut, in a blaze of fire. On the other side Hendrix and Gundlicht saw two men, each armed with a fire pistol.
“We can destroy your village,” said Hendrix. “Your villages.”
“But of course you would both be dead then,” said Otto.
“Where did you get such things?” asked Hendrix.
“From our source of supply,” said Otto.
“They are not with charges,” said Hendrix. “They are empties, discarded weapons. They have no ammunition.”
“Give me a pistol,” said Otto.
He put out his hand toward one man. He knew, of course, the pistol he needed.
Otto took the pistol in hand, and held it to the head of Hendrix, who began, suddenly, to sweat.
“Shall I pull the trigger?” he asked.
“Do as you wish,” said Hendrix, sweating.
The chieftain then moved the gun away from Hendrix and aimed it at the floor of the hut. He pulled the trigger, and there was a sudden torrent of fire which fell between Janina and the brunette slave, both of whom screamed and spun away. Between where they had lain there was now a deep, narrow, smoking hole. The charge had burned through the pelts there, and the rushes, and tore down, into, and through, the floor of the hut itself. Some small rocks glistened in the sides of the trench. Some others, like droplets, now cooling, lay in the bottom of the trench where, for an incandescent moment, they had been molten. There was the smell of burned hair from the pelts, strong in the hut. The charge fired, of course, had been the single remaining charge in the village, that which had remained in the ensign’s pistol.
Again Otto held the pistol to the head of Hendrix.
“Shall I pull the trigger?” he asked.
“No,” said Hendrix.
Otto handed the pistol to the fellow who had held it before.
“Take this message to your lord, Ortog, prince of the Drisriaks, who calls himself king of the Ortungs,” said Otto. “Tell him that there is no more tribute from the Wolfungs, but if he wishes to have a reconciliation, he may send us gifts, gold, weapons, and women. We shall then consider such a reconciliation.”
“Reconciliation?” said Hendrix. “The Alemanni and the Vandals have been hereditary enemies for ten thousand years!” It may be recalled that the Drisriaks were one of the tribes of the Alemanni, of which, traditionally, there were eleven, that number not including, of course, the Ortungen. The Wolfungs were one of the five tribes normally taken to constitute the Vandal nation. The largest and fiercest tribe of the Vandals was, or was once, the Otungs, but this tribe, in wars with the empire, had been muchly decimated, and its remnants had been scattered here and there throughout the empire, sometimes as little more than castaways, sometimes as federates.
“As you wish,” said Otto.
Hendrix and Gundlicht rose to their feet.
“Before you go,” said Otto. “Leave your weapons.” He indicated one of the Wolfungs, a man standing to one side.
Hendrix and Gundlicht glanced about themselves, and then, angrily, handed their belts, with the
holstered pistols, to the indicated Wolfung.
“One more thing,” called Otto, addressing the departing pair, when they neared the portal.
They turned, in fury, to regard him.
“Ortog, your chieftain, who calls himself king of the Ortungs, is put under challenge by Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.”
“You are mad,” said Hendrix.
“We can destroy your forests, your world,” said Gundlicht.
“He is put under challenge to personal combat,” said Otto.
“That is absurd,” said Hendrix.
“Chieftain to chieftain, as in days of old, not forgotten,” said Otto.
“Such things have not been done for a thousand years,” said Gundlicht.
“The challenge is issued,” said Otto.
“Chieftains do not so risk themselves,” said Hendrix.
“He may, of course, choose a champion,” said Otto.
“The idea is preposterous,” scoffed Hendrix.
“Are not the Wolfungs an acknowledged tribe of the Vandals,” asked Otto, “one whose legitimacy is unquestioned?”
“Ah,” said Hendrix, softly.
“Who are the Ortungs?” asked Otto. “Do they exist?”
“In such a way, before all the Alemanni, and in the eyes of all the barbarian tribes, one might perhaps establish the legitimacy of the secession,” said Gundlicht.
“Certainly,” said Otto. “If the Wolfungs, of the Vandals, recognize the Ortungs as a legitimate tribe of the Alemanni, who could, with any plausibility, decline to do so?”
“You tempt us,” said Hendrix.
“Convey the challenge,” said Otto.
“No,” said Hendrix.
“In honor, how can you refuse to convey the challenge?” asked Otto.
“In honor, we cannot convey it,” said Hendrix, rather regretfully.
“How is that?” inquired Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.
“No provocation could be adequate to justify accepting such a challenge,” said Hendrix.
“Axel,” said Otto.
Axel then brought forth a bundle.
Otto took it from him, and opened it. He carefully took, in one hand, the jewelry, the necklaces and bracelets which were within it, and held them up, dangling, to view. He then, retaining the jewelry in one hand, took the garments in two hands, the one holding the jewelry, the other free, and shook them out, displaying them.
“You recognize these?” he asked.
“That is the jewelry, those are the robes, of the princess, Gerune!” exclaimed Hendrix.
“I put them upon a slave, on the Alaria, that slave!” said Otto, indicating Janina, who shrank back, beside the trench in the hut floor, not at all pleased with the turn events were taking.
“You dared to put such garments upon a slave!” cried Hendrix, in fury.
“Is it true, mere slave?” asked Otto of Janina.
“Yes, Master!” she cried, in misery.
“On a branded slut?” asked Hendrix.
“Yes!” said Otto. “And the princess Gerune herself I marched before me, naked and gagged, and bound, on a rope, through corridor after corridor of the Alaria, exhibiting her, as one might a slave, before hundreds of the warriors of Ortog!”
“No!” cried Hendrix.
“Surely,” said Otto, “you have heard secret whisperings of these things in your halls, in your drinking places, in your hangars, on your ships. Surely they are whispered even by your ship slaves.”
Hendrix and Gundlicht exchanged glances.