The Broken Sword (14 page)

Richly clad were the elves. Skafloc wore a tunic of white silk over linen breeches, a doublet whose colourfully embroidered pattern led the eye in a trackless maze, a gold-worked belt with a jewelled dagger in an electrum sheath, shoes of unicorn leather, and a short ermine-trimmed cape whose scarlet was like a rush of blood from his shoulders. Freda had on a filmy dress of spider silk, across which played colours in a rainbow ripple; a necklace of diamonds fell over her firm small breasts, a heavy golden girdle was locked about her waist, golden rings weighted her bare arms, and she was shod in velvet. Both of them wore gemmed coronets, as befitting a lord of Alfheim and his lady of the hour. The great elves were no less splendid, and even the poorer chieftains from elsewhere shone with raw gold.

There was music, not alone the eldritch melodies that Imric favoured, but the harping of the Sidhe and the piping of the west country folk. There was talk, the quick cruel brilliant discourse of the elves, subtle mockery and thrust and parry with words, and sweet laughter went up and down the tables.

But when these had been cleared away and the jesters should have skipped forth, the cry went for a sword dance instead. Imric scowled, not liking to make omens plain to all, but since most of his guests wanted it, he could not well refuse.

The elves moved out on to the floor, men stripping off their more cumbersome garments and women everything; and thralls fetched for each man a sword. “What are they doing?” asked Freda.

”Tis the old wardance,” Skafloc told her. “I must be skald to it, I suppose, because no human could tread it unscathed even if he knew in full the measures. They dance to ninety and nine verses which the skald must make up as he goes alone, and if no one is hurt ‘tis a great omen for victory; but if someone be slain it means defeat and ruin, and even a slash bodes ill. I like this not.”

Soon the elf men stood in a wide double row, facing each other and crossing swords on high; and behind every man stood a woman, crouched and taut. The rows reached far into the dimness of the hall, an aisle with a roof of gleaming blades. Skafloc stood before the earl’s seat.

“Hai, go!” shouted Imric so that it rang.

Skafloc chanted:

Swiftly goes the sword-play, sweeping foemen backward to the beach where tumult talks with voice of metal: belling of the brazen beaks of cleaving axes, smoking blood, where sea kings sing the mass of lances.

As he called it out, the men danced forward, and a din of clashing swords lifted in time to the stave. The women likewise danced lithely ahead, and each man’s left hand seized a woman’s right and whirled her into the narrowing aisle where the words flashed and clanged.

Skafloc called:

Swiftly goes the sword-play, stormlike in its madness: shields are bloody shimmers, shining moons of redness; winds of arrows wailing, wicked spearhead-lightning lads will smite who lately lay by lovely sweethearts.

Through and between the whirring, flickering blades wove the elf women in a measure swift and supple and tangled as the foamstreaks on a wave. The men danced to each other, beyond, and wheeled about, and everyone threw his sword in a glittering arc to the one across from him, just missing a lithe white body, and caught the weapon thrown at him.

Quoth Skafloc:

Swiftly goes the sword-play! Swinging bloodied weapons, shields and helms to shatter, shout the men their war-cry. While the angry, whining, whirring blades are sparking, howl the wolves their hunger, hawks stoop low for feasting.

Round and about, swifter than mortal eye could follow, whirled the dance; and leaping and shrieking between the women went the swords. Now blades hummed low, and as two clashed points above the floor, an elf lady sprang over them; the keen edges came up just behind her. Now the dancing men each seized a partner and wove a glitter of metal about her spinning body. Now they fenced again in the dance, and the women sprang and capered between the fencers in those bare instants when the weapons were drawn back.

Skafloc’s verses spilled out unbroken:

Swiftly goes the sword-play! Song of metal raises din of blades for dancing (death for eager partner). Lur horns bray their laughter, lads, and call to hosting. Sweeter game was sleeping softly with your leman.

Bounding and dodging between the clamorous glaives, a flying white frenzy, Leea called out: “Oho, Skafloc, why does not that girl of yours who makes such a thing of caring for you come dance with us for luck?”

Skafloc did not break the flow:

Swiftly goes the sword-play. Skald who lately chanted gangs unto the gameboard. Grim are stakes we play for. Mock not at the mortal may who is not dancing. Better luck she brings me by a kiss than magic.

But then a shudder went through the elves; for Leea, harking more to the words of Skafloc than to their beat, had danced into one of the blades. Red was the slash across her silken shoulders. She went on in the measures, her blood sprinkling the folk about her. Skafloc forced cheer into his tones :

Swiftly goes the sword-play. Some must lost the gamble. Norns alone are knowing now who throws the dice best. Winner of the wicked weapon-game we know not, but our foes will bitter battle find in Alfheim.

However, other women, shaken by Leea’s misfortune, were missing the hairsplitting rhythm and being slashed.

Imric called a halt ere someone should be slain and bring the very worst luck, and the feast broke up in ill-contented silence or furtive whisperings.

Skafloc went troubled with Freda to their rooms. There he left her for a while. He came back with a broad silver-chased girdle. On its inside was fastened a flat vial, also of silver.

He gave it to Freda. “Let this be my parting gift to you,” he said quietly. “I got it of Imric, but I would that you wore it. For though I still think we shall win, I am not so sure after that cursed sword dance.”

She took it, wordlessly. Skafloc said: “In the vial is a rare and potent drug. Should bad luck befall you and foes come nigh, drink it. You will be as one dead for several days, and belike any who see you will not think to do more than leave you or cast you outside; such is the way of trolls with a stranger’s corpse. When you awaken you may have a chance to slip free.”

“What use escaping, if you are dead?” asked Freda sorrowfully. “Better I should die too.”

“Maybe. But the trolls would not kill you at once, and you Christians are forbidden self-slaughter, are you not?” Skafloc smiled wearily. ” Tis not the most cheerful of farewell gifts, dearest one, but ‘tis the best I have.”

“No,” she breathed. “I will take it, and thank you. But we have a better gift, one we can give to each other.”

“Aye, so,” he cried, and before long, both of them were again, for a while, merry.

The elf and troll fleets met off the coast, well north of the earl’s seat, shortly after dark of the next night. When Imric, standing by Skafloc in the prow of the flagship that led his wedge of vessels, saw the size of the enemy force, he drew a sharp, uneven breath.

“We English elves have most of the warcraft of Alfheim,” he said, “yet they yonder have more than twice as much. Oh, if the other lords had but heeded me, when I told them Illrede had made truce only as another means of making war, and begged them to join me in crushing him for good!”

Skafloc knew somewhat of the rivalry and vanity, as well as the slothfulness and wishfulness, which had caused that inaction. Imric was not altogether without blame. However, too late now for such talk. “They cannot all be trolls,” the human said, “and I look for small danger from goblins and trash like that.”

“Mock not the goblins. They are good warriors when they have the weapons they need.” Imric’s taut countenance gleamed briefly out of darkness, caught in a fleeting moonbeam. A few snowflakes danced in that ray, borne on a raw wind. “Magic will avail either side little,” he went on, “since the powers of both are in that regard more or less the same. Thus it turns on strength of hosts, and there we are weaker.”

He shook his silvery-locked head, eyes glittering moon-blue. “I held, at the Elfking’s last council, that it were best Alfheim drew together, letting the trolls have the outer provinces, even England, while we held fast and gathered ourselves for a counter-attack. But the other lords would have none of it. Now we shall see whose rede was best.”

“Theirs was, lord,” said Firespear boldly, “for we are going to butcher these swine. What-let them wallow in Elfheugh? The thought was unworthy of you.” He hefted his pike and strained eagerly ahead.

Skafloc too, though he felt these were heavy odds, would have naught but battle. This would not be the first time valiant men had wrested victory from a powerful foe. He blazed with the wish to meet Valgard, Freda’s mad brother who had wrought her so great ill, and cleave his brain.

And yet, thought Skafloc, if Valgard had not borne Freda off to Trollheim, he, Skafloc, would never have met her. So he owed the berserker something-a quick clean slaying, rather than a carving of the blood eagle on his back, ought to settle the debt.

War-horns blew their summons on both sides. Down came sails and masts, and the fleets rowed to battle with ships linked together by ropes. As they neared, the arrows began their flight, a moon-darkening storm that hissed over waves and struck home in wood or flesh. Three shafts rattled off Skafloc’s mail; a fourth narrowly missed his arm and quivered in the ship’s figurehead. With his night-seeing eyes he made out others aboard who were not so lucky, who sank wounded or slain under Trollheim’s hail.

The moon showed ever less often through the hasty clouds, but will-o’-the-wisps danced amidst the spindrift and the waves surged with cold white glow. There was light enough to kill by.

Next spears, darts, and flung stones crossed between the ships. Skafloc cast a shaft which pinned a right hand to the mast of the troll flagship. Back came a rock which bounced with a clang off his helmet. He leaned on the rail, briefly dizzy, and the sea slapped salt water over his ringing head.

The horns yelled, almost mouth into mouth, and the lines shocked together.

Imric’s ship pushed against Illrede’s. The warriors in the bows smote back and forth. Skafloc’s sword screamed past the axe of a troll and disabled an arm. He leaned into the line of shields at the enemy rail, his own moving just enough to catch the numbing thunder of blows, his steel blade working above its rim. On his left, Firespear thrust and hacked with his pike, yelling in battle madness, reckless of the shafts that reached for him. On his right, Angor of Pictland fought stolidly with his long axe. For a time the two sides traded blows, and whenever a man dropped from either line, another pressed into his place.

Then Skafloc buried his sword in the neck of a troll. As that one fell, Firespear jabbed into the breast of the one behind him. Skafloc leaped the rails, into that breach in the troll ranks, and cut down the man to his left. As the warrior to his right chopped at him, Angor’s axe came down and the troll’s head rolled into the sea.

“Forward!” roared Skafloc. The nearer elves swarmed after him. They stood back to back, hewing-hewing-at the trolls who snarled and grunted around them. And in this uproar, the other elves grappled fast and still more of them boarded the enemy.

Swords flew in a blur that spouted blood. The shock and crash of metal overrode wind and sea. Above the struggle loomed Skafloc, eyes like blue hell-flames. He must needs stand a little ahead of the elves, lest his iron mail do them harm; but they covered his back, and meanwhile his shield stopped the trolls’ clumsy thrusts and swipes from in front, his sword darted in and out like a viper. Erelong the enemy fell back from him and the bows were cleared.

“Now aft! “he yelled.

The elves advanced with blades over shields like heat-flicker over a mountain wall. Stubbornly did the trolls fight. Elves sank with crushed skulls, fell behind with splintered bones and gaping cuts. Nonetheless the trolls went back and back, none holding fast save their trampled dead.

“Valgard!” bawled Skafloc into the din. “Valgard, where are you?”

The changeling stood forth. Blood streamed from his temple. “A slingstone knocked me out,” he said, “but now I am yare for battle.”

Skafloc shouted and ran to meet him. A space had opened between the crews. The elves held the ship down to the mast partner, the trolls had crowded into the stern,xand both sides were for the time being out of breath. But more elves kept boarding, and from their vessel, archers sent a steady rain of grey-feathered death.

Skafloc’s sword and Valgard’s axe met in a howl of steel and a shower of sparks. The madness did not come on the berserker; he fought with grim coolness, rock-steady on the rolling deck. Skafloc’s sword caught his axe haft, but did not go far into the tough leather-wrapped wood. Instead, it was pushed aside. So was the shield behind-an dpefling through which Valgard chopped at once.

Lacking room or time for a full swing, his blow did not break mail-rings or bones. But Skafloc’s shield-arm fell numbed to his side. Valgard hewed at the neck. Skafloc dropped to one-knee, taking that dreadful smash on the helmet while he did. At the same time, he had been cutting at Valgard’s leg.

Half senseless from the fury that dented his helmet and knocked him aside, he sank. Valgard stumbled with a ripped thigh. They rolled under the benches and the battle raged past them.

For Grum Troll-Earl had led a charge back from the stern. His huge stone-headed club crushed skulls right and left. Against him went Angor of Pictland, who struck out and hewed off the troll’s right arm. Grum caught his falling club in his left hand and swung a blow that broke Angor’s neck; but then the troll must crawl to shelter so that he might carve healing runes for his spouting wound.

Skafloc and Valgard came out again, found each other in the chaos, and took up their fight anew. Skafloc’s left arm had gotten back its usefulness, while Valgard was still bleeding. Imric’s fosterling smote with a force that bit through the berserker’s mail, to be stopped by a rib. “That for Freda!” he shouted. “I’ll have you done to her.”

“Not so ill as I think you have,” choked Valgard. Staggering and weakened, nonetheless he met Skafloc’s next cut with his axe in midair. And the sword sprang in twain.