The Broken Sword (27 page)

Skafloc shrugged. “Victory goes with my sword,” he said.

The Elfking studied him before answering: “Have a care about that weapon. Well has it served us hitherto; nevertheless it is treacherous. Sooner or later it is fated to turn on its wielder, maybe when he is most sorely needed.”

Skafloc paid scant heed to this. He did not outright wish to die-there was, after all, much to do in the world-but who knew if he would not be spared for many years yet? However that might be, he did not mean ever to try to get rid of the sword. It gave him what nothing else could. Wielding it in battle, he did not go berserk; indeed, his awareness was never more keen, his wits never more swift and sure. But he flamed upward, out of himself, no longer alone, altogether one with what he was doing and that which he did it with. So might it feel to be a god. So, in different wise, had it felt to be with Freda.

In hidden Breton bays he gathered ships, men, and horses. He slipped word to the elf chiefs in England, that they should start hosting their scattered folk. And on a night when gales cloaked the northern world, he took his fleet across the channel.

Sleet-mingled rain drove out of a sky that was black save when lightning split it open; then each last drop on the wind and grassblade on the earth stood forth starkly white. Thunder rolled and roared through the clamorous, battering air. The waves seethed white with foam and spindrift, booming out of the west and snarling far up onto every shore. Not even the elves dared raise sail; they rowed. Rain and sea dashed in their faces and drenched their garb. Blue fire crawled over the oars and the reeling dragon heads.

Out of the dark reared England. The elves pulled until it seemed their thews must snap. Surf bawled on beach’ and reef. The wind caught at the ships and sought to hurl them onto rocks or against each other. Skafloc grinned and said aloud:

Cold and lustful are the kisses which

Ran’s daughters, white-armed, give us:

laughing, shouting, shaking tresses

hoar and salt-sweet, high breasts heaving.

From the bow of his rolling longship he saw the headland which was his goal; and for a moment longing overwhelmed him.

Quoth he:

Home again the howling, hail-streaked wind has borne me.

Now I stand here, nearing ness of lovely England.

She dwells past that shoreline. Shall I ever see her?

Woe, the fair young woman will not leave my thinking.

Then he must give his whole mind to the struggle to round the cape.

When the fleet had done this, it found sheltered waters for landing and a small troop of elves waiting to help. The ships were grounded, dragged ashore, and made fast.

Thereafter the crews busked themselves swiftly for war. A captain said to Skafloc: “You have not told us who is to stay and guard the ships.”

“No one,” he answered. “We will need our men inland.”

“What? The trolls might come on the fleet and burn it! Then we would have no way of retreat.”

Skafloc looked about the lightning-lit strand. “For me,” he said, “there will be no retreat. I will not leave England again, alive or dead, till the trolls are driven out.”

The elves regarded him with more than a little awe. He hardly seemed a mortal, tall and iron-clad as he stood, the demon sword at his waist. Wolf-greenish lights flickered far back in the ice blue of his eyes. The elves thought he was fey.

He swung into the saddle of his Jotun horse. His call struck through the wind: “Sound the lur horns. We ride after prey tonight!”

The army set off. About a third of them were mounted. The rest hoped soon to get steeds. Like French or Normans, rather than English or Danes, elves on land fought by choice as cavalry. Rain sluiced over them, fallen leaves scrunched soddenly under them, lightning cracked, the wind thrust cold with the first breath of a new winter.

After a while they heard the remote brassy bellow of troll battle-horns. The elves hefted their weapons and smiled in the flickering glare. Rain-streaming shields came onto arms and the lurs dunted again.

Skafloc rode at the head of the wedge. He felt no joy just then. The thought of more slaughter wearied and sickened him. Yet he knew it would be otherwise when he unsheathed his blade, and so he could hardly wait for battle.

The trolls appeared, a darkling mass on the great rolling down. They must have sensed the newcomers and gone out from a nearby castle, belike Alfarhoi. Their force was to be reckoned with, albeit smaller than the elves. A full half of it was mounted, and Skafloc heard someone behind him say merrily, “Here is where I get four legs under me.”

The chief on his right was less high-hearted. “We outnumber them,” he said, “but not by enough to roll over them. This would not be the first time brave warriors have beaten a bigger host.”

“I do not fear they will defeat us,” replied Skafloc; “still, it would be bad if they killed very many, for then the next fight might indeed be our last.” He scowled. “Curse it, where is the main body of England’s elves? They were to meet us erenow. Unless the messengers were caught on the way-”

The troll horns sounded to battle. Skafloc drew his sword and swung it above his head. Lightning made it flare blindingly, dripping blue fire.

“Forward!” He spurred his horse. And the glory of power surged upward in him.

Spears and arrows arced overhead, unseen and unheard in the storm. The ripping wind made it hard to aim, and so the clatter of weapons was quickly begun.

Skafloc leaned forward in his stirrups and hewed. A troll struck at him. His sword bit through both those arms. Another rode close, axe lifted. The blade screamed around into that one’s neck. A pikeman jabbed; the point glanced off Skafloc’s shield, he cut the shaft in twain, his horse trampled the troll into the mud.

Axe and sword! Clang and spark-flash! Cloven metal, rent flesh, warriors sinking to earth, devil-dance of lightning!

Through the clangour rode Skafloc, smiting, smiting. His blows shuddered in byrnie and bone, shocks that slammed back into his own shoulders. Weapons lashed at him, to be stopped by shield or shorn across by sword. The hawk-scream of his blade sounded through wind and thunder. None could stand before him, and he led his men through the troll lines and turned on the foe from the rear.

Nonetheless the trolls fought stubbornly. They re-formed into rings that held firm. From these, arrows flocked. Charging horses ran into braced spears. Elves toppled under axe and club. Where was help, where was help?

As if in answer, a horn blew-and another, and another-a war-cry, a hail of missiles, a sweep of ragged hundreds out of the night!

“Ha, Alfheim!” Firespear rode in the van. Blood streamed from his lance like the rain from his helmet. Glee shone from his face. By his side, battle-dinted axe dripping, came Flam of Orkney. And other elf chiefs were in the fight, rising as if out of the earth to cleanse it of its despoilers.

Now it became no great task to clear away the foe, and erelong only corpses kept the down. Skafloc held saddle-council with Firespear, Flam, and their fellow lords.

“We came as fast as we could,” said Firespear. “We had to stop at Runehill and secure it, since the gates stood open for us and few trolls were left. Well had the women done their work! I think they will have everything finished for us in Alfarhoi, seeing that most of its garrison is lying here.”

“Good,” nodded Skafloc. Battle past and sword sheathed, he felt a return of weariness. The storm was dying overhead in wink and grumble, the wind sank and rain washed heavily out of a lightening sky.

“The Sidhe of Erin go to war too,” Flam said. “Lugh has landed in Scotland, and Mananaan drives the trolls from the northern waters and isles.”

“Ah-he kept his word.” Skafloc showed a little cheer. “A true friend is Mananaan. He is the only god I would trust.”

“And that only because he is a half-god, stripped of most of his powers and brought down to Faerie,” muttered Firespear. “Unwise is it to have any dealings with gods … or giants.”

“Well, we had best move, so we can be inside ere dawn,” said Flam. “Today we sleep in Alfarhoi. Oh, long since I slept in an elf burh beside an elf woman!”

Skafloc’s mouth writhed, but he did not speak.

Though fall that year had come in with such rage, it soon turned mild and stayed thus uncommonly long. It was as if the land were welcoming back her lovers of old. Some lay down with her for ever, and the maples remembered them in the colour of their leaves. Other trees rustled in a thousand hues of gold and bronze, wide across hazy hills under dreaming heaven. Squirrels bustled about, bringing in their little harvests; stags shook antlers and belled forth pride; the lonesome cry of southbound geese drifted downward with the leaves. At night the stars gleamed untellably many, so bright that it seemed one could reach up and pluck them from that crystalline blackness.

And the luck of the elves rode high. North and south, east and west, their enemies broke before them with small loss to themselves. For not only did they have dread allies, they were better supplied and got more reinforcements weekly as the Elfking cleared the mainland; and they took back their castles with ease. The trolls, on the other hand, were altogether cut off after Mananaan drew tight his blockade. Toward the end of that season, elves were heard to complain about how hard they must search to find any who could give them a fight.

There was no gladness in this for Skafloc. First, he knew what lay behind it. Once Valgard saw that his troops would be cut down piecemeal in the field, he began withdrawing them as fast as might be toward Elfheugh; knots of them stayed behind, making too much trouble for the elves to get at the larger bodies. While Skafloc had no doubt he could overrun their last stand, the cost might be high.

That did not really grieve him, but it did offend a certain sense of workmanship, and he weighed different schemes for ending the matter more handily. His thinking was slower than of yore, because of the second thing which gnawed at him.

And that thing sprang from the very peace he was bringing. Pitched battles dwindled to skirmishes, to chivvyings, to naught. For days, finally weeks on end, his sword slept. Then memory awoke. He had hoped the wound within him was somewhat healed. He found that it was not. He could not say whether his long lyings awake, hurt the more, or his dreams.

In such wise did his autumn fade toward a new winter. The end of it came one night in the Danelaw, when Firespear-to whom Skafloc had told no more than he told anyone else, leaving them to suppose he had either grown tired of his human girl or left her among men for safekeeping-sought him out and said: “You may like to know, I was riding at dusk by a garth not far hence and saw a young woman who might well be Freda Ormsdaughter. She was great with child, though to me she looked as if she also bore sorrow.”

Skafloc rode alone through evening. The black stallion went at a walk, no faster than a mortal steed. Strewn leaves crackled under his hoofs and danced before him on a cool wind. Such of them as were left on the boughs were still bright, as if to make a crown for his rider. Twilight closed hazily in as he went through woods that the man remembered.

Skafloc was unbowed by the weight of helmet, byrnie, or dragon-hilted sword. His hair blew long and light from under a cap coif. His face, strong blunt lines of it standing out beneath weather-darkened skin, was set unbending. Yet his heart knocked and knocked, blood beat in his ears, his hands were wet and his lips dry.

Dusk became a rustling dark. He splashed across a brook which purled icy clear, and by witch-sight spied dead leaves floating seaward like small brown boats. He heard an owl hoot and the trees creak-but underneath all was a singing silence wherein only his heart lived.

O Freda, Freda, are you really so near?

Many stars had twinkled forth when Skafloc rode into Thorkel Erlendsson’s yard. He hissed a word that made the dogs run off without barking; and the hoofs fell softly. The steading was dark save for a weak glow of firelight from under the front door of the house.

He dismounted. His knees shook. It took a surge of will for him to walk over to that door. The bolt was in place, and he stood for a moment readying the spell that would slide it back.

Thorkel was a yeoman of worth but no chieftain; so his main room was not big, and no one slept there when he did not have guests. Freda sat late by a low hearthfire as was her wont. Audun came in from the rear. His eyes were brighter than the flame-glow. “I could not sleep,” he said. “The others can-how they can!-so I put my clothes back on hoping we could talk without being stared at.”

He joined her on the bench. The light sheened ruddily from her hair. She did not go with it covered in the manner of a wife, but she had braided it. “I can hardly believe my luck,” he said. “Any day now, my father comes home and we shall be wed.”

Freda smiled. “First I must have my babe, and get well from that,” she said, “though it could likewise come any day.”

She grew grave. “And have you in truth naught against me-or him?” she asked slowly.

“How could I?” said Audun. “How often must I tell you? It is your child. That is enough for me. It will be like my own.”

He laid his arms about her.

The bolt slid free. The door opened and the night wind blew in. Freda saw the tall form limned athwart the dark. She could not speak. Rising, she crept backwards until she was stopped by the wall.

“Freda,” croaked Skafloc above the faint hiss and crackle of the fire.

It was as if an iron band tightened around her breast. She lifted her arms, but wide apart with the hands turned inward.

Like a sleepwalker, Skafloc came toward her. And she took a step toward him, and another.

“Hold!” Audun’s voice crashed across the silence. His shadow wavered huge before him. He snatched a spear that leaned in a corner, and pushed himself between those two.

“Hold … I, I, I tell you hold!” he stammered. “Who are you? What will you?”

Skafloc traced a sign and spoke a stave. Those in the rear of the house would not awaken while he was inside. He did it without thinking, in the way that a man brushes off a fly. “Freda,” he said again.