The Wizard And The Warlord (4 page)

They might have waited, he told himself a hundred times that night; surely they weren’t that afraid. Outside the abandoned house in which he sheltered, the depraved howlings and roarings of the trolls rose in fierce exultation from the cliffs of the fjord. Whatever unnatural forces had been sent against Thongullsfjord, they had succeeded. Sigurd did not sleep, listening with a species of paralysis as something sniffed vigorously under the door and battered at the planks with uncouth grunts and growls.

In the morning he returned to his house and found it ransacked. The sheep and geese were gone, little to his surprise. Silentiy he examined the tracks in the soft earth. Neither man nor any beast he knew could make such a track. He shook his head and began to scowl. The grief of Thorarna’s death and the shock of his abandonment were clearing from his brain. He glared around at the sad shambles of his home and down the mountain toward the deserted settlement; then he began to burn with outrage. He stalked around the buildings, studying the tracks as intently as a hunter following his prey. On the knob of hill where he had burned Thorarna, he found the tracks of shod horses and a few marks of men’s boots where they had dismounted to look at the ashes. Sigurd clenched his axe and glowered around him at the fells that were shrouded in mists and cloud, wondering where his enemies were hiding—behind a waterfall, in the shadow of a crag, or inside a cave in the lava flows?

“Come out, you cowards!” he roared in defiance. “Nithlings! You don’t dare to fight me!”

The imperturbable silence finally quelled his furious ravings. With a last muttered curse, he returned to his defiled house and looked around numbly at the wreckage. Everything had been dragged out and smashed—kettles, crockery, and furniture. The clothing Thorarna had made with spinning wheel and loom during the dark days of winter was in shreds everywhere, and her faithful implements were likewise torn to pieces. Nothing was spared, and Sigurd’s sense of outrage swelled. The only object that escaped violation was Thorarna’s large carved trunk, which had been battered at with axes but remained miraculously intact. Perhaps the arrival of the men on horseback had had something to do with its salvation, since the creatures that had done the damage certainly weren’t human. Sigurd paused, staring at the trunk as he pondered, wondering who the horsemen could possibly be. Outlaws, he finally decided, who were probably feeling emboldened by the removal of the settlement. What an unpleasant surprise for them awaited on the fjord cliffs, Sigurd reflected with dark satisfaction.

He took the key to Thorarna’s trunk from his pouch and used it to open the heavy lid. Immediately, the fragrance of herbs and the perfect orderliness of the trunk’s contents struck him with such a poignant remembrance of Thorarna that he could scarcely bear his losses. Gently he searched through her finery and keepsakes, resolving that he would burn them all to send their essences after her to the place where she had gone to meet her ancestors. She would be most indignant with him if she didn’t have her best dress.

He discovered the object of his search at the very bottom of the chest, stowed away as if Thorarna hadn’t wanted to see it very often. Lifting out the small carved box, Sigurd took his first good look at it. Thorarna hadn’t been able to keep many secrets from a small, inquisitive child, but she had always refused to let him examine the box as closely as he would have liked. It was made of unfamiliar dark wood and its carving was beautiful, but he took no time to appreciate it in his anxiety to open it and ascertain if it held any clues to the identity of his enemy or his father. To his consternation, the box seemed to have neither hasp nor hinges. It was cunningly carved indeed, he thought in amazement, searching in vain for the crack that denoted the lid. He shook it and heard something rattle softly inside—documents made on sheepskin, perhaps, and probably containing all he needed to know. For a moment, he debated smashing the box to get at its contents and even gave it an experimental tap, but the carvings of twining serpents made him think it might be unlucky, and the carved faces of the figures seemed to look at him warningly. It was a rather small box, not much longer than a loaf of bread, so he didn’t imagine it would be too awkward to carry with him, wherever he decided to go. The sad ruin of Thorarna’s house and the desecration of his childhood memories convinced him that he didn’t want to stay any longer at Thongullsfjord than it would take him to assemble his possessions and decide where to go.

He spent the rest of the day burning Thorarna’s belongings and gathering the remaining bits of her bones, which he buried safely beneath the huge black stone where she had often sat to rest herself and where she could look down at her house and buildings and spy upon small Sigurd to see if he was doing his work or not. Many times she had chased him around the rock with a switch in her hand, training him and teaching him to defend himself against the enemy she had known would appear—the warlord.

Since the trolls had stolen everything remotely edible in the house, he spent the afternoon hunting for a bird or a hare. At once, he learned that the game was either too wary for him to approach or it was frightened completely away. He also found the place where the trolls had eaten his sheep. The fleece, and much of the meat were shamefully wasted. At the end of the day, he returned to his ravaged house with a tight knot of apprehension in his empty belly.

Somehow he managed to sleep a while, curled up beside the fire in the rubble of his past. He was exhausted, but he awakened instantly when light feet ran softly across the turf roof. He’d barricaded the place as well as he could, and the turf walls were ten feet thick. Still, he armed himself and waited, listening to the creatures scratching and battering at the stout timbers of the door and digging at the turves on the roof. Dawn put an end to their labors, however. Looking at the evidence of their attack, Sigurd wondered if he would survive another night. He found a small parcel of dried meat Thorarna had stowed under the eaves which the trolls had somehow missed and went to work repairing the worst of the damages.

The trolls returned in greater numbers the following night, but they did not break through his roof until the night after. Sigurd waited below the hole with his axe, watching the earth crumble away beneath their eagerly scratching claws. They jostled and snapped at each other in their fury to get at him, with a sound like dogs worrying a rat to death. When a paw or head appeared in the opening, Sigurd slashed at it with his axe, sending its imprudent owner howling. His resistance to being murdered and the advent of dawn diminished the trolls’ ferocity by slow degrees, ending with their ultimate retreat in grumbling twos and threes. When sunlight shone through the hole in Sigurd’s roof, he peered out warily and saw four heaps of stone where the sunlight had touched the carcasses of four dead trolls. He was too exhausted to be much astonished at anything and spent the day sleeping and refortifying his tottering fortifications. When he climbed onto the roof, he saw that the trolls had finally hit upon the idea of digging a second hole through the turves. When they got through, it would be short work for a dozen of them to dispose of one lone defender. Not without penalty, however, he told himself grimly and made certain his weapons were honed to the utmost sharpness.

The trolls returned about midnight. It took them nearly until dawn to break through the second hole, which they did with horrible, triumphant snarling. Sigurd, however, had inspired them with enough respect that the brutes did not immediately rush through the breach to attack. They hung back, shoving one another and squabbling, as if trying to thrust down the lesser trolls to be cut to ribbons first as a diversion for a cooperative attack on Sigurd.

Sigurd hacked at them determinedly, and finally retreated from the loft when they continued to show reluctance in attacking him. He barricaded the little loft entrance from below as best he could and waited for the trolls to break through from above. They would make particularly vulnerable targets squeezing through the small opening.

During the interval, he thought he heard someone blowing a horn high in the fells. More likely it was his ears ringing from the cumulative effects of fatigue and suspense, he told himself. Then he noticed the sudden silence from the loft. The trolls were motionless for a few moments, then began a scrambling rush back onto the roof and outside. Silently they poured over the side of the low eaves and galloped away. Peering through a crack, Sigurd had a glimpse of hulking hairy shoulders, ungainly arms, and large pricking ears tufted with hair. With a last nervous cackle, they vanished into the shadows behind the empty sheepfold.

Sigurd opened the door and listened warily. The dawn was not far off, lighting the sky and making the earth seem all the darker. He saw nothing and heard nothing unusual, so he closed the door again and sat down to gnaw abstractedly at the stale dried meat, trying not to think about the coming day or anything in particular. His dazed brain was incapable
ef
making any intelligent decisions. He could leave, but he knew the trolls would track him down mercilessly and kill him easily once he was without the scant protection the house still offered.

While he sat, he must have dozed; the next thing he knew, he was startled awake by a sudden noise at the door. Seizing his axe, he leaped up and stared at the door, which was shuddering under a thunderous knocking. Outside he heard the snorting and pawing of horses and the rattle of their bridles. He also heard muffled voices, then the authoritative knocking resumed.

“Is anyone there?” a deep voice demanded, and the latch shook. “It’s locked from within, so someone must be inside.”

“Not likely,” another voice said. “The last of the Sciplings left several days ago. You might just find a troll holed up in there, I should think.”

“The trolls were trying to dig someone out of here. I think there must be a survivor. Someone burned a corpse on the hilltop.” The door creaked on its hinges as someone shouldered it experimentally. Again the voice called, “Hulloa! Is anyone inside? You’ve nothing to fear from us.”

“You’ll never convince the old woman of that, I fear,” someone said. “She’s hid herself pretty well from you these past twenty years.” A muffled conversation ensued on the other side of the planks, and Sigurd crept closer in an effort to hear what they might have to say about Thorarna and possibly himself.

Someone suggested blasting the door open, and another predicted that some kind of trap awaited them. Yet another boomed, “Well, it’s far more likely the poor wretches have starved to death and there’s nothing inside but corpses. The trolls have taken everything essential to life. I suggest you give it up, Halfdane.”

The door creacked and shuddered again. “I’ve searched too long to give it up so easily. We’ll have to use magic to get the door open. It looks as if the old woman has prepared us an unfriendly reception.”

Sigurd’s anger took fire again. The sendings, the trolls, and the final desertion of Thongullsfjord were the preparations for this meeting. He knew now that the man or wizard or whatever he might be who pounded so impatiently on the other side of the door must be the warlord Thorarna had prepared him to challenge one day—the warlord who wished him dead for no apparent reason.

Sigurd jerked back the bars and flung open the door. Axe in hand, he stared at the strangers, who stared back in mutual surprise. They were heavily cloaked and hooded against the chill of night, and Sigurd could tell little about them, except that they were about fifteen altogether and they all carried weapons.

“Who are you, and what do you want with me?” Sigurd demanded. “Isn’t it enough that people have died and the settlement is deserted except for me? What is this grudge you’ve been carrying for twenty years?”

The foremost of the strangers, the one who had done the knocking, half-raised his axe. He was a burly fellow with a dark mane of beard framing his scowling face.

“Who are you?” he demanded gruffly, advancing a step.

“My name is Sigurd, if it’s of any concern to you. My grandmother told me about you, and I’ve seen enough of your works in this past year to make me glad to meet you now. You caused the sendings and the trolls and the deaths of many Sciplings. I hold you accountable for these crimes and I challenge you now to defend yourself, it you regard yourself as a man.” Sigurd took a strong grasp on his axe and braced himself in a defensive position.

The strangers gasped and murmured excitedly. The leader called Halfdane threw his cloak out of his way and unsheathed his axe. “I have no wish to insult your manhood by refusing to fight with you, nor do I intend to appear a coward by seeming unwilling, but your accusations leave me no choice but to defend my honor. You must remember that any misfortune that befalls you is of your own manufacturing. But first I would like to know the name of the old woman who lived here and if that was her pyre on the hilltop.”

“I don’t know what business it is of yours,” Sigurd retorted. “Don’t attempt to dishonor her; she was my grandmother, Thorarna.”

Halfdane looked at him for a long moment. “Was that her real name? What was her father’s name? And who are your parents?”

“I heard her use no other,” Sigurd snapped, “and she told me nothing of my parents before she died—nothing I would care to tell to a stranger and an enemy. Now, are you done with your questions?”

“Not quite. Does the name Halfdane of Hrafnborg mean anything to you? Perhaps you have heard it as Halfdane the Warlord.” The increasing dawn light illuminated his grim, lowering countenance.

“If that is your name, the only thing it means to me is that it is the name of my enemy,” Sigurd declared. “My grandmother told me that a warlord intended to destroy me and she laid the blame of the sendings and trolls on him. It must be an old and bitter feud for you to stalk my grandmother and me for so many years, but I believe this will be the end of it now.” He swung his axe impatiently and measured his opponent.

Halfdane raised his axe and advanced a step. “Your grandmother has done an excellent job of teaching you to hate a man you have never seen. If I tell you she was mistaken, you’ll be insulted, will you not? Perhaps you yourself have made a hasty and ill-formed conclusion about what I have done.”