Feast of the Elfs

by John C. Wright

  Gil tried again, hiding his sword arm behind his shield for a moment, feinting, and then striking at Guynglaff’s groin. But Guynglaff also feinted, reversed the ax, and struck Gil’s arm with the ax handle while Gil was in mid-lunge. Gil yielded to the blow, so his arm was hit but glancingly, and his vambrace and brassart rang. Diamonds were scattered on the floor as mail links broke. Pain like electricity jumped from elbow to shoulder. The monster spun the bronze ax head toward the spot between the bottom of his mail skirt and his greave, trying to cut off his leg.

  The creature was quick and strong and fluid in motion. The fighting style Gil had been taught was also meant to be quick, brutal, and efficient, using strength, speed, parries, and counterblows, indirection and deception. But here he was both weaker and slower, and his silvery armor afforded less protection than the monster’s invulnerable fur. Where could he strike? The palms of Guynglaff’s hands? The sole of his foot? A lucky shot at eye or mouth?

  Gil twisted, deflecting the ax blade with his shield into the floor slats and whipped his blade overtop of the shield at Guynglaff’s exposed hand, hoping to sever his naked fingers. His missed. Guynglaff ran forward, yanked the ax upward with a swift jerk, and drove the butt of his ax handle into Gil’s stomach, or tried to, as Gil failed to deflect the blow properly with his shield and was rewarded with a blow on his shoulder. He heard a crack he hoped was his father’s armor and not a bone.

  The pain and rage mingled in his body made him unable or unwilling to notice how hurt he was or what a battering he was taking.

  Guynglaff chopped down viciously, disengaged, and then brought the double-bladed ax directly back up. Had the blow landed in Gil’s armpit, it might have taken off his whole arm. As it was, he parried with the edge of his shield, but there was a feint within the field, for now Guynglaff had the heel of the ax bit caught on the rear edge of the shield, and Guynglaff yanked Gil’s left arm forward and attempted to grapple him.

  Gil was too close for swordwork. Gil thrust his shield point first into the monster’s armpit to prevent his apelike arm from curling around him. On a man it would have been a crippling blow, but the armpit fur was thicker than elsewhere, so the blow did no harm. Gil also smote Guynglaff in the face with the pommel of his sword and was rewarded with a hiss of pain and the sight of blood running from both of the flat nostrils of the creature, where there was no fur. Gil raised his knee, snap-kicked the monster in the chest, and then danced lightly backward out of reach of those powerful arms.

  Guynglaff dropped the ax and attempted a bear hug, trusting his apish strength to crush the boy and his fur to ward off any blows. Gil’s shield prevented the monster’s arm from circling him, and he drove the silver wings of his helmet into the monster’s broken nose, butting like a ram.

  Now the cloak which protected Guynglaff was an obstacle because its surface was slippery like silk, and Guynglaff, despite his greater strength and longer arms, could not find leverage. Gil felt his ribs bruise under the monster’s hand grip, but he ducked his helmet under the monster’s armpit and slid behind him, quick as a salmon. Gil landed a successful blow on Guynglaff’s foot, severing two of his hairless finger-like toes. Guynglaff grunted in pain as he spun to face Gil.

  The sword ignited. Gil laughed a wild laugh. In the light from the burning sword, Gil now saw two things:

  First, that in places the hairs of Guynglaff were gray with age. It was only a little bit, here and there, above his ears or across his chest like salt and pepper mixed.

  Second, he saw that when he struck, it was the misty silver cloak, half-unseen like a protective aura swirling about the monster’s limbs, that turned the blade: the cloak, not the fur.

  Then only did Gil wonder. Why would a Bigfoot with magically swordproof fur have abducted his mother in the first place?

  Ygraine’s very words came back to him: to cover his great carcass and render himself immune to swords. Bigfoot was aging, growing old, and shedding. Gil remembered seeing the monster bareheaded. The crown of his head was hairless.

  “An Achilles’ head!” Gil muttered, grinning beneath his helm.

  Guynglaff lunged and reached for Gil’s neck. Gil threw his shield overhead, foining and slashing at Guynglaff’s feet to make the monster dance. Gil used several knee blows to the groin. The fur was thick there, and the blows did no harm but kept the monster off balance. Gil swept Guynglaff’s feet out from under him and threw him heavily to the bridge slats. The wood cracked. Gil could see the black waters far below rushing past, white where they brushed the feet of the bridge.

  Guynglaff rolled with simian grace backward and somersaulted to his feet again, leaving a bloody left footprint behind him. Gil was having trouble breathing from the rib-pain, and some blow to his helm he had not even noticed had given him two black eyes, which were starting to swell. Gil rushed the creature again, but his blows were deflected by Guynglaff’s forearm.

  Gil bashed him in the face with the shield, deliberately exposing his shield arm for a half-instant too long. Guynglaff immediately grasped Gil by the arm and shoulder. Guynglaff would have twisted it out of the socket, save that the pauldron of elfin steel around his shoulder would not permit it. Guynglaff put his shoulder to Gil’s shield and thrust with his feet, pushing Gil off balance. As Gil had hoped, the monster lowered his apelike head while shifting his weight.

  Gil now smote down onto the bronze cap of Guynglaff with enough force to break an inch-thick plate of steel, or any harder metal.

  He felt a moment of glorious triumph.

  But the blow never fell. Instead, an invisible force seized Gil’s blade and yanked it against the black crystal knob that topped the bronze cap. It rang and clanged and clung. Gil yanked the sword back; the cap stuck tenaciously, as if magnetized.

  Guynglaff’s bald head was glistening with sweat, and his whole face a mass of wrinkles around his eyes, bleeding nose, lopsided and leering maw. With his unwounded foot he reached up, grasped the roofbeam, and swung himself onto the roof and out of sight. Only his voice came down, “Helm of Grim, which strengthens thew and limb! Thy cursed brim I pour within, the heavy weight of all my sin! Hildigrimur hrifr-vithr!”

  Gil was tugging at the bronze cap, wincing as he burned his fingers, but trying to dislodge it from the blade, when Guynglaff spoke these words.

  Immediately, the cap grew as heavy as a parked car. A parked car set afire by vandals, that is. The cap fell to the bridge slats, which creaked and groaned under the weight, and he could not pull the blade free. Nor could he sheath the sword, which was the only way he knew to quench the flames.

  His helm limited his vision; he could not crane his neck to look upward, not while yanking with both hands and both feet to unloose the magnetized bronze cap from off his sword. His eyes were swollen now, and his lungs stabbed him with pain each time he drew a breath, and both arms were swimming in pain from the monstrous blows and grasps he had endured.

  Guynglaff said mockingly, “Here is the stone which comes from the taproot of the magnetic mountain covering the north pole of the world, and it draws all iron to it. Such a stone has power over even such metal as the sword of Weyland. Are you the same man who broke my tooth and took it and buried me alive? The charms that protect me kept my flesh intact, in deadliest thirst the whole time, trapped in a small cell with the ghosts of my victims mocking me. Seven hundred days I was living in my grave before my brothers dug me up. Are you he? Or do I seek another?”

  Gil let go of Dyrnwen and drew his waster. He said, “Liar! You said I was your son! Now you ask if I took your tooth…? Coward! Come down and face me….”

  But the monster had only been waiting for him to speak to mark his position. Agile as a thunderbolt, the yeti grasped the eaves of the roof with two hands and one wounded foot, and swung himself in a great circle to strike Gil from behind, and with a kick of his unwounded foot, and all the momentum of his body—for he let go of the eave at the nadir of his arc—and rammed into Gil with the force of a pile driver
.

  The shock of the blow made Gil’s vision swim and sent a dizzy sensation through his head. He could no longer feel his feet. But no, he realized dimly that he was in midair, sailing out over the water, broken splinters of his broken wooden blade toppling gracefully through the air with him.

  The bridge was a tall one, and the shock of the water was a bludgeon blow. Gil tried to move his bruised limbs, but new pains added to the aches in his arms and ribs made that impossible. Nonetheless, he fought to paddle and kick himself toward the air for which his bruised lungs so badly ached. But then, in the darkness, he could not see in which direction the surface lay. Was he swimming downward?

  He struggled.

  The cold water ate his strength. The cold armor was too heavy.

  He failed.

  Down and down he went.

  4. The Kiss

  Then, he felt nimble fingers at his throat, undoing his helmet buckles. Someone pulled his helmet off. Something touched his head, clung, and spread, and the crown of his head turned cold. It was a cap that had somehow glued itself to his hair and scalp. Little streamers of cold, refreshing, sank into this head and neck, down his throat, and into his lungs.

  He drew in a great breath. He could breathe! No, he could not. It was water in his lungs, but somehow it was sustaining him. He still could not see. Perhaps night had fallen, perhaps his eyes had swollen shut, or perhaps he was about to faint from the pain.

  Soft arms wound around his chest. “Stop struggling. I have put my cohuleen-druith on you, my mermaid cap. Its peculiarity is this: you will not die while submerged, despite your wounds. But more than this! My father, Glaucon, is a great physician, and wove many runes of power into its weaving. Open your mouth. I have herbs to give you, mixed with panaceas of the deep. Lucky for you Daddy makes me lug this bag around.”

  It was the voice of Nerea.

  Gil said, “Can I talk underwater, now?”

  She said, “Certainly not! Shut your mouth! Now, open your mouth, like I said.”

  “…the surface. Have to kill the Bigfoot…”

  “Stop talking! Tell me! How did your pooka dog know where to find me?”

  “…kill Bigfoot… my mother… he said… kill….”

  “That fight is over. I saw him bounding away through the treetops, lighting leaves on fire. Now shut your mouth before I do something drastic!”

  “…my sword…”

  She kissed him. It was like a lightning bolt of pure pleasure traveled up and down his spine. He could taste the lemon and chili peppers of the bitter herb in her mouth. She breathed life into his lungs, adding the power of the herb to that of the mermaid cap.

  He stopped struggling, stopped talking.

  The girl took him in her soft arms and soared through the nocturnal waters, swifter than a dolphin, towing him along.

  The darkness, the floating weightlessness, the weariness, were too much. His consciousness fled.

  * * *

  Here ends FEAST OF THE ELFS

  The Green Knight’s Squire,

  A Tale of Moth and Cobweb,

  comes to a close in

  SWAN KNIGHT’S SWORD

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  There Will Be War Vol. V ed. Jerry Pournelle

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