The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  It was a wide space of the marshes which began some two leagues away near the first island on the Causeway; he never found where it ended, for it seemed to span the whole heart of the marsh. And surely the place was as black and hazardous a heart as that fell place would have, all overgrown with thick clusters of black rushes whose stiff spear-tipped leaves could leave deep stab wounds in leg or questing hand. Worse, the whole area was spotted with broad shallow depressions, up to a hundred paces or so wide. These seemed to mark the path of some watercourse far below ground, for they were brimful of mud that was always liquid and sucked down what fell into it like the maw of a giant. And they were not constant, but would change from week to week, as if the water were seeking new courses under what had once been solid ground. Alv found them first by falling through a thin skin of rotting vegetation, and only pulled himself free with his rake. But when he had rested a little he thought the pit a likely place for iron, and raked as far as he could reach. He was surprised when at the first pass the tines hooked something that could not possibly be an ironstone. But it felt hard, so he drew it in, expecting some half-decayed root or branch. So he was even more startled to see before him the blackened remains of a breastplate with corroded rags and tags of chain mail still attached to it, and of no type or style he knew. There was enough metal left to be valuable, so he took it and thought little more of it, until some hundreds of paces further on, in more solid mud, he pulled up a clump of colorful marsh samphire to pickle and found an arrowhead tangled among its roots, and after that the peak of an iron helmet, again of no kind he knew. He raked another pit, and came up with yet more armor, but to his horror there was part of a body yet inside it, a headless trunk, withered but tanned brown and preserved by the marsh.

  He let it fall then, and left that place, but he soon conquered his loathing of it enough to return, for the whole land was a treasure trove of metal. Some immense battle had taken place there once, or perhaps many, and other tragedies besides, and the ceaseless ferment of the bog brought many sad remnants back to the daylight. Once he came upon a whole wagon standing proud of the mud, with rags of its hide cover clinging to the metal hoops, and tackle dangling stiffly from its front. And when he waded cautiously out to it over the half-hardened ground, he found in the mud inside those it had carried, the bodies, still recognizable, of a man, a woman, two children; their hair gleamed golden in the slime, though their clothes had rotted to shreds. One of the man's hands yet grasped at a length of hide cord, which had surely been reins, but the other clasped at the fragments of an arrow in his chest.

  "You were fleeing," said Alv aloud to the dark dead faces. "Who knows what from, or why? But they shot you, man, and your cart ran off into the marsh. And they cut your team free, and left your wagon, and your folk, to sink…" He felt his eyes prickle, and with a sudden surge of revulsion he ducked down, put his back to the rotting wood and with a single fearful heave tipped it out and over into the still liquid heart of the pit. The upturned wagon sank slowly from sight, its burden hidden beneath. "Sleep again," he said harshly, as the blood-red grass flowers hissed in the wind. "Sleep, and forget. There is injustice enough walks free and alive in the light of day."

  As autumn drew on, and darkness closed around the day, the marsh became yet more terrible for him. Rains pounded the land, washing what had been firm paths into treacherous slideways to the dark pools. The song sparrows and mockingbirds fell silent, and the sad notes of plover and sandpiper, the harsh croaks of rails and faraway screams of seabirds echoed across the flat land. The mists came rolling in off the distant sea till only the scant treetops could be seen, like stark fingers clawing up, and in that mist the shadows grew weird and treacherous. Some seemed to walk by themselves, strange thin forms stalking beside him or behind him, whichever way he turned. At night eerie cries echoed under the black obscuring clouds, pallid lights danced in the shadows beside the Causeway, and sleet and moaning wind battered at his door like great hands knocking. He kept it well barred, and seldom stirred outside. When once he did, on a night that was crisp and clear, he saw an immensely tall figure, glimmering gray in the starlight, go gliding across the frosty grasses like smoke in a breeze. He stood rock-still till it had passed, then backed slowly inside, softly shut and barred the door and sank down behind it, shaking.

  Not long after that, as autumn merged into a black, biting winter, he was just settling down for the night when he heard the unmistakable clop and rumble of a caravan approaching from the north. Wearily he went to the door and watched its lanterns advancing through the mist—a small party, eight or nine wagons and a carriage. He was glad when its troubles turned out to be even smaller—a single sheared axle-pin on the lead wagon, which he was able to replace from his prepared stock, filing and beating it to a solid fit with a few minutes' labor. He turned to store away the fine slab of bacon and pitcher of wine that were his fee, ignoring the caravan as it rumbled off. But he glanced up at the carriage as it came toward him. At the half-open window a slender arm rested; its long sleeve fluttered aside, and in its shadow he glimpsed the serpentine shape of his armring.

  What that girl has, Louhi has …

  He stood in desperate confusion. If that was Kara—but if it was Louhi… And Louhi might well be there also-heading south—why? He remembered what Ingar had called her—a schemer, a troublemaker—a great lady out of the Southlands, probably … Was she returning there? As the carriage drew level with him he craned his neck to see, and made out another indistinct shape inside. He could dimly distinguish the face of the woman at the window, wreathed in something light-hued—but whether that was blond hair or a white hood, he could not tell. The woman did not see him; she seemed to be looking straight ahead, toward the Causeway. He had only to call out… And risk an encounter with Louhi. That might be almost as perilous as meeting the Mastersmith. Doubt held him a crucial moment, and the carriage rumbled by. And as it passed he saw the dim face turn; whoever she was, she was glancing down at him but without any sign of recog-nition. He stood, frozen, realizing only then how great were the changes that wanderings and labor and hardship had wrought in him, and the shame of them rose like bile in his throat. He felt then that even if it was Kara, he dared not move or speak to acknowledge himself, in the state he was. He let the carriage pull away. But as it passed her gaze seemed to linger on him, and as the carriage reached the Causeway he heard the window slam down, saw the white-wreathed head half lean out and look back. In a spasm of anguish he turned away as if uninterested, cursing himself for every kind of coward. He did not look again till the grind of the wheels had dwindled into the distance, and the caravan was fading like a dream beneath the livid face of the rising moon. Then he walked stiff-legged back into the mean forge, and collapsed onto his bed.

  That midnight Alv awoke bathed in sweat, though the fire was low, and racked with sudden shivers. When he tried to stand, it was as if the marsh had run under the floor, and quaked. His bones ached, his teeth chattered, and before long his lungs seemed on fire. When he looked down at his hand the firelight seemed to shine right through it, as if he was fading away. With the last of his strength he fetched in more peat; he laid food to hand, and an infusion he had made from the bark of a certain tree which he had learned was a specific against some fevers. It was this, perhaps, that brought him over the worst of his illness, but it lasted many weeks and all but killed him. At times he lay raving beside the dying fire, seeing faces arise to haunt him in its lambent flames. The dead of Asenby came shimmering around him with the Headman and Hervar, all blackened, leading them, showing off their wounds with malign pride; the family from the wagon gathered around his bed, staring at him with wide shriveled eyes, and Kara moved among them, let fall her cloak to show herself as naked and withered as they. And in the corners of the forge, now here, now there, calmly surveying it all, stood the bulky frame of Ingar; as Kara appeared he threw back his head in a hearty laugh, and as he laughed he slowly, very slowly, cracked and crumbled away. Alv felt
streams of whitehot silver run down his cheeks, but they were only tears.

  Mercifully he grew lucid long enough to feed the fire before it died, and once to rekindle it when it had, though he was very weak and had to crawl. At times he choked down a draft of the bitter drug, and sometimes even a morsel of food when his stomach did not revolt. So he lived, and one night before the turn of the year the fever broke, though the morning found him almost too weak to move. The worst of winter was not yet upon him, and though it sorely taxed him and he had barely enough food, by degrees his health returned. Cocooned in his blankets, he huddled in the smoky darkness while the winds howled outside and the silent snow fell, and grew used to his misery, and patient under it, and awaited its ending in peace.

  And one morning, though the marshes still gleamed with ice, and snow clung to the flanks of the Causeway, he was able to come out into the fresh dawn air, and find in it a taste and promise of spring. He breathed deeply, and spread his arms wide, and found room in his mind and heart for nothing but sheer delight at being alive. It was as if in those hours of illness he had at last faced what tormented him and met its agonizing price; the fever-flame had burnt it out of him. He could still suffer for what he had done, feel a chill shiver of horror and regret, but it had faded now into a memory, no more. He was cured of more than his sickness.

  The sun arose in glory, reborn from the old year that was gone. "And I also am reborn," he thought, "here all alone. Am I still the boy they called Alv? Surely not. That was never his name. Better to be a nameless, lonely smith of the Saltmarshes—one alone, but one made whole…"

  And then he remembered the lines from the ancient book, the words in the old tongue he had found when he made the helm, and among them the one that had two meanings. Elof, one alone; Elof, the smith.

  So that is my name! he thought, as if he had known it all along.

  Elof, who had been Alv, sat there in the sunlight for as long as it lasted, and moved little, for he was in truth like a newborn infant; all his great strength had deserted him, and it was slow to return. But he was patient, and ate as much as he wished of his provisions, knowing that he would soon be fit to hunt and forage again, and that before long the caravans would be rolling along the roads once more. The first of them came southward only a week or two later, and he greeted it with joy, for it was Kathel's returning, having overwintered in the north. The trader was equally pleased to find him.

  "Look at this! Thirty wagons dragging, out of forty-five! Wheels, hubs, axles, sometimes it's only the dirt holding them together, and that's what your misbegotten bitches of northern roads are doing to an honest man's profits! Well, Alv, how fare you? Thinner but happier, by the face on you—"

  "I've been ill, but I'm better. And by the by, my name's Elof-"

  "Ahah!" thundered Kathel exultantly, leering and tapping a finger to the side of his red-veined nose. "So you were being close, then, and not giving me your right one, and didn't I always say it, Master Ourhens?" He nudged the small bald man violently in the ribs. "Didn't I? Alv, no name for a man, that, I said. Changeling indeed! Well, far be it from me to blame a lad for being careful at first, far be it. Let's have a drink on it!"

  Elof let him assume that was how it was, because changing Kathel's mind over anything was hard work, and he had enough of that with his carts. It took nearly four days to work all the repairs, and Kathel in gratitude left him so much food it almost filled the little space in the forge. And as his caravan filed away southward, with many shouted promises to return northward next spring, if they could, Elof suddenly felt he would welcome that, even with the prospect of another winter in between. For all their strangeness, for all the frost that still lingered late into the mornings and the storms of driving sleet and rain that came rolling in from the distant sea, the marshes were becoming a home to him, almost a shelter from the bitter demands of the world. Here he need worry only about himself, and that not so much now. They were a peaceful place as spring drew nearer, and even the echoes of an-cient strife seemed to ring less loudly among the unheeding chatter of the birds.

  But later that day they rang out once again, for as he went searching the margins of the Battle Lands for more iron to replenish his dwindled stock of hoop tires and horseshoes, he came upon a whole heap of corpses thrown up by the flooding after the thaw. Most of them were fragmented past recognition, but one huge form lay whole, face down and a little apart from the rest, half out of the mud as if he were even now trying to escape. He seemed to be wearing black ringmail, which Elof had always found too corroded to reforge. This looked better than usual, but as Elof waded out unsteadily to examine it he saw something gleaming in the mailed hand still clutched by the mud. Gently he reached down and parted the stiff fingers— and saw the sword hilt they grasped crumble to fragments in that instant. Below it something black went slithering back down into the mud; he grabbed it—then yelped with surprise and pain. But he held his grip, and with great difficulty managed to pull it free, and wiped it clean on the grass. It was the blade the hilt had held, black like the mail, and it had cut deeply into his palms. Forgetting his pain, he whistled with admiration, holding the dark metal up to the sun and seeing drops of his blood run gleaming down the rim. "And what smith of old made you, my beauty, that you Ve still such a cutting temper, eh? I'd have liked to meet him, and tell him you're every bit as sound and as sharp as the day he made you. And find out how!" he added, with a deep sigh of envy. He held it by the tang, weighed it, balanced it, flexed it and finally swept it up in a great arc, lopping the heads from the nodding grasses. And that put a thought in his mind, and he looked over to the pile of cloven corpses, and nodded thoughtfully. It was hard to number them, but there might have been thirty or more. He whistled again, looked down at the dark shape, and made to turn it over and look upon the face of one who had wielded such a weapon and to such effect. But the very movement and the touch of his hand disturbed a delicate balance. With a soft whispering sound the mail-clad figure slid back down into the mud, and was instantly sucked down. Only the mailed hand stood upraised an instant, then it was gone in a swirl of bubbles. For two breaths Elof stood there astonished, and then he raised the dark blade to his forehead in silent salute.

  He took the blade home with him, and he worked long into the stormy night, crafting the best hilt he could for it. He longed to make one worthy of such a weapon, if only to be about something more demanding than cartwright's or farrier's work. But how could he, maimed in spirit as he was? He sighed, like the wind in the old stone chimney. It was not only fine materials he lacked, but the power to make anything worthwhile of them. So he toiled at reducing and reforging scraps of the finest steel he could scrape together, and sighed often, and not only with the weariness of the labor. But as he worked, watching the flames dance to the singing wind, he found a rhythm and a harmony that gradually became a tune he could hum, a theme as sweeping and spacious as the fens that gave it birth, noble in tone but with a darker, sadder undertone. It seemed to reflect the origins of the sword only too well, and in the end the hilt he made pleased him. Its bold shape suited the straight sweep of the blade to perfection, and for the grip he had found a coil of silvered wire he could weave into a fine pattern. Most important of all, though, he had calculated the weight exactly against the blade's; the new-made sword balanced beautifully in the hand. It was the first fair thing his hands had shaped for many a day. When he had flattened and fined the last rivets holding it to the tang he set it on the anvil and sat for a long time gazing at it, watching the strange cloudlike patterns the firelight sent chasing across the tight coils of the grip, as if he had somehow put the wide fenland skies into his work. Or was it only the firelight? He turned it this way and that, hunting the faintest glimmers like minnows in the pools, refusing to admit even the faintest cool chill of hope. He paid little heed to the new song of the wind, rising in a gusty urgent howl across the marsh, pressing the fire down like an unseen hand and setting the door rattling.

  At l
ast, when the best of the night was past, he thought reluctantly of his bed. But even as he rose and left his anvil, the door shook violently with a sound that was not the wind, a thunderous knocking and a gruff voice shouting.

  "Come out! Come out, you smith of the saltmarsh, and shoe me my horse! Day is near, and I must be on my way!"

  For an instant Elof stood shocked and indecisive, and all the eeriness he had seen and sensed in that place seemed to gather around him. But then he took hold of his courage. He had no choice. Why was he here at all, after all, if not to help somebody in trouble on such a night? But he snatched the sword up from the anvil before he strode to the door. He slid back the bar, opened it a little— and an instant later, in a sudden gust of terror, he all but slammed it shut.

  On the road outside, its breath steaming in the wind, stood a horse of immense size, a very warhorse, and the stately rider in its saddle matched it well, for he seemed taller than mortal man could be. He was muffled up in a dark cloak, but at his back he bore a long, pointed black shield, and he was sliding a long spear back into its saddlerest; its butt had left its mark on the door. Then he swung himself down, and as he did so the cloak parted, metal rang softly, and the firelight glimmered on the black armor beneath.

  But even as Elof s hand tensed on the door, a hot onrush of contemptuous anger drowned his fright. What good would skulking behind a door do? Let this be the warrior from the pit himself arisen, he wasn't going to show he was even remotely afraid. He hefted his new sword, and swung the door wide. And as the newcomer stepped forward, Elof saw that he wore a breastplate as brightly black as a moonlight lake, wholly unlike that strange dark ring mail. At his side swung a great broadsword in a scabbard of the same hue, and he threw back his hood to reveal a high black helm. The visor made shadowy pits of the eyes, but beneath it the pale-skinned face was imperious, a great eagle nose and a bushy gray-black beard revealing thin hard lips set in a strange ironic smile. Behind him the great horse whinnied impatiently and pounded the road, and slowly Elof lowered his sword. "Where to, at such an hour? And in such haste?"