The Broken Sword

by Poul Anderson

  As he grew up, he had much attention from the supernally lovely elf women. Without gods, and with few children, the elves know not marriage, but their nature was such that their women had more wish of love and their men less than among humans. Thus Skafloc found himself in great favor, and many a good time did he have in the light nights of summer.

  But the most difficult and perilous part of his training was in magic. Imric had him wholly in hand for this, and, while he was not able to learn as much as his foster-father, both because of his human nature and his short life, he came to be as adept as most elf chieftains. He learned first how to shun and sidestep the iron no elf, troll, or goblin could endure; even when he became aware of his nature and his ability to touch the metal without harm, he left it alone out of habit. Then he learned the runes for healing wounds and illness, warding off bad luck, or wishing evil on foemen. He learned the songs which could raise or lay storms, bring good or bad harvests, and move rock and wood and metal. He learned the use of the cloak of darkness, and of the skins he could don to take the form of a beast. Near the end of his training he learned the mighty runes and songs and charms which could raise the dead and read the future and compel the gods; but save in time of direst need no one cared to be shaken to his inmost being by these and risk the utter destruction they could wreak on him.

  Skafloc was often down by the sea, he could sit hour upon hour looking out over its restless wastes to the cloudy line where the water met the sky, he never wearied of its deep voice or its thousand moods or its clean sharp tang of salty depths and windy distances. He came of a seafaring breed, and the running tides were in his blood. He often spoke to the seals in their barking, grunting tongue, and the wheeling gulls brought him news from the earth’s ends. Sometimes when he was in company with other warriors, the white sea maidens would rise from the foam, wringing out their long green hair as they came up on the beach, and then there would be a gay time. They were cool and wet to the touch and they smelled of the sea; afterward Skafloc would have a faint fishy taste on his lips, but he liked them well.

  When he was fifteen he stood nearly as tall as Imric, broad of shoulder and taut of sinew, with his long hair bleached almost white against his brown skin. He had a straight, blunt, strong-boned face, a wide merry mouth, and large eyes set far apart and blue as the summer sea. A mystery hung about him, veiling itself behind his eyes which had looked on more than mortals saw, revealing itself in his cat-lithe movements.

  Imric said to him: ‘Now you are big enough to have your own weapons rather than old ones of mine, and also I have been summoned by the Erlking. We will fare overseas.’

  At this Skafloc whooped for joy, cartwheeled out into the fields, and galloped his horse madly through the lands of men, making magic out of sheer need to do something. He caused pots to dance on the hearth and bells to ring and axes to cut wood of their own accord, he sang cows up onto the peasant’s roof and a wind into being which scattered his hay over the shire and a rain of gold out of the sky into his yard. With the Tarnkappe about his shoulders, he kissed the girls working at twilight in the fields and rumpled their hair and tossed their men into a ditch. For many days thereafter, masses were sung to exorcise the spate of witchcraft, but by that time Skafloc was on the sea.

  Imric’s black longship sped over moonlit waves with her sail taut under a wind he had raised. There was a picked company of elf warriors along, for the chance of meeting trolls or sea monsters was not to be ignored. Skafloc stood by the dragon prow peering eagerly forward – he could see by night as well as by day, given witch-sight. He spied the leaping porpoises, silver-gray under the moon, and hailed an old bull seal he knew. Once a whale broached, water roaring off his mighty flanks. Things which mortal sailors only glimpsed or dreamed were plain to the cloudy slant elf-eyes and to Skafloc: the sea maidens tumbling in the foam and singing, the drowned towers of Ys far below the moon-rippling billows, a brief gleam of white and gold and a hawk-scream of challenge overhead – Valkyrs rushing to some battle in the east.

  Wind sang in the ship’s rigging and the sea roared at the strakes. Ere dawn the vessel had reached the other shore, been drawn up on the beach, and lay hidden by spells.

  The elves took shelter in a cave, but Skafloc was about during much of the day. He climbed a tall tree and looked in wonder at the strange land rolling southward. He spied the gaunt gray hall of some baron, and thought briefly and pityingly of the narrow human lives that flickered in its gloom. He would not trade.

  When night came, the elves mounted their horses and rode inland swift as a winging storm. Ere midnight they were in rough wild mountain country where the moonlight cast its thin-etched silver and crouching shadows on bleak pinnacles, swooping cliffs, and the far green shimmer of glaciers. The elves rode easily along a narrow treacherous trail, harnesses chiming, lances high, plumes and capes streaming. Hoofbeats rang on the stones and echoed back through gulfs of night.

  A horn sounded hoarsely from above, another from below. The elves heard a clank of metal and a tramping of feet, and when they came to the end of the trail they saw a dwarf host guarding a cave mouth.

  The little bandy-legged men scarce came up to Skafloc’s waist, but they were immensely broad of shoulder and long of arm. Their dark bearded faces were angry, their little eyes smoldered red and bitter under tangled brows. They held swords and axes and shields, but their power of handling iron was of little use against the elves’ arrows and long spears.

  ‘What will you?’ asked their leader, his voice cavernously deep in his hairy breast. ‘Have the elves and trolls not wrought us enough ill, harrying our lands and bearing our folk off as thralls? This time our force is larger than yours, and if you come nearer we will slay you.’

  ‘We come in peace now, Motsognir,’ replied Imric softly. ‘We wish only to buy of your wares.’

  ‘I know your trickery, Imric the guileful,’ said Motsognir harshly. ‘You would make peace only to put us off our guard.’

  ‘I will give hostages,’ offered Imric, and this the dwarf king grudgingly accepted. Leaving several elves disarmed and surrounded, Motsognir led the others down into his caverns.

  Here glowed red coals, lighting the rocky walls with bloody shadow-beset dimness, and over their forges the dwarfs labored unceasingly. Their hammers rang and echoed and boomed down the dark dank corridors until Skafloc’s head seemed to ring in answer. Here were made the most tricky works of all the world, rare goblets and beakers ablaze with gems, rings and necklaces of ruddy gold cunningly fashioned; weapons were beaten out of metals torn from the mountain’s heart, weapons fit for gods – and indeed the dwarfs had done much work for the gods – and other weapons cursed with evil. Mighty were the runes and charms the dwarfs could grave, and strange were the arts they had mastered.

  ‘I would have you make an outfit for my foster-son here,’ said Imric.

  Motsognir’s little red mole-eyes searched Skafloc’s tall form in the wavering light. His voice rumbled through the hammer-clashing: ‘So you have been up to your old changeling tricks again, Imric? Someday you will overreach yourself. But since this is a human, I suppose he will want arms of steel.’

  Skafloc hesitated. The elves used brass, copper, bronze, gold, silver, and certain metals which men did not yet know but which gave alloys as hard and tough as steel itself. But such weapons had not quite the weight demanded by Skafloc’s growing strength.

  ‘Aye, steel,’ he said firmly.

  ‘ ’Tis well, ’tis well,’ growled Motsognir, and turned to his forge. ‘Let me tell you, boy, that you humans, weak and short-lived and ignorant, are yet stronger than elves and trolls, aye, than giants and gods. And that you can touch cold iron is only one reason. Ho!’ he called. ‘Ho, Sindri, Dyrin, Dvalin, come to help!’

  Now the forging went apace, sparks flying and metal shouting so that it was a marvel, and erelong Skafloc wore winged helm and shining byrnie, shield on back and sword at side and ax in hand, all of wondrous hard, blue-gleaming ste
el. He yelled, fierce with exultation, and swung high his weapons and shrilled the screaming war-cry of the elves.

  ‘Ha!’ he cried, clashing the sword back into its sheath. ‘Now let trolls or goblins, aye, giants dare approach Alfheim, we shall smite them like the lightning and carry fire into their own lands!’ And he made the verses:

  Swiftly goes the sword-play

  singing in the mountains.

  Clash of steel is calling,

  clanging up to heaven: –

  arrows flying angry;

  axes lifting skyward,

  banging down on byrnies,

  breaking shields and helmets.

  Swiftly goes the sword-play:

  Spears on hosts are raining;

  men run forth in madness,

  mowing ranks of foemen;

  battle tumult bellows;

  blood is red on ax-heads;

  greedily the gray wolf

  gorges with the raven.

  ‘Well spoke,’ said Imric coolly, ‘but remember not to touch elves with those new arms of yours. Now let us begone.’ He gave Motsognir a sack of gold. ‘Here is payment for the work.’

  ‘Rather had I been paid by the freeing of your thralls of our race,’ said the dwarf.

  ‘They are too useful,’ declared Imric, and left.

  Again at dawn his troop sheltered in a cave, and then the next night rode on into the mysterious great forest in which was the Erlking’s castle.

  Here was a weaving of witchery which Skafloc did not yet know how to unravel. He was dimly aware of high slender towers against the moon, of a deep blue twilight in which many stars wavered and danced, of a music which seemed to sing through flesh and bone to thrill in the very soul, but it was not until they were in the throne room that he could see again.

  The elf lords stood tall and silent in the blue dusk, their beautiful pale faces closed and secret, their strange eyes seeming blind and yet looking deeper than mortal. In a throne of shadow sat the Erlking. Golden were his crown and scepter, and his robes of a purple that blent with the spacious gloaming. His long hair and beard were white, and he alone of the elves showed any sign of age, in that his high noble forehead and his cheeks were lined. His face was as if carved in marble, but eldritch fires smoldered in his eyes.

  Imric the elf-earl bowed, and the warriors in his train bent the knee to the king. When the ruler spoke it was like a wind rushing through far-off trees: ‘Greeting, Imric, earl of Britain’s elves.’

  ‘Greeting, lord,’ answered the chieftain, and he met the Erlking’s terrible gaze.

  ‘We have summoned the elf-earls to council,’ quoth the king, ‘since word has reached us that the trolls make ready to go to war again. It cannot be doubted that ’tis us they arm against, and we may look for the truce to end in the next few years.’

  ‘That is well, lord. Our swords were moldering in the scabbards.’

  ‘It may not be so well, Imric. Last time the elves drove back the trolls and would have entered their lands had not peace been made. Illrede Troll-King is no fool, and he would not attempt war if he did not think he was stronger than formerly.’

  ‘I will ready my lauds, lord, and try to send spies and raiders to their lands.’

  ‘That is well.’ Now the Erlking turned his eyes on Skafloc, who grew cold about the heart but met that blind fire-flickering stare readily enough. ‘We have heard tell of your changeling, Imric,’ he murmured, soft and chill and deadly. ‘You should have asked us.’

  ‘There was no time, lord,’ defended the elf-earl. ‘The babe would be baptized ere I could come here and back. Hard is it to steal a child these days.’

  ‘And risky too, Imric.’

  ‘Aye, lord, but worth it. Humans may do much which is barred to elves and trolls and other beings – they may use all metals, they may touch holy water and the cross and speak the name of that new god who is our greatest foe – aye, the old gods themselves must flee some things which humans use. We elves need such a one.’

  ‘The changeling you left in his place could do all that.’

  ‘Indeed, lord. But you know the wild and evil nature of such half-breed beings, they are surely not to be trusted with magic such as this human knows. Were it not that men must never be sore their children are stolen, so that they would call their gods to avenge it, elves would make no changelings at all.’

  ‘Can this human be trusted? Let him but turn Christian and he is beyond our reach – already he grows strong—’

  ‘No, lord!’ Skafloc stood forth in all that proud assembly and looked directly into the Erlking’s face. ‘I am but thankful to Imric for rescuing me from the dull blind round of a human life. I am elf in all but blood, it was elf breasts I suckled as a babe and elf tongue I speak and elf girls I sleep beside.’ He lifted his tawny head, almost arrogantly. ‘Give me leave, lord, and I will be the best of your hounds – but if a dog be driven out, he will become a wolf and feed on his master’s flocks.’

  Some of the elves were aghast at this boldness, but the king nodded, and smiled a grim smile. ‘We believe you,’ he said, ‘and indeed earlier men adopted into Alfheim proved good warriors. What worries us about you is the story of the Aesir’s naming-gift. They have a hand in this somewhere, and their purpose is not like to be our own.’

  A shudder ran around the gathering and some made rune signs in the air. But Imric said: ‘What the Norns have ordered, not even the gods may alter. And I would count it shame to lose the most promising of men because of a dim fear of the future.’

  ‘Indeed it would be,’ quoth the Erlking, and there the council ended.

  A great and lavish feast was held ere the meeting of the earls dissolved. Skafloc’s head swam with the magnificence of the Erlking’s court. When finally he came home, his contempt and pity for humans were so great that he had naught to do with them at all.

  Now some half-dozen years went by. The elves showed no change, but Skafloc grew until his outfit had to be altered by Imric’s dwarf thralls. He stood even taller and broader than the elf-earl, and was the strongest man in the realm. He wrestled bears and wild bulls, and often ran down a stag on foot. No other in Alfheim could bend his bow, or could have swung his ax even had it not been of iron.

  He grew leaner of face, and let a mustache the wheaten color of his long hair grow on his lip. But he became, if anything, merrier and more unruly than before, a lover of madcap pranks and breakneck stunts, a mischievous warlock who would raise a whirlwind just to lift a girl’s skirt, a mighty drinker and brawler. Restless with his own strength, he prowled the land, hunting the most dangerous game he could find. Monsters of the Wood of Grendel he sought out and slew in their desolate fens, sometimes suffering frightful wounds which only Imric’s runes could heal, but ever ready for another bout. Then again he might lie idle for weeks on end, staring dreamily into clouds high above, scarce stirring himself. Or in some beast shape, with senses strange to man, he would seek forests and waters, to gambol as an otter or hunt as a wolf or wing in fierce lonely pride as an eagle.

  ‘Three things have I never known,’ he boasted once. ‘Fear, and defeat, and love-sickness.’

  Imric looked at him strangely. ‘Young are you,’ he murmured, ‘not to have known the three ultimates of human life.’

  ‘I am more elf than human, foster-father.’

  ‘So you are – now.’

  One year Imric outfitted a dozen longships and went a-roving. The fleet crossed the eastern sea, and harried goblins dwelling along the rocky coasts. Then the warriors rode inland and made a raid on a troll town, burning it after they had slain its folk and taken their treasure. Sailing north and then east through a weird white land of mist and cold and drifting icebergs, Imric and Skafloc and their men at last rounded the cape and went south. Here they fought dragons, and harried among the demons of the land. They followed the continent westward again, until it turned south, and then north anew. Their hardest fight was on a desert shore with a troop of exiled gods, grown thi
n and shrunken and mad in their loneliness but still wielding fearsome powers. Three elf ships were burned after the fight, there being none left to man them, but Imric was the victor.

  They saw somewhat of humans, but paid no great heed, the more so since their warring was with beings of faerie; and the humans never saw them at all, or only in frightened glimpses. Only four ships returned of that fleet, three years after it set out, but they had a huge booty of wealth and captives. It had been a glorious voyage, of which great report went about in Alfheim and the neighboring lands, and the fame of Imric and Skafloc was high.

  6

  The witch dwelt alone in the forest with only her memories for company, and over the years these fed on her soul and left their castings of hate and vengeance-lust. She began to increase her powers, raising spirits out of the earth and speaking with demons of the upper air. To the Black Sabbath on the Brocken she rode, high through the sky on a broomstick with her rags streaming in the wind. A monster feasting it was, with ancient hideous shapes chanting about the dark altar, with steaming kettles of blood from which they drank deep, but perhaps the most frightful of all were the fair white young women who joined in the rites and in the fearful matings.

  Wiser the witch returned, with a rat for familiar who suckled blood out of her withered breasts with his sharp little teeth and at night crouched on her pillow and chittered in her ear as she slept. And so at last she was given strength to raise the Dark One by herself.

  Thunder and lightning rolled about her hovel, with blue phosphorescent glare and the stink of Hell’s pits. But the vast shadowy presence before which she groveled was beautiful in its inhuman way, for all evil is luring and this was the fount of it.