The Broken Sword

by Poul Anderson

  The elf sentries stormed at him, and despite the iron he wore he had a desperate fight. But then the trolls had found the rope and come up after him. Erelong he had a large enough force atop the wall to hew his way to the gates and open them for his host.

  There was a great slaughter of elves, with still more being taken captive and led in chains back to Elfheugh. Valgard plundered and burned in the castle and the elf-hill towns around it and came back with a huge booty.

  Grum gave him sullen greeting, for he thought Valgard was getting too good a name among the trolls. ‘You could have stayed there,’ he said. ‘There is scarce room in this place for both of us.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ murmured Valgard, measuring the earl with his chill pale eyes.

  Grum could not do less than hold a great feast for his chief and place him in the high seat at his right. The elf women served the trolls, and Leea came to Valgard with horn after horn of the strong wine.

  ‘To our great hero, mightiest of warriors in lands of men or faerie,’ she toasted him, smiling. The silvery light gleamed through her thin silks to the supple wonder of her body, and Valgard’s head spun with her nearness.

  ‘You can give me better thanks than that,’ he cried, and pulled her onto his lap. Fiercely he kissed her, and she responded no less eagerly.

  Grum, slumped back in his seat and draining the horns without a word, now stirred in anger. ‘Get back to your work, faithless bitch,’ he snarled, and to Valgard: ‘Best you leave my woman alone. You have enough of your own.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Valgard. ‘But I like this one. I will give you three others for her.’

  ‘Ha, I can take your three if I like – I, your earl. What I choose is mine – and leave her be.’

  ‘The loot should go to him who can best use it,’ taunted Leea, not moving from Valgard’s lap. ‘And you have only one hand.’

  The troll sprang from his seat, blind with rage and clawing for his sword. ‘Help me!’ cried Leea.

  Valgard’s ax seemed to leap of itself into his grasp. Ere Grum, awkward with his left hand, could draw blade, the changeling’s weapon sank into his neck.

  He fell at Valgard’s feet with blood spurting and looked tip into the twisted white face. ‘You are an evil man,’ said Grum, ‘but she is worse.’ And he died.

  Now a great uproar rose in the hall, weapons flashed forth and the trolls surged for the high seat. Some cried for Valgard’s instant death, others swore they would defend him. For a moment it was about to become a battle.

  Then Valgard snatched the blood-smeared coronet, which had been Imric’s, from Grum’s head and set it on his own locks. He stood forth in front of the high seat and his great voice shouted out, calling for silence.

  Slowly that silence came, until only a heavy breathing was heard in the hall. The bared weapons gleamed, and every eye was on Valgard where he stood tall and prideful in his strength.

  He spoke at last, quietly but with metal in his cold tones: ‘This came somewhat sooner than I looked for, but it was bound to come. For what use to Trollheim was a cripple like Grum, unfit for battle, useful only for drinking wine and sleeping with women that might have gone to better men? I, who come of blood as good as any in Trollheim, and who have shown I can win victory, am more fit to be your earl. Better will it be for all trolls, particularly those of England, if I lead. I promise you victory, rich booty and high living and a glory in faerie, will you but belt me earl.’

  He pulled the ax out of Grum and lifted it. ‘Whoever disputes my right must argue it with me – now,’ he said. ‘But whoever shall stand true to me now will be repaid a thousand fold.’

  At this, the men who had followed him to the siege let forth a mighty cheer. Others, who wished not to fight, joined them, so it ended with Valgard’s taking the high seat and the feast’s going on.

  Later, alone with Leea, the changeling sat looking darkly at her. ‘This is the second time a woman has driven me to murder,’ he said bleakly. ‘Were I wise, I would chop your body in three.’

  ‘I cannot stop you, lord,’ she smiled, and laid her white arms about his neck.

  ‘You know I cannot do it,’ he said hoarsely. ‘ ’Tis idle talk – my life is black enough without such peace as I can find in a woman’s love.’

  Still later he asked her: ‘Were you thus with the elves – with Skafloc?’

  She lifted her head over his so that the fragrant net of her hair covered both. ‘Let it suffice that I am thus with you, lord,’ she whispered, and kissed him.

  Now Valgard ruled Elfheugh for some time. Even in the ever deepening winter he was afield, breaking down elf strongholds and hunting the fugitives and outlaws with hounds and men through the snow. Scarce a garth in all the land remained unburned, and when the elves sought to make a stand he led his army roaring over them. Some of the men he took captive he threw into dungeons or put to slave work, but most of them he killed, and divided their women among his trolls. He himself took none, having eyes for none but Leea.

  Word came from the south that Illrede’s armies were driving the elves before them. All elf lands in Valland were now held by the trolls, and in the north only the elves of Scania still were free – and the burning and plundering went apace there. Erelong the trolls would be entering the central lands where the Erlking lay.

  Men had some glimpse of these doings – distant fires, galloping shadows through the land, storm-winds bearing the remote clangor of battle. And the loosed magic often wrought havoc on the farms, with sickening livestock and spoiling grain and evil luck in the family. Now and again a hunter would come on a trampled, bloody field and see ravens tearing at corpses which had not the look of men. Folk huddled in lonely houses and hung iron before the door and called on their various gods for help.

  Thus the winter wore on. And Valgard came to sit more and more in Elfheugh. For he had now been to all castles and hill-towns and garths he could find, he had harried from Orkney to Cornwall, and such elves as had escaped him were now hidden – striking out of cover at his men, so that not a few trolls never came home; sneaking poison into the food; hamstringing horses; rusting armor; raising howling blizzards as if the very land rose against the invader.

  The trolls held England – no doubt of that, and ever their grip tightened. But never had Valgard longed for spring as now he did.

  18

  Skafloc and Freda took shelter in a cave. It was a deep hole in a cliff slanting back from the sea, well north of the elf-hills. Behind it was a forest of ice-sheathed trees which grew thicker toward the south and faded into moor and highland toward the north. Dark and desolate was the land, unpeopled, and on that account about as safe as any place.

  They could not use much magic, for fear of being sensed by the trolls, but Skafloc did a good deal of hunting and fishing in guise of the wolf or otter or eagle whose skins Freda had brought, and he conjured ale from sea water. It was hard work simply staying alive in that wintry world, and he was ranging for game most of the time.

  Dank and chill was the cave, with winds screaming in its mouth and an angry gray sea snarling on the rocks below. But when Skafloc returned from his first long hunt, he could scarce recognize it.

  Now a fire blazed cheerily on a hearthstone, with smoke let out a rude chimney of branches, clay, and green hides. Other skins were a warm covering on floor and walls, and one hung in the cave mouth against the bitter wind. The extra horses stood in a corner chewing hay Skafloc had magicked from sea-weed, and the spare weapons were polished and hung on the wall as if this were a chief’s feasting-hall. And behind the bright crossed arms was a little spray of red winter berries.

  Crouched over the fire and turning meat on a spit was Freda. Skafloc paused in the entrance, his heart beating faster at sight of her. She wore only a brief tunic, and her slim-legged boyish body, with its sweet curves of thigh and waist and young breasts, seemed poised in the gloom like a white bird ready for flight.

  She turned a flushed, smoke-smudged face, and fr
om under tousled ruddy hair her great gray eyes lit with gladness. Wordlessly she came to him, in a run that had all of her dear colt-like awkwardness and grace, and they held each other close for a while.

  Then he asked wonderingly: ‘But how did you ever do all this, sweet?’

  She laughed softly. ‘I am no bear, or man, to make a pile of leaves and be content to sleep in that for the winter,’ she said. ‘Some of these skins and so on we had, the rest I got for myself. Oh, I am a good housewife.’ Then pressing against him, shivering: ‘You were gone so long, and time was so empty. I had to pass the days, and make myself weary enough to sleep at night.’

  His own hands shook as he fondled her. ‘This is no place for you,’ he murmured. ‘Hard and dangerous is the outlaw life. I should take you to a human garth, to await our victory or else to forget our defeat.’

  ‘No – no, never shall you do that!’ She grasped his ears and pulled his face down to hers, laughing and sobbing. ‘I have said I will not leave you. No, Skafloc, ’twill be harder than that to get rid of me.’

  ‘Truth to say,’ he admitted after a while, ‘I do not know what I would do without you. Naught would seem worth the trouble any more.’

  ‘Then do not leave me – do not leave me, ever again.’

  ‘I must hunt, dearest one.’

  ‘Then I will hunt with you.’ She gestured at the hides and the cooking meat. ‘I am good at that.’

  ‘As well as other things,’ he laughed. Then grimly: ‘But it is not alone game I hunt, Freda, but trolls.’

  ‘There too will I be,’ she said. Her soft young face was all at once as hard as his own. ‘Think you I have no vengeance to take?’

  His head lifted in pride, and he kissed her with a fierce quick movement. ‘Then so be it!’ he said. ‘And Orm the warrior could be glad of such a daughter.’

  Her fingers traced the taut bony lines of his face, and a distant wonder was in her eyes. ‘Know you not who your father was?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ He grew uneasy, remembering Tyr’s words. ‘No, I never knew.’

  ‘No matter,’ she smiled, ‘save that he too could be proud. I think Orm the Strong would have given all his wealth for such a son as you – not that Ketil and Asmund were weaklings. And failing that, he must be glad indeed to see you joined with his daughter.’

  As the winter strengthened its cold, life grew harder. There was often hunger in the cave, and the relentless chill crept in past the hide door and the fire until only huddled together in a great bearskin could Skafloc and Freda find warmth. But they ceased not their ranging. For days at a time they would be afield riding the swift elf horses which sank not into the snow, hunting for game in a vast white emptiness.

  Now and again they would come on the smoldering ruins of an elf garth, and at such times Skafloc grew white about the nostrils and said nothing for many hours. Once in awhile a living elf, gaunt and ragged, would appear, but the man did not try to build up a band. It would only draw the enemy’s heed without being able to stand before him.

  Always he was on the lookout for trolls. If he found their tracks, he and the girl would be off at a wild gallop. If it was a large group, they would fire arrows from a distance, then wheel and race away; or Skafloc might wait for daylight, then creep into the cave or other shelter in which the trolls slept and cut some throats. Were there no more than two or three, he would be on them with a sword whose song of vengeance, with Freda’s arrow-whine, was the last sound they heard.

  Relentless was that hunt, and desperately dangerous. Often they crouched in cave or brush with the troll pursuit galloping by their faces, and naught but a thin screen of sorcery wrought by the rune staves, scarce hiding them from a direct glance, to throw off the spoor. Spears and arrows and slung stones hissed after them when they fled from shooting down two or three of a company. From their home cave they saw troll longships sweep grimly along the shore, near enough for them to count the rivets in the warrior’s shields.

  And it was cold, cold.

  Yet in that bleak life they found each other. Skafloc wondered how he could have had the heart to wage his fight without the slim beautiful shield-maiden who rode beside him. Her arrows had brought down many trolls, and her daring schemes of ambush still more – but perhaps the kisses she gave him in their brief dear moments of peace were the power driving him to his own deeds. And to her, he was the greatest and bravest and kindest of men, her sword and shield at once, lover and comrade.

  Grim and bitter was the outlaw life, but she felt her body responding, in keenness of sense and tautness of sinew and unending endurance of spirit. The freezing wind whipped the blood in her veins, the icy stars seemed to lend some of their brilliance to her eyes. When life hung on a wavering sword-edge, she learned to savor each moment of it with a passion and clarity she had not dreamed before.

  Strange, she once thought, how even when hungry and cold and afraid they had no hard words between them. They seemed to think and act like one, as if they had come from the same mold. Their only differences were those in which each filled the need of the other.

  ‘I bragged once to Imric that I had never known fear, or defeat, or love-sickness,’ said Skafloc once. He lay in the cave with his head on her lap, letting her comb out his wind-tangled hair. ‘He said those were the three ends and beginnings of human life. At that time I understood him not, but now I see he was wise.’

  ‘How should he know?’ she asked.

  ‘I cannot say, for elves know defeat only sometimes, fear rarely, and love never at all. But since meeting you, dear, I have found all three in myself. I was becoming more elf than man – now you are making me human, and elfdom fades within me.’

  ‘And somewhat of elf has entered my blood, I fear less and less do I think of what is right and holy, more and more of what is good and pleasant. My sins grow heavy—’

  Skafloc pulled her face down to his. ‘In that you do right,’ he said. ‘This muttering of duty and law and sin brings no good.’

  ‘You speak profanely—’ she began. He stopped her words with a kiss. She sought to pull free, and it ended in a laughing, tumbling wrestling match. By the time they were done she had forgotten her forebodings.

  But now as the trolls finished wasting the elf lands, they withdrew into their forts, venturing out only in bands too strong to attack. Skafloc grew moody in inaction, his gay banter dropped off and he spent days at a time slumped sullen and unspeaking in the cave.

  Freda sought to cheer him. ‘Now we are in less danger of death or capture,’ she said.

  ‘What good is that, when we have no chance to fight?’ he answered glumly. ‘Now we can only sit and wait for the end. Alfheim is dying, soon all lands of faerie will belong to the trolls, and I – I sit here!’

  Another day he went out and saw a raven beating upwind under the lowering sky. The gray cold sea dashed in endless thunder on rocks at his feet and rattled and roared back for another leap, and the flying spindrift froze as it struck.

  ‘What news?’ called Skafloc in the raven tongue. It was not in such words that he spoke or was answered, for beasts and birds have different sorts of language from men, but the meaning is near enough.

  ‘I come from south beyond the channel to fetch my kindred,’ replied the raven. ‘Valland and Vendland have fallen to the trolls, Scania is harried and plundered, and battle rages about the Erlking’s last strongholds. Good is the feasting, but ravens had best hurry there for the war cannot last much longer.’

  At this such a blaze of anger flamed in Skafloc that he put an arrow to his bow and shot the bird. But when it lay dead at his feet the wrath drained from his breast, leaving a great empty darkness which sorrow slowly rose to fill.

  ‘It was evil to slay you, brother,’ he muttered, ‘who have done no harm – and do much good by clearing the stinking clutter of a dead past from the world. Friendly you were to me, and defenceless, yet I slew you and let my foes sit in peace.’

  He turned back into the cave, and
of a sudden he was weeping. The huge racking sobs nigh shook his body apart. Freda held him, murmuring to him as to a child, and he wept himself out on her breast.

  That night he could not sleep. ‘Alfheim is falling,’ he mumbled. ‘Ere the snows melt, Alfheim will be a memory. Now there is naught for me but to ride against the troll army and take as many with me down hell-road as may be.’

  ‘Say not that,’ she answered. ‘It would be a stupid betrayal of your trust – and of me too. Better and braver to live, fighting.’

  ‘Fighting with what?’ he asked bitterly. ‘The elf ships are sunken, the warriors dead or in chains or scattered and hunted. The proud castles lie in ruin, and the foe sits in the high seat of our old rulers. Alone are we, naked, hungry, weaponless—’

  She kissed him. As it were a lightning bolt, he seemed to see a blinding flash before his eyes, the bright gleam of a sword lifted high against darkness.

  For a long moment she felt his hard body lying stiff as an iron bar but trembling, shivering with a rising vibrant excitement, and then he breathed into the gloom: ‘The sword – the naming-gift of the Aesir – aye, the sword—’

  A sudden fear, formless and ominous, sprang up cold in her breast. ‘What do you mean?’ she cried. ‘What sword is this?’

  Then as they lay there in the dark, close together against the frost, he whispered it to her, soft in her ear as if afraid the monstrously crouching night would listen. He told her of Skirnir’s bringing the broken glaive, of Imric’s hiding it in the wall of Elfheugh’s dungeons, and of Tyr’s warning that the time was nigh when he would have sore need of it.

  In the end he felt her tremble in his arms, she who had hunted armed trolls. Her voice was small and quivering: ‘I like it not, Skafloc. It is not a good thing.’

  ‘Not good?’ he cried. ‘Why, it is the one last great chance we have left. Odin, who reads the future, must have known of this day of Alfheim’s need – must have given us the sword against it. Weaponless? Ha, we shall show them otherwise!’