Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “Norbert,” Alfgeir said mildly at the top, “I don’t want you abusing the thralls this way. If you injure him, he won’t be able to do his work.”

  “Sorry, Father.” Norbert didn’t sound sorry in the least. “I did make him get the calf out.”

  “Good work, that,” Alfgeir said.

  Danr levered himself out of the mud, worked his jaw back and forth, and set himself to climb again. There was nothing else to do.

  When he finally pulled himself dripping out of darkness, the sunlight slashed his eyes and drilled through his skull. His hat was gone, lost below. He grunted and tried to shield himself with one arm, but the sun’s rays thrust sharp pain straight through him.

  “Where’s your hat?” Alfgeir tutted. “Honestly, Trollboy, you can’t keep track of even the smallest thing. Here.”

  He laid his own broad-brimmed hat on Danr’s head, and the pain abated somewhat. “Thank you, Carl.”

  “I’ll add it to your bonding,” Alfgeir said. “As the saying goes, ‘A worker is worth his wages, and the wages must be worth his work.’”

  Danr touched the brim of the hat. It was old and battered and too small for him, and he had the feeling Alfgeir would add the price of a brand-new hat to his bonding. But he only said, “Yes, Carl Oxbreeder.”

  “Go wash up,” Alfgeir said. “And then I want you to run an errand.”

  Danr blinked. An errand? That was unusual. Errands were choice, easy jobs that granted a chance to leave the farm for a bit. Danr was never chosen to run errands. He always did heavy or smelly work, like cutting stone or dragging trees or spreading manure on the fields.

  “Yes, Carl,” he said, letting himself feel a little excited. Maybe today wouldn’t turn out so bad after all. He trotted across the farm toward the main well.

  Alfgeir’s farm sprawled at the foothill bottoms of the Iron Mountains, meaning no one lived above them and there was plenty of free pasture in the hills for cows and sheep while Alfgeir’s family and thralls farmed the flatter land below. Because Alfgeir was wealthy, his long, L-shaped thatched hall stood apart from the stables, unlike poorer farmers who attached animal housing to their homes for the added warmth. There was even a separate hall for the servants and thralls across a courtyard paved with mountain stones. Danr, however, lived in the stable, which was an enormous longhouse shaped like a giant log sunk into the ground. The building was less than three years old—the original had burned down two summers ago. Fortunately Danr had managed to get most of the cattle out, and only six had died. This hadn’t stopped Alfgeir from blaming Danr for the entire incident and adding the cost of the lost cows and a new stable to Danr’s debts. It didn’t matter to Alfgeir that the new stable was almost twice as large as the old or that Danr had done the work of five men during the construction—Alfgeir said Danr’s debt was for the full cost of a new stable. It seemed to Danr that his debt should have been for the cost of rebuilding the original and Alfgeir should have shouldered the difference for a bigger one. But Danr kept quiet. He could have taken his case to the earl—even a thrall had rights—but then he thought of facing all those staring eyes in the public arena. And how likely was it that the earl would rule in favor of a troll? So Danr had silently accepted the additional debt and with it, the burden of anger whenever he thought about the new stable walls.

  The farm’s well was equipped with a windlass and an enormous bucket that only Danr could lift when it was full. He hauled it dripping from the depths and simply poured it over himself, repeating until the water ran clear. His ragged clothes were the only ones he owned, and he went barefoot even in winter, so he had nothing to change into. At least he would dry soon enough in the hurtful spring sunshine.

  Hunger rumbled in Danr’s belly. He sighed. He was almost always hungry, and whenever he ate more than a grown man, Alfgeir added the difference to his bonding, which meant Danr had to do extra work to have it removed, which in turn made him hungrier. It was a spiral he didn’t know how to break. Perhaps today he could slip away during the errand and go fishing. A salmon or even a trout, spit and roasted over a little fire, would go a long way in quelling the eternal emptiness inside him.

  A shrill whistle caught his attention. Alfgeir was waving to him from one of the paddocks near the stable. Danr clapped the ill-fit hat back on his head and lumbered over. A young bull, barely into adolescence, was tied in the paddock.

  “Take this animal to Orvandel the fletcher,” Alfgeir said. “He lives on the outskirts of Skyford, and I owe him a debt. If you hurry, you can make it to his house and back before dark.”

  Danr eyed Alfgeir uneasily. A chance to go into the city was definitely a choice errand, something Alfgeir’s sons would fight over. Why was Alfgeir sending Danr? The offer rang false.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to send Norbert, Carl Oxbreeder?” he temporized. “Or Tager? They might—”

  “I didn’t ask your opinion, Trollboy,” Alfgeir said in a deceptively even voice. “I gave you an order.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked away.

  Danr looked after him for a moment, then shrugged and lifted the handle on the gate. The bull lowed at him. On closer inspection Danr realized it was not a bull but a steer, newly castrated. The animal was brown and just came up to Danr’s waist. Bones showed through skin, and Danr recognized it—the animal had recently recovered from a winter illness. This was repayment for a debt? The steer bawled again, and Danr reached out with a big hand to scratch the places where its horns would one day grow. It closed its eyes contentedly. Oh well. This wasn’t his decision, and Alfgeir had handed him a chance to escape the farm for a few hours on a fine spring day. Why question it? Danr took up the steer’s rope, and a few minutes later, they were both on the rutted road that led toward the city of Skyford.

  The farm receded behind him, and the steer seemed content to follow without being coaxed or hauled. Trees lined the roads, forming boundaries between farms. Men and boys followed herds of cows around the fields, and their voices mingled with birdsong. Green grass had already filled the space between the ruts in the old road, and it was soft under Danr’s feet. A good mood crept quietly over him, like a dog that had been kicked away but still wanted to please. Maybe one day Norbert would trip over his own feet and fall into a pile of manure, and Danr would be there to see it. Norbert would push himself upright, brown cow shit staining his beard, and everyone around him, including Danr, would enjoy a good, long laugh. Then Danr could dump cold water from the well over him, again and again and again. How would Norbert like that?

  Danr had fallen so deep into fantasy that he was completely unprepared for the hooded figure that rose out of the undergrowth beside the road. The steer bellowed in alarm and tried to flee, but Danr tightened his grip on the rope and the steer jerked to a halt, almost twisting its head to the ground. Danr didn’t budge. The figure’s clothes were little more than rags and were bundled in awkward layers. It stepped out onto the road, a basket in one hand. A bit more gladness grew in Danr’s heart, and he grinned a greeting.

  “Aisa,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in days. You scared my steer.”

  “Apologies.” Although the sun was quite warm, the low voice that drifted from the hood was muffled by multiple layers of scarf. “I was gathering greens and saw you coming down the road.”

  “I’m taking this steer to Orvandel the fletcher in Skyford,” Danr told her proudly. “Alfgeir owes him a debt. Walk with me?”

  “For a bit.” Aisa’s words carried an accent, exotic and exciting, though she had never said where she came from. All Danr really knew about her was that she was a couple of years older than he was, she had been a slave to the elves in Alfhame for something like two years, and now she was a slave to a man named Farek. Well, he knew that, and that seeing her always brought a little flutter to his heart, even though she never went anywhere without all her clothes wrapped around her. The most Danr had ever seen was a pair of brown eyes above a heavy scarf. It was enough.

/>   “How does Mistress Frida treat you?” Danr asked as they walked.

  “As she always has,” Aisa replied, and changed the subject. “I came down to warn you.”

  Danr halted so quickly the steer bumped into him from behind. A little ball of tension turned cold in his stomach. “Warn me? Of what?”

  “News just reached the village that the farm of the Noss brothers was attacked last night. House and stable were destroyed, and both Oscar and Olaf are dead.”

  Danr swallowed. The village lay between Alfgeir’s farm and Skyford. Like Alfgeir, Oscar and Olaf Noss ran a farm that butted up against mountain wilderness. Every year they talked about expanding, but they never did, and their talk had become a running joke in the village.

  “Why do you need to warn me?” he asked, though he had a feeling he knew the answer.

  “It is rumored,” Aisa said slowly, “that someone found enormous tracks among the ruined buildings. Troll tracks.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A cold finger ran down Danr’s spine, bump by bump. “By the Nine,” he whispered.

  “You know who they will blame,” Aisa said.

  His hand tightened around the halter rope. Oh, he knew. He knew down in the place where his guts coiled inside his belly. He also knew the only good way to Skyford took him through the village and past a hundred hard and angry eyes. True, he could leave the road, but that would send him tramping through freshly planted fields and earn him more anger.

  Maybe he should just go back to Alfgeir’s farm. But no—Alfgeir had made it clear that he was to take the steer to Orvandel in Skyford, and Alfgeir would be Vik-all furious if Danr returned, errand uncompleted. No matter what he did, someone was going to be angry at him. The Nine were laughing while they pegged his tenders to a wall. It seemed to be his lot in life.

  With a heavy sigh, he wrapped the rope around his knuckles, straightened his back, and tromped resolutely forward. It was what you did, even when it hurt.

  “What are you doing?” Aisa hurried to catch up. “Trolls have not come down to the village in living memory. They all believe that you have somehow brought them down upon us.”

  “Yes, and?” he growled. “I should at least get my work done in the bargain.”

  “They may come after you. They will come after you.”

  “And they’ll throw things, I suppose, but I have a thick skin.”

  “The skin around your body is thick,” Aisa said, falling in beside him, “but what about the skin around your heart?”

  There was nothing to say to that, so Danr trudged on in silence, every step taking him closer to the village. His earlier fine mood was a wreck. After a moment, Aisa reached over and gave his forearm a little squeeze. Her fingers left a warm print on his skin. He didn’t slow down, but he felt a little better. A lot better. Aisa could do that for him, and she seemed completely unaware of how incredible this small power was for him. She made his life bearable, even happy, though he couldn’t find it in himself to tell her. A troll simply didn’t have the words.

  Farek had bought Aisa from a slave dealer who trucked with the elves from Alfhame in the southeast. Something about the elves forced humans to adore their masters. Human slaves needed their elven masters the way a drunk needed ale, and the worst punishment a slave could endure was to be sold away from the keg.

  Aisa had never said what awful thing she had done that made her owner decide to punish her with exile, and Danr, sensing the pain involved, had never asked. He could never cause Aisa pain.

  Everyone in the village, however, knew exactly why Farek had bought Aisa, and everyone knew what he did with her in his stable at night, and everyone knew that Farek’s wife, Frida, hated him for it. Frida couldn’t do much to Farek, so her red and cruel anger found the next best target—Aisa herself. Danr knew without being told that Aisa wrapped herself up to hide the bruises, and the thought of those bruises made Danr angrier than anything Norbert might do, and he had to work hard indeed to keep his temper to himself whenever he saw Farek in the village. It was one of many reasons he kept to himself as much as possible.

  They crested a slight rise, and the outer ring of village houses came into view. They were similar to Alfgeir’s—long, rounded structures half-buried in the ground as if huddling for warmth, their wattle-and-daub walls covered in a blanket of whitewash. Every door had a tree carved or painted on it, some expertly, some crudely. The village was too small to have a name. Ordinary gossip got around quick, while bad gossip rushed fast enough to break its own neck. If Aisa knew about the troll tracks in the Nosses’ flattened house, everyone knew. More tension tightened Danr’s stomach and his breathing came faster. Aisa gave his arm another soft squeeze and left the road. He knew why. Being seen with him would give Frida another excuse to reach for her birch rod, and there was no reason for both of them to suffer. The road felt empty with her gone.

  He held his head high as he took the steer through the outer ring of houses. The road widened and dropped into ankle-deep mud that sucked cold at his feet. The usual chickens and pigs rooted in the byways between the houses, and dogs barked at each other over fences about whatever it was dogs barked about. All the doors stood open to the fresh air and sunshine. A hammer clanked steadily against metal in Hagbart’s smithy, creating a little echo against the throb of the sunshine ache in Danr’s head, and the heavy smell of wood smoke hung beneath the painfully bright sky. Kinderlings, too young to work yet, chased each other up and down the main street, laughing as they ran. Adults walked, scurried, or bustled about their daily chores—until they saw Danr, anyway. Wherever he and the steer went, everything stopped. Bearded men in tunics and careworn women in dresses gathered in clumps, openly staring and whispering behind their hands. Danr knew all of them by name, but they acted as if he were a stranger. His face grew hot, but he walked on as if he hadn’t noticed all those staring eyes. Elsa Haug, a thin woman wrapped in a blue shawl, snatched up her baby daughter and slammed her door.

  Dozens of eyes followed him, and dozens of voices whispered about him. He caught words and phrases here and there.

  “… monster …”

  “… Noss brothers …”

  “… filthy slut of a mother couldn’t keep her legs together, even for a …”

  “… his fault the trolls attacked …”

  “… half-blood …”

  “… the earl should just run him out of …”

  He felt exposed and naked, and his skin shriveled against his body. The steer squelched through the muddy street behind him with unhappy hooves. Like Danr, it sensed tension in the air, and its eyes rolled. More than once it balked. If Danr had been human, with a human’s strength, he wouldn’t have been able to move it, but he forged ahead with a half troll’s strength, and the steer had no choice but to follow.

  Something cold and soft splattered the back of his head beneath his hat. Reflexively he spun. Several knots of people stood at a safe distance behind him with grim faces. Danr smelled cow manure, felt it ooze around his ears. Anger boiled away his fear, and his fingernails plowed furrows into his palms.

  “Who threw that?” he shouted without thinking.

  The people stared back. Then a young man—Egil Carlsson—spat in his direction.

  “A piece of shit for a piece of shit,” he growled.

  Danr’s muscles bunched and rolled like boulders beneath his patchwork tunic. Manure dripped a slimy trail down his back. The monster inside pushed him to make a step toward Egil Carlsson. Egil stiffened, and the villagers around him came quietly alert. That was when Danr noticed several of them carried axes, pitchforks, and carving knives. He wondered how many of them he could crush with a single blow.

  “Don’t give them the satisfaction or an excuse.”

  He stared at the people for a long moment, hands trembling. They stared back. It would be so easy to teach them a few manners, show them that he didn’t deserve this. The monster made fists.

  And after you beat them black and bloody
, what then? he thought. Will you change their minds? And how long before the earl comes with his archers and his swordsmen? Mother was right. Never show the monster.

  The villagers stood there, half-expectant, half-fearful. Egil stood resolute, and skinny Elsa Haug opened her door a crack. Then Danr deliberately turned and trudged away. His heart pounded and his back prickled, waiting for the next blow. Would it be more cow shit? Maybe it would be a rock, or even a knife. Ahead of him, the road leading out to the other side of the village lay empty. Everyone in the village was behind him. Vik’s balls, he wanted to run, bolt for the open spaces, and leave the stupid steer behind. But he kept steady steps.

  Danr passed another rounded white house, then another, and then he was at the village edge. No blows, no more turds. When the road faded into a pair of ruts with grass growing between them, he breathed a heavy sigh and glanced over his shoulder. The village lay behind him in a haze of smoke that clung to the thatching. Chickens squawked a long way off, and a flock of geese honked in someone’s garden. No sign of an angry mob.

  Danr left the road to find a stream, tied the steer to a tree, and plunged his head into crisp, cold water. He scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until his ears were raw and he felt clean again. Then he rinsed out his tunic. A brown smear ran downstream. He sat back on his haunches, feeling abruptly tired. Errand or no errand, right then Danr wanted nothing more than a hot meal and his bed in the stable. Alone. But he pulled on his damp tunic, untied the steer, and continued up the road.

  The hard sun dried his clothes, and eventually he felt warm again. The tension faded, and he felt a little relief, as if he had passed some kind of test, though the sun headache was returning. Well, considering what had happened at the Noss Farm, maybe it was best that he disappeared for a few hours. In the meantime, no reason he couldn’t enjoy a little solitude.

  The farms around the village faded into hilly woodland. Trees loomed over the road, cutting off the sunshine and easing Danr’s headache. He remembered walking through the woods like this with his mother, Halldora, when he was little. They gathered berries and set traps for rabbits. And Mother told stories, fantastic stories of the Stane—trolls, dwarves, and giants—and of the Fae—elves, sprites, and fairies—and the Kin—humans, orcs, and merfolk. She spun stories of the Nine, the gods who watched over Ashkame, the Great Tree whose roots and branches twisted through every part of the world. She told him about Fell and Belinna, the twin god and goddess, and their eternal battles with the Stane, of the way Fell’s iron axe, Thresher, flew from his hand like a steel whirlwind to slice off a giant’s head. Danr always pretended he wielded Thresher, swinging branches at trees or boulders for the satisfying thwack.