Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  Talfi brought the chicken leg down. “No. It’s truth.”

  “Because sometimes people think a stupid troll will believe anything,” Danr continued. “That he’s as stupid as he looks.”

  “Oh.” Talfi gnawed the meat with a thoughtful expression. “Do people think you’re a monster?”

  “Don’t you?” Danr countered, and braced himself for the answer. But in response, Talfi only shrugged.

  “I don’t know you very well,” was all he said. “Do you want to be a monster?”

  “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “Liar,” Talfi said cheerfully. He tossed the bone away.

  The monster rumbled. Danr rounded on Talfi, teeth bared. “You think I’d be like this if I had a choice?”

  To Danr’s surprise, however, Talfi didn’t shrink back. “Everyone has choices. Are you cruel to animals?”

  “What?” Danr said, feeling suddenly off balance. “No!”

  “Do you scare children? Eat people? Steal? Wreck things on purpose?”

  “No!”

  Talfi spread his hands. “That’s everything on my monster list. Doesn’t sound like you qualify.”

  A breeze stirred the leaves overhead. Danr licked his lips, still off balance. He could hardly believe he was standing on an ordinary road having this extraordinary conversation. He had never talked like this in his life, not even to his mother or Aisa. But something about Talfi made him want to talk, say whatever came to mind. And Talfi was right—it felt good to say things aloud. Did this mean he truly had a friend? Danr wasn’t sure. How long did you have to know someone before he became a friend?

  A cow from a nearby pasture bawled, and Danr’s little steer bawled back. “You changed the subject,” Danr said.

  “I did?”

  “You were talking about not remembering anything, and somehow the talk came back to me.”

  “Oh yeah.” Talfi laughed again. “Funny, that. There is something else.”

  Danr started walking again. The steer followed. “What’s that?”

  “Wait.” Talfi flung up a hand and Danr stopped near a small boulder. The steer yanked at the rope, but Danr held fast. “Do you hear that?”

  Danr listened. All he heard was the gentle sighing of the spring wind. A half-uprooted ash tree leaned a little dangerously in their direction, adding extra shade to the road. Behind them, the steer bawled and tried to pull away.

  “I don’t hear anything except the stupid cow,” Danr said.

  “That’s just it,” Talfi whispered. “What happened to the forest noises?”

  Unease slipped quietly over Danr. Talfi was right. No birds sang, no small animals rustled in the bushes, no squirrels chattered in the trees. The young steer bawled again, and Danr wished it would shut—

  A massive green blur exploded out of the undergrowth. Danr caught an impression of flat eyes and sharp teeth. He felt a sharp jerk on the rope, and the steer’s bellow turned into a bloody wail. The enormous serpent, a wyrm, snapped once, twice, and the steer was gone. The creature raised its head and a red tongue thicker than Danr’s arm flickered in the air only a yard from Danr’s head. The wyrm’s head was taller than Danr himself, and its jaws were wide enough for him to walk right inside. Green scales glittered along a thick and muscular body that disappeared into the undergrowth. The wyrm reared back its head and stared down at Danr with hard black eyes. Danr stared back, so surprised he didn’t even feel fear. The wyrm’s tongue flickered again. Then he heard Talfi’s breath coming in frightened gasps beside him. The surprise broke, and terror slammed through him. His heart jerked so hard it nearly burst through his ribs. The wyrm’s head moved hypnotically back and forth, as if it were trying to decide which of them to eat next. Thick trees hemmed in the road, limiting escape.

  “I’ll distract it,” Talfi said in a harsh whisper. “You do something.”

  “Do what?” Danr whispered back.

  But Talfi was already moving. He fled down the tree-lined road. The wyrm hissed and lunged past Danr to snap at Talfi. Its jaws slammed shut with a terrible clop. Talfi, however, leaped nimbly out of range. For the second time that day, Danr gaped in awe. Talfi all but flew down the road, his feet moving so fast Danr could hardly see them. The wyrm gave chase. It snapped at Talfi, trying to swallow him as it had swallowed the steer. Talfi darted aside. The left side of the road followed a low embankment, and Talfi ran up the short slope, kicked off the side, and leaped onto the wyrm’s back. The wyrm instantly twisted around on itself, striking at its own spine. Talfi leaped over its head, hit the ground, and ran back toward Danr at blinding speed.

  “Quick!” Talfi shouted. “Do it!”

  Do what? Danr thought desperately. Talfi thundered toward him, the wyrm barreling right behind him. Danr’s eye fell on the thigh-high boulder near which he had stopped. Without thinking, he squatted and wrapped his arms around the rock. His arms bulged and his legs burned. Sweat sprang up on his forehead and trickled down his hatband, but the boulder moved. Gritting his teeth, Danr lifted the rock above his head and straightened just as Talfi shot past him, the wyrm in hot pursuit. Danr flung the boulder as hard as he could. It caught the wyrm in the side of the head with a meaty thunk. Instantly the creature stopped its forward lunge. Its body lashed and squirmed, and its head rolled from side to side. Danr barely leaped out of the way in time. He crawled up the embankment to a safe distance. Warm red blood spattered the road.

  “Come on!” Talfi shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

  Danr swallowed. The bloody end of the cow’s rope was still looped around his wrist, a reminder that the wyrm could just as easily have killed Danr himself—or Talfi. The monster wasn’t dead. It could still go after someone else, someone who couldn’t bash its head with a rock.

  The wyrm continued to squirm. Danr jumped back down to the road. One of the snake’s coils rushed at him like an emerald avalanche. He saw it coming but couldn’t move fast enough. Danr braced himself against the coming pain. The coil crashed into him, knocking him back against the embankment. Hot agony throbbed through his chest and shoulders, and he groaned beneath the fire. Every nerve screamed with it.

  “What are you doing?” Talfi yelled. He was standing several yards away, braced to run. “Let’s go! Now!”

  The wyrm shook its head as if to clear it, and it stopped squirming. It rounded on Danr and hissed with anger. One of its eyes was missing, and Danr saw the impression his rock had made in its head. Blood oozed around the wound. Danr smelled it, a heavy, coppery miasma in the air. He had done that, he realized in wonder, and what a strange thing to think at the moment of his own death. He panted, still hurting. The wyrm reared back, gathering itself to strike.

  “Run!” Talfi shouted.

  The wyrm lunged, but Danr was already moving through the hurt. The creature’s teeth clashed together so close to his back that he felt the concussion. Just ahead of him was the leaning ash tree. Danr pounded down the road, his bare feet slapping earth. Behind him the snake’s cold scales rushed over ruts and gravel. Instinct told him to dodge, and he leaped to the right. The wyrm’s teeth closed on his sleeve. Its tongue flashed out and flickered over Danr’s face. Danr tore free and ran. He was almost to the tree.

  Something hard closed over his left leg, engulfing it to the knee. Danr fell flat on the road. New pain snapped sharp and hard through his left shin. Vik! The wyrm had him. He tried to twist around so he could hit, kick, bite, anything. But the wyrm held him too tightly. It dragged Danr backward, his fingers leaving furrows in the ground.

  And then Talfi was there. In a flash he was standing next to the wyrm’s wounded head. He balled up a fist and punched the creature where Danr’s boulder had dented its skull. The wyrm hissed in pain and released Danr, who rolled to his feet, ignoring the white-hot agony in his leg. The wyrm rounded on Talfi, but he was already running up the road, faster than a rabbit with a winter dog behind. They both passed under the leaning tree.

  “Do something!”
Talfi shrieked. “Hurry!”

  Danr loped to the leaning trunk and reached up to dig his fingers into the wood. “Bring it back this way!” he bellowed. Please, great Fell, grant me the strength!

  Talfi shot a glance over his shoulder. The wyrm rushed behind him, gaining ground with every turn of its coils. Talfi jumped sideways, hit a boulder, and pushed off in a new direction. He pelted back toward Danr. Confused, the wyrm halted, then looped back on itself to follow. Danr pressed his teeth together and pulled downward. For a dreadful moment he felt nothing. Then the tree moved, just a little. He pulled harder. The monster in him exulted. Roots cracked and earth shifted. Talfi shot past him, fear etched on his face. The wyrm’s head passed under the tree, and Danr heaved.

  The tree came crashing down. Limbs cracked and leaves flew in all directions. The heavy tree slammed into the wyrm’s neck, pinning it to the road. It hissed again and lashed with its tail. The ash shifted.

  “That tree won’t hold it forever,” Talfi panted beside him.

  Danr, however, hadn’t stopped moving. He ran to the boulder he had used once, heaved it to his shoulder, and loped back to the wyrm. It was already partway free of the ash tree. Danr got as close as he dared and threw the rock with all his strength. It struck the wyrm square in its original wound. A horrible hiss rent the air, and Talfi put his hands over his ears. The wyrm’s coils flung the ash tree aside as if it were a twig. It crashed against the embankment by the side of the road. Danr tensed to do something. Maybe he could get to the rock again.

  But the wyrm was in its death throes. The lashing and thrashing grew weaker. At last the wyrm shuddered hard. It exhaled a foul-smelling stench, then lay still.

  All the strength left Danr’s body. He sank shaking to the ground. His leg and his chest burned with pain. He was panting, and he stared down at his enormous, callused hands in disbelief. Bits of brown bark clung to them. He focused on this detail. It made the entire incident real, somehow—more real than even the wyrm’s corpse itself. The wyrm was too big to take in, but bits of bark he could understand. Had he really pulled down a tree? How strong was he, anyway? He had never actually tested himself. Not since that one day when he had … not since that one day.

  A hand landed on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” Talfi asked.

  Danr blinked up at him. The only person who had ever asked him that was his mother. “My leg hurts.”

  Talfi knelt to examine it. The cloth had torn where the wyrm’s teeth had grabbed him, exposing bloody skin. He pulled the cloth aside and Danr sucked in a breath against the cutting pain.

  “It doesn’t look bad,” Talfi said. “But I think we should wash it. Can you walk?”

  In answer, Danr got unsteadily to his feet. Behind Talfi, the wyrm’s enormous body lay motionless beside the tree on the road. The roadway would be impassible to wagons and cattle until someone removed the corpse. Danr decided someone else could handle that detail.

  A thread of smoke curled up from the wyrm’s half-open mouth. It smelled of rotten meat. The entire corpse abruptly burst into green flame with a whoosh and a blast of heat that bowled Talfi and Danr backward. Both of them scooted backward crabwise, eyes round with fright. Roasting heat licked at their faces and chests and shins.

  “Vik!” Talfi swore.

  In seconds, the wyrm’s corpse collapsed into ash. Even the bones cracked and blacked into dry soot. The emerald flames died down and vanished, leaving behind on the charred ground a half skeleton of delicate charcoal that was already blowing away in the wind.

  “Grick’s tits,” Danr breathed. “Let’s get away from here.”

  “I saw a stream near the edge of the woods,” Talfi said, and the two of them hurried away. Talfi threw occasional glances over his shoulder at the blackened ground.

  “You just … killed it,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my entire life, but you ran up and smashed it with that rock. It was the bravest thing I ever saw.”

  “I was terrified,” Danr admitted. “But I didn’t want it to hurt anyone else.”

  They found the stream and Danr rolled up his trouser leg to wash. His skin was naturally swarthy, and the new bruises turned it even darker. The bleeding remained minor, and the pain was already fading, though Danr suspected he’d ache in the morning. They also splashed water on their hot faces and dusted the ash from their clothes.

  Danr and Talfi continued on their way back to the village, discussing the attack all the way. Neither of them had any idea where the wyrm had come from, though both of them had heard stories of the orcs riding such creatures in the lands of Xaron far, far to the east, and Danr’s mother had told tales of wyrms living wild in the northern mountains. Why one of them would come so far south was a mystery. Danr remembered Oscar and Olaf Noss and the troll tracks found at their ravaged farm. Were the incidents connected? He thought about saying something to Talfi, then clamped his lips shut. Their friendship was too new, too tentative for Danr to remind him that trolls were monsters.

  They arrived at the village near sunset. The spring air was cooling, and Talfi pulled his cloak tighter around himself as they squished through dark streets filled with spring mud. The village looked deserted. Light glowed through cracks around closed doors, but no people were in evidence. This struck Danr as odd. At this time of day most people were inside eating or getting ready for bed, but there was almost always someone about. White Halli’s men didn’t patrol here.

  Even as he completed this thought, a man carrying a lantern emerged from one house. He glanced up and down the street, but his lantern prevented him from seeing anything outside the circle of yellow light. He scurried to a neighboring house, knocked softly, and slipped inside.

  “What’s going on?” Talfi asked, voice low.

  “I don’t know,” Danr admitted. Cold pricked his spine. “Let’s hurry.”

  A small side track outside the village led to Alfgeir’s farm. Danr turned down it and fought a rising sense of dread. Alfgeir wouldn’t take the news of the steer’s loss well. Somehow, Danr was sure, he would find a way to blame everything on Danr.

  Alfgeir didn’t disappoint.

  “Why didn’t you kill the wyrm before it ate my steer?” he demanded.

  Danr looked down at his feet. His leg ached. They were standing in the dooryard of Alfgeir’s hall. Night had fallen, and the air was sharp with a spring frost. Alfgeir crossed his arms and leaned against the doorpost.

  “Can you answer?” he demanded. “Or are you mute as well as stupid?”

  Alfgeir’s scorn and anger filled the dooryard, pressing Danr to the ground. Danr’s face grew hot, and he felt small enough to crawl under one of the pebbles near his foot. He was acutely aware of Talfi standing nearby, and his embarrassment increased. Talfi hadn’t even been his friend for a day and already he had seen Alfgeir treating him like the thrall he was. Even Vik’s cold realm would be better than this.

  “Excuse me, Carl,” Talfi said. “I’m not sure you heard us. My friend here killed a giant wyrm. All by himself.”

  “If it’s true.” Alfgeir sniffed. “Very convenient that this sudden wyrm ate the steer and then vanished into thin air.”

  Talfi bristled. “He saved our lives, and you’re worried about a scrawny steer that wasn’t worth half the debt you owe Master Orvandel?”

  “That fine animal was everything I owed Orvandel, young man.” Alfgeir speared a finger at Talfi’s chest. “And you’d best remember to keep silent around your elders. As the saying goes, ‘A child must be obedient, quick, and quiet.’”

  “You owe my uncle two milk cows, and I’m not to go back without them.”

  “Then you’ll not go back,” Alfgeir snapped. “I wouldn’t send him a half-dead dog.”

  With that, he slammed the door. Danr stared at it as the horror of Alfgeir’s affront crept over him. It wasn’t just his words—Alfgeir had failed to ask Talfi in or offer hospitality for the night. The insult was worse than spitting in Talfi’s face.
Danr forced himself to turn and face his friend.

  Talfi drawled, “I can see why you enjoy working for him.”

  “You can stay with me,” Danr said slowly. “I don’t have much to offer, but—”

  “I’m sure it’ll be better than anything Alfgeir has,” Talfi said. “Lead the way.”

  They trod in silence across the courtyard to the stable, and Danr entered ahead of Talfi. The familiar sounds and smells of sleepy cattle met him, and the air puffed a little warmer against his face. Straw rustled underfoot. Feeling a little more relaxed, Danr headed down the rows of stalls.

  “How can you see in here?” Talfi called from the doorway.

  Danr stopped. His night-sensitive eyes had no trouble with near darkness, but he had forgotten that Talfi had no such advantage. “Just a moment,” he called back, and hurried down to his own stall, where he scrounged up a candle stump. He blew on the dim coals banked on his tiny stone hearth until he could light the wick and guide Talfi in. Danr’s face burned as he realized his new friend was going to see how he lived among the animals, but there was nothing for it. He had offered hospitality, and the offer remained in force for as long as Talfi wanted to stay. Talfi, however, took a seat on the ground next to the open hearth as if everything were perfectly normal. Danr built up the fire as high as he dared. Cattle snorted and lowed softly around them. Talfi rooted through the food sack.

  “Looks like Aunt Ruta was right about Alfgeir,” he said, producing several stuffed rolls and half a smoked salmon. “But thanks to her, we don’t need him.”

  A metallic gleam at Talfi’s neck caught Danr’s eye. Eager for a topic of conversation to fill the silence, Danr pointed to it. “What’s that?”

  Talfi paused, and his hand went to his neck. “Oh. That. It’s … it’s …”

  Sudden insight flicked over Danr. “You said there was something else strange about you just before the wyrm attacked us. Is that what it is?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked reluctant, his eyes large in the light of the little fire. Danr felt uncomfortable. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t—”