War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  The beast dove. Hadding caught his breath barely in time. Down into green depths they went, while his blade sought the life of his quarry. The sandy bottom rippled in his sight. He scraped across it. Still he struck. Blood streamed like snakes from every wound. Here below it looked black.

  The beast threshed back upward. It broke through and sang its anguish to the cloudless, windless sky. Hadding gulped air. Again he cut, and again.

  The beast sighed. The maned neck slumped, the tail drooped. Hanging on, Hadding felt its life drain away.

  It did not sink, as he had feared it might. He and it rocked together in the stained waters.

  Letting go, sheathing his knife, “Ho-ah!” he bawled into silence. “Hai-saa-saa! Victory!”

  Shore was well away. This was a heavy freight to tow. But he could rest on it when he needed to. Still full of battle strength, he set forth.

  Svein came to him, then Gunnar. They had seen the fight. Straightway they stripped themselves and plunged in. “You worked too fast for us, lord,” panted Svein.

  “Well, let’s see how fast you can work for me,” laughed Hadding.

  So the warriors brought his catch ashore and, when they were dried and clad, bore it back to camp. The sight pulled men out of their laziness. They cried aloud, they crowded close to touch and pluck. The rainbow sheen was gone from the beast’s hide. It lay there dulled, in a heap, mouth open and dry, eyes open and dim. Yet it was a wonder.

  Hadding knew better than to boast overmuch. “It gave me a bit of trouble,” he said. “But now we’ll find out how its flesh tastes, and maybe somebody back in the thorp can tell us what kind of thing this is. Surely it’s unknown to me.”

  ‘And you have seen more that is eldritch than most men,” breathed Arnulf.

  The air was even cooling as the sun went low.

  After a while, though, Hadding got a wish to be by himself. More and more he felt that his men were jabbering like magpies, and he wearied of it. More and more did the sight of the dead beast strike him not as splendid but as sad. He could not say why. He thought he would think about it. “I’m going for a stroll,” he told them. “No, stay here, all of you. Make ready the meat. I’m not going far and I’ll be back soon.”

  He walked off under the trees. No brush hampered him. Light slanted from the west in among boles and boughs. Again he heard doves, but now it was as if they were sobbing.

  He came around a thicket. There stood a woman.

  As tall as him she was, slender, a leaf-green gown falling from her shoulders to silvery shoes. A gold ring around her brows and rings around her arms bore the shape of snakes that curl and bite their own tails. Her skin had the blue-shadowy whiteness of snow, her lips were blood red, the hair that tumbled down her back was like a raven’s wing. In a thinly and finely formed face the eyes glowed huge, yellow hawk eyes. She lifted a hand. Hadding jarred to a halt.

  She spoke. In camp, too, they heard that steely music.

  Sailing the sea or seeking the land,

  Henceforth you have the hate of the elves,

  And wend where you will, the worst shall befall you

  Always on earth and also on shipboard,

  Where foul winds follow your frozen sail.

  Nor shall you find shelter ashore below roofs.

  Weather brings woe, laying waste altogether

  The holdings of him who houses you,

  Till, given no guesting, you gang alone.

  Anger you earned, all ills must you suffer.

  He was a high one, in the hide of a beast

  Decked for this day. To death you brought him,

  The goodly godling. Now go to your ship.

  The winds are wild that wait for you.

  Her hull they will harry, their howls will raise,

  To crush your craft, the crashing waves,

  Till you rue the wrong you wrought on the elves

  And give to their god a gild of blood.

  Like a mist in the morning, she was gone from before him. He stood there alone at sunset.

  XVII

  They did not eat of the slain one. After a sleepless night they buried it as well as they could and made what poor offerings at the grave they were able. Saying little, they started back to the thorp.

  Hadding broke the stillness when they camped. “If the land-wights are angry,” he said, “it is at me.”

  “However that may be,” growled Arnulf, “I’ll stand by my lord.”

  Gunnar shrugged. “I may as well too,” he said. “I helped bring the thing in.”

  A laugh of sorts went among the men. That night they slept better. But then, they were utterly tired.

  In the morning they walked on. Clouds piled higher above the trees to the left. Lightning played in their blue-black hollows. Warmth fled before a rising wind. It skirled ever louder. It tossed the woodland crowns and roared in them. A chop on the sea became whitecaps.

  Wrack flew overhead like smoke. The sunlight flickering between was the hue of brass. Clouds thickened and the sun was lost. Lightning whitened the sky. Thunder rolled, unseen wheels.

  The rain burst, hurled before the wind, a waterfall that blinded and lashed. Lightning blazed through its murk. Every fluttering leaf or flattened lingbush stood stark in sight. Then darkness clapped down until the next flash. Thunder crashed unending.

  Hail came, great stones that drew blood where they hit a man. They skittered over the ground and lay there to whiten It. The sea ramped, half-hidden by scud blown off billows.

  Hadding and his men took what shelter they could find below trees. The storm seemed to go on forever. Yet it ended as quickly as it had begun. Clouds broke. Wind sank. A westering sun threw fires across waves that still rushed and rumbled. Drenched, half-frozen, the men trudged on over sodden earth. Grass and shrubs beaten to death squelped underfoot.

  “We still have friends aloft,” said Hadding once. “‘Thor’s hammer never struck near us.” But nobody smiled.

  They reached the thorp shortly before dark. Three ships lay at the wharf. It being small, they had had to be tethered alongside one another, with bumpers between. “Why, those are ours!” Hadding cried. “They must have come while we were gone. You’ll soon be home, lads.”

  As Spent and shivering as they were, the warriors said nothing to that either. They plodded on toward the stockade. Its sharpened logs loomed before them, black against the sky, like a jawful of teeth.

  Bruni met them in his house. Newly back from riding around his acres, he *vas himself muddy and weary. “We’ve lost this year’s crops,” he said. “Lightning burned three garths, too, with everything they had stored. I don’t yet know how much livestock is dead. This will be a lean winter.”

  “I’ll send food from Denmark,” Hadding plighted. “Meanwhile, what of my ships?”

  “I’ve housed their crews here and there amongst us,” Bruni answered. “I’ll send now after the skippers. They told me the rest went home after getting your word from my boat, for you’d have no more need of them this season. Those that got to Zealand before the blow, well, they should be safe. Those whose owners live farther off, who knows?”

  Hadding nodded. Every craft had been badly undermanned.

  ‘And I’m afraid for our fishers,” Bruni went on. “None has yet come back. All of mine were out, and most others from hereabouts.” He shook himself. “Well, storms do scatter boats. If they aren’t wrecked, they straggle home. I’ll keep my hopes while I may. Now let’s get bathed and get drunk.”

  Hadding thought upon what the elven woman had threatened for whomever took him in. He said nothing of it that eventide, nor did those who had gone with him. But it was not a merry gathering in Bruni’s house.

  No fishers had made haven by morning. In all honor, Hadding must then tell his host the tale. “Mishap,” said the chieftain after a silence. “You couldn’t have known. I’d have done the same. And maybe that was only a troll making fun with you.”

  “Maybe,” answered Hadding, sta
ring beyond him. “But you and yours, who gave us hospitality, have had a sudden, sore loss. I’ll be off today, while the weather holds fait”

  “That’s wise,” agreed Bruni. Hadding forgave him his haste.

  Eyjolf, who had stayed in the thorp, drew the king aside. “I’ll make my way overland to Bralund,” he said.

  “You might fare with better luck that way,” said Hadding.

  Eyjolf looked him in the eyes. “I’ll sail with you if I can be of any use.”

  “Which you hardly can. No, do you take the bear’s road while I take the swan’s. I’ll send guards along to keep you safe.”

  “They yearn for their homes, lord.”

  Hadding smiled bleakly. “I think most of them will be glad to give you this help and go roundabout home.”

  So the king and the rest of his men split themselves among the three crews, raised masts, undid mooring lines, and left Helsingland. A westerly wind blew loud and strong, but not too foul for poling out sails and tacking. Clouds flew ragged. The sea was a herd of white-maned horses, bucking and trampling. Still, it did not seem dangerous and the passage was merely across the strait, south-southwest to Zealand. They ought to make landfall sometime tomorrow.

  Folk stood ashore looking after them until they were gone over the rim of sight—and belike longer, hoping to see a fisher craft.

  Clouds smoked up. Soon they had swallowed the sun. The wind stiffened further. The gurly waters ran higher and wilder. Ships rolled, pitched, yawed. Their timbers creaked loud enough to hear through the brawling and whistling around. Waves sheeted over rails and sloshed in hulls. Men bailed hard. The cold numbed their hands.

  “I fear we’ll get a gale, or worse,” shouted Hadding’s skipper, as he must to be heard.

  “I know we will,” answered the king. “Reef sail.”

  The wind mounted. Spindrift sleeted blinding and bitter. It stung where it struck. The seas were huge and going white. Their rolling began to shock as heavily as thunder.

  “Cast out a sea anchor and strike sail,” Hadding bade. He took the helm, for whatever good that oar might do. If the ship did not keep bow-on to the waves, she would founder.

  Night fell. Maybe it was as well to fumble blind with the bailing buckets. Else crews might see the drow go by in his half a boat and know they were fey.

  Sunrise did not lighten the world much. Wind raved, sea ramped. When Hadding squinted through the scud, he spied another of the ships. She reeled as helpless as his. He braced legs the harder and kept his post. Once in a while somebody brought him a draught of ale or a bite to eat.

  Slowly through an unknown length of time, a deeper gloom showed forth ahead. Dumb with chill and weariness, they watched it become a shore where breakers burst white. Even through the wind, the rage of that surf reached them.

  “Sea room!” Hadding yelled. “We’re being driven aground! Claw off!”

  The knorr had eight oars, two pair forward, two aft. They were only meant to move her about in narrow spaces or a dead calm. The men who now took them were ready to drop. The skipper ordered shortened sail to help. A flaw of wind caught hold of it as it rose. Sheets tore loose from hands. The yard slewed about, the sail flapped thunderously, the lee rail went under. One of the two men at the windlass had the wit to draw knife and cut the walrus-hide halyard. An end whipped back. It left his face a mask of blood. The yard fell half overboard. The weight of the sail dragged that side deeper. Men scrambled to hew it free. Waves broke over them. Two were swept away.

  Now the craft was awash, hopelessly adrift. Hadding left the little afterdeck and waded through the hull toward those of his crew and guard who lived. “The ship is lost,” he cried through the wind and crashing waters. “Chop off what wood you can to cling to!”

  He caught a glimpse of the second knorr, dismasted, already half broken up. His own mast still stood firm in its partner. Taking an ax, he cut it down. Under his bidding; men used the stays to ease its fall and bring it alongside. “Bind yourselves to that pole,” he told them. He stayed aboard, helping them off so that only one was borne away, until everybody had something or other to keep afloat with.

  By then they were in the shoals. Breaker after breaker dashed over them. The ship grounded. The surf got to work pounding her apart. Hadding squirmed free. The mast had gone elsewhere and he had found no piece of timber big enough to uphold him. The water hauled him below. Cast high again, he snatched a breath before the undertow took him back. Husbanding what strength he had, he worked his way inch by inch toward land.

  At last he could stand, nose out of water except when it rushed over his head. Sometimes that knocked him off his feet. He recovered and slogged on. After a while he was wading more or less steadily. Soon he could fall down into stiff sea-grass and gasp.

  The mast drifted in. It had dashed the brains from one of those tied to it. Another had drowned. The rest cut free and won ashore. A few more arrived, clinging to their bits of flotsam. Three were from the second ship. Nobody ever heard anything of the third. In all, Hadding gathered ten around him.

  They slumped together, hungry, thirsty, chilled, drenched, battered, utterly worn out. “This many of us live,” said Svein. “It could be worse:”

  “It will be,” said Gunnar.

  “You’re right, unless we get to shelter,” growled Egil. “Up off your lazy butts!”

  Hadding’s mouth twitched. “All that soaking hasn’t softened you, old fellow,” he murmured. He dragged himself to his feet. “Come along, then.”

  They stumbled after him through the wind. Sunset must be nigh, for the streaming skies were growing blacker still. Beyond the grass was a. stretch of woodland. Trees tossed and moaned. Some had boughs ripped off. Some lay fallen, splintered. Spume hazed the surf where it boomed.

  “Hadn’t we better make brushwood huts while light abides?” asked Arnulf.

  “I see cattle dung,” Hadding told them. “Folk cannot be far off.”

  A clearing notched the shaw As they rounded the edge of this, they saw a clump of buildings at the middle. Boats lay moored in a creek. The dwellers must be fishers who did some farming. They might or might not be friendly to strangers. The castways had no weapons left except a few sheath knives and whatever scraps of wood they had taken along for clubs.

  Nonetheless Hadding limped ahead of them. Three houses and a shed walled a small yard. Stoutly built of earth and drift-wood, with sod roofs, they might well make vikings think them not worth attacking for whatever meager goods were inside. The king knocked on the first door he came to.

  It creaked a little ways open. A man peered out. In the murk behind him stood at least two more, shadowy, spear and ax in hand. “We are wrecked sailors,” Hadding said beneath the storm. “The gods think well of hospitable folk.”

  “Um, you look wretched enough,” grunted the householder. “Wait a bit. Thormund, rouse the neighbors.”

  “You’re wise to be wary of us,” Hadding said, “but you’ll see it’s not needful. We wish no fight with anybody.” He did not add that they would most likely lose it. There was no sense in tempting.

  Men came armed, roughly clad, from the other houses. Before long they understood that the newcomers spoke truth. Even so, they split the guests among themselves—though that was also because of crowding. Each family here had children, oldsters, and unwedded kin living with it.

  Hadding knew this kind of lodging from aforetime, a single room with beasts stalled at one end. It was full of their warmth and smells. A peat fire guttered on a hearthstone. Rushes decked a clay floor, There he must sleep, for lack of anything better. first the women hung his clothes to dry and lent him a blanket to wrap around himself. They brought him bread, curds, and sour beer, the best they had when they themselves had already cooked and supped. His friends they treated likewise.

  The newcomers gave their names but said no more about their sorrows. The dwellers did not guess that this Hadding might be the king. “You are a good man, Kari,” he said to the h
ouseholder. “Tomorrow we must talk. You stand to gain by helping me.”

  “Tomorrow,” answered the fisher. “Now let’s sleep.”

  All stretched out and were quickly lost to awareness. The banked fire glowed dim. Outside, the wind shrieked. Louder it blew and louder.

  Doors and shutters rattled. Sand and spray flung from the strand hissed around walls.

  Of a sudden, a hinge gave way. The door banged wildly, tore loose, and whirled off through the night. The storm burst in. Rafters broke asunder. Half the roof fell down.

  Folk had sprung awake. The wind tore cries from lips before ears could catch them. Lightless, men groped at the wreckage. It had buried two of Hadding’s warriors, with three of Kari’s children, his old father, and his kine.

  This was not reckoned up till morning, when folk crept from the unharmed houses in which they had found lee but slept no further. The weather had raged itself out. Though seas still ran high, sunlight speared past clouds onto a land lying wet and death-quiet.

  “I think we had best begone,” said Hadding flatly. “Give us some food to take along, and in a while you’ll hear from me again.”

  Kari looked elsewhere. “I know not if we want to,” he mumbled. “This stay of yours was less lucky for us than you foretold.”

  However, the dwellers did hand something over from their stores. They could have killed these worn-out wanderers, and maybe they would have if they had heard the full tale. But it was easier to get rid of them.

  Hadding led his handful off. They had learned that here was the northwestern end of Zealand. If he kept the water on his left he would come to the Sound and thus to the island where Haven was and his hall nearby. But they were in no shape to go fast. Nor could they withstand any foe. It was well that he had scoured robbers from the land—not that he now bore much worth robbing.

  The day warmed. Where a streamlet trickled through a heath, they lay down and slumbered.

  Afterward they plodded onward. Toward evening they came into cropland and found a hamlet. A yeoman there knew King Hadding by sight. Folk shouted when they heard that he lived. They made the best meal they could. Meanwhile they offered ale, a bathhouse, fresh clothes, weapons, horses, housing.