Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

And Valgard saw.

Like smoke in the wind, the well-kept little house and the tall white woman wavered before him. In sudden terror, he willed to see them not with magic-tricked mortal eyes, but as they really were—

He sat in a hovel of mud and wattles, where one tiny dung fire cast a feeble glow on heaps of bones and rags, rusted metal tools and twisted implements of sorcery. He looked up into the dim eyes of a hag whose face was a mask of wrinkled skin drawn over a lolling toothless skull, and to whose shrivelled breast clung a rat.

Wild with horror, he stumbled to his feet. The witch leered at him. “Beloved, beloved,” she cackled, “shall we not away to your ship? You swore you would not part from me.”

“For you I am outlaw!” Valgard howled. He grabbed his axe and struck at her. Even while he smote, her body shrank. Two rats sprang across the floor. The axe thudded into the ground just as they went down a hole. Foaming, Valgard took a stick and thrust it into the fire. When it was well alight, he touched it to the rags and thatch. He stood outside while the hovel burned, ready to hew at anything which might show itself. But there were only the leaping flames and the piping wind and the snow hissing as it blew into the fire.

When naught but ashes was left, Valgard shouted forth: “For you I have lost home and kin and hope, for you I am resolved to forswear my lifetime and league with the lands of darkness, for you I have become a troll! Hear me, witch, if still you live. I will take your rede. I will become earl of the trolls in England-maybe one night king of all Trollheim—and I will hound you down with every power I then have. You too, like men and elves and whoever gets in my way, you will feel my wrath, and never will I rest until I have flayed alive you who broke my heart with a shadow!”

He wheeled about and loped eastward, soon lost in the snowfall. Crouched below the earth, witch and familiar grinned at each other. This was just as they had planned.

The crews of Valgard’s ships were the worst of vikings, most of them outlawed from their homelands and all of them unwelcome wherever they went. Thus he had bought a garth of his own where they might winter. They lived well, with thralls to serve them, but were so quarrelsome and unruly that only their chief could hold them together.

When word of the murders reached them, they knew it would not be long ere the men of the Danelaw came to put an end to them, and they busked the ships and themselves to sail. But they could not agree on whither they should go, now in winter, and there was much dispute and some fighting. They might have sat thus till their foes were upon them had Valgard not returned.

He came after sunset into the hall. The burly hairy men sat draining horn after horn until their shouting deafened ears. Many snored on the floor beside the dogs; others yelled and squabbled, with onlookers more apt to egg them on than step between. To and fro in the shifty firelight scurried the terrorized manthralls, and women who had long since wept out their tears.

Valgard stepped up to the empty high seat—a tall and terrible figure, mouth set in yet grimmer lines than his men remembered, the great axe which had begun to be called Brotherslayer slanted over one shoulder. Quiet spread in waves as folk saw him, until at last only the longfire had voice in that hall.

Valgard spoke: “We cannot abide here. Though you were never at Orm’s garth, folk will make what happened into any excuse for getting rid of you. Now that is just as well. I know a place where we can win greater wealth and fame, and thither we sail the dawn after tomorrow.”

“Where is that, and why not leave tomorrow?” asked one of his captains, a scarred old fellow by name Steingrim.

“As to the last, I have a business here in England which we will attend tomorrow,” said Valgard. “And as to the first, our goal is Finnmark.”

An uproar arose. Steingrim lifted his voice above it: “That is the most foolish babble I ever heard. Finnmark is poor and lonely, and lies across a sea which can be dangerous even in summer. What can we win there save death, by drowning or by the sorcerers who dwell in that land, or at best a few earthern huts to huddle in? Near at hand are England, Scotland, Ireland, Orkney, or Valland south of the channel, where good booty may be gotten.”

“I have given my orders. You will follow them,” said Valgard.

“Not I,” answered Steingrim. “I think you have gone mad in the woods.”

Like a wildcat, Valgard sprang at the captain. His axe crashed down into Steingrim’s skull.

A man yelled, grabbed a spear and thrust at Valgard. The berserker sidestepped, yanked the shaft from his hands, and knocked him to the ground. Pulling the axe from Steingrim’s head, Valgard stood looming in the smoky light with his eyes like flakes of sea-ice. He asked quietly: “Does anyone else wish to gainsay me?”

None spoke or moved. Valgard stepped back to his high seat and told them: “I acted thus harshly because we cannot go on in our old loose way. Our lives are lost unless we become like a single man, whose head I alone am fit to be. Now I know my plan looks unwise at first, but Steingrim should have heard me out. The fact is, I have word of a rich man’s garth built in Finnmark this summer, where anything we could wish is stored. They will not await vikings in winter, so we can take it easily. Nor do I fear rough weather on the way, for you know I have some skill at foretelling it and I snuff a good wind coming.”

The gang remembered how Valgard’s leadership had been to their betterment. As for Steingrim, he had no kin or oath-brother here. So they shouted they would follow Valgard wherever he went. When the body had been dragged out and the drinking taken up anew, he gathered his captains.

“We have a place nearby to sack ere leaving England,” he told them. “ ’Twill not be hard, and good plunder is to be had.”

“What place is that?” asked one man.

“The garth of Orm the Strong, who is now dead and cannot ward it.”

Even those reavers thought this would be an evil deed, but they dared not talk against their chief.

Ketil’s grave-ale became also a feast for Asmund and Orm. Men drank silent and sorrowful, for Orm had been a sage leader, and he and his sons were well-liked thereabouts in spite of his being no churchman. The ground was not yet frozen too hard for the carles to start making a howe the day after the murders.

Orm’s best ship was dragged from its house into the grave. In it were laid treasures, and meat and drink for a long voyage; horses and dogs were killed and put in the ship; and those whom Valgard had slain were placed in it with the best of clothes, weapons, and every kind of gear, and with hellshoes on their feet. Thus had Orm wanted to be buried, and had made his wife promise.

When the task was done, some days later, Ailfrida came forth. She stood in the dull grey winter light, looking down at Orm and Ketil and Asmund. Her unbound hair fell to their breasts and hid her own countenance from those who stood watching.

“The priest says it would be a sin, or I would slay myself now and go to my rest beside you,” she whispered. “Weary will life be. You were good boys, Ketil and Asmund, and your mother is lonely for your laughter. It seems but yesterday I sang you to sleep on my breast, you were so little then, and suddenly you were great long-legged youths, good to look on and a pride to Orm and me—and now you lie so still, with a few snowflakes drifting down on your empty faces. Strange—” She shook her head. “I cannot understand you are slain. It is not real to me.”

She smiled at Orm. “Often did we quarrel,” she murmured, “but that meant naught, for you loved me and—and I you. You were good to me, Orm, and the world is cold, cold, now you are dead. This I ask all-merciful God: that He forgive what things you did against His law. For you were ignorant of much, however wise with a ship or with your hands to make me shelves and chests or carve toys for the children ... And if so be God can never receive you in Heaven, then I pray Him I too may descend to hell to be with you—aye, though you go to your heathen gods, there I would follow you. Now farewell, Orm, whom I loved and love. Farewell.”