Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

“That would be a fine deed for an elf chief, in command of a raid that may bring back his foeman’s head,” Skafloc said in anger. “Not for anyone would I do so shameful a thing.”

“Aye-aye.” Sudden tears glimmered in Leea’s eyes.

“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms. A few years ago I rocked you in your cradle, Skafloc, a few months ago I lay out with you. in the light summer nights, and to me, undying, the times are almost the same. And no different, in that blink of years, is the day your hacked corpse will await the ravens. I shall not ever forget you, Skafloc, but I fear I have kissed you for the last time.” And she sang:

Seaward blows the wind tonight, and the seamen, never resting, rise from house to take their flight with the gulls, and spindrift’s questing. Woman’s arms and firelit hearth, kith and kin, can never hold them when the wind beyond their garth of the running tides has told them. Spume and seaweed shall enfold them.

Wind, ah, wind, old wanderer, grey and swift-foot, ever crying, Woman curses, who, from her, calls forth Man to doom and dying. Seamen, kissed by laughing waves, cold and salt-sweet, hearts deceiving, shall be borne to restless graves when the sea their life is reaving. And their women will be grieving.

Skafloc liked not this song, which smacked of bad luck. He turned and shouted to his men to get the ships afloat and get aboard them. But soon as he himself was waterborne, he lost every foreboding in renewed eagerness.

“This gale has blown for three days now,” said Goltan, a comrade of his. “And it has a wizard smell about it. Mayhap some warlock sails eastward.”

“ ’Twas kind of him to spare us the trouble of raising our own wind,” laughed Skafloc. “However, if he has been three days eastbound, his ship is of mortal make. We travel at a better clip!”

Masts and sails were raised, and the slim dragon-headed craft leaped ahead. Like the gale itself they went, like flying snow and freezing spindrift white under the moon, waves seething in their wake, a long easy bounding over the noisy waters. Swiftest of all in Faerie, afoot or on horse or in hull, were the elves, and ere midnight Finnmark’s cliffs loomed in sight.

Skafloc’s teeth gleamed forth. Quoth he:

Trolls shall tumble (tumult rages), fear of firebrands freeing bowels. Kin, be kind to clamouring troll-men: have they headaches, hew the heads off. The elves grinned down the length of the plunging hull, lowered sail and mast, and took to their oars. Into the fjord the fleet steered, busked for battle, but no sign of enemy guards met their eyes. Instead they saw other vessels drawn up on the beach-three mortal longships, whose folk were bloodily strewn across the rocks.

Skafloc leaped ashore, sword out and cloak flapping behind him. “Strange is this,” he said uneasily.

“Belike they sheltered here from the gale and were set on by trolls,” Goltan replied. “ ’Twas a very short time ago-see, feel, the blood is still wet, the bodies warm—and so the killers may be at Illrede’s hall reporting the matter.”

“Why, then, that is wondrous luck!” cried Skafloc, who had not looked to make a surprise attack. Rather than wind his horn, he signalled with his blade. Not he nor the elves gave further thought to the dead men, who were merely human.

The crews sprang into the shallows and dragged their ships ashore. A few stayed there on guard, while Skafloc led the main troop along the inland trail.

Through a gorge they went, where mortals would have been blind, and came out on to a mountainside where snow glittered dazzling and peaks raked the sky. Wind shrieked and cuffed them with cold hands. Ragged clouds blew across the moon’s face, as if it blinked. Lithe as cats, the elves made their way over cliff and crag, up the mountain towards the cave mouth that gaped in its side.

Nearing, they saw a band of trolls come out, belike the coast watchers bound back to their posts. Skafloc’s cry rose over the wind: “Swiftly, and we can cut them off!”

Pantherish he sprang, the elves beside and around him. Ere the trolls were fully aware, metal howled in their ears, and that was the last sound they heard. But of course the noise reached inside, and when Skafloc’s raiders entered, they met growing opposition.

Din of weapons was redoubled in the descending tunnel. The war-shouts of the elves and the booming cries of the trolls rolled in broken echoes. Skafloc and Goltan led the way shield by shield, hewing over the rims. Mostly un-unarmoured and all slower-moving, troll after troll fell beneath those sharp edges.

A warrior thrust at Skafloc with a spear like a young tree. He caught that thrust on his shield, forced the shaft aside, closed in and smote. His iron blade burned through the shoulder to the heart. Glimpsewise he saw a club smashing at him from the left. It could have crushed his helmet and the head beneath. He got his shield in the way. The blow rang on its sheet-iron facing and the shock sent him staggering back. He fell to one knee, but freed his sword and cut a leg out from under the troll. Rising, he swept his glaive in a whistling, twisting curve, and another troll’s head leaped from its neck.

At last the retreating defenders came into a large cave. The elves cried their glee at having a space big enough for their best kind of fighting. Longbows came off backs and the grey-feathered arrows stormed up from behind Skafloc’s front line and down again among the trolls. As the defenders gave way and their own ranks broke, single combats scattered across the floor. One troll without mail was seldom a match for that leaping, dodging, hewing, stabbing blur which was an elf.

Some of the attackers did die, with shattered skulls or ripped hides, and no few took wounds. But for the trolls it was a slaughter. Nonetheless the royal guards stood fast in the archway that led to their master’s feasting hall. When the elves, having finished off everyone else, charged, too few of them could get at that grim line, and there was too little room for their speed and skill to count. They recoiled in confusion, leaving a number of dead and hurt. Nor would missiles be much use against that wall of shields, which were made to cover from just below the eyes to just below the knee.

But Skafloc saw how high the arch was above them. “Let me show you the way!” he shouted. Streaming green troll blood and some of his own red, with dented helm and shield and nicked sword, he laughed as he scabbarded the blade and took a spear. Dashing forward, he pole-vaulted over the foemen’s heads into the hall beyond.

Falling, he drew sword again. The landing, with the weight he bore, shocked in his soles and thudded in the ground. He whirled about. The guardsmen having been on duty, were well armoured, but legs and parts of arms must needs be bare. The iron blade brought down three trolls in as many blows.

Others turned to face him. The elves rushed on the suddenly ragged line-broke it asunder and poured into the troll-king’s hall!

Skafloc saw Illrede at the far end, clutching a spear but rocklike in his high seat. The man plunged towards him. Two trolls who sought to stop Skafloc sank beneath his weapon. Then a man trod into his path.

For a moment Skafloc stood stiff with astonishment, seeing his own face glare at him behind the descending axe. He got his shield up barely in time. However, the axe was not soft bronze or light alloy, it was steel itself, and not blunted by combat; whereas the shield had taken much beating. The axe struck the rim, clove wood and thin iron, and did not stop until it had laid open Skafloc’s left arm.