Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

He tried to keep the axe caught in place while he cut from above. But the stranger sprang back, wrenching free his weapon with a strength that sent Skafloc lurching. Then he moved to the attack. Skafloc cast aside the now useless shield. Iron belled and sparked on iron. Both men wore helm and byrnie, and unshielded, the swordsman was not well matched against the greater weight of the axe. Though Skafloc knew the elven art of thrust, parry, and bind, a blade such as he bore tonight was poorly balanced for that. He made shift to defend himself, but must keep on giving way.

Then the tide of battle came between. Skafloc found himself suddenly pitted against a troll, who gave him a hard fight ere falling. Meanwhile the stranger was embroiled with elves. He cut his way through them, back to Illrede, and the remaining trolls rallied about those two. In a quick, strong push they beat a path to a rear door. Through this they went.

“After them!” roared Skafloc in battle fury.

Goltan and the other elf captains urged him back. “ ’Twould be foolhardy,” they said. “See, the door opens on lightless downward-leading caverns where we could be too easily ambushed. Best we bar it on this side instead, that Illrede call not the monsters of the inner earth up against us.”

“Aye, you are right,” said Skafloc grudgingly.

His glance swept the hall, first greedily across the riches therein, then with a measure of sorrow across the bodies of elves sprawled on the blood-slippery floor. Yet he must rejoice at how few they were beside the enemy dead. The troll wounded were being dispatched—the loudness of their groans and cries dropped fast-while the elven hurt were being roughly bandaged until healing magic could be worked for them back home.

Suddenly Skafloc’s eyes came to rest in an amazement hardly less than when he had seen his own shape among the foe. Two mortal women lay bound and gagged near the high seat.

He strode over. They shrank from his knife when he drew it. “Why, I am only going to free you,” he said in the Danish tongue, and did. They rose, shuddering, clinging to each other. He was surprised afresh when the tall fair-haired one stammered through tears: “B-b-backbiter and murderer, what new evil do you wreak?”

“Why—” Skafloc checked his bewilderment. Though he had learned the speech of men, he had had little use of it and spoke it with the singing note of the elf tongue. “Why, what have I done?” He smiled. “Unless you like being tied up.”

“Mock us not, Valgard, on top of everything else,” said the golden-haired maiden.

“I am not Valgard,” Skafloc said, “nor do I know him unless he is that man whom I fought—but belike you did not see that in the crowd. I am Skafloc of Alfheim, and no friend to trolls.”

“Aye, Asgerd!” burst from the younger girl. “He cannot be Valgard. See, he is beardless, he wears different garments, he speaks strangely—”

“I know not,” mumbled Asgerd, “Is this death around us another trick? Is he making an enchantment to beguile us-? Oh, I know naught save that Erlend and our kindred are dead.” She began to sob, dry racking coughs.

“No, no!” The younger maiden clung to Skafloc’s shoulders searching his face, beaming through tears like springtime sunshine through rain. “No, stranger, you are not Valgard though you do look much like him. Your eyes are warm, your mouth knows well how to laugh-Thanks unto G—”

He covered her lips with his palm before she could finish. “Do not speak that name yet,” he said hastily. “These are also Faerie folk who cannot bear to hear it. But they will do you no harm. Rather will I see that you are taken to where-ever you wish.”

She nodded, wide-eyed. He dropped his hand and looked long at her. She was only of middle height, but each inch was one of supple slender youthful beauty gleaming through the tatters of her dress. Her locks were long and lustrous bronze-brown, sparked with red; her face was a sweet moulding of broad forehead and pertly tilted nose and wide soft mouth. Under dark brows, her long-lashed eyes were big, wide-set, bright, a grey that woke some ghostly half-memory in Skafloc’s elf-schooled mind. But he could not make out what it was, and it left him.

“Who are you?” he asked slowly.

“I am Freda Ormsdaughter from the Danelaw in England; this is my sister Asgerd,” she told him. “And you, warrior-?”

“Skafloc, Imric’s fosterling, of Alfheim’s English lands,” he answered. She shrank back, barely stopping a sign of the cross. “I tell you, do not fear me,” he said with unwonted earnestness. “Wait here while I take charge of our work.”

The elves got busy plundering Illrede’s hall. Ranging through offside rooms, they found slaves of their own race whom they freed. Finally they went outside. Near the cave mouth they found houses, sheds, and barns which they set afire. Though a strong wind still blew, the weather had mostly cleared, and flames roared bright into a star-frosted sky.

“Meseems Trollheim is nothing to fear,” said Skafloc.

“Be not too sure,” cautioned Valka the Wise. “We took them unawares. I wish I knew how big the levies have grown and how near to this stead they are camping.”

“We can find that out another time,” said Skafloc. “Now let us go back to the ships, and we can be home ere dawn.”

Asgerd and Freda had stood by, numbly watching from their witch-sighted eyes what the elves did. Strange were these tall warriors, moving like water and smoke, with never a sound of footfall but with byrnies chiming silvery through the night. Ivory pale, with thin high-boned features, beast ears and blankly glowing eyes, they were a sight of terror to mortal gaze.

Among them passed Skafloc, almost as soft-footed and graceful, seeing like a cat, speaking their eldritch tongue. Yet he was a man in his looks, and Freda, remembering the warmth of him, unlike what cool silky-skinned elf flesh had happened to brush her, felt sure he was human.

“Heathen must he be, to dwell among these creatures,” said Asgerd once.

“Well-I suppose so—but he is kind, and he saved us from-from—” Freda shuddered and wrapped more tightly about herself the cloak Skafloc had given her.

The man blew his horn for withdrawal, and the long, silent file wound its way down the mountain. Skafloc walked beside Freda, saying naught but often casting his glance upon her. She was younger than him, with a trace of endearing coltish awkwardness still in the long legs and slim-waisted body. She bore her head high, and the shining hair seemed to crackle in the frosty moonlight—but he thought it would be soft to the touch. As they came down the rugged slope he steadied her, and the little hand was engulfed in his calloused paw.

Then all at once there rang between the steeps the bull bellow of a troll horn, and another answered it and another, echoes snarling back from cliffs and blowing ragged on the wind. The elves stopped dead, ears cocked, nostrils aquiver while they searched the night for trace of their foes.

“I think they must be ahead, to cut off our retreat,” said Goltan.

“Bad is that,” said Skafloc, “but it would be worse to go blundering down the black gorge and have rocks hurled at us from above. We will make our way beside it instead of through it.”

He blew a battle call on the lur horn carried for him. Elves made the first of the great curving lurs and used them still, though men had forgotten them since the Age of Bronze. To Freda and Asgerd he said: “I fear we must fight once more. My folk will ward you if you speak not those names which hurt them. If you do, they must scatter, and trolls standing out of earshot can slay you with arrows.”

“It would not be good to die without calling on-Him above,” said Asgerd. “However, we will obey you in this.”