Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

Skafloc laughed and laid a hand on Freda’s shoulder. “Why, how can we but win when such beauty is to be fought for?” he asked gaily.

He told off two elves to carry the girls, who could not keep up when the pace grew swift, and had others form a shield-burg around them. Then, at the head of a wedge formation, he proceeded over the ridge towards the sea.

Lightly went the elves, springing from rock to crag, ring-mail singing and weapons agleam in the moonlight. When they saw the trolls massed black against the wan night-bridge of the gods, they raised a shout, clashed swords on shields, and ran to the fight.

But Skafloc drew a quick breath at the size of the troll force. He guessed the elves were outnumbered some six to one—and if Illrede could raise that horde this fast, what might not his full strength be?

“Well,” he said, “we shall have to kill six trolls apiece.” The elf archers loosed their shafts. The slower trolls could not match the moon-darkening clouds which sighed again and again over them. Many sank on the spot. But as ever, most arrows rattled harmlessly off rocks, or stuck in shields, and all were soon spent.

The elves charged, and battle burst in the night. Roaring troll horns and dunting elf lurs, wolf-howling troll cries and hawk-shrieking elf calls, thunder of troll axes on elf shields and clangour of elf swords on troll helmets, stormed to the stars.

Axe and sword! Spear and club! Cloven shield and sundered helm and broken mail! Red gush of elf blood meeting cold green flow of troll’s! Auroras dancing death-dances overhead!

Two tall shapes, hardly to be told apart, loomed in the strife. Valgard’s axe and Skafloc’s sword clove bloody trails through the locked and swaying warriors. The berserker foamed with the rage that had come on him, bawled and smote. Skafloc was silent save for panting breath, but scarcely less wild.

The trolls had hemmed in the elves on every side, and in that press, where swiftness and agility counted for little, troll strength came into its own. It seemed to Skafloc that for each gaping grinning face that sank before him, two more rose out of the blood-steaming snow. He had to stand his ground, while sweat rivered off him to freeze in his breeks, and grip his new shield and strike without end.

Thus it was Valgard who came to him, mad with the berserkergang and with hatred for everything elfly-most for Imric’s fosterling. They met well-nigh breast to breast, eyes glaring into eyes through the tricky moonlight.

Skafloc’s blade clanged on Valgard’s helm and dented it. Valgard’s axe chopped splinters from Skafloc’s shield. Then Skafloc got in a sidewise cut that laid open Valgard’s cheek so that the teeth grinned forth. The berserker howled anew and laid on a thunderous hail of blows, knocking the blade aside, banging on the shield till Skafloc’s left arm was ready to drop off and blood drenched the cloth bound over the earlier wound in it.

Nonetheless he watched his chance; and when his foe stuck a leg too far forward, Skafloc hewed down deep into the calf. He might have disabled, had his edge not been blunted from use. As was, Valgard hooted and fell back. Skafloc followed. A blow as of a falling boulder smote his helm, casting him to his knees. Illrede Troll-King had loomed beside him and swung a stone-headed club. Valgard came back with axe aloft. Though his ears rang and pain was an iron band around his temples, Skafloc rolled aside. The weapon struck ground. Battle-crazed, an elf in the shield-burg took a step out of it to cut down the berserker ere he could free his axe. Illrede’s mallet hit and broke that warrior’s neck. Valgard lifted his axe and brought it down through the hole in the line, on to the elf behind. But it was into the burden he bore that the axe sank.

The shield-burg closed and moved against man and troll, who retreated from so many spears. Skafloc got back up and led them away. They left their dead behind. Illrede likewise rejoined his guardsmen. Valgard stayed where he was, alone, for the fit had passed from him.

Swaying on his feet, painted with blood, he stood over Asgerd’s body. “I did not mean that,” he said. “Indeed my axe is accursed—or is it me?” He passed a hand over his eyes, puzzledly. “Yet ... they are not my kin, are they?”

Weak after the fury, he sat down beside Asgerd. The battle moved further away from him. “Now there are only Skafloc and Freda to kill, then all the blood I once thought my own is shed,” he mumbled, stroking her heavy golden braids. “And it might be well to do it with you, Brother-slayer. ^Elfrida. too, if she still lives. I could kill-why not? She is not my mother. My mother is a great horrible thing chained in Imric’s dungeons, /Elfrida, who sang me to sleep, is not my mother—”

Ill went it with the elves, however valiantly they fought. In their van, Skafloc shouted to them, rallied and ordered and led them. His blade yelled death. No troll could stand before that whirling steel, and with his men he slowly carved a seaward way.

For a space he faltered, when Goltan fell with a spear through him. “Now I am one friend poorer,” he said, “and that is a wealth not gained back.” His voice rose anew: “Hai, Alfheim! Forward, forward!”

And so at last a remnant broke through the trolls and retreated to the beach. Valka the Wise, Flam of Orkney, Hlokkan Redlance, and other great elves fell in the rearguard. But meanwhile the rest won to their ships. Some among them, in full sight of the trolls, ran about the slope above, scattering what booty remained. This softened the attack, for Illrede would rather,get back his treasures than lose many more folk.

Enough elves were alive and somewhat hale for the under-manning of about half the ships. The rest they set alight with fire spells. Then they launched and boarded and rowed painfully out of the fjord.

Freda, huddled in the bottom of Skafloc’s dragon, saw him standing tall and bloody against the moon, making rune signs and uttering words she did not know. The wind shifted aft, became a gale, a storm, and with iron-hard sails and bow-bent masts and twanging tackle the ships leaped forward. Faster and ever faster they fled, like the spindrift, like the clouds, like dream and witchcraft and moonlight over the water. Skafloc stood in the spray-sheeting bows and sang his warlock song, unhelmed hair flying and ragged byrnie ringing, a shape out of lost sagas and worlds beyond man. Darkness came to Freda.

She awoke on a couch of carved ivory, spread with furs and silks. She had been bathed and dressed in a white samite shift. By her bedside stood a curiously wrought table bearing wine, water, clustered grapes and other fruits of the southland. Save for this she could see only an endless deep-blue twilight.

For a time she could not remember where she might be or what had happened. Then recollection rushed back and she fell to wild sobbing. Long she wept. But peace was in the very air she breathed; and when she had wept herself out and taken some of the wine, it was more than heady, it was like a calming hand laid on her heart. She fell into dreamless sleep.

Awakening again, she felt marvellously rested. As she sat up, Skafloc came striding through the blue spaciousness to her.

No sign of his wounds remained, and he bore an eager smile. He wore a brief, richly embroidered tunic and kilt that showed the muscles alive beneath his skin. Sitting down beside her, he took her hands and looked into her eyes.

“Do you feel better?” he asked. “I put into the wine a drug that helps heal the mind.”

“I am well, only-only where am I?” she answered.

“In Imric’s castle of Elfheugh, among the elf-hills of the north,” said Skafloc, and as her eyes grew wide with alarm: “No hurt shall be done you, and all shall be as you wish.”