Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

War-horns blew their summons on both sides. Down came sails and masts, and the fleets rowed to battle with ships linked together by ropes. As they neared, the arrows began their flight, a moon-darkening storm that hissed over waves and struck home in wood or flesh. Three shafts rattled off Skafloc’s mail; a fourth narrowly missed his arm and quivered in the ship’s figurehead. With his night-seeing eyes he made out others aboard who were not so lucky, who sank wounded or slain under Trollheim’s hail.

The moon showed ever less often through the hasty clouds, but will-o’-the-wisps danced amidst the spindrift and the waves surged with cold white glow. There was light enough to kill by.

Next spears, darts, and flung stones crossed between the ships. Skafloc cast a shaft which pinned a right hand to the mast of the troll flagship. Back came a rock which bounced with a clang off his helmet. He leaned on the rail, briefly dizzy, and the sea slapped salt water over his ringing head.

The horns yelled, almost mouth into mouth, and the lines shocked together.

Imric’s ship pushed against Illrede’s. The warriors in the bows smote back and forth. Skafloc’s sword screamed past the axe of a troll and disabled an arm. He leaned into the line of shields at the enemy rail, his own moving just enough to catch the numbing thunder of blows, his steel blade working above its rim. On his left, Firespear thrust and hacked with his pike, yelling in battle madness, reckless of the shafts that reached for him. On his right, Angor of Pictland fought stolidly with his long axe. For a time the two sides traded blows, and whenever a man dropped from either line, another pressed into his place.

Then Skafloc buried his sword in the neck of a troll. As that one fell, Firespear jabbed into the breast of the one behind him. Skafloc leaped the rails, into that breach in the troll ranks, and cut down the man to his left. As the warrior to his right chopped at him, Angor’s axe came down and the troll’s head rolled into the sea.

“Forward!” roared Skafloc. The nearer elves swarmed after him. They stood back to back, hewing-hewing-at the trolls who snarled and grunted around them. And in this uproar, the other elves grappled fast and still more of them boarded the enemy.

Swords flew in a blur that spouted blood. The shock and crash of metal over-rode wind and sea. Above the struggle loomed Skafloc, eyes like blue hell-flames. He must needs stand a little ahead of the elves, lest his iron mail do them harm; but they covered his back, and meanwhile his shield stopped the trolls’ clumsy thrusts and swipes from in front, his sword darted in and out like a viper. Erelong the enemy fell back from him and the bows were cleared.

“Now aft! “he yelled.

The elves advanced with blades over shields like heat-flicker over a mountain wall. Stubbornly did the trolls fight. Elves sank with crushed skulls, fell behind with splintered bones and gaping cuts. Nonetheless the trolls went back and back, none holding fast save their trampled dead.

“Valgard!” bawled Skafloc into the din. “Valgard, where are you?”

The changeling stood forth. Blood streamed from his temple. “A slingstone knocked me out,” he said, “but now I am yare for battle.” Skafloc shouted and ran to meet him. A space had opened between the crews. The elves held the ship down to the mast partner, the trolls had crowded into the stern, and both sides were for the time being out of breath. But more elves kept boarding, and from their vessel, archers sent a steady rain of grey-feathered death.

Skafloc’s sword and Valgard’s axe met in a howl of steel and a shower of sparks. The madness did not come on the berserker; he fought with grim coolness, rock-steady on the rolling deck. Skafloc’s sword caught his axe haft, but did not go far into the tough leather-wrapped wood. Instead, it was pushed aside. So was the shield behind-an dpefling through which Valgard chopped at once.

Lacking room or time for a full swing, his blow did not break mail-rings or bones. But Skafloc’s shield-arm fell numbed to his side. Valgard hewed at the neck. Skafloc dropped to one-knee, taking that dreadful smash on the helmet while he did. At the same time, he had been cutting at Valgard’s leg.

Half senseless from the fury that dented his helmet and knocked him aside, he sank. Valgard stumbled with a ripped thigh. They rolled under the benches and the battle raged past them.

For Grum Troll-Earl had led a charge back from the stern. His huge stone-headed club crushed skulls right and left. Against him went Angor of Pictland, who struck out and hewed off the troll’s right arm. Grum caught his falling club in his left hand and swung a blow that broke Angor’s neck; but then the troll must crawl to shelter so that he might carve healing runes for his spouting wound.

Skafloc and Valgard came out again, found each other in the chaos, and took up their fight anew. Skafloc’s left arm had gotten back its usefulness, while Valgard was still bleeding. Imric’s fosterling smote with a force that bit through the berserker’s mail, to be stopped by a rib. “That for Freda!” he shouted. “I’ll have you done to her.”

“Not so ill as I think you have,” choked Valgard. Staggering and weakened, nonetheless he met Skafloc’s next cut with his axe in midair. And the sword sprang in twain.

“Ha!” cried the berserker; but ere he could follow up his chance Firespear was at him like an angry cat, and others of Alfheim besides. The elves held the ship. “You leave me no reason to stay here,” said Valgard, “though I hope to see you again, brotherling.” And he sprang overboard.

He had meant to get free of his byrnie before it dragged him too far under, but there was no need. Many ships had been wrecked by ramming or the sheer press of battle. The mast of one was floating by and he caught it with his left hand. His right still held the axe Brotherslayer and for a little he wondered if he should not let it go.

But no-accursed or not, it was a good weapon.

Others, who had had a moment to lighten their loads before fleeing the ship, also dung to the mast. “Kick out, brothers!” shouted Valgard, “and we will reach a keel of ouf own—and win this battle yet.”

Aboard the troll flagship, the elves yelled their glee. Skafloc asked: “Where is Illrede? He should have been aboard, yet I saw him not.”

“Belike he is flying about, overseeing his fleet, even as Imric is doing in the form of a sea-mew,” Firespear answered. “Let’s chop a hole in this damned hulk and be back to the other.”

There they found Imric waiting for them. “How goes the battle, foster father?” called Skafloc gaily.

The elf-earl’s voice fell bleak on his ears: “Badly goes it, for however well the elves fight, the trolls throw two to one against them. And parts of the enemy are landing unopposed.”

“Bad news in truth,” cried Golric of Cornwall, “and we must fight like very demons or we are lost.”

“I fear we are lost already,” said Imric.

Skafloc could not at once grasp this. Looking around, he saw that the flagship drifted alone. Both fleets were breaking asunder as the linking ropes were cut by foemen; but the troll craft suffered less of this. And too often the trolls were laying one vessel on either side of an elf hull.

“To oars!” shouted Skafloc. “They need help. To oars!”

“Well spoke,” fleered Imric. The longship moved to the closest knot of battle. Arrows fell on it.

“Shoot back!” cried Skafloc. “In the name of hell, why don’t you shoot back?”

“Our quivers are nigh empty, lord,” said an elf. Hunching low behind their shields, the elves rowed into the fight. Two of their fellow ships were at bay between three hireling craft and one troll dragon. As Imric’s vessel neared, the bat-winged demons of Baikal descended on her.