Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

Men had some glimpse of these doings-distant fires, galloping shadows, storm-winds bearing a brazen clangor. And the loosed magic wrought much havoc, murrains on the livestock and spoilt grain and bad luck in families. Sometimes a hunter would come on a trampled, bloody field and half-see ravens tearing at corpses which had not the look of men. Folk huddled in lonely houses, laid iron beneath the thresholds, and called on their various gods for help.

But as the weeks wore on, Valgard came to sit more and more in Elfheugh. For he had been to every castle and hill-town he could find, he had harried from Orkney to Cornwall, and such elves as had escaped him were well hidden-striking out of cover at his men, so that not a few trolls never came home; sneaking poison into food and water; hamstringing horses; corroding arms and armour; calling up blizzards as if the very land rose against the invader.

The trolls held England, no doubt of that, and daily their grip tightened. Yet never had Valgard longed for spring as now he did.

Skafloc and Freda took shelter in a cave. It was a deep hole in a cliff that slanted back from the seashore, well north of the elf-hills. Behind it was a forest of ice-sheathed trees which grew thicker towards the south and faded into moor and highland toward the north. Dark and drear was that land, unpeopled by men or Faerie folk, and thus about as safe as any place from which to carry on the war.

They could use little magic, for fear of being sensed by the trolls, but Skafloc did a good deal of hunting in guise of the wolf or otter or eagle whose skins Freda had brought, and he conjured ale from seawater. It was hard work merely to keep alive in that wintery world—the hardest winter that England remembered since almost the time of the Great Ice—and he spent most of his days ranging for game.

Dank and chill was the cave. Winds whittered in its mouth and surf pounded on the rocks at its foot. But when Skafloc came back from his first long hunt, he thought for a moment he had found the wrong place.

A fire blazed cheerily on a hearthstone, with smoke guided out a rude pipe of wicker and green hides. Other skins made a warm covering on floor and walls, and one hung in the cave mouth against the wind. The horses were tethered in the rear, chewing hay that Skafloc had magicked from kelp, and the spare weapons were polished and stacked in a row as if this were a feasting hall. And behind each weapon was a little spray of red winter berries.

Crouched over the fire and turning meat on a spit was Freda. Skafloc stopped in midstride. His heart stumbled at sight of her. She wore only a brief tunic, and her slim long-legged body, with its gentle curves of thigh and waist and breast, seemed poised in the gloom like a bird ready for flight.

She saw him come in, and from under tousled ruddy hair, in the flushed and smoke-smudged face, her great grey eyes kindled with gladness. Wordlessly she sped to him, with her dear coltish gait, and they held each other close for a while.

He asked wonderingly: “How did you ever do this, my sweet?”

She laughed softly. “I am no bear, or man, to make a heap of leaves and call that home for the winter. Some of these skins and so on we had, the rest I got for myself. Oh, I am a good housewife.” Pressing against him, shivering: “You were so long away, and time was so empty. I had to pass the days, and make myself weary enough to sleep at night.”

His own hands shook as he fondled her. “This is no stead for you. Hard and dangerous is the outlaw life. I should take you to a human garth, to await our victory or forget our defeat.”

“No-no, never shall you do that!” She grasped his ears and pulled till his mouth lay on hers. Presently, half laughing and half sobbing: “I have said I will not leave you. No, Skafloc, ’twill be harder than that to get rid of me.”

“Truth to tell,” he admitted after a while, “I do not know what I would do without you. Naught would seem worth the trouble any more.”

“Then do not leave me, ever again.”

“I must hunt, dearest one.”

“I will hunt with you.” She waved at the hides and the roasting meat. “I am not unskilled at that.”

“Nor at other things,” he laughed. Turned grim again: “It is not game alone I will be stalking, Freda, but also trolls.”

“There too will I be.” The girl’s countenance grew hard as his own. “Think you I have no vengeance to take?” His head lifted in pride, until he bent to kiss her anew like an osprey stooping on its catch. “Then so be it! And Orm the warrior could be glad of such a daughter.” Her fingers traced the lines of his cheekbone and jaw.

“Know you not who your father was?” she asked.

“No.” He grew uneasy, remembering Tyr’s words. “I never did.”

“No matter,” she smiled, “save that he too could be proud. I think Orm the Strong would have given all his wealth for a son like you—not that Ketil and Asmund were weaklings. And failing that, he must be glad indeed to see you joined with his daughter.”

As the winter deepened, life grew yet harder. Hunger was often a guest in the cave, and chill crept in past the hide door and the fire until only huddled together in bearskins could Skafloc and Freda find warmth. For days on end they would be afield, riding the swift elf horses which sank not into the snow, seeking game in a vast white emptiness.

Now and again they would come on the blackened ruins of an elf garth. At such times Skafloc grew white about the nostrils and said nothing for many hours. Once in a while a living elf would appear, gaunt and ragged, but the man did not try to build up a band. It would only draw the enemy’s heed without being able to stand before him. Could help be gotten from outside, then there might be sense in leagues like that.

Always he was on the lookout for trolls. If he found their tracks, he and the girl would be off at a wild gallop. At a large group they would shoot arrows from afar, then wheel and race away; or Skafloc might wait for daylight, then creep into whatever the shelter was wherein the trolls slept and cut throats. Were there no more than two or three, he would be on them with a sword whose whine, together with Freda’s arrow-buzz, was the last sound they heard.

Relentless was that hunt, on both sides. Often they crouched in cave or beneath windfall while troll pursuit went before their eyes, and naught but a thin screen of wizardry wrought by the rune staves, hardly hiding them from a straight-on glance, covered their spoor. Arrows and spears and slung stones hissed after them when they fled from shooting down two or three of a company. From their home cave they saw troll longships row past, near enough for them to count the rivets in the warriors’ shields.

And it was cold, cold.

Yet in that life they truly found each other. They learned that their bodies were the least of what there was to love. Skafloc wondered how he could have had the heart to wage his fight without Freda. Her arrows had brought down trolls, and her daring schemes of ambush still more—but the kisses she gave him in their dear moments of peace were what drove him to his own deeds, and the help and comfort she gave every hour were what upheld his strength. And to her, he was the greatest and bravest and kindest of men, her sword and shield at once, lover and oath-brother.

She even owned to herself, feeling a little guilty that she did not feel very guilty, that she did not much miss her Faith. Skafloc had explained that its words and signs would upset the magic he needed. For her part, she decided it would be blasphemous to use them for mere advantage in a war between two soulless tribes; better, even safer maybe, to leave prayers unspoken. As for that war, since it was Skafloc’s it was hers. Someday after it was won she would get him to listen to a priest, and surely God would not withhold belief from a man like this.