Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword

On Valgard’s right, Leea shimmered in the rays that struck through the unglazed windows from a sinking moon. Thence also came the breeze that blew her spidery gown and pale hair about her. A half smile was on her lips and her eyes shone twilight blue.

Below Elfheugh’s walls, the slopes lay white with rime and moonlight. There moved the elf army. Weapons rattled, ringmail chimed, lur horns lowed, horses stamped ringingly on the frosty earth. Shields flung back the moonbeams, and the heads of spears and axes gleamed cold under the stars. The elves were setting up their camps; tents ringed the castle and fires blossomed ruddy. To and fro flitted the shadowy forms of the warriors.

A rumble rolled through the hills. Into sight came a war chariot, bright almost as a sun. Flames flickered about the swords on its hubs. Four huge white horses drew it, arching their silken-maned heads and snorting like storm winds. He who stood spear-armed behind the driver towered over all others. Dark locks blew about a countenance of majesty and grimness. The eyes burned with a light of their own.

A troll said unsteadily: “That is Lugh of the Long Hand. He led the Tuatha De Danaan against us. He reaped us like wheat. The Scottish ravens darkened the earth, too gorged to fly, and not a hundred trolls escaped.”

Still Valgard spoke no word.

Red-cloaked, silver-byrnied, Firespear pranced his steed around the castle walls. Bright and handsome was his face, though cruel in its mockery, and his lance reached aloft as if to impale stars. “He led the outlaws,” muttered someone else. “Their arrows came from everywhere. They rose out of the night against us, and left fire and death behind them.”

Valgard stayed moveless.

In the moongladed bay, hulks of troll vessels smouldered or lay driven on to the strand and broken. Elven longships rode at anchor, gleaming with shields and weapons. “Flam of Orkney captains those, which Mananaan Mac Lir took back from us,” said a troll chief harshly. “The seas are bare of our craft. One got through, to tell us how the coasts of Trollheim are plundered and ablaze.”

Valgard might have been graven in dark stone.

The elves ashore began to raise a pavilion bigger than the others. A man rode thither on a black horse of monster size and planted his standard—a spearshaft atop which leered the shrivelling head of Illrede. The dead eyes stared straight at those in the tower.

A troll’s voice broke as he said: “That is their leader, Skafloc the Mortal. Naught can stand before him. He drove us northward like a flock of sheep, slaughtering, slaughtering. The sword he wields goes through stone and metal as if through cloth. I wonder if he is indeed a man, and not a fiend risen from hell.”

Valgard stirred. “I know him,” he said softly. “And I mean to slay him.”

“Lord, you cannot. That weapon of his—”

“Be still!” Valgard turned to rake the troll with his eyes and lash them with his words. “Fools, cowards, knaves! Let any who fear to fight go out to yon butcher. He will not spare you, but you will die quickly. As for me, I am going to break him, here at Elfheugh.” His tones deepened, rolling like those war-wheels below: “This is the last troll stronghold in Britain. How the others were lost, we know not. Our folk have only seen elf banners flying over them as they retreated hither. But we do know that this castle, which never yet fell to storm, is now packed with warriors to a number greater than that outside. It is bastioned alike against magic and open assault. Naught but our own cravenness can take it from us.”

He hefted the great axe that never left him. “They will pitch their camp tonight and do no more. Soon comes dawn. Tomorrow night they may begin siege, more likely storm. If it is storm, we will cast it back and sally forth in pursuit. Otherwise we will make the attack ourselves, having the fortress behind us for withdrawal should things go wrong.”

The teeth gleamed in his beard. “But I think we will carry them before us. We are more than they, and man for man stronger. Skafloc and I will seek each other out; there is no love between us twain. And I will kill him and get his victorious sword.”

He stopped. The lord from Scotland asked: “And what of the Sidhe?”

“They are not all-powerful,” snapped Valgard. “Once we have mowed enough elves to make it plain their cause is doomed, the Sidhe will handsel peace. Then England will be a troll realm, guarding the homeland from attack until we have gathered might to fare afresh against the Elfking.”

His darkling gaze slanted down to meet Illrede’s. “And I,” he muttered, “will sit on your throne. But what use is that? What use is anything?”

Some time after the noise in the night had ended, a housecarle plucked up the heart to leave his bed, light a lamp from the hearth-coals, and search out how it stood in Thorkel Erlendsson’s home. He found the outer door open in the room of Freda Ormsdaughter, her child gone, and she lying swooned and bleeding on the threshold. He carried her back. Thereafter she tossed in a fever, crying out things which caused the priest, when he came, to shake his head and cross himself.

None could get sense out of her. Twice in the following days she tried to slip away, and each time someone saw her and led her back. She had no strength to fight them.

But there came the night when she awoke alone, her mind clear—or so she believed—and a little health returned to her. She lay for a while making plans. Then she crept from her bed, clenching her jaws lest teeth clatter in the cold, and found the chest where her clothes lay. Fumbling in the dark, she put on a woolen gown and long, hooded cloak; she carried shoes in hand and went in stockinged feet to the kitchen for bread and cheese to take with her.

On the way back through her room, she stopped to kiss the crucifix above the bed. “Forgive me if You can,” she whispered, “that I love him more than You. Evil am I, but the sin is mine, not his.”

She went out beneath the stars. They were very many, unwinking and sharp. The night was quiet, save where frost crackled under her feet. The cold bit at her. She walked toward the stable.

The castle remained dusky and still while day waned toward sunset. Leea put her hands about Valgard’s arm, where it was thrown across her bosom. Slowly, carefully, she lifted it and laid it on the mattress, and slid herself out on to the floor.

He turned, mumbling in his sleep. The vigour of his wakefulness was gone, leaving a skull over which a scarred hide was drawn tight, save that it sagged at eyes and chin. Leea looked down upon him. A dagger from off a table sheened in her grasp.

Easy to slash his throat—No, too much depended on her. If she should make a slip—and he had a werewolf’s alertness, even when asleep—everything might yet be lost. She turned away, no louder than a questing shadow, drew gown and girdle over her nakedness, and left the earl’s chambers. In her right hand she held the knife, in her left the castle keys, lifted from the hiding place she had suggested to Valgard.

She passed another elf woman on the stair. This one carried swords from the armory. Neither spoke.

The trolls tossed in uneasy slumber. Now and again Leea flitted by a watchman, who paid her no heed beyond a lickerish glance. Elf women were often sent on errands by their masters.

Down into the dungeons she went. She came to the cell door behind which was Imric, and undid the triple lock.

The imp stared at her through the restlessly reddened dark. Leea was on him in a single pounce. His wings rattled, but ere he could cry out he was flopping with his gullet slit across.

Leea scattered the fire. Reaching up, she cut the ropes that bound Imric. He fell heavily into her arms and lay corpse-like when she had lowered him to the floor. She carved healing runes on bits of the charred woods and put them under his tongue, on his eyes and burnt feet, on his lame hands. She whispered spells. The flesh writhed as it grew back. Imric gasped with pain but made no other sound.