The Broken Sword (4 page)

Imric’s black longship sped with her sail taut to a wind he had raised. His crew was of picked elf warriors, for the chance of meeting trolls or kraken was not to be ignored. Skafloc stood by the dragon prow peering eagerly forward; he had been given witch-sight early in his life and could see by night as well as by day. He spied porpoises, silver-grey under the moon, and hailed an old bull seal he knew. Once a whale broached, water roaring off its flanks. Things which mortal sailors only glimpsed or dreamed were plain to the cloudy slant elf-eyes and to Skafloc: the sea maidens tumbling in the foam and singing, the drowned tower of Ys, a brief gleam of white and gold and a hawk-scream of challenge overhead-Valkyries rushing to some battle in the east.

Wind sang in the rigging and waves roared at the strakes. Ere dawn the vessel had reached the other shore, been drawn up on the beach and hidden by spells.

The elves took shelter beneath an awning across the hull, but Skafloc was about during much of the day. He climbed a tree and looked in wonder at the plowlands rolling southward. The buildings here were not like those in England. Among them was the gaunt grey hall of a baron. Skafloc thought with brief pity of the narrow lives that flickered in its gloom. He would not trade.

When night came, the elves mounted the horses they had brought and rode storm-swift inland. By midnight they were in mountain country where the moonlight cast thin silver and thick shadows on crags, cliffs, and the far green shimmer of glaciers. The elves rode along a narrow trail, harness chiming, lances high, plumes and capes streaming. Hoofbeats rang on the stones and echoed back through the wilderness night.

A horn sounded hoarsely from above, another from below. The elves heard a clank of metal and a tramp of feet. When they came to the end of the trail they saw a dwarf troop on guard at a cave mouth.

The bandy-legged men scarce came to Skafloc’s waist, but they were broad of shoulder and long of arm. Their dark, bearded faces were angry; their eyes smouldered beneath tangled brows. They held swords, axes, and shields of iron. But against these the elves had prevailed in the past, by spears and arrows, by speed and agility, and by making craftier plans.

“What will you?” boomed the leader. “Have the elves and trolls not wrought us enough ill, harrying our lands and bearing our folk off as thralls? This time our force is larger than yours, and if you come nearer we will slay you.”

“We come in peace, Motsognir,” replied Imric. “We wish only to buy of your wares.”

“I know your trickery, Imric the Guileful,” said Motsognir harshly. “You would put us off our guard.”

“I will give hostages,” the elf-earl offered; and this the dwarf king grudgingly accepted. Leaving several of the newcomers disarmed and surrounded, Motsognir led the others down into his caverns.

Here fires lit the rock walls with bloody shadow-beset dimness, and over their forges the dwarfs laboured unceasingly. Their hammers rang and clattered until Skafloc’s head belled in answer. Here were made the trickiest works of all the world, goblets and beakers encrusted with gems, rings and necklaces of ruddy gold intricately fashioned; weapons were beaten out of metals torn from the mountain’s heart, arms fit for gods-and indeed the dwarfs had done work for the gods-and other weapons laden with evil. Mighty were the runes and charms the dwarfs could grave, and baffling were the arts they had mastered.

“I would have you make an outfit for my foster son here,” Imric said.

Motsognir’s mole-eyes searched Skafloc’s tall form in the wavering light. His voice rumbled through the hammer-clang : “Well, are you up to your old changeling tricks again, Imric? Someday you will overreach yourself. But since this is a human, I suppose he will want arms of steel.”

Skafloc hesitated. The wariness of years was not overcome at once. But he had known what was coming. Bronze was too soft, the curious elf-alloys too light, to make full use of his growing strength.

“Aye, steel,” he said firmly.

“Tis well, ‘tis well,” growled Motsognir, and turned to his forge. “Let me tell you, boy, that you humans, weak and short-lived and unwitting, are nonetheless more strong than elves and trolls, aye, than giants and gods. And that you can touch cold iron is only one reason. Ho!” he called. “Ho, Sindri, Thekk, Draupnir, come to help!”

Now the forging went apace, sparks flew and metal shouted. Such was the skill of those smiths that it was only a short while before Skafloc wore winged helm, shining byrnie, shield on back and sword at side and axe in hand, all of blue-gleaming steel. He yelled for joy, swung high his weapons and shrilled the war-cry of the elves.

“Ha!” he shouted as he rammed the sword back into its sheath. “Let trolls or goblins, aye, giants dare approach Alfheim! We shall smite them like the lightning and carry the fire into their own lands!” And he made the staves:

Swiftly goes the sword-play singing in the mountains. Clash of steel is calling, danging up to heaven:-arrows flying angry; axes lifting skyward, banging down on byrnies, breaking shields and helmets. Swiftly goes the sword-play: Spears on hosts are raining; men run forth in madness, mowing ranks of foemen; battle tumult bellows; blood is red on axeheads; greedily the grey wolf gorges with the raven.

“Well spoken, IS a trifle boyish,” said Imric coolly, “but remember not to touch elves with those new toys of yours. Let us begone.” He gave Motsognir a sack of gold. “Here is payment for the work.”

“Rather had I been paid by the freeing of your thralls of our race,” said the dwarf.

“They are too useful,” declared Imric, and left.

***

At dawn his troop sheltered in a cave, and the next night rode on to the great forest in which stood the Elfking’s castle.

Here was a weaving of witchery that Skafloc did not yet know how to unravel. He was dimly aware of high slender towers against the moon, of a blue twilight wherein many stars wavered and danced, of a music which pierced flesh and bone to thrill in the very soul; but not until they were in the throne room could he clearly see anything.

Surrounded by his tall lords, in a throne of shadow sat the .Elfking. Golden were his crown and sceptre, and his robes of a purple that blent with the spacious gloaming. His hair and beard were white, and he alone of the elves showed lines of age in brow and cheeks. His face was otherwise as if carved in marble; but fires burned within his eyes.

Imric bowed, and the warriors in his train bent the knee to their King. When the ruler spoke, it was like windsong: “Greeting, Imric, earl of Britain’s elves.”

“Greeting, lord,” answered the chieftain, and he met the Elfking’s calm, terrible gaze.

“We have summoned our chieftains to council,” said the ruler, “since word has reached us that the trolls make ready to go to war again. It cannot be doubted ‘tis us they arm against, and we may look for the truce to end in the next few years.”

“That is well, lord. Our swords were mouldering in the scabbards.”

“It may not be so well, Imric. Last time the elves drove back the trolls and would have entered their land had not peace been made. Illrede Troll-King is no fool. He would not attempt war did he not think he was stronger than formerly.”

“I will ready my domain, lord, and send out spies.”

“Good. Perhaps they can learn something useful, though our own have failed.” Now the Elfking turned his eyes on Skafloc, who grew cold about the heart however boldly he confronted that flame of a gaze. “We have heard tell of your changeling, Imric,” he murmured. “You should have asked us.”

“There was no time, lord,” argued the earl. “The babe would be baptized ere I could get word here and back. Hard is it to steal a child these days.”

“And risky too, Imric.”

“Aye, lord, but worth it. I need not remind you that humans can do much which is barred to elf, troll, goblin or the like. They may use every metal, they may touch holy water and walk on holy ground and speak the name of the new god-aye, the old gods themselves must flee some things which humans have the freedom of. We elves need such a one.”

“The changeling you left in his place could do all that.”

“Indeed, lord. But you know the wild and evil nature of a half-breed like that. He cannot be trusted with magic as this human can. Were it not that men must never be sure their children are stolen, so that they would call their gods to avenge them, elves would make no changelings.”

Thus far the talk had been of what everybody understood, in the leisured manner of immortals. But now the Elfking’s tone sharpened. “Can this human be trusted? Let him but turn to the new god and he is beyond our reach. Already he grows perhaps overly strong.”

“No, lord!” Skafloc stood forth in that proud assembly and looked straight into the Elfking’s face. “I am wholly thankful to Imric that he rescued me from the dullblind round of mortal life. I am elf in all but blood, it was elf breasts I suckled as a babe and elf tongue I speak and elf girls I sleep beside.” He lifted his head, almost arrogantly. “Give me leave, lord, and I will be the best of your hounds-but if a dog be driven out, he will become a wolf and feed on his master’s flocks.”

Some of the elves were aghast at this forwardness, but the king nodded, and smiled a grim smile. “We believe you,” he said, “and indeed earlier men adopted into Alfheim proved stout warriors. What worries us about you is the story of the Aisir’s naming-gift. They have a hand in this somewhere, and their purpose is not likely to be our own.”

A shudder ran around the gathering and some made rune signs in the air. But Imric said: “Lord, what the Norns have ordered, not even the gods may alter. And I would count it shame to lose the most promising of men because of a dun fear of the morrow.”

“That it would be,” nodded the Elfking, and the council turned itself to other things.

A lavish feast was held ere the meeting of the elf lords dissolved. Skafloc’s head swam with the magnificence of the Elfking’s court. When finally he came home, his contempt and pity for humans were so great that for a while he had naught whatsoever to do with them.

***

Now some half-dozen years went by. The elves showed no change, but Skafloc grew until his outfit had to be altered by Imric’s dwarf thralls. He came to stand taller and broader than the earl, and was the strongest man in the realm. He wrestled bears and wild bulls, and often ran down a stag on foot. No other in Alfheim could have bent his bow or handily swung his axe, whether or not it was of iron.

He grew leaner of face, and let a moustache the wheaten colour of his long hair grow on his lip. But he became, if anything, merrier and more unruly than before, a lover of madcap pranks and breakneck stunts, a mischievous warlock who would raise a whirlwind just to lift a girl’s skirt, a mighty drinker and brawler. Restless with his own strength, he prowled the land, hunting the most dangerous game he could find. Monsters of the blood of Grendel he sought out and slew in their fens, sometimes suffering frightful wounds which only Imric’s magic could heal, but ever ready for a new bout. Then again he might lie idle for weeks on end, staring dreamily at clouds high above, scarce stirring himself. Or in beast shape, with senses strange to man, he would seek forests and waters, to gambol as otter or lope as wolf or wing in the pride of an eagle.

“Three things have I never known,” he boasted once. “Fear, and defeat, and love-sickness.”

Imric regarded him strangely. “Young are you,” he said, “not to have known the three ultimates of human life.”

“I am more elf than human, foster father.”

“So you are-as yet.”

***

One year Imric outfitted a dozen longships and went a-roving. The fleet crossed the eastern sea, and plundered goblins dwelling along the rocky coasts. Then the crews rode inland and made a raid on a troll town, burning it after they had slain its folk and taken their treasures. Though war was still not declared, such forays and tests of strength were growing common on either side. Sailing north and then east through a weird white land of mist and cold and drifting icebergs, Imric and Skafloc and their warriors at last rounded a cape, passed through a strait, and went on south. There they fought dragons, and harried among the demons of the land. They followed the shore westward again, until it turned south, and then northward anew. Their hardest battle was on a desert strand with a troop of exiled gods, grown thin and shrunken and mad in their loneliness but wielding fearsome powers even so. Three elf ships were burned after the fight, there being none left to man them, but Imric was the victor.

They saw somewhat of humans, but paid no great heed, their interest being in Faerie. Mortal men never spied them save in frightened glimpses. Not everywhere did they war; most realms guested them well and were eager to trade goods, which made for long stopovers. Three years after they set out, the ships returned with a huge load of wealth and captives. It had been a glorious voyage, of which great report went about in Alfheim and the neighbouring lands; and the fame of Imric and Skafloc stood high.

The witch dwelt alone in the woods with only her memories for daily company, and over the years these fed on her soul and left their castings of hatred and vengeance-lust. By trying this and that she learned how to increase her powers a little, until she was raising spirits out of the earth and speaking with demons of the upper air; and they taught her more. To the Black Sabbath on the Brocken she rode, high through the sky on a broomstick with her rags astream in the wind. A monster feasting it was, where ancient hideous shapes chanted about the dark altar and drank deep from kettles of blood; but perhaps the worst of all were the young women who joined in the rites and the dreadful matings.

Wiser the witch returned, with a rat for familiar who took blood out of her withered breasts with his sharp little teeth and at night crouched on her pillow and cluttered in her ear as she slept. And so at last she thought she had strength to raise the one whom she had longed for.

Thunder and lightning rolled about her hovel, blue glare and the stink of hell’s pits. But the shadowy presence before which she grovelled was beautiful in its way, as all sin appears beautiful to the willing sinner.