The Wizard And The Warlord (19 page)

He reached for his money pouch, but Ragnhild only eyed him in silent scorn. With a scowl, he produced another bag and reluctantly pushed it across the table toward her. “It’s a very potent charm I made for myself against the walking dead. You should prize it quite highly before the winter is out.”

Ragnhild accepted the charm with a nod. “It should be fairly tolerable. I have no doubt that no one will know you are gone until it is too late to retrieve you.” She spoke the last words to Sigurd with particular emphasis. “When we meet next, I expect to find you greatly changed. I have a charm for you to carry with you and I hope it will bring you good luck—and protection.” It was a small gold ring on a braided cord made from her own hair, which she hung around his neck. “You can untie the ends and you’ll have an extra bowstring, if you ever get into such a predicament, and the ring was one I wore on my finger. The runes will protect you against the evil powers of your enemies.”

“I don’t like to say goodbyes,” Sigurd said, uncomfortably aware of Jotull glowering at him and Ragnhild. “I regret leaving Halfdane so ungratefully, but you haven’t seen him as I have come to know him, which makes it vital for me to leave Hrafnborg. I don’t care if I never see Halfdane again, but I don’t want to leave as a thief, either, taking a good horse and a good fighter with me as I am doing.”

“Rolfr goes with you then? I‘ in glad of that,” Ragnhild said. “But what shall you do for a good horse? It seems to me that you’ll have to take one of mine—the gray stallion is the best. You shall take Elfradr; he suits a warrior the best of any. I suppose Jotull has provided for the rest of your needs, so you may go now with my blessing and my assurance that I’ll do my best to confound Bjarnhardr. I have no wish to suffer the afflictions that Adills suffered.” She bent a last hard look on Jotull and calmly went back to her weaving.

Jotull paused a moment, then opened the door with a shrug. “She’s a curious, cold creature,” he muttered to Sigurd as their boots squeaked at each step in the snow. “She had better heed my warning. I didn’t like that wise expression in her eye, as if she knew 1 lied. Yet I know she’s had no instruction in magic.”

Sigurd opened his mouth to tell Jotull about her lessons with Adills; but with rare discernment, he said nothing except, “I hope her Elfradr isn’t fat and out of condition. She has three horses of her own, while the men are lucky to have one that can be safely relied upon.”

They saddled the horses without arousing any comment from the watchmen and stopped by Jotull’s house, where Rolfr waited anxiously. Mikla stood at the door and refused to say farewell or good luck as they rode away under the starlight. Sigurd could scarcely believe it would be so easy to leave Hrafnborg behind, pausing only long enough at the guard post to identify themselves and riding on again as if in search of Halfdane.

“There’s your last view of Hrafnborg,” Jotull finally announced, as they paused on the shoulder of a fell to rest the horses and look back. A few dim lights twinkled in the vast darkness of winter and vanished promptly when they rode around the curve of the hill.

The lowest point for Rolfr was passing near the contested area of Bedasford and seeing the tiny watchfires, spread out far below and dotting the sides and crowns of rugged hills in an effort to make the Dokkalfar think they had a great many more Ljosalfar to contend with than they really did. Most of the fire tenders were solitary and valorous old fighters who would rather perish in the snow with sword in hand than peacefully at home.

They camped three times in the snow, close by the foot of a sheltering crag or rock, which never seemed as beneficial as Sigurd had thought it might have been. Safe and snug inside a house, with only periodic excursions into the dark, he had never before felt so oppressed by the unrelieved blackness of the winter night as he did huddling beside their wretched fire and gazing bleakly into the endless darkness that surrounded them. Jotull’s maps gave him little hope; they were mazes of runic writing in illegible hands, crisscrossed with ley-lines intersecting the known points of power. Jotull alone seemed undismayed by the prospects of finding so small a thing as a mountain named Svartafell in the dark of winter. He located the directions with the assistance of a dowsing pendulum and assured Sigurd and Rolfr that they were directly on course and could expect to find Svartafell in another four weeks, allowing for the slowness of winter travel and the stops they would have to make along the way to buy provisions. Dispiritedly, Sigurd noted on the maps that the Ljosalfar hill forts nearest Svartafell were still a long distance from it, but he was too tired and low to wonder whom they would be bargaining with in the interval.

On the fourth night, the trolls discovered them and became their constant companions. Rolfr’s arrows soon taught them enough fear to keep them from boldly attacking in a wholesale onslaught, and Jotull amused himself by inflicting dreadful spells on them, such as conjuring an image of a sheep, which, once eaten, turned to broken glass shards, proving beyond a doubt that there were substances that disagreed even with the stomachs of trolls. Sigurd killed a few trolls to satisfy his need for vengeance, but even the novelty of that wore off after a week of trekking through the snow and the dark.

“We are going more slowly than I had imagined in my worst estimates,” Jotull announced as they huddled around their fire in a vain attempt to get warm. “I hadn’t dreamed the going would be so dreadful in these fells. The snow is deeper than I’ve ever seen it, and the trolls are as thick as fleas. What we ought to do is descend to the lowlands where the traveling will be easier.”

“The lowlands belong to Bjarnhardr,” Rolfr said dolefully. “We can’t go down there to travel, or we’ll be captured. Maybe we ought to go back to Hrafnborg. This is madness. Nobody travels in the winter, except the Dokkalfar and other creatures who relish it.” He bent a sinister look on Jotull in his fur-lined cloak.

“I don’t imagine Halfdane would welcome us back like old friends,” Jotull said. “His character is an unforgiving one, I fear. Once he supposes he has been insulted or injured, he is your enemy until death. As you know, Halfdane is always anxious to make an enemy.”

“That’s not true at all,” Rolfr growled. “If anyone has done anything to try his temper, it has been me. If we went back, we could expect punishment, to be sure, but he won’t regard us as his enemies. Right now, I think I’d rather be in disgrace at Hrafnborg than in a troll’s cooking pot tomorrow.” He glowered around at the patiently waiting trolls, who crouched in the snow just beyond easy reach. A couple of old troll-hags, cradling a huge, rusty kettle, had acquired a particular fondness for Rolfr and kept their gleaming eyes riveted to him as they lovingly sharpened two worn-out knives in preparation for some future event that must have given them endless delight in the anticipation.

Jotull threw a small scrap of fish at the trolls for the satisfaction of seeing them tearing themselves apart to get at it.

“Well, Sigurd, do you wish to go back with Rolfr and humbly accept whatever punishment your lord Halfdane decides to mete out to you? I doubt a deserter would ever gain anything but contempt from the men of Hrafnborg—to say nothing of Ragnhild, if you came crawling back to her now as a failure.” Jotull lit his pipe and settled himself comfortably to smoke, keeping a careless eye on the trolls all the while.

Sigurd pondered. “No, I wouldn’t like to go back to Hrafnborg without whatever is inside this box, and I know you wouldn’t either. We’ve all burned our boats, so there may never be any going back. Is there a favorable route to Svartafell by the lowlands that won’t be too near the Dokkalfar strongholds?”

Jotull unfurled a collection of maps to show him not only one route but half a dozen, all equally safe and relatively unencumbered with drifts of snow, hungry trolls, and.lurking Dokkalfar. They decided on a course that skirted the questionable area between fells and lowlands, which was claimed by both Ljosalfar and Dokkalfar. If difficulties arose, they could easily retreat into the fells and perhaps locate an outpost of the Ljosalfar for protection. The Dokkalfar would not pursue them far into their own fells, it was hoped, and thus they could avoid crossing the lowlands, curving their course in a northwest direction toward Svartafell.

As they descended from the high country, Rolfr looked back more frequently at the fells towering behind them in the starlight, bathed in the eerie and unexplained lights in the sky. The snow was not as deep, but the trolls were more numerous and more cunning. Jotull was not always able to deceive them with his traps and spells and resorted to killing them with blasts of power until they learned to be more cautious. Sigurd hated them worse than the scruffier, smaller trolls from the mountains. The lowland trolls sat in dark clumps on the hillsides, plainly visible in the starlight reflecting on the snow as they conferred in low voices. They had leaders who dispatched messengers back and forth. After a few days, it was apparent that the trolls were merely watching, following, and reporting on the progress of their prey. Signs of such unexpected intelligence made Sigurd more uneasy than the unpremeditated ferocity and hunger of the mountain trolls.

Rolfr was not at all reassured by their behavior and repeatedly urged a retreat to higher country. Jotull shook his head and said, “Much as I regret to say it, we couldn’t if we wanted to. I’ve miscalculated somehow, and we’re on the wrong side of a river for escape back to the fells. I’m rather ashamed to have made such a tnistake, but there you see the river to the east of us, exactly where we’d prefer not to have it. I must have taken a wrong tack at that last standing stone.”

Sigurd looked eastward at the curling mists rising from the river, which flowed deep and steaming from its springs under a glacier capping the fiery vaults of molten stone at the restless heart of Skarpsey. They had crossed the river further down, after the water had cooled sufficiently to freeze.

“We can backtrack,” Jotull continued, “or we can go on. This river will doubtless disappear into the fells where it comes from, which will save us a crossing later. We aren’t in much trouble, if the truth be known.”

“Unless those trolls decide to attack us,” Rolfr added. “If they do, we’ll have no convenient retreat into the fells, where all good Ljosalfar know there is safety. I don’t like these lowlands. We’re too close to Muspell, in my opinion, when the water comes out of the earth boiling hot.”

“But it makes it ideal for bathing,” Sigurd said. “A long, hot soak is what we need to get the ice out of our bones. And look, there’s still green grass and moss around the hot springs for the horses, which will save our grain supply. I don’t think coming down from the fells was such a bad idea. Once we get around this river, that is.”

The river did not immediately oblige them by turning back into the fells, but led them deeper into rougher country, where cliffs of lava overhung their course. It was so pleasantly sheltered from wind and snow that the travelers delayed leaving it as long as possible. The horses could easily paw away the shallow snow to eat the dried grass below, and the lava cliffs offered a variety of caves and hollows for camping, with perfectly dry, sandy floors. The only disquieting factor for Sigurd was the voices of the trolls on the cliffs around them. He had not heard that sort of howling and screeching since Thongullsfjord—high, eerie whistling screams that echoed from cliff to cliff, just as they had over the waters of the fjord, accompanied by a deeper grumbling bellow like a gruff bull’s voice. The racket of the mountain trolls was entirely different. Frequently Sigurd awoke in panic, thinking for a moment he was back in his grandmother’s house with the trolls tearing at the roof.

He was almost glad when Jotull picked a low spot in the cliffs and led the climb upward. When they reached the top, the wind snatched at them with a whoop of triumph, welcoming them back. Rolfr pointed toward a gap in the mountains to the south, where a faint gray light tentatively touched the lowering blackness.

“Look at that. It must be almost Midwinter,” he declared. “I’ll never be so glad to see spring again.”

The light soon vanished, but it was cheering, nonetheless. The horses sighed at the return to deeper snow and forged ahead with sure-footed caution over the hidden rocks. For a long time, they heard no trolls and saw none flitting ahead over the white hillsides. Jotull looked from side to side, wondering what it could mean.

“It means they’ve lost us,” Rolfr chortled. “We fooled them when we left the riverbed. I hope we left them all down there.”

Entirely too soon for Rolfr’s liking, the high headland they were crossing ended abruptly in a steep descent into the river bottom again. It looked dark and uninviting, with a young snowstorm gathering force around the travelers, but thoughts of the pleasant, dry lava caves overcame even Rolfr’s reluctance. Wearily, they set up their camp for the night, and Jotull scratched runes and rings around the entrance and prepared a few spells to trap unwary trolls. Then he sat beside the fire, smoking his pipe and gazing through the opening into the storm outside. After their meager supper of dried fish and tea, Sigurd lay contemplating the firelight dancing on the rusty lava cave walls, thinking sleepily that it was almost pleasant and he wouldn’t really be anywhere else, even if he could choose it.

Half-dozing, he listened to the gruff voices of the trolls outside, too lazy even to remark to Rolfr and Jotull that their companions had found them again. He opened his eyes once or twice, as Rolfr picked up his bow and arrows and stepped over him to take a position by the entrance. Several sharp shrieks from outside announced that Rolfr’s arrows had found their marks, and Jotull’s voice rumbled in approval. Then pandemonium erupted in the cave. Rolfr suddenly tumbled backward over Sigurd with a yell, clutching an arrow protruding from his shoulder. Jotull began cursing and hurling spells into the darkness, shouting at Sigurd betweentimes to bestir himself and make himself useful. Sigurd leaped up in horror to see if Rolfr was wounded or dead. He found his friend bleeding a great deal, but otherwise was relieved to discover that the arrow had gone into the fleshy part of his shoulder instead of finding some vital organ.