The Wizard And The Warlord (26 page)

One circumstance, however, could not be alleviated by magic. Their meager stock of food had dwindled almost to nothing, and, according to Mikla’s maps, they were scarcely one quarter of the way to Syartafell.

“Why can’t you magic up some food for us?” Sigurd grumbled one supperless night as they huddled, wet and disheartened, in a shallow lava cave while the spring rain poured down outside.

Mikla shook his head. “It wouldn’t do us any good if I did. There’s no substance to conjured food. What we’ll have to do is stop at some of the settlements and farms along the way and work for food. Being around other people will make it harder for Jotull to locate us with his spells. We’ll alter our course slightly westward, and in two days’ time we’ll be at a farm called Thufhavellir, where we hope they’ll need some help for sheep shearing. After that, we can stop at Kvigudalir, Myrkdhal, Skardrsstrond, Fljot, and Gunnavik. By then we’ll be at the foot of the fells where Bergthor lives in his Svartafell.”

Sigurd tugged thoughtfully on his beard and frowned. “I didn’t realize there were so many farms and settlements between us and Svartafell. Won’t that mean more eyes and ears to do the seeing for Bjarnhardr and Jotull?”

“Alfar are independent by nature, and Dokkalfar are no exception,” Mikla replied. “It may be a surprise to you, but Bjarnhardr and Jotull won’t be popular among the farming folk where we are going. They won’t hasten to sell us over.”

Sigurd comforted himself with thoughts of a real roof between him and the rain and some half-decent food instead of starvation. Even if Bjarnhardr somehow captured them, he thought he could soon win back the warlord’s favor. He had left against his will, after ail. If any one thing was obvious, it was the fact that the three of them could not survive alone, just as he had told Mikla, and that was a source of satisfaction to Sigurd.

They found Thufnavellir at the close of the short early-spring day. The rain had dissolved most of the snow, filling the riverbeds with roaring torrents of boistrous water, and the smooth hills around the farmstead were already beginning to turn a faint green. Smoke curled invitingly from the chimney of a large turf house, which was surrounded by smaller huts and stables and pens for the livestock. From the blattering of sheep and the barking of dogs. Sigurd guessed that the shearing was already in progress.

As Mikla had predicted, the farmer at Thufnavellir was glad for more help with the shearing. Kambi Coalbrow, the farmer, made no great show of hospitality when they finished their work for the day and went into the hall to eat, but the food was generous and the manners of the family and servants were cautiously polite.

“We don’t get many visitors,” Kambi said, puffing gently at the pipe within his huge gnarled fist. “Not to say you’re not welcome, but perhaps you noticed certain warning signs of the nature of Thufnavellir, and you might not care to stay and work for as long as you might wish.”

His bright eye gleamed through the scowling hedge of his thick, curling eyebrows and fastened immediately on Sigurd with such a knowing glance that Sigurd was chilled and put on guard as surely as if the man had said to him that he knew all about him. Sigurd had the wit to realize at once that Kambi was no ordinary farmer, in spite of his rather crude and loutish appearance.

Mikla also studied the fanner. “Yes, I noticed an unusual number of barrow mounds around the farm and I had a chilly feeling that it might not be a pleasant place on a moonless night. I’ve had a bit of teaching in a few wizard crafts, and I’d be glad to try settling your walking dead, if that’s the problem.”

Kambi’s wife and daughters looked up from their stitching and exchanged glances of wary interest. Ulfrun, the wife, looked not at all pleased. She said to her husband sharply, “There now, it’s just like you to frighten away three good workers, when there’s no chance of getting any more. You’d better keep silent, Coalbrow.”

“No, I won’t, you old vixen,” Kambi returned. “I knew another wizard when I saw him.” He looked at Mikla, sighed, and shook his head. “I’ve lived here man and boy all my life and never thought it a peaceful spot, but I never knew how bad it could get until my father died a year ago. He was the wizard Vigbjodr, a most excellent wizard and an enemy to Bjarnhardr all his life. When Vigbjodr died, Bjarnhardr sent a necromancer to raise him from his grave and get control of his powers, and now Vigbjodr wreaks Bjarnhardr’s vengeance upon this farmstead and all within. We don’t dare occupy this hall at midnight because of my father’s draug. It has killed several visitors it found sleeping in his bed, and others have simply disappeared, I suspect they were carried into his grave and became milignant ghosts to play further evil tricks upon us. We’ve had a fjyigjadraug tormenting us since Thufnavellir was settled. The wretched little creature spoils our milk and curds and kills our livestock from time to time, but otherwise it’s more of a nuisance than a danger. You’ll see him, a small ragged boy in a russet shirt, and I daresay you’ll feel his spite, if you stay here long.“

Sigurd looked at Mikla with a wry smile. “Do you still think Bjarnhardr will have a hard time finding us here? We couldn’t have picked an easier place.”

Rolfr shuddered and edged away from a pile of bones that were to be used as firewood, and Ulfrun cackled unkindly. “You’ll have to get used to them, young man; there’s bones under every tussock of Thufnavellir. Kambi’s ancestors had the great foresight to build their farm right in the middle of an ancient burial ground, so the plow turns up bones with every furrow. Stupidity began in Kambi centuries ago and has reached its full flower in this last representative you see here before you. If only Kambi would have the sense to go over to Bjarnhardr while he still lives, we’d all live more comfortably, I’m certain.”

Kambi scowled at his wife and plucked at his heavy nether lip. He arose solemnly and announced, “It’s time we left the hall. I’ll show our guests to the cow house, which is truly the best accommodation we can offer you, I’m sad to say.”

“And even that is likely to be cold and wet if it rains,” Ulfrun said hopefully.

Sigurd’s spirits sank at the mention of the cow house. He looked around at the comfortable hall with its soft beds and warm fire and glared resentfully at Mikla. “I don’t want to sleep in a cow shed. You may, if you want to, but I’m going to stay here where it’s comfortable. I think,” he added in a whisper, “that story of a draug haunting the hall is just an excuse to put their guests in a miserable place to sleep.”

Rolfr shook his head vigorously. “No, no, the cow house is good enough for me. I don’t want to share a place with any draug or a fylgjadraug, thank you.”

“Then I’ll sleep here by myself,” Sigurd said stubbornly.

“You won’t survive the night if you do,” Kambi replied. “I won’t be the one to blame for your death.”

The turf roof groaned suddenly, and a fine sifting of dust powdered Kambi’s shoulders. “You see,” he went on sadly, “it starts already. Probably it’s Mori, the fylgjadraug, trampling around up there plotting a mischief.”

Mikla peered up into the gloom of the rafters, where the stars shone in through the smoke hole. “Has your cow house a good stout door?” he asked. “One that a horse couldn’t kick down?”

Kambi shrugged his thick shoulders and looked even more sad. “One poor fanner can’t be expected to do everything, can he? The door is a door, and that’s about all you can say for it.”

“Then we shall sleep here in the hall tonight and take our chances with Vigbjodr and Mori,” Mikla said decisively. “I fear we may have brought something just as bad with us to Thufnavellir.” He glanced around as he said it to make sure Ulfrun and the others had gone out. “We are no friends to Bjarnhardr either, and he has followed us with a sending.”

“Then you are Ljosalfar, too,” Kambi said with gloomy satisfaction. “I was almost sure of it, but one doesn’t like to ask questions of strangers. We are sadly fallen since the destruction of Snowfell, my friends. I fear you will come to no good at Thufnavellir, but if you think it best to sleep in the hall, then I shall leave it to you. Bar all the doors securely and don’t let anyone come in, no matter what he says. I wouldn’t sleep in the best bed, either, that’s Vigbjodr’s bed and he hates to find anyone sleeping in it.” Bidding them farewell, he left the hall to them and trod heavily away toward the small, smoky hut where he slept.

Rolfr looked around the empty hall, clutching his axe when a stray gust of wind from the smoke hole stirred a cloak hanging on a peg. In the silence, they heard the roof timbers creaking as something moved across it to the edge and leaped to the ground with a grunt. In a moment, three muzzles snuffled eagerly under the door. After sampling the door frame with its teeth and kicking the door until it shook, the sending trotted away with an irritable growl.

Rolfr let out the breath he had been holding. “I’m sure I won’t sleep a wink as long as we’re at Thufnavellir,” he said. “We won’t stay here long, will we, Mikla?”

“We’re committed to help him finish shearing, at least,” Mikla said, “and that should take us nearly two weeks. He’s got sheep at his farms in the fells that need shearing, too. By then we’ll have earned a bit of food to carry away with us when we go.”

“But what if Jotull finds us in the meantime?” Rolfr lowered his voice and glanced toward the door. “And Bjarnhardr surely has powers to find us somehow, doesn’t he?”

Mikla made himself comfortable beside the fire. “We have crossed running water many times since leaving Svinhagahall, and that will make Bjarnhardr’s powers considerably less useful. Jotull will have difficulty tracing us after all this rain. It will take him awhile to find us. Now then, who’s going to stand the first watch? Sigurd, if I remember right, it’s your turn.”

Sigurd looked around indignantly at the stout walls and roof. “Why? We’re perfectly safe, as long as we keep the door shut.”

“No, someone ought to watch,” Rolfr insisted, still eying the cloak on the peg. “With Hross-Bjorn and a host of draugar prowling around, I won’t sleep unless I know someone has his eye upon them.”

Sigurd took the first watch. Mikla and Rolfr curled up beside the fire and soon fell into exhausted slumber. Sigurd listened for the draugar of Thufnavellir, who obligingly howled and called from the barrow mounds. While Sigurd was trying to get a look at the creatures through a small crack in the door, he heard a rustling at the smokehole overhead, and something plummeted through it to land on the floor not far away. Sigurd grabbed his axe and poised himself to defend the hall. The thing shook itself like a bundle of old rags and, turning around, caught sight of Sigurd.

“Why, halloa! So it’s you!” the creature declared, with a wide grin cracking its wizened little face, and it shook with glee as it stuck out one paw for Sigurd to shake reluctantly. “I’m so pleased to meet you. We hardly ever have guests anymore. I am Mori. Doubtless old Coalbrow has told you about me.” He shook hands with himself, snorting and chuckling as if he were drowning.

Sigurd drew back in revulsion. Mori was no bigger than a two-year-old child and as shriveled and wrinkled as an old dried apple. He wore no garment other than a ragged, coarse shirt with the sleeves and hem raveling away in tatters. Various other rags were tied around him here and there to cover the worst of the holes in his attire, and a most disreputable old hood sagged into one eye or the other as he grinned uj. at Sigurd like a horribly sage and ancient infant.

“How—how do you do,” Sigurd said warily, still clutching his axe and wondering what the sending would do.

“How do I do? Why, I does just about anything I pleases.” Mori cut a caper and cackled maliciously, keeping his bright little button eyes fastened on Sigurd. “I’ve just been to the dairy house, where I spoiled all the cheese curds with horse dung. Those stupid women forget to set out my share, so that’s how I teach ‘em not to forget poor old Mori. Tomorrow I’m going to flay Coalbrow’s bull to the knees if they forget again.”

“Well, there’s food here in the hall, if you’re hungry,” Sigurd said, nodding toward the kitchen.

“Hungry!” Mori cried, rolling his bloodshot eyes. “I’m always hungry! Imagine yourself left as a poor little babe to starve on the fell as I was, and you’ll see why I simply can’t eat enough!”

Sigurd glanced at his sleeping friends, then followed the creature to the kitchen annex with waves of horror washing over him, not unmingled with a healthy dose of curiosity. Mori promptly seized the leftover haunch of lamb and greedily devoured it in less time that it would have taken Sigurd to eat a fraction of it. Tossing the bones on the floor, Mori stuffed curds, skyr, and cream into his mouth with both hands, wasting almost as much as he ate. Whole loaves of bread met a similar disgusting fate, and the sending did not stop his gluttonizing until all the food in the pantry was eaten or ruined.

“Is that all?” Mori asked, wiping his mouth on his dirty sleeve and looking around hungrily. “Ulfrun is the stingiest housekeeper I have ever encountered. Look at my poor stomach. It’s still as flat as an empty sack.” He pulled up his shirt and showed Sigurd the shriveled hollow of his belly, with the ribs standing out under tight, yellow skin. Sigurd shuddered in renewed horror.

“Nothing but skin and bones,” Mori said proudly. “Not much to look at, eh? Eh?” He nudged Sigurd and winked furiously.

“No, there’s hardly anything to you at all,” Sigurd said in confusion, but it seemed to be what Mori wanted to hear. The little beast flung himself on the floor in a desperate fit of laughing and wheezing, as depraved a sight as Sigurd had ever beheld.

“But there you’re mistaken,” Mori said suddenly, bouncing to the center of the kitchen table, where he wiped his grimy feet. “A sending made from a dead infant abandoned on the fell by its mother is a most nasty sending indeed, especially if you can get it just before the last breath leaves its body.” Mori leaned forward to speak into Sigurd’s face, leering and twisting up his features in a manner that would have given fits to a lesser constitution. “I was scarcely dead when a wizard found me and turned me to his purposes, the first of which was the opportunity for frightening my wicked mother out of her wits and encouraging her to break her neck on the cliffs of Huskavik. These miserable rags were the rags she left me in. But I got my revenge on her.” He showed his teeth at Sigurd in a menacing grin.