The Wizard And The Warlord (38 page)

When he returned to the campsite, he passed Rolfr, who returned his greeting with a dispirited grunt, which Sigurd took as an encouraging sign that the siege of silence was drawing to an end. He flung himself down on his pallet after a nod to Jotull, who was busy with his boots in the firelight. Mikla was already asleep, very tired after a day of travel. Something hard poked Sigurd in the back, as if some careless person had thrown something on his bed. Muttering, he grabbed the thing to throw it aside, and it rang with a metallic clamor against the rocks where it landed. Sigurd clutched his hand as if it were burned, not believing what his senses had told him. He groped around in the rocks and prickly scrub until his hand touched cold, sharp metal again.

“Jotull!” he called, backing away. “Is this someone’s idea of a bad joke? I don’t find it amusing in the least degree. When Rolfr threw that sword away, I was glad to see the last of it and its mischief. After nearly killing my two friends, I’m not yet ready to make jokes about it.” He stood up, glaring at Jotull and Rolfr.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Jotull shut his book in irritation and got up to confront him. “My humor doesn’t lend itself to joking.”

Sigurd looked at Rolfr, who slapped his own sword. “I’ve been standing guard since sundown right on this spot. As a near victim of that cursed sword of Bjarnhardr’s, I swear by my own honest sword that I haven’t attempted anything by way of joking about it. What do you mean, Sigurd?”

Sigurd backed down a little from his indignation. “Someone put a sword on my eider tonight, as if to make me think Bjarnhardr’s sword had somehow followed me. It’s a very poor sort of joke, and I know someone must have done it.” He eyed Milda, who had been asleep almost since supper was finished, which would seem to exclude him from suspicion.

Jotull scowled in the flickering firelight. “You’re certain it was a sword?” he asked sternly. “Let’s have a look at the object. Where did you throw it?” He plunged into the bushes where Sigurd indicated, casting about with the lighted tip of his staff. “Here it is!” he called in a voice of amazement. “It does indeed seem to be—Sigurd, where are you? Help me fetch it out; it’s fallen into the water.”

Sigurd backed away, his heart pounding with horror. “Then leave it there. It’s Bjarnhardr’s sword; I know it by the terrible feeling it gives me. Don’t touch it, Jotull, or the curse may affect you!”

“Nonsense. I’m quite safe. The curse is only upon the person who first draws it from its sheath after its last fulfillment of its three murders. I didn’t draw it, nor has it fulfilled its prophecy, so it won’t get me under its influence. Bring me its sheath, if you still have it.” Jotull lifted the sword carefully from its rocky resting place to carry it back to their camp. It gleamed in the dim light, perfectly familiar to Sigurd and perfectly terrifying.

“How did it follow me?” Sigurd almost moaned, groping in his bag for the sheath, which he had thriftily saved. “Rolfr, you did throw it away up on the top of Yslaberg, didn’t you?”

Rolfr stared as if in a trance. Then he backed away, making all the signs he knew to ward off evil. “I threw it all right, and it fell where no mortal man could find it again deliberately. It has followed you by magic, Siggi. I should have known I wouldn’t escape my doom quite so easily as that. Didn’t I tell you in Svinhagahall that there was nothing we could do to prevent my fate?”

Sigurd watched Jotull sheath the sword. Grimly he said, “It may have followed us because I kept thinking about it all day. I don’t really know what things are possible with this power of mine, but it seems to me that we can do something to stop the sword from following or being drawn. Jotull, what do you think? Can we put a huge boulder on the sword to hold it?”

Jotull replied, “If your power can draw the sword after you, then it can push a boulder aside—if it is indeed your power that is drawing it. If it is Bjarnhardr, then the matter is very different and much more grave.”

“Surely you’re wizard enough to stop it from following us,” Sigurd said challengingly. “I don’t much care who is making it follow, but it’s up to you to see that it is stopped. I’m sure you’re the equal of a one-legged, maimed runt of a warlord like Bjarnhardr.”

Jotull’s eye flashed dangerously, but he spoke calmly. “Yes, I can probably prevent the sword from following us, if that is what you think you wish.”

Sigurd was certain, and he did not feel safe until Jotull had buried the sword under an avalanche of huge lava shards, which he dislodged from the cliffs with spells. During his turn at watching that night, Sigurd found his eyes drawn repeatedly to the heap of sharp slabs and rubble. He hoped earnestly he had seen the last of the cursed sword. With his own eyes, he had seen it buried under tons of rock; and should it be drawn out again, it would be by a more powerful agency than his own puny powers.

The sword did not reappear that night, and Sigurd fell asleep confident that it was still buried. In the morning, however, he awoke to find it cradled in his arm, glinting in the pale morning light. With a shout, he leaped away from it, as if he had nearly put his hand into a set trap. Rolfr greeted the news of the sword’s return with a fatalistic sigh and shaking of his head, and Mikla smiled in wry triumph.

“Might not the next object of the curse be Jotull?” he whispered to Sigurd maliciously. “Since he is your dear friend, it’s only logical that you’ll try to kill him next. If that’s the case, then I vote we keep the sword against that happy eventuality.”

Sigurd told him what he thought of such advice. When he regained his temper and his composure, he renewed his appeal to Jotull to get rid of the sword again. This time Jotull wove spells over the sword and wrapped it in a bag made of a foal’s caul, and then he threw it into a deep pool where the bottom was lost in the black depths of the earth.

“He looks as if he’s trying,” Rolfr observed, watching Jotull over his spells. “One would think he didn’t want the sword to follow, but I certainly wonder if he wouldn’t like to have you and me out of his way, Mikla.”

Mikla shrugged and looked askance at Sigurd. “What possible interference can you or I be to him, Rolfr? In spite of all our best efforts, Jotull has exactly what he wants.”

“I don’t think you can say what Jotull actually wants,” Sigurd protested. “He’s not an easy person to judge, nor are you being strictly fair to him. He did pull you out of that crevice, you know.”

Mikla turned to Sigurd and snapped, “You’re the wrong person to talk about judgments. Halfdane saved your life twice, yet you never were fair to him. Don’t get self-righteous with me.” With a particularly sharp glance at Sigurd, Mikla stalked away toward the horses.

Sigurd soon forgot his doubts in the realization of how near they were getting to Svartafell. They passed many signs of the industrious mining operations the dwarves employed in the fells, casting up enormous mounds of shattered rock excavated from the hearts of the mountains. Twice they passed the portals of great halls dug into the sides of heavily wooded fells, but they saw no sign of the dwarves who occupied them. Dwarves, as Jotull explained, preferred the underground and the hours of darkness, although the sun did no more damage to them than making them rather cross and uncomfortable—unlike the effect on trolls or the Dokkalfar, to whom the touch of the sun spelled instant death.

As soon as the sun sank from the sky for several hours of twilight, the dvergar began to bustle to and from the mines, and the travelers were frequently hailed and called to account for themselves. The dour-faced miners gathered around the horsemen, examined the rune stick, and demanded to see the carven box as final proof. Then, with much head shaking, nodding, and muttering among themselves, they directed the travelers onward and stood staring with imperturbable rudeness until the strangers rode out of sight.

Finally the travelers encountered a lone drawf plodding along the road beside a large, rattly cart being drawn by a stout, shaggy pony who looked far too small for the cart, but was far too stubborn to be daunted by such an immense load. Firewood had been piled on the cart until another stick would have almost certainly toppled the whole business over, pony and all.

“Halloa!” the dwarf exclaimed at the sight of the strangers overtaking him, and he and the pony stopped dead to stare. Sigurd had thought he could stare down almost anyone, but the dwarves, he soon learned, were masters at the art of staring a stranger completely out of countenance.

“Halloa!” the old fellow said again with particular emphasis. “Now what might you Alfar folks be doing in the Dvergarrige? Seems to me you leave us alone well enough until you want to start trouble, and trouble usually starts with the appearance of one of you wizardy fellows. You’re as wizard as any wizard I’ve seen, just as sure as I’m as much of a woodcutter as you fellows have ever seen.”

While Jotull explained, Sigurd eyed the old fellow’s huge gleaming axe, which was carried over one thick shoulder. The dwarf’s clothing was rough and ill-assorted, and his white hair and beard grew wild and long. The dubious eyes which he cast upon Sigurd were hooded with wrinkled folds of swarthy, unwashed skin, but Sigurd detected no meanness in the woodcutter’s gaze.

“Well then, so you’re a-seeking old Bergthor, are you?” The woodcutter rubbed his ear with his axe, and Sigurd wondered if he might not accidentally take it off sometime when he was scowling and thinking so intently. “As it happens, this here load of wood is for Bergthor’s forge. I’m taking it to him myself.” The words came out like a hard-wrung confession; even more reluctantly, the old dwarf added, “I could guide you there, since it is a dreadful chore to find the place, if you folks was of a mind to travel with such equipage as this.” He jerked a thumb at the creaking cart and the diminutive pony, who peered through his thick forelock, like a weasel in a hedge.

“That’s a very kind offer,” Jotull said, “but I fear we’ll only be an impediment to you. Our horses have traveled all day and are nearly spent, so we’ll be stopping presently for the night. I’m sure you’ve just begun, and we couldn’t ask you to stop when you’ve scarcely started your journey.”

The woodcutter shook his head. “Makes no matter to me. I was going to stop at Drafdritrshof for a draught of ale anyway, and that could take all night and the next day, too, if I want it to. Bergthor can wait for his wood easier than 1 can go without my ale. I expect you can convince Drafdritr that he ought to put you up for the night and give you something to eat.” His tone suggested there was not much hope of Drafdritr’s hospitality.

“Well, we don’t wish to hamper your journey,” Jotull replied, “nor do we wish to intrude upon your friend Drafdritr, if he’s not the sort who likes unexpected guests. Perhaps we’ll ride on to the next settlement instead of stopping there with you.”

The woodcutter shrugged and looked at the sky speculatively. “Makes no difference to me what you do, but the next settlement is considerably out of your way if Svartafell is where you want to go. I’m not one to try interfering with other people’s plans though, so go ahead to Eyjadalir. Drafdritr runs a house of refuge for travelers so he sees enough custom not to miss yours too much. I shall tell him I sent you on so you wouldn’t have to suffer from the discomfort of his hall and the badness of his beer.”

“You might have mentioned earlier that he ran an inn,” Jotull said impatiently.

“You didn’t ask,” the woodcutter morosely replied, with a chirp to the small pony, who lunged into his collar and bore the huge creaking load away, followed by his slouching master, bearing the axe.

After discussing the matter a few moments, the travelers decided to risk the questionable hospitality of Drafdritrshof, hoping that bad beds and poor food would be better than none at all. They found Drafdritrshof quite easily, immediately recognizing the immense load of firewood reposing in the doorway, minus the sharp-eyed pony. Somewhat to their astonishment, they were welcomed with great courtesy by Drafdritr and his sons, whose ages were indistinguishable one from another, and in a short time they found themselves comfortably provided for in one of the most hospitable houses Sigurd had ever encountered. He couldn’t help looking at the old woodcutter drinking his ale in a dark corner. The old fellow shook his head gloomily and whispered noisily behind his hand. “I told you it would be bad, didn’t I? You can’t blame me for not trying to warn you.” He blinked his eyes, which became more inflamed-Iooking as the evening progressed, but no amount of ale or fine singing could relieve his contrary disconsolation. Sigurd later learned from one of his hosts that it was a point of great pride with the old woodcutter that he hadn’t found anything pleasant to say about anything in well over sixty years.

In the morning, the woodcutter’s great clumping boots awakened the house at a much earlier hour than usual, and his muttering prompted the travelers to hurry themselves. Sigurd wondered how he could even move, after drinking such prodigious quantities of ale last night, but, by the time they were ready to start, the creaking cart and pony had been waiting with much impatience for what the woodcutter said was half the morning.

Jotull fumed inwardly at having to suit their pace to so slow a conveyance, but when he attempted to persuade the woodcutter to tell him the directions, the stubborn creature merely scowled and shook his head as if Jotull had sunk very low indeed in his estimation.

“No need to be in such a devil of a hurry,” the woodcutter growled. “We’ll be there soon enough, probably too soon for your liking. Bergthor’s a rude old churl, and his hospitality would scandalize the trolls. You’ll get nothing but what the rats don’t want there. I always thought you lowlanders might be somewhat strange, coming all this way just to see a smith. Now don’t tell me about it; there’s nothing I hate worse than knowing someone else’s business.” He scuttled away to the other side of the pony, which move put him in no danger of any unwanted confidences.

By the end of the day, they had passed through most of the mining area and ascended a winding rocky track higher into the fells. Several times they all had to push the overloaded cart, despite the woodcutter’s grumbling that the pony could do it himself, and wasn’t it like a smith to put himself in such an out-of-the-way location.