Troll clubs thudded onto the elf-earl. He lay limp in a pool of his own blood while they bound him.
If Imric was dead, Alfheim had lost one of its greatest leaders. If he lived – woe for him! Skafloc slid into the snow-covered ling. He scarcely felt his own weariness, or the cold, or his stiffening wounds. The elves were beaten, and now he had but one goal – to reach Elfheugh and Freda ahead of the trolls.
16
The trolls rested through the day, for the struggle with the elves had drained them of strength. Thereafter they set south, half by land and half by sea. The ships reached Elfheugh harbor the same night, and their crews landed and burned the ships and houses around the bay, then waited around the castle for their comrades.
The land army, with Grum and Valgard at the head, went more slowly. Horsemen scoured the country, and wherever little bands of elf warriors sought to fight they were slain – not without loss to the trolls. Outlying garths were plundered and burned, their folk chained into the long lines of captives who stumbled neck linked to neck and hands manacled, with Imric at their head. The trolls made merry, with food and drink and women of Alfheim, and took their time in reaching Elfheugh.
But that first night, looking down from the high towers to the blaze down by the bay and the black ships grimly at anchor, the folk of the castle knew Imric had lost.
As Freda stood staring out to the seaside fires, mute and pale, there came a noiseless step and the faintest rustle of silken garments. Turning, the girl saw Leea beside her, and in the elf woman’s hand gleamed a knife.
Pain and malice were on Leea’s beautiful face. She said in human speech: ‘You weep little for one whose love is now raven food.’
‘I will weep when I know he is dead,’ answered Freda tonelessly. ‘But there was too much life in him for me to believe that he is now lying stark.’
‘Where then might he be, and what use is a skulking hunted outlaw?’ Leea’s pale full lips curved in a smile. ‘See you this dagger, Freda? The trolls are camped around Elfheugh, and your law forbids you to take your own life. But if you wish to escape, I will gladly give it to you – now.’
‘No – I will wait for Skafloc,’ said Freda. ‘And have we not spears and arrows and engines of war? Is there not meat and drink, and are the walls not high and the gates strong? Let such as had to remain in the castle hold it for those who went forth.’
Leea’s knife sank. She looked long at the slim gray-eyed girl. ‘Good is your spirit,’ she said at last, ‘and methinks I begin to see what Skafloc found in you. But your rede is mortal – foolish and impatient. Can women hold a fort against storm when their men are fallen?’
‘They can try – or fall like their men.’
‘Not so. There are other weapons.’ Brief cruel mirth flickered across Leea’s white countenance. ‘Women’s weapons – but to use them we must open the gates. Would you avenge your lover?’
‘Aye – with arrow and knife, and poison if need be!’
‘Then give the trolls your kisses – swift as arrows, sharp as knives, bitter and deadly as poison in the cup. Such is the way of the elf women.’
‘Sooner would I break the great law of Him above and be my own murderer than whore of my man’s slayers!’ flared the girl.
‘Mortal chatter,’ sneered Leea. She smiled her secret cat-smile. ‘I will find the caresses of trolls interesting – for a time. They are something new, at least, and cruel hard it is to find something fresh and untasted after many centuries. We open the gates of Elfheugh when our new earl arrives.’
Freda sank onto the bed, burying her face in her hands. Leea said fleeringly, ‘If you wish to follow your brainless human blood I will be glad enough to get rid of you. Tomorrow at high noon, when the trolls sleep, I will let you out of the castle with whatever you want to take. Thereafter you can do as you please – flee to lands of men, I suppose, and join your voice to the shrill whine of nuns whose heavenly groom somehow never comes for them. I wish you joy of that!’
And Leea turned and left.
For a time Freda lay on the bed, with darkness and despair whelming her. Weep could she not, and the tears were bitter in her throat. Now all was gone indeed, her kindred, her love—
No!
She sat up, clenching her fists. Skafloc was not dead. She would not believe that till she had kissed his bloodless lips – and then, if God were merciful, her heart would break and she would fall beside him. But if he lived – if he lay sorely wounded, perhaps, with foes ringing his lair and the need of her heavy on him—
She hastened to gather what she thought would be needed. His own helm and byrnie, and the clothes that went therewith (unfilled by him, they seemed strangely empty, more so than any other man’s unused dress), ax and sword and shield, spear and bows and many arrows. For herself she took also a byrnie such as shield-mays among the elves were wont to use. It fitted well her slender form, and she could not but smile at the mirror as she set a gold-winged helmet on her bronze-ruddy locks. He liked to see her in such dress, tall and boyish and beautiful.
All of this had to be of elf metal, since the faerie horses would not bear iron, but she supposed he could make good use of it.
Something of food and drink she added to her pile of goods, and furs and needle and thread and whatever else might be useful. ‘I am becoming a housewife!’ she said, smiling again. The homely word gladdened her, like the sight of an old friend. Then she added certain things whose use she did not know but which Skafloc had seemed to set much store by – skins of wolf and otter and eagle, rune-carved wands of ash and beechwood, a strangely wrought ring.
When it was assembled, she sought out Leea. The elf woman looked in surprise at the Valkyr-like figure before her. ‘What will you now?’ she asked.
‘I want four horses,’ replied Freda, ‘and help to load one of them with what I am taking. Then I want you to let me out of here.’
‘But ’tis still night, with trolls awake and prowling about – and elf horses cannot travel by day.’
‘No matter. They go more swiftly than any others, and speed is all I wish.’
‘Aye – you can reach a church ere dawn if you can get past the enemy lines,’ sneered Leea, ‘and the arms you take will give you some protection on the way. But you cannot hope to keep faerie gold long.’
‘I have no gold to speak of, nor do I go to any lands of men. It is the north gate I want you to open for me.’
Leea’s eyes widened, then she shrugged. ‘ ’Tis a foolish thing to do. What good is Skafloc’s cold corpse? But let it be as you wish.’ Suddenly tears glimmered briefly in her eyes. ‘And – kiss him once for Leea, will you?’
Freda said naught, but she thought that alive or dead Skafloc should not get that kiss.
The snow was flying thick when she left. Noiselessly the great gate swung open, and the elf guard waved a hand in farewell as Freda rode out with her string of horses. She did not look back. Elfheugh was a place of splendor, but without Skafloc it was empty.
The wind whined around her, biting through layers of fur. She leaned over and whispered in her horse’s ear: ‘Now quickly, quickly, best of horses, quickly gallop! North to Skafloc, swiftly – find Skafloc and you shall sleep in golden stables and walk unsaddled through summer meadows all your days.’
There came a roaring, booming shout. Freda leaned low over her horse’s shoulders, and despite herself she was of a sudden racked with shuddering fear. Naught was so dreadful to her as the trolls, and now they had seen her – ‘Oh, swiftly, my horse!’
The wind of her passage screamed about her, nigh ripping her from the saddle. She could scarce see in the raving darkness, but she heard the roar of mighty hoofs behind her.
Faster and faster – north, ever north, with the cloven air hooting its mockery and the relentless thunder of the great troll stallions. Like yelping dogs the warriors cried after her. She glanced back once and saw a deeper shadow racing through the night. Could she but send an arrow after them—! But she h
ad not strength or skill to sit erect when the elf horses were a-gallop.
The snow swirled around her. Presently the trolls began to fall behind, but she knew they would track her unwearyingly. And as she fled north she came nearer the southward-marching land army of Trollheim.
Time seemed to roar past like the wind. She caught a far-off glimpse of fire atop a high hill – belike some burning elf garth. The army must be near, and they would have scouts over the whole land.
As if to answer her thought, a deep mad howl rose out of the darkness to her right. She heard the roll of hoofbeats echoing between the hills – nearer, nearer! If they cut her off now—
Up ahead in her very path loomed a monstrous form, a giant shaggy horse, blacker than night but with eyes like glowing coals, and on it a rider in black ring-mail, a creature huge of thew and hideous of face – a troll! The elf horse veered aside, and he reached out a mighty arm and grasped the bridle. He pulled the horse to a rearing halt with one hand.
His laughter roared thunderous as he clutched for Freda. She screamed, and sought to draw her sword. Were she but wearing a cross – or an iron byrnie— The hand clamped monstrously on her wrist.
‘Ho, ho, ho!’ shouted the troll.
Out of the night, summoned through the windy dark by her far-sensed need, still gasping with the heartbreakingly long run and the fear of coming too late, Skafloc sprang. One foot he put in the troll’s stirrup, and lifted himself up to hew off the rider’s head.
Freda toppled from her saddle into darkness and his arms.
17
When the troll host reached Elfheugh, a horn sounded from the watch towers and the great brazen gates swung wide. Valgard reined in, narrowing his eyes. ‘A trick—’ he muttered.
‘No, I think not,’ said Grum. ‘Few except women are left in the castle, and they expect us to spare them.’ He shook with laughter. ‘As we will! Ho, ho, as we will!’
The heavy hoofs of the huge-boned shaggy horses rang hollowly on the courtyard flagstones as they rode inside. Here it was warm and calm, with a cool half-light resting blue on the mighty walls and the sky-piercing towers. Flowering gardens reached on every hand, the eternal blossoms breathing their langorous odors into the dusky air; fountains splashed, and clear streamlets ran past bowers meant for two alone.
The women of Elfheugh were gathered in the courtyard to meet the conquerers. Used as he had become since landing in Alfheim to the haunting white loveliness of the elf-mays, Valgard drew a sharp breath at sight of the glorious ladies.
One stepped forth, with thin robes clinging to every curve, and she outshone the others as the moon the stars. She curtsied low before Grum, the cool mystery of her eyes veiled by sweeping lashes. ‘Greeting, lord,’ she said in a voice that sang rather than spoke. ‘Elfheugh makes submission.’
The earl puffed himself out. ‘Long has this castle stood,’ he said, ‘and many assaults has it beaten off. Yet you were wisest, who chose to recognize the might of Trollheim. Terrible are we to our foes, but our friends have good gifts of us.’ He sought to smile at her. ‘Erelong I will make you a gift. But what is your name?’
‘I hight Leea, lord, sister to Imric Elf-Earl.’
‘Call him not that, for now I, Grum, am earl in England’s faerie lands, and Imric the least of my thralls. Bring forth the prisoners!’
Slowly, heads bent and chains clanking, the captive warriors of Alfheim were led forward. Bitter were their bloody faces, and their shoulders were bowed under a weight heavier even than the links binding them. Imric, hair matted with his own crusted blood, and blood in the prints of his bare feet, led the line. Naught did the elves say, or even look at their women, as they were led down toward the dungeons.
Now Illrede came up from the ships. ‘Elfheugh is ours,’ he said, ‘and we leave it to you, Grum, to hold it for us while we are laying the rest of Alfheim under our feet. There are still English elfholds to be taken, and many elves skulking in the hills and forests, so you will have work enough.’
He led the way into the castle. ‘We have but one thing to do ere leaving,’ he said. ‘Imric took captive our daughter Gora, nine hundred years ago. Let her be brought forth to freedom.’
As the king’s men followed him, Leea plucked at Valgard’s arm to draw him aside. Her gaze was widened in astonishment. ‘I took you for Skafloc at first,’ she breathed. ‘Yet I can sense you are not human – I can smell that, and see and feel it—’
‘No.’ He smiled, a humorless twisting of thin lips. ‘I am Valgard Berserk of Trollheim. Yet in a way Skafloc and I are brothers. For I am a changeling, born of the troll-woman Gora by Imric, and left in place of the infant Skafloc.’
‘Then—’ Leea’s fingers tightened on his arm and her breath came in a sharp hiss. ‘Then you are the Valgard of whom Freda spoke – her brother—?’
‘That one.’ His voice harshened. ‘Where is she now?’ He shook her roughly. ‘Where is Skafloc?’
‘I – do not know – Freda fled the castle when we knew the elves were beaten, she said she was going to him—’
‘Then if she was not caught on the way, and I have heard nothing of such, she is with him.’ Valgard snarled. ‘Ill is that!’
Leea smiled, a cold and guileful smile with closed lips and hooded eyes. ‘Now I see what Tyr of the Aesir meant,’ she whispered to herself, ‘and why Imric kept the secret—’ And to Valgard, boldly: ‘Why think you that is so bad? You have slain all the seed of Orm but those two, and you have been the means of bringing a yet worse disaster on them. What better revenge could you want?’
Valgard shook his head. ‘I had naught against Orm or his house,’ he muttered. And then, looking about him in sudden bewilderment, as if waking to life from a strange dream: ‘Yet I must have hated them, all of them, to have worked so much evil – on my own siblings—’ He passed a hand over his eyes. ‘No – they are not my own blood, are they – were they?’
Suddenly he broke away from her and hastened after the king. Leea followed more slowly, smiling.
Illrede sat in Imric’s high seat. His eyes were fixed on the door into the chamber, and he chuckled softly as he heard the tramp of his guardsmen. ‘They are bringing Gora,’ he breathed. ‘They are bringing my little girl, who once laughed and played about my knees—’ He put a heavy hand on the changeling’s shoulder. ‘Your mother, Valgard.’
She shambled into the hall, gaunt, wrinkled, bent over from the centuries of crouching in darkness. Out of her hollow skull-face the eyes stared, empty save for little ghosts of madness swimming far behind them.
‘Gora—’ Illrede’s voice broke.
She blinked around, almost blind. ‘Who calls for Gora?’ she mumbled. ‘Who calls for Gora calls for a ghost. Gora is dead, lord, she died nine hundred years ago. They buried her under a castle, her white bones hold its towers against the stars. Can you not let the poor dead troll-woman rest?’
Valgard shrank back, lifing a hand against the monster that stumbled over the floor toward him. Illrede started out of his chair. ‘Gora!’ he cried. ‘Gora – know you not me, your father? Know you not your son?’
Her voice came windy and remote through the spacious hall. ‘How can the dead know anyone? How can the dead give birth? The brain which once gave birth to dreams is now the womb of maggots. Ants crawl within the hollowness where once a heart beat. Oh, give me back my chain! Give me back the lover whose arm was about my neck down in the dark!’ She whimpered. ‘Raise not the poor frightened dead, lord, and wake not the mad, for life and reason are ravening monsters which live by devouring that which gives them birth.’
She cocked her head, listening. ‘I hear hoofbeats,’ she whispered. ‘I hear hoofs galloping out on the edge of the world. It is Time, riding forth, and snow falls from his horse’s mane and lightning crashes from its hoofs, and when Time has ridden by like a wind in the night there are only withered leaves left, blowing in the gale of his passage. He rides nearer, I hear worlds crashing to ruin in his path – Give me b
ack my death!’ she shrieked. ‘Let me crawl back into my grave to hide from Time!’
She fell huddled on the floor. Illrede sank back into the high seat and signed to his guards. ‘Take her out and kill her,’ he whispered. Turning to Grum: ‘Hang Imric by the thumbs over hot coals until we have conquered Alfheim and can give some thought to his reward.’ Then rising, with his voice a shout: ‘Ho, trollsmen, make ready to fare! We sail at once!’
Though the host had been expecting a great feast in Elfheugh, none who saw the king’s face dared protest, and soon the black ships were sweeping southward out of sight.
‘So much the more for us,’ laughed Grum. He saw Valgard’s white visage and said: ‘Methinks you would do well to drink deep tonight.’
‘So I will,’ answered the berserker, ‘and ride to battle as soon as I can ready a host.’
Now the troll chiefs gathered the women of the castle and took whom they wanted before turning the rest over to the men. Grum laid his remaining arm about Leea’s waist. ‘You were wise to submit,’ he laughed, ‘so I can scarce see you degraded in rank. Earl’s lady shall you still be.’
She followed him meekly, but as she went by Valgard she smiled at the changeling. The berserker’s eyes could not but follow her. Never had he seen such a woman – aye, with her he might forget the dark-haired witch who haunted his dreams.
The trolls held riotous feast for a while, then Valgard gathered men and rode against another castle which still held out. It was of no great size, but its walls were high and massive, and the defenders’ arrows kept the trolls at a respectful distance.
Valgard waited through daylight, then near sunset sneaked through cover of forest and rocky outcrop until he was almost under the walls without the drowsy sun-dazzled elves seeing him. At dusk the horns blew to battle and the trolls rushed forth. Valgard stood up and with a mighty cast sent a grappling hook over the wall. Up the rope tied to it he swarmed, up to the top, and blew his horn.
The Broken Sword Page 12