‘Hold!’
Audun’s voice crashed across the shuddering silence. His shadow bulked huge before him as he surged to his feet. He snatched a spear from the wall, and he thrust between them.
‘Hold!’ His voice wobbled. A dreadful fear throttled him – who was the man at whom Freda stared as she had never looked at him? ‘Who are you? What will you?’
‘Freda—’ Skafloc looked over the boy’s shoulder, scarce seeing him. ‘Freda, come with me.’
She shook her head, slowly, wrenchingly, but her arms were held out to him.
‘I love you, Freda,’ whispered Skafloc. ‘I love you. What are law and gods and all the world to us? Come with me, most dearly loved, come—’
She bent her head. Her soft young face was twisted all out of shape with pain. She trembled, sobs rattling in her throat, and the tears ran down her fair cheeks.
‘You hurt her!’ screamed Audun. ‘You hurt Freda – my betrothed!’
He stabbed with the spear. It glanced off the broad byrnied chest and furrowed up Skafloc’s cheek. The elf lord snarled like an angry cat and reached for his sword.
Audun stabbed again. Skafloc leaped aside, elf-swift, the sword screaming out of its scabbard. Like a lightning bolt it clove the shaft over. ‘Out of the way!’ gasped Skafloc.
‘Not while my bride lives!’ Audun, beside himself with rage and fear, feeling tears bitter in his eyes, snatched forth his dagger. He lunged at Skafloc. The sword flamed high, whistled down, and sang in bone and brain. Audun skidded across the floor and crashed into a wall, where he lay hideously limp.
With a dawning horror, Skafloc stared at the reddened glaive in his hands. ‘I did not mean that,’ he whispered. ‘I did not mean to kill him. But I forgot that the sword must drink blood each time it is drawn—’
His eyes lifted slowly to Freda, She was staring white and shaking at him, mouth drawn open as if for a scream.
‘I meant it not!’ he shouted. ‘And what does it matter? Come with me, now!’
She fought for a voice. It came at last, low and quivering: ‘Go. Go at once. Do not come again.’
‘But—’ He stumbled toward her.
She stooped and picked up Audun’s dagger. It gleamed bright in her hand. ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘Get out. Come any closer and I drive this into your throat.’
‘I wish you would,’ he said bitterly. He stood swaying a little. The blood coursed slowly down his gashed cheek and dripped on the floor.
‘I will slay myself if I must. Touch me, murderer, heathen, incestuous, and I will sheath the knife in my own heart. God will forgive me the lesser sin if I escape the greater.’
Skafloc blazed with a sudden rage. ‘Aye, call on your god, whine your prayers!’ he said. ‘Is that all you are good for? You were ready to sell yourself for a meal and a roof, it is whoredom no matter how many priests snivel over it.’ He lifted the sword. ‘Better my son die unborn than he be given to that cursed god of yours.’
Freda stood erect before him. ‘Strike if you will,’ she jeered. ‘Boys and women and unborn babes – are they your foes now?’
He lowered the great blade, and then suddenly clashed it into the sheath. As he did, he felt the demon fury drain from him and a strange weakness and grief rise in its place.
His shoulders sagged and his head sank. ‘Will you not come?’ he asked brokenly. ‘The sword is accursed – ’twas not I who said those evil things or slew that poor boy. I love you, Freda, I love you so that all the world is bright with my love when you are near. I – like a beggar, I ask you to come.’
Her eyes were stony, but her breast rose and fell with gasping. ‘No – now leave, go away.’ Her voice rose to a scream: ‘I do not ever want to see you again – go!’
He turned toward the door. His mouth trembled. ‘Once I asked you for a farewell kiss,’ he said very quietly, ‘and you would not give it to me. Will you now?’
She looked away from him. Then she knelt down beside Audun’s huddled form and kissed his dead lips. ‘Poor boy,’ she murmured, stroking his bloody hair. ‘Poor dear Audun—’
‘Then goodbye,’ said Skafloc. ‘There may come a third time when I ask you for a kiss, but that will be the last. I do not think I have long to live, nor do I care. But I love you.’
He went out, closing the door behind him against the restless night wind. The frightened folk of the garth, roused by the late noise, heard his hoofbeats like dull thunder drumming away over the world.
But in the darkness ere morning Freda’s time came upon her. The child was big and her hips were narrow. Long and hard was her pain.
Aasa sent a thrall on horseback after a priest. But Thorkel had built his house as far from a church as he could, and they could not look for the clerk to arrive before the next day. Meanwhile the woman helped Freda where she could, but her face was grim.
‘First Erlend, now Audun,’ she muttered once to herself. ‘Orm’s daughters bring no great luck.’
At last the child was brought forth, a fine, lustily screaming man-child whose mouth was soon hungrily at Freda’s breast. In the cool early evening she lay, still weak and atremble, with her son in her arms.
She smiled down at the little figure. ‘You are a pretty baby,’ she said softly. ‘You are still red and wrinkled, but to me you are the most beautiful of all things. And you would also be so to your father.’
Tears flowed down her cheeks. She held the baby close to her. ‘I love him,’ she whispered. ‘God forgive me, I will always love him. And you are all that is left of our love.’
The sun burned bloodily to darkness. A thin moon swept through gathering clouds blown by a harrying wind. There would be storm again tonight, winter was drawing nigh.
The garth huddled under rushing heavens. Trees groaned around it and the sea was loud on the beach. The moon-guttering dark was vast and lonely about the few buildings.
Night deepened and the wind rose to a gale, driving armies of dead leaves before it. Hail drummed briefly on the roof like night-gangers thumping their heels on the ridgepole as they went by overhead. The house lay in darkness and noise.
Far away, Freda heard a horn blowing. Something in its scream ran cold through her. The child cried out at her side and she gathered him into her arms.
The horn sounded again, louder, nearer, through the hooting wind and the roar of sea. She heard the clamor of dogs, barking and baying, the earth ringing an echo. Hoofbeats rushed thunderous through the night, high, near, filling the sky with their haste. The house shook.
The Asgard’s-Ride, the Wild Hunt – Freda lay in a shroud of fear and darkness. Her babe screamed at her breast. The wind rattled around the house.
There came a mighty tramping of hoofs in the yard. The horn sounded again, a windy blast to which the house trembled. The frightful clamor of hounds rolled and echoed about the walls, filling the rooms with terror.
Someone knocked on the door leading into Freda’s chamber from the yard. The bolt crashed up and the door flew open. The storm-wind galed around the little room, blowing the cloak of the one who entered like huge bat wings.
He had to stoop under the roof. He bore a spear in one hand that flashed with cold unearthly light, the same steely blaze that lit his one eye. His long wolf-gray hair and beard streamed down from under the hat that shadowed his face.
His voice was the voice of wind and sea and the vast hollow spaces of the sky: ‘Freda Ormsdaughter, I have come for the price you swore to pay.’
‘My—’ She shrank back into her bed, tiny and alone under that baleful stare. If Skafloc were by her side – ‘My girdle is in that chest, lord.’
‘Ha – ha, ha, ha!’ The laughter of Odin was like thunder in the howling night ‘Think you I wanted that little flask? No, you swore to give me what you bore behind your belt – and even then you carried the child!’
‘No!’ She hardly heard her own scream. She thrust the crying baby behind her. ‘No, no, no!’ She lifted the crucifix at her throat. ‘In the name of God and of
Christ I command you to flee!’
‘I need not run from their powers this time,’ snarled Odin, ‘for you swore away all their help in this matter. Now give me the child!’
Ruthlessly he swept her aside and took the babe in one arm. Freda huddled at his feet. ‘What will you do with him?’ she moaned. ‘What do you want him for?’
The Huntsman loomed huge and shadowy over her. ‘His destiny is high and terrible,’ quoth he. ‘Not yet is this game of Aesir and Jötuns and the new gods played out. The devil-sword still gleams on the chessboard of the world. I gave it to Skafloc because Bölverk would on no account have made it anew for an As. Skafloc and the sword were needed to drive back the trolls – whom Utgard-Loki had been secretly helping to gain power – lest faerie be held by a race friendly to the enemies of the gods. But Skafloc cannot be let keep the sword, or he will seek to wipe out the trolls altogether – and this the Jötuns would not stand for, so that they would move against Alfheim, then the gods would have to move against them, and the end of the world would be at hand. Skafloc must die, and this child whom I wove my web to have begotten and given to me must inherit the sword and finish its destiny.’
‘Skafloc – die—’ The girl looked wildly up into the Wanderer’s hidden face. ‘Die – no—’
‘What has he to live for?’ asked Odin coldly. ‘If you should go to him and end his despair, you could persuade him not to fare into Trollheim. Then there would be no reason for his death, and he could be spared. But as it is, he is fey. The sword will kill him.’
With a swirl of his cloak, the Wild Huntsman was gone. The horn blew outside, the hounds yelped and barked and howled, the hoofs thundered into distance and night. Then the only sounds were the piping of the wind and the shouting of the sea and the weeping of Freda.
27
Valgard stood on the highest tower of Elfheugh and watched the gathering of his foes. His arms were folded on his great breast, his huge-thewed, black-byrnied body was rock-still, and his face was as if carved in stone. Only his eyes lived, with a weird wolfish flicker far down in their chill depths. Beside him were the other chiefs of the castle and of the broken armies which now hid in this last and most powerful stronghold. Weary and despairing were they, wounded from cruel battles, staring with hollow fearful eyes at the hosting of Alfheim.
On Valgard’s right stood Leea, tall and slender, shimmering whitely mysterious under the sinking moon. The wind blew her thin silken dress and the cloudy silvery veil of her hair about her. She was half smiling, her remote enigmatic smile that promised all and told naught. Her eyes shone twilight blue in the dark.
Below the frowning walls of Elfheugh, the hill-slope was white with rime and moonlight. On that glistening ground moved the elf army. Byrnies clanked and chimed, lur horns blew, horses stamped ringingly on the frosty earth. Shields flung back the moonlight, and the heads of spears and axes gleamed cold under the winking stars. The elves were setting up their camp, tents ringing the castle and fires blossoming to ruddy life. To and fro, inhuman in their swift grace, flitted the shadowy forms of the warriors.
A booming thunderous rumble rolled through the frost-silent hills. Into sight came a war chariot, bright almost as a sun, with flames flickering about the swords on the hubs. Four huge white horses drew it, arching their great moon-maned heads and snorting like storm winds. The warrior-king standing in it with his shining and terrible spear towered over all others. The dark locks blew about a face god-like in its majesty and grimness, the eyes seemed to flash with a light of their own.
The voice of a troll captain rose trembling: ‘That is Lugh of the Long Hand. He led the Tuatha De Danaan against us. He reaped us like wheat. The Scottish ravens darkened the earth, too gorged to fly, and not a hundred trolls escaped.’
Still Valgard said no word, but stood brooding over the scene.
Red-cloaked, silver-byrnied, Firespear rode his prancing horse around the castle walls. Bright and handsome was his face, cruel in its mockery, and his lance seemed to impale the wheeling stars. ‘He led the outlaws,’ muttered someone else. ‘Their arrows came from everywhere. They rose out of the night against us, and left fire and death in their wake.’
Valgard remained moveless.
Outside in the moon-rippling bay, the hulks of troll vessels still smouldered or lay driven onto the beach and broken. Longships lay at anchor, gleaming with shields and weapons. ‘Flam of Orkney captains those, which Mananaan Mac Lir captured back from us,’ said a troll chief harshly. ‘The seas are empty of our ships. One boat got through, to tell us that all the coasts of Trollheim are plundered and ablaze.’
Valgard might have been graven in dark stone. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
The elves ashore began to set up a tent bigger than the others. A man rode up on a horse of monster size with eyes like glowing coals, and planted his standard before the tent – a spearshaft atop which grinned the shriveling head of Illrede. The dead eyes stared up at the trolls.
A chieftain’s voice broke in a sob. ‘That is their general, Skafloc,’ he said shakenly. ‘Naught can stand before him. He drove us up from the south like a flock of sheep, slaughtering, slaughtering. He leaves no troll alive, and his sword cuts through stone and metal as through cloth. He is a fiend out of hell.’
Valgard stirred. ‘I know him,’ he said softly. ‘And I mean to slay him.’
‘Lord, you cannot – no one can stand before that weapon—’
‘Be still!’ Valgard turned to face his chiefs. His eyes raked them, and his low voice was a biting lash: ‘Fools, cowards, knaves! Let any who fear to fight go out to that butcher. He will not spare you on that account. But for my part, I mean to break him, here at Elfheugh.’
His words rumbled like angry thunder: ‘This is the last troll fort in England. How the others fell I know not, but we have seen elf banners flying over them as we retreated hither. But this castle, which never yet fell to storm, and is now packed with warriors to a number greater than that outside, will stand. It is bastioned alike against magic and open assault. Naught but our own cowardice can take it from us.’
He lifted his great ax. ‘They will set up their camp tonight and do no more. It is almost dawn now. Tomorrow night they may begin siege, but more likely storm. If it is storm, we will repulse it and sally forth in pursuit. Otherwise we will make the attack ourselves, having the fortress at our backs for retreat if things should go wrong.’
His teeth gleamed snarlingly in the moonlight. ‘But I think we will carry them before us. We are more than they, and man for man stronger. Skafloc and I will seek each other out – there is no love between us twain. And I will kill him and get his victorious sword.’
His voice ceased. The captain from Scotland asked: ‘But what of the Sidhe?’
‘They are not all-powerful,’ snapped Valgard. ‘Once we have mowed down enough elves to make it plain that their cause is doomed, the Sidhe will be glad enough to make peace. Then England will be a troll island guarding the homeland from attack until we have mustered strength to return against the Erlking.’
His somber gaze slanted down to meet Illrede’s glassy stare. ‘And I,’ he muttered to himself, ‘will succeed to your throne – but what use is that? What use is anything?’
Freda sought to leave the house the day after she lost her child. She stumbled on the threshold and lay in blood until a carle found her and bore her back to bed. Thereafter she tossed in a fever, crying out things which caused the priest to shake his head, palefaced, and cross himself.
Twice in the following days she tried to slip away, and each time someone saw her and led her back. Her wasting form had no strength left to fight.
But there came the chill clear night when she lay alone and no one else was awake. She crept from her bed, shuddering in the cold, and to the chest where her clothes lay. Fumbling in the dark, she got out a long woolen dress and a hooded cloak.
She took the crucifix from about her neck and kissed it. ‘Forgive me,’ she breathed
. ‘Forgive me if You can, that I love him more than You or Your laws. Evil am I, but the sin is mine, not his.’ Then she laid the cross on the chest and went out into the night.
The night bit at her with a silent fury of cold. The frozen ground crackled under her feet as she went toward the stable.
The dusky castle was still quiet as day waned toward sunset. Leea put her hands about Valgard’s arm, where it was thrown across her breast. Slowly, carefully, she lifted it and laid it on the bed, and slid out onto the floor.
He turned, muttering in his sleep. His waking strength was gone, leaving only a skull over which a scarred hide was drawn tight, sagging under eyes and chin. Leea looked down at him, and a dagger taken from a hidden niche gleamed in her hand.
It would be easy to slash his throat now – No, too much depended on her. If she should make a slip – and he had a werewolf’s perception of danger, even when asleep – all was over. She turned away, noiseless as a questing shadow, Hung a cloak over her slim bare shoulders, and made her death-silent way out the door. In one hand she held the knife, in the other the castle keys lifted from the hiding place she herself had suggested to Valgard.
She passed another elf woman on the stair. This one carried swords from the armory. Neither said a word as they flitted on their ways.
The trolls tossed in uneasy sleep. Now and again Leea went by a wakeful guard who paid her no special heed. Elf women were often sent on errands by their owners.
Down into the dungeons she went, swiftly, soundlessly, a dim white ghost in the dank gloom. She came to the great cell door behind which was Imric, and opened the triple lock.
The imp looked up through the reddened dark. Leea was on him in one tigerish leap. His wings rattled briefly, but ere he could cry out he was flopping with his throat slashed open.
Leea scattered the fire and, reaching up, cut the ropes binding Imric. He fell heavily into her arms and lay corpse-like on the floor.
She carved healing-runes on bits of the charred wood, placing them under his tongue, on his eyes and burned feet, on his lame hands. The flesh writhed as it grew back. Imric gasped with the pain of it but made no other sound.
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