The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

Strong men and battle-skilled, armed and in numbers. A ring fort would doubt its safety, if such a war band came up against it.

  And Grendel had made them all his helpless prey?

  Yet lost an arm to one man’s grip?

  A bear’s strength could do it. A great bear could do it.

  Had Beowulf shape-shifted? Had he changed his skin, even for a moment?

  That would answer for everything. He felt a chill, even by summer noon, thinking of such a battle, troll against skin-changer. Beowulf. Bee-wolf. Honey-eater. The old folk, the small dark folk who moved their dwellings about and made no villages, they would never say the name bear. To speak a name was to call it, and they feared the great forest-walkers, that went on two feet like a man.

  Honey-eater, they called it. Such a man—monster, himself, grappling hand-to-hand with the night-walking troll who made Hrothgar’s hall his larder: what ordinary man could do it? And in the night and the smoke and the fear, who might see the true shapes? In the screaming and the shouting, who could tell the roaring of one from the other?

  Halli gave a twitch of his shoulders, a sort of shiver, looking toward the stumps of doorposts—west, it had faced. So also Lejre looked west, toward Nerthus’ Grove, toward the sacred places, to the dark old ones that ruled the earth and the night, that pulled down Lady Sun and claimed the world until the dawn.

  Heorot honored that tradition of facing doors toward the west. But it had been unlucky. Unlucky as its lord. Mist persisted beyond those ruined posts, far downhill. And that way, surely, Grendel had come.

  That way, too, lay Grendelsjar, the lake where Hrunting rested.

  The troll was dead, dead, too, the troll-wife who had spawned him—so he had no fear of them. Heorot and the old powers had had their duel, and Heorot had lost its luck.

  But this was not the place to linger. Ill omened the lake where he was going, but worse, this, where so many had died. He walked from there, walked through the fire-ravaged doorway and down the hill westward, steadily west, where no sign of man persisted.

  —

  The land grew rougher, overgrown with brush where Heorot’s axes had hewn down woods for hall timbers and firewood. Saplings had grown up, and wild scrub—deer did not browse here. That was what it said to Halli’s eye. There was no natural restraint on wild growth, and trees, seeds chance-sown, had not yet shaded the ground. Two generations of summers and winters had passed, and yet the deer did not browse here. Closer to Lejre, one could see straight through the forests easterly, and they were bold enough now and again to come right up to the village.

  Not here. No sign of deer. Not even marten or rabbit. Nor even birds, now that he marked it. There was a hush over the place, and a rock dislodged roused nothing as it rolled, the only sound roundabout.

  He came at last to a forest long uncut, a woods surrounding a stream that gave easier passage for his journey, but no game tracks showed along its margins, and the forest grew darker and more tangled on either hand.

  Had this been Grendel’s path, this shallow place, this thread of water running down among the stones?

  There began to be larger rocks, and the way grew darker with the setting of the sun somewhere beyond the woods. He struggled among rocks, anxious to find an end of the tangle, loath to spend a night in this dead place.

  And quite suddenly he saw fading daylight through the branches and the scrub, light, and the pure wan gold of the sun itself. He redoubled efforts, shoved branches aside, and drove toward it with all his strength, relieved that there was an edge to this woods, and that the sun was not yet gone.

  The forest stopped there, abruptly, roots driven stubbornly into rock, seeking purchase. And abruptly—there was the sun, and an edge, a cliff, and the golden sky, and a lake far below his feet, water gathered in the riven rock.

  Halli caught his balance with a grasp at a dry branch—it cracked, but held, and he stood solidly on the rocky edge, looking out from the rim of a little waterfall that ran under his feet and vanished over the edge, to what surely was Grendelsjar. Forest rimmed it, sparse, some trees white and dead, fallen or canted sharply over the edge. It was that abrupt, and still, he thought, apt to crumble. He got down to hands and knees on solid rock and looked over, where that thread of water fell down, white, where it plunged into the lake below, not the only such stream to end here.

  Grendelsjar. His heart beat higher in the realization he had indeed found the place, that Grandfather’s treasure lay under that black water, which might not be so deep as it looked down, or so dark as it seemed at twilight.

  It was six or seven times a man-height down to the lake, if he had fallen, a sorry cold surprise after a long walk, and one which might well have landed him on jagged rock, a little shy of the thread of waterfall. This side of the lake was a cliff on which he stood. The other was a low marshy shoreline, which might require a far walk to reach.

  But there was a second ledge, and a rockfall. Very large boulders had come down from this edge and made a ladder to that lower level. Sapling trees had taken hold in it—it was no recent slide, but a stair all the way to the water.

  This might have been the troll’s own stairway, and the stream above his highway through the woods. In that dark water below was Grandfather’s sword, as good as calling to him, wanting him to come down to it and bring it back. He started down in the chancy light, and the massive rocks were steady enough, but the shapes turned treacherous and difficult, delivering him not all the way to the water’s edge but to a ledge above it.

  There sat a white stone, so his eyes made it out in the fast-fading light, a curious thing, different from the gray rock. But a shift in view made it no stone at all but a bleached skull.

  It was not a companion he wanted in the dark, on this narrow ledge above the water. But to climb up again was foolish. Fear was foolish. He had only reached the ledge, down a chancy climb, and was it not what the skalds sang? Did he not know what ornament the troll-wife had set above her door?

  Aeschere, Hrothgar’s friend and advisor—his head, the blood price the troll-wife had taken for her son’s life. She had taken Aeschere’s head and set it above her door.

  “Well, sir,” Halli said, sinking down to sit on a tumbled boulder, “well, the great hero might have brought you home to bury. And did not. So many things the skalds say he did that he did not.”

  “Unferth? Is it Unferth here?”

  His heart half stopped. He drew in a breath, telling himself at first he was mistaken, that it was the blood pounding in his ears, the exertion that had brought him down here. But the voice repeated: “Is it Unferth?”

  “Unferth’s grandson.” One hardly dared give a hostile ghost a name, but Aeschere had been no enemy of his grandfather’s. “Are you Aeschere?”

  “Aeschere. Yes.” The voice grew stronger. “I have slept the night through, I think.” Was there a glimmering of light in the gathering murk, an upright figure composed of fog, when there was no fog about at all. “I was in the hall.” What might be an arm flung outward. “I slept. I waked. She was among us!”

  “She’s dead now,” Halli said. Fear went out from the ghost, like a drowning wave, speeding the heart, making the skin cold. “She is dead, sir, in the lake below us. Be calm. She can’t harm us now.”

  “How fares Heorot? How fares my lord?”

  “It was years ago, sir, years ago that you fell asleep. Heorot is gone. Lord Hrothgar is gone. My grandfather Unferth is gone.” It was the first time he had said the words to anyone, and it made an ache in his throat. “Just now gone, sir. Day before yesterday. He was an old, old man.”

  “Your grandfather.” The ghost was still for a moment but seemed brighter now as sunlight faded. A bearded face appeared, with braided hair, a collar of gold links. “Unferth. My friend. Dead.”

  Aeschere had been a good man, a true man, and brave, Grandfather had said. Brave, but not wise—far too ready to undertake anything Hrothgar wanted, taking Hrothgar’s side, Grandfather had said, in any gre
at folly.

  And in Heorot, that night, Aeschere had thrown himself, unarmed, between his lord and Grendel’s mother, a warrior’s death, though weaponless; but she had taken his head with her. “Here my vengeance is taken,” that act had signified, the head set above the entry to her domain. “The blood debt is ended unless you pursue it.”

  Beowulf had pursued it. But still Aeschere remained here, unsatisfied and restless.

  The ghost had faded in that news, face eclipsed by shadowy hands, big hands, a warrior’s hands, without power now to grasp a weapon. Rings of honor and scars of warfare were evident on those hands. And they shut out the sight of him, shut out his presence, perhaps, while Aeschere tried to remember events he had not lived to see.

  “Beowulf came,” the ghost said, and the hands fell. “He went under the water. And came out again. She is dead.”

  “Your watch is well kept, sir. You did all you could. I have made my grandfather’s grave. I’ll make yours if you wish. He remembered you as a friend though you disagreed. Your lord has gone on. The heroes all have gone on to the gods’ feast, my grandfather, too. He would welcome you.”

  “Unferth’s grandson. Son of his son.”

  “Halli is my name. Halli Eclefssen.” He gave the ghost assurance, a measure of reckless trust. A ghost’s blessing might be lucky in this undertaking. But ghosts were chancy creatures who saw only their own purpose, their reason for lingering. “My grandfather is waiting for his sword, that Beowulf abandoned there. Bless me with luck, warrior, while I go down and find it, and when I come up again, I will free you from this place so you can go join the others. More, I’ll tell your tale and give you a warrior’s glory so long as they sing songs.”

  The ghost brightened until the man stood there, just his feet absent. “Unferth’s grandson has all the luck I can lend. Tell me the songs you know. Tell me how Heorot fared.”

  Dared he lie? It might bring a curse when the ghost found out the truth.

  He could gloss the truth and stop while the telling was still fair. Gods knew the skalds did it.

  “Beowulf killed your killer, sir. Hrothgar grieved for you so much he sent Beowulf away loaded down with gold. Beowulf became a king himself, and Hrothgar and his great gold-giving became a legend of its own. The heroes you knew in Heorot became great lords themselves in the lands all about, and made the land so strong, the king of the Franks and his White God turned aside from us. The Frankish king found it much easier to make war in the south, rather than here, where such great men live, and has not yet come back. The Skyldings you knew all have great mounds above them, and their songs still are sung. Now the world will know your part in all that happened here.”

  The world became less clear. Halli found a mist all about him, but there was no chill in it. Rather he felt separated from the world, and he thought he should be afraid, but he could not think what to do about it, if he was being dragged down to his own death. He found himself sinking into sleep, and warm, and simply too weary even to lift his head and protest.

  Had he told too much truth? Could the ghost know what he had not said of Hrothgar’s ending?

  The dark was all about him, silent, so still he heard only the little waterfall burbling away in its plunge off the cliff, a thin thread, a thread so thin a breath could sever it. It was all that held him to the world.

  —

  Until a bird sang.

  Halli opened his eyes. The sun beat down on his face, blazing white in a pure blue sky.

  He sat where he had sat last night. A skull sat gazing out over the ledge, white and weathered, but never touched by beast or bird.

  The far shore bristled with pines all twisted and strange. It was as if the earth had split here, with this rocky face on one side, a low forest on the other, and the midst of it filled up with murky water.

  Yet when he stood up, the dark water seemed clear below, shadowed like dark glass, and very still, no wind disturbing the waters. He stood, if the skalds sang true, on the very lintel of the troll cave, where the troll-wife had set her grim trophy. He was as near to his goal as he ever could be, without going under the water. And the moment was before him, as near as ever it could be, without his going in. He cast off his cloak. He laid by the last of the bread he had. He stood on the brink. He looked down into that glassy darkness, and hesitated, thinking how cold it might be, how changed appearances might be, of something left long beneath the water, and how, if he left this place and only said he had gone down into that depth—there was no witness to make him a liar. It was a coward thought. He hated it. And still his feet stayed on solid ground.

  No. He could not go back with a lie. He drew in deep, deep breaths, then took a running step and jumped clear of the edge, feetfirst, chin tucked.

  His feet hit the water, and water rushed up, cold, and apt to drive the breath from his body. Down and down he went with that force, then, when the water grew still around him, he opened his eyes on a darkened view of lumps of rock, fallen from the cliff, they might be.

  Among them, as he turned about in the water, was a deeper darkness, nothing distinct, just a place where no light reached—a cave, perhaps. A place to be trapped, airless, and drowned even in still water. But he swam toward it, chill and desperate, scanning all the rocks for any hint of gold, Hrunting’s pommel, as Grandfather had described it, a puzzle-knot of gold, noble metal, that never would rust or blacken.

  Current took him. He grew desperate for air, chest burning, heart beating in his ears, and if he once gave way to the urge to breathe, he was done. He felt the rocks with bare hands, tried to fight the current, but his fingers found no purchase. He was caught, turned, moved against his will.

  The weight of water lessened. He was rising, somehow, rapidly, and fought to hold his breath until he reached the surface, gasping, flailing out to stay afloat in utter darkness.

  His feet found a surface, a shallow where he could go on hands and knees, cold and dripping wet and blind.

  “See,” a voice said.

  He flung his head up, and immediately with the voice came warmth, and with the warmth came the faintest of lights, like the light that took the rigging of ships on god-touched nights. The blue fire grew, ran across a pile of bones, skulls and ribs of sheep and cattle, a midden heap of long feasting. About it, scattered among the bones, were five, six swords, and helms, and armor, broken shields. Amid it all, standing aslant through the eyehole of a cow’s skull—a sword, unsheathed, shining bright, from its blade to the gold puzzle-knot that gave it balance.

  Halli staggered forward, laid his hand on it, drew it out, and colors came to the place, as if the sword were a torch bright as the sun. Grandfather had never told such a thing. But it knew him, Hrunting did. It blazed bright. It showed him all the cave, and with it, on its rocky shore, a troll-wife’s home, table and benches, neat shelves, with homely, humble pots all in order, like any good householder would arrange, well aside from the midden heap.

  He was still breathing hard. He turned all about, and saw a bed, and in the bed—someone sleeping, he thought at first glance. A dark-haired someone, with long, braided hair. A white shift. And a dagger jutting from its back. A corpse, a woman, and one long dead, by the condition of the cloth and, as he moved closer, the withered flesh.

  Who? he wondered. What woman had there been, but the troll-wife herself, and could a troll be so slight as this?

  And what great battle had there been, with a sword thrust through the back of a woman lying abed.

  That was not the tale the skalds told.

  He held Hrunting aloft, like a torch, but the colors it showed all blurred and went blue again. And the woman moved, turned her head.

  He stepped back, appalled. But the face that showed was a face comely enough, neither young nor old, a middling age—she began to sit up, transparent, with her lifeless form beneath her. She looked up at him and everything seemed to hush. The water ceased to lap at the rocks. And the cave was touched with ghost-fire.

  “W
oman,” he said, his own voice hardly a whisper, “woman, what happened here?”

  “They killed my son,” the ghost said. “And I killed them.”

  This slight woman, a woman in features and size like the old ones that dwelled in the deep woods, had killed men in Heorot? Had come away with a head and set it above her gate?

  There was more to her than seemed. He half expected the ghost to grow, and tower above him, gnashing fangs, grasping with cold hands…

  But she simply stared at him with eyes black as night itself, and he felt cold, bitter cold.

  “Our sacred place you took for your feasting. Our forests you cut for your cookfires. Our meadows you gave to your great slow beasts. You hunted our deer and our hares. You hunted us for sport. How shall we not take your cattle? How shall we not take food from your tables?”

  “Lady,” he said—respect seemed the only safety. “I did none of these things. I shall go and leave you to your rest.”

  Her eyes rolled back until the whites showed plain, and she threw back her head and gave a trilling shriek. Then those black eyes fixed on him, dark fire. “Rest? Rest, is it? I warned my son. But he was young, he was foolish, he was angry. He came bare-handed against your swords. He fought. He took food. And you wounded him, and he died. I buried him. With my own hands, I buried him. And when I had buried him I went to that den of thieves and I took the blood price I was due. I set it for a warning. I was done with you unless you offended me again.”

  “You slept. You slept, and one came here, and killed you. He carried my grandfather’s sword, lent him against a monster, so the story was—but this sword he said failed him.” He stood facing a righteous ghost, with power crackling all about, and knew he was dead if he misspoke. “This sword is bespelled—and its geas is that it will never fail a hero in battle. Hrunting never failed him. He failed its conditions. He struck from behind, as you slept. It was no battle. And greater shame, he told it otherwise.”

  “Truth,” a voice said out of the depths of the cave. Halli flinched but did not look that way, fearing the ghost facing him would take advantage. Was it the son? Was it Grendel himself?