Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  All the seamen and the Vikings stared admiringly, but Kristi kept on until she found Brand. Then, when he said nothing, she felt her cheeks grow hot with a rush of blood.

  "Don't-don't you think they are pretty?"

  His eyes smiled at her. "The garments are pretty, little Kristi. But you are no lovelier by reason of them."

  She felt hurt, and turned away from him, running back to her bower, apart from the camp. Hastily she took off the new things and put on her old dress. She was undoing her hair when a shadow fell over her and Brand came and sat by her. In his two closed hands he held something.

  "This," he said, "is an ornament that was worn once by a princess in Constantinople. She was lovely as the starlit night, but you are like the dawn in the sky. Now take it."

  He showed her what was in his hands-a slender necklet of linked gold in which were set square stones that gleamed with blue fire. Pushing back the mass of her hair, he placed it about her bare throat and snapped the clasp. Then he looked long at the flushed girl.

  "But this is a-treasure," she whispered. "Why did you put it upon me?"

  "Because," he said, and stopped, hearing the tread of feet nearby, "because you are fairer than the sapphires that were chosen among the jewels of an empire, and the beaten gold of the master smiths loses its luster upon your breast, Kristi. It is yours, because the body of me aches by reason of your beauty." And he bent over to kiss her opened hand, which trembled when he touched it.

  Then he stood up to face Mord and Ranulf, who had followed him to the bower. "All this," he said, "cannot be helped. What have you to say?"

  His face black with rage, Fighting Mord leaned down and clutched at the necklet on the girl's throat. But the clasp held, and the girl bit her lip to hold back an exclamation of pain. Before the Viking could wrench it away, he felt the touch of Brand's hand on his shoulder and turned.

  "Now," he said between set teeth, "I will cut the life out of thee for coming in my way."

  Brand took up the great ax that he had leaned against the girl's bower and he walked beside Fighting Mord out to some clear ground beyond sight of the camp. Then he stood still, leaning on his double ax head, looking at Mord's Vikings who had wind of the quarrel and had come up to see the weapon-play. "Ho," he said, "the ravens gather to the man-slaying." He walked to the nearest tree, an old oak. Swinging up his great ax, he whirled it around his head with one hand until the steel whined in the air. Then he struck it deep into the tree trunk. "Pull it away if you can, little men," he told the stalwart Vikings.

  "Hark you to this," he said to Fighting Mord. "I am a Berserk of Berserker blood."

  And Fighting Mord growled deep in his throat, gripping his iron sword hilt. For the Berserks were wild fighters. Before a battle they cast off their clothing except for the bearskins, and they went into the weapon-play as other men to a feast. Aye, they wooed the kiss of the Valkyrie maidens and they fed the wolf packs with blood. They did not stop until they were slain.

  "Berserk, or common man," he snarled, "it is all one to me."

  "In a day of the past," chanted Brand, his eyes glowing, "I followed the war bands from sea to sea in the long ships. One comrade lived to join the guard of the Emperor with me. At this time we both drank deep of wine and we looked about us for fighting. One night in the taverns we quarreled when we were out of our minds and we took to the swords. I cut his skull open, and slew this one ship's mate of mine. Then I took oath that never would I bear sword again and never would I lift weapon in brawl or quarrel. I took what I had of gold and gear and I wandered from land to land to find that one wherein I would be at peace. Now I think we have come to a new land unknown to our gods."

  He looked at the high forest ruddy with autumn's gold. "This is not like other lands; and I have a fear and a foreboding. Thou or I must safeguard this maiden. If we take to the weapons we may both find our deaths, or you alone. Now it has come to this between us, that neither can abide by the other in the same place. So I will take food and a pot and fire in it. I will go off alone and seek for other men, or some sign of what this land hath in store for us. But you will not lay hand upon Kristi, or I will come to know of it." He turned on his heel and went to the oak. There the other Vikings had been trying, one after the other, to free the ax. With a crooked grin Brand watched until the last wrestled with it, the veins standing out on the man's bare arms.

  When he had done and the ax was still fast in the tree, Brand walked up to it. Clasping both hands on the end of the shaft, he thrust up quickly and then pulled down. The steel squeaked shrill in the wood and the ax came away in his hands.

  Going back to the camp, Brand filled a sack with salt and meal. He put embers from the fire into a small iron pot and covered them with moss and dried wood. Then he rolled the sack with his bearskin into his leather sleeping bag, took the ax on his shoulder, the pot on his arm.

  "Why do you go, Brand?" Kristi asked him. The men had told her he was faring away into the forest.

  He smiled down at her. "To look for a star to set in your hair, little Kristi."

  Again she was angry with him, but now she felt an ache in her heart. "Will you be coming back, Brand?"

  "If you will be wanting me."

  He strode off into the forest then, and Sir Ranulf said after supper that surely the red giant was fey. "It is clearly to be known from his talk of stars and an unknown land where the gods have not set foot."

  But the next day a serf came in to the lake shore with wine berries that he had plucked from vines in a clearing. Sir Ranulf knew that wine berries did not grow in Ice Land or Green Land.

  They talked much of those wine berries. Kristi gathered many and crushed them, to make a sweet, strong drink of the juice, and the men said that while it was not like beer, it was well enough. Then Fighting Mord proposed to Sir Ranulf that he and his Vikings take the ship back to the sea and cruise south along the coast, to seek a settlement before the first great storm of the winter closed the sea to them.

  When he had gone, Kristi felt more at peace. Her brother told her how Mord had said he would make an offer for her when they reached a settlement. It excited her that a man of mark should have made such a proposal; at the same time she was frightened.

  She liked to wander alone in the forest, while Ranulf's seamen and serfs built a long house out of hewn logs and turf against the need of winter. The forest had clad itself in a rich mantle of fallen leaves except where the somber pine trees stood. Kristi saw many deer flitting away, but no reindeer. She watched the two cows and the sheep feeding in the last of the wild wheat, and she helped the younger men bring in grain and ferns for winter feed. She thought that this was a kindly land, although silent.

  Then Fighting Mord came back with the ship. He had found no settlement or sign of living men. Yet once he had seen smoke in a clear sky and the ship had passed along wide white beaches of sand. Reluctantly he and Ranulf agreed that this could not be the coast of Green Land.

  It disturbed them because they both felt near them the presence of other living beings. How else had the wild grain and the wine berries come there? And in the forest, along the animal trails, they had come upon pointed tracks shaped like human feet, yet different from the imprint of good Norse feet. And soon the presence made itself known beyond doubt.

  After the first hard frost and a light fall of snow, one of the sheep disappeared. It vanished whole from the grazing flock without trace of blood, so a wolf could not have taken it off. Ranulf set an armed guard over the animals. In spite of this another sheep vanished. And one of the seamen who had gone into the forest to search for it did not come back.

  That night a good ash plank disappeared from the very door of the house. It was then that the great snow came. For three days it raged around them with a fury that amazed the Norsemen.

  The men believed that Brand had worked their misfortune. The Berserk, they whispered, had laid a spell of magic upon the ship and all in it. He had led them to this country beyond the known
world; he had gone off to make sacrifice to his strange gods. He alone had been able to pull out the ax that was fastened by magic in the trunk of the oak tree. And who but Brand would have use for a common ash plank?

  "This much is true," assented Ranulf moodily. "While Brand abode with us fortune favored us, and since he went away these unknown gods have shown their enmity. Now it is to be seen what sacrifice they will require of us."

  The snow ceased on the third day, and in the morning of the fourth day Ranulf understood how great the sacrifice would be.

  During the storm Brand had worked in his bark hut, deep in a grove of giant pines near a height from which he could watch-on fair days-the distant lake with its camp. He worked by firelight, while the wind roared through the pines and fine snow drifted through the smoke hole. With his ax and knife he cut a small ash board into two lengths, pointed at one end, square at the other. He thinned these lengths of seasoned wood-each about as broad as his hand-rounded the edges, and made notches in the center to pass straps around. From time to time he stopped to cook venison steak or to bake meal cakes, or to sleep.

  But it took him a long time to finish the lengths of wood, to polish them and grease them with fat so they would slide easily over the snow. It was noon of the fourth day before he was able to tie the skis to his feet and venture out into the forest, upon the deep covering of virgin snow. His skis, pressing down the soft surface, slid along bearing his weight easily and he was satisfied with them.

  He crossed deer tracks and then he came to a broad trail that set the hair stirring on his scalp.

  It was made by scores of feet. But these feet were as broad and as long as Brand's forearm; they left the crisscross mark of webbing in the snow. And they went toward the camp of the Norsemen. Brand sped along the packed trail, running where it was level, and shooting down the slope to the lake.

  He came thus into the camp, and the first thing he saw was Ranulf and the seamen gathered about the body of Fighting Mord. The leader of the Vikings had arrows fast in his chest and another through his throat.

  "Well," quoth Brand, "he did not belie his name." He caught Ranulf by the arm. "Where is Kristi?"

  All the seamen were silent. They looked frightened as if they had seen spirits rise up out of the earth. Only Ranulf was able to relate what had befallen-how, after Kristi had gone out of the house before sunrise to look to the animals, a clamor as of human wolves had broken out. Running from the house he had seen in the faint light Fighting Mord struggling with strange shapes of men who yelped like fiends. These men had inhuman faces-white bones without flesh. They had long hair bristling with feathers, and they had wounded several of his companions before they had raced away on their round snowshoes. And they had borne Kristi away with them.

  "Bring me an iron-ring shirt," Brand growled. "Bring me a horned helmet."

  He slipped the mail shirt on beneath his cloak. It had pieces that came down over the thighs. He put the bright helmet with its two projecting horns on his red head. He wrapped the bearskin about his shoulders and took up his ax again.

  "Nay," cried Ranulf, "do not follow. Thor himself could not get Kristi from the hands of the fiends in the forest. Do not give them another life."

  The Vikings muttered assent. True, they had no snow skates such as Brand had made for himself and they could make no journey through the deep snow; but not one of them would willingly have faced again the warriors of this unknown land.

  "I will follow," said Brand. "Do ye bide here, little men."

  He said it over his shoulder. Already thrusting himself off, with the staff of his great ax, he was sliding out toward the forest on the trail left by the warband.

  When the sun was down to the treetops he came to the end of the trail. First he heard the barking of dogs; then he saw a great cluster of huts with smoke rising from a fire in the midst of them, in a clear place.

  The Berserk stopped to tighten his belt and to clean the snow from each of his skis. When he struck the ax shaft upon the ground, it jarred against a stone and the steel blade sang shrill.

  "Aye," said Brand, "thou singest loud, for soon there will be smiting of weapons and the ravens and wolves will be fed by thee."

  So saying he went forward, gliding fast. Scores of dark men came before the huts to look at him. They had bows and painted shields; white marks were painted on their faces so that they appeared to be bones. They were tall men, and they yelled with rage as their first arrows flew.

  Some of the arrows struck against Brand's iron-ring shirt and bounced back, and the savages yelled in dread. They gave back when the giant Berserk swung his ax. But several arrows caught in the white bearskin and one slashed Brand's thigh.

  At sight of the flowing blood the savages began to leap about him boldly. They surrounded him, throwing stone axes, and dodging the sweep of the ax.

  Brand could not move swiftly because of his skis, and they were too fearful to come to grips with him as he pressed forward among the huts.

  "Ho, Kristi!" he shouted.

  And the girl's cry answered him.

  Brand turned toward it when a net of woven vines was flung at him, falling over his head. He tore it, and lifted it off. But a dozen savages flung themselves upon him, gripping the ax fast. Brand swayed under their weight, while their clubs knocked the helmet from his head. He struck out with his fists, until more of them piled upon him, when he fell under the weight of bodies.

  Then the savages yelled exultantly. They pulled the cloak and the iron shirt from his bare trunk. They cut the skis from his feet, and women ran from the huts to stare at him. They bound his wrists with withes in front of him and led him to the fire dancing about him.

  Brand was bewildered by their nimbleness. He saw Kristi led out into the front of the crowd that gathered in a circle about him. The girl was pale; still, she did not weep.

  "Now that was poor sport, Kristi," he said moodily, "and I have done nothing for you."

  Three tall savages wrapped in deerskin robes came and stood before him with folded arms. They had eagle feathers in their hair. They looked boldly into his face, while the circle pressed inward. Then a warrior who had been at the fire came up to Brand and thrust a pointed chip of wood into the side of his chest. It was as long as a finger and the outer end of it was smoking and burning.

  "Now, little Kristi," Brand said, "they have pricked me with a splinter."

  Another piece of wood was thrust into his other side, and the fire began to bite at his flesh. Anger smoldered in him, and he flung up his red head to chant the song of his kind-the song of shields clashing upon the long ships and steel smiting; and the cries of the kites and wolves that fed upon bodies of the slain, who had been caught up by the winged battle maidens, speeding aloft to Valhalla's hall.

  So he sang, and the chieftains of the savages grunted in admiration. But tears came into Kristi's eyes, so that she covered her head with her cloak. Because of the pain in his sides and the sight of her tears, Brand's anger grew great. Still he sang on, because it was not time to end his death song yet. And suddenly one of the chiefs gave a shout and drew a knife. He stepped behind Brand and cut through the flesh between two of his ribs.

  Brand's song ceased. The anger that was in him suddenly filled his brain. The snow and the yelling crowd became red before his eyes, and with the strength of frenzy, he jerked his bound wrists against his uplifted knee.

  Some of the withes cracked and slipped. With his shoulder sinews cracking, the Berserk tore his hands free from the bonds. He leaped forward through the air, knocking the savages aside. And before they could grasp him well he had caught up his ax where it lay unheeded on the ground.

  Leaping away from them, he swung it about his head and the steel whined. The curved blade crashed into the face of a man, shearing away part of the skull. It split open the skull of another.

  When they scrambled away from him, Brand sprang back to the fire. The fit of the Berserk was upon him, and he did not think or plan anymore. He
saw only the red mist before him and the darting bodies of his foes. Snatching from the fire a small log burning at one end, he ran at them, the blazing log and the bloodied ax making circles among them. His great arms heaved and slashed.

  They could not use their bows in that press, and it must have seemed to them that the Berserk was a god dealing out destruction. They ran from him, through the huts, and he leaped after them. He broke the spine of a chief with a blow, and after that fear came upon them and they fled from the village, far into the forest. But they left behind the captive girl to appease this death-dealing god.

  Under a red sunset, Brand stood leaning upon his ax, panting, the steam rising from his wounded body. But when Kristi came up to him, weep ing and wiping at his hurts with a coil of her long hair, the red mist faded from before his eyes, and he grinned his crooked grin.

  "Now that," he said, "was but poor weapon-play, yet much good came of it."

  "It is my doing, Brand," she said mournfully, "that thou art hurt. Because in my heart I prayed all this day thou wouldst come to find me."

  He cleaned his hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "And I have found thee in such a way," he answered softly, "that nothing shall ever come between us again."

  Kristi turned away so that he should not see her face; still she said nothing against it. With strips from her smock she bound fast the cut on his back, while he tied on his skis again with new thongs, and picked up his bearskin.

  He lifted his ax to one shoulder, and he lifted the girl to the other. He set his foot forward and began to glide back along the trail through the twilight.

  Over the treetops a star gleamed in the cold sky. Kristi looked at it and spoke suddenly: "If I asked for a star to put in my hair, could you get it for me?"

  "Certainly," said Brand.

  I

  My brothers, it was a bad night when the order first came to me. True, in the North all nights are bad, with the mists from the swamps and the breath of the sea that is not warm but cold-cold as the wounds of a dead man.