The Broken Sword

XV

The elf and troll fleets met off the coast, well north of the earl’s seat, shortly after dark of the next night. When Imric, standing by Skafloc in the prow of the flagship that led his wedge of vessels, saw the size of the enemy force, he drew a sharp, uneven breath.

“We English elves have most of the warcraft of Alfheim,” he said, “yet they yonder have more than twice as much. Oh, if the other lords had but heeded me, when I told them Illrede had made truce only as another means of making war, and begged them to join me in crushing him for good!”

Skafloc knew somewhat of the rivalry and vanity, as well as the slothfulness and wishfulness, which had caused that inaction. Imric was not altogether without blame. However, too late now for such talk. “They cannot all be trolls,” the human said, “and I look for small danger from goblins and trash like that.”

“Mock not the goblins. They are good warriors when they have the weapons they need.” Imric’s taut countenance gleamed briefly out of darkness, caught in a fleeting moonbeam. A few snowflakes danced in that ray, borne on a raw wind. “Magic will avail either side little,” he went on, “since the powers of both are in that regard more or less the same. Thus it turns on strength of hosts, and there we are weaker.”

He shook his silvery-locked head, eyes glittering moon-blue. “I held, at the Elfking’s last council, that it were best Alfheim drew together, letting the trolls have the outer provinces, even England, while we held fast and gathered ourselves for a counter-attack. But the other lords would have none of it. Now we shall see whose rede was best.”

“Theirs was, lord,” said Firespear boldly, “for we are going to butcher these swine. What-let them wallow in Elfheugh? The thought was unworthy of you.” He hefted his pike and strained eagerly ahead.

Skafloc too, though he felt these were heavy odds, would have naught but battle. This would not be the first time valiant men had wrested victory from a powerful foe. He blazed with the wish to meet Valgard, Freda’s mad brother who had wrought her so great ill, and cleave his brain.

And yet, thought Skafloc, if Valgard had not borne Freda off to Trollheim, he, Skafloc, would never have met her. So he owed the berserker something—a quick clean slaying, rather than a carving of the blood eagle on his back, ought to settle the debt.

War-horns blew their summons on both sides. Down came sails and masts, and the fleets rowed to battle with ships linked together by ropes. As they neared, the arrows began their flight, a moon-darkening storm that hissed over waves and struck home in wood or flesh. Three shafts rattled off Skafloc’s mail; a fourth narrowly missed his arm and quivered in the ship’s figurehead. With his night-seeing eyes he made out others aboard who were not so lucky, who sank wounded or slain under Trollheim’s hail.

The moon showed ever less often through the hasty clouds, but will-o’-the-wisps danced amidst the spindrift and the waves surged with cold white glow. There was light enough to kill by.

Next spears, darts, and flung stones crossed between the ships. Skafloc cast a shaft which pinned a right hand to the mast of the troll flagship. Back came a rock which bounced with a clang off his helmet. He leaned on the rail, briefly dizzy, and the sea slapped salt water over his ringing head.

The horns yelled, almost mouth into mouth, and the lines shocked together.

Imric’s ship pushed against Illrede’s. The warriors in the bows smote back and forth. Skafloc’s sword screamed past the axe of a troll and disabled an arm. He leaned into the line of shields at the enemy rail, his own moving just enough to catch the numbing thunder of blows, his steel blade working above its rim. On his left, Firespear thrust and hacked with his pike, yelling in battle madness, reckless of the shafts that reached for him. On his right, Angor of Pictland fought stolidly with his long axe. For a time the two sides traded blows, and whenever a man dropped from either line, another pressed into his place.

Then Skafloc buried his sword in the neck of a troll. As that one fell, Firespear jabbed into the breast of the one behind him. Skafloc leaped the rails, into that breach in the troll ranks, and cut down the man to his left. As the warrior to his right chopped at him, Angor’s axe came down and the troll’s head rolled into the sea.

“Forward!” roared Skafloc. The nearer elves swarmed after him. They stood back to back, hewing-hewing-at the trolls who snarled and grunted around them. And in this uproar, the other elves grappled fast and still more of them boarded the enemy.

Swords flew in a blur that spouted blood. The shock and crash of metal over-rode wind and sea. Above the struggle loomed Skafloc, eyes like blue hell-flames. He must needs stand a little ahead of the elves, lest his iron mail do them harm; but they covered his back, and meanwhile his shield stopped the trolls’ clumsy thrusts and swipes from in front, his sword darted in and out like a viper. Erelong the enemy fell back from him and the bows were cleared.

“Now aft! “he yelled.

The elves advanced with blades over shields like heat-flicker over a mountain wall. Stubbornly did the trolls fight. Elves sank with crushed skulls, fell behind with splintered bones and gaping cuts. Nonetheless the trolls went back and back, none holding fast save their trampled dead.

“Valgard!” bawled Skafloc into the din. “Valgard, where are you?”

The changeling stood forth. Blood streamed from his temple. “A slingstone knocked me out,” he said, “but now I am yare for battle.” Skafloc shouted and ran to meet him. A space had opened between the crews. The elves held the ship down to the mast partner, the trolls had crowded into the stern, and both sides were for the time being out of breath. But more elves kept boarding, and from their vessel, archers sent a steady rain of grey-feathered death.

Skafloc’s sword and Valgard’s axe met in a howl of steel and a shower of sparks. The madness did not come on the berserker; he fought with grim coolness, rock-steady on the rolling deck. Skafloc’s sword caught his axe haft, but did not go far into the tough leather-wrapped wood. Instead, it was pushed aside. So was the shield behind-an dpefling through which Valgard chopped at once.

Lacking room or time for a full swing, his blow did not break mail-rings or bones. But Skafloc’s shield-arm fell numbed to his side. Valgard hewed at the neck. Skafloc dropped to one-knee, taking that dreadful smash on the helmet while he did. At the same time, he had been cutting at Valgard’s leg.

Half senseless from the fury that dented his helmet and knocked him aside, he sank. Valgard stumbled with a ripped thigh. They rolled under the benches and the battle raged past them.

For Grum Troll-Earl had led a charge back from the stern. His huge stone-headed club crushed skulls right and left. Against him went Angor of Pictland, who struck out and hewed off the troll’s right arm. Grum caught his falling club in his left hand and swung a blow that broke Angor’s neck; but then the troll must crawl to shelter so that he might carve healing runes for his spouting wound.

Skafloc and Valgard came out again, found each other in the chaos, and took up their fight anew. Skafloc’s left arm had gotten back its usefulness, while Valgard was still bleeding. Imric’s fosterling smote with a force that bit through the berserker’s mail, to be stopped by a rib. “That for Freda!” he shouted. “I’ll have you done to her.”

“Not so ill as I think you have,” choked Valgard. Staggering and weakened, nonetheless he met Skafloc’s next cut with his axe in midair. And the sword sprang in twain.

“Ha!” cried the berserker; but ere he could follow up his chance Firespear was at him like an angry cat, and others of Alfheim besides. The elves held the ship. “You leave me no reason to stay here,” said Valgard, “though I hope to see you again, brotherling.” And he sprang overboard.

He had meant to get free of his byrnie before it dragged him too far under, but there was no need. Many ships had been wrecked by ramming or the sheer press of battle. The mast of one was floating by and he caught it with his left hand. His right still held the axe Brotherslayer and for a little he wondered if he should not let it go.

But no-accursed or not, it was a good weapon.

Others, who had had a moment to lighten their loads before fleeing the ship, also dung to the mast. “Kick out, brothers!” shouted Valgard, “and we will reach a keel of ouf own—and win this battle yet.”

Aboard the troll flagship, the elves yelled their glee. Skafloc asked: “Where is Illrede? He should have been aboard, yet I saw him not.”

“Belike he is flying about, overseeing his fleet, even as Imric is doing in the form of a sea-mew,” Firespear answered. “Let’s chop a hole in this damned hulk and be back to the other.”

There they found Imric waiting for them. “How goes the battle, foster father?” called Skafloc gaily.

The elf-earl’s voice fell bleak on his ears: “Badly goes it, for however well the elves fight, the trolls throw two to one against them. And parts of the enemy are landing unopposed.”

“Bad news in truth,” cried Golric of Cornwall, “and we must fight like very demons or we are lost.”

“I fear we are lost already,” said Imric.

Skafloc could not at once grasp this. Looking around, he saw that the flagship drifted alone. Both fleets were breaking asunder as the linking ropes were cut by foemen; but the troll craft suffered less of this. And too often the trolls were laying one vessel on either side of an elf hull.

“To oars!” shouted Skafloc. “They need help. To oars!”

“Well spoke,” fleered Imric. The longship moved to the closest knot of battle. Arrows fell on it.

“Shoot back!” cried Skafloc. “In the name of hell, why don’t you shoot back?”

“Our quivers are nigh empty, lord,” said an elf. Hunching low behind their shields, the elves rowed into the fight. Two of their fellow ships were at bay between three hireling craft and one troll dragon. As Imric’s vessel neared, the bat-winged demons of Baikal descended on her.

The elves hewed manfully, but it was hard to fight enemies that struck from above with lances. They spent their last arrows, and still the swooping death smote.

Nonetheless they laid alongside a goblin ship, and it was from here that the arrows had come. Skafloc sprang across the rails and struck out with the elf sword he now carried. These small folk could not withstand dose combat. One he chopped in two, a second he sent screaming with belly gashed open, the head of a third went bouncing from its shoulders. Firespear’s pike transfixed two while he kicked in the breastbone of another. More elves boarded. The goblins fell back.

Skafloc reached their arrow chests and threw the heavy boxes across to his ship. Rather than lead a butchery into the stern, he blew retreat; the goblins here made no further difference to anyone but themselves. Elf bows twanged anew and the hovering demons toppled out of the sky.

The trolls closed in. Skafloc saw that the other two elf ships were rallying against the goblins. Oni, and imps. “If they can handle those, I suppose we can take care of the trolls,” he said.

The green-skinned warriors grappled, boomed their cry, and came over the rail of the elf dragon. Skafloc ran to meet them, slipped on the bloody catwalk, and fell between the benches. A spear whizzed where his breast had been, with force to pierce ring-mail. Golric of Cornwall toppled, the point in his heart.

“Thanks,” muttered Skafloc, rising. The trolls were on him. From above, their blows hailed on his shield and helm. He slashed at ankles, and a foeman went down. Before he could get his sword back into play, another troll was stooping over, thrusting for his face. He shoved up his iron-plated shield. The troll screamed and staggered back, endlessly screaming, half his own face seared away. Skafloc got back on to the catwalk and rejoined his elves.

Shock and thunder of blows sounded through ever more thickly drifting snow. The wind rose too, making the linked ships roll and pitch and bang hull against hull. Fighters lurched, fell off upper decks, catwalks, and benches, on to the lower deck, and rose to fight on. Erelong Skafloc’s shield was beaten into uselessness. He cast it at the troll with whom he was trading blows, and thrust his edge-blunted sword into the heart.

Then he was seized from behind. He pushed his steel helmet backward. Naught happened save that the oak-branch arms tightened their grip. Twisting his head around, he saw that this troll was fully clad in leather, with hood and gloves. Skafloc used an elven wrestling break to get free, snapping his arms out between thumb and forefinger of the foeman. But at once he was caught in a bear hug. The ship rocked and cast them both down between the benches.

Skafloc could not squirm loose. He knew grimly that the creature could break his ribs like arrow shafts. He got his knees against the troll’s belly, his hands around the thick throat, and braced himself.

Belike no other mortal man could have held his back arched against that frightful drag. Skafloc felt the strength drain from him like wine from an overturned cup. He poured all muscle and will and heart into his back and legs, and into the hands he clamped on the troll’s windpipe. It seemed for ever that they rolled with the ship, and he knew he could not hold out much longer.

Then the troll let go and clawed at Skafloc’s wrists, wild for air. The man rammed his enemy’s head against the mast partner, once, twice, thrice, with a fury that sang in the wood and split the leather-clad skull.

Skafloc lay over the body, gasping, his heart nigh to bursting loose from his breast and a roar of blood in his ears. After a while he dimly saw Firespear bent over him and heard the guardsman’s awed voice:

“Not elf nor human was yet known to have slain a troll in barehanded combat. Your deed is worthy of a Beowulf and will be unforgotten while the world stands. And now we have won.”

He helped Skafloc up to the foredeck. Looking over the nearby waters, through the wind-slanted snowfall, the man saw that the outland mercenary ships had likewise been cleared.

But at what a cost-Not a score of elves on their three craft remained whole; most who lived were grievously hurt. The ships drifted shoreward, manned with corpses and a few warriors too weary to lift a sword.

And straining through the murk, Skafloc saw yet another troll longship, fully crewed, bearing down on them.

“I fear we have lost,” he groaned. “Naught is left but to save what we can.”

The ships rolled helplessly toward tumbling surf. And on the strand waited a line of trolls, mounted on their great black horses.

A sea-mew dived out of the snow, shook himself and was Imric. “We have done well,” said the elf-earl grimly. “Nigh half the troll fleet will not sail again. But that half is mostly their allies, and we-we are broken. Such of our craft as can still be worked are in full flight, while others like this await their doom.” Sudden tears, perhaps the first in centuries, glimmered in his chill blank eyes. “England is lost. I fear me hlMm is lost.”

Firespear gripped the shaft of his pike. “We will go out fighting,” he vowed; his voice was hollow with tiredness.

Skafloc shook his head, and as he thought of Freda waiting in Elfheugh a little strength flowed back into him. “We will go on fighting,” he said. “First, though, we must save our lives.”

“ Tis a good trick if you can do it,” said Firespear doubtfully.

Skafloc doffed his helmet. The locks beneath were matted with sweat. “We begin by taking off our armour,” he said.

The elves could barely row enough to bring their three ships together within boathook reach. They gathered in one of these and raised mast and sail. Still their chances looked poor, for the approaching trolls were downwind, and both craft were quite near the lee shore.

Skafloc fought the steering oar, some of his folk poled out the sail, and they went quartering landward. The trolls dug in oars, seeking either to catch the elf vessel or drive it on to a skerry up ahead.

“ ’Twill be a tight squeeze,” said Imric. “Tighter than they think!” Skafloc grinned without mirth and squinted through the driving snowflakes. He saw surf spume on the reef, heard it roar through the squealing of wind. Beyond were the shallows.

The trolls cut over the starboard quarter. Skafloc shouted a command to let the sail go, and put up his helm. The ship swung around and leaped before the wind. Too late, the trolls saw what he meant and tried to get out of the way. Skafloc rammed them amidships with a shock at which timbers groaned. The enemy vessel was pushed ahead of it, into the surf, on to the skerry-trapped and smashed!

Skafloc’s elves worked the sail like madmen to his orders. Troll oars snapped as they slid past the other hull. The man had no hope of saving his own craft, but by using the foe’s both as fender and as pivot, he could hit more easily, and at the far end of the reef where the sea was less angry. When his ship struck and hung fast, only a narrow spine of rock lay between it and the shallows.

“Save himself who can!” cried Skafloc. He leaped out on to the slippery stone and over into a neck-deep water. Seal-swift he darted for the beach. His comrades were with him, except those too badly hurt to move. They must stay in the breaking hull and drown in sight of land.

The rest waded ashore, and they were well past the troll line. Some of the riders saw them and galloped off to kill.

“Scatter!” shouted Skafloc. “Most can escape!”

Running into the snowstorm, he saw elves spitted on lances or trampled under hoofs. But the bulk of his little band were getting away. High swung the sea-mew.

And down on the bird stooped a mighty erne. Skafloc groaned. Crouched behind a rock, he saw the erne bear the mew to earth, and there they became Illrede and Imric.

Troll clubs thudded on to the elf-earl. He lay limp in a pool of his blood while they bound him.

If Imric was dead, Alfheim had lost one of its best leaders. If he lived-woe for him! Skafloc slithered off through the snow-covered ling. He scarcely felt weariness, or 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.