The Broken Sword

XVII

When the troll host reached Elfheugh, a horn sounded from the watchtowers and the great brazen gates swung wide. Valgard reined in, narrowing his eyes. “A trick,” he muttered.

“No, I think not,” said Grum. “Few save women are left in the castle, and they expect us to spare them.” He shook with laughter. “As we will! As we will!”

The hoofs of the huge-boned horses rang loud on the courtyard flagstones. Here it was warm and calm, in a cool half-light that rested blue on walls and sky-piercing turrets. Gardens breathed forth languorous odours; fountains splashed, and dear streamlets ran past little arbours meant for two alone.

The women of Elfheugh were gathered before the keep to meet the conquerors. Though he had seen elf-mays on the march south, and taken them, Valgard exclaimed under his breath at sight of these.

One stepped forth, thin robes clinging to every curve, and she outshone the rest as the moon the stars. She curtsied low before Grum, so that the cool mystery of her eyes was veiled by sweeping lashes. “Greeting, lord,” she sang rather than spoke. “Elfheugh makes submission.”

The earl purled himself out. “Long has this castle stood,” he said, “and no few assaults has it beaten off. Yet you were wisest, who chose to admit the might of Trollheim. Terrible are we to our foes, while our friends have good gifts of us.” He smirked. “Erelong I will make you a gift. What is your name?”

“I hight Leea, lord, sister to Imric Elf-Earl.”

“Call him not that, for now I, Grum, am earl in this island’s Faerie realm, and Imric the least of my thralls. Bring in the prisoners!”

Slowly, heads bent and feet shuffling, the nobles of Alfheim were led forward. Bitter were their begrimed faces, and their shoulders were bowed by a weight more heavy than chains. Imric, hair stiff with his own crusted blood and blood in the prints of his bare feet, led the line. Naught did the elves say, nor even look at their women, as they were led down towards the dungeons. The commoner captives followed, a mile of misery.

Illrede arrived from the ships. “Elfheugh is ours,” he said, “and we leave you, Grum, to hold it while we lay the rest of Alfheim under us. There are still English, Scottish, Welsh elfholds to be taken, and many elves skulking in the hills and woods, so you will have work enough.”

He led the way into the keep. “We have a thing to do ere leaving,” he said. “Imric took 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 sleeve to draw him aside. Her gaze was intent. “I took you for Skafloc at first, a mortal who dwelt among us,” she breathed. “Yet I can sense you are not human—”

“No.” His lips twisted upward. “I am Valgard Berserk of Trollheim. In a way, though, Skafloc and I are brothers. For I am a changeling, born of the troll-woman Gora by Imric, and left in place of the baby who became Skafloc.”

“Then—” Leea’s fingers tightened on his arm. Her words hissed. “So you are the Valgard of whom Freda spoke? Her brother?”

“That one.” His voice roughened. “Where is she?” He shook her. “And where is Skafloc?”

“I ... do not know ... Freda has fled the castle, she said she was going to seek him ... ”

“Then if she was not caught on the way, and I have heard nothing of such, she is with him. Ill is that!” Leea smiled, with closed lips and hooded eyes. “At last I see what Tyr of the Aisir meant,” she whispered to herself, “and why Imric kept the secret—” And to Valgard, boldly: “Why think you that is bad? You have slain all the seed of Orm but those two, and have been the means of bringing what is worse upon them. If you hated that house, as you must have done, what better revenge could you want?”

Valgard shook his head. “I had naught against Orm or his house,” he muttered. And looking about him in sudden bewilderment, as if waking from an uneasy dream: “Though I must have hated them to have worked so much harm-on my own siblings—” He passed a hand over his eyes. “No, they are not my blood, are they ... were they?”

He broke away from her and hastened after the king. Leea followed more slowly, still smiling.

Illrede sat in Imric’s high seat. His gaze was fixed on the inner door, and he chuckled softly when he heard the tramp of his guardsmen. “They are bringing Gora,” he murmured. “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 skull-face the eyes stared, empty save where ghosts swam deep within them.

“Gora—” Illrede half rose and sank back again.

She blinked around, almost blind. “Who calls for Gora?” she mumbled. “Who calls for Gora calls for the dead. Gora is dead, lord, she died nine hundred years ago. They buried her under a castle; her white bones uphold its towers against the stars. Can you not let the poor dead troll-woman rest?”

Valgard shrank from her, lifting a hand as if to ward off the thing that stumbled over the floor towards him. Illrede reached out both arms. “Gora!” he cried. “Gora, know you not me, your father? Know you not your son?”

Her voice came windy and remote through the hall. “How can the dead know anyone? How can the dead give birth? The brain which gave birth to dreams is become the womb of maggots. Ants crawl within the hollowness where aforetime a heart beat. Oh, give me back my chain! Give me back the lover who held me down in the dark!” She whimpered. “Raise not the poor frightened dead, lord, and wake not the mad, for life and reason are monsters which live by devouring that which gives them birth.”

She cocked her head, listening. “I hear hoofbeats,” she said low. “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 sunder before him-Give me back my death!” she shrieked. “Let me crawl back into my grave and hide from Time!”

She huddled sobbing on the floor. Illrede signed to his guards. “Take her out and kill her,” he ordered. Turning to Grum: “Hang Imric by the thumbs over hot coals until we have conquered Alfheim and can give some thought to his reward.” Rising, he shouted: “Ho, trollsmen, make ready to fare! We sail at once!”

Though the host had awaited a feast in Elfheugh, none who saw the king’s face dared protest, and erelong most of the black ships were sweeping southward out of sight.

“So much the more for us,” laughed Grum. He regarded how pale Valgard was and added: “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 hand on Leea’s waist. “You were wise to submit,” he grinned; “therefore I cannot well let you fall in rank. Earl’s lady shall you still be.”

She followed him meekly, but as she went by Valgard she smiled sidelong at the changeling. The berserker’s gaze could not but follow her. Never had he seen a woman like this; aye, with her he might forget the dark-haired witch who haunted his dreams.

The trolls gorged and guzzled for some days, then Valgard led men against another castle which held out yet, for a number of elves had managed to reach it. Though its size was not great, the walls were high and massive, and the defenders’ arrows kept the trolls a good ways off.

Valgard waited through daylight. Near sunset he sneaked under cover of brush and rocky outcrop until he was almost under the walls without the drowsy light-bedazzled elves seeing him. At dusk the horns blew to battle and the trolls rushed forth. Valgard rose and with a mighty cast sent a grappling hook over a merlon. Up the rope tied to it he swarmed, to the very top, and winded his horn.

The elf sentries charged at him. Despite the iron he wore he had a desperate fight. But the trolls quickly found the rope and followed him. When they had cleared a space, others beneath could set up ladders. Soon the force was large enough to hew its way to the gates and open them for the rest.

There followed a wholesale slaughter of elves. More were taken captive and led in chains back to Elfheugh. Valgard plundered and burned through the countryside around, and returned with a huge booty.

Grum gave him sullen greeting, for he thought Valgard was getting too good a name among the trolls. “You could have stayed with the garrison you left,” he said. “This place has scant room for both of us.”

“Indeed,” murmured Valgard, measuring the earl with his chill pale eyes.

However, Grum could do no less than hold feast for him and place him at the right of the high seat. The elf women served the trolls, and Leea came to Valgard with horn after horn of strong wine.

“To our hero, chief among warriors in lands of men or Faerie,” she drank. The silver light gleamed through her thin silks to her skin, and Valgard’s head spun with more than the drink.

“You can give me better thanks than that,” he cried, and pulled her on to his lap. Fiercely he kissed her, and she responded with the same eagerness.

Grum, who had slumped in his seat and drained his horns without a word, stirred in anger. “Back to your work, faithless bitch!” he snarled, and to Valgard: “Leave my woman be. You have your own.”

“But I like this one better,” said Valgard. “I will give you three others for her.”

“Ha, I can take your three if I like-I, your earl. What I choose is mine. Leave her be.”

“The loot should go to him who can best use it,” taunted Leea, not moving from Valgard’s lap. “And you have only one hand.”

The troll sprang from his seat, blind with rage and clawing after his sword; for trolls ate with weapons on. “Help me!” cried Leea.

Valgard’s axe seemed to leap of itself into his grasp. Ere Grum, awkward with his left hand, could draw blade, the changeling’s weapon sank into his neck. He fell at Valgard’s feet with blood spurting and looked up into the twisted white face. “You are an evil man,” said Grum, “but she is worse.” And he died.

Uproar arose in the hall, metal flashed forth and the trolls surged against the high seat. Some cried for Valgard’s death, others swore they would defend him. For a moment it was about to become a battle.

Then Valgard snatched the blood-smeared coronet, which had been Imric’s, from Grum’s head and set it on his own. He sprang on to the high seat and overrode the din with his shout for silence.

Slowly that stillness came, until naught but heavy breathing was heard. The bared weapons gleamed, the smell of fear was rank, and every eye rested on Valgard where he stood haughty in his strength.

He spoke, with iron in his tones: “This came somewhat sooner than I looked for, but it was bound to come. For what use to Trollheim was a cripple like Grum, unfit for battle, for anything save gobbling and bousing and sleeping with women that might have gone to better men? I, who come of blood as good as any in Trollheim, and who have shown I can win victory, am more fit to be your earl. Furthermore, I am now earl, by the will of my father King Illrede. Good will this be for all trolls, foremost those of England. I promise you victory, riches, high living and glory, if you hail me your earl.”

He pulled the axe out of Grum and lifted it. “Whoever gainsays my right must do it on my body-now,” he told them. “Whoever stands true will be repaid a thousandfold.”

At this, the men who had followed him to the siege let forth a cheer. Others, who wished not to fight, joined them one by one, so it ended with Valgard’s taking the high seat and the feast going on. Grum had not been very well liked, and what few kinfolk he had there were not close and were willing to take weregild.

Later, alone in his bedchamber with Leea, the changeling sat staring darkly at her. “This is the second time a woman has driven me to murder,” he said. “Were I wise, I would chop your body in three.”

“I cannot stop you, lord,” she purred, and laid her white arms about his neck.

“You know I cannot do it,” he said hoarsely. “Tis idle talk. My life is black enough without such peace as I can find in you.”

Still later he asked her: “Were you thus with the elves-with Skafloc?” She lifted her head over his so that the sweet-scented net of her hair covered both. “Let it suffice that I am thus with you, lord,” she whispered, and kissed him.

Now Valgard ruled Elfheugh for some time. Through the early winter he was often afield, breaking down elf strongholds and hunting the fugitives with hounds and men. Few garths remained unburnt, and when elves sought to make a stand he led his troops roaring over them. Some of those men whom he took alive he threw into dungeons or put to slave work, but most he killed, and he divided their women among his trolls. He himself took none, having lust for none but Leea.

Word came from the south that Illrede’s armies were driving the elves there before them. All Faerie parts of Valland and Flanders were held by the trolls. In the north, only the elves of Scania still were free; and they were hemmed in, and were being pawed away as fast as their deep woodlands allowed. Erelong the trolls would be entering the middle lands where the Elfking lay.

Men had some glimpse of these doings-distant fires, galloping shadows, storm-winds bearing a brazen clangor. And the loosed magic wrought much havoc, murrains on the livestock and spoilt grain and bad luck in families. Sometimes a hunter would come on a trampled, bloody field and half-see ravens tearing at corpses which had not the look of men. Folk huddled in lonely houses, laid iron beneath the thresholds, and called on their various gods for help.

But as the weeks wore on, Valgard came to sit more and more in Elfheugh. For he had been to every castle and hill-town he could find, he had harried from Orkney to Cornwall, and such elves as had escaped him were well hidden-striking out of cover at his men, so that not a few trolls never came home; sneaking poison into food and water; hamstringing horses; corroding arms and armour; calling up blizzards as if the very land rose against the invader.

The trolls held England, no doubt of that, and daily their grip tightened. Yet never had Valgard longed for spring as now he did.