The Broken Sword

XXIII

The war which Mananaan Mac Lir and Skafloc Elven-Fosterling waged on Jotunheim would be well worth the telling. One should speak too of the struggle with berserk gale and windless mist, with surf and skerry and ice floe, with a weariness which grew so deep that only the image of Fand, bright against the undying night, gave cheer. That best of boats should have been honoured with golden trim and a song.

Many were the enchantments whereby the Jotuns sought to do away with their visitors, and hard luck did these two suffer on that account. But they worked out spells they could use here and wrought mightily in return, not alone warding off the worst of the giant magic but also turning storms loose to scourge the land and singing mountainsides down on Jotun garths.

They never sought to stand in open fight against the giants, though twice when one alone fell on them they killed him; but they coped with monsters of land and sea raised against them. Often their escapes from pursuit were narrow, especially when they went foraging inland during the long times of foul winds, and each would make a story in itself.

It should be told of their raid on a great steading to steal horses. In the end they left it ablaze and made off with a booty of which the steeds were not all. The beasts they took were the smallest of ponies in that land, but in the outer world would be reckoned the hugest and heaviest among stallions, shaggy black hulks with fiery eyes and devil hearts. Yet they took well to their new masters and stood quietly in the boat, which barely had room for them. And they feared neither daylight nor iron, even Skafloc’s sword, nor did they ever grow tired.

Not every Jotun was a giant, or hideous or hateful. After all, some of this blood had become gods in Asgard. A lonely crofter might welcome guests who bore new faces, and not ask too closely what they were about. No few women were of human size, well favoured and well disposed. Mananaan of the glib tongue found the outlaw life not wholly bad. Skafloc did not look twice at any woman.

There is much else to tell, of the dragon and his golden hoard, of the burning mountain and the bottomless chasm and the quern of the giantesses. It should be told of the wayfarer’s fishing in a river that ran from hell, and of what they caught there. The tales of the everlasting battle and of the witch in Iron Wood and of the song they heard the aurora hissing to itself in the secret night-each is worth telling, and would make a saga in itself. But since they are not in the main thread of the story, they must be left among the annals of Faerie.

Suffice it to say that Skafloc and Mananaan got out of Jotunheim and sailed south on the waters of Midgard.

“How long have we been gone?” wondered the man. “I know not. Longer there than here.” The sea king smelled the fresh breeze and looked up into a clear blue sky. “And it is spring.”

Presently he went on: “Now that you have the sword—and have already blooded it well-what will you do?”

“I will seek to join the Elfking, if he still lives.” Skafloc looked grimly ahead, over the racing waves to the dim line of horizon. “Put me ashore south of the channel and I will find him. And let the trolls dare try to stop me! When we have cleared mainland Alfheim of them, we will land in England and regain that. Finally we will go to their home grounds and lay their cursed race beneath our heel.”

“If you can.” Mananaan scowled. “Well, you must try, of course.”

“Will the Sidhe lend no help?”

“That is a matter for the high council. Surely we cannot until the elves are in England, lest our country be ravaged while its warriors are elsewhere. But it may be we will strike then, for the battle and glory as well as to clear a menace from our flank.” The sea king’s proud head lifted. “However that goes-for the sake of blood shed together, toil and hardship and peril in common, and lives owed each to the other, Mananaan Mac Lir and his host will be with you when you enter England!”

They clasped hands, wordlessly. And soon Mananaan set Skafloc and his Jotun horse off, and sailed for Ireland and Fand.

Skafloc rode his black stallion toward the distant Elfking. The horse was gaunt, still stepping high but with hunger in his belly. Skafloc did not look rich himself, his clothes were ragged and faded, his armour battered and rusty, the cloak he wrapped around his shoulders was worn thin. He had lost weight in his farings, the great muscles lay just under the skin and the skin was drawn tightly over the big bones. But he kept haughtily straight. Lines were graven deeply in his face, which had lost all youth and become like the face of an outlaw god-its softest showing a faint mockery, and most times a harsh aloofness. Only the fair wind-tossed hair was young. So might Loki look, riding to Vigrid plain on the last evening of the world.

He went over hills, the reborn year around him. It had rained in the morning and the ground was muddy, pools and rivulets glittering in the sunbeams. The grass grew strongly, a cool light green to the edge of sight; and the trees were budding forth, a frail tint of new life across their boughs, the vanguard of summer. It remained chilly; a strong wind gusted across the hills and whipped Skafloc’s cloak about him. But this was a wind of spring, frolicking and shouting, lashing the sluggishness out of winter blood. The sky stood high and altogether blue, the sun struck through white and grey clouds, lances of light smote the wet grass in gleams and sparkles. Thunder rolled from the darkened southeast, but against that smoky cloud-mass shone a rainbow.

The honking of geese came from overhead, the wander-birds were homeward bound. A thrush tried out his song in a dancing grove, and two squirrels played in a tree like little red fires.

Soon would come warm days and light nights, green woods and nodding flowers. Something stirred within Skafloc as he rode, the unfolding of a buried and almost forgotten gentleness.

O Freda, if you were with me—

Day slanted towards the west. Skafloc rode straight forward on his tireless horse, taking no pains to stay unseen. He went at an easy pace for the Jotun breed, so that the black stallion could snatch food on the way; but earth quivered beneath those hoofs. They were entering Faerie lands, the middle province of Alfheim, bound for the mountain fastnesses where the Elfking must be if he yet held out. They passed signs of war-burnt garths, broken weapons, clean-picked bones, all crumbling away with the speed of Faerie things. Now and again a fresh troll spoor showed, and Skafloc licked his lips.

Night rose, strangely warm and well lit after the realms whence he had come. He rode on, at times dozing in the saddle but never ceasing to listen. Well before the enemy horsemen crossed his path he heard them and buckled on his helmet.

They were six, dark powerful shapes in the starlight. He puzzled them—a mortal, in clothes and mail half elven and half Sidhe, on a steed akin to theirs though even bigger and craggier. They barred his path, and one shouted forth: “In the name of Illrede Troll-King, halt!”

Skafloc spurred his stallion and drew the sword as he lunged ahead. The blade flared hell-blue in the night. He rode full tilt in among that squad, and clove a helmet and skull and lopped another off ere the trolls were aware of it.

Then one struck at Skafloc from the left with a club, another from the right with an axe. Guiding horse with knees, he held shield between him and the first. His sword leaped to meet the second, tearing through the axe haft and the breast behind. Slewing the glaive about, Skafloc split the troll on his left from shoulder to waist. He plucked with one finger at the reins. His monster horse reared and struck out with forefeet that crunched the skull of the fifth troll.

The last screamed and sought to flee. Skafloc threw his sword in a gleaming bolt that went in the troll’s back and came out of his breast.

Thereafter he rode on, seeking the beleaguered Elfking. Near dawn he halted by a river for a short sleep.

He woke to the rustle of leaves and a faint shiver in the ground. Two trolls were stealing on him. He sprang to his feet, drawing sword though with no time to busk himself otherwise. They rushed. Through the shield and shoulder and heart of the first he hewed. At once he raised his dripping blade and the second troll could not stop fast enough to keep from spitting himself on it. Against that hard shock Skafloc held steady, braced by the unearthly strength that flowed from his weapon.

“This was nigh too easy,” he said; “but no doubt better sport will come along.”

He rode on through the day. About noon he found a cave where several trolls lay asleep. He killed them and ate their food. It mattered little to him that he was leaving a trail of corpses for anyone to follow. Let them!

Near dusk he reached the mountains. High and beautiful they reared, snowpeaks afloat in the sunset sky. He heard song of waterfalls and sough of pines. Strange, he thought, that such peace and loveliness was a place for slaughter. By rights, he should have been here with Freda and their love, not with a grim black horse and a sword of doom.

But so it went, so it went. And how went it for her?

He rode up the steeps and across a glacier on which his steed’s hoofs rang. Night spread across heaven, clear and cold at these heights, a rising near-full moon to turn the peaks into ghosts. A while later Skafloc heard, far and weird in the still spaces around him, the lowing of a lur horn. His heart jumped and he spurred the horse to a gallop, from crag to crag and over windy abysses. The air hooted in his ears and the echoes of iron horseshoes toned between the mountains.

Someone fought!

The harsh bray of a troll horn reached him, and soon the distance-dwarfed shout of warriors and clatter of weapons.

An arrow zipped past. He snarled and crouched low in the saddle. No time to deal with the archer; bigger game was at hand.

He burst over a ridge and looked across moonlit white up—and-down to the battlestead. Men might have seen only a peak on which whirled snow-devils, and heard only a curious note in the wind. Skafloc’s witch-sight pierced beneath. He saw the mountaintop as a high-walled, frost-bedecked castle whose towers climbed for the stars. Ringed about it on the upper slopes were the black tents of a great troll army. One pavilion was of more than ordinary size, with a dark ensign over it; and from the highest turret of the castle flew the banner of the Elfking. The overlords had met.

The trolls were storming the fortress. Like dogs they yelped under the walls, they raised ladders and sought to climb, they hid the foundations with their numbers. Many engines of war did they have, mangonels that cast fireballs over the parapets, wheeled towers trundling ahead full of armed men, rams beating on the gates, trebuchets to hurl boulders against masonry. The shouts, trampling of feet and hoofs, clash of metal, roar of drums and horns, filled the night with a storm of sound that started avalanches grinding and smoking downward and made the ice-fields ring an answer.

The elves stood on their battlements and fought the trolls off. Swords gleamed, spears and arrows darkened the moon, boiling oil gushed from cauldrons, ladders were upset—but the trolls came on, and the elves were few. This siege was drawing to an end.

Skafloc pulled out his sword. The blade hissed through the scabbard and poured moonlight over its length in cold ripples. “Hai-ah!” he shouted, spurred his horse and went down the slope before him in a cloud of snow.

He did not toil through the ravine that barred his way. At the brink, his thighs felt the stallion’s muscles bunch, and then he was soaring through the middle of the sky with stars everywhere around him. He struck the farther side with a shock that slammed his teeth together; but at once he rushed up the mountainside.

The troll camp was almost empty. Skafloc reined in, his horse pawing the wind, and leaned over to snatch a brand from a fire. The speed of his gallop whipped it to a full blaze as he rode around setting tents aflame. In a short while many were burning and sparks were spreading to the rest. Skafloc hastened on toward the castle gates, busking himself fully while he did.

As before, he carried shield on left arm, sword in right hand, and steered the horse with knees and words. Ere the trolls at the main gate were aware of him he had struck down three and his beast had trampled as many.

Then the outermost of that mass turned on him. His sword leaped and whirred and shrieked, clove with a belling through helm and hauberk, flesh and bone, to rise streaming. Never did its death-dance halt, and Skafloc mowed trolls like ripe wheat.

They surged around him, but none could touch the iron he wore and few of their blows landed. Those that did, he seldom felt-not when the sword was in his grasp!

He swung sideways and a head rolled off its shoulders. Another swing, and he had opened a horseman’s belly. A third blow shore through helm and skull and brain. A warrior on foot stabbed at him with a spear, scraping his arm; he leaned down and struck the troll to earth. But most of those afoot died under the kicks and bites of the Jotun horse.

Clang and screech of outraged metal rose beneath the moon. Blood steamed in the trampled snow, corpses wallowed in its pools. The black stallion and his rider and the blade of terror rose high over all, carving a road to the gates.

Hew, sword, hew!

Panic fell on the trolls and they scrambled to get clear. Skafloc shouted: “Hai, Alfheim! Victory-Father rides with us tonight! Sally forth, elves, come out and kill!”

A ring of fire, the burning camp, walled in the battlefield. The trolls saw and were dismayed. Also, they knew a Jotun steed and a haunted sword when they met them. What manner of being fought against Trollheim?

Skafloc rode his rearing stallion back and forth before the gate. His mail gleamed wet with blood in the light of moon and fire. His eyes flung back a blue like that of his blade. And he taunted his foes and called on the elves to sally.

The frightened whisper ran among the milling trolls: “-It is Odin, come to make war-no, he has two eyes, it is Thor-it is Loki, risen from his chains, the end of the world is nigh-it is a mortal possessed by a demon-it is Death—”

Lur horns blew, the gates swung wide, and the elves rode forth. Fewer by far than the trolls were they, but a new hope lit their haggard faces and gleamed from their eyes. At their head, on a milk-white charger, his crown aglitter in the moonlight and his hair and beard flowing hoar over byrnie and dusk-blue cloak, came the Elfking.

“We had not looked to see you alive again, Skafloc,” he called.

“Nonetheless you have,” replied the man, with no trace of his old awe-for nothing, he thought, could frighten him who had spoken with the dead and sailed beyond the world and had naught left to lose anyhow.

The Elfking’s weird eyes rested on the rune sword. “I know what weapon that is,” he murmured. “I do not know if it is good for Alfheim to have it on our side. Well—” He raised his voice. “Forward, elves!”

His men charged the trolls, and bloody was that battle. Swords and axes rose and fell and rose afresh dripping, metal cried out and shattered, spears and arrows clouded the sky, horses trampled the dead underfoot or screamed with wounds, warriors fought and gasped and sank to earth.

“Hola, Trollheim! To me, to me!” Illrede rallied his folk and got some of them into a wedge that he led to split the elves. His ebon stallion snorted thunder, his axe never rested and never missed, and elves began to shy away from him. Above the dragonskin coat, his face was icy green in the moonlight, a maelstrom of rage; the tendrils of his beard writhed, the lamps of his eyes burned black.

Skafloc saw him and uttered a wolf-howl. He brought his Jotun horse about and pressed toward the troll-king. His sword screamed and crashed, hewing enemies as a woodman hews saplings, a blur of blue flame in the night.

“Ha!” roared Illrede. “Make way! He is mine!” They rode at each other down a suddenly cleared path. Bur when the troll-king saw the rune sword, he choked and reined in.

Skafloc’s laughter barked at him. “Aye, your weird is upon you. Darkness comes for you and your whole evil race.”

“The evil done in the world was never all troll work,” said Illrede quietly. “It seems to me that you have done a deed more wicked than any of mine in bringing that blade to earth again. Whatever his nature, which the Norns and not himself gave, no troll would do such a thing.”

“No troll would dare!” sneered Skafloc, and rode in upon him.

Illrede chopped valiantly out. The axe caught the Jotun horse in the shoulder. It did not go deep, but the stallion screamed and reared. While Skafloc fought to stay in the saddle, Illrede cut at him.

The man got his shield in between, but it split, though it kept the edge from him; and Skafloc rocked in his seat from that blow. Illrede pressed closer, to smash at the man’s head. The helmet was dented, and only the uncanny strength lent by the sword kept Skafloc from swooning.

Illrede raised his axe anew. Dizzily, Skafloc smote at him. That was a weak blow. Yet sword and axe met in a shower of sparks, and with a loud noise the axe burst asunder. Skafloc shook his head to clear it. He laughed and cut off Illrede’s left arm.

The troll-king sagged. Skafloc’s blade whined down and took off his right arm.

“It does not become a warrior to play with a helpless foe,” gasped Illrede. “The sword is doing this, not you.”

Skafloc killed him.

Now fear came upon every troll, and they backed up in disorder. The elves pushed furiously against them. Din of battle rang between the mountains. In the van of the elves, the Elfking fought even while he egged them on. But it was Skafloc, riding everywhere, harvesting men with a blade that seemed to drip blue fire as well as blood, who struck the deepest terror.

At last the trolls broke and fled. Hotly did the elves give chase, cutting them down, driving them into the burning camp. Not many escaped.

The Elfking sat his horse in the first thin dawnlight and looked over the death heaped about the castle walls. A cold breeze ruffled his unhelmeted hair and the mane and tail of his horse. Skafloc rode to him, gaunt and weary, painted with blood and brains, though with no look of lessened revengefulness.

“That was a great victory,” said the Elfking. “Still, we were almost the last elf stronghold. The trolls have riddled Alfheim through and through.”

“Not for long,” answered Skafloc. “We will go forth against them. They are spread thinly, and every free elf now skulking as outlaw will join us. We can outfit from the trolls we kill, if naught else. Hard will the war be; but my sword bears victory.

“Also,” he added slowly, “I have a new standard to raise in the forefront of our main army. It ought to shake the foe.” And he lifted a spearshaft whereon was impaled the head of Illrede. The dead eyes seemed to watch and the mouth to grin with menace.

The Elfking winced. “Grim is your heart, Skafloc,” he said. “You have changed since last I met you. Well, let it be as you wish.”