Web of the Norns

VIII

The road wandered up the wide valley and they stuck to it, rather than cut across the furrowed fields. About mid-afternoon the winter ended.

That was the only way that Grant could describe it. They trudged along the road, ankle deep in the snow, with the big flakes falling slowly on all sides. The sky seemed much lighter ahead, then Grant noticed what appeared to be a line drawn across the road. The near side of the road was covered with snow, but beyond the line the warm sun shone on the brown dirt road and green fields. They passed the invisible barrier with no difficulty but, on looking up, Grant saw that none of the snowflakes were getting through. The ones that approached simply vanished.

On three sides stretched a warm and fertile landscape; behind was a wall of whirling flakes and a frigid winter scene. Grant looked at it dumbfounded.

Sunshine and a warm breeze seemed to please Aker. He opened the collar of his jerkin and took a deep breath of the grass and tree-scented air.

We're getting close to the army. It's good to feel a little sun on the back. That's why I always like to work for the Good Duke Darikus — he's got gout and can't stand cold weather. The sun always shines on Darikus. That's what they say."

"You mean he's causing this warm weather?"

"Sure. He casts a mean spell. Built this one up twenty-five years ago, I hear. Hasn't failed yet. It's always midsummer around him, no matter what the weather should be."

They had topped a rise in the road and before them lay a green meadow bright with tents and pavilions and dark with the figures of many men. Most of them wore leather or chain armour; a few, mounted on the six-legged horse-like animals, wore full armour of silver and gold. The air was filled with the murmur of many voices, of shouted orders and the clank of steel and sound of bugles. A guard tent stood close by the road, a half dozen pike-men lounging around it.

The nearest soldier sighted Grant and Aker. He levelled his pike across the road and challenged them in a sleepy voice.

"Halt and be recognized. What business here?"

"Free soldiers to serve the Good Duke Darikus." Satisfied, the soldier lowered his weapon and shouted toward the tent.

"Hey, Corporal, couple more guys want to join up."

There was a stirring in the tent and a young man with long, curling moustaches poked his head out. He looked the two men over with an insulting stare. His gaze fixed on Grant's sagging form, scanned the indoor pallor and the gentle look that was part of the blondness of his hair and eyebrows. The corner of the man's mouth turned back in a sneer.

"Looks like pretty poor material, but I suppose you better take them to the Duke — he'll hire anybody."

Aker spat full in the man's face and loosened his sword in the scabbard.

"Right you are, sonny, he hired you. I was fighting with the Good Duke when you were still peeking under your nurse's skirt." Aker started to walk away but turned and added, as a happy afterthought, "Want to fight?"

The corporal wiped his beet-red face and opened and shut his mouth like a fish out of water. He looked more closely at Aker this time. He saw the man's tremendous girth and mighty arms under the travel-stained leather and thought twice. His bead popped back into the tent. The soldiers grinned happily and a pair detached themselves to go with Aker and Grant.

They made their way through the camp and up to the largest tent, a sprawling construction of many-coloured cloth. A pennant flew over the entrance, a black, mailed fist squeezing out drops of blood against a white field. The pikemen saluted the flag. Grant and Aker saluted also, then entered the tent.

Armed soldiers stood around the walls. Two littered tables stood in the centre; a thin clerk with ink-stained fingers sat at one, an old man wearing a gold coronet sat at the other. Aker stepped forward and saluted with a thump of his fist against his chest.

"Hail, Duke. I am here to serve you."

"Hail, hell. Who are you and what's that with you?" the Duke replied testily, and shifted his bandage-wrapped foot on its cushion.

"Aker Amen and spear slave."

Grant started to protest his new status but closed his mouth when he realised that Aker undoubtedly knew best how to handle the situation. The affair with the corporal of the guard proved that. The clerk was rapidly flipping pages in a giant, leather-bound book. He ran his finger down one page and then read from the selected line.

"Amen, Aker, born Thin, Master Swordsman, Axe Expert, Excelling Infighter, qualified on dirk, mace, arbolest, crossbow, scimiter. ."

"All right, all right!" The testy voice of the Good Duke interrupted him. Two gold Enn a day, and loot for you, loot for the slave and pick of the captured weapons. Done?"

"Done," Aker roared. "We fight to the death!" He slammed the flat of his band down on the table, signifying his acceptance of the contract. The Good Duke slammed his down too and winced as the vibrations shook his gouty foot. Grant wondered if he should slam also, but Aker turned and pushed him out of the tent.

There were more men milling about now, and Grant saw why when they formed a ragged line leading to a giant stew kettle. He and Aker quickly joined the end of the line. As they shuffled forward he thought over the recent, past, then turned to Aker.

"You never told me — who are we going to fight?"

"I don't know. What difference does it make? Get some chow, you're next."

When they each had a horn cup full of steaming stew and were finishing it off as they walked along looking for tent space, Aker spoke again with his mouth full. "Ask an officer. He might know."

"Maybe later." Grant walked, absorbing the sun warmth and the rich mingled flavour of meats and potatoes and rice and unidentified vegetables. He was beginning: to accept Aker Amen's philosophy. "Not a bad stew.”

The Duke was planning to attack the Tyrant Helbida, whoever that was. The fifth man Grant asked told him that much, but no one knew when they would attack, not even the Good Duke himself. According to the talk of the camp, every evening at sundown His Goodness cast a pair of twelve-sided astrological dice onto a silken cloth. So far the omens and portents of the dice had not been favourable for the morrow, so the army stayed in the encampment, eating and guzzling, lounging and quarrelling, and polishing up on the arts of slaughter.

Twice a day, everyone turned out to the drill field, the soldiers and officers rounding up all the reluctant novices and conscripts that could not escape, and herded them to the field where they hammered away at each other with an earsplitting rattle and clamour. The experienced soldiers worked out against each other with live steel; beginners and those less competent were given wooden swords and poles for spears.

The novices were prevented from leaving the field during drill, but otherwise were not watched, so Grant transferred himself from the spear men to the group learning the broadsword. The reluctant beginners belaboured each other, sweating and bruised, often angry and cursing, urged on by shouts from the officers. Grant found quickly when a parry was poor by picking himself up from the dust. But he husbanded his strength, put brains into his fighting, was watchful of techniques and thought about his mistakes when he picked himself up. . and he kept up the practice in the after hours when most of the others left the field.

In a few days Grant sported a mask of colourful bruises and lumps, and a vastly improved fighting technique. Aker Amen, strolling over after working out with the swordsmen, sometimes separated Grant from his novice opponent and picked up a wooden sword to give Grant a few painful but useful demonstrations of professional swordsmanship.

The fifth day a new element was added. For the entertainment of the professional soldiers and the officers who lined up on the sides, shouting encouragement and making bets, the end of the afternoon's drill was turned to a free-for-all. The trainees were turned loose on the field with instructions to fight, and keep fighting until disarmed or unconscious. The only rule was to keep the combat single combat still, but the rule was not enforced. Broken bones and missing teeth were in evidence from the moment the fray started.

One group of thickset louts, obviously farm conscripts, were the terror of the field; they stuck together, attacking in such close sequence that no outsider had time to collect his scattered wits between one bout and another. Soon their end of the field was scattered with the defeated, and a wide clear space was being given them by the others. Their leader was a young giant named Splug, who seemed to be beating down everyone he encountered by sheer weight and strength and fatness.

Grant tried to stay to one side and fight a quiet defensive fight without attracting attention to himself, but this time he had an appointment with destiny. He was due to find out something about himself, a fact he had kept hidden for an entire lifetime.

Splug saw him from the distance and shouted, then charged with a roar of laughter, evidently deceived by Grant's mild expression and unassuming stoop.

Slobbering, he swung a simple overhand blow down at Grant with the clumsy simplicity of chopping wood. Grant parried it easily and thumped the other in the ribs on the return stroke. Angered, Splug swung again with tremendous force and weight, his muscles standing out under his fat. Grant's guard held, but by sheer push, he was forced to give ground. Stepping back, he found a wooden sword tip inserted between his feet, tangling them, and lost balance. One of the other farm hands was slyly helping his leader. As Grant tottered, Splug cracked him across the head and roared with laughter. When Grant stepped away from the entanglement and tried to return the blow, a foot tripped him from another direction, and the wooden sword hit his shoulder with a white burst of pain. Splug laughed again.

At that moment Grant felt one of his fits coming on. The ringing began in his ears and the pressure in his temples and the distance from sounds. Why now, of all times?

The brutes were all around him, all wide and sturdy, and enough alike to be brothers, probably conscripted from the same inbred farm town. They all worked together; if Grant fell they would probably beat and trample him into the ground. The officers couldn't see what was happening. He had to fight.

He felt as if he were growing. Everything else seemed small and clear and the wooden sword seemed as light in his hand as a matchstick. The blows he received felt light and distant and the blows he struck seemed like taps. He swung countless taps at things that looked like Splug, or perhaps the same tap over and over; it was all the same. But through the distance, he was aware that he was enjoying himself. He felt relaxed. There was no resistance either inside or outside, as in a dream.

Then startlingly, everything went black. He came up to the surface again, sitting on the ground, holding his aching head in both hands. An officer was standing over him, slapping a weighted cosh into the palm of his hand thoughtfully. He scowled as Grant looked up.

"Just keep your temper after this, me lad. We're here for practice, not for skull cracking."

Grant looked around dazedly at a circle of unconscious figures. Splug was a distance away, sitting up, holding his bloody face and moaning. Across the field the other fighters had stopped and were watching Grant. The entire thing made no sense.

The officer said, "You had reason enough. They were asking for trouble. But when you started to ram the broken end of your sword down the fat one's throat you were asking for trouble. I had to tap you one. Just try to save that kind of thing for the enemy from now on."

Looking around with slowly dawning understanding, Grant saw that all the men were Splug's gang. A few were beginning to crawl painfully to their feet and stagger away.

He felt himself blush. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to …”

"I don't say you didn't give fair warning, howling like that," grinned the officer. "But try to hold your temper down next time."

The grizzled bearlike man walked away, his gold armour glinting, but Grant stood up slowly, thinking of what he had been told — that he had a hot temper!

This was a thing he had never known. What he had been calling fits, and thinking of as illness, was temper, a hot, sudden wish to kill, too primitive for thought, too savage for civilized expression. It was too strange for recognition as part of the Grant they had always called a sweet boy, and a little angel — or later a sensitive type. Finding no outlet of action or thought for the emotion, he had had fits, rigid and shaking, with his mind a blank until the anger passed.

This time the temper had found outlet. He spun slowly on his heel, surveying his victims. The thought occurred that there might be a berserker, among his ancestry. From the Swedish side of his family, he had inherited his blond hair and almost white brows. He could have inherited his disposition also. The ancient Swedes were the people who occasionally produced berserkers, men of apparently gentle disposition who, in battle, changed and killed as savagely and blindly as uncaged tigers.

He stood there in the torn field, looking gentle and worried, not as skinny as before, but still a slim, tall figure with a scholar's stoop and a delicate look. Yet none of the others sneered at his slumped figure, and they left a wide space around him as they returned to their fighting.

He swung the broken sword in an idle pattern as he walked off, badly worried with the wonder of how close he had been the other times during his life. How near had he been to committing murder when he thought he was just being sick?