Bounding and dodging between the clamorous glaives, a flying white frenzy, Leea called out: “Oho, Skafloc, why does not that girl of yours who makes such a thing of caring for you come dance with us for luck?”
Skafloc did not break the flow:
Swiftly goes the sword-play. Skald who lately chanted gangs unto the gameboard. Grim are stakes we play for. Mock not at the mortal may who is not dancing. Better luck she brings me by a kiss than magic.
But then a shudder went through the elves; for Leea, harking more to the words of Skafloc than to their beat, had danced into one of the blades. Red was the slash across her silken shoulders. She went on in the measures, her blood sprinkling the folk about her. Skafloc forced cheer into his tones :
Swiftly goes the sword-play. Some must lost the gamble. Norns alone are knowing now who throws the dice best. Winner of the wicked weapon-game we know not, but our foes will bitter battle find in Alfheim.
However, other women, shaken by Leea’s misfortune, were missing the hairsplitting rhythm and being slashed. Imric called a halt ere someone should be slain and bring the very worst luck, and the feast broke up in ill-contented silence or furtive whisperings.
Skafloc went troubled with Freda to their rooms. There he left her for a while. He came back with a broad silver-chased girdle. On its inside was fastened a flat vial, also of silver.
He gave it to Freda. “Let this be my parting gift to you,” he said quietly. “I got it of Imric, but I would that you wore it. For though I still think we shall win, I am not so sure after that cursed sword dance.”
She took it, wordlessly. Skafloc said: “In the vial is a rare and potent drug. Should bad luck befall you and foes come nigh, drink it. You will be as one dead for several days, and belike any who see you will not think to do more than leave you or cast you outside; such is the way of trolls with a stranger’s corpse. When you awaken you may have a chance to slip free.”
“What use escaping, if you are dead?” asked Freda sorrowfully. “Better I should die too.”
“Maybe. But the trolls would not kill you at once, and you Christians are forbidden self-slaughter, are you not?” Skafloc smiled wearily. ” Tis not the most cheerful of farewell gifts, dearest one, but ’tis the best I have.”
“No,” she breathed. “I will take it, and thank you. But we have a better gift, one we can give to each other.”
“Aye, so,” he cried, and before long, both of them were again, for a while, merry.
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?”