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.