The Wizard And The Warlord (24 page)

“Stay!” Sigurd exclaimed. “For what? It wouldn’t take you long to kill me, once you decided that I wasn’t going to give you the box. I know you were plotting something against me.”

Halfdane turned his angry gaze upon Sigurd. “And do you think that Bjarnhardr and Jotull aren’t? You can’t suppose that they are totally honorable men who care for nothing but your welfare?”

“No, I don’t,” Sigurd replied. “There’s no one I trust anymore. Not you, not them. I’m going my own way about opening that box and I’ll take it extremely ill if you attempt to interfere. Your intention is to get the box from me. You’ve tried to deceive me, and I don’t trust the motives behind anything you do.”

Bjarnhardr interrupted, “Those are fighting words, Sigurd. Why don’t you just call Halfdane a liar and be done with it?”

Halfdane took a step toward Bjarnhardr. “Keep your tongue silent, or I’ll finish the job of killing you this time. You’re not all that pleasant to look at and never were, so your removal would be a favor to everyone. 1 shall settle with you later for your part in this dispute. But for the present, the issue is between me and the Scipling.”

Sigurd gestured toward the door with his sword. “Then the argument is finished, if that’s true. I refuse to go back to Hrafnborg under any circumstances with a man who is certain to be my assassin.”

Bjarnhardr chuckled as a half-dozen Dokkalfar slunk down the narrow stair and crept behind his chair, swords and axes ready. “The odds are getting more even every moment, Halfdane. You must know you can’t take the Scipling and the box out of here without a fight. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to go, and I don’t think he shall. After all, he’s a guest at Svinhagahall and I’m obliged to prevent his falling into the hands of ruffianly outlaws such as yourselves. With much sorrow and regret, I fear you must depart without Scipling or box, and which of the two is the greater loss is up to you to decide. Will you retreat like a reasonable man, Halfdane, or shall we be forced to make it messy and unpleasant?” He smiled and nodded toward the dark, waiting figure of Jotull, who looked from Sigurd to Halfdane and on to Bjarnhardr with the calm, intent gaze of a bird of prey watching its target.

Halfdane answered by tossing his cloak out of the way of his sword, and the Ljosalfar instantly stood on their guard for battle. Jotull drew his sword and held his staff in his left hand.

“No, no,” Bjarnhardr said, waving Jotull aside. “I have a new follower to fight for me. Sigurd is more than anxious to match wits with you, Halfdane. I gave him that sword, and this will be the time for him to try it out. Nothing could delight me more than seeing your blood on the blade that I put into his hand.”

Halfdane’s black brows were scowling as he glanced from Sigurd to the sword and back to Bjarnhardr. With a contemptuous snort, he sheathed his own sword and folded his arms. “I refuse to fight when the match is so unequal. It would be nothing short of murder.”

“That’s not true!” Sigurd’s eyes flashed as he stepped closer, brandishing his sword menacingly. “I’m no novice, nor was I before I came to your realm. Your refusal to fight is an insult to me, and I challenge you to defend yourself or die. Besides this insult. I also have Thongullsfiord to avenge. I defy you to deny that you caused the trolls to drive everyone out and caused the blame to be put upon my innocent grandmother, so that she died of the shame.”

Halfdane swelled with anger, but still he did not put a hand on his sword. “I do deny it and I still refuse to cut short your career of stupidity and ignorance. Get yourself ready to go back.”

“My lord,” Dagrun said, stepping forward. “He doesn’t mean to come away peacefully. I think this is the time to tell him your secret.”

“No indeed, Dagrun, not in this place, and not at swords’ ends,” Halfdane replied impatiently.

“Keeping secrets is bad policy,” Dagrun muttered, stepping back reluctantly, still scowling anxiously.

“It’s no secret to me,” Sigurd retorted. “I heard you boasting that you could get the box into your hands with no struggle at any time you chose. Remember talking to Dagrun one night in the small horse barn? I was there and I heard everything. You can’t deny that you were plotting to trick me and perhaps eventually to kill me if I didn’t hand the box over to you.”

Halfdane and Dagrun exchanged a startled glance, as if they were trying to recall exactly what had been said.

“We plotted no such thing,” Dagrun began furiously, but Halfdane bade him be silent. He looked at Sigurd, dark with brooding menace.

“We’ve wasted enough time. We’re taking you back with us, and one day I hope you’ll thank us for it. You’ve been blinded by a lot of gifts and flattery, not to mention your own natural arrogance. And even that sword which you’re trying to provoke me with is an evil trick on your gullible disposition. I recognize the sword and I promise you that no one who was a true friend would give that sword to you. It has passed through the hands of several owners, all of whom committed atrocious killings with it. It has a curse on it that compells its owner to infamous deeds. The best thing you could do with it is to return it to its source, preferably sticking it through his heart.”

Sigurd glared into Halfdane’s eyes, burning with shame and indignation that Halfdane would speak to him as if he were a green youth who didn’t know how to live his own life. Rolfr’s reaction to the sword surged through his memory, which made him all the angrier at all Ljosalfar, whose sole object seemed to be the disappointing of all his ambitions. The sword in his hand almost quivered with his rage and yearning for battle, yet Halfdane’s steady eyes threatened to stare him down.

Bjarnhardr’s voice was taut with excitement. “You’d better put on your gauntlet, Halfdane. I think he means to kill you, and he could do it, too, if you’re not careful.”

Halfdane made no move to put on the gauntlet in his belt or to draw his sword. Sigurd had never hated anyone so fiercely as he hated Halfdane at that moment. The sword did not waver; the room seemed to dim around him as his heart began to hammer in his chest and his breathing deepened. He recognized the choking feeling of impending murder and succumbed to it wholeheartedly. He swung the sword at Halfdane, feeling the metal bite into flesh as Halfdane threw up one arm in an effort to protect himself from the blow, which caught him fairly off guard. He had barely cleared his sword from its scabbard when Sigurd ran him through. With a final incredulous look at Sigurd, he collapsed to the ground. No one was more amazed than the watching Ljosalfar, who broke into a sudden bereaved howl and charged forward with the object of instant and gratifying revenge upon their warlord’s slayer. Sigurd retrieved his sword and leaped away. Bjarnhardr’s Dokkalfar surged forward to protect him, and the hall echoed with the clamor of swords on shields and voices raised in fury and mortal pain. Sigurd scarcely knew with whom he fought; he slashed away with a berserkr blindness until the last of his opponents turned and skipped over the litter of weapons and bodies in pursuit of the retreating Ljosalfar.

Jotull sheathed his sword and chuckled in the sudden silence, looking around for Bjarnhardr, who had been defending himself rather desperately in the stairway. The warlord limped forward, wheezing and coughing but still grinning.

“We foxed them, Jotull,” he gasped, sinking down in his chair to catch his wind. “And Sigurd killed Halfdane. Oh, wasn’t it splendid? The fool had no idea what was coming to him. Sigurd! Where are you? You’ve earned that sword a thousand times over, and I shall forever be in your debt. Where’s Halfdane’s carcass, Jotull? The gauntlet is mine.”

Sigurd began to look around him, after he had sheathed the sword. All but one of Bjarnhardr’s men lay dead or severely wounded, but if any of Halfdane’s men were killed, their companions must have carried them away, including the body of Halfdane. Jotull cursed as he searched and Bjarnhardr’s triumphant grin faded into a petulant scowl.

“Then follow them, Jotull! They can’t be far away yet. I wonder if Rolfr had something to do with spiriting his body away so speedily. If he has, I’ll—”

The person in question obligingly presented himself from his hiding place in an old storeroom. “I didn’t wish to fight against my own friends and relatives,” he said. “I prefer to stay neutral as long as possible. But I didn’t take Halfdane’s body away; how could I, hiding in here all the while?”

Sigurd didn’t quite know how to look at Rolfr or speak to him. His initial fierce elation dissipated quickly, but he felt obligated to maintain a certain swagger around Bjarnhardr and Jotull, so he pretended to be vastly disappointed that the Ljosalfar had carried away Halfdane and his gauntlet. Bjarnhardr’s mood remained nasty, and Jotull departed in ill humor to organize the battered defenders of Svinhagahall into a pursuit party.

“We can’t leave until they get back,” Bjarnhardr growled, flinging himself into his chair and rubbing his maimed leg like a bear nursing a wounded paw. For the rest of the day, he drank himself into a stupor, and when he awoke hours later he fell into worse temper upon discovering that Jotull and the others had not yet returned.

Sigurd and Rolfr kept out of his way, particularly when he began threatening his attendants with his sword every time they came near him. He raved and roared far into the nighttime hours, but his noise was not the only cause of the Scipling’s wakefulness.

Sigurd sat by the fire in his comfortable room, feeling chilled and lonely. At last, he went in search of Rolfr, unable to bear his misery in solitude any longer.

“Rolfr, are you asleep?” he whispered gruffly at the door, where a faint gleam of firelight showed.

A dark figure near the fire stirred and answered without looking around. “No, I’m still awake. You might as well come in. It sounds as if Bjarnhardr is still savage. We won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”

Sigurd sat down on a stool near Rolfr and stared into the coals for a long while in silence, matched by a despondent silence from Rolfr. “I know you have a right to hate me. Rolfr,” he finally said. “I guess this is a good reason for us to part, and I certainly wouldn’t blame you. I imagine you’ve been thinking thoughts of revenge for Halfdane, haven’t you? At the very least, you’ll probably leave me here and go back to Hrafnborg—something I can never do now. Ragnhild will wish my sending had drowned me that night, and I’m not so sure it wouldn’t have been for the better of everyone. I wish I hadn’t done it, Roifr,” he added in a sudden burst of regret. “Something about holding that sword in my hand made me feel like murder. I haven’t really felt at all proud of myself, when I think about how Halfdane tried to help me—and he did save my life twice.”

Rolfr sighed and hunched his shoulders. “You’ll soon get over it, Sigurd. With Jotull and Bjarnhardr to urge you along, you’ll probably forget about Halfdane. Don’t worry about me, I’ll stay with you until—until what I foresaw comes to pass. What’s done is done, Sigurd, so there’s no use in torturing both of us by looking back and wishing you hadn’t done it. If you don’t stop brooding about it, you’ll have to go through the rest of your life with things falling down from the walls or shooting around the room, as that poker is doing.” He nodded toward a sooty poker which Sigurd’s natural power was pushing across the floor in erratic patterns. Most of the objects hanging on wall pegs had fallen to the floor with Sigurd’s inadvertent glances.

“I’m an enemy even to myself,” Sigurd said bitterly, as a hot coal leaped out of the fire with a loud pop and burned a hole in his pants before he could brush it away. “It seems that everyone I come near loses his luck. Maybe you’d be better off to leave me, Rolfr. It might lengthen your life.”

“No, Siggi, you might not know it, but you need me.” Rolfr thoughtfully stirred up the fire and glanced at Sigurd. “There is a way you could partially repay the Ljosalfar for Halfdane’s death, if you cared to do it.”

Gloomily Sigurd rubbed the burned place on his knee. “I haven’t got anything worth having, except my life, and that’s not worth a great deal when you consider there’s a sending following me that seems determined to destroy me. But go ahead and tell me your idea. It can’t be any worse than handing myself over for their revenge.”

Rolfrs eyes were bright and intent. “You could keep Bjarnhardr and Jotull from having whatever it is inside your box. It’s very valuable to them, and Halfdane apparently thought it was worth keeping away from them, if he was willing to lose his life coming to get you and the box. We can escape from Svinhagahall without much trouble, because so far you’ve showed no inclination for leaving. We could find our way back to Hrafnborg and get Mikla to help us get to Svartafell. If you could somehow fill Halfdane’s place, the Ljosalfar will forgive you, and Halfdane won’t have died for nothing.”

Sigurd listened to Bjarnhardr roaring irritably at his servants and calling for Slyngr, who would never answer his summons again. He thought of the plentiful food and fires and ease which he had grown accustomed to and he thought of Jotull’s black powers ranged against him if he did decide to escape. He also thought about the sending, which kept him a prisoner within the safe walls of Svinhagahali more effectively than locks and bars ever would have done.

“I don’t think we could survive, just the two of us alone in the dark,” he said. “You can’t shoot and neither of us knows the spells for discouraging trolls. I think we’re safer to pretend to go along with Bjarnhardr’s plans, and I’m not altogether certain there won’t be someone somewhere who will refuse to settle for anything less than blood for Halfdane. Someone like Ragnhild.” He shuddered suddenly, with the strange feeling that she might be thinking about him at that moment. Having her for an enemy could be unpleasant. The braided chain of her hair around his neck felt more like a noose than a token of esteem. He took it off quickly and would have thrown it into the fire except that he stopped to save her little ring, which fitted his least finger; then it occurred to him that an extra bowstring was never unwelcome, so he shoved the braided hair into his pocket instead of burning it.

Rolfr turned back to gaze into the fire without speaking. After a long interval, he said, “Halfdane must have been right when he said that your sword leads its owner to commit infamous deeds. The killing of Halfdane was the first and I am likely to become the next. I wonder what’s going to become of you, Siggi.” He poked at the fire without looking up.