The Wizard And The Warlord (11 page)

“Oh, nonsense!” Rolfr exclaimed. “He’s going to conjure a snake on her plate or something funny like that, so all the hair can laugh at her. I tried it once, but snakes seem to elude me somehow. All I got were worms, and the cook was nearly dismissed over it. Mikla, tell me how to conjure snakes.”

Mikla began to protest that he wasn’t about to spend his free time teaching magic to Rolfr. Sigurd preceded them down the hill. Rounding a small cow byre, he halted suddenly and stepped quickly backward. Rolfr collided with him and exclaimed, “What’s the matter with you, Siggi? It’s just one of the cows got loose from the barn, not a—” He stopped suddenly, drawing in a long breath. “That’s no cow of ours!”

A hulking shadow lurked in the lee of the barn, an enormous thing—or things, if it were more than one creature. Sigurd thought he could see three heads in the dark. He moved a step closer, and something set up a menacing growling that chilled his blood worse than any rival he had ever fought. When he moved, it moved too.

Mikla lit his staff and thrust it forward. Three pair of eyes gleamed redly in its light. The bulky shadow lunged forward with savage snarling and a chopping of three sets of wolfish, white teeth. Sigurd glimpsed three horselike faces with sharp pricking ears and wisps of matted mane. Eyes, teeth, and flaring nostrils glared with a blue, unnatural light as the thing sprang forward with a chuckling neigh of evil anticipation.

Mikla threw himself in front of Sigurd, a fire spell exploding from his fingertips. With a savage bellow, the creature reared aloft on two hind legs and pawed at the wall of flame with its enormous front hooves. Sigurd staggered back, appalled, unable to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. He reached for his sword, an old practice weapon Rolfr had given him, but he knew it was worse than useless against such a creature.

Mikla hurled spells at it until it backed away, shaking its heads in annoyance. With a last threatening growl, it turned and trotted arrogantly away, keeping its baleful eyes fixed on Sigurd until it vanished into a ravine behind the barrow mounds.

The three friends immediately rushed toward the hall, tearing open the door and piling inside helter-skelter, with no thought for making a dignified appearance.

Several of the Alfar looked up from their gaming and drinking in consternation. The light and safety of the hall acted as a swift restorative to Mikla’s wits. He gripped his staff and hurried toward Halfdane’s quarters. Dagrun rose up protectively beside the door, demanding, “What do you want? Halfdane doesn’t need to be disturbed over every small broil.”

“This is no small broil,” Mikla retorted. “We just fought off a fearsome sending by the cow barns. It looks like something sent by Bjarnhardr. I think Halfdane would like to know about it immediately, rather than discover it for himself.”

“Then I shall tell him,” Dagrun began, still barring the door, but the door opened behind him and Halfdane pushed him aside to scowl a moment at Mikla, Rdlfr, and Sigurd.

“Another sending from Bjarnhardr?” he rumbled. “It doesn’t surprise me. He used to send one every winter to enliven the long, dark days. I shall send word to Jotull, and he shall work his magic on it, if he has a mind to.” He smiled wryly, a bitter twist of the lips, as he mentioned Jotull.

Mikla shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a sending directed against yourself, my lord. The thing seemed to take a sinister interest in Sigurd, in my opinion.”

Halfdane looked at Sigurd sharply. “Is that so? I might have known it would not take Bjarnhardr long to find you here. It’s the box that he wants. I trust you have it in a safe place?”

“Why would Bjarnhardr want to kill me with a sending?” Sigurd demanded. “He’s not the one who destroyed Thongullsfjord. He and I have never even seen each other. Why would he want to kill a perfect stranger?”

Halfdane replied with a snort of contempt. “Why are you so anxious to jump to his defense, if he’s such a stranger? You are as ill-conditioned and unwise as a young man can be, Sigurd. All it takes to open that box is a key, once you are out of the way, and if Bjarnhardr had been the one to find you on that deserted fell, you would not be alive now. Very likely none of us in Hrafnborg would have survived this long. You think I am a cruel taskmaster and a tyrant, and therefore Bjarnhardr must be kind and gentle. I assure you, you couldn’t be more wrong, Sigurd.”

“I’m not wrong about being little better than a prisoner here,” Sigurd flared. “I was brought here against my will and I’m being kept here against my will. All I can assume is that only an enemy would keep me here as a prisoner!”

Dagrun interposed himself with a furious scowl. “That’s a fine, ungrateful speech! What a headstrong young begger! I won’t stand here and listen to such impudence. Go on and sit down and see if you can mend your manners before you trouble us again.” He gave Rolfr a shove backward and glared murderously at Sigurd. Mikla also looked at Sigurd with dissatisfaction.

“I believe Jotull’s company isn’t doing him any good,” Mikla said. “It would be wise to keep them apart.”

“But not practical,” Halfdane replied.

Sigurd turned away from Mikla, smoldering. “A fine friend you are, Mikla. It seems that no one is on my side in this place. That sending could kill me and take the box and no one here would raise a hand to stop it.” He was angry enough that his natural power began rattling the weapons on the walls and knocking a few of them to the floor.

Halfdane spoke to Rolfr, struggling to keep his temper. “You and Sigurd had better stay here until we’re sure that beast isn’t outside waiting. Dagrun, send someone for Jotull.” With a last black look for Sigurd, the warlord retired to his usual corner alone. In a few moments, the nervous chatter in the hall had regained its normal peak of jollity as the men relaxed, reassured by the presence of their warlord.

Sigurd was not reassured. It seemed to him that he had enemies both within and without. He thought Halfdane looked at him speculatively, trying to judge Sigurd’s reaction to the sending, perhaps.

The door opened rather hastily, and Jotull stepped into the hall with his usual graceful flourish. His manner lacked its normal composure, however, as he slammed the door shut and barred it with a flick of his hand. All merry chatter ceased instantly, and all eyes dwelt upon the wizard in helpless fascination as he spent a long moment peering outside through a small hole bored through the door.

He turned triumphantly, sweeping the crowded hall with an imperious gaze until he found Mikla, Rolfr, and Sigurd. “I am relieved to see that none of you were injured by that creature lurking out there,” he said in a tone that blanched the ruddiest faces and sobered everyone instantly. To Halfdane he continued, “I recall warning you about something of this nature, but now you see that I was right about the Scipling’s natural power. It is not a harmless, whimsical creature any longer. Listen.” He raised one finger for silence, and someone outside on the earthworks uttered a terrified scream, echoed by others.

Halfdane and most of his men leaped to their feet, seizing their weapons. “What do you mean, Jotull?” Halfdane snapped. “Explain, and quickly!”

“Don’t rush outside too quickly, or you may regret it,” Jotull called to the men. “The Scipling’s power has taken a most unfavorable material form. It may kill anyone that gets in its path. I would have captured it before it gained such strength, if I had been permitted.” He cast Halfdane a sharp glance.

Halfdane strode to the door and unbarred it to look out. A rumbling growl greeted the opening of the door, and the Alfar nearest the door fell back in alarm. “It looks more like a sending to me,” Halfdane said, taking a lance from someone and thrusting it into the darkness. A savage three-toned roar announced the beast’s attack on the hall, and Halfdane slammed the door and locked it in the nick of time as the creature hurled itself forward. With furious squeals and bellows, it thundered at the heavy door with its hooves, then leaped onto the roof. Mikla immediately fanned the fire into a roaring blaze to discourage any attempts at coming down the chimney, if the beast were so inclined.

“I’m sure it’s a sending,” Mikla said, as the thing trampled around on the roof, causing dust to sift down and timbers to groan and creak protestingly. “Sigurd’s natural power is still here with us.” He gestured to the relics and weapons leaping off the walls one by one with a dinning clamor, raining down around Ragnhild, who had taken refuge under a nearby table.

“Stop! Stop!” Sigurd commanded distractedly, but his unruly power started shoving the gold cups and basins off a shelf, to add to the confusion.

“Great gods!” Dagrun exclaimed over the clamor of excited voices. “We had troubles enough without this Scipling!”

“Jotull!” Halfdane roared furiously. “Do something to stop this nonsense!”

Jotull alone was calm, even smiling faintly at the discomfiture of the Alfar. “I shall try. But I don’t know who might have conjured such a dangerous sending against Sigurd. I saw how it singled him out. But as soon as I find out who made it, I can begin to make a counterspell. It’s quite apparent to me that someone wishes Sigurd ill.” He glanced up as a clod of earth fell from the rafters above almost at his feet.

“You’re supposed to be the wizard of Hrafnborg,” Halfdane rumbled, glaring at him through the curtains of dust and smoke. “I don’t care how you do it, just do something to get rid of that sending, no matter whom it’s against! You, Sigurd, stop those tricks at once!” Everyone in the hall cringed at his tone.

“I can’t,” Sigurd retorted, wincing as a particularly fine beaten kettle crashed to the floor. “This always happens whenever I’m upset or nervous about something. You don’t need to assume I enjoy it, either.”

Jotull gazed around the hall. “I’m going out to confront the beast. I guess I needn’t ask for any volunteer to accompany me.” His eye gleamed with scorn.

“I shall go with you,” Halfdane said contemptuously. “I want to take a better look at it anyway.”

Jotull made a mocking half-bow of acknowledgment, and they went outside together. Immediately everyone inside the hall rushed to peer out the few apertures in the old turf hall. The sending continued to roar and trample around on the roof for a short while; then it was gone, after a menacing cackle down the chimney, as if to warn Sigurd that it would be back. To Sigurd’s relief, his power abated its destructive activities and Ragnhild crawled out from under the table with a haughty glower at him and marched away to her private rooms indignantly.

When Halfdane and Jotull returned to the hall, they quarreled bitterly over getting rid of the sending. Jotull declared that nothing short of a major purging of the entire fortress would suffice and that the removal of Sigurd to another location where he could be better protected was essential. Halfdane refused to listen to any such ideas and finally banished Jotull with unconcealed bad temper. Rolfr speedily took the hint and hastened Sigurd away to their quarters in the old tower before Halfdane noticed them and brought his wrath to bear upon the cause of his griefs, which was Sigurd.

During the following week, Sigurd observed to his surprise that Halfdane declared an all-out attack on the sending. It soon learned that open aggression earned nothing but a hide full of arrows, so it skulked around cautiously, watching in vain for an opportunity to get to Sigurd. Sigurd felt grateful to the warlord, but he couldn’t bring himself to say so. Jotull also attempted many conjurations to lure the horse-bear to its demise, without success. Ignoring Rolfr’s protests that it was absolute folly, Sigurd continued his nightly visits to Jotull’s lonely house on the fellside. Strangely enough, Jotull’s flattery and patronage began to pall, and Halfdane’s rough, impartial manner began to appeal to Sigurd. Halfdane treated everyone alike, grimly insisting upon upholding discipline in all circumstances, but everyone agreed that he was scrupulously fair, unimpeachably generous, and far more concerned with the welfare of everyone in Hrafnborg than with his own weal or woe. Several times Halfdane’s morose manner seemed to Sigurd a camouflage for hidden, less taciturn feelings. Almost simultaneously, Sigurd began to think that Jotull ’s suavity was a camouflage for something far less agreeable.

“I don’t wish to appear unduly gloomy,” Jotull said one night, looking into his fire in a gloomy and sinister manner, “but I fear greatly for your life, Sigurd. I can’t do anything against this Hross-Bjom, and Halfdane refuses to let me take you someplace safer. He won’t let you out of his power as long as you possess that box. He covets whatever is inside it, and I know he’d do anything to get it away from you.” Jotull smoked his leering pipe and studied Sigurd from his place in the shadows. “And you have no idea what it contains or how your grandmother got it?”

Sigurd shaded his eyes from the bright flames on the hearth. “No, nothing. All I know is that it must be something dreadfully valuable to Halfdane—or Bjarnhardr.”

Jotull leaned back. “Yes, you must never forget it, or forget that you must never surrender it to anyone you don’t trust entirely. Neither must you forget what happened at Thongullsfjord.”

Sigurd no longer liked to dwell upon it. He felt depressed when he thought of Thongullsfjord and the death of Thorarna. If not for the distress of the disruption of the settlement and the suspicion of her neighbors, Thorarna’s life might not have ended when it did. Perhaps she would have told him about the carven box and its contents and how it had come to her from the Alfar realm. Sigurd might have gone to his father, instead of waiting for the trolls and Alfar to carry him off.

Jotuli continued to watch him and puffed solemnly on his pipe. The smell of the smoke made Sigurd feel slightly sick. “I only hope this precious object you’re concealing is in a safe place in the event of your death. Sorry to startle you with such unpleasantness, but it must be thought of. If you’ve got your box hidden in your bed straw or in the rafters or under a hearthstone, the sending will certainly find it and carry it to its maker.”

Sigurd gaped a moment at Jotuli, unable to speak. Unless hiding something under the hearthstone was an especially obtuse blunder, the wizard had read his mind. “I don’t have a very safe place for it,” he finally managed to answer. “I thought I might ask if you would—”