The Broken Sword Read Online Free PDF

sea maidens tumbling in the foam and singing, the drowned tower of Ys, a brief gleam of white and gold and a hawk-scream of challenge overhead-Valkyries rushing to some battle in the east.
    Wind sang in the rigging and waves roared at the strakes. Ere dawn the vessel had reached the other shore, been drawn up on the beach and hidden by spells.
    The elves took shelter beneath an awning across the hull, but Skafloc was about during much of the day. He climbed a tree and looked in wonder at the plowlands rolling southward. The buildings here were not like those in England. Among them was the gaunt grey hall of a baron. Skafloc thought with brief pity of the narrow lives that flickered in its gloom. He would not trade.
    When night came, the elves mounted the horses they had brought and rode storm-swift inland. By midnight they were in mountain country where the moonlight cast thin silver and thick shadows on crags, cliffs, and the far green shimmer of glaciers. The elves rode along a narrow trail, harness chiming, lances high, plumes and capes streaming. Hoofbeats rang on the stones and echoed back through the wilderness night.
    A horn sounded hoarsely from above, another from below. The elves heard a clank of metal and a tramp of feet. When they came to the end of the trail they saw a dwarf troop on guard at a cave mouth.
    The bandy-legged men scarce came to Skafloc’s waist, but they were broad of shoulder and long of arm. Their dark, bearded faces were angry; their eyes smouldered beneath tangled brows. They held swords, axes, and shields of iron. But against these the elves had prevailed in the past, by spears and arrows, by speed and agility, and by making craftier plans.
    “What will you?” boomed the leader. “Have the elves and trolls not wrought us enough ill, harrying our lands and bearing our folk off as thralls? This time our force is larger than yours, and if you come nearer we will slay you.”
    “We come in peace, Motsognir,” replied Imric. “We wish only to buy of your wares.”
    “I know your trickery, Imric the Guileful,” said Motsognir harshly. “You would put us off our guard.”
    “I will give hostages,” the elf-earl offered; and this the dwarf king grudgingly accepted. Leaving several of the newcomers disarmed and surrounded, Motsognir led the others down into his caverns.
    Here fires lit the rock walls with bloody shadow-beset dimness, and over their forges the dwarfs laboured unceasingly. Their hammers rang and clattered until Skafloc’s head belled in answer. Here were made the trickiest works of all the world, goblets and beakers encrusted with gems, rings and necklaces of ruddy gold intricately fashioned; weapons were beaten out of metals torn from the mountain’s heart, arms fit for gods-and indeed the dwarfs had done work for the gods-and other weapons laden with evil. Mighty were the runes and charms the dwarfs could grave, and baffling were the arts they had mastered.
    “I would have you make an outfit for my foster son here,” Imric said.
    Motsognir’s mole-eyes searched Skafloc’s tall form in the wavering light. His voice rumbled through the hammer-clang : “Well, are you up to your old changeling tricks again, Imric? Someday you will overreach yourself. But since this is a human, I suppose he will want arms of steel.”
    Skafloc hesitated. The wariness of years was not overcome at once. But he had known what was coming. Bronze was too soft, the curious elf-alloys too light, to make full use of his growing strength.
    “Aye, steel,” he said firmly.
    “Tis well, ‘tis well,” growled Motsognir, and turned to his forge. “Let me tell you, boy, that you humans, weak and short-lived and unwitting, are nonetheless more strong than elves and trolls, aye, than giants and gods. And that you can touch cold iron is only one reason. Ho!” he called. “Ho, Sindri, Thekk, Draupnir, come to help!”
    Now the forging went apace, sparks flew and metal shouted. Such was the skill of