Summary
A semi-short historical/fantasy about a half-human, half goddess (A Halfenwraith) goes looking for a human hero to marry. Takes place in a mythical Viking-like world.
In the three years Halfdain had been captain of Erlot’s personal guards, he had sparred with the older man a number of times. He had found his liege lord to be a fairly accomplished fighter but a lazy one, the kind of warrior that relies on his bulk and natural strength to overpower his opponent quickly. Not for Lord Erlot the daily drudgery of constant training to not only build muscles and stamina, but to keep them at peak condition. Any warrior who doesn’t spend several hours sweating heavily every day in practice will soon lose his edge. Add to that strong drink, rich food and idleness, along with the passage of time, and the results are always the same: the once great fighter is no longer great, and the once adequate one is no longer adequate.
Such was the case with Erlot One-Eye.
Added to that was the fact that he liked to use dirty tricks, often bragging while in his cups that on a battlefield or in a fight to the death there was only one rule: ‘do what you have to in order to survive!’ Halfdain had seen him use a number of less than honourable moves both in battle and in a ‘friendly bout’. Slamming his shield down on an opponent’s foot was one, cutting low at his legs another. Head butting, punching with the weighted pommel of his sword, moving in close, grappling like a bear and squeezing the air out of the man’s lungs were other nasty little moves Lord Erlot enjoyed using.
He also liked to point out other fighters’ weaknesses, not so much to help the man correct them as to ridicule him— for, though a large man physically, Halfdain knew that his liege lord was really a very small man in all the things that truly counted. Several times in the past Erlot had mentioned his young captain’s fondness for using his shield’s iron boss as an attack weapon. ‘A sound enough move when fighting a new foe, Halfdain,’ he had said loudly on more than one occasion, ‘but a foolish one to use against an opponent whom you have fought before! Try a headbutt or a leg sweep instead, lad. Most men never see those coming!’
And so that is exactly what Halfdain did. When the two men faced each other in the ‘Circle of Wands’ this time, there was no shield punch, no axe hook, no tugging down of the younger man’s shield, no swift, sudden killing blow from the older one.
Halfdain stood ready and waiting. Erlot did the same. Time dragged on. Time — the answer to Hagatha’s riddle — the one thing all of us want more of when we know that our ending is near. Their eyes locked, both filled with hate and smouldering fury. Their feet shuffled to the right in a slow circular dance, each one waiting for the other to attack.
And during all this I, Thorgi Odenson, stood beside the raven-haired Swanhild, daughter of a valkyrie and granddaughter of a sorceress, herself an ‘Halfenwraith’, a child of a mortal and a god — but mostly a woman in love with Halfdain, son of Halden.
