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.
Then Halfdain spoke, his voice low and measured. “My father warned me of you. Said you were a bad man rolled in a good man’s skin; that your generosity was all a sham; that you often looked fair but acted foul; that you had no true honour; and that your word lasted as long as a fart in the wind.”
“If he believed all that,” Erlot snarled, “why then did the old fool serve me?! And why did you?!
Halfdain’s answer was swift in coming. “Just because you are honourless, doesn’t me we are.” And then he attacked, not with the expected shield punch, but he did as his liege lord once told him with a sudden low swing with his sword at Erlot’s legs.
When the older man lowered his shield to block, Halfdain stepped forward and rammed his iron helmet into Erlot’s forehead, sending his reeling backwards, blood streaming down his face.
***
Erlot was rocked hard by Halfdain’s headbutt. Blood poured down from a scalp wound, blurring his sight in his one good eye. Fighting back panic, he tried to scrub it away, but his iron gauntlets only made it worse. His nose was a broken ruin and his nose guard was bent inwards and had broken a tooth.
‘So much for my boyish good looks!’ he thought sarcastically, at the same time swinging his long handled axe in a half circle in the hope of landing a blow. The heavily engraved axehead, however, cleaved only air, for Halfdain had stepped back with ease. As the blade passed he stepped in close again and, with the weighted pommel of his sword, Halfdain hammered Erlot’s already dented helmet a second time.
The older man grunted as the shock travelled through his body. When it reached his legs he staggered, having to use his axe like an old man’s cane to keep from falling.
It was then that Halfdain stepped in for the killing blow. His father’s sword was on its way down when Erlot hurled himself at the younger man. Slamming into him like an enraged bear, they both went down as their weapons went flying. Erlot’s left hand went for the younger man’s throat, his blood-smeared, gauntleted fingers questing for the windpipe while his right hand fumbled for the dagger he carried in the small of his back.
It was a long, lean, all-metal killing thing, its triangular blade narrowing down to a needle point made especially for breaking asunder metal rings and puncturing mail, leather, under padding — and an enemy’s beating heart!
Swanhild, her dark eyes wide with concern, saw Erlot’s hand grasp the dagger’s tapered handle and pull it free from its sheathe. “Halfdain! Beware his blade!” she shouted.
Somehow, over the yelling, shouting and general noise of the crowd, her warning got through. Perhaps not the words so much as the urgency of her tone — or perhaps there was some witchery involved?
Regardless of how, Halfdain managed to grab Erlot’s wrist just before he thrust the blade home! Rolling, grunting, arms and legs flailing, they grappled in the dirt, each one trying to bend the dagger’s glistening point towards the other.
