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.
First Erlot seemed to be winning, then Halfdain, then back to the one-eyed older warrior. All of us outside the Ring of Wands watched the life-and-death struggle within, each one of us with our own favourite to win and our own reason for wishing it so.
And then there was a sudden movement in the tangle of thrashing limbs and bloody leather — a downward thrust — a gasp —and a swiftly fading sigh. The crowd surged forward, each one straining to see who lived and who did not. Halfdain on top, Erlot beneath, both as unmoving as silent sleepers.
“Erlot!” Hagatha the old crone called out from the shadows. “Your time has come at last!”
“Halfdain!” screamed Swanhild the dark-eyed ‘Halfenwraith’, as she broke through the Wand Circle and ran to the younger man’s still body. “I come, my love! Don’t leave me behind!”
Falling on her knees, she tugged Halfdain back from the older man beneath him, aghast at the blood that covered his face and hands — and there for all the crowd to see, buried to the hilt in Erlot’s chest, was his long, lean, triangular bladed dagger.
“Halfdain!” Swanhild yelled, shaking the unmoving young warrior. “Come back to me, damn you!” She then kissed his bloody lips, long and hard, then pulled away and shook him again! “Don’t you dare leave me! I’ll follow if I have to! I swear it!” With a quick movement she pulled out a wickedly sharp little knife and pressed the edge to her left wrist. “Either you come back to me, or I’ll come to you — but I will not give you up!”
I rushed forward at that, already knowing that my old bones would cause me to arrive too late to stop her — and, though it shocked me at the time, I wasn’t sure that I should even try. She’d come so far and waited so long to find true love — and just when she had, to have it suddenly snatched away was more than cruel! I could understand her wanting to follow him into death— for who of us truly knows what awaits us in that far off, undiscovered country?
Fortunately however, Lord Erlot One-Eye was the only person that day to make that mysterious journey — for Halfdain abruptly gasped, coughed, and opened his eyes! His gaze went from Swanhild, to the dagger buried in Erlot’s chest, to the sharp little blade still at her wrist — and back to her smiling face. “Put your wee blade away, lass, for the killing’s all over and tonight there is just you and I.”
As Halfdain’s guards gathered round their captain and his lady, as the other lords planned their next move, as servants took Erlot’s body away for burial, I, strangely happy at the way things had turned out, shuffled off to find a horn of ale, pen and ink and a warm place to begin my latest saga. I already knew the story, for had I not just lived it myself?! The title I knew as well!
‘The Warrior &
The Halfenwraith
by
the Norse ‘scald’
Thorgi Odinson
(Circa 1020 AD)
***
