The Wizard And The Warlord Read Online Free

other? Do you remember his name?”
    “Name—name—” Her eyelids fluttered, and her breathing was so faint that Sigurd feared it had stopped. “Ashildr—Ashildr, oh forgive me! I tried to keep him safe—keep the box away from them—wizards and warlords both. Ashildr, are you still here? Let me take your hand.”
    Sigurd held her hand gently in his own, letting her murmur on to Ashildr, mostly nonsense, until she fell quietly asleep, breathing small, shallow draughts—but still it was breathing. He hoped she would be strong enough to tell him more tomorrow in a more connected fashion. He still knew almost nothing about his father and mother; and, of course, he remembered nothing useful except some childhood nightmares about fire. Sadly, he thought these might have been a veiled memory of the fire which had killed his mother. Thorarna had told him it was a sad story, and he began to suspect that she was right.
    He sat beside her watchfully all through the night. She slept quietly, except for a few querulous calls for Ashildr, but he was able to reassure her and soothe her back to sleep. Near dawn, which came early in the north country, she opened her eyes with perfect clarity and exclaimed, “Ashildr, fetch my best apron and brooches, your father is home!” She moved as if to rise and collapsed softly in Sigurd’s arms, breathing her last.

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Chapter 2

     
    By the time Sigurd had torn enough wood from the house and barn for his grandmother’s pyre, the day was far advanced. With a numb feeling, he watched the tremendous fire leaping high into the gray sky. At midday it still burned, lifting a column of black smoke into the sky like a banner.
    At last he gathered a few possessions, remembering Bogmoddr and Snjolfr waiting at the boatstands. Knowing he was probably too late, he hurried anyway, hoping they had seen the smoke and guessed that Thorarna had died. Leaving her unburned and unburied would have been unthinkable. But perhaps they had thought trolls had burned the house.
    After hurrying the four miles to the harbor, he found his hopes were dashed when he reached the empty boatstands. Bogmoddr and his boats were gone, leaving nothing behind except an old basket which had burst. The thrifty housewife had transferred the contents to another container, wasting only one seed cake that had fallen in the wet sand. Sigurd turned away with an effort, knowing he was not likely ever to see another trace of human occupation on the grim shores of Thongullsfjord. As he gazed out to sea in bitterest desolation, he Heard the voices from the cliffs begin a chorus of hoarse chuckles, as if they possessed a great secret, warning Sigurd that the day would soon be spent. He looked around in sudden uneasiness at the familiar scene, which was now deserted and somehow menacing. The hopelessness of his fate staggered him. He turned away from the vast emptiness of the sea, which only reminded him what a trifling speck he was in such an overwhelmingly huge and desolate scheme.
    They might have waited, he told himself a hundred times that night; surely they weren’t that afraid. Outside the abandoned house in which he sheltered, the depraved howlings and roarings of the trolls rose in fierce exultation from the cliffs of the fjord. Whatever unnatural forces had been sent against Thongullsfjord, they had succeeded. Sigurd did not sleep, listening with a species of paralysis as something sniffed vigorously under the door and battered at the planks with uncouth grunts and growls.
    In the morning he returned to his house and found it ransacked. The sheep and geese were gone, little to his surprise. Silentiy he examined the tracks in the soft earth. Neither man nor any beast he knew could make such a track. He shook his head and began to scowl. The grief of Thorarna’s death and the shock of his abandonment were clearing from his brain. He glared around at the sad shambles of his home and down the mountain toward the deserted