A Walk on the Island

Baldur was his name, and his kin dwelt beyond the night wall, among the giants of the frost. He was tall and pale, and strength was in his arm. His eyes were keen and his hair shone like new ice under a cold moon, and Solrun saw at once that he was both fearless and beautiful. Yet she feared to face him in battle, and before he could appear before her to make his challenge, she came to him in secret.

"Do not do this thing," she begged, falling upon her knees before him. "If you challenge me—if we go to the foe-shore tomorrow—my sword will drink your blood. You will lie slain before me, and my heart will be broken, and this world will be the worse when another hero is gone! I beg of you, turn back. Go home, prince of the north! Do not force me to walk upon the island with you." Yet her words, meant only as good counsel, served to rouse his wrath.

"Speak not of turning back!" he cried, and he raised his hand to her and struck her face. Anger shook his fist, and Solrun Spear-Crow was thrown back by the impact, and blood dripped from her mouth. "You think to slay me like the rest? You think me a coward? You think to send me home even before I have been tested?"

Solrun bowed her head, accepting his wrath. She knew her counsel might sting, and yet she could not withhold it. "I think you the best of men," she said, and she lay herself upon the earth before him, and tears were in her eyes. "Never before have I sought to save the life of one who came to me to die. Never before have I loved one so fiercely as this. Please, give me this night to change your mind? Take from me what you will, and tomorrow go in peace."

"You offer yourself to me freely, shield-maiden?"

"I do. I offer you anything and everything, but not my hand in marriage, and not my dowry. Whatever else you may wish of me, take it and go."

"And yet there is nothing I desire of you," he spat. He brought his heel down on her, bruising and crushing her. "If you were a man and spake to me thus, I would slay you at once! And yet you are a woman—a shield-maiden—and you have insulted me and brought yourself low before me... Lower even than a common harlot! And you ask what I want of you. How could I want anything but your blood?"

But the shield-maiden endured. Solrun accepted his bruising heel and was still, determined that the world would not suffer further loss for her pride. "Then take it," she said. "But ask me not to give battle—only slay me now in cold blood. That is all I ask of you."

It was only then that Baldur heard the ring of steel in her voice, and he knew that she would not bend. Then he raised her up out of the dust before his encampment, out of the shadows of the forest and into the light of his fire, and he saw that she was beautiful. With his hands he healed her, mending her hurts by the ways known to giants, by the lore of plants and living things, and they spoke not for a time. She sat by his side as a stranger among his people, and they whispered many things about her, wondering at this god-touched golden maiden in their midst, but the prince heard them not.

"Will you serve me truly?" he asked her in the dark of night, when all others slept. "Even without your word given?"

"Truly, my lord," she whispered.

Then she bowed her head as if to pray before him, and her hair fell across his thigh, and it was cool and soft and heavy. Her lips were upon him, and the taste of him was in her, and she shivered at the power of him. Her soft moans became her prayer, and his gasping pleasure rose alongside them, and soon both man and woman abandoned all else. For one perfect moment, his pleasure was hers, and she became all his joy, and his life-seed filled her.

And then it became ashes on her tongue.

Mourning her loss, she turned her eyes toward him. "Why would you do this?" she said.

"I cannot do else," he answered her. "For I must have all of you or none of you. Nothing else will do."

Thus Solrun left his fire in the forest beyond her father's steading, and she returned to her dwelling. She did not wash, but lay awake through the night with ash in her mouth, and when morning came she went with her father to a place where three roads meet, and there was Baldur.

"I have come to conquer you," he said. "Have you come to be conquered?"

"Another day," she said. "An ill dream stole my sleep, and I am tired. Challenge me tomorrow."

"That I will do," said Baldur. "Sleep well, Spear-Crow." Thus they parted.

But not for long.

Even the taste of ash in her mouth had not fouled her memory of him, nor had she yet consented to send him to Hel. So it was that when evening fell she took up her arms and went out, clad in glittering mail and golden helm and girded by her belt, behind her stout shield and with her whispering spear in hand. And by her side hung the sword Wrath, asleep in its bloodstained scabbard. And so she met him at the place where his folk rested, where he slept beneath the stars above and the branches below, for she thought to show him the folly of his quest.

"Lo, no foeman can approach me," she said, "lest he be brought low by this spear. See how straight and swift it flies! What hope has any man who stands against me?"

And thus saying, she flung Whisper high into the air, and even the Moon fled from the spear's bright point. So in darkness he answered her, by only the red light of the fire: "I am swifter than the Moon," said he. "No spear can catch me. Not even yours."

"Even so, what use are weapons against a shield such as this?" she asked him, lifting her protector. "There are elf-signs upon it, and elf magic is in the iron and in the wood. No weapon forged by man can touch it. No attack can splinter it. Your pursuit of me is folly, O prince. Please, allow me to counsel you."

But then Whisper fell from heaven and was caught in Baldur's hand, and he thrust the spear at her: a weapon forged not by the hand of man but by giants beyond the night wall, in realms the Sun has never touched. Though she raised her protector, it shattered before the spear's point, and her arm was wounded so that blood ran red. Yet still the shield-maiden was not shaken.

"This hurt is but small, my prince," she said. "I have dwarf-mail upon me, forged by the smiths of the Underhalls, shaped out of metal delved beneath the vaults of Hel. No weapon—not even my own spear—could pierce this mail. What could avail you? You will do me no true harm, and in turn you will be slain. Hear me, O prince: let me save your life."

"I need no weapon against your mail," said Baldur, and he took her in his hands. By the strength of his arm, her armor was torn, and her glittering mail away, and thus her flesh was bared to him. He did not let her go, but clung to her for a time, and she did not pull away.

"Your arm is strong," she said, "and you strike true. But no man can undo the curse of my sword." She whispered these words to him, and then she lay her head against his arm, for her strength was waning.

"Strong enough for us both," he promised her. And he bore her away to his fire, and there he mended her hurts once more, and this time his hands trembled to touch her.

For Solrun lay naked before his fire, and he yearned for her, and she for him. He made a draft for her out of wine and roots and secret things, and she drank deeply from his cup, and her strength returned to her, and then neither of them could resist. He lay with her before the fire and held her close, and the ice-white of his hair tangled with the golden flame of hers, and their lips touched.

And all became as ash.

"Why again do you spurn me?" she said with tears in her bright eyes.

"I cannot do else," he said to her once more, "for I must have all of you or none, and none else will do. And I will say more, if you can believe it: I care not for my life if you are not in it. So tomorrow let us fight! And gladly will I die, if only by your hand."

But the next day at the place where three roads meet, she again refused his challenge. "Someone has stolen my armor," she said, "and broken my shield. I must journey afar to replace them ere I can walk with you on the island."

"Clever are you, Spear-Crow," said Baldur, "but patient am I, and I will await your return."

Then spake Orm, "It is not good that you should wait in wilderness. Come: my house will be empty and silent and cold. Bring your folk and live with me and await my daughter's return, for her journey will be long and perilous, and we must not look for her before summer's end."

"You are a good man and a good host," said Baldur to Orm Hard-Hand, "and I thank you, on behalf of my folk. Let them go and stay with you, but I will sleep beneath the stars while my love journeys upon the long road. No pillow for my head when hers has none."

These words made Orm glad, and yet also they made him mourn, for Baldur was a good man, and now all the more he feared the curse he had given his daughter when he gave her that sword.