“What? Do you mean – -Oh, Manse!” “They mustn’t,” he said.
Agony surged higher still. “Why not? Who’ll care after a few decades, let alone a millennium and a half?”
“Why, you will, you and your colleagues,” the pitying, implacable voice declared. “You set out to investigate the roots of a specific story about Hamther and Sorli, remember? Not to mention the Eddie poets and saga writers before you, and God knows how many tellers before them, affected in small ways that could add up to a big final sum. Mainly, though, Ermanaric is a historical figure, prominent in his era. The date and manner of his death are a matter of record. What came immediately afterward shook the world.
“No, this is no slight ripple in the time-stream. This is a maelstrom abuilding. We’ve got to damp it out, and the only way to do that is to complete the causal loop, close the ring.”
My lips formed the useless, needless “How?” which throat and tongue could not.
Everard pronounced sentence on me: “I’m sorrier than you imagine, Carl. But the Volsungasaga relates that Hamther and Sorli were almost victorious, when for unknown reasons Odin appeared and betrayed them. And he was you. He could be nobody else but you.”
372
Night had lately fallen. The moon, while little past the full, was not yet up. Stars threw a dimness over hills and shaws, where shadows laired. Dew had begun to gleam on stones. The air was cold, quiet save for a drumroll of many galloping hoofs. Helmets and spearheads shimmered, rose and sank like waves under a storm.
In the greatest of his halls, King Ermanaric sat at drink with his sons and most of his warriors. The fires flared, hissed, crackled in their trenches.
Lamplight glowed through smoke. Antlers, furs, tapestries, carvings seemed to move along walls and pillars, as the darknesses did. Gold gleamed on arms and around necks, beakers clashed together, voices dinned hoarsely. Thralls scuttled about, attending. Overhead, murk crouched on the rafters and filled the roof peak.
Ermanaric would fain be merry. Sibicho pestered him: “- Lord, we should not dawdle. 1 grant you, a straightforward raid on the Teurings’ chieftain would be dangerous, but we can start work at once to undermine his standing among them.”
“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” said the king impatiently. “Do you never weary of plots and tricks, you? Tonight is for that toothsome slave maiden I bought – ”
Horns clamored outside. A man staggered in through the entryroom that this building had. Blood smeared his face. “Foemen – attack -” An uproar drowned his cry.
“At this hour?” Sibicho wailed. “And by surprise? They must have killed horses traveling hither – yes, and cut down everybody along the way who might have outsped them -”
Men boiled off the benches and went for their mail and weapons. Those being stacked in the entryroom, there was a sudden jam of bodies. Oaths lifted, fists flailed. The guards who had stayed equipped sprang to make a bulwark in front of the king and his nearest. He always kept a score of them full-armed.
In the courtyard, royal warriors spent their lives on time for their comrades within to make ready. The newcomers bore against them in overwhelming numbers. Axes thundered, swords clanged, knives and spears bit deep. In that press, slain men did not always fall down at once; wounded who dropped never got up again.
At the head of the onslaught, a big young man shouted, “Wodan with us! Wodan, Wodan! Haa!” His blade flew murderous.
Hastily outfitted defenders took stance at the front door. The big young man was first to shock upon them. Right and left, his followers broke through, smote, stabbed, kicked, shoved, burst the line and stamped in over the pieces of it.
As their van pierced through to the main room, the unarmored troopers beyond stumbled back. The attackers halted, panting, when their leader called, “Wait for the rest of us!” The racket of battle died away inside, though outside it still raged.
Ermanaric sprang onto his high seat and looked across the helmets of his bodyguards. Even in the dancing gloom, he saw who stood at the door. “Hathawulf Tharasmundsson, what new misdeed would you wreak?” he flung through the lodge.