SORCEROUS SIGNALS
Written by David A Hardy / Artwork by Holly Eddy
Prisoners of the Glittering Plain



























The wind howled through the rigging and the sea hammered the long ship mercilessly. Ulf Bloodeye clung
to his place at the prow and prayed to Thor to give him the strength to hold tight. He dared not wipe the
stinging salt water from his eyes lest he fall into the sea. Ulf did not fear to die, but only a death in battle
earned a man a seat at the feast table in Valhalla. Drowning sent one straight to the gloomy netherworld
of Hel.

Ulf had joined his friends Arrow Odd and Asmund on a voyage to the far North. Where the Lapps had
been willing, they traded for furs and walrus ivory. Where the Lapps offered battle, the Vikings had taken
sword-spoil.

At the steading of Gorm Haddingsbane, they met a worthy foe. Gorm was a Geat outlawed for his many
killings and forced into exile. He had made himself master of a stretch of the Permian coast, living by
extorting tribute in furs and walrus ivory from the Lapps. Gorm dwelt with his mother Sylgja, who was
reputed to be a witch. There were dark rumors that Gorm made sacrifices of men and silver to the trolls
at a great mound by a frozen river.

The Vikings had stormed ashore. Gorm’s Permian Lapps had fired their copper-tipped arrows with deadly
accuracy. But the Vikings were well warded with shields and mail shirts. They stormed Gorm’s stronghold
and red slaughter followed. Outside on the shore sea gulls screamed and feasted on corpses. Lapp
women wailed for their dead. By Gorm’s high seat, Sylgja crouched, her eyes ablaze and her hair matted
with her son’s blood.

“Little profit will you have from your slayings, Odd and Asmund. And you too Ulf will drink full of the cup
of bitterness. Wind and wave will hound you. What you win will only cause you greater loss.”

“Silence hag! One more word and I smash your skull!” Ulf raised his bloody sword. Sylgja laughed and
slashed Ulf’s face with a hidden knife. Ulf cursed as bloody tears fell from the cut that barely missed his
left eye. “Weep, Blood-eye!” Sylgja screamed just before one of the Vikings cut her down.

They found the mound by the frozen river and dug out the offerings of silver along with the bones of
men. Then the Vikings sailed away from the smoking ruins of Gorm’s hall. But from that day the winds
turned fierce, driving them further and further north. Great blocks of ice floated on the sea, ghost ships
of the jotun’s fleet. In the savage winds Ulf heard dragons scream and witches’ laughter.

Ulf looked up, through the driving rain he saw the ship was near a shore. Ulf blinked the water from his
eyes. He saw shapes moving on the shore. He could not be sure but they loomed huge and misshapen,
ghost trolls on a ghost shore. A wave smashed down hard on the prow and Ulf strained to hold on. He
looked again to the shore and made out a small, slim figure running. Another wave thundered over the
prow and Ulf was hurled into the foaming sea.

The waves tossed Ulf like a cat playing with a mouse. First he was submerged in an airless, icy quiet,
then hurled into a salt-water chaos. Ulf struggled to stay afloat. He was fortunate not to have been
wearing his mail shirt else he had sunk like a lump of iron.

A wave picked up Ulf. He could see nothing through the blinding spray of water. He felt himself lifted
higher and higher. Then the bottom fell out of the wave and Ulf was plummeting down.

He landed hard on the ice. Waves pelted him then returned to drag him loose. But Ulf scrabbled for a
hold and pulled himself bodily forward. His hands encountered an outcrop and Ulf dragged his numb
body above the wave line.

Ulf gasped for breath and tried to move. He would not drown, but he would freeze soon. Above were
more outcrops, below the raging sea. Ulf climbed.

His body was wracked by painful spasms and icy numbness. The frozen sea and the savage wind were
doing their work. Ulf reached for the ledge above, but his arm would not extend. He felt his fingers
stiffen. Ulf was slipping, falling back to certain death in the sea.

A soft hand gripped Ulf’s. Despite its delicacy it held him firmly. Ulf revived and climbed the next ledge. A
girl’s face greeted him. She was a mere wisp of a girl, fair-haired and blue-eyed. She wore nothing save a
walrus-hide coat that was open to reveal small, firm breasts.

“Quick! They are coming!” she said. Ulf staggered to his feet. The ledge was broad enough for several
men. An ice face riddled with pockets rose above it.

Ulf heard a roar over the wind. From around the bend in the ice face, came a huge white bear. When it
saw Ulf, it paused and snarled. The beast wore a huge spiked collar about its neck.

Ulf reached for his sword. Amazingly it had stayed in the scabbard through being swept overboard and
washed ashore. The beast moved with terrifying speed and Ulf struggled to make his frost-numbed body
respond. The girl scrambled up the ice face to a spot above the fray. Ulf staggered back and the bear’s
paw shattered the ice where he had stood.

Ulf kept backing as he struggled to draw his sword. It was frozen in place. The bear swatted again and
blood sprang from where the tips of its claws grazed Ulf.

“Kill! Hvitrbjorn, kill!” The speaker came from behind the bear. He was a huge man, the largest and
ugliest Ulf had ever seen. He was dressed in walrus-hide and carried a spiked club made of whalebone.

Ulf backed away again. His heel hit empty air. The bear and the troll could not both come at him at once,
but either one would be enough.

Ulf gripped his sword and pulled with all his might. He felt warmth returning to his limbs as he struggled.
The troll swung futilely. Ulf wrenched the sword free and closed with the bear. Ulf’s blade bit deep and
blood spurted over the white fur. The bear swung and Ulf went skidding toward the precipice.

The bear loomed over Ulf; its breath stank of rotten meat. The troll laughed—a horrible grinding sound.
The bear brought its muzzle close to Ulf, intent on tearing apart its prey.

The girl sprang down from her perch. Her arm came forward and struck the bear’s face. Then she darted
back and there was a dagger of sharpened bone in the bear’s eye.

The bear reared up, screaming in pain. It flailed madly, blundering into the troll. The troll swatted with his
club and the bear grabbed him. Together they swayed on the ledge. Ulf crawled forward and slashed the
troll’s ankle. The troll fell with the bear, bounding off the ice cliff into the sea.

The girl took Ulf by the hand. They climbed up the ice face. The wind moaned in agony and Ulf heard the
angry bellows of more trolls. Then the girl vanished into the ice. Ulf followed her and found she had
slipped into a crevice masked by an ice sheet.

“My foster-father, Jarn kept his whaling supplies here.” There was a flash of flint and steel then a flame lit
the cavern. Thick pelts of walrus and polar bear were stacked there among piles of dried seal meat and
blubber. The girl lit a fire from a handful of blubber. Ulf and the girl huddled under a fur and ate seal
meat, savoring the warmth of the flame. As Ulf’s ice-numb body relaxed, he also felt the girl’s soft body
pressed close to his.

“Who are you girl?” Ulf asked. “And what were you doing on that ledge?”

“Sgrid Eysteinsdottir. I was going to throw myself into the sea.”

Something stirred in Ulf’s memory. “There was an Eystein in Hvaetness. He went walrus hunting twelve
years ago. His little girl went with him. They never came back.”

Sigrid nodded. “I am the lost child of Eyestein the hunter. He was drowned in a storm. I was cast up on
this isle. It is a land of trolls. It is called Glassisvellir.

“A troll named Jarn found me dying on the ice. He took me and raised me as his daughter. It was a
strange thing for a troll to do, but Jarn was ever wayward. He was a great hunter and the sworn-brother
of the troll Hard-grip.

“The trolls are riven by strange feuds and bitter hates. Godmund the troll chief likes them well stirred,
the better to seat himself on his throne. Trolls are snarling bears that live by fang and claw but
Godmund Ice-heart is a serpent. He whispers poison and his bite is deadly.

“It was Godmund that urged the she-troll Herfiligr to evil. He swore Jarn had slain Herfiligr’s man-troll
that Jarn might lie with her. Thus Herfiligr thought Jarn very potent and desired him greatly. When Jarn
would not have her Herfiligr used her trollery to hex down an ice-shelf upon Jarn. A thousand blades of
ice butchered him like a seal. I sought out Herfiligr and gave the hag her death with a dagger in her back.
Then I fled the vengeance of her kin. I deemed it better to die than suffer troll cruelty anymore.”

Ulf nodded in thought. “When the storm clears we’ll take a boat and make for the Permian mainland.
From there we can get back to Norway.” Ulf thought a moment. “Your father must have sailed weeks to
reach Glassisvellir. We are far from Hvaetness.”

Sigrid shook her head. “No. We had been gone but two days when the storm that overturned our boat
hit. Glassisvellir drifts with the tide. The last I heard we had struck a current that would take it far to the
north. If we do not escape soon, we will be far beyond any hope of reaching the lands of men.”

They nestled under the furs as the burning whale fat hissed and popped. “Often have I dreamed of the
one who would come for me,” Sigrid Said. “His eyes were blue and his beard black, as yours are. He had
a scar under an eye, just as yours. But he was still far sighted.” Sigrid touched the scar that ran under
Ulf’s left eye. “My dreams told me you would come, but I do not know the result.”

So long as one acts bravely, what difference will it make? You may worry all night but not wake with a
lighter head.”

“I will not worry Ulf. Where you are I am content. Long have I hungered for the touch of man in this
cursed land of trolls.” Sigrid kissed him. Ulf returned her fierce passion. Under the furs he sated Sigrid’s
hunger.

Ulf dreamed of trolls and bears and drowned men whose lips whispered dread secrets as the waves
washed over them.

Suddenly Ulf was awake. He was walking through the ice-fells of Trondelag against a fierce, cold wind.
Tears rolled from his left eye. Ulf touched them and his hand was red with blood. The wound had opened
and he wept tears of blood.

There was a cackling laugh. Sylgja stood on a crag. By her side was a troll, wearing white bearskins and
holding a whalebone harpoon. His small, evil eyes held savage cunning.

“This is the one,” Sylgja said. “He will suffer greatly at your hands.”

The troll slapped Sylgja. “Witch! Little good will I have of this trollery of yours. Even though you are
worm-meat, I’ll pay you back for making me your tool!” The troll raised his harpoon. Ulf drew his blade
and rushed the troll, ready to kill Sylgja and the Troll.

Ulf awoke, cold with sweat. The blubber-fire was burning low. Sigrid stirred in her sleep and moaned. Ulf
threw a protective arm about her and returned to the warmth of the furs.

They rose before dawn. Wrapped in furs and equipped with food they stole forth. Sigrid led Ulf through
winding clefts and across delicate ice-bridges that spanned abyssal chasms. They emerged from the cliffs
onto a high crag.

Then Ulf knew Glassisvellir was truly named “The Glittering Plain.” A valley spread below them, diamonds
of ice glistened on a layer of snow like an arctic fox pelt. To the left was a sheltered cove where rough ice-
skiffs sat on the shore. To the right was a sight such as Ulf had never before beheld.

Ice-towers rose above battlements of snow and frost-mansions. For a moment Ulf fancied it was but a
trick of his imagination run wild on the eerie shapes carved in the ice. But he saw it was truly a city of
trolls.

“Quickly.” Sigrid tugged at his hand. “We must go before we are seen.”

“Trolls cannot go about by day.” Ulf said.

“On Glassisvellir they do,” Sigrid said. “Nor will iron bind them.” They hurried down the path toward the
ice-skiffs.

The boats were large things made with whalebone runners and hulls of walrus-hide over baleen frames.
There were spars of bone and fish-skin sails. Snow was piled high over them. Ulf heaved at the nearest
one. It was frozen fast to the ice.

Ulf tried the others with the same result. Then he began to lever at one with a whale rib while Sigrid
chipped at the ice with a bone fish-gutter. There was a racking sound and the skiff began to break free.

Ulf was panting with exertion. Then he heard shouts from across the valley. He turned and saw trolls
running from the ice-city, great bears loping at their heels like white hounds.

Ulf pushed harder. Sigrid was at his side. She had cleared all the ice she could with the sword, so she
cast it into the skiff and pushed. The shouts of the approaching trolls grew louder. The skiff grated on
the ice. A spear of sharpened bone thudded into the skiff a hand’s breadth from Ulf’s face.

Ulf used every last ounce of his might. The skiff slid forward into the water. Exhausted, Ulf tumbled into
it. He reached a hand out to Sigrid. He saw her eyes grow wide with terror as she reached for him. Then
she was lifted high into the air.

“I have the she!” The troll who had Sigrid raised her high in triumph. His companions hooted wildly.

Ulf was in a red fury. The boat was drifting on the cove. He could easily escape. Instead Ulf grabbed his
sword and leapt into the shallow water and charged ashore. He raised his sword and swung. A troll’s
hand leapt free in a spurt of blood. Then the trolls closed from every direction. Something struck Ulf
from behind and all was black.

~*~

Ulf awoke in a large room. Sigrid was by his side. They were not bound, trolls did not fear such puny
creatures. Trolls and she-trolls thronged the room, all heavily armed. Huge bears lolled in the corners.
Rich furs of every type lay underfoot. Light came through panels of translucent ice set high above. Heat
came from a burning vat of blubber. Though the ice palace was as marvelously beautiful as any place Ulf
had seen, the room was rank with the stink of troll, fish grease and old filth.

Dominating the scene was a troll seated on a throne of walrus ivory. His massive frame was wrapped in
fine white bearskins and he held a harpoon of polished whalebone. He was hideously ugly, with small, evil
eyes. But in the eyes burned a lively intelligence. Ulf realized this was Godmund Ice-heart.

“Troll folk!” cried Godmund. “What shall we do with these ice-rats?”

“Eat them!” cried a chorus of trolls.

“They’re hardly more than a mouthful.” Godmund studied Sigrid. “The she is pretty at least.”

A she-troll thrust forward and sniffed with her huge hairy nostrils. “The buck has been at her. Hamstring
him and then we can breed them for the table!” The she-troll laughed uproariously, making her
pendulous breasts flap against her walrus-hide apron.

“The she must die!” cried a troll. “Herfiligr’s kin must avenge her blood!” The speaker had a single tusk
with a jagged tip protruding from his mouth. A faction massed behind him.

“Broken-fang,” Sigrid whispered. “He is Herfiligr’s brother. He longs to take Ice-Heart’s place.”

“Nay, she is mine!” roared another. “Jarn was my blood-brother. The she falls to me along with Jarn’s
other goods and I will not yield her. I am not called Hard-grip for nothing.”

Ice-heart looked at Broken-fang. “Will you take troll-geld for Herfiligr?” There was mocking laughter in his
voice, as if amused by a joke only he knew.

Hard-grip raised his whalebone spear. “Take the she from me and I paint Glassissvellir red with your
blood!” The rival factions readied their weapons. The bears roused up and slavered as if sensing a feast
in the offing.

Godmund Ice-heart smiled a bleak, frost smile. “Stay! Hard-grip, I will buy the she from you. Since the
buck has damaged her I will give him to you. He is sturdy and will be useful for working bone or skinning
walrus. Break his leg if he gets uppish. Take him as a gift from your chief.” Ice-heart gave particular
emphasis to the words ‘gift’ and ‘chief’.

“Broken-fang, I will give you the she’s blood to drink. You may taste her flesh when it is cooked on the
spit in my mead-hall. Take a seat there and feast a loyal follower should.”

“By my blood Ice-heart binds his trolls,” Sigrid said. “At least Herfiligr will not see it. She is in Hel!”

Ulf rose to his feet. “Better a clean death in battle than this,” he said to Sigrid. Ulf cried aloud to the
trolls, “Hard-grip, are you Ice-heart’s dog?”

The troll rounded on Ulf with a curse, axe raised to smash him to a pulp. Ulf continued speaking, his
voice even and cold as an ice-sheet on a frozen sea. “Ice-heart takes a treasure from your hand—a relic
of your blood-brother—and gives a cast-off slave in its place. He does it to appease Broken-fang and
has the insolence to demand you thank him and call him chief. Lick Ice-heart’s hand if you are to be his
dog!”

Hard-grip snarled in rage. Ulf paid him no heed but continued, his voice rising like thunder in the ice-
palace. “And you, Broken-fang, are you to take your rights from the hand of Ice-heart? He orders you to
accept your due on his sufferance. Is that the way of a free troll or a slave?”

“Silence!” Godmund Ice-heart rose from his seat, harpoon at the ready. “Troll-folk will you heed the word
of a chief or a slave! I’ll crush the insolent dog!” Godmund raised the harpoon.

Sigrid screamed, a savage animal cry. “I avenged Jarn’s life on Herfiligr! I killed the fiend and drank her
blood! Are you less a man than I, oh Hard-grip?”

Hard-grip roared and lunged for Broken-fang even as his rival struck with his club. Suddenly the room
was a seething mass of berserk trolls rending and slaying with clubs, spears, and axes. The bears leapt
into the melee, hungry fangs seeking blood. Ulf and Sigrid tried to run for the passage out, but the trolls
were striking with insane fury. A dozen times Ulf and Sigrid evaded blows that would have turned them
into shattered meat and bone.

Suddenly Ulf saw the fighters part for a moment. The path to escape lay open. Then Godmund Ice-heart
stepped into the passage. Ice-heart hurled his harpoon. Sigrid leapt in front of Ulf. The harpoon went
through her and stuck into Ulf, mingling their blood.

“Ulf, I love…” Sigrid said. Blood gushed from her mouth as she died.

Ulf rose and pulled the harpoon free, ripping his flesh. He held the weapon and looked into Godmund Ice-
heart’s eyes. Then Ulf plunged into the spear-feast.

Ulf parried a spear thrust and stabbed the troll. Another troll swung his club, missing Ulf by a hair’s
breadth. Ulf raked the harpoon across the troll’s eyes. Bleeding and howling the troll stumbled into a
bear. The beast mauled the blind troll even as he crushed its skull.

Broken-fang and Hard-grip were fighting with berserk fury. Their clubs whirled with terrible speed,
dealing blows that would have crushed a man like an insect. Broken-fang smashed Hard-grip’s ribs with
an audible snap. Hard-grip retched blood and took another blow to the skull. Ulf came from behind
Broken-fang and thrust through the troll’s arm, severing the tendons. Though he was dying, Hard-grip
seized Broken-fang and tore out his foe’s throat with his teeth.

Ice-heart stood by his throne, killing foes with single blows of his axe. Ulf rushed forward and drove the
harpoon into Ice-heart’s side. The troll-chief toppled, but as he fell he struck Ulf a glancing blow with the
flat of the axe that broke Ulf’s arm. Ulf dropped the harpoon and Ice-heart raised his axe.

“The witch’s prophecy has proven true, but I have paid dearly for her vengeance.”

Then an arrow appeared in Ice-heart’s eye. There were shouts of fear from the trolls. Ulf struggled to his
feet, slipping in the bloody, churned ice-slush. Ulf raised the harpoon with his good arm, suddenly numb
with cold and pain. Ice-heart struck the harpoon aside and ran from the throne room.

Ulf tried to follow but a hand griped his shoulder. Arrow Odd stood there, “Quickly man! We cannot hold
back this horde of trolls long!” Asmund and the other Vikings were killing trolls and bears, but the
monsters fought back with deadly fury and several Vikings had already been slain.

“No!” Ulf shouted. “I’ll drink Ice-heart’s cold blood!”

Just then he heard Ice-heart’s voice from somewhere in the ice castle. The troll chief was singing, a high-
pitched whine that grated terribly. A chunk of the ceiling fell and crushed a Viking. “Run!” Arrow Odd
shouted. More pieces of ice fell, blocks to crush a man, or razor sharp blades to cut him in half. Ulf felt a
blow on his head and knew no more.

~*~

Ulf woke on the ship, Arrow Odd sat nearby and the wind rustled softly in the rigging. The Vikings had
taken spoil from the trolls’ dwellings, ivory and arctic fox pelts and bear-skins and an ice-skiff made of
whale bone and walrus hide.

“We thought you dead sword-brother,” Odd said. “The storm loosed a seam in the hull. The chest of
silver we took in Perm washed overboard. Sylgja the witch spoke truly. We laid-to off the island until the
leak was repaired and storm had blown out. After that we went ashore. By Odin, I did not expect to see
you alive and fighting a city of trolls single-handed!

“Where is Sigrid?” Ulf asked. Asmund pointed to where she lay by the mast on a bear-skin. Ulf told his
story. Asmund nodded gravely. “Sigrid is a worthy daughter of the Northern folk. We shall honor her as
a chieftain.”

Into the skiff they laid a layer of whale blubber. On that went the best of the troll-spoil and on that was
laid Sigrid Eysteinsdottir. Ulf touched a torch to the blubber and it flared to flaming life. The Vikings cast
off the skiff and Sigrid went to Valhalla on a plume of smoke.

In the crackle and hiss of the flames, Ulf heard the laughter of Sylgja the witch.
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David A. Hardy writes fiction and literary criticism. He has been published
in Classic Pulp Fiction Stories, The Cimmerian, RAGEMachine,
Shred of Evidence, Black Sails, and Dark Worlds. His critical essay on
Robert E. Howard's gunslinger-turned-Afghan warlord, Francis X.
Gordon will appear in the forthcoming anthology El Borak and Other
Desert Adventurers from Del Rey Books.

He lives in Austin, Texas.