Sigurd and Fafnir

The track crossed the heath in a broad, bare trough. Heather grew on either side, but nothing grew in it. Stones had been pushed deep into the earth; others lay broken along its edges.

Sigurd stopped his horse.

“You told me he was no larger than other serpents.”

Regin stood beside the track. He would not put a foot into it.

“There is a way to kill him.”

Sigurd looked uphill. The furrow ran towards a dark rise, and downhill it bent out of sight towards the water. Whatever had made it travelled this way often.

“Then tell me.”

“Dig a pit in his path. Lie beneath him. When he passes over you, drive your sword into his heart.”

Sigurd laid a hand on Gram’s hilt. Regin had reforged the blade from the broken sword of Sigurd’s father. It had split an anvil without losing its edge. The smith had kept that part of his promise.

“And when the blood runs into the pit?” Sigurd asked.

Regin’s mouth tightened.

“Must I answer every fear before you can act? Your father would not have needed so much persuading.”

The wind stirred the thin hair against the smith’s cheek. For years his foster-father’s voice had taught Sigurd the shapes of runes and the speech of foreign men. Lately it had spoken more often of gold: Fafnir’s gold, enough for a king, lying idle under a creature that would never spend it.

“I asked where the blood would go,” said Sigurd.

Regin glanced up the track.

“Dig.”

Sigurd rode a little farther and dismounted. When he looked back, the smith was already making his way off through the heather.

He watched until Regin disappeared. Then he led Grani away from the worn ground, returned with his spade, and began.

The earth was hard. He cut through roots, levered out stones, and worked until the hole was deep enough to hide him. From its bottom he could see a strip of pale sky. There was room to crouch and room to lift the sword. There would be nowhere to go if the pit filled.

“Who advised you to do that?”

An old man stood at the edge. His beard hung low over his chest. Sigurd had heard no approaching footsteps.

“Regin.”

“And will Regin be down there with you?”

Sigurd set the spade against the wall.

“No.”

The stranger looked along the track, then at the heap of earth beside it.

“One pit will hold you and all that follows your stroke. Make others. Give the blood somewhere else to run.”

Sigurd climbed out. He could cut channels from his hiding place into deeper hollows alongside it. The work would take longer, but he would not be shut in beneath the wound he made.

He turned to thank the old man.

There was no one on the track.

For a moment Sigurd searched the open heath. Then he took up the spade again.

By the time he finished, his palms were sore. He tested the room for his sword arm, cleared loose earth from the channels, and lowered himself into the pit. Gram lay ready across his knees.

He waited.

A little soil loosened from the wall and fell on his wrist.

Then more fell.

The ground was trembling.

Sigurd rose into a crouch. Along the strip of sky above him, the light changed. A vast head passed into view, low to the earth. Venom hissed from Fafnir’s nostrils and spattered the ground ahead. The dragon dragged himself forward, scales grinding against stone, his body filling the worn road from edge to edge.

Sigurd kept still.

The head went past. The sky vanished beneath the breast. He saw the fold behind the left shoulder.

He drove Gram upwards with both hands.

The blade went in to its hilt. Fafnir heaved; Sigurd pulled the sword free and sprang out of the pit. Hot blood struck his arm and poured into the hollows behind him. He ran clear as the dragon’s tail swept across the place where he had been.

Stone burst against stone. Heather tore loose by the roots. Sigurd planted his feet beyond the lashing body and held Gram before him.

Fafnir struck the ground again. Then the great coils began to slacken.

“Come where I can see you.”

The voice came from close to the earth, deep enough for Sigurd to feel it through his boots.

He moved towards the head, keeping beyond its reach. One eye followed him.

“What are you called?” asked Fafnir. “Whose son has done this?”

“A beast with no kin.”

The dragon’s jaw shifted against the stones.

“No father? No mother? A strange creature you must be.”

Sigurd met the eye.

“My name is Sigurd. Sigmund was my father.”

“And who sent Sigmund’s son crawling under my belly?”

“I held the sword.”

Fafnir’s breath rasped out. Far behind the head, a length of his body tightened and grew still.

“Regin sent you.”

Sigurd said nothing.

“My brother could not take the gold himself. So he found hands strong enough to take it for him.”

Regin had told him how Fafnir killed their father and kept the whole hoard. He had spoken of his stolen share until Sigurd could almost hear the coins falling into the smith’s hands. But he had spoken of his brother as a coward might speak of a locked door: something for another man to break.

“Your gold did not save you,” Sigurd said.

“It will not save you either.”

The dragon’s eye remained open.

“Ride away. Leave it where it lies.”

“And live for ever because I left it?”

Fafnir’s lips drew back from his teeth.

Sigurd had heard of the curse laid on that treasure before it reached Fafnir’s keeping. He had crossed the heath knowing it. Now the creature dying before him made the old warning harder to dismiss.

“If I leave empty-handed, I shall die one day all the same,” he said.

“There is enough for all your days. Few as they may be.”

Fafnir shifted his head a little nearer.

“Regin brought you to my death. He will bring you to yours.”

Sigurd glanced towards the heather where the smith had gone. Nothing moved there.

When he looked back, the dragon’s eye no longer followed him.

He stood listening until the last slow breath had ended.

Regin returned across the heath.

He came cautiously at first. Then he saw Fafnir lying still and hurried forward, raising both hands.

“No one will forget this deed! No one else dared stand in his path.”

Sigurd wiped Gram clean against the earth.

Regin stopped beside his brother. He stared down for so long that Sigurd looked up at him.

“My own brother,” the smith said.

“You asked me to kill him.”

“And now he is dead.”

“Yes.”

Regin turned towards the sword.

“You would not have done it without my work.”

Sigurd slid his thumb along the flat of the blade, checking it. The edge was whole.

“Your work was good. Where were you while I used it?”

The smith looked away.

For a while neither spoke. The wind had risen, and the heather rustled around Fafnir as it had around the empty track.

At last Regin asked for the dragon’s heart.

Sigurd cut it free. Regin drank some of his brother’s blood, then sat down in the heather with a long breath, as though the labour had been his.

“Roast it for me,” he said. “That much you can do.”

Sigurd gathered fuel and made a small fire. He set the heart on a rod above it and turned it slowly. Regin lay nearby. Beyond him the dragon stretched across the ground, too large to take in with one glance.

The fire settled to a steady heat. A drop hissed among the embers.

Sigurd touched the heart to see whether it was cooked. His finger stung. He put it to his mouth.

A bird called from the bushes.

“He cooks it for someone else.”

Sigurd held the rod motionless.

Another bird answered.

“He ought to eat it himself.”

The sounds were still small and sharp. He could hear the scrape of claws on twigs between them. But each note had opened into a word.

“The man lying there means to kill him,” said a third.

Sigurd looked at Regin.

The smith had closed his eyes. One hand lay palm-up in the heather: the hand that had guided Sigurd’s fingers when he first learned his letters, the hand that had made Gram.

“He trusts him,” said a bird.

“His brother is dead. Does he think that will be forgotten?”

Sigurd lowered the heart beside the fire.

Fafnir’s warning returned in the same deep voice. Regin’s praise followed it, then the sudden heaviness with which he had said my own brother.

The birds shifted among the branches.

“Let him kill the smith and take the treasure.”

Sigurd rose.

For a breath he stood over the fire, looking at the man who had brought him there. Regin had taught him many tongues. This last one he had not meant him to learn.

Sigurd drew Gram.

One stroke took Regin’s head. The smith fell still among the heather.

The rod slipped farther into the embers. Sigurd reached down and drew it back before it burned through. He ate part of Fafnir’s heart and wrapped the rest to carry with him.

The birds were singing again. Their voices followed him as he went to fetch Grani.

He rode uphill along the dragon’s trail. It ended at a house sunk deep into the ground, with iron doors standing open and iron beams overhead. Sigurd dismounted at the entrance.

Inside, the gold caught what little light came down from the heath.

There were rings, vessels, heaps of treasure gathered so closely that he had to make a place to stand. Among them lay a coat of golden mail, the Helm of Awe, and the sword called Rotti. No keeper rose from the darkness to challenge him.

Sigurd found two great chests and filled them. He carried out the armour and the sword. At each return, the open doorway framed the empty heath behind Grani.

When the treasure was loaded, he took the reins and led the horse towards the track.

Grani did not move.

Sigurd pulled again. The grey horse stood with all four feet planted, ears turned towards him. The chests hung heavy at his sides.

Sigurd looked at the load. It seemed enough for two horses, perhaps three.

Grani turned his head and breathed against Sigurd’s shoulder.

“You are waiting for me?”

Sigurd put a foot up and swung into the saddle.

At once Grani stepped forward. The chests scarcely troubled him. He carried them out onto the heath with the same easy stride that had brought Sigurd there, while behind them the iron doors stood open to the wind.