Thus he had no time even to think about taking a wife, but merely bedded whomever was offered him—ofttimes by herself—as he fared around the land. Nor could he give heed to what went on abroad. He knew only that Svipdag’s son Asmund was now king in Uppsala and had vowed revenge. It was hardly a surprise. The question was merely how real the threat might be.
The answer to that came toward spring, as Hadding sat in the great hall near Haven that his grandfather had built. Up from the nearby Sound came a band of men on horses they had brought across, into the stronghold, and so to the king’s house. It was a gloomy day, skies heavy above croplands still bare and trees still leafless.
But when the newcomers came indoors, warmth, light, and cheer met them. Fires crackled high, hardwood sweetened with herbs. Lamps laid their glow to the leaping brightness and to whatever straggled in through the gutskins stretched across the windows. Shadows made the gods, heroes, and beasts graven on the pillars or woven into the hangings seem to breathe and stir. Well-born women kept filled the drinking horns of the men who sat on the platform benches along either wall. Well-trained hounds lolled at the men’s feet. The king’s guests and his household warriors were clad in brocaded, fur-trimmed tunics, breeks dyed with woad or weld or madder, belts and footgear of the finest leather and workmanship. Hadding in his high seat was more splendid yet, a silver brooch set with a garnet at his throat, gold rings on his fingers and coiling up his arms. His hair and close-trimmed beard shone the same yellow. His eyes gleamed sea blue in the jutting Skjoldung face.
A skald stood before him, saying forth a stave in his praise., When it ended, the king smiled. “Men will long remember that,” he said. “Then let them remember too how much I liked it.” He broke off half of an arm-ring and handed it to the man, a generous reward. Folk cheered. The skald said a verse of thanks and took his own seat. Friends thumped him on the back, tendered their best wishes, and bade him wet his throat.
After this it was seemly for the newcomers to tread forth. Hadding spoke first. “Why, Eyjolf!” he cried happily. “Welcome! Why didn’t you let us know you were bound here, so we could have a feast worthy of you?”
“There was little time to spare, lord,” said Lysir’s son. “Nor is there now “
Indrawn breath rustled through the hall. Hadding’s lips tightened. Yet he said calmly, “Come sit at my side and drink with me before we touch on anything worse.”
The news soon came out. Having fastened his rule on Svithjod, Asmund was quick to make ready for war. They had lately heard tales in Scania of how he was calling up both Swedes and Geats. It seemed clear that he meant to cross the marches. between the kingdoms. Such a host could lay much waste before men returned home for the springtime farm work.
Hadding tugged his chin and stared into the dusk that gathered under the roof. “Belike he means to leave as many warriors as he can behind, to hold his winnings and make further trouble,” he said low. “Once the crops are in, he’ll raise the great levy anew, and this time strike across the Sound. Anyhow, thus would I work. So let us forestall him.”
An older warrior frowned. “Lord, can we get enough men ourselves, ferry them over, and keep them fed? This is short warning.”
The king lifted his head. “I think we can raise as much strength as I’ll need,” he answered for all to hear. “Asmund shall not be free to waste my lands and harry my folk.”
Eyjolf’s eyes flashed. “When I helped you, I did well,” he said.
Now Hadding became once more roaringly busy. He lacked time for the war-arrow to go around the whole of Denmark, but Zealand and the islands south of it bore many thriving farms, which had bred strong sons. Word went likewise through Scania, bidding warriors meet at set places. Mean-while Hadding gathered ships and stores, with wains and horses to bear the needful stuff along. Hard though he worked, the trees were budding and a mist of green overlay the earth before he could start forth/ The leaves were out, small and tender, the grass growing well, and wanderbirds flocking homeward through heaven, when he met his foe.
This was in the north of Scania. The Swedes and Geats had not yet come far. Only a few farmsteads stained the blue with their burning. Otherwise that afternoon was sunny. Breezes went mild, full of birdsong and breaths of soil and growth. Hadding’s troops were passing through a broad bottomland flanked by low, wooded hills. On their left flowed and glittered the rivet Elsewhere spread open meadow with scattered groves of beech or ash. The yeomen hereabouts had herded their grazing kine away as they fled. The field lay open for battle.
When Hadding saw from afar the host moving toward his, he whistled softly. “That looks like about three to one against us,” he said. “I hadn’t reckoned on quite so much.” His laugh barked. “Each of us’ll have to do away with three of them.”
No few among his followers swallowed hard. But all walked onward. Lights flared off helmets and spearheads. Banners rippled aloft. Feet made a slow, dull drumbeat. Hadding dismounted. He slung his shield on his back and took a bill off a packhorse. Given the numbers he must meet, he wanted a weapon with a longer reach than a sword, to get at foemen behind the frontmost and thus loosen the sheer weight of them.
Soon, he knew, the fight would break up into knots, where the only way one could hope to stay by his fellows was to keep an eye on the banner of their chieftain. If it went down, strife would go wholly man-to-man, without shape or meaning.
On the Swedish side, riding at the head of his ‘folk, King Asmund laughed louder. “Now have you been as reckless as I hoped, Hadding!” he boomed. He was like his father in looks, big, heavyset, hooknosed, with dark hair and beard that were getting grizzled. To the youth on his right hand he said, “This day your namesake will smile in his howe.”
Henrik was slender and fair, barely of an age to take arms. Asmund had given him that Saxon name when he was born, in honor of him whom Gram slew in order to reave away Signy. She thus became the mother of Hadding, but it was to avenge her fallen bridegroom that the Saxons lent strength to Svipdag and so brought about the death of Hadding’s father. That young Henrik was here, where they would bring down the son of Gram, seemed wholly right to Asmund.
On either side flew the banners of his two older sons, Uffi and Hunding; but Henrik was his most beloved. Elsewhere went the followers of many Swedish and Geatish chieftains. When the riders among them drew rein and jumped down, a shout rang off the hills. Startled birds flew piping from their nests. Iron flared free. Bowstrings twanged, arrows hissed into flight.
Like two storm waves, a greater and a lesser, the hosts crashed together. Blood-foam spattered into the wind. The tides churned, swirled in among each other, became a seething that howled. Swords hewed, axes smote, spears thrust. Men yelled, gasped, screamed, fell. High on their staffs swayed the raven flag of Hadding and the eagle flag of Asmund. But the Dane-king must needs stand fast amidst his household troopers, while the Swede-king pressed ever forward with his.
“Ha!” bellowed Asmund. “Only wait, Hadding! I’m coming to you!” His blade sundered a shield. Henrik struck from the right and killed that man. The boy was fighting as hard as his slightness was able, as fearlessly as any skilled warrior.
A weapon-clash hit on their left. Nearly berserk with rage, Eyjolf Lysirsson had led his Bralunders straight for the invader overlord. They cut and battered a road through all men in between. They fell on Asmund’s bodyguards like wolves on an elk.
But the elk bears great antlers and sharp hoofs. The Norse-men stood shoulder to shoulder. Their blows racketed and clove. Nearby Swedes and Geats saw what was happening. As fast as they could break off their own fights, they came to help.
“Yah!” shrieked Henrik, hawk wild. He rushed out of the shield-wall to smite this foe. Eyjolf’s ax smashed down his sword and split his helmet and skull.
Then the press grew too heavy. Attacked on every side, the Scanians went under. Their ranks crumbled. Those that were left hacked ways to freedom and withdrew elsewhere. Eyjolf’s banner lay on t
he reddened ground. He sought to his own king’s.
For a span there was quiet around Asmund. He did not hear the groans of the wounded nor the harsh breathing of the hale where they leaned on their spearshafts. He stood looking down on the wreckage that had been his dearest son. It gaped up at him through the spilled blood and brains. He had a gift for skaldcraft. After a while he stared around and spoke flatly.
Who will have my weapons?
Helmets are no use now
Nor byrnies worth the bearing.
My boy is riven from me.
Death, that took my darling,
Do for me the selfsame.
Swinging only sword blade,
I seek my end in battle.
He straightened. His voice rang louder through the uproar.
Breast to foeman baring
Where blinks the ice-cold iron,
Fiercely I’ll go forward
To fell them in my vengeance.
Men will long remember
This meeting of the war-hosts.
If early come its ending,
Yet I shall not have rested.
Thereupon he slung shield on back, gripped his sword with the left hand wrapped over the right, and howled for his men to follow. Heedless of life, he made for Hadding. No foes in between could withstand him. He reaped them. His well-drilled guards worked grimly beside him. As the banner thrust onward, more and more of their folk rallied about it.
Standing with his housecarles, the Dane-king had often wielded his bill. Again and again they cast back an onslaught. But each one cost them. Meanwhile, looking from his height over the heads of most, he saw the rest of his troops driven apart from each other and piecemeal whittled away. As Asmund’s human landslide bore down on him, he knew that unless help came swiftly, he was done. None was anywhere in sight. His mind flew back to the wilderness of his boyhood. Little of witchcraft had he learned there. One spell, though, was his to use once.
He turned his eyes northward, braced himself, and loosed it. Men heard his throat give forth unknown words and saw his finger draw runes on the wind. They shivered, thinking he had gone mad.
A smokiness sprang up on the field. It whirled, whistled, thickened. It became the jotun Vagnhöfdi.
In all his hugeness he stood before them. He blocked out the sun; his shadow stretched far over the trampled, blood-muddied earth and the sprawled slain. Shaggy, hide-clad, he gripped a giant ax in his right hand and an iron-shod club in his left. The stone-rough face swung about as he glared to and fro from beneath the shelf of brow. Men stared, frozen.
“Hold!” cried Hadding to his warriors. “That’s my foster father! He is with us!”
An earthquake rumble sounded from Vagnhöfdi’s breast. He stalked forward. Bones crunched, guts spurted beneath his feet. To the nearest band of Swedes he strode. As they broke and ran, he began killing them.
Fear blazed up and spread, wildfire. Men cast their weapons aside and ran blind, wailing. Danes were among them, the war forgotten. But many more beheld Hadding’s banner still aloft. They recalled what they had heard about his beginnings. It was an eldritch tale. Yet they stammered to each other that they must not lose heart, but rally to him.
Asmund also overrode the horror in his nearest followers. By then they were close indeed to the Dane-king. Hadding stuck his bill into the ground and took shield to hand for the attack. Asmund saw. Bitterly he screamed:
Why bear you here so boldly
Your bill, as crooked as you are?
A sword or flying spearhead
Shall slay you all the sooner.
Your will is not for weapons
To weight the scales of battle.
You trust yourself to tonguecraft,
To trolls and blackest magic.
How dare you act undaunted,
Whose deeds are all unmanly,
The shield against your shoulder
Ashamed of him who holds it?
The name you shall be known by
Is nithing, now and always,
And from your mouth the foulness
That fills it reeks to heaven.
No man could brook words like that. Wrath stormed up through Hadding. He snatched back the bill and hurled it. Drawing blade, he dashed forward before his amazed guards could stir.
The bill struck Asmund glancingly on the neck. Its sharp hook rent the flesh. Blood leaped forth. Asmund reeled. His men snarled and readied themselves.
Hadding came. Blows flew at him from right and left. As he warded himself, Asmund struck for the last time. His sword caught the. Dane-king in the right foot. Through boot and bone the edge went. Hadding staggered. Asmund grinned at him, crumpled, and bled to death.
Hadding’s men got there to beat the warriors back from their lord. For a short while the fight ramped. Then a bulk like a mountain loomed over it. Vagnhöfdi smashed the Norse that were left as a man cracks lice between his teeth.
Thereupon he turned to Hadding. White-lipped and sweating, the king stood on one leg with his sword for a cane. Vagnhöfdi bent low. “You’re hurt, fosterling,” he growled. “Come, let’s take you away and see to this.”
Hadding shook his head. “I will keep the field,” he said raggedly.
Vagnhöfdi waved a hairy hand. “Look around you. It is yours.”
A few banners were left, all Danish. Men were gathering around them. Far and wide, their foes fled. Two had somehow caught terrified horses and gotten back into the saddle. They rode about and must be calling to those in flight whom they overtook, for some joined them. Nevertheless it was clear that the folk who had been Asmund’s would fight no more this day.
Hadding nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we’d better get me hale again fast, if we’re to make use of our victory.”
The jotun took him in the crook of an arm and bore him off like a babe. Hadding half drowsed through the long strides. Those of his housecarles as had the boldness and were not too weary or weakened trailed after them.
Vagnhöfdi went on for some ways. “I think you won’t be ganging off very soon,” he said. “You should rest where the stink, the flies, and the screaming birds can’t trouble you.” At a grove beside the river he laid his burden down on soft duff.
Squatting, he touched the wounded foot. It bled less than before but bone ends stuck out of the gashed leather. “My fingers are too thick to bind this,” he sighed like a storm gust. “I hope somebody with skills gets here before too long.”
“Can’t your spells make it whole?” asked Hadding.
“No,” Vagnhöfdi answered. “That gift lay more in my daughter, Hardgreip.”
“I’m sorry she died,” Hadding said through his pain to the giant’s.
“She went freely to her doom,” said Vagnhöfdi. “Now I must begone lest mine come upon me. Already I hear thunder off beyond the hills.” Hadding could not, but he believed. Vagnhöfdi’s brooding look sought his eyes. “Beware, yourself, of overmuch haughtiness. Your own doom is a strange one. More than that I know not; but I do not think you will always be lucky.”
Hadding lifted his head a little. “Whatever befalls, I’ll make of it what I can.”
“You might do that better if you went at things less rashly.” Vagnhöfdi sighed again. “But you are you, and young. Maybe some wisdom will come with the years, if you live. Otherwise, well, that’s what your doom is. Haflidi and I will abide the news. We shall meet you no more.” A great hand stroked the brow beneath it. “Farewell, fosterling.”
He picked up his weapons, rose, and trudged off. A lowering sun threw his shadow across the dale farther than men could see. He himself reared black athwart the sky. They watched in awe until the mighty darkness went from sight over the hills.
Already before then, the swiftest among them had reached their king. One was good with wounds. He undid Hadding’s boot, cleansed the foot, hefted and handled it, and told his fellows to bring him what he would need. Hadding set teeth together. He caught his breath only when the work hurt mo
st.
Night fell. Uffi and Hunting had gotten together a number of their men. By the light of stars and waning moon they sought back to the battlefield. There they found the body of their father Asmund. They bore him away.
Days passed. Hadding grew fevered. He never raved with it, and soon cast it off, but it left him weak for a while afterward. During it, his housecarles, chieftains, and other trusty men gathered back those Danes who had fled. They saw to the care of the hurt, handing out of stores, mending of harness and weapons. Those who were unfit to fight more went home, along with those who felt themselves needed on the farms at sowing time: for the term of levy was up, as set forth in olden law.
However, no few stayed camped by the river. Hopes of reward, plunder, revenge, and fame lured them. The wondrous ending of the battle here heartened them. True, Hadding gave out frankly that there could be no more such rescues. Hence-forward they would win whatever they won by their own hands. But they thought he must be well worth following.
His right foot splinted and bound, he mounted his horse and led them northward. He would go the whole way to Uppsala and seize the overlordship of Svithjod and Geatland. Thus would he quell the threat, harvest wealth for those who had been faithful to him, strengthen his Skjoldung house beyond overthrow ever again, and for himself win a name that would live till the end of the world.
Meanwhile Hunding brought Asmund’s body home. He laid it to rest with kingly grave-goods and great offerings to the gods. He also buried his mother, Gunnhild. She chose not to outlive her husband, but fell on his sword. Their son set her down at his side.
War of the Gods Page 9