With all this, he found no time for seeking a wife.
Thus it went for five years, until his doom overtook him anew.
XV
Too long have we fought with that wolf where and when and how he chooses,” said King Uffi in Uppsala.
“What else can we do?” asked his younger brother, Hunding. “If we brought together a great host, that would leave helpless the shires from which so many men were drawn. He would go reave unhindered. Ever oftener I wonder if we might not best make peace with him. If he got sureties that Denmark would be safe from us, he might well give up his thin claim to kingship here.”
Uffi’s fist thudded on the arm of his high seat. “Peace between him and me? Never while we are both alive!” He was a big man like their father, Asmund, with much the same face, though his locks were brown and as yet had no gray in them. Folk reckoned him wilier; he thought ahead. Today he narrowed his eyes and spoke softly. “A wolf leaps into a sheepfold, takes a lamb in its jaws, and is off before the hounds can give chase. If one of them does catch up with him, he slashes it bloody and lopes onward into the wilds where the rest soon lose his spoor. Shall the shepherd therefore yield and let him have the flock? No, a wise man lures the wolf into a trap.”
“Hadding is himself wise,” Hunding said. “That’s why I think we should ask what he wants for a peace with us. It may be less than what this unending war is costing. Meanwhile, he’ll know any trap for what it is, and stay clear.”
“Not if it’s a kind of which he’s never heard.” Uffi looked around at his redesmen and headmen. “Here is what I have in mind. During this winter, we’ll stack wood everywhere for beacon fires. Come spring, we’ll post fast-riding scouts about the kingdom. Thus we will know where he fares. Between the north end of Gotland and the mainland we’ll keep more ships at sea than he has ever brought with him. If he wants to fight them, good, he’s done for. But likelier he’ll sheer southward.
“Now he’s already picked those shores bare. If he wants to do more harm and take more booty, he must go well inland. Wherever this is, nobody shall withstand him. Men shall keep away, as if frightened of the very sight. Thus he should be drawn ever deeper inward. When he’s come far enough, then the Geats and Swedes shall lay waste the land before him, behind him, and widely around him. Let them fire every barn and grainfield, let them kill whatever livestock they cannot bring with them. No longer shall the Danes live off the land as they’re wont to. Meanwhile I will have hastened south with a picked troop and packhorses well laden with food. Along the way I’ll gather what more warriors I can, and at the end call the shire-levy there to me. The Danes will be weak from hunger. Then will we fall on them.”
“This is unheard of, that a king make war on his own folk!” cried Hunding. The others muttered and growled. But after talking at length they decided it was worth trying, for indeed nothing else had helped.
Summer came again, the sixth of Hadding’s strife with the house of Svipdag. He always sent men ahead to find out what might be waiting for him. Now as he sailed past Öland a small ship, swiftly rowed, came back to warn of a Swedish fleet hove to in the north. His craft were much fewer, and mostly broad-beamed knorrs, better fitted for sail than oars, for carrying men and horses than for getting about nimbly. After he had met with their skippers, he turned around and went back south of the island to a Geatish strand he knew. There he left a skeleton crew in each bottom and struck out northwesterly toward the Svithjod marches.
At first his troop moved fast. No foeman met them. No one did at all. They had been here earlier. Fire-blackened snags of farmsteads stood like runestones above scattered bones, among fields gone to grass and brambles. Poppies blazed, finches trilled, deer bolted off into shaws, geese flapped startled from fens, but the land lay eerily still. Nobody spoke loudly around the campfires at night, and looks kept shifting outward into the dark.
The way steepened. These parts were new to the Danes. They came on steadings and thorps that were unscarred, croplands that were ripening. Yet they seldom saw the dwellers. Those had fled: Smoke from hilltops afar showed how word of the raiders got about. “Strange that they don’t stand fast and fight,” Hadding murmured. “This was always a stouthearted folk. I should think they’d at least try slowing us, down. Have they lost heart altogether?” He laughed. “Well, the better for us.”
His men had eaten the food they brought from the ships. This many could not live off wild game. The yeomen had taken their herds and flocks with them, but it hampered their flight and soon they let most go. Since Hadding’s scouts found no hostile host anywhere near, his warriors could range rather freely in search of strayed kine. It was skimpy fare, but enough to keep them as they pushed on. Behind him smoldered the homesteads and storehouses they had gutted. They would return to the sea by another way.
Suddenly smoke was everywhere in sight. It rose above trees, it lay like mist over blackened fields, it blued and made. bitter the air men breathed. There were no more cows, pigs, or sheep. Hunters came only on carcasses where the maggots and ants were cleaning up what the wheeling, rasping crows had left.
“What1s this?” wondered Eyjolf Lysirsson. “Are they offering everything to the gods, in hopes we’ll be smitten?”
“I know not,” said Hadding, “but neither do I like it.” He thought. “We will seek back to our ships.”
By then they had trekked onward three more days, for they had not understood how thorough the burning and slaughter were. They were into uplands, thinly settled, thickly wooded, hard going even along the few roads. Hadding took heed of sun and stars. In his head he laid out a course that should swing him wide of these forbidding reaches.
But as the Danes found their way, they found no food. Everywhere the same earth-scorching dogged them. Now and then they spied horsemen in the offing. A few times they caught a dweller or two. These said they knew merely that the king’s men had bidden them lay bare the path of his foes, and widely around. Hadding nodded. “That’s plain to see,” was all he answered, and let the captives go.
When he ordered the killing of packhorses, nobody spoke against it, though it meant leaving loot behind. By then, bellies were growling too loudly. Worse was the loss of strength. With shouts the Danes squatted at their cookfires and drank the smell of roasting meat before they sank their teeth into it.
Yet they had not many horses with them. They could not do without those that bore spears, arrows, and other weaponry. Thus they got only a few bites each day. Some won a little more. Their noisy passage frightened game off, and they could not well stop to fish the streams they crossed. However, a man might climb a tree if he saw a bird’s nest and crunch the fledglings in his mouth. He might grub worms from a rotten log. Better, he might shoot down a forsaken dog. Still, this was a meager meal at best.
One man grew too weak to walk. His friends made a litter and carried him. After a day he died. That was likeliest from illness, for hunger had not brought down anyone else. They buried him when they Camped that evening. Afterward a whisper went around that during the night others dug him up and ate of his flesh before putting him under again. Nobody said who they might have been, and Hadding scoffed at the tale, but it was an ugly one and sickened everybody.
Back at last in the lowlands, they stopped at a lakeside. The one sign of man was a farm about a mile off, empty, its fields and buildings charred. The dwellers had even cast their turnips and suchlike pig-truck into the fire before they fled.
The lake itself shone golden with sunset. Reeds rustled on its banks. Frogs leaped. Warriors splashed around for a while, trying to catch them, but little came of that. Nor could they take the waterfowl that flocked and cried yonder, nor hope for the fish they saw glimmer and jump. They were not outfitted for it. Bats were coming forth, darting after the mosquitoes that whined in hordes and nipped blood that men could ill spare. The last light glowed through their wings. Trees beyond stood darkling against an eastern sky where a red star had kindled. Warmth drained from the wo
rld.
Without packhorses to carry tents, the warriors must spread whatever they had to sleep in on the grass and dandelions. They did not trouble about fires, but gnawed what scraps of stinking meat were handed out. Hadding, as haggard as any of them, said to Eyjolf, “I’ve a feeling that here we’re at the end of our road.”
“It’s a ways yet to the sea,” answered the viking’s son, “and I mean to plow it again.” He grinned beneath eyes gone hollow. “As well as quite a few more women.”
“We may wish,” Hadding said, “but if it comes to pass, it will not be soon.” He turned about through the deepening twilight and sought his bedroll. To Eyjolf it seemed an ill token, hearing such words from the king.
Night fell. A nearly full moon cast a quivering bridge over the lake. Aside from their drowsy outposts, the Danes slept.
A noise yanked them awake. Through the dark, through their ears and marrow, loud as a scream, grinding like a quern, a voice chanted:
To woe in warfare you have wandered afar,
Seeking to seize by the sword a prey.
What hasty hope has hooked your wits?
Why blundered you blithely and blindly forth,
Believing the land was lying open?
Unswayed, unswerving, the Swedes have gathered
Stoutly to stand and sternly to fight.
Danes, after daybreak death will be here,
Ruthless and ready to reap your host.
When, beaten in battle, the best among you,
Weakened, give way as the weapons come on,
And frightened flee the field of slaughter,
Your foes will follow your flight like hounds,
Victors vying to avenge their losses,
For easy it is to end a man
When horror has him; helpless he goes.
Hadding was on his feet, naked but with hilt in hand, glaring about under the moon. His folk were shadows to him, except where the light flowed off iron. They shouted, cursed, moaned, mumbled. “Be still!” he roared. “Hold fast!”
The voice had died away. Alone the night wind spoke, rustling moon-dappled leaves. Dew glittered star-cold. Hadding went among his warriors, bidding them remember that they were men. They knew he had met weirdness before and lived. After a while they quieted down. But nobody slept more.
By the bleak dawn light, Eyjolf asked Hadding, “Shall we be off?”
“No,” the king told him. “We’ve heard what is bound our way. Lacking a height to hold, this is as good a battleground for us as any.”
Without steeds or leg-strength, no scouts had ranged in the past few days. Nonetheless Hadding was not astonished when the spearheads of a Swedish troop flashed at midmorning. “We are as many as they,” he said to the housecarles within earshot. “If our bellies are less full than theirs, let our hearts be more so. We’ll take our stand on the lakeshore. Thus they won’t be able to flank us and attack from behind.”
“Nor will we find it easy to break and run,” drawled old Ax-Egil.
Hadding laughed. “If a man of mine can speak so brashly, there’s hope for all of us. But keep this thought to yourselves.”
As the Swedes drew near, the Danish bowmen let fly. Arrows whirred aloft in a dark flock and down again. Their barbs thunked into shields, glanced off helmets, rattled against mail. Some struck into flesh. A man lurched and shrieked with a shaft sticking out of his eye, another pawed at one in his neck and sagged to his knees as blood spurted, another swore and ripped one out of his thigh but thereafter went lame—here, there, throughout Uffi’s host. The king rapped an order. His headmen shouted it their bands. The Swedes halted while their own bowmen gave answer in kind.
Thus they lost the might that is in an all-out onslaught. Against this was the losses the Danes suffered.
Yet must the Swedes come to them, across ground where more arrows hurtled, then slingstones and flung spears. When they reached Hadding’s lines, theirs were ragged. Working side by side, the Danes sent them surging back in disarray.
Uffi egged them on. They closed ranks and renewed their attack. Iron gleamed, banged, made cloven shieldwood groan. Howls of rage and pain rose raw. The Swede-king hewed tireless, seeking to cut a path to the man he hated. He could see Hadding’s tall shape above the swaying helmets, amidst the leaping weapons. But always the battle between them was too thick.
His men had fared hard for a long way. The Danes, though weakened by hunger, had had a rest before the fight began. They stood their ground and took their toll. Lichs lay heaped before them. Less and less eager did the Swedes feel to climb over those red windrows.
In a lull, where the only sound was the moaning of the sorely wounded and the hoarse breathing of the hale, Uffi took thought. “Sound the withdrawal,” he bade his headmen. As the war-horns lowed, his banner went in the lead.
The Danes did not cheer. They were too weary. They knew their losses had been the heavier. After a while they saw Uffi’s banner stop a mile off and others join it.
“Back to camp,” Hadding told his followers. “Maybe we can get a good night’s sleep this time.”
That was an unlucky thing to say. Men recalled the voice in the dark and what it had foretold. Nonetheless they obeyed, bringing their hurt along. Their dead they must leave behind, for lack of strength to drag so many burdens along. Nor did they cut the throats of what Swedes lay helpless on the field. That likewise was more work than they could well undertake, and useless. They settled down where they had been before. Most toppled straight into uneasy slumber.
King Uffi mounted his horse, beckoned his warriors to stand close around, and harangued them. They were not beaten, he cried. Already they had given better than they got. He was proud Of them. Let them refresh themselves and rest. In the morning they would finish their task.
The hurrahs that lifted were dull. Yet the Swedes did hail their lord. Having pitched camp, they gloated around their cookfires. “May the Danes have joy of smelling our roasts.”
Night fell, the light summer night that is well-nigh a dusk. A full moon climbed over eastern treetops to brighten it further. Fires guttered low. Aside from their watchmen, the warriors slept.
The moon drew near the loft of heaven. Earth lay shadowy. The lake shivered with silver. Then, louder than any human voice, cracked and grisly, there ran through the Swedish troop:
Why does now Uffi dare me
To dash him to the ground?
Reckless call him rightly,
Rather than bold-hearted.
They he angered thus
For this will make him pay.
I warn that only woe
He wins for all his work.
Sinking under sword-edge,
Soon he loses life.
Strive however strongly
In strife he may, he dies.
A flock of spears aflight
Shall flay him limb from limb.
No cloth will ever close
The clotting wounds upon him,
Nor need is there, for nothing
Can knit dead flesh together.
Men started awake. They caught hold of weapons, which then shuddered and sank in their hands. They blundered about in the half light and wailed for their friends, any friends, “Ingvar, where are you? Grimulf, oath-brother, come to me!”
Though sweat stood cold on his skin, Uffi knew that if he let horror run free, his troop might well split asunder. Once a few ran away, everybody would. Even if they stayed, brooding on this thing would sap them. He boiled from his tent and shouted for his guards. “Sound the horns! Marshal the men! We go back to war!”
Somehow he rallied them. Iron came forth, icy under the moon. Bands formed up around their banners. Uffi rode in front where all could see him. His folk lumbered forward. He sprang off the horse and took shield in hand himself.
The racket had roused the Danes. Dazed, aching, sandy-eyed, they still heeded their king as he went about bidding them make ready. The best they could do was arm themselves and stumble
into three lines. There they waited for the foe to reach them.
Suddenly from somewhere, onto the dewed grass between the troops, came a man striding. Taller he loomed than the tallest warrior, but hideously gaunt. Foul rags flapped around him. In the moonlit gloaming his head shone bare, beardless, eyes too deep-sunken to see, a head like a skull. He gripped a curved sword as though it were a sickle for reaping. Wheeling around, he moved on before the Swedes, toward the Danes.
They gasped for breath. Spearheads flickered above them in their grasp, flames of a dying fire.
Another old man stalked from the other side, as tall, bony, ragged, and bald as the first, armed likewise. He turned to face the Swedes.
“What are they?” The words wavered at Hadding’s back. “Trolls, drows, sendings, what are they?”
“I know not,” the king answered. “But more powers than human are at strife this night.”
The shapes met. Their swords clashed. To and fro they trampled, hewing, fending, faster than eye could follow, ghastly under the moon, in utter stillness.
Men stood staring, numbstruck. Then Uffi bellowed, “We have one friend from beyond, at least! Fail him not! Onward!”
It became easier to fight than to watch. The Swedes screamed like wildcats. They broke into a run. Around the horrible old men they poured, up against the Danes.
“Hold fast!” Hadding cried. Battle burst over him.
A while it went on, blind and witless. But the Swedes now had their backs to the open ground. The Danes glimpsed past them to the grisly sight yonder. It chilled and shook them even as they fought for their lives.
War of the Gods Page 11