The old man who was on their side gave way. Backward he went, barely warding off the blows that sleeted about him. All at once he was gone from their ken. The other stood there in his rags, skull gray-white in moon-glow, before walking off with sword held high.
At that, the Danes broke. One by one, two by two, in tens and scores, they left their ranks. Most cast aside their weapons to run the faster. Every which way they fled, lost in utter feat Uffi bayed for glee.
Those of Hadding’s housecarles who lived fought stubbornly on, together. A few other Danes kept their wits and joined this small band. Though the numbers against it were overwhelming, the Swedes were also worn out, also daunted by what had happened. When the Danes rebuffed their last rush, they hung back, snarling but with the will beaten out of them.
King Hadding winded his horn. His flagbearer lifted his banner on high. He led his folk off.
Uffi could not make his own follow. Some flopped down and sobbed for breath. Some lay flat by the water and drank and drank. Some began to pick listlessly through the forsaken camp. Some tried to tend their wounded fellows.
After a while Uffi stopped blustering at them. Later they could chase and kill the foes who had bolted. Let that handful go who had left in fighting array. Already the night had swallowed them.
He had gained enough. His was the victory, in spite of everything that Denmark and hell raised against him. No soon again would Hadding seek his shores. The Dane-king might well meet death as he struggled homeward. If not, the Uffi would think how to give it. No matter what the tales were that one heard about Hadding’s youth, he was hardly a darling of the gods.
XVI
Hadding knew well that he could not make for his ships. Scouts would be searching everywhere between. Soon after one of them saw his little gang, overwhelming might would overtake him. Instead, he headed west. By dawn they had reached wildwood. Wading down a stream, they broke their trail. He spent his skills keeping them from leaving any mark where they scrambled back onto land. ‘ Hardgreip could still have tracked us,” he said low. The sadness gave way to half a grin. “But no Swedish farmers.”
Now they were staggering with weariness. Where boughs roofed the ground so thickly that no brush grew, they lay down on the leaves of old years and slept. None rested well. Throbbing and burning, wounds made fitful the slumber of some, while nightmares beset that of others. Hadding never told how that day went for him. Though sorely cut and bruised, he bore no deep slashes or broken bones; but the weight upon him was heavy.
Nonetheless, when the men began to rouse toward evening, he stood before them and spoke firmly. His beard and bare locks were the brightest thing they saw amidst the green shadows. His words were a drumbeat under the gurgling of an unseen cuckoo. With a forefinger he counted his dirty bloody, scrawny, sweat-crusted, tatter-garbed following. “Eighteen of us. But good men, all of you.” His smile flickered. “How glad I am to have you alive, Eyjolf, son of, my oath-brother. And you, Ax-Egil, you old scoundrel, why, you must be unkillable. Gennar, you saved my life when those two Swedes felled Thorkel and came at me while I was busy with another of them. I’ll remember. Arnulf, it’s well you’ve kept your bow and some arrows; this, means we’ll eat. Svein, fear not, we’ll get you home to your young bride.” Thus he went on, with a few words for each; and as he did, bent backs straightened, stooped shoulders squared.
“We’ve a long way before us,” he ended. “We begin by giving up any thought of haste. I’ll show you how to make brushwood shelters for tonight. While you do, I’ll search for nuts or berries, and if I find any, use them to bait deadfalls. Maybe we’ll catch a squirrel or a few lemmings. In the morning, we must first find water, a spring or brook. We’ll camp nearby for some days while we rest and start to heal. I can make a fire drill and so a fire, but that’s dull work after the first time and I’ll be angry if you let it go out. Besides, I, and whoever else his woodcraft, must fetch us real food.”
“By Ull the Hunter,” swore Eyjolf, “here’s a lord with more than gold to give his men!”
Nobody said anything about booty and battle lost or friends left dead. Such things happened. Nor did anyone talk of the wraiths they had seen. No one dared.
Dwelling in the wood, they won their way back toward strength and hope. No hurts of theirs were too grievous to deal with, using what means were to hand. Otherwise the sufferer could not have come this far. But it was not only good in itself, it was a heartening token that none got too badly inflamed. A weir in the stream they found caught fish, while Hadding and others brought in meat. Those who had lacked such skills learned from the king how to carry always a throwing stick and knock down whatever small game they spied. Although his limp slowed him somewhat, he himself was the best of the hunters. Going forth alone, he would stalk a deer, leaving it unawares, until he was close enough to grab hold and slay with a single blow of the knife.
Yet he longed for the sea. As soon as he deemed the warriors ready, he led them on.
That became a hard and ofttimes hungry faring. Surely Uffi had sent word far and wide, offering rich reward for their heads. They must not let themselves be seen where there was any number of folk, and best was if they were not seen at all, even by lonely outliers. Hence they swung clear of settlement as much as they could, groping through woods and over wastes unknown to them, crossing rivers elsewhere than at the fords, struggling through marshes and growth-choked glens, clambering on steep hillsides and in stony ravines. When they had to pass near farm or thorp, they went at night or through a rainstorm. On the move in wildwood, they could not help frightening game. Now the hunters seldom got anything bigger than hares or grouse. Sometimes they felt lucky when their traps took a few voles.
Still, they pushed on. Sheer fellowship helped them mightily. Camped at eventide, if weather let them sit around the fire they would swap memories, tales, verse, jokes, thoughts. Hadding awakened wonder by what he told of life and lore from his strange upbringing. Their homely words taught him more about men and women than he had fully known before.
After uncounted days they came out of a shaw onto open ground rolling gently downward. Tussocks of coarse grass mingled with heather, tossing in a salt breeze that murmured below an overcast where the sun lightened the gray to westward. When they saw the silvery gleam ahead, they whooped, danced, pounded one another on the back. “The sea!” they cried. “The sea!”
Hadding drank deep of that air. “Home to the Mother,” he whispered. They did not understand him. Maybe he did not either. But then he smiled and told them, “I think now we are safe”
He reckoned they had reached Helsingland, toward which he had steered them as best he was able to on their twisting way. Dwellers along the eastern shores of the Kattegat across from Denmark, the Helsings were friendly to the Danes. Mostly fishers, neither many nor rich, they paid him a small yearly scot of smoked and brined herring, while his might kept the Geats and Norse off their necks. Moreover, in raiding season he posted ships in the strait to north, which warded off any vikings who might be aprowl in the Skagerrak.
He led his band south. Before dark they found a hamlet. Terrified, the few dwellers snatched what weapons they had. The king bade his men halt and went ahead alone, palms spread, to meet them. They could ill believe his tale. They had heard nothing. It seemed likelier that the newcomers had suffered shipwreck, as gaunt and worn as they were. Yet there had been no storms of late. And the wayfarers did at least seem peaceful. Somewhat warily, the households took them in. Stockfish, flatbread, cheese, and curds were a feast, because there was a fullness of them.
“You shall have gifts of me after I get home,” said the king in the morning. “But first will you bring us to someplace where they can more easily guest us?”
The fishers muttered among themselves whether to take these men in a boat. On the one hand, if this really was King Hadding, he ought to remember it when he chose what gifts to send. On the other hand, if he lied, that boat would have lost two or three days’ cat
ches for nothing. At last the spokesman they picked told him it would be wrong to crowd such fine warriors into a wretched little hull stinking of fish. Besides, the spokesman didn’t like the look of the weather. Wisest would be to walk. His grandson would guide them. He would not affront King Hadding by uttering what any fool could see, that so deep-minded a lord understood the Helsings had nothing but his welfare at heart.
“More miles afoot!” groaned Eyjolf. “Has some black warlock turned us into inchworms?”
“Stop grumbling,” said old Egil. “You didn’t mind tramping across Svithjod.”
“No, but it was full of abodes to sack.”
“And maybe there are many such along hell-road, but I’m in no hurry to find out.”
In a way that stretch was indeed the most wearisome. Having the end in sight made men wholly aware of every ache and lameness, how long they had been gone and how they yearned for home. They trudged Wordless, lost in themselves. Hadding alone grew eager.
Yet when they reached the steading he sought, he told them they would stay a while.
Bruni Aslaksson stood great among his folk. Ashore he held broad acres, where the crofters paid him rent in kind and backed him at the Thing and in trouble On the water he owned six fisher boats and a ship, which sailed in trade He of-feted to the gods on behalf of the whole neighborhood and dealt with chieftains like himself up and down the coast. Though his house was built more of turf than timber, it was of good size, and stood at the middle of its own stockaded thorp. There was no lack of food and drink, furs and stuffs, herds and hirelings, strong sons and shrewdly married daughter&
He had never met Hadding, but had heard enough to know that this was in truth the Dane-king. “Welcome, welcome!” he boomed. He was a burly, snub-nosed man with a ruddy beard, going gray, that curled halfway down his paunch. “What an amazement! What a troll-banging amazement! We’ve had some news out of Geatland and Svithjod. I feared you were dead. But here you are. Ha, we’ll gorge and swill this evening!”
“How fares Denmark?” asked Hadding.
“As far as I know, well. That jail of Zealand you left to keep care Eirik Björnsson, that’s the name, not—he seems like a worthy steersman. You’ll soon see for yourself. My ship’s at sea right now. But I’ll have two boats scrubbed clean, and ferry you across the ‘Gat with something like swagger. First, though, we’ll fire up the bathhouse You haven’t steamed in months, have you? And we’ll break out dean clothes for the lot of you. Won’t be anything rich, but whole and warm and no bugs in it. And we can’t make a rightful feast ready before tomorrow, but we’ll be killing the fattest beasts, and meanwhile we’ve no dearth of pork—or ale and mead, which matters more—and I can tell you we’ve lively lassies hereabouts.”
Hadding smiled on the left side of his mouth. “I think they’ll have to wait,” he said. “We’re not very lively yet. I’d have us abide a while”
“Ha? Not but what you won’t be welcome, in this house and in all. Fresh faces are well-nigh unheard of, you know. Fishers swarm in from everywhere during the herring run, but mostly they’re not much fun to meet unless it be in a brawl. Hardly anybody else ever stops by. However, aside from those wenches I spoke of when you feel a bit better, what have we here to lure you with?”
“Peace,” Hadding sighed. “The day! set foot again on Danish soil, folk will be at me. Questions, reckonings, tales, begs, grievances, the rounds to make, the folkmoots to head, the judgments to give, the care to take of high-born men’s honor—even listening to my own praises and thinking what gift those verses are worth—Let me get back my strength. Until then, it’ll be better for the kingdom, too, if Eirik Jarl stays at the helm.”
“I see. Never thought how much work it is being a king. I should have. Don’t my crofters and skippers and women give me grief enough? Do stay, my lord, do stay.”
“A month, at most,” Hadding guessed. “Meanwhile, of course, send word to Eirik that I live. Those men of mine who can’t wait to get home can ride in that boat, but I think most will decide they too would rather first regain their health. Also, send a boat around Scania to tell my war fleet. If it has not set sail because the Swedes arrived, or because everybody gave up hope of me, one of those ships can come fetch us. Otherwise I will take your offer of passage.”
“Good, good. It shall be done. If it happens my knorr is back by then, maybe you’d like to go in her. She’s a sweet wave-walloper “ Neither said what both understood, that Hadding’s gifts from home would more than make up whatever this cost Bruni, as well as the chieftain thereafter having the king’s friendship. Anyhow, he was happy to have these guests for their own sakes.
So did Hadding and his warriors come to a snug haven. That their stay ended badly was no doing of their host’s.
As the time ran into weeks, some of them won wholly to wellness faster than others, Hadding foremost. These men grew ever more restless. They found the dwellings here rude and poorly furnished, the fare middling tasty at best, and each day the same as the last. They remembered the halls of home, broad and bright, the fat meat and finely milled bread and well-brewed drink, men richly clad and merry, skalds saying forth staves that surged in the blood, ever-changing visitors with new tales to tell from abroad. They remembered fields tawny at harvest, greenwoods, horses and hounds, the graves of their forebears. They remembered women who were not grubby and did not smell of fish but were clean and fair and could speak of more than a narrow everyday. They remembered children.
“I was mistaken, staying when I could have gone in the messenger boat,” grumbled Gunnar to Hadding. “How many more years must we sit and yawn?”
“We’ve friends who still ought to rest. I’ll not forsake them,” answered the king. “Besides, these folk can ill spare the boats we’d need, even for that short crossing. Nor would it be fitting for me to come in so little and shabby a craft, when I could have better. We’ll wait for a ship, either Bruni’s or one of ours. It cannot be long now.”
“Here sun and stars cross the sky on feet shod with lead.”
“Well, I own to feeling penned too. Let those of us who wish make a trip. I hear of good hunting and hook-fishing northward, where a brook runs down to the sea and woods stand along it clear to its mouth.”
That thought gave cheer. Half a dozen warriors busked themselves and strode off one morning behind the king. Sunshine poured over them. They followed the shore for two days and came to the spot he had in mind. There they made camp, meaning to stay a short while.
This was half a mile inland, beside a freshwater spring. Tide-brackish, the stream rustled among tall beeches and gnarly oaks. Sunlight speckled the shadows beneath them. Between their trunks flashed a gleam off the sea. The clear weather had gone hot, drawing up a smell of herbs to liven the brooding air.
The night did not cool much. After sunrise the heat waxed worse. Men sat as listless as the drooping leaves. The brook made the only sound except for a thin shrilling of mosquitoes. When a dove began to coo off in the woodland deeps it seemed like mockery.
At length Hadding rose. “I’m stifling,” he said. “Who’ll come along down to the strand?”
Nobody wanted to do that, or anything else other than sit and bake. Gunnar and young Svein swapped a look. Unspeaking, they hung swords at hip and took their spears. Safe though the place seemed, they were housecarles of their lords. Their eyes told the rest that they awaited some return for this at some later time.
The three walked off still wordless. At the outflow they left the shade for a hard, cloudless heaven. The tide was low but shingle lay dry and gray to the water’s edge, nor did the strewn yellow-brown kelp shine wet. The sea barely lapped against the land. Light flew back off it, ruthlessly bright. No birds soared above.
“I’m for a swim,” Hadding said. “What of you?”
“I’ll wait under the trees yonder,” said Gunnar. Svein nodded.
“As you like.” Hadding undressed. From the heap of his clothes he took belt and sheath knife.
It was merely wont, in this burning emptiness. No man willingly went anywhere unarmed.
The cobbles were hot below unshod feet. He hurried across them to the water. The bottom sloped slowly. He pushed onward, enjoying the work, until he could jump loose and strike out. Amidst the stillness, every splash rang loud. The thrusting gladdened his thews, the cool sliding thrilled around his skin, salt kissed his lips. Ducking under, he swam through amber. On he frolicked and on.
He was well offshore when something broached a ways off. The whoosh of it caught his heed. Dazzled, he squinted at a big shape. Was it a seal? He had romped with seals before now, In waters where they had not yet learned fear of man. Eager for anything new, he drew closer.
The thing rested quietly. It was a beast. His heart leaped. A beast like nothing he had ever seen or heard of. Seal size it was, with flippers, but a long flat tail trailed it. Long also was the neck, maned like a horse’s. The head was long too, and narrow, with great golden eyes. The hide shimmered in soft rainbow hues, as does the inner shell of an oyster. Very fair to behold was the beast, and very strange.
It turned its head toward him but lay afloat, unafraid.
What a catch! Men would wonder at it, and speak of it, and ever afterward remember the hunter who brought it home.
The king drew his knife. Swimming with his legs and left arm, he closed in.
He laid that left hand on the beast’s neck, as he had laid it on the necks of deer he had stalked. The mane felt soft, the flesh warm. His nostrils drank a smell like the smell of clover when bees hum through it harvesting.
He stabbed.
The beast did not scream. The sound it made might have come from a harp struck by an angry skald. Though blood sprang red out onto the water, the head swung about and jaws gaped at Hadding’s shoulder. The teeth within were sharp.
He fended the bite off with his free arm. He wrapped his legs about the body and clung tight. His knife slashed.
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