War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  Toward fall they seemed near agreement. Uffi’s last sending was almost friendly. Let Hadding come to Uppsala, where they could speak man to man. If they reached understanding, they would plight fellowship in the grove of offerings, the holiest spot in all the Northern lands. Did the meeting fail, the Danes would go home unharmed, loaded with gifts. But Uffi felt sure it would not. He had said that whoever got Hadding slain should have his lovely daughter Arnborg. Now he took that back. Once peace was made, Hadding himself should have her, to bind their houses together for aye.

  “There’s a bid that beckons!” laughed the Dane-king.

  Ragnhild bit her lip but said nothing until that night in their shutbed. Then she spoke harshly. “No other woman shall be queen in Denmark while I am here. If you give her such honors, I will go back to my mountains.”

  “It’s only kingcraft,” he told her.

  She stiffened at his side. “Do you reckon her blood better than mine?”

  He thought for a while before he said, “No, surely not. Nor would I throw your father’s friendship away for the sake of a girl. It’s stood me in good stead. But there needs to be some kind of tie between Skjoldungs and Ynglings, or war can too easily break out again, as bootless as ever. She can dwell in Scania, you in these islands, if you feel so strongly about it.’

  “I do. Your lemans at least do not have the name of queen. Nonetheless I worry that some by-blow of yours will someday seek to snatch the kingship from my son.”

  “From our son.”

  “If you will not think ahead, I must.”

  “You don’t think much of him who saved you from the giant, do you?” he snapped.

  “I will think as well of him as he does of me.”

  His mood softened. “That is well indeed.” He laid his arm around her and drew her toward him. She was warm in the dark. Her hair smelled of summer days, the summer that was waning.

  “Then do not go.” Her voice shivered. “Only ill can come of it. How can a man set aside a hatred as deep as Uffi’s for you?”

  His anger woke afresh. “Am I to show myself afraid of him?”

  “No, but neither should you show yourself heedless.”

  “I’ll be the deemer of that,” he growled. “Enough, wife.”

  Again she stiffened. He took her. She suffered it silently.

  In the time that followed she stayed cold to him. He gave it scant thought, being busied with making ready.

  Yet on the eve of his leavetaking, Ragnhild got him aside, the two of them alone, and said low, holding both his hands and looking up into his eyes, “Whatever you do yonder, come back. The days and nights here will be hollow until then.”

  His heart glowed. He smiled at her. But she was having her courses. He spent the night with Gyda.

  In the morning Ragnhild watched him go, along with the household and most of the neighborhood. A hundred warriors fared off in two ships. More would have seemed threatening. Besides, this was harvest season. They rowed lustily, a brave sight athwart the Scanian shore that lay low and hazy across the Sound. Soon they were small in her eyes, soon they were lost.

  The run went easily, with overnight stops along the way, up the Baltic to the Skerrygarth and in among its many islets. A troop of Swedes were camped at a landing that the messengers had told of. Uffi’s brother, Hunding, led them. He stood on the wharf to greet the Dane-king with a handclasp.

  “We have been waiting here for you, that we may bring you to Uppsala with your rightful honor,” he said. “Thank you for that you came. Glad will all our folk be of peace with you, but none more glad than me.” He gulped, fumbled at the brooch that held his cloak, and pulled the garment off. It was of scarlet wool lined with silk and trimmed with ermine. The words burst from him: “In token of welcome, take this, and, and may goodwill always cover our houses.”

  Hadding looked closely at him while saying thanks. Hunding was young and slim, though well knit. Hair so fair that it was nearly white fluttered about sharp features, as yet only thinly bearded, with big eyes. “My hopes are high,” said Hadding.

  The troops ate together that evening in the nearby hamlet. After ale had flowed freely, wariness became merriment.

  In the morning they set forth. Hunding had brought horses for all. They rode briskly through a rolling land, broad and rich. Fields rippled tawny, kine cropped meadows, hayricks stood shaggy for winter, smoke lifted from farmsteads and thorps, laden oxcarts creaked on the roads, harvesters lowered their sickles and children shouted as the warriors passed by with iron aflash and ringing. Wind soughed in woodlots, but no big stands of trees were left. “Yours is a mighty kingdom,” Hadding said once.

  Hunding flushed and looked away. “We can’t guest you as well as behooves us. I hope you won’t take it amiss.”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “The kingly hall is not fit for men such as you and yours. Uffi did not fare about this year, but stayed the whole while at Uppsala. He said he must, to look after some things hereabouts that were getting troublesome—I’m not sure what they were—and so he could send quick answers to any word from you. The upshot is that there’s been no time when the privies could be mucked out, nor to scrub the buildings and let them sweeten unused. They’re all dirty and they stink. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  Hadding choked back a laugh.

  “Of course he won’t mock you with that,” Hunding went on in haste. “He’s had a new guesthouse built. There you will stay and there will he feast you.”

  “Well, I know how a king and his household must needs shift around during the year,” said Hadding, “and if Uffi was unable to, he has my fellow feeling.” He turned his grin away from the young man.

  “You are kind,” blurted Hunding. “It bodes well for friendship.”

  They reached Uppsala in the later afternoon. The sun behind it, the town loomed on the high western bank of the river with its walls and watchtowers a block of darkness. Above that stockade gleamed the roofs upon roofs of the halidom, where stood the gold-bedecked idols of the great gods. Beyond the walls reared the oak and ash trees of the holy shaw. Although leaves were still green, somehow that grove too seemed murky, as if it brooded over the bones of beasts and men offered there.

  The riders stopped a little short of the bridge over the stream. A house lay hard by a bigger patch of woods. Shadows under the boughs and in thick brush made brighter the newly trimmed timbers. Though rather narrow, the building was long, fully big enough for Hadding’s troop and as many more. Not only the cookhouse but the stables and other outbuildings stood well to the rear of it, which was seldom done; they wontedly enclosed, thus making the whole easier to defend. “Does Uffi think no foe will ever get this near him?” wondered Hadding.

  “We have the town for a stronghold,” Hunding said. “Here is the house of peace.” Thralls and hirelings were hastening out. “Now I bid you farewell for a little. We all need to wash, rest, change clothes. I’ll see you again this eventide after you’ve eaten. Tomorrow we’ll hold a feast worthy of you. Later I hope you’ll let me guest you in my home.”

  “Yes, I hope so too,” answered Hadding, less warmly.

  “King Uffi should have been on hand to bid you welcome,” said Hunding. “I’m not happy about that either. Maybe something suddenly called him away. But he should surely come like me to drink with you tonight before we sleep.” He pulled hard on the reins, wheeled his horse around, and trotted off, followed by his men.

  The servants were few, no women among them. Their headmen said there would be plenty in the morning, to work with food and drink and everything else. Meanwhile these would attend the Danes. As grooms took their steeds away, he led them into the house.

  The room beyond the entry was rather gloomy, for the windows were small and high. Fires were being laid and kindled against a chill that affronted the mildness outside. The outfitting was meager. “I should think King Uffi would show off his wealth to us,” Hadding said.

 
Gunnar shrugged. “Well, I’ve heard he’s a stingy one.”

  Ax-Egil scowled. “He wasn’t unwilling to lay out for war on us, or in seeking our lord’s life.”

  “I care not,” said Svein, “as long as his ale doesn’t run out: It’s been a thirsty day.”

  Drink was forthcoming. The Danes drained the horns fast, then more slowly while they took off their mail No bathhouse could take so many, but kettles of water had been heated in the cookhouse and were brought in with washcloths. Having cleaned themselves, the warriors broke out fresh clothes. The servants carried in food, roast pork and other good dishes, which they ate rather hastily, for by then the sun was down and twilight thickening.

  “Well, let’s begin on the ale in earnest,” said Hadding after things had been cleared away. “Our kingly hosts ought to join us soon.”

  That time lengthened. An awkward silence fell over the troop. The fires guttered low, the night seeped inward.

  Hadding was about to call for more wood and for lamps, when Svein cocked his head. “I hear something outside,” he said. “Like men afoot. Does anybody else?”

  “So, the Ynglings—at last,” grumbled Einar.

  “No,” said Svein. “Listen. They’re not coming straight to the front door. Some are going around. And they’re many.”

  After a bit, others nodded. Hadding glared at the servants The stares he got back were bewildered, frightened. “Yes,” he muttered, “they’d not have been told. Not even young Hunding, I think.” The hair stood up on his arms.

  “I’ll go see,” said Gunnar. He strode to the entry, out of their sight.

  They heard a roar and a rattle. “Take your weapons!” Hadding shouted. He leaped for his own sword and shield.

  Two more guardsmen ran after Gunnar. They saw him on the ground at the open door. He clutched at the spear driven through his belly, struggled to rise, and sank back. His blood throbbed forth to drench the rushes. Above him, the mail and helmet of a warrior caught the dim firelight from within. A sword hewed. It struck Einar’s bare head and clove the skull. Men behind pressed into the entry.

  “Hold the doors!” cried Hadding. Danes snatched their arms. They went to stand at either end of the house. Battle crashed and snarled. Their fellows scrambled to get iron back on bodies.

  “Help me up,” Hadding bade Egil. The old housecarle went to one knee. The king stood on the other thigh. From there he was fall enough to peer out a window, by starlight.

  He stepped down. “A host is around us,” he said. “Uffi must have had most of them lurking in the woods. That means he readied them well beforehand, and had scouts posted to spy us coming and let him know. We’ve walked into a trap.”

  “Best we break out of it, then, before he sets it afire,” Egil growled.

  “This is new timber, not easily kindled,” Hadding answered. “But they much outnumber us. Never will we cut a way free through them. We can only hold fast where we are. Maybe something will happen before we’ve all fallen.”

  He went among his men, arraying them. Those who had kept the doors, without byrnies, were dead or dying. However, they had bought time for the rest, who now drove the foe back from those narrow spans. “Fight till you grow weary,” Hadding bade them. “Then step aside and let a fresh man take your place while you catch your breath.”

  Himself he warded the front door longer at a time than any other. Two guards died beside him, two more at once bestrode their bodies. Still his sword crashed, still it bit.

  Yet the Danes were inside. The fires died down. Whatever wood the cowering servants might have fetched was elsewhere. Men groped more and more blind. At length they could not tell how their oath-brothers fared at the doorways. They fell over each other’s feet, trying to get to where they could do some good.

  The onslaught broke through.

  Warriors churned about in the murk, chopped and stabbed at shadows, shouting war-cries for their fellows to know them. “Dane-Hadding1” yelled Svein as a black blur rose before him. “Dane-Hadding,” panted the unknown one. Svein lowered his sword. An ax struck him.

  It was no longer a battle where men stood side by side. It was a maelstrom, everybody sightless and alone. Surely friend often smote friend and let a foe go by. Uffi had more men to spend than did Hadding.

  He, though, fosterling of jotuns in wilderness, kenned every sound and knew whence it came. He snuffed the air and felt it stir to every movement around him. He prowled the gloom like a lynx, killing and killing.

  He could not save his followers. Slowly the fight ebbed away. Men stumbled about croaking their calls, fewer and fewer, until no more calls were Danish. The wounded gasped underfoot. The stench of death lay heavy. Hadding stole over blood-wet rushes and clay, across bodies writhing or still, toward the rear door. Two men kept watch at it. Starlight barely touched their helmets. Hadding pounced from the inner night. Right, left his sword whined. They fell, half-beheaded. An outcry arose at the noise, but by then he was gone.

  The sky stood black, the land stretched dim. He crouched and wove a snake’s way off to the woods. They would never track him there.

  But it was far to Scania. When they did not find him dead in the morning, the hunt would go forth across the kingdom. He would need all his craft, hiding by day, faring by night, living off roots, herbs, frogs, lemmings, maggots, and whatever else he could take. That too was something he meant to avenge on Uffi. First and foremost, though, were his housecarles, slain in the dark.

  XXV

  Dawn broke as white as Hunding’s face, where he stood atremble before Uffi. Hurt king’s men lay or sat on the dew-heavy sward around the guesthouse. Women had come from Uppsala to help tend them. Soon they would be brought back into the town. Early bird calls seemed louder than their few weary words. Thumps and rattles sounded dully from within, where warriors went about cutting the throats of wounded Danes and ransacking the dead. A breeze blew chill.

  For half the night, since he got the news, Hunding had raged and ranged around. Only now had he found his brother. “This was the, the foulest unfaith,” he stammered. “You’ve cast our honor on—the dungheap.”

  Uffi scowled. “Naught did we ever owe that wolf but revenge for our grandfather, our father, and all the harm he did our folk.”

  “He felled Svipdag and Asmund man against man, in open war, after Svipdag killed his own father. He wrought no worse in Svithjod than we in Denmark. We won fame for what we did, fighting such a hero. Then he came here willing to make the peace that you, you, offered. And all along it was false. You were plotting his murder from the first.”

  “Be still!” rasped Uffi. “I’ll hear no more of that yammer.”

  “You shall hear nothing further from me,” Hunding told him. “I disown you. Never more will I stand at your side, nor will any man who is true to me.”

  He turned and stalked off, shuddering. Uffi glowered after him. Suddenly the king’s shoulders slumped a little He made himself very busy giving orders about the care of men and booty.

  Day brightened. Guardsmen who had known Hadding by sight came one after another to tell him they had not found the Dane-king among the fallen, neither his own nor servants who had gotten in the way of a blow. At last Uffi howled, went in, and threw the lichs aside like a dog burrowing after a bad-get None of the gaping gray faces was the one he hated.

  He straightened. For a while his throat was too tight for him to speak. “The wolf has sneaked free,” he thereupon croaked. “We must set the hounds after him.”

  For days riders went everywhere in the shire, searching, asking, uttering threats and offering rewards. They caught a few Danes who had also gotten out, and sent their heads back to Uffi. But nowhere did even the most skilled trackers find spoor of Hadding. Uffi slaughtered kine and thralls in the shaw, calling on the gods to make his foe be dead. More could he not do.

  As leaves turned yellow and geese trekked through windy heaven, word reached him. Hadding had won back to Denmark and taken up kingship again. Uffi sa
t dumb, alone in his high seat, until he mumbled, “Can it be me whom the gods are against?” He raised his head. “Nor will I yield to them,” he said into the flickering firelight.

  Throughout the winter and spring Hadding made ready. There was no dearth of strong men, mostly younger sons, eager to become his new housecarles. He picked them shrewdly, outfitted them fully, fed them overflowingly, gifted them freely, and at the hands of older warriors drilled them ruthlessly. He sent word around the kingtime that after sowing there would be a great levy for war abroad. Likewise did he send to King Haakon, who promised twenty ships full of armed Niderings. Meanwhile he gathered food and drink to keep his host for two or three weeks—meat smoked and salted, stockfish, hardtack, cheese, casks of ale—along with wains, horses, and whatever else would be needed.

  At the set time, then, his fighters swarmed to Haven and ferried across the Sound. As they went north overland they met the men of Scania under Jarl Eyjolf. All fared onward.

  Theirs was a mighty troop. At the head rode King Hadding with his highest chieftains, the housecarles behind them. Cloaks rippled from their shoulders as bright hued as the banners overhead. Here and there, rearward, were others mounted. Most went afoot, a dun throng ablink with iron, in loose little bands. They thronged to right and left, talking, singing, laughing, shouting. The earth drummed to their tread. Fields lay trampled flat behind them. In their midst dust smoked white off whatever road wound between. There bumped and creaked the laden wagons. Often men must lend their strength to the draught horses, shoving wheels out of ruts too deep, dragging them through tall grass or over stones where a road gave out altogether, pushing them uphill, braking them downhill, splashing them across fords, hauling them from mudholes when rain had been heavy. Sweat sheened on skin and darkened shirts, breath went hoarse and oathful in mouths.

  Still, the host moved fast. Hadding led it first east, then north, skirting the hills. The lowlands along the Baltic were much easier going, mostly plowland and meadow. They passed many a farmstead and thorp, but stopped only to camp for the night. When they were out of Scanian land and pushing on through the Geats, dwellers fled, but Hadding forbade plunder and even burning. After he had a few men beheaded who disobeyed, the rest believed what he told them, that this wasted time and added burdens. Only to such near friends as Eyjolf did he add that he would rather not leave more ill will than he must.