After that they went their way, and Bergthora gave them gifts on
their going, and asked them when Thrain might be coming home.
They said that he would be from home four or five nights.
After that Bergthora told her sons and her son-in-law Kari, and
they talked long and low about the matter.
But that same morning when Thrain and his men rode from the east,
Njal woke up early and heard how Skarphedinn’s axe came against
the panel.
Then Njal rises up, and goes out, and sees that his sons are all
there with their weapons, and Kari, his son-in-law too.
Skarphedinn was foremost. He was in a blue cape, and had a
targe, and his axe aloft on his shoulder. Next to him went
Helgi; he was in a red kirtle, had a helm on his head, and a red
shield, on which a hart was marked. Next to him went Kari; he
had on a silken jerkin, a gilded helm and shield, and on it was
drawn a lion. They were all in bright holiday clothes.
Njal called out to Skarphedinn, “Whither art thou going,
kinsman?”
“On a sheep hunt,” he said.
“So it was once before,” said Njal, “but then ye hunted men.”
Skarphedinn laughed at that, and said, “Hear ye what the old man
says? He is not without his doubts.”
“When was it that thou spokest thus before,” asks Kari.
“When I slew Sigmund the White,” says Skarphedinn, “Gunnar of
Lithend’s kinsman.”
“For what?” asks Kari.
“He had slain Thord Freedmanson, my foster-father.”
Njal went home, but they fared up into the Redslips, and bided
there; thence they could see the others as soon as ever they rode
from the east out of the Dale.
There was sunshine that day and bright weather.
Now Thrain and his men ride down out of the Dale along the river
bank.
Lambi Sigurd’s son said, “Shields gleam away yonder in the
Redslips when the sun shines on them, and there must be some men
lying in wait there.”
“Then,” says Thrain, “we will turn our way lower down the Fleet,
and then they will come to meet us if they have any business with
us.”
So they turn down the Fleet. “Now they have caughtsight of us,”
said Skarphedinn, “for lo! they turn their path elsewhither, and
now we have no other choice than to run down and meet them.”
“Many men,” said Kari, “would rather not lie in wait if the
balance of force were not more on their side than it is on ours;
they are eight, but we are five.”
Now they turn down along the Fleet, and see a tongue of ice
bridging the stream lower down and mean to cross there.
Thrain and his men take their stand upon the ice away from the
tongue, and Thrain said, “What can these men want? They are
five, and we are eight.”
