2
His staff was a spear, for no man traveled unarmed in the North; but over the small pack on his back hung a harp in its case, and he offered harm to none. When at nightfall he found a homestead, he slept there, repaying hospitality with songs and tales and news from outside. Otherwise he rolled up in his cloak, and by dawnlight drank from a spring or brook and ate of whatever bread and cheese his latest host had given him. Thus had he fared through most of his years, from end to end of the world.
This day was cool beneath a wan sky where clouds were scant and the sun swung southward. The woods that decked the hills of Gautland stood hazed and hushed. Birches had begun to turn yellow, and the green of oak and beech was less bright than erstwhile. Firs lifted darkling among them. Ripe currants glowed hi the shade. Smells of earth and damp filled every breath.
Gest saw it all, widely, from a ridge he had climbed. Below him the land rolled off to an unclear edge of sight. Mostly it was tree-clad, but meadows and plowed fields broke it here and there. He spied two houses and their outbuildings, distance-dwindled; smoke rose straight upward from the roofs. Close by, a stream glistened on its way to a lake that shone in the offing.
He had come far enough from the battlefield that the wreckage and the dead strewn across it were blurred together in his eyes. Carrion birds swarmed aloft and about and back down, a whirling blackness, but also gone tiny for him. He could barely hear their cries. Sometimes the howl of a wolf lifted, to hang above the hills for what seemed a long while before dying away in echoes.
Living men had withdrawn, bound home. They took wounded kindred and friends along, but could merely throw a little earth over such of the fallen as they knew. A band of them whom Gest had come upon this morning did tell him that King Sigurdh had borne off the body of his foe King Harald, to give it a barrow and grave goods at Uppsala for the sake of his own honor.
Gest leaned on his spear, shook his head, and smiled sadly. How often had he beheld the like of this, after young men stormed forth to cast their lives from them? He did not know. He had lost the number somewhere in the waste of the centuries. Or else he had never had the heart to try keeping count. He was not sure which, any more. Yet as always, he felt the need to say a farewell, the only thing he or anyone else could now give the young men.
It was no skaldic drapa that came to his lips. The words were Northern, so that the dead would understand if they could hear, but he lacked all wish to praise bravery and recall mighty deeds. The verse form that he chose was from a country thousands of miles toward the sunrise. There a short, slanty-eyed folk knew much and fashioned things of wondrous beauty, though there too the sword ranged free.
“The summer fading, Chill shall slash the leaves bloody And the geese trek—where? Already this ground went red While the wind called souls away.”
A brief spell more Gest lingered, then turned and departed. Those Danes he met earlier had seen the one whom he sought leave soon after half a dozen Swedes did and follow them eastward. Thereupon Gest had gone to Bravellir and cast about until his woodsman’s eye lighted on what he thought must be the tracks. He had better hurry. Nonetheless he kept to his everyday stride. It looked lazy, but in the course of a day it left as much behind it as a horse might, or more; and it let him stay aware of everything around him.
He was on a game trail. The kings had set Bravellir as their meeting place because it was a broad meadow through which a road ran north and south, about halfway between Harald in Scania and Sigurdh in Sweden. However, the land round about was thinly settled. The six going this way must be headed for the Baltic shore, where lay the ship or ships that had brought them. That they were so few bespoke how terrible the battle had been. It would be remembered, sung about, made even larger in the minds of men, for hundreds of years to come. And those who plowed yonder fields would molder forgotten.
Gest’s shoes scuffed softly on soil. Branches were a roof overhead, through which sunbeams fell to make spatters of light on the shadowy hallway before him. A squirrel ran like a flame up a tree. Somewhere a dove moaned. Brush rustled on the left, a great dim shape slipped off, an elk. Gest let his soul drift into the sweet- smelling reaches. Meanwhile, though, he kept reading the traces. That was easy, footprints, broken twigs, torn spiderwebs, marks on mossy logs where men had sat down to rest. They were no hunters by trade, as he had been through much of his life. Nor was the one who followed them, never stopping, closing the gap between. Those feet were huge.
Time passed. The sunbeams lowered, lengthened, took on a golden hue. A bit of cold crept into the air.
Suddenly Gest halted. He leaned forward, head cocked, listening. Family to him came a noise he thought he knew.
He quickened his pace to a lope. Muffled at first by leaves, the sound swelled fast, clang and clatter, shouts, soon crackling, snapping, and harsh breath. Gest brought his spear to the ready and glided on as quietly as might be.
A slain man sprawled across the trail. He had fallen into a bush that snagged the upper half of him. Blood dripped from its stems and pooled below, screamingly bright. A blow had cloven him from the left shoulder through the breastbone. Pieces of rib and lung poked out of him. Fair hair clung sweat-matted to cheeks whereon no beard grew, just the down of a boy. He stared and gaped emptily.
Gest drew aside and found himself treading on another body, dose by, brush churned with combat. He glimpsed men, iron, blood and more blood. Weapon banged on weapon, scraped across helmets, thudded against wooden shields. Another fighter toppled. A thigh spouted red; he threshed about and shrieked. It was the kind of noise a human throat ought not to make. A fourth warrior dropped and lay sodden in a patch of nettles. The head was nearly off him.
Gest got behind a young fir. It screened him, and he could see between its limbs. Two were left of the band that the newcomer had overtaken and attacked. Like their mates, they wore only sarks, coats, breeks. If any owned mail, he had not thought to put it on until too late. Both these did have kettle hats. One carried sword and shield, one an ax.
Their lone foe was fully outfitted, in knee-length byrnie, conical helmet with noseguard, an iron-rimmed shield hi his left grip and a sword of uncommon size in his right. He was more than big, overtopping Gest’s goodly height by a head, shoulders as wide as a doorframe, arms and legs like oak boughs. An unkempt black beard reached to his chest.
The pair had recovered from the shock of his onslaught. They worked together, barking words to and fro. The swordsman went straight at the giant. Blades clashed, agleam when they rose into a sunbeam, a blur as they hissed downward or sideways. The Swede caught a blow on his shield that made him lurch, but stood fast and struck back. The axman circled behind their enemy.
The huge man must have known it. Blindingly fast, he spun on his heel and plunged at the axman, offside, so that the stroke missed him by inches. His blade whipped. The axman staggered, dropped his weapon, stared at a right forearm laid open and bone-shattered. The giant leaped on past him. There was a grassy patch between him and the other swordsman. At its end he turned and burst into a run at that fellow. Shields boomed together, with weight and speed behind his. Overborne, the Swede went on his back. Somehow he kept hold of his sword and got his shield up.
The giant sprang high and landed on him. Shield was driven against ribs. Gest thought he heard them crack. Breath whoofed out. The giant straddled the writhing body and made his kill in two strokes.
He glared around. The wounded axman was in flight, blundering off among the boles. The winner dashed after and cut him down.
The shrieks of the thigh-slashed man ebbed off to cawing, to rattling, to silence.
Laughter boomed from a cavern of a breast. The huge man rammed his blade thrice into the earth, wiped it clean on the shirt of a fallen, and sheathed it. His breathing eased. He doffed helmet and coif, dropped them, swept a hairy hand over the sweat that tunneled off his brow.
Gest came out from behind the fir. The giant snatched at his hilt. Gest leaned spear in the crotch of a tree and spread his palms, “I am peaceful,” he said.
The warrior stayed taut. “But are you alone?” he asked. His voice was like heavy surf on a strand of stones.
Gest looked into the rugged face, the small ice-blue eyes, and nodded. “I am. Besides, after what I have just seen, I would not think Starkadh need be wary of anyone or anything.”
