Clutching with their claws and cutting with their teeth,
Ripping, tearing, rending the reddened stumps and rags,
Unshaken shall your luck still shield you from them, Hadding,
Not hurling you to hell but holding you alive
To walk and do your work within this world a span.
The witch must pay the weregild for wickedness she did.
She raised me from my rest, she robbed me of my peace,
She dared make mock of death. To dust she shall go down.
Again the eyes laid hold of Hardgreip.
You drew me from the dead. Now doom shall fall on you
Who haled me out of hell. Ill hap and woe be yours.
The body fell back and was still, glaring into the night below the roof. Wind howled, rain dashed.
Hardgreip stared elsewhere. After a long time she whispered, “I think we had better go.”
Hardihood roused in Hadding. “No,” he said. “We will spend the night here and tomorrow do what I plighted: bury this man we wronged and leave him what grave goods we may.” To the back of the house he called, “Gerd, come out. It is done. You’ve nothing more to feat”
Nevertheless nobody slept.
VIII
The day was well along before Hadding and Hardgreip were done and could leave. Hardly a word had been spoken throughout. Gerd gave no thanks for the coffin Hadding made, the spadework they both did, what they left in the grave, or even the gold coil he set on her arm, much though she could buy with it. He awaited nothing else and was only glad to get away.
He and the thurs woman likewise kept still as they rode. The weather had cleared, but held scant warmth. Brush hemmed in the muddy path, too narrow to fare on abreast, overhung by leaves from which water dripped cold. Those branches hid the sky, dusked the ground, filled the deeper reaches among the boles with blindness. Mist sneaked low, in wan streamers. The only sounds were plop and squelch of hoofs, creak and rattle of harness, clinking of drops where they struck. As the gloom thickened toward evening, an owl began to hoot.
“We’d better stop soon and make ready for the dark,” Hadding said at last. His voice was flat with weariness. “The first open spot we find, so these orc-loving trees can’t piss on us.”
“Hereabouts that will likeliest be a fen,” she answered as grayly.
They learned otherwise. The path swung around a clump of willows, and there lay a meadow. True, its grass was wet, but someone had made a brushwood shelter. That could not have been long ago, for it stood tightly woven yet. Indeed, it was big enough to be called a hut. The juniper boughs that floored it were dry on top, thick and springy for sleeping on.
“Why, our luck has turned,” Hadding said. “With the time this will save us, we can coddle ourselves.”
“Praise not the night until dawn,” Hardgreip mumbled. The spark of heartiness died in him.
Still, here they would stay. He saw to the horses while she gathered wood that was not soaked. She started a fire while he banked dirt behind to send heat in through the opening of the shelter. They cooked some dried meat and ate it with flat-bread though without much hunger. Drink was rainwater sucked from the moss on fallen logs. By the last twilight they stowed their things inside and settled down.
The boughs rustled as they fumbled out of their clothes and drew the saddle blankets over them. Hardgreip pressed close against Hadding in the dark. “Hold me,” she begged. “Love me. I am so alone.”
It was as if the grisliness he had witnessed clung to her. “I’m worn out,” he said, not altogether untruthfully. He did make himself put his arms around her. She smelled not of woman but of fear.
After a while, though, he fell into unrestful sleep. Dreams gibbered at him. Now and then he woke. A full moon had cleared the treetops. The drenched grass outside shimmered like ice. Hardgreip’s eyeballs glistened in the shadows. She was lying awake. He said nothing, and soon the dreams overran him again.
Her scream roused him. Sounds of ripping and tearing followed. He sprang up. The top was torn off the hut. Moonlight streamed through a mangled wall. It dappled a hand coming in from above.
The hand was as broad as he was tall. Black hair bristled over it. The moon-glow sheened on fingernails like claws. It groped after Hardgreip. She cowered away. Her mouth stretched wide. Her arms flailed air.
“Grow big!” he yelled. “Grapple it!”
Her wits returned. As the fingers found her, she became whirling, whistling smoke. It curdled back into flesh. Her bulk broke open another wall. She caught hold of the hand and wrestled with it.
A wild gladness flared in Hadding. Here was a real thing to fight. By the fitful moonlight he found his sword, drew it, and hewed.
“Ya-ah!” he shouted. “God-foe, die!” The blade flew. Each time it struck, he felt the shock in his shoulders. The iron bit deep. Blood sprang forth. It stank like a rotting lich. Wherever a drop splashed on him, it seared.
To and fro the struggle swayed. The hut gave way. Its knitted branches fell over his head. He could not see what loomed beyond the hand. But he swung his sword.
So did he cut through flesh, sinew, bone at the wrist joint. The poison blood spouted. Hardgreip lurched and fell. She gripped a hand with no more arm behind it. A howl blasted Hadding’s ears. Earth trembled and thundered to hasty footfalls.
They passed from hearing. He stood panting in the wreckage. Hardgreip threw the hand off her. She climbed to her feet and loomed gigantic under the moon. Its beams made glisten her sweat and tears. Her breath sobbed like a stormwind.
“We live,” said Hadding wonderingly.
“We cannot—bide—here,” rasped Hardgreip.
“No.” As the battle rage ebbed, he too began to shudder. His welts burned. The stench sickened him until he threw up. And what else might come out
