They should at once have crashed through brush. Instead, Hadding felt as if they sped uphill a while before they found an uneasy road. Down that they went so fast that the air was a gale around them. He nestled unwonderingly into the muffling darkness.
After a time that had no meaning for his stunned soul, the ride ended in a thunder of hoofs on stone. With a racketing neigh the stallion reared and halted. Gangleri dismounted, Hadding in his clasp as if the warrior were a bairn. The young man heard iron ring, a door clashed shut behind; Gangleri carried him onward.
At last the old one lowered him to a bench. He sat slumped, striving weakly to stay awake.
“Here,” said the deep voice. “Drink.”
Hadding opened heavy eyes. Gangleri loomed over him, holding a horn of gold. It was so long and broad that Hadding needed both hands to take it and bring it to his mouth. What was within smelled like honey and summer meadows and the hot pitch that caulks ships. When, he tasted, it was a kiss on his tongue and a fire throughout his flesh.
“Drink well,” Gangleri bade him. “This has mended worse hurts than yours.”
Hadding obeyed with a waxing greed. As he drained the draught, strength flowed into him. It washed away pain. His sight cleared, his hearing sharpened. He saw first the figures molded on the horn. They showed it raised by a woman in welcome to a man who came riding with two ravens aflight above him. Elsewhere they showed other men feasting and fighting. He glanced at himself. Though his mail was battered, sword dulled, clothes torn and blood-clotted, every gash had scarlessly knitted together. He was healed and hale.
He rose and looked about, bewildered. He seemed to be in a hall, alone with Gangleri. He could not be sure. The bench was cunningly made and inlaid with gold. Behind it was a wainscot of the finest oak, carved in strange shapes. A bearskin covered the floor under his feet. But he could not see to the end of the building, nor to the crossbeams overhead. It was too huge, and full of a blue twilight. He thought the nearer pillars had the forms of men. Blurs here and there might be hangings, dim moons might be shields, and fires might be burning far off. But he could not tell.
His look sought Gangleri. The one eye caught his two. A chill went through the renewed warmth in Hadding. “Who are you?” he whispered. “Where is this?”
“I have said what I have said and brought you where I have brought you,” answered the old one.
His honor came back to Hadding. “You have saved my life. How may I thank you?”
“The night is not yet done,” Gangleri warned, “and it is not yet well for you to linger here.”
“Where then should I go?”
The Wanderer spoke gravely:
When back you fare, foes will grip you,
Bind you for beasts to tear,
Booty of wolves; but keep those men
Lulled by the telling of tales
Until from drink they drowse to sleep,
Letting you burst your bonds.
Leave them behind.—
He went on. Hadding listened dazed, grasping after understanding. It slipped from his fingers. He dared not ask.
“Now come,” Gangleri said at the end, and strode off. Hadding followed.
They walked a long way through the gloaming. A door sheered iron banded, so high that its top was unseeable. Gangleri laid hold of a golden ring on the bolt and swung it wide. They trod forth into cold stillness under a blaze of crowding, unwinking stars. The stallion waited.
“Ride before me,” Gangleri bade. He helped his guest up. When they were on the saddle he again wrapped his cloak around Hadding, over his head. He whistled. The horse galloped off.
Now, though, Hadding was himself. More and more he thought it unmanly thus to cower hooded on another man’s breast, in the crook of his arm. Anger kindled. He fumbled at the cloak, drew a fold aside, and stuck his head out.
Night lay everywhere hollow around him. Stars gleamed, fewer and smaller than erstwhile, the stars as they shine above the world of men. Far below, their light shimmered on the sea.
Wind shrilled and cut.
“Look not on what is forbidden,” he heard.
He drew his head back under the cloak and shuddered.
After a time beyond time the way bent down. The steed halted. Gangleri opened the cloak. His spear slanted earthward. The warrior heeded and slid off, onto the ground. He stared up. The rider sat tall against a murky tanglewood.
“Go seek your weird,” Gangleri told Hadding. He wheeled his horse and trotted into the wild. Soon he was gone among its trees and shadows.
Hadding shook off the frozenness in him. He stood on the battlefield, at daybreak. The east had grown white, setting waters and dew agleam. By that glow he made out a few beached longships; the rest had gotten away, with sorely dwindled crews. Dead men lay strewn, stiffened, ugly hued, emptily gaping and glaring. Carrion birds had been at them, though at this hour only sleepy twitters sounded from the wood. Yestereven the Wends had cut the throats of viking wounded and taken their own into the stronghold hamlet yonder. Bands of them were searching in this dawn for their fallen.
Somehow they had not been aware of the newcomers until Gangleri left. Now they spied Hadding. They took him for a raider who had slipped into the wild, lost his way, and blundered back. Yelling, they pelted toward him.
He was alone, shield gone, sword all but useless. Yet he awaited them calmly. He knew they would not kill
