To make those watchers weary.
If he had fulfilled that promise, he would surely keep the next. Hadding’s laughter rang aloud.
When he had slaughtered the troll and feasted as the old one bade, he felt as if reborn. Thenceforward he was as strong as any three other men.
XII
In a boat he stole on the coast, Hadding crossed over to Scania, no small deed of seamanship. From his landfall he went afoot to Bralund. There Lysir’s son, Eyjolf, made him welcome. ragged though he was, gave him clothes and other good things, and bade him stay as long as he wished. That was for the father’s sake and also because Eyjolf felt awed. He was stocky, sturdy, coppery haired, freckle faced, a year or two younger than Hadding, and had been left behind to look after things here. This was no common man whom he guested.
Hadding abode there through the winter. He lived quietly, lest word of him reach Svipdag. Bralund was not off in the backwoods like Yvangar. The chieftain’s garth was much bigger and finer than Braki’s, with more folk there and on the land round about. However, it lay far enough from Uppsala that news did not readily pass between. Furthermore, nobody here wanted to warn a king they loathed.
Thus Hadding was able to ride widely around, speaking with chosen men. Messengers rode farther. They recalled oaths that had been given and they raised fresh hopes. If Lysir had failed and fallen, Hadding would not. He had shown only a little of what he could do, but that was great indeed. He was the rightful Dane-king, the last of the Skjoldungs. Men who stood him true now in his need could look for unstinted reward after he came into his own.
Fewer said yes than had followed Lysir, mostly younger sons and the like. He told them frankly that they might well be gone for longer than one raiding season. He would take none who could not be spared from work at home. That strengthened faith in him as a leader. Those who did come were a picked band, tough and keen. When they met in spring on the shore, they crewed a dozen ships. He offered horses and oxen to the gods. Thereafter his vikings launched forth.
Back across the sea he steered, and again into the Kurland gulf. This time they only landed for a strand-hewing, then rowed on. Where the River Dvina emptied out they bent their backs and pulled the harder. Swiftly up the stream they fared, into those wide lands the Northmen called Gardariki. There was no time to raise a host against them before they lay to under the walls of Dynaborg.
Those walls lifted long and high, of well-dressed timber, with watchtowers at the corners. Above them could be seen the shake roofs of the biggest houses within. This town had waxed rich off trade. Here dwelt King Andvan, who had overthrown the stepfather Hadding never saw.
Ships and boats had fled from the wharfs. The vikings did not give chase. They went ashore and made camp before the closed, iron-bound gates.
Watchmen on the walls jeered at them. How could they storm a stronghold like this? Horsemen were bearing a call to arms across the hinterland. King Andvan had but to wait. In a while his farmer levies would come overrun these upstarts, unless they first got too hungry or sickness broke out among them and they slunk off. He hoped not, said the watchmen. Those were some good-looking ships. He looked forward to owning them.
Hadding gave it no heed. He had asked searchingly of everybody he met who had been here in the past, and knew well what the place was like. “I’ve laid my plans,” he said merrily. “Now they’ll hatch.”
It was nesting season. Birds that were making their homes in the thatch of homes flew to and fro. Hadding had brought. a few skilled fowlers with him. They set out their nets and snares. Soon they had taken scores. They bound wicks to the legs, lighted these, and let the birds go. A number did not scatter but sought back to their nests. Dry reeds and moss blazed up. Shingles caught, then the buildings underneath. Smoke and flame ran high through Dynaborg.
Men fought the fires as best they could, lest they and their families burn together with everything else. Hadding winded his horn. The vikings set ladders against the now unguarded walls and swarmed over. The fighting did not last long.
Hadding had told his men strictly to hurt no one who yielded and to lay no hand on woman or child. He meant to do his business here fast. As his troop reached the king’s hall, Andvan came forth, empty-handed, and named himself. He spoke the Northern tongue, having that blood in him like many lords of Gardariki. Through the smoke and reek he squinted into Hadding’s eyes; through the crackle of the dying fires he asked, “What would you of me?”
“I could avenge my mother on you,” Hadding told him, “but you did not kill her. I will take weregild instead and go away—your weight in gold.”
That stripped the wealth of Dynaborg, but the town lived. Some vikings grumbled that they should have been let at the women. Hadding answered that with their shares of the winnings they would soon find plenty of willing wenches. Meanwhile let them be off before an overwhelming host came at them.
They did not go straight home from their raid. Rather, most of them were abroad with Hadding for the next four years, ranging the Eastlands. They rowed along the rivers and over the lakes, sailed by the strands, got horses and rode through green endlessness, saw towns and tents and many different folk strange to them, warred and traded, caroused and hungered, buried fallen friends and took new ones into their ranks, from Ladoga to the White Sea and south to the lands of the Greeks. They huddled together in the gruesome
