“Hold!” cried Hadding to his warriors. “That’s my foster father! He is with us!”
An earthquake rumble sounded from Vagnhöfdi’s breast. He stalked forward. Bones crunched, guts spurted beneath his feet. To the nearest band of Swedes he strode. As they broke and ran, he began killing them.
Fear blazed up and spread, wildfire. Men cast their weapons aside and ran blind, wailing. Danes were among them, the war forgotten. But many more beheld Hadding’s banner still aloft. They recalled what they had heard about his beginnings. It was an eldritch tale. Yet they stammered to each other that they must not lose heart, but rally to him.
Asmund also overrode the horror in his nearest followers. By then they were close indeed to the Dane-king. Hadding stuck his bill into the ground and took shield to hand for the attack. Asmund saw. Bitterly he screamed:
Why bear you here so boldly
Your bill, as crooked as you are?
A sword or flying spearhead
Shall slay you all the sooner.
Your will is not for weapons
To weight the scales of battle.
You trust yourself to tonguecraft,
To trolls and blackest magic.
How dare you act undaunted,
Whose deeds are all unmanly,
The shield against your shoulder
Ashamed of him who holds it?
The name you shall be known by
Is nithing, now and always,
And from your mouth the foulness
That fills it reeks to heaven.
No man could brook words like that. Wrath stormed up through Hadding. He snatched back the bill and hurled it. Drawing blade, he dashed forward before his amazed guards could stir.
The bill struck Asmund glancingly on the neck. Its sharp hook rent the flesh. Blood leaped forth. Asmund reeled. His men snarled and readied themselves.
Hadding came. Blows flew at him from right and left. As he warded himself, Asmund struck for the last time. His sword caught the. Dane-king in the right foot. Through boot and bone the edge went. Hadding staggered. Asmund grinned at him, crumpled, and bled to death.
Hadding’s men got there to beat the warriors back from their lord. For a short while the fight ramped. Then a bulk like a mountain loomed over it. Vagnhöfdi smashed the Norse that were left as a man cracks lice between his teeth.
Thereupon he turned to Hadding. White-lipped and sweating, the king stood on one leg with his sword for a cane. Vagnhöfdi bent low. “You’re hurt, fosterling,” he growled. “Come, let’s take you away and see to this.”
Hadding shook his head. “I will keep the field,” he said raggedly.
Vagnhöfdi waved a hairy hand. “Look around you. It is yours.”
A few banners were left, all Danish. Men were gathering around them. Far and wide, their foes fled. Two had somehow caught terrified horses and gotten back into the saddle. They rode about and must be calling to those in flight whom they overtook, for some joined them. Nevertheless it was clear that the folk who had been Asmund’s would fight no more this day.
Hadding nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we’d better get me hale again fast, if we’re to make use of our victory.”
The jotun took him in the crook of an arm and bore him off like a babe. Hadding half drowsed through the long strides. Those of his housecarles as had the boldness and were not too weary or weakened trailed after them.
Vagnhöfdi went on for some ways. “I think you won’t be ganging off very soon,” he said. “You should rest where the stink, the flies, and the screaming birds can’t trouble you.” At a grove beside the river he laid his burden down on soft duff.
Squatting, he touched the wounded foot. It bled less than before but bone ends stuck out of the gashed leather. “My fingers are too thick to bind this,” he sighed like a storm gust. “I hope somebody with skills gets here before too long.”
“Can’t your spells make it whole?” asked Hadding.
“No,” Vagnhöfdi answered. “That gift lay more in my daughter, Hardgreip.”
“I’m sorry she died,” Hadding said through his pain to the giant’s.
“She went freely to her doom,” said Vagnhöfdi. “Now I must begone lest mine come upon me. Already I hear thunder off beyond the hills.” Hadding could not, but he believed. Vagnhöfdi’s brooding look sought his eyes. “Beware, yourself, of overmuch haughtiness. Your own doom is a strange one. More than that I know not; but I do not think you will always be lucky.”
Hadding lifted his head a little. “Whatever befalls, I’ll make of it what I can.”
“You might do that better if you went at things less rashly.” Vagnhöfdi sighed again. “But you are you, and young. Maybe some wisdom will come with the years, if you live. Otherwise, well, that’s what your doom is. Haflidi and I will abide the news. We shall meet you no more.” A great hand stroked the brow beneath it. “Farewell, fosterling.”
He picked up his weapons, rose, and trudged off. A lowering sun threw his shadow across the dale farther than men could see. He himself reared black athwart the sky. They watched in awe until the mighty darkness went from sight over the hills.
Already before then, the swiftest among them had reached their king. One was good with wounds. He undid Hadding’s boot, cleansed the foot, hefted and handled it, and told his fellows to bring him what he would need. Hadding set teeth together. He caught his breath only when the work hurt most.
Night fell. Uffi and Hunting had gotten together a number of their men. By the light of stars and waning moon they sought back to the battlefield. There they found the body of their father Asmund. They bore him away.
Days passed. Hadding grew fevered. He never raved with it, and soon cast it off, but it left him weak for a while afterward. During it,
