The lake itself shone golden with sunset. Reeds rustled on its banks. Frogs leaped. Warriors splashed around for a while, trying to catch them, but little came of that. Nor could they take the waterfowl that flocked and cried yonder, nor hope for the fish they saw glimmer and jump. They were not outfitted for it. Bats were coming forth, darting after the mosquitoes that whined in hordes and nipped blood that men could ill spare. The last light glowed through their wings. Trees beyond stood darkling against an eastern sky where a red star had kindled. Warmth drained from the world.
Without packhorses to carry tents, the warriors must spread whatever they had to sleep in on the grass and dandelions. They did not trouble about fires, but gnawed what scraps of stinking meat were handed out. Hadding, as haggard as any of them, said to Eyjolf, “I’ve a feeling that here we’re at the end of our road.”
“It’s a ways yet to the sea,” answered the viking’s son, “and I mean to plow it again.” He grinned beneath eyes gone hollow. “As well as quite a few more women.”
“We may wish,” Hadding said, “but if it comes to pass, it will not be soon.” He turned about through the deepening twilight and sought his bedroll. To Eyjolf it seemed an ill token, hearing such words from the king.
Night fell. A nearly full moon cast a quivering bridge over the lake. Aside from their drowsy outposts, the Danes slept.
A noise yanked them awake. Through the dark, through their ears and marrow, loud as a scream, grinding like a quern, a voice chanted:
To woe in warfare you have wandered afar,
Seeking to seize by the sword a prey.
What hasty hope has hooked your wits?
Why blundered you blithely and blindly forth,
Believing the land was lying open?
Unswayed, unswerving, the Swedes have gathered
Stoutly to stand and sternly to fight.
Danes, after daybreak death will be here,
Ruthless and ready to reap your host.
When, beaten in battle, the best among you,
Weakened, give way as the weapons come on,
And frightened flee the field of slaughter,
Your foes will follow your flight like hounds,
Victors vying to avenge their losses,
For easy it is to end a man
When horror has him; helpless he goes.
Hadding was on his feet, naked but with hilt in hand, glaring about under the moon. His folk were shadows to him, except where the light flowed off iron. They shouted, cursed, moaned, mumbled. “Be still!” he roared. “Hold fast!”
The voice had died away. Alone the night wind spoke, rustling moon-dappled leaves. Dew glittered star-cold. Hadding went among his warriors, bidding them remember that they were men. They knew he had met weirdness before and lived. After a while they quieted down. But nobody slept more.
By the bleak dawn light, Eyjolf asked Hadding, “Shall we be off?”
“No,” the king told him. “We’ve heard what is bound our way. Lacking a height to hold, this is as good a battleground for us as any.”
Without steeds or leg-strength, no scouts had ranged in the past few days. Nonetheless Hadding was not astonished when the spearheads of a Swedish troop flashed at midmorning. “We are as many as they,” he said to the housecarles within earshot. “If our bellies are less full than theirs, let our hearts be more so. We’ll take our stand on the lakeshore. Thus they won’t be able to flank us and attack from behind.”
“Nor will we find it easy to break and run,” drawled old Ax-Egil.
Hadding laughed. “If a man of mine can speak so brashly, there’s hope for all of us. But keep this thought to yourselves.”
As the Swedes drew near, the Danish bowmen let fly. Arrows whirred aloft in a dark flock and down again. Their barbs thunked into shields, glanced off helmets, rattled against mail. Some struck into flesh. A man lurched and shrieked with a shaft sticking out of his eye, another pawed at one in his neck and sagged to his knees as blood spurted, another swore and ripped one out of his thigh but thereafter went lame—here, there, throughout Uffi’s host. The king rapped an order. His headmen shouted it their bands. The Swedes halted while their own bowmen gave answer in kind.
Thus they lost the might that is in an all-out onslaught. Against this was the losses the Danes suffered.
Yet must the Swedes come to them, across ground where more arrows hurtled, then slingstones and flung spears. When they reached Hadding’s lines, theirs were ragged. Working side by side, the Danes sent them surging back in disarray.
Uffi egged them on. They closed ranks and renewed their attack. Iron gleamed, banged, made cloven shieldwood groan. Howls of rage and pain rose raw. The Swede-king hewed tireless, seeking to cut a path to the man he hated. He could see Hadding’s tall shape above the swaying helmets, amidst the leaping weapons. But always the battle between them was too thick.
His men had fared hard for a long way. The Danes, though weakened by hunger, had had a rest before the fight began. They stood their ground and took their toll. Lichs lay heaped before them. Less and less eager did the Swedes feel to climb over those red windrows.
In a lull, where the only sound was the moaning of the sorely wounded and the hoarse breathing of the hale, Uffi took thought. “Sound the withdrawal,” he bade his headmen. As the war-horns lowed, his banner went in the lead.
The Danes did not cheer. They were too weary. They knew their losses had been the heavier. After a while they saw Uffi’s banner stop a mile off and others join it.
“Back to camp,” Hadding told his followers. “Maybe we can get a good night’s sleep this time.”
That was an unlucky thing to say. Men recalled the voice in the dark and what it had foretold. Nonetheless they obeyed, bringing their hurt along. Their dead they must leave behind, for
