Now they were staggering with weariness. Where boughs roofed the ground so thickly that no brush grew, they lay down on the leaves of old years and slept. None rested well. Throbbing and burning, wounds made fitful the slumber of some, while nightmares beset that of others. Hadding never told how that day went for him. Though sorely cut and bruised, he bore no deep slashes or broken bones; but the weight upon him was heavy.
Nonetheless, when the men began to rouse toward evening, he stood before them and spoke firmly. His beard and bare locks were the brightest thing they saw amidst the green shadows. His words were a drumbeat under the gurgling of an unseen cuckoo. With a forefinger he counted his dirty bloody, scrawny, sweat-crusted, tatter-garbed following. “Eighteen of us. But good men, all of you.” His smile flickered. “How glad I am to have you alive, Eyjolf, son of, my oath-brother. And you, Ax-Egil, you old scoundrel, why, you must be unkillable. Gennar, you saved my life when those two Swedes felled Thorkel and came at me while I was busy with another of them. I’ll remember. Arnulf, it’s well you’ve kept your bow and some arrows; this, means we’ll eat. Svein, fear not, we’ll get you home to your young bride.” Thus he went on, with a few words for each; and as he did, bent backs straightened, stooped shoulders squared.
“We’ve a long way before us,” he ended. “We begin by giving up any thought of haste. I’ll show you how to make brushwood shelters for tonight. While you do, I’ll search for nuts or berries, and if I find any, use them to bait deadfalls. Maybe we’ll catch a squirrel or a few lemmings. In the morning, we must first find water, a spring or brook. We’ll camp nearby for some days while we rest and start to heal. I can make a fire drill and so a fire, but that’s dull work after the first time and I’ll be angry if you let it go out. Besides, I, and whoever else his woodcraft, must fetch us real food.”
“By Ull the Hunter,” swore Eyjolf, “here’s a lord with more than gold to give his men!”
Nobody said anything about booty and battle lost or friends left dead. Such things happened. Nor did anyone talk of the wraiths they had seen. No one dared.
Dwelling in the wood, they won their way back toward strength and hope. No hurts of theirs were too grievous to deal with, using what means were to hand. Otherwise the sufferer could not have come this far. But it was not only good in itself, it was a heartening token that none got too badly inflamed. A weir in the stream they found caught fish, while Hadding and others brought in meat. Those who had lacked such skills learned from the king how to carry always a throwing stick and knock down whatever small game they spied. Although his limp slowed him somewhat, he himself was the best of the hunters. Going forth alone, he would stalk a deer, leaving it unawares, until he was close enough to grab hold and slay with a single blow of the knife.
Yet he longed for the sea. As soon as he deemed the warriors ready, he led them on.
That became a hard and ofttimes hungry faring. Surely Uffi had sent word far and wide, offering rich reward for their heads. They must not let themselves be seen where there was any number of folk, and best was if they were not seen at all, even by lonely outliers. Hence they swung clear of settlement as much as they could, groping through woods and over wastes unknown to them, crossing rivers elsewhere than at the fords, struggling through marshes and growth-choked glens, clambering on steep hillsides and in stony ravines. When they had to pass near farm or thorp, they went at night or through a rainstorm. On the move in wildwood, they could not help frightening game. Now the hunters seldom got anything bigger than hares or grouse. Sometimes they felt lucky when their traps took a few voles.
Still, they pushed on. Sheer fellowship helped them mightily. Camped at eventide, if weather let them sit around the fire they would swap memories, tales, verse, jokes, thoughts. Hadding awakened wonder by what he told of life and lore from his strange upbringing. Their homely words taught him more about men and women than he had fully known before.
After uncounted days they came out of a shaw onto open ground rolling gently downward. Tussocks of coarse grass mingled with heather, tossing in a salt breeze that murmured below an overcast where the sun lightened the gray to westward. When they saw the silvery gleam ahead, they whooped, danced, pounded one another on the back. “The sea!” they cried. “The sea!”
Hadding drank deep of that air. “Home to the Mother,” he whispered. They did not understand him. Maybe he did not either. But then he smiled and told them, “I think now we are safe”
He reckoned they had reached Helsingland, toward which he had steered them as best he was able to on their twisting way. Dwellers along the eastern shores of the Kattegat across from Denmark, the Helsings were friendly to the Danes. Mostly fishers, neither many nor rich, they paid him a small yearly scot of smoked and brined herring, while his might kept the Geats and Norse off their necks. Moreover, in raiding
