The beast dove. Hadding caught his breath barely in time. Down into green depths they went, while his blade sought the life of his quarry. The sandy bottom rippled in his sight. He scraped across it. Still he struck. Blood streamed like snakes from every wound. Here below it looked black.
The beast threshed back upward. It broke through and sang its anguish to the cloudless, windless sky. Hadding gulped air. Again he cut, and again.
The beast sighed. The maned neck slumped, the tail drooped. Hanging on, Hadding felt its life drain away.
It did not sink, as he had feared it might. He and it rocked together in the stained waters.
Letting go, sheathing his knife, “Ho-ah!” he bawled into silence. “Hai-saa-saa! Victory!”
Shore was well away. This was a heavy freight to tow. But he could rest on it when he needed to. Still full of battle strength, he set forth.
Svein came to him, then Gunnar. They had seen the fight. Straightway they stripped themselves and plunged in. “You worked too fast for us, lord,” panted Svein.
“Well, let’s see how fast you can work for me,” laughed Hadding.
So the warriors brought his catch ashore and, when they were dried and clad, bore it back to camp. The sight pulled men out of their laziness. They cried aloud, they crowded close to touch and pluck. The rainbow sheen was gone from the beast’s hide. It lay there dulled, in a heap, mouth open and dry, eyes open and dim. Yet it was a wonder.
Hadding knew better than to boast overmuch. “It gave me a bit of trouble,” he said. “But now we’ll find out how its flesh tastes, and maybe somebody back in the thorp can tell us what kind of thing this is. Surely it’s unknown to me.”
‘And you have seen more that is eldritch than most men,” breathed Arnulf.
The air was even cooling as the sun went low.
After a while, though, Hadding got a wish to be by himself. More and more he felt that his men were jabbering like magpies, and he wearied of it. More and more did the sight of the dead beast strike him not as splendid but as sad. He could not say why. He thought he would think about it. “I’m going for a stroll,” he told them. “No, stay here, all of you. Make ready the meat. I’m not going far and I’ll be back soon.”
He walked off under the trees. No brush hampered him. Light slanted from the west in among boles and boughs. Again he heard doves, but now it was as if they were sobbing.
He came around a thicket. There stood a woman.
As tall as him she was, slender, a leaf-green gown falling from her shoulders to silvery shoes. A gold ring around her brows and rings around her arms bore the shape of snakes that curl and bite their own tails. Her skin had the blue-shadowy whiteness of snow, her lips were blood red, the hair that tumbled down her back was like a raven’s wing. In a thinly and finely formed face the eyes glowed huge, yellow hawk eyes. She lifted a hand. Hadding jarred to a halt.
She spoke. In camp, too, they heard that steely music.
Sailing the sea or seeking the land,
Henceforth you have the hate of the elves,
And wend where you will, the worst shall befall you
Always on earth and also on shipboard,
Where foul winds follow your frozen sail.
Nor shall you find shelter ashore below roofs.
Weather brings woe, laying waste altogether
The holdings of him who houses you,
Till, given no guesting, you gang alone.
Anger you earned, all ills must you suffer.
He was a high one, in the hide of a beast
Decked for this day. To death you brought him,
The goodly godling. Now go to your ship.
The winds are wild that wait for you.
Her hull they will harry, their howls will raise,
To crush your craft, the crashing waves,
Till you rue the wrong you wrought on the elves
And give to their god a gild of blood.
Like a mist in the morning, she was gone from before him. He stood there alone at sunset.
XVII
They did not eat of the slain one. After a sleepless night they buried it as well as they could and made what poor offerings at the grave they were able. Saying little, they started back to the thorp.
Hadding broke the stillness when they camped. “If the land-wights are angry,” he said, “it is at me.”
“However that may be,” growled Arnulf, “I’ll stand by my lord.”
Gunnar shrugged. “I may as well too,” he said. “I helped bring the thing in.”
A laugh of sorts went among the men. That night they slept better. But then, they were utterly tired.
In the morning they walked on. Clouds piled higher above the trees to the left. Lightning played in their blue-black hollows. Warmth fled before a rising wind. It skirled ever louder. It tossed the woodland crowns and roared in them. A chop on the sea became whitecaps.
Wrack flew overhead like smoke. The sunlight flickering between was the hue of brass. Clouds thickened and the sun was lost. Lightning whitened the sky. Thunder rolled, unseen wheels.
The rain burst, hurled before the wind, a waterfall that blinded and lashed. Lightning blazed through its murk. Every fluttering leaf or flattened lingbush stood stark in sight. Then darkness clapped down until the next flash. Thunder crashed unending.
Hail came, great stones that drew blood where they hit a man. They skittered over the ground and lay there to whiten It. The sea ramped, half-hidden by scud blown off billows.
Hadding and his men took what shelter they could find below trees. The storm seemed to go on forever. Yet it ended as quickly as it had begun. Clouds broke. Wind sank. A westering sun threw fires across waves that still rushed and rumbled. Drenched, half-frozen, the men trudged on over sodden earth. Grass and shrubs beaten to death squelped underfoot.
“We still have
