He caught a glimpse of the second knorr, dismasted, already half broken up. His own mast still stood firm in its partner. Taking an ax, he cut it down. Under his bidding; men used the stays to ease its fall and bring it alongside. “Bind yourselves to that pole,” he told them. He stayed aboard, helping them off so that only one was borne away, until everybody had something or other to keep afloat with.
By then they were in the shoals. Breaker after breaker dashed over them. The ship grounded. The surf got to work pounding her apart. Hadding squirmed free. The mast had gone elsewhere and he had found no piece of timber big enough to uphold him. The water hauled him below. Cast high again, he snatched a breath before the undertow took him back. Husbanding what strength he had, he worked his way inch by inch toward land.
At last he could stand, nose out of water except when it rushed over his head. Sometimes that knocked him off his feet. He recovered and slogged on. After a while he was wading more or less steadily. Soon he could fall down into stiff sea-grass and gasp.
The mast drifted in. It had dashed the brains from one of those tied to it. Another had drowned. The rest cut free and won ashore. A few more arrived, clinging to their bits of flotsam. Three were from the second ship. Nobody ever heard anything of the third. In all, Hadding gathered ten around him.
They slumped together, hungry, thirsty, chilled, drenched, battered, utterly worn out. “This many of us live,” said Svein. “It could be worse:”
“It will be,” said Gunnar.
“You’re right, unless we get to shelter,” growled Egil. “Up off your lazy butts!”
Hadding’s mouth twitched. “All that soaking hasn’t softened you, old fellow,” he murmured. He dragged himself to his feet. “Come along, then.”
They stumbled after him through the wind. Sunset must be nigh, for the streaming skies were growing blacker still. Beyond the grass was a. stretch of woodland. Trees tossed and moaned. Some had boughs ripped off. Some lay fallen, splintered. Spume hazed the surf where it boomed.
“Hadn’t we better make brushwood huts while light abides?” asked Arnulf.
“I see cattle dung,” Hadding told them. “Folk cannot be far off.”
A clearing notched the shaw As they rounded the edge of this, they saw a clump of buildings at the middle. Boats lay moored in a creek. The dwellers must be fishers who did some farming. They might or might not be friendly to strangers. The castways had no weapons left except a few sheath knives and whatever scraps of wood they had taken along for clubs.
Nonetheless Hadding limped ahead of them. Three houses and a shed walled a small yard. Stoutly built of earth and drift-wood, with sod roofs, they might well make vikings think them not worth attacking for whatever meager goods were inside. The king knocked on the first door he came to.
It creaked a little ways open. A man peered out. In the murk behind him stood at least two more, shadowy, spear and ax in hand. “We are wrecked sailors,” Hadding said beneath the storm. “The gods think well of hospitable folk.”
“Um, you look wretched enough,” grunted the householder. “Wait a bit. Thormund, rouse the neighbors.”
“You’re wise to be wary of us,” Hadding said, “but you’ll see it’s not needful. We wish no fight with anybody.” He did not add that they would most likely lose it. There was no sense in tempting.
Men came armed, roughly clad, from the other houses. Before long they understood that the newcomers spoke truth. Even so, they split the guests among themselves—though that was also because of crowding. Each family here had children, oldsters, and unwedded kin living with it.
Hadding knew this kind of lodging from aforetime, a single room with beasts stalled at one end. It was full of their warmth and smells. A peat fire guttered on a hearthstone. Rushes decked a clay floor, There he must sleep, for lack of anything better. first the women hung his clothes to dry and lent him a blanket to wrap around himself. They brought him bread, curds, and sour beer, the best they had when they themselves had already cooked and supped. His friends they treated likewise.
The newcomers gave their names but said no more about their sorrows. The dwellers did not guess that this Hadding might be the king. “You are a good man, Kari,” he said to the householder. “Tomorrow we must talk. You stand to gain by helping me.”
“Tomorrow,” answered the fisher. “Now let’s sleep.”
All stretched out and were quickly lost to awareness. The banked fire glowed dim. Outside, the wind shrieked. Louder it blew and louder.
Doors and shutters rattled. Sand and spray flung from the strand hissed around walls.
Of a sudden, a hinge gave way. The door banged wildly, tore loose, and whirled off through the night. The storm burst in. Rafters broke asunder. Half the roof fell down.
Folk had sprung awake. The wind tore cries from lips before ears could catch them. Lightless, men groped at the wreckage. It had buried two of Hadding’s warriors, with three of Kari’s children, his old father, and his kine.
This was not reckoned up till morning, when folk crept from the unharmed houses in which they had found lee but slept no further. The weather had raged itself out. Though seas still ran high, sunlight speared past clouds onto a land lying wet and death-quiet.
“I think we had best begone,” said Hadding flatly. “Give us some food to take along, and in a while you’ll hear from me again.”
Kari looked elsewhere. “I know not if we want to,” he mumbled. “This stay of yours was less lucky for us than you foretold.”
However, the dwellers did hand something over from their stores. They could have killed
