Onward walking, he saw the wellspring of it come over the dim edge of sight and grow clear. Two hosts fought in battle. Weapons clashed, blood reddened byrnies and earth, the wounded sank down under swaying banners and the feet of the hale crushed them, the slain sprawled gaping.
Hadding jarred to a halt. Words tore from him. “What fray is this?”
The woman stopped too. For the first time on their trek she looked again into his eyes. Her voice was low, a sigh like the wind at night. “These are the men who died by the sword, who here wage ever a shadow strife and fell each other, so that their deeds are a glimmer of what they wrought when they lived.”
She turned and went on. The fight was slow to fall away behind them. Meanwhile Hadding gave scant heed to the land around. It was a heath, utterly empty Light waned until they fared in dusk, chill, and stillness.
At last he began to make out something else. Drawing near, he saw it was a high stone wall. From end to end of sight it stretched across the rutted road. He spied no gateway, nor could he see over the top. On a boulder nearby perched a red cock. Otherwise there were only the whins and ling of the waste.
“We must try to get over this,” said the woman.
Hadding felt of the stones. They were smoothed and closely fitted, with neither handhold nor foothold. “I know not how,” he said.
“Some few have overleaped it,” said the woman.
She withdrew, crouched, and broke into a run. Arrow-swift she sped, and at the end gave a mighty spring. Her cloak and skirts flapped with the speed. Nonetheless she did not reach the top, but fell back, landing catlike on her feet.
Again she walked off. Her shape went misty. Renewed, she was small and light. Now she bounded higher still, but once more failed.
She made herself tall again. “No,” she said grimly, “this is not in your weird. Yet shall you ken something of what lies beyond.”
She went over to the cock and laid hold of him, wings and legs caught in her left hand. Her right closed on his neck. With one twist, she tore his head off.
Blood spattered, none of it on her. She swung the body around. Plumes streamed. She let it go and it soared over the wall. After it she cast the head.
From the other side, Hadding heard the cock crow.
All at once the woman seemed weary. “Enough,” she said, and started back the way they had come.
So did Hadding return to the world of the living. He passed up through the floor of Haakon’s hall and stood there before Ragnhild. She fell into his arms. Folk told him he had been gone for only a few breaths.
XXII
Had the thing happened to anyone else, he might there after have been shunned. Enough eeriness was already bound to the name of Hadding that this raised no fear of him. However, it was seldom talked about. One would rather keep on thinking of him as a hero who was also a likeable human, and get back to everyday matters—which was his own heartiest wish.
By spring Ragnhild was great with child. Nevertheless she went eagerly aboard Fired rake when her husband left for home. First he rigged a small tent that could be raised when she and her one tirewoman needed freedom from men’s, eyes. Other times she was in the open with him.
Heads thumped somewhat after the farewell feast King Haakon gave. Sea breezes cleared them, and Hadding’s warriors brought their lord south toward Denmark.
Wind blew strongly, waves rushed high and green under flights of ragged clouds, on a day when they were passing the steep cliffs of Sogn. Out from a fjord glided three longships. Iron flashed aboard them. Today was no weather for rowing on open waters. Their crews drew oars in and bent sail to masts already raised. Swiftly they plunged to cut off Hadding’s lone craft.
“I hardly think they’re friendly,” growled Gunnar as he peered against the sea-blink. “They’ve lain in wait for prey to come by.”
Hadding shook his head. “It’s early in the season,” he said. “No traders are yet out along these shores. Nor would vikings likely go after a ship of war like ours. I wonder if King Uffi has not sent them to lurk for me.”
“Well, we’d better busk ourselves. We’ll win. None of their hulls is like to ours for size, and they’ll find that none of them are like to us for battle.”
Again Hadding shook his head. “I’ll not risk my wife and unborn child unless I must.” He called on the most skilled seamen to stand by at the sheets and sail-pole. The strongest he told to man oars if need be. The rest were to take weapons and mail but then keep out of the way. Himself he went aft to the helm.
From beneath Ragnhild’s kerchief, stray locks fluttered in the wind like flame. She gripped a bow and had slung a quiverful of arrows on her back. “Let them draw nigh and they’ll learn what the upland deer learned!” she cried.
Hadding laughed. “Let’s see if we can spare them,” he said.
Thereafter he steered. Gauging wind and seas, shouting orders, working the tiller with the strength of a wisent and the cunning of a wolf, he became the soul of the ship.
Rigging thrummed, timbers creaked, wind shrilled, billows crashed. Again and again Firedrake lay nearly on her beam ends. Again and again spray burst white and bitter at the prow. Her hull swayed, swung, bounded, athrob with the surges she rode and clove. The yard rattled, the sail slatted each time she came about. Yet never a wave did
