“Well, let’s begin on the ale in earnest,” said Hadding after things had been cleared away. “Our kingly hosts ought to join us soon.”
That time lengthened. An awkward silence fell over the troop. The fires guttered low, the night seeped inward.
Hadding was about to call for more wood and for lamps, when Svein cocked his head. “I hear something outside,” he said. “Like men afoot. Does anybody else?”
“So, the Ynglings—at last,” grumbled Einar.
“No,” said Svein. “Listen. They’re not coming straight to the front door. Some are going around. And they’re many.”
After a bit, others nodded. Hadding glared at the servants The stares he got back were bewildered, frightened. “Yes,” he muttered, “they’d not have been told. Not even young Hunding, I think.” The hair stood up on his arms.
“I’ll go see,” said Gunnar. He strode to the entry, out of their sight.
They heard a roar and a rattle. “Take your weapons!” Hadding shouted. He leaped for his own sword and shield.
Two more guardsmen ran after Gunnar. They saw him on the ground at the open door. He clutched at the spear driven through his belly, struggled to rise, and sank back. His blood throbbed forth to drench the rushes. Above him, the mail and helmet of a warrior caught the dim firelight from within. A sword hewed. It struck Einar’s bare head and clove the skull. Men behind pressed into the entry.
“Hold the doors!” cried Hadding. Danes snatched their arms. They went to stand at either end of the house. Battle crashed and snarled. Their fellows scrambled to get iron back on bodies.
“Help me up,” Hadding bade Egil. The old housecarle went to one knee. The king stood on the other thigh. From there he was fall enough to peer out a window, by starlight.
He stepped down. “A host is around us,” he said. “Uffi must have had most of them lurking in the woods. That means he readied them well beforehand, and had scouts posted to spy us coming and let him know. We’ve walked into a trap.”
“Best we break out of it, then, before he sets it afire,” Egil growled.
“This is new timber, not easily kindled,” Hadding answered. “But they much outnumber us. Never will we cut a way free through them. We can only hold fast where we are. Maybe something will happen before we’ve all fallen.”
He went among his men, arraying them. Those who had kept the doors, without byrnies, were dead or dying. However, they had bought time for the rest, who now drove the foe back from those narrow spans. “Fight till you grow weary,” Hadding bade them. “Then step aside and let a fresh man take your place while you catch your breath.”
Himself he warded the front door longer at a time than any other. Two guards died beside him, two more at once bestrode their bodies. Still his sword crashed, still it bit.
Yet the Danes were inside. The fires died down. Whatever wood the cowering servants might have fetched was elsewhere. Men groped more and more blind. At length they could not tell how their oath-brothers fared at the doorways. They fell over each other’s feet, trying to get to where they could do some good.
The onslaught broke through.
Warriors churned about in the murk, chopped and stabbed at shadows, shouting war-cries for their fellows to know them. “Dane-Hadding1” yelled Svein as a black blur rose before him. “Dane-Hadding,” panted the unknown one. Svein lowered his sword. An ax struck him.
It was no longer a battle where men stood side by side. It was a maelstrom, everybody sightless and alone. Surely friend often smote friend and let a foe go by. Uffi had more men to spend than did Hadding.
He, though, fosterling of jotuns in wilderness, kenned every sound and knew whence it came. He snuffed the air and felt it stir to every movement around him. He prowled the gloom like a lynx, killing and killing.
He could not save his followers. Slowly the fight ebbed away. Men stumbled about croaking their calls, fewer and fewer, until no more calls were Danish. The wounded gasped underfoot. The stench of death lay heavy. Hadding stole over blood-wet rushes and clay, across bodies writhing or still, toward the rear door. Two men kept watch at it. Starlight barely touched their helmets. Hadding pounced from the inner night. Right, left his sword whined. They fell, half-beheaded. An outcry arose at the noise, but by then he was gone.
The sky stood black, the land stretched dim. He crouched and wove a snake’s way off to the woods. They would never track him there.
But it was far to Scania. When they did not find him dead in the morning, the hunt would go forth across the kingdom. He would need all his craft, hiding by day, faring by night, living off roots, herbs, frogs, lemmings, maggots, and whatever else he could take. That too was something he meant to avenge on Uffi. First and foremost, though, were his housecarles, slain in the dark.
XXV
Dawn broke as white as Hunding’s face, where he stood atremble before Uffi. Hurt king’s men lay or sat on the dew-heavy sward around the guesthouse. Women had come from Uppsala to help tend them. Soon they would be brought back into the town. Early bird calls seemed louder than their few weary words. Thumps and rattles sounded dully from within, where warriors went about cutting the throats of wounded Danes and ransacking the dead. A breeze blew chill.
For half the night, since he got the news, Hunding had raged and ranged around. Only now had he found his
