Uffi scowled. “Naught did we ever owe that wolf but revenge for our grandfather, our father, and all the harm he did our folk.”
“He felled Svipdag and Asmund man against man, in open war, after Svipdag killed his own father. He wrought no worse in Svithjod than we in Denmark. We won fame for what we did, fighting such a hero. Then he came here willing to make the peace that you, you, offered. And all along it was false. You were plotting his murder from the first.”
“Be still!” rasped Uffi. “I’ll hear no more of that yammer.”
“You shall hear nothing further from me,” Hunding told him. “I disown you. Never more will I stand at your side, nor will any man who is true to me.”
He turned and stalked off, shuddering. Uffi glowered after him. Suddenly the king’s shoulders slumped a little He made himself very busy giving orders about the care of men and booty.
Day brightened. Guardsmen who had known Hadding by sight came one after another to tell him they had not found the Dane-king among the fallen, neither his own nor servants who had gotten in the way of a blow. At last Uffi howled, went in, and threw the lichs aside like a dog burrowing after a bad-get None of the gaping gray faces was the one he hated.
He straightened. For a while his throat was too tight for him to speak. “The wolf has sneaked free,” he thereupon croaked. “We must set the hounds after him.”
For days riders went everywhere in the shire, searching, asking, uttering threats and offering rewards. They caught a few Danes who had also gotten out, and sent their heads back to Uffi. But nowhere did even the most skilled trackers find spoor of Hadding. Uffi slaughtered kine and thralls in the shaw, calling on the gods to make his foe be dead. More could he not do.
As leaves turned yellow and geese trekked through windy heaven, word reached him. Hadding had won back to Denmark and taken up kingship again. Uffi sat dumb, alone in his high seat, until he mumbled, “Can it be me whom the gods are against?” He raised his head. “Nor will I yield to them,” he said into the flickering firelight.
Throughout the winter and spring Hadding made ready. There was no dearth of strong men, mostly younger sons, eager to become his new housecarles. He picked them shrewdly, outfitted them fully, fed them overflowingly, gifted them freely, and at the hands of older warriors drilled them ruthlessly. He sent word around the kingtime that after sowing there would be a great levy for war abroad. Likewise did he send to King Haakon, who promised twenty ships full of armed Niderings. Meanwhile he gathered food and drink to keep his host for two or three weeks—meat smoked and salted, stockfish, hardtack, cheese, casks of ale—along with wains, horses, and whatever else would be needed.
At the set time, then, his fighters swarmed to Haven and ferried across the Sound. As they went north overland they met the men of Scania under Jarl Eyjolf. All fared onward.
Theirs was a mighty troop. At the head rode King Hadding with his highest chieftains, the housecarles behind them. Cloaks rippled from their shoulders as bright hued as the banners overhead. Here and there, rearward, were others mounted. Most went afoot, a dun throng ablink with iron, in loose little bands. They thronged to right and left, talking, singing, laughing, shouting. The earth drummed to their tread. Fields lay trampled flat behind them. In their midst dust smoked white off whatever road wound between. There bumped and creaked the laden wagons. Often men must lend their strength to the draught horses, shoving wheels out of ruts too deep, dragging them through tall grass or over stones where a road gave out altogether, pushing them uphill, braking them downhill, splashing them across fords, hauling them from mudholes when rain had been heavy. Sweat sheened on skin and darkened shirts, breath went hoarse and oathful in mouths.
Still, the host moved fast. Hadding led it first east, then north, skirting the hills. The lowlands along the Baltic were much easier going, mostly plowland and meadow. They passed many a farmstead and thorp, but stopped only to camp for the night. When they were out of Scanian land and pushing on through the Geats, dwellers fled, but Hadding forbade plunder and even burning. After he had a few men beheaded who disobeyed, the rest believed what he told them, that this wasted time and added burdens. Only to such near friends as Eyjolf did he add that he would rather not leave more ill will than he must.
Through traders and seamen as well as spies, Uffi knew well beforehand of their coming. He sent the war-arrow throughout Svithjod, called on those Geats who were plighted to him, and so raised his own troop. It was less than it might have been. Hunding hung back, with those who looked to him instead of to the king or who thought that following a killer of guests would be unlucky. However, the host was bigger than Hadding’s, and many in it felt that they fought for their homes.
The two met near the shore. Land sloped green with young grass, black and torn where they had passed, studded with trees, range for herds whose owners had driven them off. A narrow strait winked and chuckled. Beyond it, low and linggrown, stretched the long island called Öland. Over this, thunderhead clouds were rising ever higher and thicker. A wind blew off the sea, loud, cold, and salt. Already ravens from inland and gulls from the water were gathering in it. They had learned.
Hadding laughed as a wolf might laugh. “He’s picked a fine ground for fighting, good King Uffi has,” he said. “How kind of him.”
His chieftains scurried to and fro, barking orders, getting
