But he remembered, let himself remember before The Sick, remembered Little Carl, on small fat legs, trying to dance around a cook fire, mimicking some of the Norse chant-dancing the men had done. He fell and fell again and again but he kept getting up to dance.

Getting up.

Getting up to fight the part of the dance that kept making him fall.

Getting up again and again as if the falling meant nothing, could mean nothing as important as getting up.

Getting up to fight.

Getting up to fight The Sick.

Until.

Until in the end, and it was the end, he could not get up again but he fought, fought all the way down until his ghost had gone from the body and his spirit had gone over to the dreaming place just before Valhalla and the body could not fight more but the spirit could, would fight forever because of where it had started.

In him.

In Little Carl the fighting spirit was born and would always be.

The fighting-spirit song of Little Carl.

The Getting Up song.

Yet when Leif put more wood on the fire and began to compose the song in his mind so it would grow into the thought-pictures that it took to make a good song of honour, he found he could not sing it.

He tried. Started with high notes, eagle notes, and words to make pictures:

SEE HIM DANCING

AROUND THE FIRE ON SMALL LEGS.

SEE HIM DANCING

AROUND THE FIRE ON WARRIOR’S LEGS.

SEE HIM DANCING

AROUND THE FIRE WITH A WARRIOR’S

HEART.

SEE HIM DANCING

AROUND THE FIRE TO RISE.

TO RISE UP

TO RISE UP

TO ALWAYS RISE UP

SEE HIM DANCING

SEE HIM DANCING

SEE HIM DANCING.

TO ALWAYS RISE UP

AND FIGHT.

TO VALHALLA.

But only the high note, the beginning note of the honour song, came and he could not sing more. His throat closed and when he tried to open it, to make the chant-song come, it brought out thought-pictures of how it had all been in the good time. All his thought-pictures were . . .

Of memories. How the camp had been before The Sick. How it had been when the men were happy and had good food and full cheeks and smiles and songs and dances and the camp seemed to come alive in his mind, a camp from before, before . . .

Before it all ended. All died. When he pushed at it and tried and tried to sing, to chant, all that came was what jammed in his thickened throat and he could not sing. He sat, staring into the fire, and felt only sadness that brought again the dark shame that he had lived and all others had died.