Hadding sighed. “This too we’ve been over and over. No more than one man can crouch here, nor does any man but me know what to do. Get well away. You can find a cranny for yourself within earshot, if not sight.” He grinned. “Earshot will be a goodly walk! Afterward I’ll want your help. Or, if I fall, your service will be to tell that I fought the fight I said I would.”

Softly Thorfinn voiced the words of old.

Kine die, kinfolk die,

And so at last oneself.

This I know that never dies:

How dead men’s deeds are deemed.

“True,” said Hadding. “You’ll see to that, good friend. Now farewell for a time.”

Thorfinn gulped. “Fare you ever well, lord.” He turned and went downhill fast, on the slope away from the oncoming band.

Hadding had already donned his byrnie and whatever else belonged with it, except for the helmet. He crept around the boulders into the room, wrapped blankets about himself against the cold, and squatted in shadow. It was almost like one of those stone chambers said to have been built by giants in the morning of the world. Folk shunned them. Nothing haunted this one but his thudding heart.

After a while the newcomers climbed into his sight. They seemed to be all men, most of them heavily laden. Then as Hadding peered he saw among them, dressed like them, surely Ragnhild Haakonsdottir. Skirts were ill suited for this last part of the upland trek, where even the hardy little Northland horses could not go. Her long, coppery-red hair was braided and coiled on a head borne high. Wind flapped her cloak back to show, in spite of the thick garments beneath, that she was tall and shapely.

Hadding could not make out their words. He watched a graybeard warrior speak what must be a last plea, and her naysay it. Slowly, as if the burden were still on their shoulders, the men set up a leather tent. They stocked it with food, drink, blankets, clothes, a stool, and a spear. “No use to her as a weapon,” Hadding muttered, “but maybe of help to her soul.”

The woman’s hand chopped downward. A man dragged a fire drill, with block and tinder, from his pack. Hunkered before the balewood, he got it kindled. She walked off and stood looking northward over the mountains.

Flames hatched. They fledged. Great wings of fire beat red and yellow. Sparks streamed. Air roared. Smoke stormed upward and upward. The westering sun touched it with gold.

The men gathered before Ragnhild. The oldest drew sword and raised it. The others did likewise with whatever arms they bore. The noise of the fire drowned out any speech, but it looked to Hadding as though they said nothing, their throats being too full. They lowered their iron, turned about, and left her standing there.

Hadding waited.