He knew not how much longer they had gone, for he had lost feeling for time or span, when he came in sight of some men standing near the wayside. They were very big, handsome, magnificently clad in red and purple. Golden shone the rings on their arms and the brooches at the breasts, even in this dreary light; and the head of the spear that one held gleamed steely blue. Another gripped a heavy, short-handled hammer. A sword hung at the hip of a third, who was missing his right hand. A fourth held a sickle. A fifth had a bow and quiver on his back. A sixth clasped a harp. Slung from the shoulder of the seventh was a horn like the horn of a huge ram; his skin was the whitest, his hair the fairest, and his cloak was banded like the rainbow.

They did not watch the wayfarers, but Hadding felt they must be aware of him. Nor did the woman halt. Still she led him onward.

Boulders and rubble yielded to grassy soil. The gray overhead went blue, though no sun was in it. Warmth breathed forth. The smell it awakened became harsh, for the way passed through a meadow full of hemlock like that which the woman bore. She tossed hers aside. Hadding thought it had served the end of bringing him underground. He remembered that hemlock is deadly. It came to him that somebody wanted him to see what no living man ever had seen. He could not think why. Dreamlike, his way took him on.

After another long while a noise of rushing water waxed ahead. A ringing and clatter went through it. Ever louder it grew, until the woman and Hadding reached the bank of a mighty river. Leaden-hued, it flowed as swiftly as if it were plunging straight down to the bottom of the world. Weapons floated crowdingly upon it, swords, spears, axes, whirling, tumbling, banging together as the stream bore them away. The water roared deafening. The spray that flew up made a mist wherein the daylike light was lost. Where it struck skin, the cold of it stung like an adder’s bite.

A bridge crossed it. The woman beckoned and trod onto that narrow span. Hadding could not but follow. It swayed and shuddered beneath him. Often he nearly fell. Only the quickness he had learned in woods and war saved him.

Beyond the bridge of dread stretched a plain of sallow grass and a few crooked trees. As the sound of the river fell behind him, Hadding’s ears caught another racket rising frontward. The hair stirred all over his body. He knew that din.

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.