The shore rose, cliffs sheering cloudward, cleft with inlets, above a maze of islets and skerries. Here he kept the sea and gave his crews no more ease than they must have if they were to carry on. He hoped to join his wife’s father at Nidaros before Thuning got that far.

A west wind sprang up, shrill and raw. Green-backed waves rushed to break in foam and thunder on the rocks. Ships rolled and pitched. Rowers braced feet against rib timbers as they heaved to keep clear. However chill the air, sweat ran down their skins till its salt mingled with the spindrift on their lips.

Hadding squinted landward. Behind him the sun struck through a gray wrack. Brightness flared off the surf. Beyond it a narrow strip of strand ran below heights where a few dwarfed pines clung. A man stood there. Hadding saw him take off his cloak and hold it high. It beat in the wind like a great blue wing.

“Is he wrecked?” wondered Svein. “He seems to want us come take him aboard.”

Einar barked a laugh. “If so, his woes have driven him mad.”

Hadding stiffened. He gripped the rail and leaned far over. The rolling brought him breast-on to the water, then aloft into the weather. Still he peered. All at once he shivered, turned about, and said, !We’ll go after him.”

“What?” shouted Einar. “Lord, you can’t be mad too!”

“Tell the crew,” Hadding said. “I’ll take the helm myself.” He made his way aft through crowded, crouching men.

“Do as he bids,” Ax-Egil said. “He kens more about some things than you or I would like to.”

As folk watched aghast from the other ships, Firedrake came around. Stern to onshore wind and seas, she bounded at the deadliness ahead. Breakers sheeted white above reefs. Water swirled and chopped between. The roar drowned the groaning of strakes. Grimly, for none would show fear, the rowers bent to their oars, the riders hunched down and gripped what handholds they could find.

Hadding wove his way. The ship was not broached, she did not strike. The bottom here must slope slowly, for the surf that elsewhere pounded the land broke well offshore and was low. As Hadding steered through the smother of it he took no worse than a drenching. Nor was this a stony ground. Only sand grated when he drew to a stop.

The man waded out. Hadding came forward to give him a hand up. “That was well done,” the man said. His voice was as deep as the sea’s.

Hadding looked into his one, eye. “We have met before,” he answered. “I knew you at once.”

“You shall not be sorry,” said the man after man.