“I do have things to tell you. Hitherto hosts like yours have had no true shape. Men try to stay near the banners of their chieftains and shoulder to shoulder with their friends. If set on from all sides, they make a shield wall and stand in a ring as best they can. Once that is broken, the foe reaps them piecemeal. Otherwise both troops go forward with no better plan than to come to grips. A battle is hardly more than a huge brawl. Nobody knows what is happening beyond his arm’s length. Anything may spark fear, it will spread like wildfire, men will cast their weapons from them and run as blindly as chickens, the foe will come after them like weasels, and so the battle is lost.”

Hadding nodded. His face went bleak. He knew this all too well.

“Now I will tell you what is better,” said the old one, “and if you think about it you will see that it is.”

“I know already that it is—coming from you,” whispered the king.

They spoke much together as the ships sailed on.

With the wind holding fair, Hadding reached the fjord of the Niderings as soon as he had hoped. But he could not go in, greet Haakon, and raise more warriors to help. Even as the remembered landmarks hove in sight, over the northern searim came a fleet outnumbering his. Those who had spied it earlier now told their fellows, who howled. Here were the Swedes and Bjarmians.

“How have they moved so fast?” wondered Svein. “The winds that bore us along were against them.”

“That need not be,” said Egil starkly. “I’ve heard tell of how Finn-wizards hold sway over the weather.”

Svein cast a glance at the graybeard with hat and cloak who stood silent astern. “I think we have one such ourselves.” He shivered.

“This, then, is where we’ll meet them,” called Hadding, the length of the hull and across the water. “Make ready!”

He steered for the island of Hitra, which lay with others near the mouth of the fjord. Long, low, and green, it offered safe strands for landing and meadows for fighting. The only dwellers he saw were a pair of cowherd children, who made haste to drive their kine into the background woods.

One by one the Danish ships touched shore. Anchors went out. Men jumped over the sides and splashed to land. Soon it was a roiling of warriors. Iron blinked under the midday sun, banners tossed in the wind, gulls wheeled and piped overhead.

Standing in the prow of Fired rake, Hadding blew his horn. The sound brought men packed close around. He harangued them a short while about how well it was to stave off the foe this far from their homes, the fame to be won, the booty to gather afterward—if nothing else, ships that would fetch good prices. Their cheers rang.