The Danes were new to their array. It held together less well than it might have. Yet it clove into the disordered foe, scattering those it did not straightway overrun. Bowmen and slingers were more free than erstwhile to spy targets and pick them off. Thuning’s banner reeled aside. Others stood forlornly fast, cut off from help.

And now Gangleri threw back his cloak, to show that a bag hung around his neck. From it he took a bow. It seemed a toy, then suddenly it was the longest that men in these lands had ever beheld. Standing on the right flank, he strung it and took arrows from the quivers of the nearby Danes. They forgot their own fighting as they saw the old one draw that bow to his ear. When he loosed the shaft, string and wood sang like a stormwind. A Swede crumpled, spitted through byrnie and body. Again Gangleri shot, again, again, again. It was as if he sent ten arrows at once. Each killed.

The warlocks drummed and wailed. Wind strengthened outworldishly fast. Its boom and shriek drowned the noise below. The carrion birds fled. Salt spume flew off the sea, over the field. Clouds boiled up black in the north and across heaven. They blotted out the sun. Rain lashed from them, slantwise over the Danish ranks. Hailstones hit like fists.

A wavering went through Hadding’s troop. This was something more than a squall. Who could stand against witchcraft? The Bjarmians yelped in glee, rallied their broken gangs, and pressed inward. Stone axes, bone harpoons struck down man after man.

Gangleri laid his bow aside and raised his arms. His cloak and beard blew wildly, but still the hat clung to his gray head and half hid the gaunt one-eyed face. He called to the sky.

From over the eastward mainland lifted a new cloud. In the blue-black depths of its nether half lightning leaped blinding. The heights shone snow white. Onward the cloud thrust. The wind that drove it warred with the wind behind the rain. Wrack whirled, thunder crashed, while woodland trees tossed their boughs and moaned.

The rain withdrew, a grayness bound south. The heavens opened and the sun stood forth. Wet grass sparkled many-hued. Blood on the slain lay shoutingly red.

“Hey-aa!” roared Hadding. “On!” His warriors rebounded from fear. They fell on a foe whom it had seized. What followed was slaughter.

Afterward a vast stillness fell. Men went about doing what they could for wounded friends, or sat a few together quietly talking, or sat alone and stared across the water. The westering sun cast a long light over gaping things asprawl on trampled earth. Soon the Danes would shift elsewhere for the night. Tomorrow they would bury their dead, leave their fallen foemen to the birds, and take over the empty Swedish ships. Later they would row to Nidaros and feast before setting homeward. But now they were weary deep into their marrow.