Hard though the vikings pulled, the Danes, fresher and in longer hulls with more rowers, slowly overhauled them. As the sun passed noon, they drew within shouting range. A tall man stood up in the bows Of the foremost. His voice boomed across the rush and glitter of waves, the whittering of wind: “Ahoy! Who goes there?”

“No foes to you,” Tosti cried. “Not today,” he added for his crews to hear, lest they think he was afraid.

“We’ll board you and make sure of that,” the tall man told them.

“No!” blared Koll. “Not unless you cut your way! Who dares give us orders?”

“Hadding the Dane-king,” answered the tall man.

Tosti shrieked in wrath run wild.

Hadding shaded his eyes and peered. “Is that you, Tosti? I thought it might be. Welcome to the end of your wanderings.”

“Make ready to fight,” ran along the lengths of the viking craft.

“Lie to and we’ll talk,” called Hadding.

“What?” barked Koll.

“Maybe you can outlive this day. But if you want to, first you must hear me.”

The rover skippers hallooed among each’ other. Rowers rested their oars. Hadding’s brought him within yards. “A bowshot, a bowshot,” Tosti rasped.

As if he had heard, Hadding warned, “One spear or arrow, and you’re all dead. Hark well.

“If we do battle on the water, it’ll be harder for us to get at you than on land, and whoever falls overboard, his mail will sink him. We’d clear your decks, but it would cost more than I want to spend. Better for us if we go ashore. You know that, so you won’t.

“Now what I offer, Tosti, is that you and I seek the strand and meet man to man. We’ll each take a boat, while our ships draw too far apart for any sudden onslaught. Then if I fall, you can get back to yours in time to flee. If I win, I’ll have scrubbed the world clean of you without squandering good lives. Have you that much manhood?”

“Yes, and more!” Tosti choked out of a throat gone thick. With every eye upon him, where every ear heard him mocked, he could say nothing else. Besides, he quaked with blood lust.

“I’ve brought two skiffs that a single man can row,” Hadding made known. “We’ll set one adrift for you. I’ll meet you on the strand below that bluff where three pines grow.”

Thus it came to be. The Danes laid two miles between themselves and the vikings. They left behind the boat Hadding had promised. Tosti’s ship went to it, a hook pulled it alongside, he scrambled down. “Kill him, kill him,” hooted his followers.

“I will, the old lame hound,” he cried back, and rowed.