They clashed near Gotland. Hadding had spoken long with his skippers, over and over. They raised their masts, though it was not a time to hoist sail. At each masthead flew a banner. Thus every crew could readily tell where their warmates were. The ships kept apart, but not too widely. As often as could be, two closed in on one foe. Arrows, spears, and slingstones hailed from them. They laid alongside and grappled fast. Their men beat a way into the captured hull and cleared it. After that they looked for another. Where a ship of Hadding’s found herself alone among craft of Svipdag’s, other men of Hadding’s could see it and steer over there to give help.

It did not always work so well, but it worked more than it failed, and Svipdag had nothing like it. One by one, his crews saw how they were thinning out, broke loose, and fled off across the reddened waters. As the sun went low, casting a broken bridge of fire from the west, he stood on the foredeck of his own ship and fought his last fight.

Starboard, larboard, forward, aft, the vikings crowded in. Warriors came over the rails in tide after tide. Shield thunked against shield. Iron rattled and rang. Men shouted less than they cursed and panted. Shrieks of pain rose ragged. Feet slipped on blood and spilled guts. Men sank and other feet trampled over them. The ship stank of death. Overhead circled the gulls. The light burned gold on their lean white wings.

Svipdag hewed down at those who pressed against him. Teeth gleamed in his sweat-sodden gray beard, under the helm that shone with sunset, above a shield splintered and cloven. Once the few men left at his side heard him gasp, “We’ll take this up again, Hadding, when you too are dead.” His blows fell ever more slowly. A spear caught him in the throat. He let go sword and shield, dropped to his knees, fumbled at the shaft, slumped, and died. The red geyser out of him became a flow, a trickle, a widespread stain on the planks.

As fitfully as always in a battle, by sight as much as by word, the knowledge came to Hadding that he was victorious. Through the light summer night, when stars are dim because the sun is never far down, he looked across the sea-gleam and saw only ships of his, besides those manned only by deathlings.

In the morning he made landing on Gotland and held Thing with his followers. From there he went on into Denmark.

Everywhere folk hailed him. None said nay. Svipdag’s son had all he could do to hold onto Svithjod and the Norse homeland. Hadding rode freely through Scania, took ship across the strait to Zealand, and so the other islands and at last that shire of northern Jutland which also acknowledged Skjoldung overlordship. Thus did he come into his own, he the Dane-king.