The bill struck Asmund glancingly on the neck. Its sharp hook rent the flesh. Blood leaped forth. Asmund reeled. His men snarled and readied themselves.

Hadding came. Blows flew at him from right and left. As he warded himself, Asmund struck for the last time. His sword caught the. Dane-king in the right foot. Through boot and bone the edge went. Hadding staggered. Asmund grinned at him, crumpled, and bled to death.

Hadding’s men got there to beat the warriors back from their lord. For a short while the fight ramped. Then a bulk like a mountain loomed over it. Vagnhöfdi smashed the Norse that were left as a man cracks lice between his teeth.

Thereupon he turned to Hadding. White-lipped and sweating, the king stood on one leg with his sword for a cane. Vagnhöfdi bent low. “You’re hurt, fosterling,” he growled. “Come, let’s take you away and see to this.”

Hadding shook his head. “I will keep the field,” he said raggedly.

Vagnhöfdi waved a hairy hand. “Look around you. It is yours.”

A few banners were left, all Danish. Men were gathering around them. Far and wide, their foes fled. Two had somehow caught terrified horses and gotten back into the saddle. They rode about and must be calling to those in flight whom they overtook, for some joined them. Nevertheless it was clear that the folk who had been Asmund’s would fight no more this day.

Hadding nodded. “Yes,” he said, “we’d better get me hale again fast, if we’re to make use of our victory.”

The jotun took him in the crook of an arm and bore him off like a babe. Hadding half drowsed through the long strides. Those of his housecarles as had the boldness and were not too weary or weakened trailed after them.

Vagnhöfdi went on for some ways. “I think you won’t be ganging off very soon,” he said. “You should rest where the stink, the flies, and the screaming birds can’t trouble you.” At a grove beside the river he laid his burden down on soft duff.

Squatting, he touched the wounded foot. It bled less than before but bone ends stuck out of the gashed leather. “My fingers are too thick to bind this,” he sighed like a storm gust. “I hope somebody with skills gets here before too long.”

“Can’t your spells make it whole?” asked Hadding.

“No,” Vagnhöfdi answered. “That gift lay more in my daughter, Hardgreip.”

“I’m sorry she died,” Hadding said through his pain to the giant’s.