“We may wish,” Hadding said, “but if it comes to pass, it will not be soon.” He turned about through the deepening twilight and sought his bedroll. To Eyjolf it seemed an ill token, hearing such words from the king.

Night fell. A nearly full moon cast a quivering bridge over the lake. Aside from their drowsy outposts, the Danes slept.

A noise yanked them awake. Through the dark, through their ears and marrow, loud as a scream, grinding like a quern, a voice chanted:

To woe in warfare you have wandered afar,

Seeking to seize by the sword a prey.

What hasty hope has hooked your wits?

Why blundered you blithely and blindly forth,

Believing the land was lying open?

Unswayed, unswerving, the Swedes have gathered

Stoutly to stand and sternly to fight.

Danes, after daybreak death will be here,

Ruthless and ready to reap your host.

When, beaten in battle, the best among you,

Weakened, give way as the weapons come on,

And frightened flee the field of slaughter,

Your foes will follow your flight like hounds,

Victors vying to avenge their losses,

For easy it is to end a man

When horror has him; helpless he goes.

Hadding was on his feet, naked but with hilt in hand, glaring about under the moon. His folk were shadows to him, except where the light flowed off iron. They shouted, cursed, moaned, mumbled. “Be still!” he roared. “Hold fast!”

The voice had died away. Alone the night wind spoke, rustling moon-dappled leaves. Dew glittered star-cold. Hadding went among his warriors, bidding them remember that they were men. They knew he had met weirdness before and lived. After a while they quieted down. But nobody slept more.

By the bleak dawn light, Eyjolf asked Hadding, “Shall we be off?”

“No,” the king told him. “We’ve heard what is bound our way. Lacking a height to hold, this is as good a battleground for us as any.”

Without steeds or leg-strength, no scouts had ranged in the past few days. Nonetheless Hadding was not astonished when the spearheads of a Swedish troop flashed at midmorning. “We are as many as they,” he said to the housecarles within earshot. “If our bellies are less full than theirs, let our hearts be more so. We’ll take our stand on the lakeshore. Thus they won’t be able to flank us and attack from behind.”

“Nor will we find it easy to break and run,” drawled old Ax-Egil.

Hadding laughed. “If a man of mine can speak so brashly, there’s hope for all of us. But keep this thought to yourselves.”