The hurrahs that lifted were dull. Yet the Swedes did hail their lord. Having pitched camp, they gloated around their cookfires. “May the Danes have joy of smelling our roasts.”

Night fell, the light summer night that is well-nigh a dusk. A full moon climbed over eastern treetops to brighten it further. Fires guttered low. Aside from their watchmen, the warriors slept.

The moon drew near the loft of heaven. Earth lay shadowy. The lake shivered with silver. Then, louder than any human voice, cracked and grisly, there ran through the Swedish troop:

Why does now Uffi dare me

To dash him to the ground?

Reckless call him rightly,

Rather than bold-hearted.

They he angered thus

For this will make him pay.

I warn that only woe

He wins for all his work.

Sinking under sword-edge,

Soon he loses life.

Strive however strongly

In strife he may, he dies.

A flock of spears aflight

Shall flay him limb from limb.

No cloth will ever close

The clotting wounds upon him,

Nor need is there, for nothing

Can knit dead flesh together.

Men started awake. They caught hold of weapons, which then shuddered and sank in their hands. They blundered about in the half light and wailed for their friends, any friends, “Ingvar, where are you? Grimulf, oath-brother, come to me!”

Though sweat stood cold on his skin, Uffi knew that if he let horror run free, his troop might well split asunder. Once a few ran away, everybody would. Even if they stayed, brooding on this thing would sap them. He boiled from his tent and shouted for his guards. “Sound the horns! Marshal the men! We go back to war!”

Somehow he rallied them. Iron came forth, icy under the moon. Bands formed up around their banners. Uffi rode in front where all could see him. His folk lumbered forward. He sprang off the horse and took shield in hand himself.

The racket had roused the Danes. Dazed, aching, sandy-eyed, they still heeded their king as he went about bidding them make ready. The best they could do was arm themselves and stumble into three lines. There they waited for the foe to reach them.

Suddenly from somewhere, onto the dewed grass between the troops, came a man striding. Taller he loomed than the tallest warrior, but hideously gaunt. Foul rags flapped around him. In the moonlit gloaming his head shone bare, beardless, eyes too deep-sunken to see, a head like a skull. He gripped a curved sword as though it were a sickle for reaping. Wheeling around, he moved on before the Swedes, toward the Danes.

They gasped for breath. Spearheads flickered above them in their grasp, flames of a dying fire.

Another old man stalked from the other side, as tall, bony, ragged, and bald as the first, armed likewise. He turned to face the Swedes.

“What are they?” The words wavered at Hadding’s back. “Trolls, drows, sendings, what are they?”