Till, given no guesting, you gang alone.

Anger you earned, all ills must you suffer.

He was a high one, in the hide of a beast

Decked for this day. To death you brought him,

The goodly godling. Now go to your ship.

The winds are wild that wait for you.

Her hull they will harry, their howls will raise,

To crush your craft, the crashing waves,

Till you rue the wrong you wrought on the elves

And give to their god a gild of blood.

Like a mist in the morning, she was gone from before him. He stood there alone at sunset.

XVII

They did not eat of the slain one. After a sleepless night they buried it as well as they could and made what poor offerings at the grave they were able. Saying little, they started back to the thorp.

Hadding broke the stillness when they camped. “If the land-wights are angry,” he said, “it is at me.”

“However that may be,” growled Arnulf, “I’ll stand by my lord.”

Gunnar shrugged. “I may as well too,” he said. “I helped bring the thing in.”

A laugh of sorts went among the men. That night they slept better. But then, they were utterly tired.

In the morning they walked on. Clouds piled higher above the trees to the left. Lightning played in their blue-black hollows. Warmth fled before a rising wind. It skirled ever louder. It tossed the woodland crowns and roared in them. A chop on the sea became whitecaps.

Wrack flew overhead like smoke. The sunlight flickering between was the hue of brass. Clouds thickened and the sun was lost. Lightning whitened the sky. Thunder rolled, unseen wheels.

The rain burst, hurled before the wind, a waterfall that blinded and lashed. Lightning blazed through its murk. Every fluttering leaf or flattened lingbush stood stark in sight. Then darkness clapped down until the next flash. Thunder crashed unending.

Hail came, great stones that drew blood where they hit a man. They skittered over the ground and lay there to whiten It. The sea ramped, half-hidden by scud blown off billows.

Hadding and his men took what shelter they could find below trees. The storm seemed to go on forever. Yet it ended as quickly as it had begun. Clouds broke. Wind sank. A westering sun threw fires across waves that still rushed and rumbled. Drenched, half-frozen, the men trudged on over sodden earth. Grass and shrubs beaten to death squelped underfoot.

“We still have friends aloft,” said Hadding once. “‘Thor’s hammer never struck near us.” But nobody smiled.

They reached the thorp shortly before dark. Three ships lay at the wharf. It being small, they had had to be tethered alongside one another, with bumpers between. “Why, those are ours!” Hadding cried. “They must have come while we were gone. You’ll soon be home, lads.”