Chapter I. Hightown Under Sunfell

The Path of the King

by John Buchan

When Biorn was a very little boy in his father's stead at
Hightown he had a play of his own making for the long winter nights.
At the back end of the hall, where the men sat at ale, was a chamber
which the thralls used of a morning--a place which smelt of hams and
meal and good provender. There a bed had been made for him when he
forsook his cot in the women's quarters. When the door was shut it
was black dark, save for a thin crack of light from the wood fire and
torches of the hall. The crack made on the earthen floor a line like
a golden river. Biorn, cuddled up on a bench in his little bear-skin,
was drawn like a moth to that stream of light. With his heart beating
fast he would creep to it and stand for a moment with his small body
bathed in the radiance. The game was not to come back at once, but to
foray into the farther darkness before returning to the sanctuary of
bed. That took all the fortitude in Biorn's heart, and not till the
thing was dared and done could he go happily to sleep.

One night Leif the Outborn watched him at his game. Sometimes
the man was permitted to sleep there when he had been making sport
for the housecarles.

"Behold an image of life!" he had said in his queer outland
speech. "We pass from darkness to darkness with but an instant of
light between. You are born for high deeds, princeling. Many would
venture from the dark to the light, but it takes a stout breast to
voyage into the farther dark."

And Biorn's small heart swelled, for he detected praise, though
he did not know what Leif meant.

In the long winter the sun never topped Sunfell, and when the
gales blew and the snow drifted there were lights in the hall the day
long. In Biorn's first recollection the winters were spent by his
mother's side, while she and her maids spun the wool of the last
clipping. She was a fair woman out of the Western Isles, all brown
and golden as it seemed to him, and her voice was softer than the
hard ringing speech of the Wick folk. She told him island stories
about gentle fairies and good-humoured elves who lived in a green
windy country by summer seas, and her air would be wistful as if she
thought of her lost home. And she sang him to sleep with crooning
songs which had the sweetness of the west wind in them. But her maids
were a rougher stock, and they stuck to the Wicking lullaby which ran
something like this:

Hush thee, my bold one, a boat will I buy thee, A boat and
stout oars and a bright sword beside, A helm of red gold and a thrall
to be nigh thee, When fair blows the wind at the next wicking-tide.
There was a second verse, but it was rude stuff, and the Queen had
forbidden the maids to sing it.

As he grew older he was allowed to sit with the men in the hall,
when bows were being stretched and bowstrings knotted and spear-hafts
fitted. He would sit mum in a corner, listening with both ears to the
talk of the old franklins, with their endless grumbles about lost
cattle and ill neighbours. Better he liked the bragging of the young
warriors, the Bearsarks, who were the spear-head in all the forays.
At the great feasts of Yule-tide he was soon sent packing, for there
were wild scenes when the ale flowed freely, though his father, King
Ironbeard, ruled his hall with a strong hand. From the speech of his
elders Biorn made his picture of the world beyond the firths. It was
a world of gloom and terror, yet shot with a strange brightness. The
High Gods might be met with in beggar's guise at any ferry, jovial
fellows and good friends to brave men, for they themselves had to
fight for their lives, and the End of All Things hung over them like
a cloud. Yet till the day of Ragnarok there would be feasting and
fine fighting and goodly fellowship, and a stout heart must live for
the hour.

Leif the Outborn was his chief friend. The man was no warrior,
being lame of a leg and lean and sharp as a heron. No one knew his
begetting, for he had been found as a child on the high fells. Some
said he was come of the Finns, and his ill-wishers would have it that
his birthplace had been behind a foss, and that he had the blood of
dwarves in him. Yet though he made sport for the company, he had
respect from them, for he was wise in many things, a skilled leech, a
maker of runes, and a crafty builder of ships. He was a master hand
at riddles, and for hours the housecarles would puzzle their wits
over his efforts. This was the manner of them. "Who," Leif would ask,
"are the merry maids that glide above the land to the joy of their
father; in winter they bear a white shield, but black in summer?" The
answer was "Snowflakes and rain." Or "I saw a corpse sitting on a
corpse, a blind one riding on a lifeless steed?" to which the reply
was "A dead horse on an ice-floe." Biorn never guessed any of the
riddles, but the cleverness of them he thought miraculous, and the
others roared with glee at their own obtuseness.

But Leif had different moods, for sometimes he would tell tales,
and all were hushed in a pleasant awe. The fire on the hearth was
suffered to die down, and men drew closer to each other, as Leif told
of the tragic love of Helgi and Sigrun, or how Weyland outwitted King
Nidad, or how Thor went as bride to Thrym in Giantland, and the old
sad tale of how Sigurd Fafnirsbane, noblest of men, went down to
death for the love of a queen not less noble. Leif told them well, so
that his hearers were held fast with the spell of wonder and then
spurred to memories of their own. Tongues would be loosened, and
there would be wild recollections of battles among the skerries of
the west, of huntings in the hills where strange sights greeted the
benighted huntsman, and of voyaging far south into the lands of the
sun where the poorest thrall wore linen and the cities were all gold
and jewels. Biorn's head would be in such a whirl after a night of
story-telling that he could get no sleep for picturing his own deeds
when he was man enough to bear a sword and launch his ship. And
sometimes in his excitement he would slip outside into the darkness,
and hear far up in the frosty sky the whistle of the swans as they
flew southward, and fancy them the shield-maids of Odin on their way
to some lost battle.

His father, Thorwald Thorwaldson, was king over all the firths
and wicks between Coldness in the south and Flatness and the mountain
Rauma in the north, and inland over the Uplanders as far as the
highest springs of the rivers. He was king by more than blood, for he
was the tallest and strongest man in all the land, and the cunningest
in battle. He was for ordinary somewhat grave and silent, a dark man
with hair and beard the colour of molten iron, whence came his
by-name. Yet in a fight no Bearsark could vie with him for fury, and
his sword Tyrfing was famed in a thousand songs. On high days the
tale of his descent would be sung in the hall--not by Leif, who was
low-born and of no account, but by one or other of the chiefs of the
Shield-ring. Biorn was happy on such occasions, for he himself came
into the songs, since it was right to honour the gentle lady, the
Queen. He heard how on the distaff side he was sprung from proud
western earls, Thorwolf the Black, and Halfdan and Hallward
Skullsplitter. But on the spear side he was of still loftier kin, for
Odin was first in his pedigree, and after him the Volsung chiefs, and
Gothfred the Proud, and--that no magnificence might be wanting--one
Karlamagnus, whom Biorn had never heard of before, but who seemed
from his doings to have been a puissant king.

On such occasions there would follow a braggingmatch among the
warriors, for a recital of the past was meant as an augury for the
future. The time was towards the close of the Wicking-tide, and the
world was becoming hard for simple folk. There were endless
bickerings with the Tronds in the north and the men of More in the
south, and a certain Shockhead, an upsetting king in Norland, was
making trouble with his neighbours. Likewise there was one Kristni, a
king of the Romans, who sought to dispute with Odin himself. This
Kristni was a magic-worker, who clad his followers in white linen
instead of byrnies, and gave them runes in place of swords, and
sprinkled them with witch water. Biorn did not like what he heard of
the warlock, and longed for the day when his father Ironbeard would
make an end of him.

Each year before the coming of spring there was a lean season in
Hightown. Fish were scarce in the ice-holes, the stock of meal in the
meal-ark grew low, and the deep snow made poor hunting in wood or on
fell-side. Belts were tightened, and there were hollow cheeks among
the thralls. And then one morning the wind would blow from the south,
and a strange smell come into the air. The dogs left their lair by
the fire and, led by the Garm the old blind patriarch, made a tour of
inspection among the outhouses to the edge of the birch woods.
Presently would come a rending of the ice on the firth, and patches
of inky water would show between the floes. The snow would slip from
the fell-side, and leave dripping rock and clammy bent, and the river
would break its frosty silence and pour a mighty grey-green flood to
the sea. The swans and geese began to fly northward, and the pipits
woke among the birches. And at last one day the world put on a new
dress, all steel-blue and misty green, and a thousand voices woke of
flashing streams and nesting birds and tossing pines, and the
dwellers in Hightown knew that spring had fairly come.

Then was Biorn the happy child. All through the long day, and
through much of that twilight which is the darkness of a Norland
summer, he was abroad on his own errands. With Grim the Hunter he
adventured far up on the fells and ate cheese and bannocks in the
tents of the wandering Skridfinns, or stalked the cailzie-cock with
his arrows in the great pine forest, which in his own mind he called
Mirkwood and feared exceedingly. Or he would go fishing with Egil the
Fisherman, spearing salmon in the tails of the river pools. But best
he loved to go up the firth in the boat which Leif had made him--a
finished, clinker-built little model of a war galley, christened the
Joy-maker--and catch the big sea fish. Monsters he caught sometimes
in the deep water under the cliffs, till he thought he was destined
to repeat the exploit of Thor when he went fishing with the giant
Hymi, and hooked the Midgard Serpent, the brother of Fenris-wolf,
whose coils encircle the earth.

Nor was his education neglected. Arnwulf the Bearsark taught him
axe-play and sword-play, and he had a small buckler of his own, not
of linden-wood like those of the Wick folk, but of wickerwork after
the fashion of his mother's people. He learned to wrestle toughly
with the lads of his own age, and to throw a light spear truly at a
mark. He was fleet of foot and scoured the fells like a goat, and he
could breast the tide in the pool of the great foss up to the very
edge of the white water where the trolls lived.

There was a wise woman dwelt on the bay of Sigg. Katla was her
name, a woman still black-browed though she was very old, and clever
at mending hunters' scars. To her house Biorn went with Leif; and
when they had made a meal of her barley-cakes and sour milk, and
passed the news of the coast, Leif would fall to probing her craft
and get but surly answers. To the boy's question she was kinder. "Let
the dead things be, prince," she said. "There's small profit from
foreknowledge. Better to take fates as they come sudden round a turn
of the road than be watching them with an anxious heart all the way
down the hill. The time will come soon enough when you must stand by
the Howe of the Dead and call on the ghost-folk."

But Leif coaxed and Biorn harped on the thing, as boys do, and
one night about the midsummer time her hour came upon Katla and she
spoke without their seeking. There in the dim hut with the
apple-green twilight dimming the fells Biorn stood trembling on the
brink of the half-world, the woman huddled on the floor, her hand
shading her eyes as if she were looking to a far horizon. Her body
shook with gusts of passion, and the voice that came from her was not
her own. Never so long as he lived did Biorn forget the terrible hour
when that voice from beyond the world spoke things he could not
understand. "I have been snowed on with snow," it said, "I have been
beaten with the rain, I have been drenched with the dew, long have I
been dead." It spoke of kings whose names he had never heard, and of
the darkness gathering about the Norland, and famine and awe stalking
upon the earth.

Then came a whisper from Leif asking the fortune of the young
prince of Hightown.

"Death," said the weird-wife, "death--but not yet. The shears of
the Norns are still blunt for him, and Skuld has him in keeping."

There was silence for a space, for the fit was passing from
Katla. But the voice came again in broken syllables. "His thread runs
westward--beyond the Far Isles . . . not he but the seed of his loins
shall win great kingdoms ... beyond the sea-walls.... The All-Father
dreams.... Nay, he wakes ... he wakes . . ."

There was a horrible choking sound, and the next Biorn knew was
that Leif had fetched water and was dashing it on Katla's face.

It was nearly a week before Biorn recovered his spirits after
this adventure, and it was noticeable that neither Leif nor he spoke
a word to each other on the matter. But the boy thought much, and
from that night he had a new purpose. It seemed that he was fated to
travel far, and his fancy forsook the homely life of his own wicks
and fells and reached to that outworld of which he had heard in the
winter's talk by the hall fire.

There were plenty of folk in Hightown to satisfy his curiosity.
There were the Bearsarks, who would spin tales of the rich Frankish
lands and the green isles of the Gael. From the Skridfinns he heard
of the bitter country in the north where the Jotuns dwelt, and the
sun was not and the frost split the rocks to dust, while far
underground before great fires the dwarves were hammering gold. But
these were only old wives' tales, and he liked better the talk of the
sea-going franklins, who would sail in the summer time on trading
ventures and pushed farther than any galleys of war. The old sailor,
Othere Cranesfoot, was but now back from a voyage which had taken him
to Snowland, or, as we say, Iceland. He could tell of the Curdled
Sea, like milk set apart for cheese-making, which flowed as fast as a
river, and brought down ghoulish beasts and great dragons in its
tide. He told, too, of the Sea-walls which were the end of the world,
waves higher than any mountain, which ringed the whole ocean. He had
seen them, blue and terrible one dawn, before he had swung his helm
round and fled southwards. And in Snowland and the ports of the Isles
this Othere had heard talk from others of a fine land beyond the
sunset, where corn grew unsown like grass, and the capes looked like
crusted cow-pats they were so thick with deer, and the dew of the
night was honey-dew, so that of a morning a man might breakfast
delicately off the face of the meadows.

Full of such marvels, Biorn sought Leif and poured out his heart
to him. For the first time he spoke of the weird-wife's spaeing. If
his fortune lay in the west, there was the goal to seek. He would
find the happy country and reign over it. But Leif shook his head,
for he had heard the story before. "To get there you will have to
ride over Bilrost, the Rainbow Bridge, like the Gods. I know of the
place. It is called Gundbiorn's Reef and it is beyond the world."

All this befell in Biorn's eleventh summer. The winter which
followed brought ill luck to Hightown and notably to Ironbeard the
King. For in the autumn the Queen, that gentle lady, fell sick, and,
though leeches were sought for far and near, and spells and runes
were prepared by all who had skill of them, her life ebbed fast and
ere Yule she was laid in the Howe of the Dead. The loss of her made
Thorwald grimmer and more silent than before, and there was no
feasting at the Yule high-tide and but little at the spring
merry-making. As for Biorn he sorrowed bitterly for a week, and then,
boylike, forgot his grief in the wonder of living.

But that winter brought death in another form. Storms never
ceased, and in the New Year the land lay in the stricture of a black
frost which froze the beasts in the byres and made Biorn shiver all
the night through, though in ordinary winter weather he was hardy
enough to dive in the ice-holes. The stock of meal fell low, and when
spring tarried famine drew very near. Such a spring no man living
remembered. The snow lay deep on the shore till far into May. And
when the winds broke they were cold sunless gales which nipped the
young life in the earth. The ploughing was backward, and the
seed-time was a month too late. The new-born lambs died on the fells
and there fell a wasting sickness among the cattle. Few salmon ran up
the streams, and the sea-fish seemed to have gone on a journey. Even
in summer, the pleasant time, food was scarce, for the grass in the
pastures was poor and the cows gave little milk, and the children
died. It foreboded a black harvest-time and a blacker winter.

With these misfortunes a fever rose in the blood of the men of
Hightown. Such things had happened before for the Norland was never
more than one stage distant from famine; and in the old days there
had been but a single remedy. Food and wealth must be won from a
foray overseas. It was years since Ironbeard had ridden Egir's road
to the rich lowlands, and the Bearsarks were growing soft from
idleness. Ironbeard himself was willing, for his hall was hateful to
him since the Queen's death. Moreover, there was no other way. Food
must be found for the winter or the folk would perish.

So a hosting was decreed at harvest-tide, for few men would be
needed to win the blasted crops; and there began a jointing of
shields and a burnishing of weapons, and the getting ready of the big
ships. Also there was a great sortilege-making. Whither to steer,
that was the question. There were the rich coasts of England, but
they were well guarded, and many of the Norland race were along the
wardens. The isles of the Gael were in like case, and, though they
were the easier prey, there was less to be had from them. There were
soon two parties in the hall, one urging Ironbeard to follow the old
track of his kin westward, another looking south to the Frankish
shore. The King himself, after the sacrifice of a black heifer, cast
the sacred twigs, and they seemed to point to Frankland. Old Arnwulf
was deputed on a certain day to hallow three ravens and take their
guidance, but, though he said three times the Ravens' spell, he got
no clear counsel from the wise birds. Last of all, the weird-wife
Katla came from Sigg, and for the space of three days sat in the hall
with her head shrouded, taking no meat or drink. When at last she
spoke she prophesied ill. She saw a red cloud and it descended on the
heads of the warriors, yea of the King himself. As for Hightown she
saw it frozen deep in snow like Jotunheim, and rime lay on it like a
place long dead. But she bade Ironbeard go to Frankland, for it was
so written. "A great kingdom waits," she said--"not for you, but for
the seed of your loins." And Biorn shuddered, for they were the words
spoken in her hut on that unforgotten midsummer night.

The boy was in an agony lest he should be left behind. But his
father decreed that he should go. "These are times when manhood must
come fast," he said. "He can bide within the Shield-ring when blows
are going. He will be safe enough if it holds. If it breaks, he will
sup like the rest of us with Odin."

Then came days of bustle and preparation. Biorn was agog with
excitement and yet solemnised, for there was strange work afoot in
Hightown. The King made a great festival in the Gods' House, the dark
hall near the Howe of the Dead, where no one ventured except in high
noon. Cattle were slain in honour of Thor, the God who watched over
forays, and likewise a great boar for Frey. The blood was caught up
in the sacred bowls, from which the people were sprinkled, and
smeared on the altar of blackened fir. Then came the oath-taking,
when Ironbeard and his Bearsarks swore brotherhood in battle upon the
ship's bulwarks, and the shield's rim, and the horse's shoulder, and
the brand's edge. There followed the mixing of blood in the same
footprint, a rite to which Biorn was admitted, and a lesser oath for
all the people on the great gold ring which lay on the altar. But
most solemn of all was the vow the King made to his folk, warriors
and franklins alike, when he swore by the dew, the eagle's path, and
the valour of Thor.

Then it was Biorn's turn. He was presented to the High Gods as
the prince and heir.

Old Arnwulf hammered on his left arm a torque of rough gold,
which he must wear always, in life and in death.

"I bring ye the boy, Biorn Thorwaldson When the Gods call for
Thorwald it will be his part to lead the launchings and the
seafarings and be first when blows are going. Do ye accept him,
people of Hightown?"

There was a swelling cry of assent and a beating of hafts on
shields. Biorn's heart was lifted with pride, but out of a corner of
his eye he saw his father's face. It was very grave, and his gaze was
on vacancy.

Though it was a time of bustle, there was no joy in it, as there
had been at other hostings. The folk were too hungry, the need was
too desperate, and there was something else, a shadow of fate, which
lay over Hightown. In the dark of night men had seen the bale-fires
burning on the Howe of the Dead. A grey seal had been heard speaking
with tongues off Siggness, and speaking ill words, said the fishermen
who saw the beast. A white reindeer had appeared on Sunfell, and the
hunter who followed it had not been seen again. By day, too, there
was a brooding of hawks on the tide's edge, which was strange at that
season. Worst portent of all, the floods of August were followed by
high north-east winds that swept the clouds before them, so that all
day the sky was a scurrying sea of vapour, and at night the moon
showed wild grey shapes moving ever to the west. The dullest could
not mistake their meaning; these were the dark horses, and their
riders, the Helmed Maidens, mustering for the battle to which
Hightown was faring.

As Biorn stared one night at the thronged heavens, he found Leif
by his elbow. In front of the dark company of the sky a white cloud
was scudding, tinged with the pale moon. Leif quoted from the speech
of the Giant-wife Rimegerd to Helgi in the song:

"Three nines of maiden, ride, But one rides before them, A
white maid helmed: From their manes the steeds shake Dew into the
deep dales, Hail upon the high woods." "It bodes well," said Biorn.
"They ride to choose those whom we slay. There will be high doings
ere Yule."

"Not so well," said Leif. "They come from the Norland, and it is
our folk they go to choose. I fear me Hightown will soon be full of
widow women."

At last came the day of sailing. The six galleys of war were
brought down from their sheds, and on the rollers for the launching
he-goats were bound so that the keels slid blood-stained into the
sea. This was the 'roller-reddening,' a custom bequeathed from their
forefathers, though the old men of the place muttered darkly that the
ritual had been departed from, and that in the great days it was the
blood not of goats, but of captive foemen that had reddened the
galleys and the tide.

The thralls sat at the thwarts, for there was no breeze that day
in the narrow firth. Then came the chief warriors in short fur
jackets, splendid in glittering helms and byrnies, and each with his
thrall bearing his battle-axe. Followed the fighting commonalty with
axe and spear. Last came Ironbeard, stern as ever, and Biorn with his
heart torn between eagerness and regret. Only the children, the
women, and the old men were left in Hightown, and they stood on the
shingle watching till the last galley had passed out of sight beyond
Siggness, and was swallowed up in the brume that cloaked the west.
There were no tears in that grim leave-taking. Hightown had faced the
like before with a heavy heart, but with dry eyes and a proud head.
Leif, though a cripple, went with the Wickings, for he had great
skill of the sea.

There was not a breath of wind for three days and three nights,
as they coasted southward, with the peaks of the Norland on their
port, and to starboard the skerries that kept guard on the firths.
Through the haze they could now and then see to landward trees and
cliffs, but never a human face. Once there was an alarm of another
fleet, and the shields were slung outboard, but it proved to be only
a wedding-party passing from wick to wick, and they gave it greeting
and sailed on. These were eerie cheerless days. The thralls sweated
in shifts at the oars, and the betterborn talked low among
themselves, as if the air were full of ears. "Ran is heating her
ovens," said Leif, as he watched the warm fog mingle with the
oarthresh.

On the fourth morning there came a break in the clouds, and the
sight of a high hill gave Leif the clue for his reckoning. The prows
swung seaward, and the galleys steered for the broad ocean. That
afternoon there sprang up the north-east wind for which they had been
waiting. Sails were hoisted on the short masts, oars were shipped and
lashed under the bulwarks, and the thralls clustered in the prows to
rest their weary limbs and dice with knucklebones. The spirits of all
lightened, and there was loud talk in the sterns among the Bearsarks.
In the night the wind freshened, and the long shallow boats rolled
filthily so that the teeth shook in a man's head, and over the swish
of the waves and the creaking of the sheets there was a perpetual din
of arms clashing. Biorn was miserably ill for some hours, and made
sport for the seasoned voyagers.

"It will not hold," Leif prophesied. "I smell rime ahead and
quiet seas."

He had spoken truly, for the sixth day the wind fell and they
moved once more over still, misty waters. The thralls returned to
their oars and the voices of the well-born fell low again These were
ghoulish days for Biorn, who had been accustomed to the clear lights
and the clear darkness of his own land. Only once in four days they
saw the sun, and then it was as red as blood, so that his heart
trembled.

On the eleventh day Ironbeard summoned Leif and asked his skill
of the voyage. "I know not," was the answer. "I cannot steer a course
except under clean skies. We ran well with the wind aback, but now I
am blind and the Gods are pilots. Some day soon we must make
landfall, but I know not whether on English or Frankish shores."

After that Leif would sit in long spells of brooding, for he had
a sense in him of direction to which he sought to give free play--a
sense built up from old voyages over these very seas. The result of
his meditations was that he swung more to the south, and events
proved him wise. For on the fifteenth day came a lift in the fog and
with it the noise of tides washing near at hand on a rough coast.
Suddenly almost overhead they were aware of a great white headland,
on the summit of which the sun shone on grass.

Leif gave a shout. "My skill has riot failed me," he cried. "We
enter the Frankish firth. See, there is the butt of England!"

After that the helms were swung round, and a course laid south
by west. And then the mist came again, but this time it was less of a
shroud, for birds hovered about their wake, so that they were always
conscious of land. Because of the strength of the tides the rowers
made slow progress, and it was not till the late afternoon of the
seventeenth day that Leif approached Ironbeard with a proud head and
spoke a word. The King nodded, and Leif took his stand in the prow
with the lead in his hand. The sea mirroring the mist was leaden
dull, but the old pilot smelt shoal water.

Warily he sounded, till suddenly out of the gloom a spit of land
rose on the port, and it was clear that they were entering the mouth
of a river. The six galleys jolted across the sandbar, Leif in the
foremost peering ahead and shouting every now and then an order. It
was fine weather for a surprise landing. Biorn saw only low
sand-dunes green with coarse grasses and, somewhere behind, the
darkness of a forest. But he could not tear his eyes from it, for it
was the long-dreamed-of Roman land.

Then a strange thing befell. A madness seemed to come on Leif.
He left his pilot's stand and rushed to the stern where the King
stood. Flinging himself on his knees, he clasped Ironbeard's legs and
poured out supplications.

"Return!" he cried. "While there is yet time, return. Seek
England, Gael-land, anywhere, but not this place. I see blood in the
stream and blood on the strand. Our blood, your blood, my King! There
is doom for the folk of Thorwald by this river!"

The King's face did not change. "What will be, will be," he said
gravely. "We abide by our purpose and will take what Thor sends with
a stout heart. How say you, my brave ones?"

And all shouted to go forward, for the sight of a new country
had fired their blood. Leif sat huddled by the bulwarks, with a white
face and a gasp in his throat, like one coming out of a swoon.

They went ashore at a bend of the stream where was a sandy cape,
beached the galleys, felled trees from the neighbouring forest and
built them a stockade. The dying sun flushed water and wood with
angry crimson, and Biorn observed that the men wrought as it were in
a world of blood. "That is the meaning of Leif's whimsies," he
thought, and so comforted himself.

That night the Northmen slept in peace, but the scouts brought
back word of a desert country, no men or cattle, and ashes where once
had been dwellings.

"Our kinsfolk have been here before us," said King Ironbeard
grimly. He did not love the Danes, though he had fought by their
side.

Half the force was left as a guard by the ships, and next day
the rest went forward up the valley at a slant from the river's
course. For that way, ran the tale, lay a great Roman house, a palace
of King Kristni, where much gold was to be had for the lifting. By
midday they were among pleasant meadows, but the raiders had been
there, for the houses were fired and the orchards hacked down. Then
came a shout and, turning back, they saw a flame spring to the pale
autumn skies. "The ships!" rose the cry, and the lightest of foot
were sent back for news.

They returned with a sorry tale. Of the ships and the stockade
nothing remained but hot cinders. Half the guard were dead, and old
Arnwulf, the captain, lay blood-eagled on the edge of the tide. The
others had gone they knew not where, but doubtless into the
forests.

"Our kinsfolks' handiwork," said Ironbeard. "We are indeed
forestalled, my heroes."

A council was held and it was resolved to make a camp by the
stream and defend it against all comers, till such time as under
Leif's guidance new ships could be built.

"Axes will never ring on them," said Leif under his breath. He
walked now like a man who was fey and his face was that of another
world.

He spoke truth, for as they moved towards the riverbank, just
before the darkening, in a glade between two forests Fate met them.
There was barely time to form the Shield-ring ere their enemies were
upon them--a mass of wild men in wolves' skins and at their head
mounted warriors in byrnies, with long swords that flashed and
fell.

Biorn saw little of the battle, wedged in the heart of the
Shield-ring. He heard the shouts of the enemy, and the clangour of
blows, and the sharp intake of breath, but chiefly he heard the
beating of his own heart. The ring swayed and moved as it gave before
the onset or pressed to an attack of its own, and Biorn found himself
stumbling over the dead. "I am Biorn, and my father is King," he
repeated to himself, the spell he had so often used when on the fells
or the firths he had met fear.

Night came and a young moon, and still the fight continued. But
the Shield-ring was growing ragged, for the men of Hightown were
fighting one to eight, and these are odds that cannot last. Sometimes
it would waver, and an enemy would slip inside, and before he sank
dead would have sorely wounded one of Ironbeard's company.

And now Biorn could see his father, larger than human, it
seemed, in the dim light, swinging his sword Tyrfing, and crooning to
himself as he laid low his antagonists. At the sight a madness rose
in the boy's heart. Behind in the sky clouds were banking, dark
clouds like horses, with one ahead white and moontipped, the very
riders he had watched with Leif from the firth shore. The Walkyries
were come for the chosen, and he would fain be one of them. All fear
had gone from him. His passion was to be by his father's side and
strike his small blow, beside those mighty ones which Thor could not
have bettered.

But even as he was thus uplifted the end came. Thorwald
Thorwaldson tottered and went down, for a hurled axe had cleft him
between helm and byrnie. With him fell the last hope of Hightown and
the famished clan under Sunfell. The Shield-ring was no more. Biorn
found himself swept back as the press of numbers overbore the little
knot of sorely wounded men. Someone caught him by the arm and
snatched him from the mellay into the cover of a thicket. He saw
dimly that it was Leif.

He was giddy and retching from weariness, and something inside
him was cold as ice, though his head burned. It was not rage or
grief, but awe, for his father had fallen and the end of the world
had come. The noise of the battle died, as the two pushed through the
undergrowth and came into the open spaces of the wood. It was growing
very dark, but still Leif dragged him onwards. Then suddenly he fell
forward on his face, and Biorn, as he stumbled over him. found his
hands wet with blood.

"I am for death," Leif whispered. "Put your ear close, prince. I
am Leif the Outborn and I know the hidden things.... You are the heir
of Thorwald Thorwaldson and you will not die.... I see a long road,
but at the end a great kingdom. Farewell, little Biorn. We have been
good comrades, you and I. Katla from Sigg spoke the true word. . .
"

And when Biorn fetched water in his horn from a woodland pool he
found Leif with a cold brow.

Blind with sorrow and fatigue, the boy stumbled on, without
purpose. He was lonely in the wide world, many miles from his home,
and all his kin were slain. Rain blew from the south-west and beat in
his face, the brambles tore his legs, but he was dead to all things.
Would that the Shield Maids had chosen him to go with that brave
company to the bright hall of Odin! But he was only a boy and they
did not choose striplings.

Suddenly in a clearing a pin-point of light pricked the
darkness.

The desire for human companionship came over him, even though it
were that of enemy or outcast. He staggered to the door and beat on
it feebly. A voice spoke from within, but he did not hear what it
said.

Again he beat and again the voice came. And now his knocking
grew feebler, for he was at the end of his strength.

Then the bar was suddenly withdrawn and he was looking inside a
poor hut, smoky from the wood-fire in the midst of it. An old woman
sat by it with a bowl in her hand, and an oldish man with a cudgel
stood before him. He did not understand their speech, but he gathered
he was being asked his errand.

"I am Biorn," he said, "and my father was Ironbeard, the
King."

They shook their heads, but since they saw only a weary,
tattered boy they lost their fears. They invited him indoors, and
their voices were kindly. Nodding with exhaustion, he was given a
stool to sit on and a bowl of coarse porridge was put into his hands.
They plied him with questions, but he could make nothing of their
tongue.

Then the thrall rose, yawned, and dropped the bar over the door.
The sound was to the boy like the clanging of iron gates on his old
happy world. For a moment he was on the brink of tears. But he set
his teeth and stiffened his drooping neck.

"I am Biorn," he said aloud, "and my father was a king."

They nodded to each other and smiled. They though his words were
a grace before meat.