The Long Ships (75 page)

At length, however, everything was ready, and the band set out, the hounds being led by men whom they knew well.

They followed the track by which the bandits had gone, continuing thus the whole day, until they came near the place where Torgunn had been found. There they encamped for the night. Next morning they turned off to the left, with Olof’s two knowledgeable men leading them. They proceeded for three days across hard country through marshland and dense forest, broken by steep hills, without seeing a house or meeting a man. The hounds knew what they were hunting and ignored all scent of game; it was a great virtue with them that when they were hunting men, they uttered no sound until the moment when they were slipped from their leashes.

On the afternoon of the fourth day after their departure from Gröning they reached a place where two paths crossed. Here they halted, and the two guides said that the lake was now just ahead of them and that the bandits’ village lay between it and them. It had been a hard march, but both Orm and Olof Summerbird agreed that they should attack at once; for they were beginning to run short of food, and both of them were impatient to proceed with the business. Some of the young men in the band then climbed up into a tree on a hill to spy out the lie of the village, and Orm divided the men into three bands. Toke was to lead one, Olof the second, and Orm himself the third. He kept the hounds with him, so that they should not be slipped too soon. Toke was to attack from the north, and Olof Summerbird from the south. Blackhair went with Toke, accompanied also by Sone’s sons, who were already beginning to reckon themselves as Blackhair’s men. Orm commanded them that they should set fire to no house, and maltreat no woman, since some of them might have been stolen from good husbands. When Toke sounded his horn, both bands were to attack with all speed, though without war-whoops.

Toke and Olof moved quietly off with their men, while Orm and his band crept stealthily forward through the undergrowth until they reached the skirts of the forest a short way from the village. Here the men seated themselves on the ground and began to gnaw at the little food they had left, while they waited for the sound of Toke’s horn.

Orm took Spof with him and crept forward into a clump of elderbushes. There they lay, scanning the village. It looked to be large, and many of the houses in it were new. People could be seen working in the spaces between them, both men and women. Spof calculated that a village of that size might be reckoned to contain a hundred and fifty men. Between them and the village, in a dip in the ground, there stood a small pool, which evidently served the village as a well. An old woman, carrying a yoke with two buckets, came down to it, drew water, and trudged back again. Then two men appeared and watered four horses. After the horses had drunk, they became restless and began to prance, and Orm thought that they must have sensed the presence of the hounds. But the hounds stood stock-still behind Orm, sniffing and trembling and making no sound.

The men at the well got their horses under control and led them back to the village. A short while elapsed, and then three women walked down to the pool carrying a bucket in either hand. There were two men with them who appeared to be their guards. Orm caught his breath, for the tallest of the women was Ludmilla. He mumbled this into Spof’s ear, and Spof muttered back that they were within bowshot. Still Toke’s horn did not sound, and Orm was unwilling to disclose the presence of his men prematurely; however, he signaled to two men crouching near him who had been with him in the battle at the weirs and who were reckoned to be sure marksmen. They said that they thought they could mark the men at the well, rose to their feet, each keeping himself concealed behind his tree, and set arrows to their bowstrings. But Orm bade them wait awhile yet.

The women had by now filled their buckets, and turned to go back to the village. As they did so, Orm pursed his lips and uttered a cry like a buzzard’s call, repeating it once. It was a call that he could skillfully ape, and all his children were acquainted with it. Ludmilla stiffened as she heard it. She took a few slow steps after her companions; then she stumbled, so that all the water in her buckets was spilled. She said something to the men and turned back to the well to refill her buckets. She did this as slowly as she might; then, when they were full, she sat down on the ground and clasped her foot. The two men said something to her in stern voices and went up to her to force her to her feet; but as they reached out their hands to her, she threw herself on her back and began to scream.

Still no sound was heard from Toke’s side; but when the hounds heard Ludmilla scream, they began to bay, and Orm knew that their presence was now revealed.

Orm muttered a word to his two archers, and their bows sang as one. Their aim was true, and their arrows found their marks; but the men they struck were wearing thick leather jackets and remained on their feet. They pulled the arrows from their flesh and shouted for help. Then Ludmilla leaped to her feet, struck one of them on the head with a bucket, and ran with all her might toward the forest. The two men made after her and began rapidly to overtake her; meanwhile men appeared from the houses to learn the cause of all this confusion.

“Slip the hounds,” said Orm, and sprang out of the bushes. As he did so, Toke’s horn wound, followed by violent whooping.

But both the horn and the whoops of the men were quickly drowned as the great hounds, slipped at last from their leashes, began to bay fearfully. As the two men chasing Ludmilla saw them, they halted in terror. One turned tail and fled screaming, until the swiftest of the hounds caught him and, leaping upon his neck, felled him to the ground; but the other, keeping his head, ran into the pool and, turning there, drew his sword and stood his ground. Three of the hounds leaped simultaneously at him; he met one of them with his sword, but the other two knocked him off his feet, so that he disappeared beneath the water; and only the hounds came up again.

Ludmilla danced for joy when she recognized Orm. She began at once to ask about Olof and the gold, and he told her. She herself, she said, had been treated as befitted a chieftain’s daughter and had not been forced to lie with any man save the crazy priest, who had treated her not unkindly, so that she might have suffered worse.

Orm sent after Spof, and bade him and two others of the older men take Ludmilla a short way into the forest and remain there with her until the fighting in the village had ceased. The other women came timidly up to them; they were, they said, the priest’s women. When the hounds had appeared, they had flung themselves face downwards on the ground and remained motionless, so that the hounds had not touched them.

By the time that Orm and his men reached the village, the fighting was already fierce. Olof’s men were engaging a group of bandits in a street between two houses, and his voice was heard to cry above the uproar that the man with the black beard was for his sword alone. Orm attacked the bandits from the rear, losing several men to arrows shot from the houses; but although the bandits defended themselves valiantly, they were at length encircled and overcome. Then Orm led his men into the houses to fight with the men who were still holding out there. He saw two of his hounds lying dead with spears through their bodies, but each of them had his man under him, and the others could still be heard baying fearfully toward the lake.

Orm met Olof Summerbird; his face was bloody and his shield heavily scarred.

“Ludmilla is safe!” cried Orm. “I have her in good keeping.”

“I thank Thee, Christ!” cried Olof. “But where is the blackbeard? He is mine!”

Toke’s men had met the fiercest opposition, for many of the bandits had rushed to meet them at the first sound of whooping. Orm and Olof gathered their men and led them to Toke’s assistance, attacking their enemies in the rear. Here the fighting became very violent, and many men fell on both sides, for the bandits fought like berserks. Orm pursued one, who had managed to break out, around the corner of a house, but as he passed a doorway, a man clad in a chain shirt and a bald man armed with an ax leaped out and attacked him. Orm hewed at the chain-shirted man so that he rolled on the ground, and in the same instant leaped nimbly aside to evade the other’s ax, but as he did so, his foot slipped on a heap of dung and he fell on his neck. As he fell, he saw the bald man raise his ax again, and, he said afterwards, his thoughts went back to the battle at Maldon long before and the shields that had covered him there, and he felt little joy at the thought that his next night’s camp would be on heavenly ground. But the bald man opened his eyes and mouth wide and let go his ax and sank on his hands and knees and knelt there, staring; and as Orm got to his feet again, he heard his name shouted from a house ahead of him and saw Sone’s sons sitting astride the roof, waving their bows in pride at their good marksmanship.

Orm felt strangely weary after this experience and stood where he was for a moment looking about him. The village presented a scene of wild confusion. Women were shrieking, men were chasing one another throughout the houses, cattle and hogs ran terrified through the streets, and most of the bandits who were still alive had taken to their heels and were fleeing toward the lake. Toke and Blackhair appeared out of a doorway. Toke’s sword was dripping redly, and he cried to Orm that he had not enjoyed better sport than this since his youthful days. But he had no time to say more and rushed furiously after the fleeing men, shouting to his men to follow him. Blackhair, however, remained with Orm, calling his men down from the housetop.

Then a great howl was heard, and a black-bearded man came running toward them with an ax in his hand and Olof Summer-bird at his heels. As the man caught sight of Orm, he changed his course, leaped over a low wall, and ran on. But Blackhair, turning, ran after him and struck him over the head so that he fell.

“He is mine! He is mine!” cried Olof breathlessly.

The man was twisting on the ground. Olof went up to him, gripped his sword with both hands, and drove it through the chain shirt and the man’s body beneath so that it stood fast in the ground.

“God! God!” screamed the nailed man, in a voice filled with pain and terror, and said no more.

“I have kept my vow,” said Olof.

“Is that the man?” said Orm. “It is difficult to recognize him beneath that beard.”

“It is an ill thing to wear stolen goods in a battle, so that they can be seen,” said Olof, bending over the dead body. “Look at this!”

Above the neck of the man’s chain shirt shone the glint of gold. Olof reached his hand inside and pulled something out. It was Almansur’s chain.

“It is he,” said Orm. “And, now that I think of it, there is another proof. Who in this place but he could have called to God? I wonder what he can have wanted of Him?”

SOME of the crazy magister’s men escaped in boats; but not many, for they were hunted by men and dogs along the shore. Their wounded were killed, since they were all miscreants. Twenty-three of Orm’s men had been killed and many wounded; and all agreed that this had been a good fight, and one that would be much talked about in the years to come.

In the village they found a great qauntity of ale, and many hogs were slaughtered; then the men buried their dead together and raised a mound over them and drank to their death voyage. As they had expected, they found a number of stolen women in the village. Each of these was given a cow and allowed to go whither she pleased, with as much booty as she could carry. Among these were Ylva’s two servant-girls, who were both young and were greatly delighted at being thus liberated. They had been forced, they said, to endure great indignities and had been kept indoors, closely guarded, ever since Torgunn had run away. They now wished to be wedded to reliable men.

The hounds were much praised for their part in the battle; only two of them had been killed. When all the cattle had been rounded up as booty, Orm said that the work of driving them back to Gröning could safely be left to the hounds, since they were used to this. Horses were found for all the wounded; then, as soon as these had recovered sufficiently to be able to sit on horseback, Orm rode forth from the bandits’ village and headed homewards by the shortest route, which led southwards along the shore of the lake.

Ludmilla rode with the rest, and Olof kept his horse close to hers. He had begged Orm and Toke not to mention the two women who had kept him warm at the Dregovites’ village, lest she should take the matter amiss. They had both laughed at this and had replied that he must be sick in the head with wounds or love if he supposed that they would do any such thing. But Olof had shaken his head doubtfully, saying that he was a good deal older than she and so could not be too careful.

They rode slowly, for the sake of the wounded. Ahead of them the hounds drove their herd at leisure; no disputes broke out between them and their charges, though when any cow tried to change her direction or escape from the rest, they were quick to show her her mistake.

They camped early that evening and saw to the wounded; then next morning they proceeded alongside the lake toward the place that old folk called Tyr’s Meadows. In former times men had lived there, and the meadows had been the scene of great battles, from which they had won their name. Men said that so much blood had been spilled on Tyr’s Meadows that the grass flourished more richly there than elsewhere. But neither man nor house was to be seen there now.

As they approached these meadows, the hounds grew restless, so that the men wondered whether they had scented bear, or the smell of the old blood. Leaving their herd, they roamed into the woods and ranged this way and that, until, of a sudden, two or three of them began to bay. Others joined them, and soon the whole pack of them was snarling savagely and driving deeper into the woods, as though they had once more been slipped for battle. Orm could not understand what the cause of this might be, for none of the bandits had fled in this direction; and he and all the men ran up to the top of a heathered hill beside the track to see what was afoot.