Hrolf Kraki's Saga

by Poul Anderson

  Hjalti stopped as if frozen under the stars. At length he grated, "Which would you like best, two fellows of twenty years or one of eighty?"

  "Oh, the two young men," she barely laughed. Maybe she was about to add something like, "Not that they could really replace the one of you, my darling." But he screamed:

  "Those words will you suffer for, whore!" He sprang at her; his knife flared; he caught her by the hair and slashed off her nose.

  She staggered back. Her lamp smashed on the earth and went out. Blood poured from between the fingers she lifted. "Remember me if any come to blows over you," jeered Hjalti, "though I think most'll find little to want in you hereafter."

  Too stunned to weep, she said—her voice which had been sweet gone flat and strangled—"I’lI have you dealt with me. I never looked for that... from you."

  The knife clattered out of Hjalti's hand. He stood a while, seeing how dread on behalf of his lord and his brothers in arms had made a berserker of him. Stooping, he picked up the weapon, for it might be needed, and sheathed it, red though it was.

  "None can think of everything," he said in his sorrow.

  He might have tried to kiss her, but she shrank from him with horror. And . . . they were asleep at Leidhra. He soared to the saddle and was off.

  The enemy host was moving fast and had gotten far ahead of him. Over the land he rushed. Wind roared in his ears, through lungs and blood. It was as if the north-lights filled his skull. He did keep in mind that he must go a long way around, not be seen by his foemen or, worse, that night made flesh which walked and flapped about them. He came to the stockade of Leidhra burg with some time to spare just as his horse fell dead.

  He sprang clear, rolled over on the ground, picked himself up and shouted at heaven: "Then take it if you want!"

  Past the drowsy watchmen he stormed, through the lanes to the slumbering hall. There he snatched a brand from a low-burning trench, whirled it till flames blossomed high, and cried his warning.

  Out among the houses he sped, calling on every man who ever gave troth to Hrolf Kraki to rise and arm himself. An old Bjarkamaal puts words in his mouth:

  "Warriors, waken to ward your king!

  All who fain would be friemds to their lord,

  know that our need is now to fight.

  I tell you that here, bearing hardened weapons,

  Hrolf, there has come a host against you,

  and they ring our dwellings around with swords.

  I think that the scot of Skuld, your sister,

  no gold has bought to gleam in the halls,

  but strife with the Skjoldung seeks instead

  Unfriendly he fared here, the false King Hjördvardh,

  to lay you low, that lordship be his.

  Doomed to the death we are indeed

  if no revenge we take on the viper.

  Athelings, rise up and honor your oaths,

  all that you swore when the ale made you eager!

  In foul winds as fair, keep faith with your lord,

  he who withheld no hoard for himself

  but gave us freely both gold and silver.

  Strike with the swords he bestowed, and the spears,

  in helmets and hauberks you got from his hand;

  let shine the shields that he shared with you,

  thus honestly earning the wealth he gave.

  In manhood we now must be making our claim

  on the goods we got in a time more glad.

  Feasting and fondness have come to an end.

  Horns we hoisted in drinking of healths;

  broad were our boasts as the food-laden board;

  we gleeful played games with girls on the benches,

  and maidens grew merry when marking our passage

  in colorful cloaks that we had from the king.

  But leave now your lemans! Our lord has a need,

  in the hard game of Hild, for a hewing with blades

  to throw back the threat at his throat and at ours.

  Frightened men are not fit to follow him;

  rather we rally none but the dauntless

  who ask no quarter from ax or arrow

  and eye unblinking the ice-cold edges.

  His champions hold the chieftain's honor;

  best he goes forth when bold men follow

  shoulder to shoulder and ready to shield him.

  Hard shall the housecarl grip the haft,

  swiftly to swing a sword at the foeman

  or beak of ax that it cleave his breast.

  Hang not back, though the odds be heavy.

  Ill did it always become an atheling

  if ever he truckled to tricksy luck."

  They sprang up: Hromund the Hard, Hrolf the Swift-Coming, Svipdag and Beigadh and Hvitserk the fifth, Haaklang the sixth, Hard-Hrefill the seventh, Haaki the Bold the eighth, Hvatt the Highborn, Starulf the tenth, and in the forefront Bodhvar-Bjarki and Hjalti the High-Minded himself; and many another man, until the burg roiled with their noise and the clang of their weapons.

  Meanwhile the troop of Hjördvardh and Skuld had arrived, to surround Leidhra with numbers which swarmed further than eye could reach through the gloom. Some readied rams to break down the stockade, though doubtless they would rather spare the town by fighting in the open if the defenders agreed. In the offing, houses began to flare where the torch was put to them. Overhead rustled queer flights, and from amidst the grumble and clash of the men came unhuman grunting noises. Black tents had been raised, of ugly shapes; it could be seen that within them glowed witch-fires.

  "Now does King Hrolf have need of unfrightened fellows," said Bjarki "They who'd not huddle behind his back must have boldness in their breasts."

  "You speak oddly, old friend," his lord told him.

  Bjarki shook himself. Standing hunched on a watch-tower, his big shaggy form seemed less a man's than a bear's. "The air reeks of spells," he muttered. "I feel—a stirring? Something my father knew ere I was born, and his ghost remembers—?" He shambled back into the hall.

  There King Hrolf sat down in his high seat and let the messengers of Hjördvardh and Skuld come before him. They said, with a firmness that wavered under the grim looks upon them, that if he would save his life, he must become the kept man of his brother-in-law.

  Hrolf Kraki's red-gold mane burned amidst firelit shadows. "Never shall that be," he answered. "I owe too much to those who have trusted me. Hearken, and bear back this word I give to my guards." He raised his voice. "Let us take the best drink we have," he called, "and be merry and see what kind of men are here. Let us strive for only one thing, that our fearlessness live on in memory—for hither indeed have the strongest and bravest warriors sought from everywhere about." To the messengers: "Say to Hjördvardh and Skuld that we will drink ourselves glad before we take their scot"

  When this was told the queen, where she sat in her tent on her witching stool, above a blaze which made a cauldron seethe, she was quiet for a time. At last she breathed, "There is no man like King Hrolf, my brother. A shame, a shame—" Sorrow flickered out and she said, altogether bleak: "Nevertheless we will make an end."

  So the king's men sat in friendship and good cheer. Bjarki, Hjalti, and Svipdag showed for their different reasons a sadness which they tried to keep from spreading. The rest talked of olden days, and bragged of what they would do, and praised their king; and he was the blithest in that whole house.

  Dawn came across the winter land. Hrolf Kraki and his men took their weapons. Forth they went out of the gates of Leidhra.

  III

  Clouds had arisen. Away from the stockade wall, earth rolled dun, thinly white-streaked, under a sky the hue of dull iron. The air was frosty but windless. Not much color was in the troop of King Hjördvardh. Even its banners seemed murky. That was a mixed lot he had gathered wherever he could, among them outlawed murderers and robbers, evil to see beneath the helmets he had gotten for them. Against this, King Hrolf s band wore cloaks of all bright shades; his own w
as as red as living flame. Birds and beasts romped over the many-toned standards of his captains, that were spaced along the swine-array on either side of his own green ash tree on a golden field.

  "Forward!" he cried. The sword Skofnung flew free. His followers made deep-throated answer, lur horns dunted, war-hounds bayed. As one, the fighters from the burg moved toward their foes. Though badly outnumbered, they were not few. Along their ranks went that ripple as of wind across rye, which bespeaks a peak of training.

  Arrows whistled aloft. Spears flew gaunt between them. Slingstones thudded on shields. Hrolf shifted from a walk to a trot to a run. His band came with him like a part of his flesh.

  They crashed upon Hjördvardh's lines. Iron sang. A man smote at Hrolf with a halberd. The king was less tall and more slender than him. Yet the king was not halted. He took that booming blow on his shield while his blade leaped and shrilled. The man went down. Hrolf sprang over him and hewed a way deeper into the rebel ranks. On his right rang Hjalti's Goldhilt, on his left thundered Svipdag's ax. The hound Gram tore at legs, jumped at necks. Overhead the hawk Highbreeks soared on shining wings.

  Stroke after stroke resounded on helm, shield, hauberk, on into meat and bone. Spears and arrows went thick above. Men sank, pierced, slashed, spurting forth blood. Over them trampled the onrushing warriors from Leidhra. Horsemen on the flanks, who sought a weak spot to guide an attack, found naught but a human storm, or their own deaths.

  Hjalti the High-Minded chanted in glee:

  "Many a byrnie is now in tatters,

  many a helmet cloven

  and many a bold rider

  stabbed down from the saddle.

  Still our king is of good heart,

  as glad as when he cheerily drank ale,

  and mighty are the blows of his hands.

  Like no other king is he in the fray,

  for meseems he has the strength of twelve,

  and no few hardy wights has he already slain.

  So now King Hjördvardh can see

  that the sword Skofnung bites;

  now it sings high in their breasts."

  Laughing, calling to his men, red-splashed but himself hardly touched, Hrolf Kraki led the way on. Slowly the rows before him broke apart, scattered to right and left where they did not fall or flee. Stern was that strife. Had the numbers of the two sides been more nearly even, it would have ended then and there.

  But the Leidhra lord had not enough to overrun the enemy host. Though he clove through its middle, its flanks were unscathed. Beneath the banners and horn-hoots of their captains, these moved aside in an order not much shaken.

  There was nothing Hrolf’s folk could do but catch their breath while they waited for the onslaught. Svipdag roared at some who were over-eager: "Get back where you belong! They want us to wear ourselves out, chasing after them!

  "However," he added starkly to his master, "if we can't break them soon, if we can't get to yonder tents where Queen Skuld is brewing her spells, we'll have worse to fight against than men. Those trollish things we glimpsed may be shy of daylight, but she'll do something about that if she gets time, the witch." His single eye smoldered across the angry dead and the writhing, groaning wounded, to the lines which rallied for a new battle.

  Hjalti mopped sweat from his face, looked around and said in astonishment: "Why, where's Bjarki? I thought... he must have been our right-hand anchor . . . there's his banner, his men, but I don't see him anywhere."

  His mirth left the king. He turned about, and blinked when he spotted little Vögg nearby. The Swedish youth had scrabbled up a leather doublet, a rusty old kettle-helm, and a butcher's cleaver. His knees knocked together. Blood trickled from his bitten lips. "Come here!" Hrolf hailed.

  Vögg obeyed. "You should have stayed back, lad," said the king.

  "I ... I am your man too, lord," he answered. "I am!"

  "Well, you can be a runner, then. Go find out what's happened to Bodhvar-Bjarki. Has he been slain or captured or what? Somebody will have seen—a man of his size, his ruddy beard."

  Vögg scuttled off. Hrolf gazed after him. "I don't think he shudders from fear," the king murmured. "There's a heart in that thin breast."

  Hjalti gnawed his mustache, stamped feet and slapped arms, trying to keep warm during a wait which felt endless. Would the fight never start again? The first clash had taken no small part of this shortest day in the year. He failed to find the sun behind the grayness that hid her.

  Vögg returned. "Lord," he panted, "none have seen anything of Bjarki. Not a thing since w-w-we left the hall."

  "How can this be?" broke from Hjalti. "How can he spare himself and not come near the king ... he who we thought was the most fearless we had?"

  King Hrolf clapped him on the shoulder and said: "He must be where he can help us best. His will could be for nothing else. See to your own honor, go forward and scoff not at him, for none of you can measure yourselves against him." He added in haste, "I slander nobody, though; you're all outstanding warriors."

  Hjördvardh and his captains had been haranguing their own men and getting them into better order than hitherto. Now the mass of them rolled at the defenders. Hrolf raised a new shout and led his folk ahead.

  Once more spears and arrows whistled, once more came shock and clang and hoarse yells. Meeting foemen who had not had to do battle before, they of Leidhra might have been in an ill case. Yet they cut and beat their way on. Nothing could stand before them.

  For ahead of their wedge, close to their king, went a great red bear. Each blow of his paw sent a dead man to earth; his jaws ripped; rising, he hauled riders from their seats or slew the very horses; and upon him, no edge would bite.

  Few on either side could see this, so closely were the fighters crowded together. Hrolf’s folk, who suffered not from the bear, knew for the most part only that the ranks against them were giving ground anew. Lustily they hewed, with thought for nothing else. Meanwhile terror began to spread through Hjördvardh's gang. He, mounted and some ways off to overlook the field, spied what happened. He called for his captains to sound retreat before their followers should bolt.

  Hjalti himself had been little aware of the beast. He was too busy warding and smiting. Across weapon-clash, shields, helmets, faces that hated him, he could not make out what the bear really did. Dimly he supposed it was a sending of Queen Skuld's, which however could not help her while daylight lasted.

  Mainly, through the hammering and howling, he brooded on Bjarki, his more than father—on the undying shame that would be Bjarki's, that he was not here this day.

  When the foe melted away afresh, when he saw there would be another halt in the strife, Hjalti ran. Back to the burg he went, overleaping the dead and dying, setting foot in pools of blood where they steamed, frightening off the carrion birds which had settled at the rear. Through open gates he dashed, down empty streets, past barred doors and shuttered windows behind which women and children crouched in dread, until he reached the house of Bjarki.

  Here no latch stopped him. He flung the door wide and burst into the room beyond. It was cold and winterdark, hardly touched by a small hearthfire. He glimpsed Bjarki's wife, Hrolf Kraki's daughter Drifa, in the shadows of a corner, her children close around her. On a bed lay the man. He wore a byrnie, but his sword was sheathed and he stared straight upward.

  The woman cried out and moved to block Hjalti. He brushed by her unheeding, grabbed one broad shoulder, shook it and screamed:

  "How long must we wait for the first of warriors? This is unheard of, that you're not on your feet, using your arms that're strong as a bear's! Up, Bodhvar-Bjarki my master, up or I'll burn this house and you inside it! The king's in danger of his life, for our sake! Would you wreck the good name you've borne so long?"

  The Norseman stirred. He turned, sat, rose to loom over his friend. Heavily he sighed before he answered:

  "You need not call me fearful, Hjalti. I have not been afraid. Never have I fled from fire or iron; and tod
ay you'll see how I still can fight. Always has King Hrolf called me the foremost of his men. And I've much to repay him for, that he gave me his daughter and twelve rich garths and every kind of treasure besides. I fared against vikings and robbers; I warred the length and breadth of the Denmark we built with our blood; I went against Adhils, and Agnar I slew, and many another man—"

  His words, which he had almost crooned as if in dream, broke off. His gaze sharpened on Hjalti, who was stabbed by a sudden chill. Bjarki's voice quickened:

  "But here we have to do with more and worse witchcraft than ever before. And you have not done the king the service you think; for now it is not long till the end of the fight." With a breath of kindliness: "Oh, you've done this unwittingly, not because you did not wish the king well. And none save you and he could have called me forth as you did; any others I would have slain." Sadly: "Now things must go as they must. There is no longer any way out, and less help can I give King Hrolf than I did before you came."

  Hjalti bent his head, knotted his fists, and said through unshed tears, "Bjarki, you and he have always stood highest before me. It's so hard to know what one ought to do!"

  The Norseman put coif and helmet on his head. Drifa came to him. He took her hands in his. "It hurts that I can no more look after you," he said. "Ward well the children we got together."

  "With a father like theirs," she told him, "they will need little help."

  He hugged them too. Shield in his grip, another slung across his back to use when the first was beaten to ruin, he followed Hjalti out.

  Day had started to dim. Bjarki trod before King Hrolf and said: "Greeting, my lord. Where can I best stand?"

  "Where you yourself choose."

  "Then it will be near you." The sword Lövi gleamed free.

  A runner came to King Hjördvardh from the black tent where Queen Skuld squatted. He peered through dusk and saw no more of the red bear; nor was it ever seen again. Heartened, he told his captains to egg on their troops.