XV
Fyrisfield
Styrbiorn lay with his host two days’ march north of Mirkwood that night that Earl Wolf his foster-father came back from the north. The sentinels knew the Earl and brought him in through the camp. It was the deep and dead time of the night. The waning moon, scarce three hours risen, shone bright in a serene heaven that was without cloud save for a slanting band of mackerel sky down in the southwest, and the bigger stars that were not put out by the strong moonshine blinked and sparkled. There was rime on the grass, so that it crunched under their tread. As they came past the horse-lines, there was here and there the sound of a horse kicking or stamping: a long way off at the far end of the lines a torch showed red, where a man was changing the tethers to make his horse comfortable: the tap of his mallet sounded dead on the stillness. On every side, as far as the eye might reach, the low skin tents lay mushroom-like in the stark white and black of the moonlight.
The Earl looked now and then at the faces of the men that guided him, and their faces seemed white and wooden, so that hard it was to know them for men of right flesh and blood; and like to them seemed the faces of all other waking men they encountered, of other sentinels as they came through that sleeping camp. Everywhere the Earl heard, as he picked his way among the tents, little noises of sleep, of sleeping men breathing heavily, turning and grunting. And here and there were men asleep in the open, their heads and shoulders muffled in cloaks, and they slept in awkward shapes and looked dead and piteous. Their snores and uneasy sighings came ghostly on the vast emptiness of the night, and the peace of it, and the stillness, and the cold of the quiet moon.
They brought in the Earl now to the mid part of the camp where Styrbiorn slept; and there was there a great fire burning, and Styrbiorn slept in his cloak beside the fire, for he loved not tents, and the men of his bodyguard were asleep there round about him. There was a house-carle of his named Thorhall kept guard at that hour. He greeted the Earl and asked him if he brought any tidings. The Earl said he would tell that to Styrbiorn. “If you bring peace,” said Thorhall, “tell him now. But if it is as we think likely, then that will be better to let him sleep his sleep out.”
The Earl stood silent a minute, looking down on Styrbiorn, and the sleeping face of him was tranquil as a man’s that is cast in his first sleep beside his bride. And that seemed wondrous in him that slept there on the cold ground in a camp of war, on the eve of doings that he was well minded should break either himself or all the rest of the North.
“Let it wait till morning,” said the Earl.
When the morrow dawned and men were astir again, the Earl came to Styrbiorn and told him all. Styrbiorn said, “I could have saved thee thy journey, foster-father.”
The Earl paused. Then he said, “Wilt thou not turn back, even now?”
Styrbiorn shook his head. “No,” he answered.
Styrbiorn bade strike camp now. He brought his army by great journeys all that day and the next, north through the woods and uplands till they came at even of the next day down to the flats of Fyrisfield below Upsala, and there lay the King his uncle with a very great host. Styrbiorn took a stand now and stayed his army in the open meadow-land over against the King. And so great were the armies of Styrbiorn and of the King that no man that was there had ever seen so great a war-gathering in all the Northlands. They deemed it over-late in the day to join battle, and both hosts camped there on the field.
Now when it was high day men busked them for war, and Styrbiorn let cast his host into battle array and set up the banners, and his captains and lords of the Jomsburgers gave out the word and bade their men take heed to their places whereas each man was marshalled. Styrbiorn set up his banner and there were the men of his bodyguard arrayed, Bessi and Gunnstein and Ere-Skeggi to wit and Valdimar of Holmgarth and many more with their messmates and housecarles; and Biorn the Broadwickers’ Champion was there, for he was minded that in this fight as in others aforetime he should be not afar from Styrbiorn. There were also in the mid battle those Swedes that had taken Styrbiorn’s side at his landing, and over these was Earl Wolf now set in command. But on the right hand from the main battle was the battle of Bui, and there fared along with him Sigurd Cape his brother and a great host of the Jomsburgers and the Wendish levies and others from the east. And on the left had those sons of Strut-Harald place, Heming and Thorkell the High, lacking their eldest brother: for Sigvaldi had sneaked away under the cloak of darkness on Skaney-side. Yet was there not the tenth part even of his own men would go with him, but bade him go to the devil and went all under Heming and Thorkell. And that made great wonder, for Sigvaldi was commonly a man well followed and obeyed. And on the left went also the Danes, King Harald Gormson’s following, and their captains were Ivar of Weatherisle and Hiort the son of Sighvat and Einar the Red. But King Harald himself Styrbiorn would not suffer to depart from under his own hand, so that he went willy-nilly in the mid battle with Styrbiorn. Styrbiorn let make a shield-burg about King Harald.
Styrbiorn now said to Biorn his foster-brother, “I was never a talker, and now thou must talk to them for me: and say thus and thus.” And therewith he taught Biorn, in his ear, with swift stuttering speech, what he should say. And Biorn, standing forth beside Styrbiorn in the face of that great army, spake to them and said: “Thus saith Styrbiorn the Strong, and for that he is a man of deeds more than a man of talk, he charged me say it unto you; and thus saith Styrbiorn: ‘I have this to say, that I shall not flee from this battle. I shall either have the victory here over King Eric, or I shall fall here else. So that if it be my fate to overlive this battle, then will it lie in my hand to do you good; for in my hand will lie then all the lands and fee that be in the realm of Sweden, to deal them out unto them that deserved well of me. And now, the swiftlier we fall upon them the better hope have we of victory, for delay fighteth of their side. For so long as King Eric shall stand yet in the field against us, those that yet flock to Upsala to his host-bidding will follow him and strengthen him with fresh folk when we shall have foughten unto weariness; but if we put him to a rout now, then will they go quietly under our hand and submit them to me. So now let us make the brunt so hard that they turn aback that are foremost of them, and then will each fall across the other.’ ”
There was not a man in that army that lost a word of this, hearing indeed the voice of Biorn but gazing the while on their lord out of whose shadow he spoke: on the great stature of Styrbiorn towering above them, and on the great raven-wings shadowing like death. As Biorn ended, Styrbiorn reared his head yet higher and shouted in a great voice. “Your watchword for egging on one another to battle: Forth, forth, Styrbiorn’s men!”
Therewith came the captains with their companies and went forth before the banners and let blow the war-blast and cried out, “Forth, forth, Styrbiorn’s men!” And the whole host set up the war-shout and set on against the array of King Eric, shooting with arrows and twirl-spears and stones and hand-axes and shaft-flints. But ere they were come up and at hands with the enemy, the King’s ranks opened and let forth against them the beasts of burden armed as aforesaid; and these were now driven on by a great company of thralls and ill-doers that were themselves pricked from behind with spears and bills, and fire was set now among the tails of the horses and oxen so that in a moment they were all run wild with the terror and scathe of the fire, and stampeded all in a body against Styrbiorn’s host. And now was an evil din of cattle bellowing and horses squealing, and there was many a man slain there or trampled or maimed or limb-lopped and their array near broken, and much folk fell both of the Jomsburgers and of them that drave on the beasts; but the King’s fighting men held aback all the while on the skirts of this tumult, and few of them took hurt there, but they held well their line waiting their time for an onslaught. But Styrbiorn’s host, besides the wounding and man-slaying that there befell them, must spend strength on butchers’ work and the hewing down of naked thralls, while their enemies abode fresh waiting on their time.
As soon as this first brunt, wherein the baggage animals bare chiefest part, died down a little, and the beasts and the thrall-folk were slain or driven away, the King’s folk plunged down upon the battle of the Jomsburgers and gave them so hard an onfall that well nigh was their whole army put to a rout now. And now was Styrbiorn’s line bent back, and man hewed man, and hard and woundsome went the battle until past noonday. And as the day wore it was well seen what great good the King had won by his taking to Queen Sigrid’s reed of the baggage animals, for his men were unwearied yet and full of all eagerness and fain of weapon-play, while their foes, for all their great hardiness and long use of wars and battles, were near overcome with very weariness. Withal, whensoever there fell a man on Styrbiorn’s side there was none to take his place; but all day long were the King’s losses made good by new forces that would still be coming by tens and twenties: late stragglers to his host-bidding, yet welcomer now an hundredfold than had they come in two days since.
Yet for all their weariness and the odds against them the men of Jomsburg blenched nowise nor slacked not from the fight. Styrbiorn fared all day through the battle where the work was briskest, and the raven’s wings that he bare aloft on his helm became a lodestar unto his own men and unto his enemies a sign of dule and undoing. Men thought he fared that day like one shielded by some God, or like a wizard whom iron will bite not: so little he warded himself from blow or thrust, yet took never a wound. But of many men he took the life there, and these of greatest note: Earl Aunund, namely, and Kalf of Kalmar and Karl Heriolfson that was sister’s son to old Thorgnyr and held for a great champion.
Eric the King had his bodyguard about him, and they made a shield-burg about the King. Helgi was captain of the King’s bodyguard. Twice and thrice Styrbiorn came nigh to them, and it seemed to them as if he was minded to break the shield-burg: but each time he turned aside and bare not weapon against the shield-burg nor against the King. But now, as evening drew on and with all his force of numbers the King yet found that he might not bear back the Jomsburgers a step, but barely held them, and Styrbiorn fought yet like flaming fire, the King sent forth his berserks, An the Black and his kinsmen, six in company against Styrbiorn, if haply they might overcome him faring all together against him and haply so make an end.
Biorn saw them as they came a-thrusting through the press of the battle. He shouted to Styrbiorn, who bestrode in that instant Valdimar of Holmgarth that was fallen with a spear-thrust through the thigh and two foemen making to slay him, but Styrbiorn beat them back and shouted to his men to succour Valdimar. And in this instant while Styrbiorn had his hands full with those twain, came An against him six in company, and they set on him from both sides. An was a man both big and strong. He was swart of hue, and the black hair of him was so long that he tucked it under his belt behind. He and his fellows had now the berserk-gang upon them: their bellowing was like the bellowing of the hell-dead out of hell, and their mouths slavered as they rushed to the onset, and they bit on their shield-rims, and their eyes flamed like the eyes of a cat-a-mountain. That was Gizur Arnliotson, An’s youngest brother, that leapt first at Styrbiorn, outrunning his fellows, and thrust at his belly with his spear, a two-handed up-heaving thrust as of a man tossing hay. Styrbiorn leapt sideways high in the air, so that the stroke missed, and, as he came to earth again, he crashed down the heavy iron rim of his shield into An’s face, that was come up now beside him on the left and was minded to have smitten Styrbiorn with a great mowing sweep of his long and heavy sword. So mightily Styrbiorn drave down the shield rim that it sheared through the nose-guard and clave the face and drave out the gag-teeth and brake all his jaws in pieces, and An fell down and was dead on the instant. With the same motion Styrbiorn swung his great double-headed axe against Gizur that was louted forward with the force of his spent spear-stroke. Styrbiorn’s axe crashed down through the collarbone and brake in all the bones of his back, so that the blood of him was splashed in the air like the spray of a breaking wave. That was Gizur’s bane-sore. In the meanwhile had Biorn slain another of those berserks with his spear, but he thrust it so hard into the man’s head behind the ear that the blade was jammed in the bones of the head, like an axe in an oak-tree stump, and the spear snapped off at the socket. And therewith, ere Biorn might draw sword, set on another of the berserks against him; but Styrbiorn, seeing that, hewed at the man with his axe, and the axe cut through the man’s byrny and split his belly like a herring from the belt down, so that his bowels fell out. Now had Biorn gotten his sword drawn. So ended that bout that there fell there An the Black and his five fellows. Styrbiorn took never a wound, but Biorn gat a flesh-wound in the chin.
Now it began to be dark, so that men might not tell friend from foe. Men saw now that neither side might claim victory as for that day’s battle, and so battle-worn were they for the most part of either side that scarce might they bear weapon aloft. So they blew to a truce now and fared back to their camps.
Eric the King slept that night with his army. But he sent men back with tidings to Upsala to let them know the battle was not yet foughten out, but all well. He kenned his host and found that he had gotten much man-spilling, yet he thought he knew that Styrbiorn must have gotten as much and more. His folk were in good heart when they went to rest, albeit against all their expectations that long day’s fighting had not ended the thing. For news came in about suppertime that Skogul-Tosti, whom the King had sent north for fresh levies out of Helsingland, was nigh at hand now with a good force of men. Too late they were for that day’s battle, but they came in about the middle night, and the King misdoubted not but that with those fresh forces he should on the morrow have the victory. For Styrbiorn could look for no fresh forces to make good his losses.
Queen Sigrid the Haughty, waiting in Upsala, liked ill of these delays. There was great thronging of folk in Upsala, women for the most part and children and old men; and all day long came tidings dribbling in, to cast them now into untimely gladness now again into dread; and all day long, as wounded men came with tidings of this man’s deeds or of that man’s slaying, was the noise of women mourning. The Queen was tired of all this by eventide. When they told her that the King would come not home that night but there must yet be battle again on the morrow, she smiled scornfully but said never a word.
The next day after were the like comings and goings in Upsala and the like suspense. And they that had looked for easy victory found soon enough there was like to be no such thing. Until afternoon there had been naught to see of the battle from near Upsala, for their fighting was all in the wide and open lower part of the vale, that was shut off from view by the steep slopes of Windbergsfell that stood on the left to one looking south down the river. The crest of the fell rose in cliffs of rock, red and rotten, and the loose scree lay on the fell-side like a trailing garment, covering all the slope down from the cliff-wall to the level flats below. But now the battle was come north into the higher stretch of the valley betwixt the fell and the river, and the Queen went forth and came to King Olaf’s howe, if haply she might avail from that point of vantage to descry somewhat of their doings in the ings of Fyriswater. She climbed the howe and stood there gazing southaway, even as she had gazed four years ago when she had stood there and looked on Styrbiorn trying his strength with Moldi. “I saw fetches then,” she said in herself: “I saw him as if read and battle-slain in the mead yonder. And I thought not this day should come when such a sight should be meat and drink to me.”
Her women that had followed her out from the King’s house huddled about her on the howe, all aflutter with the uncertain dread of that day and the great issues of it. But Sigrid stood above them stately as a birch tree of the hills. She was muffled to the chin in a cloak of green silk broidered with gold and collared and purfled with minivere. That red cloak which she had a year ago put off for Styrbiorn she had burnt next morning. The hood of her cloak was fallen backward, baring the flame-like splendour of her hair above the smooth brow and stately and lovely face of her. There was in her face, as she gazed south with haughty lip and level chin, so much beauty as the Gods might throw up hands and strive no more to better it were they to frame the world anew; and so much gentleness and womanish pity and softness as a man shall find in the rain-cold rock of the sea. Two miles and more down from Upsala the battle swayed and weltered, in its large mass, clear to see from that place of prospect. And even as the sun wheeling westward in that cloudless sky lengthened the shadows bit by bit, so and with suchlike even and unrelenting motion was the battle rolled north. Until, as evening neared, the Queen watching from Olaf’s howe could discern amid that surge and coil of war a man here and a man there stand out clear to view; and now she saw ever and again, riding the battle as an eagle rides upon the storm, the black wings of Styrbiorn’s helm. And always where those wings flew, there swung back the battle-tide before them, ebbing terribly backward towards Upsala. And the south wind carried the roar of it north over those water-meadows like the roar of a sea.
The Queen watched from the howe there till dusk. Her women were crouched about her like frightened sheep, speechless, clinging one to another, sobbing for fear and their teeth chattering. She, heedless of their presence this hour gone by, turned now and with a sharp and imperious word bade them gather their wits and follow her home.
Lamps were lighting as the Queen came into the King’s garth. At every hand were wounded men, within door and without. Helgi was there in the door, harnessed as from battle, as the Queen came in. She halted to greet him and ask for tidings.
“There must be one day more,” answered he.
“What of the King?” she asked.
“All safe and sound,” said Helgi.
The voice of him sounded strange, and she peered at him through the uncertain light in the porch there of twilight and the reflection of the lamps within-door. She saw he was propped against the doorjamb.
“And what of that other?”
“Not all I’d wish,” answered Helgi. “He hath come too near me, though I fetched him a sword-stroke o’ the huckle-bone may well last him for a keepsake.” He laughed, and his legs gave way beneath him. The Queen caught him in her arms. Blood gushed from his mouth. She heard him say in a choking voice, “A hath paid me, Queen.”
They bare Helgi into the King’s hall. He was dead ere night was done. Hour after hour long after nightfall came wounded men back to Upsala, some to be leeched and some to die. No man came back that night who might stand on his feet and hold spear or sword; for things were come to this pass that, for all his strength of men and the succours that Tosti had brought him, the King was worsted in that day’s battle. His folk had with all their might and daring but barely availed to hold off Styrbiorn from Upsala, in so much that had there been but another hour of daylight it was like enough there had been an end, and the King’s whole army broken and done away.
The King abode with his army. They had no time to take their tents and camp-gear with them as they gave back fighting step by step. So the womenfolk and the old men brought meat and drink down to them on Fyrisfield at nighttime, and they lay out nightlong under their shields.
Styrbiorn and his host had use that night of the King’s baggage and war-booths. Styrbiorn had a wound from his fighting with Helgi, and there was not one of those lords of Jomsburg but had taken some hurt that day. Battle-weary they were, yet high of mettle and with hearts at ease, they and every man of their army, as they sat down for that second night in the highways of the battle. For they had fought at the beginning against heavy odds and had evened them at length, and the advantage of the day was theirs, only night parted them.
Earl Wolf came to Styrbiorn where he sat after supper nigh to a great fire, and about him sat the lords of the Jomsburgers and men of his bodyguard. “That will be well for us, kinsman,” said the Earl, “ere men turn them to sleep, if thou shouldst make prayer now unto the Gods that they shape things tomorrow as we would have it, and help us, not our enemies.”
“I will do that, foster-father,” answered he. “Yet is it in our own might and main that I would have us put our trust. I had liever thank the Gods when we shall have won the day than go a-praying to them beforehand.”
But all deemed that good, if Styrbiorn should pray to the Gods. So Styrbiorn did on his great iron helm winged with raven’s wings, and took in hand his great naked sword of shining iron, and so stood up in the smoky glare. And he shouted unto Thor, calling upon his name and saying, “Do that I tomorrow have victory!” The voice of him so shouting was like the thunder of a battle-horn. From wing to wing of the camp men heard and knew his voice, and they shouted likewise unto Thor from fire to fire. Men heard in the King’s camp that shouting, and even in Upsala. Little comfort they took hearing it.
About the middle night King Eric rose up and waked two or three of his bodyguard, bidding them go with him. The King took helm and shield and spear and fared now through the black night to Upsala and came to the temple. He bade his men bring torches and wait in the outer court of the temple, while he himself went in to the inner shrine where was the altar and holy place of Odin, and the ring and the twigs and the blood-bowls. It was black darkness there, made visible by the faint and fitful beams of the torches without. The King laid hand upon the ring and prayed. Nigh an hour he stood there a-praying, and he sware oath unto the All-Father that if He should vouchsafe to him victory in this battle, then would he after ten years give himself unto Odin. And the King prayed, and made new his oath, and looked for a sign. But there was naught but the blackness and the silence and the smell of blood, and from without the moan of women that wailed their dead, sleepless and uncomforted through all the bitter night. Then the King made an end of his prayers, and came again to his camp and fell on sleep until the morning.
Now began the third day of that battle. All the morning was the same tale to tell of every wounded man that found his way back, of hard fighting and the King’s men hard put to it, and no sight of the end yet. Things seemed to be worse as the hours went by, and the news worse and less hopeful that the wounded brought. But in the afternoon it was not that the news was worser but that the stream of it dried up. They that now came in from the fight had the look of men who know well that it is done of them. They would say naught but this only: that there was battle yet sharper than on either of the former days, and the King’s folk beaten back step by step, yet holding together.
The day was now three parts done, and Queen Sigrid sat with her women in her bower the windows whereof looked south out of Upsala. Till afternoon she had beheld the battle from Olaf’s howe; then, as if angry in her proud heart at the long uncertainty of that which she had no might to sway nor hasten, she came within doors again and sat there silent and waiting. But no end came: naught save that ceaseless sea-sound only of this third day’s fighting, flooding now nigh to the outer fields and home-meads of Upsala.
On a sudden, as, lost in her brooding, the Queen rested her gaze on the steep crest of Windbergsfell that showed on the left, a mile away belike, sharp against the sky, it was as if smoke came all along the edge of the fell, and in the next instant came a rumble as of thunder, drowning the dull growl of the battle. The Queen stood up. The hill’s edge was all hidden now with a dirty brown smoke-pall. The muttering rose to a roar, pulsing and pausing and swelling again. It seemed to them there as if the very timbers of the house were shaken. One of her women screamed and cried out that here was the world’s end come upon them and the beginning of Ragnarok. The child Olaf ran to his mother’s skirt. Sigrid abode erect and unmoved, but her face was white as death. There seemed to be now a strange and evil silence. Then the old steady battle-rumour began again. Yet not so steady now. Little by little it seemed to die down again, as if the battle were rolled away, or as if so many were slain now that they that yet lived availed not to hold up that battle-din. That cloud that hung on the fell’s brow thinned and lightened.
The Queen went out into the garth, and so out and on to Upsala brink. Folk were thronging there, one saying one thing and one saying another. None knew what was befallen. One man said that the main fell was overset and fallen down upon the King’s army and Styrbiorn’s. There was fog in the air over Fyrisfield, and it hung thickest on the skirts of the fell to the eastward. There was naught to see. The Queen came again to her bower and sat in her chair there. She had taken a sword from the bottom of a chest she had by her, and she sat with the sword unsheathed and across her knees. Her women asked her what she meant to do with that sword. She drew back her lips and smiled. “That question showeth little wit. Do you think I will be taken living by Styrbiorn?”
At sundown came that old man Thorgnyr riding into the King’s garth. They brought him in to the Queen where she sat waiting. “Speak quickly,” she said. “There is not a man come hither since that befell, and I know nothing. Must it be tomorrow too?”
Thorgnyr said, “It is ended.”
The Queen caught her breath.
“Have no fear,” he said. “True it is that we were almost clean done; but in the nick of time to save us befell so great a wonder as you must have seen and heard, Queen, that the scree burst up on the fell, and that came all adown upon the host of Styrbiorn and slew him a great part of his folk, but our own folk being away from the mountain took no hurt. And in the dust and pother of it, this good thing befell too, that the Dane-King (whom he had kept beside him until now) took rede to escape away, and galloped a-horseback over to his own people on their left beside the river, and made them give over and come out from the battle and flee away. So were the rest taken now by our folk both in front and in flank, and not yet free from the scree-fall. And now of his army is almost nothing left than a shadow thereof. And it is finished now, all save the pursuit and slaying.”
“What of him?” said the Queen. “What of Styrbiorn?”
“The last I saw of him,” answered Thorgnyr, “he with a score were stood together back to back on a knoll of grass in the midst o’ the field there. They had stricken down their standard-shafts into the earth, and our folk were closing on them from all sides.”
“Did he yet bear aloft those black wings?” said she.
“Yes,” he answered.
The Queen abode motionless. She said nothing for a minute. Then she spoke again: “Why didst thou not wait to see it out?”
“There was no need,” he answered. “It could end but one way. I am an old man, and it is not to be wondered at if I am tired.”
She looked at him silent a moment with her lips parted. Then, “But one way for him,” she said: “that is true. Yet, I would know.”
Thorgnyr said nothing. The Queen stepped forward and he made way for her. She muffled her cloak about her and walked with swift sure steps across the garth and out into the open field. The light was fading now. All the low sky southwestward was filled with a long bank of grey and shapeless cloud. There was a window of a cold buff-colour far down over the river, and higher up a great streak of a deep dark bloodred that looked strange and ill-boding amid those dull and lifeless hues. There was fallen a dead silence now on those meadows. The dust-fog was gone, but night-mists began to roll up from the river. The Queen waited there in the gathering dusk. Her eyes were bright. As men passed her by, coming by twos and threes back from the field, they saluted her, marking her proud and triumphant bearing. Night closed in, and yet the King came not. She went in now.
Eric stood on Upsala brink. He bade him that could, to make a stave in praise of that victory. Then Thorvald Hialtison, a man of Iceland of great and noble kin that was then of the King’s bodyguard, sang this stave:
“Fare to Fyrisfield, ye wolf-folk, as many as be an-hunger’d!
Nightriders’ stallions, bait at the western garth!
There be the black gems of corpse-dew: true ’tis, ’neath the spear-din,
Meat enough for the wolves’ feast Eric hath cut down there.”
The King gave Thorvald a ring of half a mark of gold for every verse. Men say that Thorvald made no other verses save these either before or since.
It was dark night when King Eric came home. The Queen met him in the door. Very big he seemed in his battered war-gear and his great horned helm. He walked somewhat heavily, but he carried his head high and kingly. And now, as he stepped into the bright light of the doorway, the Queen suddenly had sight of his face, and, with that, the question she was ready to ask him froze in her throat. Seeing her there to meet him, he checked in mid-stride, then passed on his way into the hall, as if the sight of her at that time was more than he could well bear to look upon.