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So he stood beside her on the dais holding his head high, and proud he looked, for all his thin white locks and sunken eyes. But again said the Hall-Sun: "Canst thou hear me, Wolfkettle, when I bid thee stand beside me, or art thou, too, gone on the road to Valhall?"
There he sat, and the others in that ring of men looked sadly upon him; such as Arinbiorn of the Bearings, and Wolfkettle and Thorolf of his own House, and Hiarandi of the Elkings, and Geirbald the Shielding, the messenger of the woods, and Fox who had seen the Roman Garth, and many others.
But Wolfkettle brake out into speech and rhyme, and said: "O warriors, the Wolfing kindred shall live or it shall die; And alive it shall be as the oak-tree when the summer storm goes by; But dead it shall be as its bole, that they hew for the corner-post Of some fair and mighty folk-hall, and the roof of a war-fain host." So therewith they rode their ways past the abode of the Daylings.
Meseemeth no one of these Southland Cities shall we behold, and no more of the Southlanders than their war-array." "These are evil words," said Wolfkettle, "though such an outcome must be thought on. But why deemest thou this?" Said the Beaming: "There is no Hall-Sun sitting under our Roof at home to tell true tales concerning the Kindred every day.
But yesterday he was sick and might not ride with us; but may be he will follow on and catch up with us in a day or two. And if he come not, then will I bring him over to the Wolfings when the battle is done." Then laughed the Beaming man, and spake: "How then if ye come not back, nor Wolfkettle, nor the Welsh Guest, nor I myself?
He looked into the scornful eyes of the Roman lord for a little minute and then laughed aloud, and therewithal, leaping on him with one spring, turned sideways, and dealt him a great buffet on his ear with his unarmed left hand, just as the Roman thrust at him with his sword, so that the Captain staggered forward on to the next man following, which was Wolfkettle the eager warrior, who thrust him through with his sword and shoved him aside as they all strode into the hall together.
Said Wolfkettle: "And hast thou learned all this from the ancient story lays, O Hiarandi? For some of them I know, though not all, and therein have I noted nothing of all this. Is there some new minstrel arisen in thine House of a memory excelling all those that have gone before? If that be so, I bid him to the Roof of the Wolfings as soon as may be; for we lack new tales."
So they talked together and made each other good cheer, as is the wont of companions in arms on the eve of battle; and the talk ran, as may be deemed, on that journey and what was likely to come of it: and spake an Elking warrior to a Wolfing by whom he rode: "O Wolfkettle, hath the Hall-Sun had any foresight of the day of battle?"
And or ever they came to the water's edge, they were met by Wolfkettle of the Wolfings, and Hiarandi of the Elkings, and three others who were but just come from the place where the hurt men lay down in a dale near the Great Ridge; there had Wolfkettle and Hiarandi been tending Toti of the Beamings, their fellow-in-arms, who had been sorely hurt in the battle, but was doing well, and was like to live.
Many a mother's son shall fall before the Welshmen." But Wolfkettle shook his rein free, and his face reddened as of one who is angry, yet he kept silence, while the Elking said: "Let be, Toti! for he that lives shall tell the tale to the foreseers, and shall make them wiser than they are to-day." Then laughed Toti, as one who would not be thought to be too heedful of the morrow.
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