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A small man clothed in strange-looking armour, with large golden horns on his helmet, and a long visor advancing in front of it, was leaning on a two-edged curved spear, and seemed to be looking with derision at the flight of Biorn's troops as they were pursued by their victorious foes. "That is he," cried Sintram; "he who will drive us from the field before the eyes of Gabrielle!"
Four days of threading fog-thickets and ploughing over watery wastes, and the stanch little vessel pushed her way into sight of the first of the unknown lands. It towered up ahead like a storm-cloud, bleak and barren-looking as Greenland itself. From its inhospitable heights and glaciers gleaming coldly in the sunshine, they knew it at once for the last-seen land of Biorn's narrative.
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.
It seemed to him that the Prince of Darkness was going up to Biorn's castle; and in vain did Rolf remind him that the snow was lying deep in the valleys, in vain did he suggest that the knight might be overtaken by his frightful dreams in the lonely mountains during the night-time. "Nothing can be worse to me than remaining here would be," replied Sintram.
He had been sent out to find another of Biorn's sailors who chanced to be visiting in the neighborhood, to invite him to come to Brattahlid and tell what else he might know concerning his chiefs voyage, a subject in which Leif had become strangely interested.
A joyous march was heard in Biorn's camp, as Montfaucon, with his troops and retainers, clad in bright steel armour, conducted their lady up to a neighbouring hill, where she would be safe from the spears which would soon be flying in all directions, and whence she could look freely over the battle-field.
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.
Though the creature did not dare to strike again, its hiss could be heard in the distance, and the gleam of its fangs showed in dark corners. If Leif had had Biorn's bad fortune, to begin at the wrong end of his journey, so that a barren Helluland was the climax that now lay before him, the hidden snake might have swelled, like Thora Borga Hiort's serpent-pet, into a devastating dragon.
Then one weapon flashed red suddenly, and it was Biorn's, and back into the tower he sprang as his foe fell, and Havelok flung the door to, and I barred it. "Up," said Biorn; and in the dark we stumbled from stair to stair, while the crowd howled and beat on the door below us. It was good to get out into the moonlight on the roof, where we could rest.
But when Biorn's fellows saw that, they went to their ship, and made off north along the land to meet Thorkel and told him of this hap: he said it had not come to pass ere it might have been looked for. Soon after this Thorkel went south to Drontheim, and met there Earl Svein. Grettir went south to Mere after the slaying of Biorn, and found his friend Thorfinn, and told him what had befallen.
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