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Updated: June 24, 2025
As between two shields, he crept between the mystic Icelander and the dauntless Norman warrior. Valbrand led the way, his flint face set to withstand the Devil and all his angels; and three strapping Swedes brought up the rear, with drawn swords and thumping hearts. If only the way could have lain straight and open before them, even though it bristled with beasts and foes!
Two hours later, Valbrand called for horses and hawks, and he and young Haraldsson, with Helga and her Saxon waiting-maid, rode south for a day's sport in the pine woods. Helga was the best comrade in the camp, whether one wished to go hawking, or wanted a hand at fencing, or only asked for a quiet game of chess by the leaping firelight.
They followed him across the grassy courtyard to the foot of the steps leading up to his sleeping-room, and would not leave him until he had consented that Valbrand and Olver should go in with him for a bodyguard. "And this boy also," he added, signing to Alwin. As Alwin approached, Kark had the impudence to shoulder himself forward also.
When they caught sight of a fox, whisking from one rocky den to another, it startled them into crossing themselves. "It is over such wastes as this that the dead like to call to each other," Valbrand muttered in his heard. And his neighbor mumbled uneasily, "I think it likely that this is one of the plains on which the Women who Ride at Night hold their meetings.
And you wore a suit of my clothes, and fought me because I said anyone could tell that you were a girl." Helga's laughter rang out like a chime of bells. "Oh, Sigurd I had forgotten it! And we had nothing with us to eat but two cheeses! And Valbrand had to launch a boat and come after us!"
It would be unadvisable for you to offend him again." However contemptible its present mouthpiece, that was the truth. Sigurd paused, even while his fingers twitched with passion. While he hesitated, a shout of summons from Valbrand decided the matter. Loosening his hold, the young warrior vented his rage in one savage kick and hastened to join his comrades.
"Leif is coming! the Lucky, the Loved One!" Helga sang from her booth; and the din was redoubled with cheering. "By Thor, it seems to me that he is coming now!" said Valbrand, suddenly. He had finished his toilet, and sat at the table, facing the thicket. Every one turned to look, and beheld Leif's thrall-attendant gallop out of the shadows toward them.
"It is not likely that I will allow Leif's property to be damaged, Egil the Black. Would you choke him? Loose him, or I will send you to the Troll, body and bones!" Egil rose reluctantly. Alwin leaped up like a spring released from a weight. "What has he done," demanded Valbrand, "that you should so far forget the law as to attack another man's thrall?"
As she went by the largest of the booths, which was the sleeping-house of the steersman Valbrand and more than half the crew, Alwin came out of the door and stood looking listlessly about. He had spent the afternoon scouring helmets amid a babble of directions and fault-finding, accented by blows.
It is likely that that moment would have seen the end of Alwin, if it had not happened that Valbrand the steersman was in the booth, arraying himself for the feast. He was a gigantic warrior, with a face seamed with scars and as hard as the battle-axe at his side. He caught Egil's uplifted arm and wrested the blade from his grasp.
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