第8章 HIGHTOWN UNDER SUNFELL(7)

Biorn saw little of the battle, wedged in the heart of the Shield-ring.He heard the shouts of the enemy, and the clangour of blows, and the sharp intake of breath, but chiefly he heard the beating of his own heart.The ring swayed and moved as it gave before the onset or pressed to an attack of its own, and Biorn found himself stumbling over the dead."I am Biorn, and my father is King," he repeated to himself, the spell he had so often used when on the fells or the firths he had met fear.

Night came and a young moon, and still the fight continued.But the Shield-ring was growing ragged, for the men of Hightown were fighting one to eight, and these are odds that cannot last.Sometimes it would waver, and an enemy would slip inside, and before he sank dead would have sorely wounded one of Ironbeard's company.

And now Biorn could see his father, larger than human, it seemed, in the dim light, swinging his sword Tyrfing, and crooning to himself as he laid low his antagonists.At the sight a madness rose in the boy's heart.Behind in the sky clouds were banking, dark clouds like horses, with one ahead white and moontipped, the very riders he had watched with Leif from the firth shore.The Walkyries were come for the chosen, and he would fain be one of them.All fear had gone from him.His passion was to be by his father's side and strike his small blow, beside those mighty ones which Thor could not have bettered.

But even as he was thus uplifted the end came.Thorwald Thorwaldson tottered and went down, for a hurled axe had cleft him between helm and byrnie.With him fell the last hope of Hightown and the famished clan under Sunfell.The Shield-ring was no more.Biorn found himself swept back as the press of numbers overbore the little knot of sorely wounded men.Someone caught him by the arm and snatched him from the mellay into the cover of a thicket.He saw dimly that it was Leif.

He was giddy and retching from weariness, and something inside him was cold as ice, though his head burned.It was not rage or grief, but awe, for his father had fallen and the end of the world had come.The noise of the battle died, as the two pushed through the undergrowth and came into the open spaces of the wood.It was growing very dark, but still Leif dragged him onwards.Then suddenly he fell forward on his face, and Biorn, as he stumbled over him.found his hands wet with blood.

"I am for death," Leif whispered."Put your ear close, prince.I am Leif the Outborn and I know the hidden things....You are the heir of Thorwald Thorwaldson and you will not die....I see a long road, but at the end a great kingdom.Farewell, little Biorn.We have been good comrades, you and I.Katla from Sigg spoke the true word..."And when Biorn fetched water in his horn from a woodland pool he found Leif with a cold brow.

Blind with sorrow and fatigue, the boy stumbled on, without purpose.He was lonely in the wide world, many miles from his home, and all his kin were slain.Rain blew from the south-west and beat in his face, the brambles tore his legs, but he was dead to all things.Would that the Shield Maids had chosen him to go with that brave company to the bright hall of Odin!

But he was only a boy and they did not choose striplings.

Suddenly in a clearing a pin-point of light pricked the darkness.

The desire for human companionship came over him, even though it were that of enemy or outcast.He staggered to the door and beat on it feebly.Avoice spoke from within, but he did not hear what it said.

Again he beat and again the voice came.And now his knocking grew feebler, for he was at the end of his strength.

Then the bar was suddenly withdrawn and he was looking inside a poor hut, smoky from the wood-fire in the midst of it.An old woman sat by it with a bowl in her hand, and an oldish man with a cudgel stood before him.He did not understand their speech, but he gathered he was being asked his errand.

"I am Biorn," he said, "and my father was Ironbeard, the King."They shook their heads, but since they saw only a weary, tattered boy they lost their fears.They invited him indoors, and their voices were kindly.

Nodding with exhaustion, he was given a stool to sit on and a bowl of coarse porridge was put into his hands.They plied him with questions, but he could make nothing of their tongue.

Then the thrall rose, yawned, and dropped the bar over the door.The sound was to the boy like the clanging of iron gates on his old happy world.For a moment he was on the brink of tears.But he set his teeth and stiffened his drooping neck.

"I am Biorn," he said aloud, "and my father was a king."They nodded to each other and smiled.They though his words were a grace before meat.