THE FALL OF THE ICE KING.
When the sun arose upon the fifth day of the week, the day of Thor,
the glittering pinnacles of the ice king still towered high above the
floes, and these covered the sea as far as the eye could reach. All the
white mass was evidently in motion and the drifting was rapid, but it
seemed to the vikings as if their danger were striving to push nearer
to the ship. She was now lying almost within his reach, if he should
choose to strike her--and she was but a very small thing. Her crew,
going and coming around her, were but so many specks upon the ice. From
her masthead still fluttered bravely out her White Horse banner, and
she was yet altogether unharmed, but the rowers were at their places
continually.
A prudent captain was the jarl, for, although the men were impatient,
he forbade their going far from the ship. He held them back even when
the remaining white bears appeared near the feet of the ice king.
Knud was almost angry that he was not permitted to go forth and slay
them.
"One man for each bear, Ulric the Jarl," he said. "It is our right. We
may not ever meet them again, and the chance for honor were lost. Thou
hast won thy pair of claws."
"Thou hast slain bears enough," said Ulric. "Were I to let thee go,
thou mightest perchance be left behind on the ice, or under it. Small
honor in that. I promise thee the next chance to get thyself killed
fairly."
"I obey," growled the grim old hunter, "for thou art my jarl. But when
we return from this cruise I will go with Wulf the Skater into the
winter of long night and we will find them there. I will not go to
Valhalla until I have slain one as large as thine."
"Mind not thy bears now," responded Ulric. "Seest thou not? Art thou
blind?"
He blew his horn sharply, and all who were on the ice around the ship
sprang on board in haste.
"Mark!" he shouted. "Between us and the foot of the ice king there is a
chasm that widens. We know not when the field may break away. Then he
will be upon us. Every man at his place this day!"
They who saw could understand, and there was no more talk of hunting.
Even when a white fox came and looked at them, within bowshot, no arrow
went after him.
"Let him go free," said Tostig. "He hath wild fowl enough for the
catching, but he will swim far before he runneth on land again."
It was a time of doubt and of waiting, but the drifting ceased not.
There was much discussion at intervals, among even the elder seamen,
as to precisely in what part of the sea they now might be, for there
were no guidings. Toward the sunset, after long hours of idleness that
brought weariness, Ulric went and stood by the hammer of Thor on the
fore deck. Tostig the Red came and stood by him and laid his hand upon
the hammer, for Tostig was a smith, as had been his fathers before him.
Not only could he smelt iron out of the right rock, but he could harden
it for cutting and for bending and springing. The secret of that art
was his inheritance, and Hilda had said that it was a thing that the
old gods who were dead had brought with them from the east before Asa
Thor's time. It was from a rising-sun land, but a cold one, that Odin
led his children, said some, and there were runes on the rocks to prove
it, if they might be read by any now living.
"We go faster," said Tostig. "We have already gone far this day. If the
gods were against us, I think they would not so swiftly bear us forward
without wind or work."
"Who knoweth the will of the gods?" replied Ulric. "Not thou or I.
They puzzle me greatly. I would they might come at times and show
themselves. How can one know what to think of a god he hath never seen!
I mean to look upon one of them, if I may, before I sail back to the
Northland. That were a thing worth telling of a winter evening by the
fire in the hall."
"And have all men answer thee that thou wert lying?" laughed Knud
cheerily, from behind Tostig. "I believe that Hilda seeth them at
an hour that cometh to her, but I would rather let them alone. I
will think well of them if they will but shove us along in the right
direction. They work finely now, it seemeth, but the sun goeth down.
Thor hath been friendly to us during all his day, but I doubt if we
are as safe after he is gone. The morrow will be Freya's day, and she
meddleth not overmuch with seafaring matters. Ægir is the god of the
sea, and of him we know but little, nor of Ran, his wife, nor of his
nine daughters. They must at this hour be all under the ice doing
nothing."
The saying of Knud was a thing that it was hard to dispute, but it
was in Ulric's mind to wonder whether or not he and his vikings were
drifting altogether beyond the help of the old gods of the North.
The wind began to blow strongly, and the men listened with eager ears,
for they thought that they could now and then hear shrill and angry
voices from the neighborhood of the ice king. Some of them were like
shrieks, but these may have been made by the gale itself, blowing among
the crags and chasms.
"We will both eat and drink," commanded Ulric. "Let every man be
hearty, that he may have his full strength for that which may be before
him."
After he himself had eaten he went to the after deck, putting his hand
upon the tiller. From that place he might best watch the ice king, and
there came others to stand with him, waiting.
"He is very tall," said Ulric, at last. "I doubt if we shall ever look
upon his like again. But saw ye ever such moonlight? I have known days
when I could not see so well as I can this night."
"Aye," said Wulf. "I know this moon. It is not such light as ours,
for he hath brought it with him. It is the light which the gods make
instead of sunlight in his own place, and it will not go south any
further than he goeth. But mark the bears!"
"Something troubleth them," said Ulric.
All could see them plainly, and they were like ghosts wandering to and
fro among the rugged heaps of the ice floes. They were much scattered
and they moved as if they were hunting for something which they could
not find, and they were calling often to each other, moaning as if they
were in pain or in great discontent. Sometimes as they did so they
lifted up their heads toward the moon, but oftener toward the ice king.
"Look at him now!" exclaimed Ulric. "The moon is shining upon him
wonderfully.
"It is so," said Tostig, "but I think not of that. Wilt thou note this,
that whenever there cometh a boom of the rending ice the bears call out
to their mates? More than we do they know of such matters. All such
creatures have gods of their own, and we may have offended them. I like
it not."
"The gods of the bears will care for the bears!" said Knud. "They have
naught to do with men."
Nevertheless, it was a time for men to speak softly concerning such
things when powers whom they saw not and knew not were dragging them
and their ship along so helplessly. There are times when one feeleth
that he can get along well enough without the gods, but this was a
different matter. All the vikings talked soberly and they were glad
that their jarl was a son of Odin.
It was a strange, solemn, weird night in spite of the moonlight, what
with the peril and the moaning bears and the booming ice. After all,
they said, Odin himself might not be with them. There had been places,
as all men knew, where all the gods had abandoned even the bravest of
the Northmen. Men like themselves had died without a sword cut or a
spear thrust. All hope of falling in battle might be lost to them among
these treacherous ice floes. It was a short night, if there had been
aught to measure it by, but to the men on _The Sword_ it seemed long
enough. None cared to go under a deck, but there were some who lay down
and slept. The moon sank lower and lower and the shadows lengthened
across the ice fields, but there was yet a great flood of broken light
when Ulric, the son of Brander, uttered a loud cry and put his war horn
to his lips. Every man sprang to his feet, for each thought that he
had never before heard such a blast as that. A louder sound instantly
answered it, but none could tell whether it came from among the ice
peaks or from down toward the bottom of the sea.
"The bears are moaning again!" said Knud. He was ever thinking of his
bears, but all the rest were hearkening for what might be coming next,
and they knew not yet the meaning of Ulric's blast.
"Oars!" shouted the jarl. "Every man to his place! There is free water
southerly. The ice king is bowing!"
Loudly moaned the bears, for a moment, and they seemed to be running
toward the ship, as if they would come on board; and Ulric blew his
horn again with the notes of battle defiance, but then there burst out
upon all sides a roaring, splitting, rending sound, such as none of the
vikings had ever heard before.
"He hath struck! He is aground!" shouted Ulric. "Hark to his breaking!
His hour is come!"
If that were true, so also it seemed as if the hour of _The Sword_
had come, and of all who were on board of her. But the gods were with
her. If the forefoot of the ice king had indeed caught upon a shoal,
checking and breaking him, the shock of that striking had separated the
great floe in front of him so that it might move freely. Still it no
longer upheld him, and he suddenly began to pitch forward toward the
ship. Vast was the roll of the sea that swelled away from his pitching,
and powerfully it uplifted _The Sword_ in her bed of ice.
"Hold hard, all!" shouted Ulric. "Ready with your oars! Odin!"
Up gazed they then, and the bravest of them shuddered, for the gigantic
white head of the ice king was bowing nearer, as if he would cast
himself upon them. On rolled the great wave, steadily, and all along
the crest of it the ice it carried was rending into fragments that
ground angrily against each other. The floe that carried _The Sword_
became twain that parted, letting her down and shooting her swiftly
forward. It was just then that the ice king fell upon his face, his
uppermost pinnacle almost crashing upon her stern.
The foaming water dashed across the deck and drenched Ulric at the
tiller. He was wearing no headpiece now, and the salt spray drops
glittered brightly among his yellow curls. But they glistened not with
moonlight, for while they all had waited and watched the sun had risen
and his first rays lit the hero face of the son of Odin as he shouted
to his men to row their best, and as he steered the good ship _The
Sword_ into the open water the White Horse banner of the Saxons floated
gallantly from the masthead and men sprang to set free the sail.
"Hael, O Ulric the Jarl!" shouted Knud the Bear. "We have a good sea
captain."
So said several of the elder vikings.
"Hael, all!" cheerily responded Ulric. "The ice king hath fallen and we
shall fear him no more. The gods are with us!"
Loudly shouted they all, and those who were not rowing clashed their
swords upon their shields as if they had won a victory.
"Aye!" growled Tostig the Red. "'Tis a stout ship."