THROUGH WHICH THE CHAMPIONS CHASE VINLAND ELK
Through the forest and out like flitting shadows, pausing only to make
sure that the trail they were following was fresher than any of those
which crossed it. Over a pond and across a bog and zigzag up a
hill,--they had not grazed a stone or snapped a twig; it seemed that
every stride must bring them in sight of the game. Then, on the other
side of the slope, Alrek blundered. Descending at lightning speed, he
turned his head to look behind, and in so doing unconsciously
straightened his body ever so little from the required bend. In a breath
he was seated on the snow while his skees finished the coast without
him, at the bottom dashing noisily against a stone. Instantly, from
somewhere in the white distance, came like an echo the sound of crashing
timber, a sound which passed so quickly that if only one had heard it
he might have doubted his ears.
All three had heard it, however; and the two who reached the bottom
still shod looked scathingly upon the third as he came plunging down,
breaking through the crust to his knees wherever it covered a hollow.
"I advise you to tie yourself on," one of them jeered; and the other one
gibed: "Would you like to hold to my cloak in going down the next hill?"
If he would, the Sword-Bearer did not admit it; but it was something
that he was reduced to silence. They swung after him in high feather
when he was once more on his runners and off across the valley.
Beyond the next rise there was a plain, fringed by a thicket; and there
in the packed and trampled snow and the gnawed branches and peeled bark
they found yet more tangible proof of what they had lost.
"We should have got a herd if nobody had spoiled it," Gard grunted.
Before Brand also could voice his reproach, Alrek--darting here and
there among the trees in search of the new trail--uttered his low
whistle and was off like a hare. Like hounds after hare they were after
him, and Vinland trees looked their first upon real skee-running.
Speed, not silence, was the object now. More than once their iron-shod
staffs rang sharply against the rocks as they thrust out the poles to
change their course, rudder-like. Finding coasting too slow now, they
took the last half of each hill at a leap. And when a plain stretched
its smooth surface before them, or a frozen pond or a marsh, their speed
was the speed of a deer at his best.
And now the hunted were far from their best. The holes which their sharp
hoofs had at first cut so cleanly through the crust were becoming
haggled. Farther on, the trail itself that had been so straight began to
show the wavering of the panic-stricken. At last the hunters came to a
place where a wisp of bloody foam stained the white. Only a rigid
economy of breath kept back a cheer, and they put the energy saved into
fresh speed.
A jump over a pile of boulders, a spurt over a low knoll, and there in
the open space beyond was the prey, six panting froth-flecked
creatures, stricken staring with terror.
"But what in the Troll's name are they?" cried Gard and Brand together,
at sight of the huge, shaggy, ungainly bodies with antlers like shovels
and enormous noses like nothing they had ever seen in their lives.
At the same instant Alrek answered them with the glad cry: "Vinland
elk!"
The next instant he had added a command to halt, checking his own
advance by a thrust of his skee-staff into the snow, and following that
act by casting it aside and swiftly unslinging his bow: "Be on your
guard! They have not deer's tempers."
Even as he spoke, the bull in the lead flung up his mighty antlered head
and, while the other five moved on, wheeled and faced the foe, like a
chief covering his people's retreat.
Alrek paid him the tribute of an admiring murmur, but the withdrawal of
the five set the Greenlanders wild with exasperation.
"Charge him!" "Finish him!" "Get him out of the way!" they cried
savagely, and started forward even before their arrows were on their
bow-strings.
The only thing they knew clearly after that was that the Vinland elk did
not wait to be charged. Gard, who was a length ahead, had suddenly a
glimpse of eyes like balls of green fire; something which had looked as
fixed as a boulder became, lightning-quick, a hurtling mass descending
on him, and he had a vision of terrible sharp-edged forefeet that could
mangle a man to jelly.
Dropping his weapons, he turned to run, but lapped his skees and fell
headlong. Falling, he uttered a hoarse cry as he saw Brand's hastily
aimed arrow bury itself harmlessly in the animal's flank. Then, as he
rolled backward, he caught sight of Alrek and regained hope.
Only the Sword-Bearer's brown cheeks, flaming crimson, showed his
excitement; the rock beside him was no steadier than the arm that held
his bow. Drawing back the string with all his strength, he sent an arrow
through the shaggy neck where it joins the body; and the great beast
fell forward on his knees and died without a quiver.
As the animal sank, Gard arose, breathing curses on his own awkwardness
while he snatched up his scattered weapons, his eyes fixed greedily on
the five disappearing over a ridge. And Brand cried fiercely: "There is
as much ahead, and more besides!" and leaped forward. And Alrek plucked
forth another arrow and drew himself up to spring over the dead forester
lying high before him--drew himself up and then paused and hesitated,
gazing down at the mighty shape. As nobly warrior-like as he had made
his desperate charge, so nobly warrior-like he lay in his death, a
leader who had given his life to save his people.
Slowly the young Viking stretched forth his hand. "Stop!" he ordered.
Poised in mid-air, as it were, they looked over their shoulders at him,
crying impatiently: "What is the matter?"
This time the Chief of the Champions gave his gesture authority. "Come
back. To kill them also would be a low-minded act. He took his
death-wound to save them. We have all we need. Come back."
An instant they balanced there, gazing at the white ridge over which
the last dark form was disappearing. Then the obedience bred in the
bones of Gard the Thrall-Born turned him back to his master.
"You are the chief," he muttered.
At the same time Brand the Red made up his mind. "Though you should
spend all your breath, you would not hinder me from going!" he cried,
and sprang forward.
The arrow which Alrek had drawn forth was still in his hand; in the
grasp of his other hand was his bow. Fitting the shaft on the string, he
spoke his warning:
"It is unlikely that you will do any hunting for some time if you do not
come back."
As a flame to a dry leaf, so was a threat to Brand's temper. Hissing
defiance, it flared up, and he redoubled his speed.
Above the creak of his skees he heard at the same instant two
sounds,--Gard's voice crying: "Would you kill him?" and the twang of
Alrek's bow-string. Then his right arm dropped at his side with an arrow
through it. His chief had foretold truly that he would do no more
hunting for some time. It was as much in rage as pain that he caught at
the shaft, cursing.
Gard's relief took the form of boisterous laughter; but the
Sword-Bearer, as soon as he could make himself heard, spoke gravely:
"If you think you paid too much for your big words, you have only your
own foolishness to thank for making the bargain."
Coming slowly back to them, still holding his arm, Brand's face was as
white as it had been that day on shipboard; but there was no less of a
swagger in his bearing. "Who says I paid too much?" he panted. "I shall
say what I choose though you shoot into me every arrow of your quiver.
_I_ find no fault with the bargain!"
Alrek's gravity yielded to one of his short sudden laughs. "Now if you
are satisfied, it is certain that I am," he said, and studied the Red
One with twinkling eyes. Amusement was still alight in them when he
stepped forward and held out his hand, yet there was also in his manner
a new cordiality. "It has never happened to me before to meet a sprout
to equal you," he declared. "I foretell that I shall certainly kill you
some time, but I promise that I will carve runes about you afterward."
"How do you know that it will be you who does the rune-carving?" Brand
retorted; but at the same time he yielded his palm with flattered
willingness. A little later he even yielded his wounded arm that the
hand which put the shaft in might cut it out again.
Twilight never gathered in upon a more contented party than these three
weary hunters, sprawled luxuriously on the fragrant heaps of evergreen
boughs around the leaping fire, fed to repletion on the daintiest food
they knew, pouring their hearts out in discussion of the day's
adventures. They fell asleep wrangling over the placing of the antlers
on the booth wall.