RELATING THE ADVENTURE WITH THE MEN OF THE FOREST
Like dew on a fresh berry a silver gauze of mist lay over the fresh day,
and the birds' answers to the sun were still far-between and sleepy, as
Hjalmar Thick-Skull came out of the bayward gate and sauntered down the
meadow-slope to the beach. Of late he had given over fishing in the
river for fishing in the bay, where a flat island lay like a lily-pad on
the water. With his tackle on his shoulder and a song on his lips, he
came down where his boat was waiting and sent a careless glance around
the horizon. Then the song was changed to a cry, and he went back up the
slope in long bounds, deafening the man at the gate as he burst in upon
him.
"Skraellings! Around the long point they are coming in shoals!"
Staring, the guards stammered the words after him; but an Icelander who
was passing caught them up with a roar and started on a run for
Karlsefne's booth. The hounds lying under the trees leaped up and raced
beside him, barking; out of every door that he passed uncombed heads
were thrust, shouting questions. In the draft of a breath, the news had
spread like fire.
Reaching the Chief of the Champions where he stood in his doorway, he
sheathed the sword that he was polishing with so much pride and took a
step toward the gate; then, bethinking himself of a quicker way to
verify the report, he turned and made for a great pine-tree standing on
a little knoll. With a run and a leap he went up the trunk, and
clambered from one great bough to the next as though they were steps,
until his head came out through the last layer of needles.
The Thick-Skulled had spoken truly. The bright plain of the bay was
specked with dark skin-boats; eastward around the longest of the capes,
they were like a dark tide rolling in upon the land. Something seemed to
tighten in the Sword-Bearer's throat; and he was about to turn and let
himself down swiftly to the bough below, when his eye was caught by a
movement up the river bank, the passing of something dark athwart the
green of a bush. Drawing his head down under the green roof, he hung by
his arms, gazing intently. There was no open anywhere for the Thing to
cross, and just that dark streak flitting through the bush-tops told
nothing--and yonder was a white streak behind it! And beyond that a dark
one! His hands tightened on the branch so that it crackled. Unless motes
were dancing before his eyes, the bush was alive with the fleeting
wisps, shapeless, soundless, but bearing down upon the camp. His heart
seemed to turn over in his body, and he dropped like an ape from limb to
limb.
Descending into the camp was like falling from the peacefulness of a
masthead into the roar of the ocean. Wrangling and stamping about, the
men were struggling into their shirts of ring-mail. Hammering on their
shields to get attention, the chiefs were shouting orders. Bearing
messages and distributing weapons, thralls rushed back and forth,
followed by the yelping of dogs and the screaming of bondwomen from the
doorways. It took main force on the part of the Champions' leader to
get them aside and make them understand that it was not the enemy before
them against whom they were to turn their blades.
"The number of those in the boats is so many times greater than we, that
no men can be spared from the front," he concluded swiftly. "To find out
what these Things are, and defend the gates against them, will be our
share. And it is likely that much depends upon our getting into position
without loss of time. Olaf and the Hare, I appoint to be my messengers;
and I want to give Olaf a message now, while the Hare goes after my
ring-shirt." Drawing the Fair One aside, he spoke forcefully in his ear
until he yielded reluctant obedience and darted away in the direction of
the pastures.
It may be admitted that reluctance was in most faces when a little later
they turned their backs upon the uproar of the camp and stole out into
the loneliness of the grove. Over their shield-rims, their eyes rolled
apprehensively as their chief spread them into a broad crescent covering
both gates, and led them warily forward. When the first high ground
gained failed to reveal anything, they jumped at the idea that he had
been mistaken in his spying, that the sun had dazzled his eyes, that
what he had seen was but a line of low-flying swallows. They were urging
it eagerly at the very instant that he was justified.
All at once it was as though every twig in the undergrowth ahead had
turned into a bow, and the bow had shot an arrow at them. The rattle on
their iron helmets was like the pelting of hail. If their bodies had not
been armored, they would have gone down as grain before a scythe.
Alrek's voice rang out strongly: "Skraellings! Under cover! Make ready
for their charge!"
In a flash they had leaped backward, behind trees, bushes, boulders,
anything. The sunbeams broke into jagged lightnings as the bright swords
sprang from the scabbards.
But no flesh appeared from the thicket beyond. The grove remained empty
and silent as a grave. It shattered the stillness startlingly when Njal
screamed:
"If they are Skraellings, why do they not come out and show themselves?"
Then, without pausing for reply, he added another shout: "Those in the
boats have landed!"
From the camp behind them swelled a din of Skraelling yells answered by
Norse battle-cries, enforced at regular intervals by the hoarse barking
of the leaders.
Njal cried shrilly: "_That_ is the way in which Skraellings fight! These
are trolls! Let us get loose from their net and turn back."
Only Alrek's uplifted spear stayed the rush. "I think you will find my
weapon sharp if you do," he warned. "Whether they be men or trolls, we
must take heart as we can and hold them from the gates. I urge you all
to grip your swords and manfully hold your ground. They can not do you
harm while you are under cover."
But it was not their bodies that they were afraid with, but their minds
which had raised up specters. The sunlit space seemed all at once a
cloak for shapes of horror. Dreading with every breath that the cloak
would be drawn aside, their eyes shrank from what it might reveal as
their flesh would not have shrunk from knives. They spoke as with one
voice:
"This is jugglery and trickery only! We will go back where men fight
against men!"
"You will not," spoke Alrek the Chief between his teeth. But even as he
said it, he saw the hopelessness of expecting to hold them quiet, and
made his last move. Throwing aside his spear he leaped out in front of
them, brandishing his sword. "If you must move--move forward!" he cried.
"You are nithings unless you follow my fate!"
Even then it is not certain that they would have obeyed if Brand had not
redeemed much by promptly advancing to his chief's side.
"_I_ follow!" he shouted; and Erlend and Gard were only a step behind
him.
At that, the rest turned like sheep and came after, dodging from cover
to cover, clambering, stumbling, ducking, jumping, lashing their courage
with a fury of yelling.
Before the cold stillness had chilled them again, they saw the foe.
Rising from behind boulders, slipping around trees, gliding through
bushes, came creatures with gaudy-colored bodies naked as earthworms,
and bristling black heads feathered like monstrous birds; so like and
yet so hideously unlike the Skraellings, that Gard cried "Forest
devils!" and the band turned with one impulse for flight. But behind
them, across the ground they believed they had cleared, in the space
between them and the gates, stretched another line. Out of their frenzy
of fear, sprang a frenzy of hate; and they leaped upon the creatures
with drawn swords and the others met them, brandishing stone hatchets.
For a time it was a wild game of dodging, with death as a penalty for
awkwardness. Whether they were men or demons, the hatchet-bearers showed
a dread of steel which kept them hovering beyond arm's reach whenever
they were not darting at an opening. But at last the hungry swords
tasted the flesh they craved, and their wielders' shouts of triumph
stirred the rest to exulting excitement.
"We will wipe them out like flies!" Alrek cried.
Even as the words left his lips, he made a startling discovery. Laying
low the figure in front of him, he glanced over his shoulder to make
sure that there was no one behind him; and turned back to find a man
standing on the very spot that he had cleared. Striking him down, he
whirled to see another hideous shape in the place that--a breath
before--he had made empty.
At the same instant, Brand cried wildly: "It seems to me that they must
rise from the dead since no matter how many one kills, there is always
the same number confronting him."
Into Alrek's throat came the sense of choking which had seized him in
the tree-top when he beheld that dark tide rolling in upon the land.
Something seemed to mock in his ear: "It will be like killing the flies
of the air one by one!" Then blotting out this came the wonder that
Brand's voice should seem so far away; and he risked a glance around the
grove, and his heart stood still.
In their mad charge, the Champions had broken their line; until now no
two fought shoulder to shoulder but each stood alone, his back against a
tree or a rock, a circle of hatchet-men around him. Even while their
chief looked, three Champions were tempted into making dashes which
carried them still wider apart. It would not be long before they would
be lost to one another's sight, and the swarms would close in around
them--He opened his mouth to send forth a frantic recall.
But the fiend-cunning of the black eyes watching him seemed to read his
purpose on his lips. Suddenly the shapes around him raised an unearthly
howl, which those on all sides caught up and kept up until the din was
like a wall through which no sound could come or go.
Alrek's hands continued to fight from instinct, but his brain became
numb. The horror long hovering over him settled lead-like upon him.
"They _are_ trolls!" he told himself; and his strength began to ooze out
of him in icy droops.
He did not turn his head when above the din rose a roar even more
appalling than the yells. When the creatures around him dropped their
weapons to fly frantically this way and that, he remained standing where
they had left him, plucking at an arrow which had pierced his arm below
his mail. Gazing wonderingly, he saw a huge milk-white bull with mouth
afoam and eyes like red flame come snorting out of the thicket, pausing
now to paw up the earth before him, now to throw back his horned head
with a terrific bellow.
Then, in a flash, his wits came back to him. Memory reminded him that
his own lips had bidden Olaf drive the animal from the pasture for their
re-enforcement; and sense told him that--even as he had hoped it might
happen--the hatchet-bearers had taken the apparition to be the white
man's god, come to his people's aid. Leaning back against the tree, he
began to shake with laughter which was half weeping.
It seemed to little Olaf the Fair that there was something peculiar
about the bearing of all the Champions, when a while later he met them
back near the gates. Their greetings came in voices of unsteady
shrillness, and their eyes were strangely bright. He said, pouting:
"I do not know whether you mean that the fight went against you or that
you got the victory, but I warn you that I shall dislike it if you
upbraid me for fetching the bull there so soon. I have got scolded
enough by the men in camp. It appears that they spent the first part of
the battle in running away from arrows, and they had only just got to
work with their swords when I came through with the Bellower and sent
the Skraellings flying to their boats. I thought the Icelanders would
have thrashed me. I shall not take it well if you also find fault----"
Their shaking high-pitched laughter drowned his voice.
"We will try to excuse you," Alrek said in a drawl that was still rather
unsteady; whereat there was another outburst; and they swept clamoring
shrilly through the gate.
Inside the wall it looked at the first glance like a trading day, with
shining-shirted groups scattered everywhere across the green, each man
flourishing some kind of weapon while he talked at the top of his great
lungs. But at a second glance the resemblance was less, for no fair-time
mood was in the mien of Karlsefne and his chiefs where they stood under
the council-tree, wiping the paste of sweat and blood from their faces;
and here and there men were writhing on the earth while the sharp knives
of comrades cut arrow-heads out of their flesh. And suddenly the
likeness ceased altogether, as four men came through the bayward gate,
each pair carrying between them the body of a dead Icelander. Silence
touched each group the four passed; and through the hush, Karlsefne's
voice clanged out like a bell, vibrating with wrath:
"I wonder at it that you have control enough left to hold your teeth
over your tongues when the dead are borne past! Up to this time you have
run mad like wolves that have tasted blood. I suppose the strange thing
is not that you have broken the peace-bands at last but that I was able
to hold your beast-cravings so long in check. It is all I can find to
lessen the gall of my defeat."
So long as he stood before them, fixing them with his eyes like swords,
they remained silent; but the booth door had no more than closed behind
him than the excitement leaked out again. In a little while it was
running as high as ever, as the men boasted of the great feats they had
been on the verge of achieving, and vowed exulting vows about what they
would do at the next meeting. It was plain indeed that the peace-bands
which had held their swords in their scabbards were snapped forever.