RAY sky, gray sea, gray land. Greasy, steep-crested combers that heaved and toppled endlessly out of the west against the slaty rocks which lifted jagged crests toward smoky cloud wraiths overhead. And riding the waves—poised midway betwixt sea floor and sky roof—a half dozen low-waisted, crawling craft, wet hulls all green and sheeny black, oar shafts a-drip as they flashed up and down, single masts tossing crazily, dragon prows dipping and preening in a gay glitter of green, red and gold.
Foremost of the little fleet was Swain Olaf's son's great dragon Deathbringer, dashing the sea to foam with her sixty oars, while the men on her rowing benches chanted in harmony the grunting refrain of the “Rowers' Song'—“Ha! Hee! Ho! Ha-aah!”
Erik Skallagrim's son, who was Swain's forecastleman, beat the time for the stroke on his shield; now and then a burst of song from one of the two scalds, Armod and Oddi the Little, who attended Swain, enlivened the task, or, at a word from Erik, a fresh man from those who stood on poop and forecastle took the place of a rower whose back muscles had wearied or whose hands were become tender from the oarbite.
Astern of Deathbringer followed another dragon and four longships, the least of them pulling twenty oars a side, and each craft crammed with men, whose shields were jammed edge to edge in the gunwale notches. Every poop showed the glimmer of mail and helm and the flare of crimson cloaks where the chiefs stood by the helmsmen.
There were full arms' chests lashed to the poop and forecastle bulkheads, and beneath the rowing benches were stowed fur sleeping bags for the who labored at the bucking oars. Under the gangway boards were packed barrels of ripe Orkney ale and a sufficiency of stones, both for ballast and for close work in the fighting. A stout fleet, and well-supplied.
Swain, himself, stood behind Erik, keeping an eye on all his ships, and conning the course as they drew in closer to the land. He was a tall man, but not so tall as the tallest; thick in the barrel, with a ruddy golden beard and eyes of a cold, merciless blue.
Of him it was said that he was the greatest man in all the Northern lands, albeit in station he was no more than a bondi—farmer—in the Orkneys. And certain it is that in his day the were tireless in the chanting of his praises, notwithstanding he was one who never gave rewards for the celebrating of his deeds and would tolerate only the two scalds, Armod and Oddi, in his company. And these two, rather because of their valiance as warriors than for their scaldcraft, at which, indeed, he was accustomed ordinarily to jeer.
From his youth he had been successful as a vikingfarer, and early won fame by reason of his feud with Olvir Rosta who was as noted for wickedness as Swain was for honorable achievements. Olvir had been the bane of Swain's father and mother and his two brothers, while Swain had burned Olvir's grandmother, Frakork the Witch, and driven Olvir into outlawry.
Back and forth across the world the two harried one another, and a red trail they blazed, recking naught of whom they slew or injured, if the doing of it harmed the other.
Once Swain pursued Olvir to Mikligard and compelled the Roisterer to flee the service of the Greek emperor. With Swain hard upon his heels, Olvir sailed westward beyond Irland even to Greenland, and fearing that Swain would come after him there, fared on west and south to that Wineland the Good which Leif Erik's son had discovered.
Nor was his fear unjustified, for Swain followed Olvir's keel furrow to Greenland, chased him south past Furdurstrandi—the Long and Wonderful Beaches, whose silvery gleam has lured men to death by thousands—and finally ran him to ground in the forest inland from the Skraelings' Coast, where no Norsemen, save those of their companies, ever had been before.
But that tale is told elsewhere, and in this place we say only that fate cheated Swain of his vengeance again, and Olvir turned his prow eastward, with the Orkneyman astern.
Thereafterward the two enemies became involved upon opposite sides in the series of Kings' Wars which rent Norway, when the three sons of King Harald Gillichrist—King Ingi, King Sigurd and King Eystein—fell out amongst themselves and struggled to attain sole power. Swain espoused Ingi's cause, and for Ingi, who was a cripple, slew Sigurd in a street fray in front of Sigrid Saeta's tavern in Bergen, whereby he was dubbed Kingsbane. He also aided Ingi in the struggle with Eystein, and through his craft Ingi was able to secure Eystein's death at the hands of the traitor, Simon Skalp.