Page:The North Star (1904).djvu/47

Rh “Erik! my son!” shouted the overlord, as pressed by his mighty opponent, Vagn, Sweyn’s ship began to waver. “See the danger of the boy, thy brother.”

But no need to call upon Erik. Through the arrows and spears that rained like leaves in the autumn storms, Erik rowed to the side of his brother. Vagn was close at hand, and when the champions met the slaughter grew terrible. Earl Haakon’s mighty coat of linked steel was pierced as it were a maiden’s silken robe. He threw aside the shirt of mail with a hundred arrows hanging upon it, and stood, fearlessly, in his leathern jacket and tunic, his brawny arms bared and his full-muscled throat unbound.

From the higher ships of the Jomsvikings the arrows fell down in pitiless showers, speeded and sharpened in their descent, to the lower decks of Earl Haakon’s fleet. Surely the horde of Earl Sigvalde, the fierce, wild warriors from the banks of the Oder, were gaining upon the dauntless Erik.

The old earl wavered. Fear shook his heart, and he cried out: “The gods are angry, my son! O Erik! my son, the old gods have turned from us; the great, strong gods have scorned us that we have given their land, the hills and the seas of Odin and Thor, to the White Christ; that we have hung up a pale, bleeding Nazarene who died in silence and in meekness, in the sight of the Norsemen, whom they have taught to reach Valhalla by the fierce path of war.”