father's side and strike his small blow, beside those mighty ones which
Thor could not have bettered.

But even as he was thus uplifted the end came. Thorwald Thorwaldson
tottered and went down, for a hurled axe had cleft him between helm and
byrnie. With him fell the last hope of Hightown and the famished clan under
Sunfell. The Shield-ring was no more. Biorn found himself swept back as the
press of numbers overbore the little knot of sorely wounded men. Someone
caught him by the arm and snatched him from the mellay into the cover of a
thicket. He saw dimly that it was Leif.

He was giddy and retching from weariness, and something inside him was cold
as ice, though his head burned. It was not rage or grief, but awe, for his
father had fallen and the end of the world had come. The noise of the
battle died, as the two pushed through the undergrowth and came into the
open spaces of the wood. It was growing very dark, but still Leif dragged
him onwards. Then suddenly he fell forward on his face, and Biorn, as he
stumbled over him. found his hands wet with blood.

"I am for death," Leif whispered. "Put your ear close, prince. I am Leif
the Outborn and I know the hidden things.... You are the heir of Thorwald
Thorwaldson and you will not die.... I see a long road, but at the end a
great kingdom. Farewell, little Biorn. We have been good comrades, you and
I. Katla from Sigg spoke the true word. . . "

And when Biorn fetched water in his horn from a woodland pool he found Leif
with a cold brow.

Blind with sorrow and fatigue, the boy stumbled on, without purpose. He was
lonely in the wide world, many miles from his home, and all his kin were