Liot's feasts are over many men go to sleep in outhouses round the
hall, and we have not force enough here to surround them all at
once."

"I will have no more burnings," said Estein.

"When had we our last?" asked Helgi. "You speak as though we had
done naught but burn foes all our lives. We have never had a
burning before, Estein, and it is better to begin as the burners
than the burned."

"I have lately heard tell of another. It is no work for brave
men."

Helgi shrugged his shoulders.

"Let us drown them then," he said.

Ketill gave another short, gruff laugh.

"Nay, Ketill, I am not jesting; in truth I am in little humour for
that. If seventy brave men cannot clear a hall of two hundred
drinkers, what virtue lies in stout hearts and sharp swords? We
will enter the hall, you from one end and I from the other, and I
think the men of Liot Skulison will not have to complain of too
peaceful an evening."

"We must catch them, then, while they are feasting. Afterwards it
will be too late, with only seventy men," the wary Grim replied.