That night Skarphedinn did not lie down to rest, nor his brothers, nor Kari.
Then Bergthora, Nial’s wife, said to her husband: “What are our sons talking about out of doors?”
“In the old days when their counsels were good,” said Nial, “seldom was I left out of them, but now they make their plans alone, and tell me nothing of them.”
That night when it was dark the sons of Nial and Kari arose and rode to Ossaby, their weapons in their hands. They stopped under the fence that encircled Hoskuld’s house, hidden from sight. The weather was good and the sun just risen.
Now it happened that about that time Hoskuld, the Priest of Whiteness, awoke, and put on his clothes and flung about his shoulders a new crimson cloak embroidered to the waist, which Flosi, his wife’s uncle, had given him. He took his corn-sieve and walked along the fence, sowing the corn as he went; but in his left hand he carried his sword.
Skarphedinn and the others sprang up as he came near, and made a rush at him, but Hoskuld, seeing them, tried to turn away. It is not said that he defended himself with his sword from Skarphedinn.
Then Skarphedinn ran up, crying out: “Do not try to turn on thy heel, Whiteness Priest,” and with that he hewed at him, smiting him on the head with such a blow that he fell on his knees.
“God help me, and forgive you,” said Hoskuld, as one after the other they thrust him through.
Then Mord slipped off as fast as he could, and gave out through the country that Nial’s sons had slain their foster-brother, Hoskuld, but nothing was said about his own part in the matter.
The day was not far gone when he gathered men together to go down with him to Ossaby, to bear witness of the deed, and he showed them the wounds, and said that this wound was dealt by Skarphedinn, the next by Helgi or Grim, the next by Kari, and so on; but there was one wound that he said he knew not who dealt it, for that wound was made by himself. He it was who set on foot the law against the sons of Nial.