"Now we shall taste something better than even King Harald's ale," shouted one.
Another rose in his stirrups and sniffed the air.
"Ah! I smell a battle," he cried. "It is sweeter than those strange waters of Arabia."
So the army went merrily through the land. They carried no tents, they had no provision wagons.
"The sky is a good enough tent for a soldier," said the Norsemen. "Why carry provisions when they lie in the farms beside you?"
After two days King Harald saw another army on the hills.
"Thorstein," he shouted, "up with the white shield and go tell King Haki to choose his battle-field. We will wait but an hour. I am eager for the frolic."
So Thorstein raised a white shield on his spear as a sign that he came on an errand of peace. He rode near King Haki, but he could not wait until he came close before he shouted out his message and then turned and rode back.
"Tell your boy king that we will not hang back," Haki called after Thorstein.
King Harald's men waited on the hillside and watched the other army across the valley. They saw King Haki point and saw twenty men ride off as he pointed. They stopped in a patch of hazel and hewed with their axes.