One hand stretched behind him to grasp her robe, and one hand thrust across him to clutch his knife-hilt, he had risen to his knee before her. Over his shoulder she saw what he saw—a brass helmet glowing in the firelight where the path gave upon the open, more brass helmets glinting like fire-flies far up the dusk of the trail. Now four figures separated themselves from the throng, and pushing through the wavering rank of foresters, came Towerward,—two figures in dark robes and one wearing the plumed cap of a courtman and one clad in shining mail.
“Mord—and the Shepherd Priest! Gunnar—Visbur!” the Songsmith told them off mechanically.
The arms Brynhild had locked around his neck tightened as she whispered at his ear: “God be praised, Helvin is not there! Love, if they meant us ill, they would not have fetched Gunnar and the Priest, who are our friends.”
But Randvar’s voice was harsh as he loosened her hands that he might rise. “If they mean us well, why do they come with a troop of armed men at their heels?” Never quitting his grip on his hilt, he strode forward and stood a pace beyond his threshold, awaiting them.
Glancing down at her poor attire, it seemed for an instant as though the Jarl’s sister would have shrunk back into the shadow; and then as one would catch up a deserter she caught herself, and holding her head high, moved forward until she stood at her husband’s side.
At sight of the Songsmith, the sentinel of the path cried out earnestly: “We let them through, Rolf’s son, only because they pledged you peace. If they have spoken false—”
He did not finish, but it was not needful that he should. Around the ring of hunters, like the light of a moonbeam, sped the glint of steel. And still beyond that, where wood encompassed the open, there passed of a sudden a noiseless stir, as if from every tree-shadow there had glided a lithe and dusky body. Joining soundlessly as shadows blend, the dark mass drew nearer, until here the firelight was reflected in rows of glittering eyes, there through the gloaming gleamed the pale shapes of stone axes uplifted. It is no shame to the courage of Gunnar the Merry that his handsome face blanched as his glance made the circuit. Mord spoke sternly when they came to a halt before the young master of the Tower.
“What right have you to speak of peacefulness, Randvar, Rolf’s son, that surround yourself with outlaws and savages of the wood, ready to do murder at your bidding?”
Even in the twilight it could be seen how the blood mounted in the Songsmith’s brown face, but there was no wavering in his mouth’s steady line as he answered.
“I take friendship and help where I find them freest and truest, and I expect evil from the quarter whence evil has risen against me before. Though you come in the name of the Jarl, to whom you hold me traitor, I shall not yield a whit more. Your blood be on your heads if you heed me not!”