"It is unlikely that you will do any hunting for some time if you do not come back."
As a flame to a dry leaf, so was a threat to Brand's temper. Hissing defiance, it flared up, and he redoubled his speed.
Above the creak of his skees he heard at the same instant two sounds,—Gard's voice crying: "Would you kill him?" and the twang of Alrek's bow-string. Then his right arm dropped at his side with an arrow through it. His chief had foretold truly that he would do no more hunting for some time. It was as much in rage as pain that he caught at the shaft, cursing.
Gard's relief took the form of boisterous laughter; but the Sword-Bearer, as soon as he could make himself heard, spoke gravely:
"If you think you paid too much for your big words, you have only your own foolishness to thank for making the bargain."
Coming slowly back to them, still holding his arm, Brand's face was as white as it had been that day on shipboard; but there was no less of a swagger in his bearing. "Who says I paid too much?" he panted. "I shall say what I choose though you shoot into me every arrow of your quiver. I find no fault with the bargain!"
Alrek's gravity yielded to one of his short sudden laughs. "Now if you are satisfied, it is certain that I am," he said, and studied the Red One with twinkling eyes. Amusement was still alight in them when he stepped forward and held out his hand, yet there was also in his manner a new cordiality. "It has never happened to me before to meet a sprout to equal you," he declared. "I foretell that I shall certainly kill you some time, but I promise that I will carve runes about you afterward."
"How do you know that it will be you who does the rune-carving?" Brand retorted; but at the same time he yielded his palm with flattered willingness. A little later he even yielded his wounded arm that the hand which put the shaft in might cut it out again.
Twilight never gathered in upon a more contented party than these three weary hunters, sprawled luxuriously on the fragrant heaps of evergreen boughs around the leaping fire, fed to repletion on the daintiest food they knew, pouring their hearts out in discussion of the day's adventures. They fell asleep wrangling over the placing of the antlers on the booth wall.