‘You have always dealt truly and kindly with me,’ said Gunnar, when Njal had finished speaking, ‘and if ill befall me, take heed, I pray you, of my son and Hogni. As for Grani, he has an evil nature, and there is no turning him from bad deeds.’
It was in the autumn that Mord, the son of Valgard, sent word to Gunnar’s foes that the time had come to make the attack upon Lithend, as all his men had gone to the haymaking on the isles of the sea. So they set forth secretly, but stopped first at the farm nearest to Lithend, where they seized the farmer, and warned him that unless he came with them and put to death the hound Sam which had guarded Gunnar ever since Olaf the Peacock had bestowed him as a gift, his own life should be forfeit. Thorkell the farmer was sore at heart when he heard what was required of him, but he took his axe and went with the rest. It was easy to entice Sam the hound into a hollow dell; but when he saw the crowd of men behind Thorkell he knew that evil was afoot, and sprang on Thorkell and tore open his throat. Then Aumond of Witchwood smote him on the head with his axe, and Sam gave a howl which was not the utterance of any mortal dog, and rolled over.
Gunnar, who was sleeping in the narrow space above his great wooden hall, heard the awful sound, and said to himself: ‘So they have killed thee, Sam, my fosterling. Well, I will follow thee soon;’ and, taking his bill in his hand, he went up into the roof of the hall, where among the beams were little slits for windows. In the winter there were shutters fastened over these little slits, but now they were left open.
From the beam on which he was crouching Gunnar saw a red tunic slipping by the window, and he thrust swiftly out his bill. In a moment a man’s body fell upon the ground below.
‘Well, is Gunnar at home?’ said Gizur, and Thorgrim the Easterling answered: ‘Go and see for yourselves; but if Gunnar is not at home, his bill is,’ and those were his last words, for the thrust had been mortal.
It hardly seemed possible that one man could keep such a force at bay, but wherever they went Gunnar’s arrows followed them. Three times they came on, and three times they fell back, and Gunnar’s heart beat high, for he thought that perchance their courage might fail, and that they would return whither they had come.
‘One of their own arrows sticks outside the window,’ he said, laughing loud in his glee; ‘I will send it to kill its master.’ But his mother answered: ‘It is ill to waken a sleeping dog, my son.’
Her words were wise, but Gunnar would not listen to them. He shot the arrow into the midst of the men gathered beneath him, and knew not that it had dealt a death-blow, or that Gizur the white had been watching its course.