fear.

Night came and a young moon, and still the fight continued. But the
Shield-ring was growing ragged, for the men of Hightown were fighting
one to eight, and these are odds that cannot last. Sometimes it would
waver, and an enemy would slip inside, and before he sank dead would
have sorely wounded one of Ironbeard's company.

And now Biorn could see his father, larger than human, it seemed, in
the dim light, swinging his sword Tyrfing, and crooning to himself as
he laid low his antagonists. At the sight a madness rose in the boy's
heart. Behind in the sky clouds were banking, dark clouds like horses,
with one ahead white and moontipped, the very riders he had watched with
Leif from the firth shore. The Walkyries were come for the chosen, and
he would fain be one of them. All fear had gone from him. His passion
was to be by his father's side and strike his small blow, beside those
mighty ones which Thor could not have bettered.

But even as he was thus uplifted the end came. Thorwald Thorwaldson
tottered and went down, for a hurled axe had cleft him between helm and
byrnie. With him fell the last hope of Hightown and the famished clan
under Sunfell. The Shield-ring was no more. Biorn found himself swept
back as the press of numbers overbore the little knot of sorely wounded
men. Someone caught him by the arm and snatched him from the mellay into
the cover of a thicket. He saw dimly that it was Leif.

He was giddy and retching from weariness, and something inside him was
cold as ice, though his head burned. It was not rage or grief, but awe,
for his father had fallen and the end of the world had come. The noise
of the battle died, as the two pushed through the undergrowth and came
into the open spaces of the wood. It was growing very dark, but still
Leif dragged him onwards. Then suddenly he fell forward on his face, and
Biorn, as he stumbled over him found his hands wet with blood.

"I am for death," Leif whispered. "Put your ear close, prince. I am
Leif the Outborn and I know the hidden things.... You are the heir of
Thorwald Thorwaldson and you will not die.... I see a long road, but
at the end a great kingdom. Farewell, little Biorn. We have been good
comrades, you and I. Katla from Sigg spoke the true word..."

And when Biorn fetched water in his horn from a woodland pool he found
Leif with a cold brow.

Blind with sorrow and fatigue, the boy stumbled on, without purpose. He
was lonely in the wide world