On the afternoon of the fourth day after their departure from Gröning they reached a place where two paths crossed. Here they halted, and the two guides said that the lake was now just ahead of them and that the bandits’ village lay between it and them. It had been a hard march, but both Orm and Olof Summerbird agreed that they should attack at once; for they were beginning to run short of food, and both of them were impatient to proceed with the business. Some of the young men in the band then climbed up into a tree on a hill to spy out the lie of the village, and Orm divided the men into three bands. Toke was to lead one, Olof the second, and Orm himself the third. He kept the hounds with him, so that they should not be slipped too soon. Toke was to attack from the north, and Olof Summerbird from the south. Blackhair went with Toke, accompanied also by Sone’s sons, who were already beginning to reckon themselves as Blackhair’s men. Orm commanded them that they should set fire to no house, and maltreat no woman, since some of them might have been stolen from good husbands. When Toke sounded his horn, both bands were to attack with all speed, though without war-whoops.
Toke and Olof moved quietly off with their men, while Orm and his band crept stealthily forward through the undergrowth until they reached the skirts of the forest a short way from the village. Here the men seated themselves on the ground and began to gnaw at the little food they had left, while they waited for the sound of Toke’s horn.
Orm took Spof with him and crept forward into a clump of elderbushes. There they lay, scanning the village. It looked to be large, and many of the houses in it were new. People could be seen working in the spaces between them, both men and women. Spof calculated that a village of that size might be reckoned to contain a hundred and fifty men. Between them and the village, in a dip in the ground, there stood a small pool, which evidently served the village as a well. An old woman, carrying a yoke with two buckets, came down to it, drew water, and trudged back again. Then two men appeared and watered four horses. After the horses had drunk, they became restless and began to prance, and Orm thought that they must have sensed the presence of the hounds. But the hounds stood stock-still behind Orm, sniffing and trembling and making no sound.
The men at the well got their horses under control and led them back to the village. A short while elapsed, and then three women walked down to the pool carrying a bucket in either hand. There were two men with them who appeared to be their guards. Orm caught his breath, for the tallest of the women was Ludmilla. He mumbled this into Spof’s ear, and Spof muttered back that they were within bowshot. Still Toke’s horn did not sound, and Orm was unwilling to disclose the presence of his men prematurely; however, he signaled to two men crouching near him who had been with him in the battle at the weirs and who were reckoned to be sure marksmen. They said that they thought they could mark the men at the well, rose to their feet, each keeping himself concealed behind his tree, and set arrows to their bowstrings. But Orm bade them wait awhile yet.
The women had by now filled their buckets, and turned to go back to the village. As they did so, Orm pursed his lips and uttered a cry like a buzzard’s call, repeating it once. It was a call that he could skillfully ape, and all his children were acquainted with it. Ludmilla stiffened as she heard it. She took a few slow steps after her companions; then she stumbled, so that all the water in her buckets was spilled. She said something to the men and turned back to the well to refill her buckets. She did this as slowly as she might; then, when they were full, she sat down on the ground and clasped her foot. The two men said something to her in stern voices and went up to her to force her to her feet; but as they reached out their hands to her, she threw herself on her back and began to scream.
Still no sound was heard from Toke’s side; but when the hounds heard Ludmilla scream, they began to bay, and Orm knew that their presence was now revealed.
Orm muttered a word to his two archers, and their bows sang as one. Their aim was true, and their arrows found their marks; but the men they struck were wearing thick leather jackets and remained on their feet. They pulled the arrows from their flesh and shouted for help. Then Ludmilla leaped to her feet, struck one of them on the head with a bucket, and ran with all her might toward the forest. The two men made after her and began rapidly to overtake her; meanwhile men appeared from the houses to learn the cause of all this confusion.
“Slip the hounds,” said Orm, and sprang out of the bushes. As he did so, Toke’s horn wound, followed by violent whooping.
But both the horn and the whoops of the men were quickly drowned as the great hounds, slipped at last from their leashes, began to bay fearfully. As the two men chasing Ludmilla saw them, they halted in terror. One turned tail and fled screaming, until the swiftest of the hounds caught him and, leaping upon his neck, felled him to the ground; but the other, keeping his head, ran into the pool and, turning there, drew his sword and stood his ground. Three of the hounds leaped simultaneously at him; he met one of them with his sword, but the other two knocked him off his feet, so that he disappeared beneath the water; and only the hounds came up again.
Ludmilla danced for joy when she recognized Orm. She began at once to ask about Olof and the gold, and he told her. She herself, she said, had been treated as befitted a chieftain’s daughter and had not been forced to lie with any man save the crazy priest, who had treated her not unkindly, so that she might have suffered worse.
Orm sent after Spof, and bade him and two others of the older men take Ludmilla a short way into the forest and remain there with her until the fighting in the village had ceased. The other women came timidly up to them; they were, they said, the priest’s women. When the hounds had appeared, they had flung themselves face downwards on the ground and remained motionless, so that the hounds had not touched them.
By the time that Orm and his men reached the village, the fighting was already fierce. Olof’s men were engaging a group of bandits in a street between two houses, and his voice was heard to cry above the uproar that the man with the black beard was for his sword alone. Orm attacked the bandits from the rear, losing several men to arrows shot from the houses; but although the bandits defended themselves valiantly, they were at length encircled and overcome. Then Orm led his men into the houses to fight with the men who were still holding out there. He saw two of his hounds lying dead with spears through their bodies, but each of them had his man under him, and the others could still be heard baying fearfully toward the lake.
Orm met Olof Summerbird; his face was bloody and his shield heavily scarred.
“Ludmilla is safe!” cried Orm. “I have her in good keeping.”
“I thank Thee, Christ!” cried Olof. “But where is the blackbeard? He is mine!”
Toke’s men had met the fiercest opposition, for many of the bandits had rushed to meet them at the first sound of whooping. Orm and Olof gathered their men and led them to Toke’s assistance, attacking their enemies in the rear. Here the fighting became very violent, and many men fell on both sides, for the bandits fought like berserks. Orm pursued one, who had managed to break out, around the corner of a house, but as he passed a doorway, a man clad in a chain shirt and a bald man armed with an ax leaped out and attacked him. Orm hewed at the chain-shirted man so that he rolled on the ground, and in the same instant leaped nimbly aside to evade the other’s ax, but as he did so, his foot slipped on a heap of dung and he fell on his neck. As he fell, he saw the bald man raise his ax again, and, he said afterwards, his thoughts went back to the battle at Maldon long before and the shields that had covered him there, and he felt little joy at the thought that his next night’s camp would be on heavenly ground. But the bald man opened his eyes and mouth wide and let go his ax and sank on his hands and knees and knelt there, staring; and as Orm got to his feet again, he heard his name shouted from a house ahead of him and saw Sone’s sons sitting astride the roof, waving their bows in pride at their good marksmanship.