Asbiorn came to me as I stood and watched the king coming out of
the camp. His face was white and drawn, but he was calm enough.
"Who was the tall, young chief on the red horse?" he asked me.
"Dalfin of Maghera, whom you let go with me," I answered.
"So I thought. Now, I think that he has avenged that doing on the
Caithness shore for you. It is not likely that my father has not
fallen; he was the leader of the wedge. There is no feud now
between you and me."
"There is not," I answered. "I do not know that I had ever thought
of one as possible."
"There would have been had Hakon slain Heidrek," he said.
The old law of the blood feud had its full meaning to him.
"If Heidrek had stayed his men to meet us, Hakon would have given
him terms rather than that this should have been the end," I said.
"I know it, for I heard him say so. But there was a touch of the
berserk in my father since his troubles came. This is not the first
time he has tried to fall fighting against odds. He would not have
listened to Hakon."
He sighed heavily, and then shook himself, so that his mail
rattled. I took his sword from the bottom of a boat on deck in
which I had set it, and gave it back to him, and he girt it on.
"So that is the end," he said.
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