Now a cold thrill of fear for Osritha ran through me, and then came hot rage, and for a little I was beside myself, as it were, glaring on that ship.  Then I grew cool and desperate, longing only to be hand to hand with them.

Swiftly we bore down on the ship, and now from her decks came the hoarse call of uncouth war horns, and her crew came swarming back from the streets with shouts and yells, crossing Ingvar’s ship to reach their own, for she lay alongside, stem to stern of the Dane, and next to the open water.

Now I could see that men fought with the last of the Jomsburgers as they came down the street to their ship, and there were no houses burning, so that they could have been for no long time ashore.  And that was good to know.

We came into the channel abreast of her, and then Thormod roared to me: 

“Now I will ram her.  Board her as we strike if we do not sink her!”

Then he called on the oarsmen, and they cheered and tugged at the oars, the men in the waist helping them, and my fore deck warriors gripping the bulwarks against the shock.  Down we swooped like a falcon on a wild duck, and as we came the Jomsburgers howled and left their own ship, climbing into Ingvar’s to fly the crash, while some tried to cast off, but too late.

“Shoot!” I shouted to my men, and the arrows flew.

Through skin-clad backs and bare necks the arrows pierced, and the smitten pirates fell back into their own ship, as they swarmed the higher sides of Ingvar’s, like leaves from a tree.

Then with a mighty crash and rending of cloven timbers our dragon stem crushed the Jomsburg ship from gunwale to gunwale, splintering the rail of the other ship as the wreck parted and sunk on either side of our bows, while above the rending of planks and rush of waters rose the howls of the drowning men.

I clung to the dragon’s neck, and the shock felled me not.  Yet my men went headlong over the oarsmen as we struck, rising again with a great shout of grim laughter, to follow me over the bows as I leapt among the pirates who thronged on Ingvar’s deck before me.

Then was the sternest fight I have ever seen, for we fought at close quarters, they for dear life, and we for those even dearer than life.  There was no word of quarter, and at first, after our cheer on boarding, there was little noise beyond the ringing of weapon on helm and shield and mail, mixed with the snarls of the foul black-bearded savages against us and the smothered oaths of our men.

Then came a thickness in the air and a breath of chill damp over me, and all in a moment that creeping sea fog settled down on us, and straightway so thick it was, that save of those before and on either side of him no man might see aught, but must fight in a ring of dense mist that hemmed him round.  And for a while out of that mist the arrows hissed, shot by unseen hands, and darts, hurled by whom one might not know, smote friend and foe alike, while if one slew his man, out of the fog came another to take his place, seeming endless foes.  And as in a dream the noise of battle sounded, and the fight never slackened.