to the north, they spotted their
fleeing prey and scrambled down the acclivity to strike out across the wide,
misty valley below and then up the opposite hillside, streaking after the roe
deer.
"Björn
Ironside! Hasting! Take half the men and circle around behind the herd!"
Ragnar directed as he drew his snorting steed up short, lifting one hand to
bring the hunting party to a halt behind him. "The rest of us will ride
south and head them off before they reach the pass."
With
exuberant shouts, the men were off and away, setting spurs to mounts to thunder
in a cloud of churning snow from the crest, down the incline to the floor of
the valley, where the trees were few and on the forest fringe, although boulders and
smaller rocks swept down from the hills through the years by avalanches hove up
from the ground, and the scrub was more prolific, the earth choked with the
sodden tangle of brush and dead weeds that spread across the marshy ground. At
the heart of the valley, where the mist hung low, a shallow mere stretched, and
this slowed Wulfgar and the other men afoot, so that by the time they had
slogged across the icy water, the men ahorse to the south had succeeded in
turning back the herd of roe deer and driving them toward the hounds and the
rest of the mounted men led by Björn Ironside and Hasting to the north. For a
moment, it seemed the panicked herd would fly deep into the forest to the east,
heedless that the going would be difficult at such a pace, with low-hanging
boughs to hinder the lead stag's antlered head. But in the end, the dogs
prevented this, snarling and snapping and streaming out in a wide half circle
to cut off the herd's course of escape; and the magnificent lead stag swung
hard about to the west, toward the only perceived route to freedom, which lay
across the mere and the valley, on the hillside whence the hunting party had
come.
Realizing
this, Wulfgar and the other men afoot stealthily advanced, making little sound upon
the snowy earth, using the stones and thickets and brambles for cover, their
furs and hide garments providing additional camouflage from their prey. Silent
and alert, they watched from their places of concealment, waiting to show
themselves as the herd came, leaping agilely over rocks and scrub alike,
afraid, upwind, into the snare laid by the men. From where he crouched behind a
stout bush to avoid being trampled, Wulfgar could now see through its skein of
bare branches the blur of laboring greyish sides and white underbellies as the
roe deer pelted toward him, the whites of their terrified eyes and the frantic
flaring of their black-velvet nostrils as the hounds came hard on the herd's
heels and the jarlar and thegns closed in from the north and the
south, yanking mounts up short and readying bows and arrows. At Ragnar's signal,
the chief hunter sounded his horn long and loud; and at that, the hunters and
freedmen rose up from their hiding places, clambering onto boulders and
outcrops for safety, yelling fiercely and waving their arms wildly at the
oncoming roe deer, throwing them into further panic and disarray. The violence
that erupted was fatal to man as well as beast as, in the confusion, Wulfgar
saw a hunter knocked down and crushed beneath stampeding hooves, and a freedman
gored by lowered antlers in passing. But most of the startled herd
instinctively shied away from the shouting men, crashing into other roe deer as
bows were drawn tight and notched arrows loosed amid the chaos.
One
of the roe deer stumbled and went down then, an arrow protruding from its
heaving side, and then another roe deer and yet another fell as, too late, the
lead stag realized the trap and raced on out of sheer instinct to survive,
sailing over a hummock and then bounding into the mere, striving to gain the
trees at the foot of the western hills, the majority of the herd coming hard
and fast behind, nearly trampling one another in their haste to escape as some
of their number ran crazily in the
fleeing prey and scrambled down the acclivity to strike out across the wide,
misty valley below and then up the opposite hillside, streaking after the roe
deer.
"Björn
Ironside! Hasting! Take half the men and circle around behind the herd!"
Ragnar directed as he drew his snorting steed up short, lifting one hand to
bring the hunting party to a halt behind him. "The rest of us will ride
south and head them off before they reach the pass."
With
exuberant shouts, the men were off and away, setting spurs to mounts to thunder
in a cloud of churning snow from the crest, down the incline to the floor of
the valley, where the trees were few and on the forest fringe, although boulders and
smaller rocks swept down from the hills through the years by avalanches hove up
from the ground, and the scrub was more prolific, the earth choked with the
sodden tangle of brush and dead weeds that spread across the marshy ground. At
the heart of the valley, where the mist hung low, a shallow mere stretched, and
this slowed Wulfgar and the other men afoot, so that by the time they had
slogged across the icy water, the men ahorse to the south had succeeded in
turning back the herd of roe deer and driving them toward the hounds and the
rest of the mounted men led by Björn Ironside and Hasting to the north. For a
moment, it seemed the panicked herd would fly deep into the forest to the east,
heedless that the going would be difficult at such a pace, with low-hanging
boughs to hinder the lead stag's antlered head. But in the end, the dogs
prevented this, snarling and snapping and streaming out in a wide half circle
to cut off the herd's course of escape; and the magnificent lead stag swung
hard about to the west, toward the only perceived route to freedom, which lay
across the mere and the valley, on the hillside whence the hunting party had
come.
Realizing
this, Wulfgar and the other men afoot stealthily advanced, making little sound upon
the snowy earth, using the stones and thickets and brambles for cover, their
furs and hide garments providing additional camouflage from their prey. Silent
and alert, they watched from their places of concealment, waiting to show
themselves as the herd came, leaping agilely over rocks and scrub alike,
afraid, upwind, into the snare laid by the men. From where he crouched behind a
stout bush to avoid being trampled, Wulfgar could now see through its skein of
bare branches the blur of laboring greyish sides and white underbellies as the
roe deer pelted toward him, the whites of their terrified eyes and the frantic
flaring of their black-velvet nostrils as the hounds came hard on the herd's
heels and the jarlar and thegns closed in from the north and the
south, yanking mounts up short and readying bows and arrows. At Ragnar's signal,
the chief hunter sounded his horn long and loud; and at that, the hunters and
freedmen rose up from their hiding places, clambering onto boulders and
outcrops for safety, yelling fiercely and waving their arms wildly at the
oncoming roe deer, throwing them into further panic and disarray. The violence
that erupted was fatal to man as well as beast as, in the confusion, Wulfgar
saw a hunter knocked down and crushed beneath stampeding hooves, and a freedman
gored by lowered antlers in passing. But most of the startled herd
instinctively shied away from the shouting men, crashing into other roe deer as
bows were drawn tight and notched arrows loosed amid the chaos.
One
of the roe deer stumbled and went down then, an arrow protruding from its
heaving side, and then another roe deer and yet another fell as, too late, the
lead stag realized the trap and raced on out of sheer instinct to survive,
sailing over a hummock and then bounding into the mere, striving to gain the
trees at the foot of the western hills, the majority of the herd coming hard
and fast behind, nearly trampling one another in their haste to escape as some
of their number ran crazily in the
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