Book 3: 'Arrow Odd'

35.0 THE PROPHECY OF ARROW ODD, Part Two

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

THE PROPHECY OF ARROW ODD, Part Two (Circa 912 AD)

'After he returned to Kiev, he thought of the horse through which the magicians

had foretold his death. He thus summoned his senior squire and inquired about

the horse which he had ordered to be fed and well cared for. The squire

answered that he was dead. Oleg laughed and mocked the magician,

exclaiming, "Soothsayers tell untruths, and their words are naught but

falsehood. This horse is dead, but I am still alive. Let me see his bones!"

He rode to the place where the bare bones and skull lay. Dismounting from

his horse, he laughed and remarked, "So I was supposed to receive my death

from this skull?" And he stamped upon the skull with his foot. But a serpent

crawled forth from it and bit him in the foot, so that in consequence he

                          sickened and died.'

Hraes' (Rus') Primary Chronicle

(912 AD) Princess Eyfura and Hervor waited through the spring trading season without a sign of Oddi. They were hoping he would have visited Kiev and his father, but he had sent word that he was rebuilding Berurjod in Stavanger Fjord and would arrive in Kiev after the spring trading season. Prince Erik was waiting on the main quay of Kiev, when Oddi sailed up in Fair Faxi. He saw his father and leapt onto the dock. As they embraced and hugged below the dragonhead of Fair Faxi, a slight hooded figure approached and pulled a long blade out from under a cloak. The specter thrust out the blade at Oddi, who instinctively blocked it with his wrist band, and he smashed the figure down to the dock and the specter curled up in pain and lashed out with the sword again, and the edge bit Oddi's ankle to the bone. Then the sword went flying across the dock and clattered on the boardwalk and Erik saw right away that it was Tyrfingr. Oddi pinned the assailant to the decking and pulled back the hood to expose Hervor, dazed but still breathing with a black bolt of lightning painted across her grey stained face. Erik threw his fur cloak over Tyrfingr and saw Eyfura approaching from the longhall, so he rolled the sword into the fur and kicked it into the river. "The water will protect us from the rays of the blade," Erik explained to Oddi as his wife drew near.

"I saw Hervor quickly leave the hall," Eyfura said. "What has she done now?"

They returned to Oddi and Hervor. Erik inspected Oddi's wound while Eyfura revived Hervor. Erik tore the white silk shirt from his chest and tore off a strip of it to tie around Oddi's left leg. He then stripped his belt of his seax and used the sheath to twist the silk strip tight around Oddi's leg. He pulled out the seax and told his son, "Your leg has to come off at the knee!"

"You're mad!" Oddi cried, pulling his leg free of his father. "This limb isn't going anywhere."

"The sword she cut your leg with is Tyrfingr. The blade is poisoned. If I don't take it off at your knee, you'll be dead within hours."

Oddi sat down on the dock, hugging his legs to his body. "I know. I saw what it did to my friend, Hjalmar. It's probably too late already."

"Let me take off your leg, son. Please. We can fit it with a prosthetic."