Book 4: Ivar 'the Boneless'

3.0 THE DEATH OF ARROW ODD

CHAPTER THREE

THE DEATH OF ARROW ODD   (Circa 912 AD)

'He (Helgi) thus summoned his senior squire and inquired as to the

whereabouts of 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."

'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.'

The Rus' Primary Chronicle

(912 AD)  Once the treaty was concluded, Prince Erik and Ivar returned to Kiev, but Prince Oddi had business in Baghdad and then east on the Caspian, so he bid them farewell on the Black Sea. Prince Ivar noticed that his older brother seemed to be avoiding spending time in Kiev. He seemed to fear Princess Eyfura and Ivar was old enough to understand the history behind the fear. He had heard the tales of Oddi and how he had killed the twelve berserker sons of Eyfura and how he had killed her father, King Frodi, but that was before he knew he was a Prince, the son of Prince Erik. He was a Viking then, and a mighty warrior. Now he was family. Still, he feared Princess Eyfura and he kept a distance from her.

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 Jaederen Province 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, Erik, 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 spectre 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 spectre 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!"