Halgrin Gustagsson gently probed his black eye with a stubby finger, then stuck the finger in his mouth and waggled his loose tooth. He had to admit that Olnir Ironhall threw a respectable right cross, and not a bad left hook either. He started through the woods again, continuing his patrol. If his old friend had been there with him he would have complimented him on his strength, but Olnir was flat on his back in old Borek the bone-setter’s tent with a broken right arm and a fractured skull.
That had been an accident, and Halgrin was as sorry as anybody about it. Olnir had put a foot wrong earlier that night, as the two of them had slugged it out by the steep bank of the river where Thane Redhelm’s company had made camp, and he had fallen hard on some rocks that jutted from the swift flowing current.
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