Doubtless all might have gone well with us but for a strange chance.  As it happened, Athalbrand, a brave and skilful captain, who from his youth had seen much war by sea and land, had a design of his own which brought ours to nothing.  It was that he and his people should sail to Fladstrand, burn the ships of Thorvald, my father, that he knew were fitting out upon the beach, which he hoped to find unguarded, or at most only watched by a few men, and then return to Lesso before he could be fallen upon.  By ill luck he had chosen this very night for his enterprise.  So it came about that just as the moon was sinking our watchmen caught sight of four other ships, which by the shields that hung over their bulwarks they knew must be vessels of war, gliding towards them over the quiet sea.

“Athalbrand comes to meet us!” cried one, and in a minute every man was looking to his arms.  There was no time for plans, since in that low light and mist the vessels were almost bow to bow before we saw each other.  My father’s ship ran in between two of Athalbrand’s that were sailing abreast, while mine and that of Ragnar found themselves almost alongside of the others.  On both sides the sails were let down, for none had any thought of flight.  Some rushed to the oars and got enough of them out to work the ships.  Others ran to the grappling irons, and the rest began to shoot with their bows.  Before one could count two hundred from the time of sighting, the war cry of “Valhalla!  Valhalla!  Victory or Valhalla!” broke upon the silence of the night and the battle had begun.

It was a very fierce battle, and one that the gathering darkness made more grim.  Each ship fought without heed to the others, for as the fray went on they drifted apart, grappled to their foes.  My father, Thorvald’s, vessel fared the worst, since it had an enemy on either bulwark.  He boarded one and cleared it, losing many men.  Then the crew of the other rushed on to him as he regained his own ship.  The end of it was that my father and all his folk were killed, but only after they had slain the most of their foes, for they died fighting very bravely.

Between Ragnar’s ship and that of Athalbrand himself the fray was more even.  Ragnar boarded Athalbrand and was driven back.  Athalbrand boarded Ragnar and was driven back.  Then for the second time Ragnar boarded Athalbrand with those men who were left to him.  In the narrow waist of Athalbrand’s ship a mighty battle was fought, and here at last Ragnar and Athalbrand found themselves face to face.

They hacked at each other with their axes, till at length Ragnar, with a fearful blow, drove in Athalbrand’s helmet and clove his skull in two, so that he died.  But even as he fell, a man, it may have been friend or foe, for the moon was sinking and the darkness grew dense, thrust a spear into Ragnar’s back, and he was carried, dying, to his own vessel by those who remained to him.