Days later, in the main hall of Dunbar, Hárekr rested in a large bed, covered with thick animal pelts. His skin was pale, and his body trembled from the cold trapped within him. Beside him, the Saxon healer observed his condition and explained the situation to the interpreter. He sighed before translating it to Torstein:
"He has an icy cold stuck in his bones... The fever is consuming him from the inside."
Torstein sat down abruptly on a stool, overwhelmed by anguish; the boy could die at any moment. To one side of the room, Thorir, who had barely just managed to stand after recovering from his own wound, clenched his fists and said in a somber voice:
"Father, take the men. Let’s go find those pigs and take payment for this in blood."
Torstein looked at him with rage and replied reluctantly:
"What vengeance, Thorir? Can’t you see how he is? If the host finds out that Hárekr is about to die, they will want to take his body back to the fjords immediately. With what face am I going to present myself before the jarl if I deliver her dead son?"
From the bed, Hárekr cleared his throat with a thread of a voice:
"Old man..."
Torstein approached instantly. With a quick gesture, he indicated to the healer to leave the room, and she obeyed in silence.
Once alone with Torstein and Thorir, Hárekr stared at them and murmured:
"If the judgment of the gods is that my journey ends in this strange land... take the gold from our raids and give my body to a ship at sea. Let the fire devour the wood on the waters, so that the currents carry me with honor before the All-Father."
Torstein, between fury and pain, shouted at him with a broken voice:
"Is this where you are going to give up, boy? Is this how you are going to end? What am I going to tell your mother?"
Hárekr coughed again. There was no regret in his eyes: if the Norns had woven this end for his journey, he had no choice but to accept it as a warrior.
Thorir contemplated him with rage and helplessness, unable to articulate a word. Hárekr made a slight gesture with his hand for them to leave him alone.
When they left, the woman and her daughter returned to the room. Hárekr, noticing their presence, pointed with his eyes to a cloth bag placed in a corner. The healer approached and opened it: inside there were gold and silver coins. It was not an incalculable fortune, but it was enough for both of them to live without hardships for the rest of their days.
The woman knelt beside the bed, clasped her hands, and began to silently pray a Christian prayer for the Northman’s life. Hárekr was paying them handsomely; since they set foot in Dunbar, both had been treated with absolute respect by his men.
Outside the hall, upon learning from Torstein that Hárekr’s life was fading, Einar delivered a furious kick against a wooden table, smashing it to pieces:
"Let us sacrifice animals to Eir! How can a son of Ragnarr die like this?! Why do the gods turn their backs on us?"
Thorir nodded with his eyes burning and added:
"Let us return south. Let us cut off the heads of those Saxons and deliver them as an offering beneath the great sacred oak of our people. It will be the best honor for my brother before he enters Valhalla."
Despite the fact that his wounds still pulled at his side, Thorir’s logic was simple: life for life.
Torstein sighed heavily and looked at Einar, knowing the devotion the old warrior professed for the gods:
"Do you think the gods can save him?"
Einar replied with indisputable firmness:
"Hárekr’s destiny is not to die shivering in this bed. The gods still have work for him. Let us try."
Torstein nodded in silence, clinging to that last hope.
That same day, at night, the warriors prepared a stone altar on the dock to make the offerings to the gods.
Einar wore the ceremonial robes for the ritual. It was the first time he had to lead a sacrifice of such magnitude, and a heavy tension spread throughout the dock.
In the room of the main hall, Hárekr continued trapped in an atrocious cold that chilled him to the bone. The high fever made him tremble beneath the pelts, and he began to hallucinate.
In the midst of the fog of his mind, he felt someone take his hand delicately. Turning his face, he thought he saw a woman with reddish hair and a slender figure: it was Huld, looking at him with a serene smile. On her head, she wore the crown of woven flowers used for marriage ceremonies. Hárekr contemplated her fixedly and said in a whisper:
Deep in his being, Hárekr had planned to return to Norway to take her as his wife, knowing that Huld was not a common woman.
The image did not respond to him. What Hárekr did not know was that the one holding his hand in reality was not Huld, but the healer’s little daughter, who, saddened to see him die in that way, squeezed his fingers to say goodbye.
Outside, the ritual began. Einar slit the throats of two sheep and two goats on the stone of the dock, letting the blood run into the sea. The Christian civilians of the city, witnessing the scene from their homes, felt horror and rejection, but for the Vikings, that act was a favorable omen.
The chants and prayers in Old Norse began to resonate throughout the port. The girl, frightened by the din of the drums and the voices outside, tried to free herself from Hárekr’s grip, but she noticed that the chieftain’s hand held her with incredible strength in the midst of his delirium while he murmured over and over again:
"Huld..."
The next day, calm returned to the port. The warriors of the host did not know what the previous night’s sacrifice was for; Torstein and Einar preferred not to reveal Hárekr’s condition so as not to shatter the troops’ morale.
Inside the room, Hárekr continued to sweat from the fever, but the improvement in his face was evident compared to the day before. His breathing was no longer as heavy, and the icy cold of his skin was beginning to yield. Einar, watching him with relief from the doorway, declared enthusiastically:
"The gods have heard us."
Torstein and Thorir nodded in silence. Beside the bed, the Saxon healer thought something very different: for her, it had not been the work of pagan divinities, but of the prayers she had prayed to her God.
The girl, infected by the enthusiasm and attentively following in her mother’s footsteps, moistened cloths in warm water to gently place them on Hárekr’s forehead.
Thus the weeks passed while the young chieftain regained his strength.
January 866 AD.
The Great Heathen Army led by the Ragnarrsson brothers began its crushing advance toward the heart of Northumbria. In its wake, the Saxon villages and fortresses fell plundered and reduced to ashes. The other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, such as Wessex and Mercia, flatly refused to lend aid to a divided Northumbria; in fact, the southern nobles preferred to negotiate agreements and pay tributes in silver to ensure the Vikings did not divert their ships toward their lands.