In the end, only seven ships arrived from the neighboring lands, bringing the total, with Hakon"s ships, to nine. Nine ships against Gamle"s twenty. A few more men came with their rusted helmets and hand axes and spears from the various homesteads that dotted the island, but in the end, it was Gamle"s army of a thousand against Hakon"s motley hundreds.
Hakon"s army straddled the north side of a plain called Rastarkalv, which was a morning"s hike south from Birkestrand. The clouds hung dark and ominous above the plain, remnants of the fierce storm that had blown through the day before and turned the plain into a mire of wet grass and muddy pools. To their left was the gray sea. To their right, the ground sloped upward to a low ridge. On its southern end, the ridge angled sharply down to th
