It will be all the same in the end." Presently Erling came alongside me, leaving the housecarl to mind his comrade.

He held out a broken arrow to me.
"I said they were trolls," he remarked.

"See, this is an elf shot." And truly the arrow which he had drawn from one of the horses had as well wrought a flint head as I have ever seen--lustrous black, and covered with tiny chippings.
"It is a better made head than usual," I said; "but many a thrall has naught but flint-headed arrows in his quiver as he tends the swine in the forest.

They are good enough against the forest beasts." Erling laughed.

"Maybe.