ALL THIS WHILE Swanhild heard the blows and shouts, but she did not look, and might not make out what went on there. She hugged her knees up close to her chest and let her hair fall athwart her face, and she licked her lips gently. Her nose was runny and her cheeks burned from the ice: she was cold there, hungry, weary and afraid. After Hogni fell, Skarphedin sat at the cave-mouth and sharpened his weapons. He called back to Swanhild but she did not answer him and let him take it that she slept. But her thoughts ran on to Hof and the longfire and her bed beneath the old roof there, as if that place were still her home.