The mid-part of Weodmonath sees the Lytelman and his band ensconced in Gefnhame. The folk of the steading offer cautious welcome and seek to please their new masters. The two Sweon duguth, Sweyn and Svipdag, freed from the witch’s grasp, offer their strong arms and counsel to Lytelman.
A group led by Eawulf is dispatched to the Pukel caves and Nicor pool to the south to secure the treasures found there and search the place properly. As the day edges towards its end they see a pair of warriors trudging up the gully towards them. They quickly recognise Wistan and Cynewulf who had arrived belatedly at their muster at Brihtnothstead and had headed north in the hopes of joining up with Lytelman and his band. Eawulf offers greeting and guides them back to Gefnhame as twilight falls.
Gefnhame is the largest steading in the fair and rich valley of Gefndene and was once the seat of a thegn. Freed of the witch and under the protection of the goddess Gefion it seems a fair and well-omened place. However, a shadow lingers over the compound where the great hall lies. It seems the witch forbade any to venture forth there during the dark of the night, and no beast can abide to be there in that time. Dogs in particular cannot thole it and Herewulf’s hound would bark and whine all night at the door so that he must needs take it into the woods to stay with the swineherd of a night.
Lytelman takes council with his comrades and together they decide to seek the rede of the goddess. He leads a band comprising Wistan, Eawulf, Cynewulf and Nothgyth along the makeshift causeway that leads from the steading to the sacred pool of Gefion. They had not been long upon this path when Wistan, forging a path at the front, had cause to defend himself from the questing tongue of a giant toad such as they had encountered before in that place. Wistan leapt to attack the beast, striking keen enough blows with his spear but finding its horny hide tough to pierce. Cynewulf and Lytelman leapt off the causeway to attack it. Cynewulf faired well enough, chest-deep in the mire thrusting at its belly with his gar, but Lytelman’s lack of inches told against him as he found himself in over his head in a particularly deep pool, from which he was eventually dragged by Nothgyth. Though thwarted in its first attack on Wistan the beast fought on, snapping at the young atheling with its gaping toothy maw, until Eawulf summoned the Wightbane – Godgift of Thunor – whereon it choose to flee and sink once more into the murky depths of the mire.
At length the party reach the pool of Gefion, nestled in the crags to the north of the valley of Gefndene. Eawulf strips off and taking Lytelman’s offering to the goddess – three marks of good silver in a twisted wire neck-torc – he enters the pool and disappears from the sight the others for a period that makes them fear for his life. However, when he suddenly bursts back from the water he is in no way harmed. He recounts that the goddess chided him for coming to her seeking answers regarding that which was no concern of hers. She suggested that the brave Geats do that for which they were renowned and face up to whatever lurks in the night. She did however, offer the counsel that the harvest should be brought in before the end of Herfestmonath.
That Geats trudge back across the marsh and discuss their plans as they go. Two nights later, they muster in the steading compound at twilight. The group chosen to face the night-terrors comprises Lytelman, Wistan, Herewulf and Nothgyth, along with the Sweons Sweyn and Svipdag. Eawulf, the goda, prepares a rune-marked sanctuary to protect them against wights.
As true-dark falls there is of a sudden an unnatural chill to the air and from the ground spring five lichs, grim-visaged and armed as if for war. It soon becomes clear that iron will not bite upon these grave-spawn, nor do the goda’s Thunor godgifts cause them to quail, and so it is a desperate fight for the Geats. However, Lytelman soon tosses aside his fine axe and draws a rune-marked scramasaex, and while Wistan bravely seeks to encumber its weapon arm, he strikes repeatedly at it to cleave its unnatural flesh. Nothgyth, lithe and nimble as she is now comely, occupies two of the fiends while striking keenly with the obsidian cleaver taken from the mere-folk champion. Sweyn uses his great size and strength to force back his opponent while pummelling with his shield rim. Eawulf seeks to emulate the big Sweon but without his bulk and sinew finds it is hard going. At length he finds himself wrestling on the ground with it while another seeks to carve his tripes with its saex. When a thrown franca – for these lich seem to retain the wit and battle-cunning they had in life – renders Sweyn dazed and absent from the fray matters start to look ill for the Geats, for all that both Nothgyth and Lytelman have put down a fiend apiece.
Then Svipdag, who had rushed back to the hall when the lichs boiled from the ground, reappears, burning brands in either hand, and thrusts them into the back of the one who seemed like to be their leader as he battled Nothgyth. So struck, the lich catches, blazing fire like a great torch and the unatural life leaves it. At the same time Eawulf manages to draw on some great Thunor-gifted strength to throw his opponent from him and dash it to the ground so that the bones of the earth smash it to pieces. Lytelman’s keen blade slays the last of them, leaving the Geats the masters of the field, the witch’s shadow lifted once-and-for-all from Gefnhame.