Chapter 71: Oath

Dangling from the pit's wall above laughing dead warriors, Thorfinn spots Bjorn among them and then Askeladd, perched on a pillar with a bloody sword on his shoulder. Askeladd tells him this is no Valhalla but the real world in its ultimate state of war, the final sink where every warrior ends up, where all are enemies and no one wins. He reminds Thorfinn that he once lived here until he was hollowed out and escaped, a rare thing, and asks what fills him now that the warrior he was has drained away. Thorfinn answers bitterly that he is still a warrior, dragged back because he threw a punch in anger. When the corpses stack themselves into a grotesque tower to reach him and he kicks them off, Askeladd tells him to look closer: these are all people he killed. Weeping, Thorfinn admits to the dead that he cannot recall who they were or when he took their lives, and tells them he is sorry. Askeladd leaps down to cut apart the archers firing at him, then orders Thorfinn to stop wallowing, let the dead cling to him, carry them along, and climb up to wage his true battle and become a true warrior.

Thorfinn wakes on the road reaching for the sky, the dream and Askeladd's parting words fresh in his mind. He rushes to Einar, helps him up, and supports him as they walk. When Einar jokes that at least the punch felt good, Thorfinn begins to cry and confesses everything: that he has lived by violence without hope, killed countless people who had no quarrel with him, and struck a man again that very day knowing it would fix nothing. Wiping his tears, he swears he will never harm another person, that from this day he is finished with violence, and that he will be reborn, atone for his deeds, and fight the true battle. Einar admits he does not fully understand but thinks he grasps it, and promises they will be reborn together. Meanwhile the farmhands demand Ketil punish the slaves, but Ketil produces an agate button that Pater recovered from the ruined field and traces it to the farmhand Trygve, forcing the accusers to retreat lest they be exposed. He declares that wild pigs ruined the crop and that no fight occurred, ending the matter, and praises Pater's courage, which Pater credits to his own past in slavery. Back in the fields, Thorfinn and Einar work with fresh determination as Sverkel offers Thorfinn advice on letting the hoe's own weight do the work.

Askeladd appears in Thorfinn's dream and challenges him to shoulder the men he has killed and fight a true battle. Thorfinn wakes and delivers his defining oath, renouncing violence, vowing to atone, and pledging to be reborn, with Einar joining him. Ketil uses Pater's evidence, Trygve's agate button, to shield the slaves from punishment and quietly force the farmhands to back down. The chapter closes with the two slaves returning to the fields under Sverkel's guidance.

This is a landmark chapter, delivering Thorfinn's oath of nonviolence that defines the rest of the series and echoing Askeladd's final words to become a true warrior. The volume's supplemental pages include a Map of Thorfinn's Travels, an afterword on boys becoming men, translation notes, a bonus story, and an Ask Yukimura Q&A on theology and historical slavery. The events were adapted in Episode 33 of the anime.