But Skallagrim catches the spear as it flies and hurls it back. It strikes right on the shield of Ospakar and pierces it, ay and the byrnie, and the shoulder that is beneath the byrnie, so that Blacktooth was made unmeet for fight, and howled with pain and rage.
“Go, bid Thorunna draw that splinter forth,” says Skallagrim, “and heal the hole with kisses.”
Now Ospakar, writhing with his hurt, shouts to his men to slay the two of them, and then the fight begins.
One rushes at Eric and smites at him with an axe. The blow falls on his shield, and shears off the side of it, then strikes the byrnie beneath, but lightly. In answer Eric sweeps low at him with Whitefire, and cuts his leg from under him between knee and thigh, and he falls and dies.
Another rushes in. Down flashes Whitefire before he can smite, and the carle’s shield is cloven through. Then he chooses to draw back and fights no more that day.
Skallagrim slays a man, and wounds another sore. A tall chief with a red scar on his face comes at Brighteyes. Twice he feints at the head while Eric watches, then lowers the sword beneath the cover of his shield, and sweeps suddenly at Eric’s legs. Brighteyes leaps high into the air, smiting downward with Whitefire as he leaps, and presently that chief is dead, shorn through shoulder to breast.
Now Skallagrim slays another man, and grows Baresark. He looks so fierce that men fall back from him.
Two rush on Eric, one from either side. The sword of him on the right falls on his shield and sinks in, but Brighteyes twists the shorn shield so strongly that the sword is wrenched from the smiter’s hand. Now the other sword is aloft above him, and that had been Eric’s bane, but Skallagrim glances round and sees it about to fall. He has no time to turn, but dashes the hammer of his axe backward. It falls full on the swordsman’s head, and the head is shattered.
“That was well done,” says Eric as the sword goes down.
“Not so ill but it might be worse,” growls Skallagrim.