Round the road-bend Gunnar came panting, followed by Aslak, and behind him, the others. At the ghastly glimpse they caught, through swirl-dust-clouds, of the song-maker laughing like a madman while blood oozed through every slit in his slashed garments, they uttered cries of dismay; but he paid them back with jests shouted hoarsely above the clatter. How could they know what wild joy it was, unhampered as the sweeping fury of a storm! He would have wished never to end it, had he not feared betrayal by that oozing blood. If his strength were to fail before his vengeance was complete—!
To the friends watching him, it was a welcome relief when laughter left his face, and it set instead in the stony lines of one rallying all his forces. Gripping his sword in both hands, he abandoned all pretence of defending himself, bent all his might on beating down Olaf’s guard. Twice, they saw the French One’s blade reach him and open crimson gaps; but he seemed not to feel it. Step by step, he drove his enemy backward until he had him at bay against a tree—until it wanted but one thrust to pin him there—
Why he did not give that thrust, the on-lookers knew first, who saw Eric spring forward with a shrill cry and strike his foster-brother on the breast, plunging into his heart a knife he held. Then their wrath was lost in wonder that the Songsmith did not fall, only staggered back against the low stone wall and leaned there, passing his hand before his eyes as a man trying to clear mist from his vision.
“Eric! It was never you?” he said.
But even as he said it, his glance fell to the reddened blade in the boy’s hand; while Olaf jeered him over the heads of those who were holding him back, telling him that the fight was finished:
“You need not to stare at him. It is even as you see; he has betrayed you.”
No more effort the Songsmith made to maintain his weakening hold upon his sword. Slipping, swaying, staggering, he sank, nor struggled against it. If friends had not been there to care for him, his life had surely passed out through his wounds’ open gates.
XIX
“By bending most, the truest sword is known”
—Northern saying.