As their eyes held each other it is unlikely that either man realized that any but his foe was in the world. Upon their tense nerves it vibrated like a blow when the voice of the Jarl’s sister rang out behind them:
“Stand!”
The surprise of it seemed to paralyze Olaf so that for an instant he did stand, remaining poised in the air. Then the curve of his parted lips lost all resemblance to a smile.
“Bright Brynhild, this hand shall show you Helvin avenged!” he said, and cleared the remaining space at a stride, his arm uplifted.
In the draught of a breath she was before him, her slim hands locked about his wrist in the effort to pull it down.
“I bid you stop! Helvin is safe! Do you hear me?”
Perhaps his mind really did not hear her. With each word, his eyes froze faster to the Songsmith. Without so much as glancing at her, he put up his sinewy left hand and pried loose her grasp. The bound man cried out to her to give way and leave them,—so little even he knew her Valkyria spirit.
Thunder-strong it gathered in her, lightning-swift it struck. Swooping on the sword which Olaf’s move left exposed at his side, she tore it free. With its upward sweep, she struck the knife from his hold. With its downward stroke she levelled at his breast. He leaped back just in time to save his life, if the rigidness of her arm told the truth.
“Do you think I am as poor-spirited as you are dastardly?” she said.
At a bound his mind was brought back to her, then; and once back, it would have been a dull mind not to see that his suit was in even greater danger than his body. In a trice he had doffed passion, donned reproach.