"I come as your daughter's wooer."
Rudulf laughed derisively, and surveyed Olvir from helmet to buskin.
"A gay bird of the South," he sneered. "He had best wing it home again. The North is cold for such."
"The gerfalcon soars over the ice-fells," rejoined Olvir.
"Gerfalcon--gerfalcon!" muttered Rudulf, in an altered tone. "It may be! But hearken, my gay king's rider. Falcon or sparrow, you had best be winging southward. I have broken the backs of two Saxon and three Sorb champions, and my strength is still with me. Fastrada, my daughter, goes to no man who cannot best me at my chosen game."
Olvir silently laid aside his helmet and unclasped his mail-serk.
"I am ready," he said.
But Rudulf shook his grisly head.
"It were a pity to mar so shapely a child," he muttered. "Do not be rash, boy. I have never but once been thrown, and that by the greatest of heroes, Otkar the Dane."
At that name, the terrible weariness which deadened Olvir's nerves fell away, and left him a-tingle with life and power.