"On, men! on!" cried Roland. "The dogs leap to meet us! On, and strike them down!"
"Heu! heu! Christ and king! Down with the pagans!" roared back the Franks, and they crashed at full gallop into the mass of charging Saracens. The shock was frightful. Hurled back by the massive strength of the Frankish horses, the graceful desert coursers were either overthrown and trampled underfoot with their riders, or crushed back upon the barrier.
In a twinkling Franks and Saracens were mingled in the death-grapple,--a furious hand-to-hand struggle, where all the vantage lay with the heavy-armed Northerners. Only the closeness of the jam kept the Franks from at once shattering the whole Saracen band. Vengeance lent double force to their blows.
Side by side on their black Arabs, the foster-brothers thrust in among the yelling Moslems. Roland, high in his stirrups, was wielding his ponderous Norse sword in both hands. Where Ironbiter fell, shields and iron casques were shattered like glass, and their bearers hurled down as though struck by a sledge. The Frank's blue eyes flamed with white fire, his face was flushed, and his powerful frame quivered with rage. As he struck, he ground his teeth savagely.
But Olvir's fury was of another kind. In his black eyes was the bright, cold glitter of the striking snake's. Unlike the Frank count, he crouched low in the saddle; and from beneath his little steel shield Al-hatif darted out incessantly, like the beak of a heron. The Frank's sword-play was more appalling to the eye, but the Northman's was the deadlier. So swift and fatal was Al-hatif's thrust that many were slain before they were aware of the danger.
Close on the sword-brothers came the Frankish horsemen, hewing and slashing with sword and double-bladed axe. Twice the number of the Saracens could not have withstood such an attack. The slender-limbed Arabs and Berbers were fairly crushed by their big foes. Less than a score in the rear managed to free themselves from the jam and escape the slaughter by leaping back over the barrier.
The Franks, recking little of their own loss, trampled forward over the slain, in hot pursuit of the fugitives. The rout drew from them a roar of triumph, and they rushed forward, only to recoil in rage and despair. The barrier was far too high for their heavy horses to leap, and its timbers had been too firmly knit together to be easily torn apart. But the main body of the Saracens, hindered by their retreating fellows of the van, had not yet closed upon the farther side of the wall. Olvir was quick to see the vantage.
"Ho, Franks!" he called. "Your horses cannot leap; afoot and follow me! Behind pours the Vascon hail; before lies the sword-path. Let us die like men!"
"Lead on!" roared the horsemen, and they sprang from their saddles to rush upon the barrier.
Olvir turned to Roland, his look strangely soft.