For the White Christ: A Story of the Days of Charlemagne

by Robert Ames Bennet

Before he learned of the delayed levies, the king had sent Olvir into Thuringia, to aid Count Rudulf against the harrying Engern and Eastphalians. But when the vikings had marched clear across the forest land to the Saale, they found that the Grey Wolf and his little host of five thousand Thuringians had gone north and west into Eastphalia, worrying the rearguard of the retreating Saxons.

Eager to bring word to the king before Hessi and Bruno could join their large host to that of the war-earl, Olvir marched straight across country to Paderborn. But he reached the Lippespring with even his iron followers outspent, only to learn that Karl had met the war-earl on his chosen ground, and forced the passage of the mountains. Stubbornly as the Westphalians and their Nordalbingian allies had fought, the Franks had driven them back through their sacred forests, and wrested the holy Burg of Teu from their grasp.

Defeated but unrouted, Wittikind had withdrawn with his host along the farther slope of the mountains, to meet his Frisian allies on the Haze bank; and there, upon the arrival of his belated levies, Karl had followed, to give him battle the second time.

Such were the tidings that were poured into the ears of the eager sea-wolves as they lay panting after their long chase. Nor had they rested two days before Count Gerold came racing to the Lippespring with word of the first great battle on the Haze bank. By forced marches, the king had come upon the Saxon host before the juncture of Hessi and Bruno. The forest-dwellers, surprised in their camp, had been driven across the Haze, with great slaughter. But the outworn Franks were unable to follow up their victory, and Karl, learning in the night that Hessi and Bruno were about to join the war-earl, at once set to replacing and strengthening the broken war-hedges of the captured camp.

The immense host of the united Saxons now outnumbered the Franks by ten thousand men. The Grey Wolf had not yet come up with his Thuringians when Gerold left the Haze, and his whereabouts were unknown. There was pressing need for every man who could swing sword. But Gerold might have spared himself the urging. The vikings were wild to take part in the blood-game. There were no laggards when, at dawn, Olvir gave the word to start.

Freshened by their rest, they swept over the hills, past the Teutoburg and through the wooded valley country along the base of the Teutoburger Wald, like wolves on a blood-trail. Even horsemen could not have outdistanced them on that first day's march. Night fell upon them, but the beams of the rising moon glinted on the bright steel of their war-gear as they trailed across the open glades. When at last they flung themselves down among the alders, to gnaw at their cold food and stretch out for a half-night's rest, Gerold sprang from his horse, with the welcome call that the Frankish camp could not be distant over three hours' march.

But when, at dawn, the vikings would have rushed on swifter than ever, Olvir checked them. If the hosts had again joined battle, it was well he should bring his sea-wolves into the field unwearied. So, chafing at the restraint, like hounds in leash, yet bending to the will of their earl, the vikings swung on at the pace he set, until through the oak forest there came rumbling a sound like the bellow of angry bulls. It was the deep battle-note of the Saxons, roaring in the hollow of their shields.

After that, Olvir no longer thought to hold his followers. Silent, but with eyes gleaming and blades bared, the sea-wolves broke into a run, and charged hotly after Gerold and their earl. It was not long before they had burst out from the oak forest and were rushing across a stretch of yellow gorse toward the war-hedges of the Frankish camp, on the nearer bank of the Haze.

A belt of trees shut out all view of the battle which raged on the farther side of the stream; but above the dull rumble of the Saxon shield-roar sounded the furious shouts of the Franks, the harsh braying of horns, the shrilling of the Saxon fifes, and the terrific clash of shields and helmets struck by the whirling blades.

The Frankish host had left the shelter of the war-hedges to meet the Saxons in the open field; but the ghastly heaps of Saxon slain which half choked the bed of the Haze showed that the Franks had not been the first to attempt the crossing.