"Hei, vikings, follow!" croaked Floki. "Leave the cattle. Here are men!"
"Men--Danes--sons of Thor!" echoed Olvir. "After me, sea-wolves! Here are players. Hail, Danes--folk of Sigfrid! Odin calls you!"
"Hail, bairn! Get thee to Godheim!" shouted a Dane of vast girth, and he leaped forward from the shieldburg to meet the Norse earl.
"Lead me! I follow--in good time," rejoined Olvir, tauntingly.
The Dane whirled up his two-bladed axe, and struck with all his might. Even Olvir's skill could not have warded such a blow. It was a shield-smashing stroke, such as Liutrad was swinging. But it whirled down through empty air, and the great blade buried itself deep in the turf. Olvir had flung himself forward beneath the descending weapon and on past the massive figure of the wielder. As he darted by, Al-hatif stabbed up beneath the Dane's shield. The champion fell groaning upon his axe. Without a backward glance, Olvir sprang forward to break the Danish shieldwall. Before they could comprehend his deadly mode of attack, two more Danes went down from the blinding stabs of Al-hatif, and then Liutrad and Gerold and Floki were again at his back.
On one side a little space had been left clear by the opening out of the Saxons. This was a rare chance for the sharp-eyed Crane, who leaped sideways, and, with a full-armed sweep, sent his halberd whistling low among the legs of the foremost Danes. It was like a scythe in the wheat. The one blow crippled in its sweep no less than four warriors, whose sudden fall left a gap in the wall of interlocked shields. Before the gap could be closed, Olvir had leaped into the opening, and was putting forth his utmost effort to pierce the second rank of the Danes.
Close at his shoulders pressed Liutrad and Gerold, while Floki stood back for a second leg-shearing. But, though locked so closely in their ranks that they could not leap above the terrible halberd, the Danes were too crafty to be caught as at first. Three or four instantly crouched to catch the stroke on their shields, and one, a skilled swordsman, thrust out his blade to meet the haft of the halberd. Neither his parry nor the intervening shields could entirely break the blow. The swordsman's blade was dashed aside, his shield shattered into fragments, and he himself hurled back among his fellows, a mangled corpse. But his skill was not without avail to those beside him. The halberd shaft, notched by his sword-edge, broke short off with the force of the blow.
"Faul!" croaked Floki, and, hurling the splintered shaft into the midst of the shieldburg, he drew his sword--a blade half a span longer than Ironbiter and little less weighty. He sprang forward none too soon. Gerold had thrust himself in the way of a stroke aimed from the side at Olvir, and the fierce blow, cleaving through his shield, had dinted his helmet, and sent him reeling backwards, half-stunned.
"Way, lad, way!" growled the Northman. Plucking the Swabian back, he leaped upon the Danes in a berserk rage.
Closing upon their leaders, the vikings now struck the shieldburg with the full weight of their charge, and the force of the shock drove the wedge's point well into the opening cleft by Olvir and his shoulder-mates. Gerold, still dazed, was dragged back beside the "Gleam" just in time to see young Pepin struck down by a sling-stone which burst the lad's helmet. As a warrior caught the gold-starred banner from the opening hand of the king's son, Gerold gave command that the boy be lashed to his horse and taken back into the midst of the wedge. He himself thrust forward again, that he might not lose his share of the fighting. He found the wedge-leaders steadily cutting their way deeper toward the heart of the shieldburg.