Thousands of voices caught up the despairing cry, and the whole Saxon host faced about and broke into utter rout. Wild with fear, they swept across the bloody battlefield in a whirling flood that all but overwhelmed the vikings. Like a ship adrift among the storm-waves, the wedge was carried along in the midst of the flying thousands, clear to the farthermost edge of the battlefield. There, at last, they made a stand, and the horsemen came plunging through the flood to join their royal leader.
As Gerold rode up at their head, Karl signed to him: "Plant the standard; send the horsemen on. To my side! I reel with blood-loss."
Again the vikings gathered about the king, while the horsemen joined the fierce pursuit of the Saxons. But hardly had Gerold and Liutrad bound up his wounds, when the last of the flying host came rushing past, intermingled with the Frankish footmen.
"Ho, lord king!" called Olvir. "My wolves strain at the leash. Bid us go. Yonder comes Amalwin. Let him guard the standard. It cannot be he thirsts to slay his fleeing countrymen."
"Go, then. But leave my luckless Pepin and these bold lads--"
"I'm spent--I stay!" gasped Liutrad.
"I go. My wounds are stanched," said Gerold, and as Olvir sprang upon Zora, the Swabian mounted his own horse little less nimbly.
CHAPTER XVI
Many a man is brave
Who still does not thrust the blade