Into another man's heart.
LAY OF REGIN.
The sun was far down the western sky when the vikings swung away from the corpse-strewn battlefield and joined the fierce chase of the broken host. Already the foremost of the pursued and the pursuers were beyond view, and for a time Northmen followed after the scattering Saxon bands, in vain search for Wittikind and his Danes.
But at last, off to the northward, Olvir caught sight of a distant glimmering along the skyline, and he had no need to look twice to know that it was the last rays of the sunlight glinting on burnished steel.
"Look, lad, our quarry!" he called to Gerold. "No Saxon war-gear would gleam so bright."
"Wittikind and his Danes!" cried Gerold. "Saint Michael--this has been a glorious day! Let us but kill their earl, and the war is at an end!"
After this, those of the Saxons who turned aside out of the way of the vikings were safe from their dreaded blades. The sea-wolves were on the trail of bigger game. Yet swift as was their pursuit, night fell, and they had not overtaken the Danes. Coming to a little brook, they halted to bathe their wounds in the cool stream and to eat the last fragments of the coarse fare which they had brought from the Lippespring.
When, after a little, they clamored to be led on again, Gerold spoke of a stronghold to which the war-earl might be fleeing, and at Olvir's assent, guided the band by moonlight on that blind trail. But the moon at last set and left them in darkness, without view of their quarry. It was well, for even their iron strength was broken. Many had lagged behind in the last hour's march.
Yet at dawn, stiff from their wounds and half famished, they gathered about their earl, and called upon him to lead them on across the woodlands.
When at last, bursting out on the edge of a broad meadow, the vikings sighted the Danes fording a little stream, they uttered a roar, and rushed forward to close with the foe. But even Gerold and Floki were left far behind by Olvir, who raced ahead on Zora as though to ride down singly the whole Danish band. His followers were nearly a bow-shot to the rear when he drew rein just beyond sweep of the Danish swords.