But grim Hagen answered, “Thy words are wasted, noble queen. I have sworn to show the hoard to none. While one of my masters liveth, none other shall have it.”
“I will end the matter,” said the queen. Then she bade them slay her brother, and they smote off his head. She carried it by the hair to the knight of Trony. He was grieved enow.
When the sorrowful man saw his master’s head, he cried to Kriemhild, “Thou hast wrought all thy will. It hath fallen out as I deemed it must. The noble King of Burgundy is dead, and Giselher the youth, and eke Gernot. None knoweth of the treasure now save God and me. Thou shalt never see it, devil that thou art.”
She said, “I come off ill in the reckoning. I will keep Siegfried’s sword at the least. My true love wore it when I saw him last. My bitterest heart’s dole was for him.”
She drew it from the sheath. He could not hinder it. She purposed to slay the knight. She lifted it high with both hands, and smote off his head.
King Etzel saw it, and sorrowed. “Alack!” cried the king, “The best warrior that ever rode to battle, or bore a shield, hath fallen by the hand of a woman! Albeit I was his foeman, I must grieve.”
Then said Master Hildebrand, “His death shall not profit her. I care not what come of it. Though I came in scathe by him myself, I will avenge the death of the bold knight of Trony.”
Hildebrand sprang fiercely at Kriemhild, and slew her with his sword. She suffered sore by his anger. Her loud cry helped her not.
Dead bodies lay stretched all over. The queen was hewn in pieces. Etzel and Dietrich began to weep. They wailed piteously for kinsmen and vassals. Mickle valour lay there slain. The folk were doleful and dreary.
The end of the king’s hightide was woe, even as, at the last, all joy turneth to sorrow.