Like an avalanche
loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon the English
bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.
At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with the wind
fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The son of Lodbrok
was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his great battle-axe in the
air to catch it again by the handle. In front of them rode Canute the King; in
his hand his gleaming blade, whose thin edge he tried now and again on a lock
of his floating hair, while he laughed with boyish delight. Once he turned his
bright face back over his shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun:
"Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness fills a
man, he becomes a god!" On, till the bowmen's faces were plain before them;
then suddenly it began to hail,--"the hail of the string." Arrows! One hissed
by the girl's ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang there quivering with
impotent fury. The man on her right made a terrible gurgling sound and put up
his hand to tear a shaft from his throat. Would they be slain before-- Canute
rose in his stirrups with a great shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became
a gallop, and the gallop a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud.
How the stones rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-
doomed; he was falling.
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