Erling the Bold, R. M. Ballantyne [best black authors txt] 📗

made a great mistake in not holding to his original plan. By way of improving matters he divided his little band into two, and sending five of his men in one direction, rode off with the remaining four in another. Krake, on the contrary, had fulfilled his orders to the letter; had gone to the split rock, and then hastened to the double-stemmed pine, not far from which, as we have seen, he found the men of whom he was in search, and also met his death.

One of the bands of five men chanced to be within earshot when Erling shouted, and they immediately bore down in the direction, and cheered as they came in sight of the combatants. The three men who yet stood up to our friends wheeled about at once and galloped to meet them, only too glad to be reinforced at such a critical moment.

There was a little stream which trickled over the edge of a rock close to the spot where the combat had taken place. Erling and Glumm leaped off their horses as if by one impulse, and, running to this, drank deeply and hastily. As they ran back and vaulted into their saddles, they heard a faint cheer in the far distance.

“Ha!” exclaimed Erling, “Harald doubtless did send twenty men after all, for here come the rest of them. It is good fortune that a berserk is seldom a good leader—he should not have divided his force. These eight must go down, friend Glumm, before the others come up, else are our days numbered.”

The expression of Glumm’s blood-stained visage spoke volumes, but his tongue uttered never a word. Indeed, there was no time for further speech, for the eight men, who had conversed hurriedly together for a few seconds, were now approaching. The two friends did not await the attack, but, setting spurs to their horses, dashed straight at them. Two were overturned in the shock, and their horses rolled on them, so that they never rose again. On the right Erling hewed down one man, and on the left his friend cut down another. They reined up, turned round, and charged again, but the four who were left were too wise to withstand the shock; they swerved aside. In doing so the foot of one of their horses caught in a bramble. He stumbled, and the rider was thrown violently against a tree and stunned, so that he could not remount. This was fortunate, for Erling and Glumm were becoming exhausted, and the three men who still opposed them were comparatively fresh. One of these suddenly charged Glumm, and killed his horse. Glumm leaped up, and, drawing his knife, stabbed the horse of the other to the heart. As it fell he caught his rider by the right wrist, and with a sudden wrench dislocated his arm. Erling meanwhile disabled one of the others, and gave the third such a severe wound that he thought it best to seek safety in flight.

Erling now turned to Glumm, and asked if he thought it would be best to ride away from the men who were still to come up, or to remain and fight them also.

“If there be five more,” said Glumm, leaning against a tree, and removing his helmet in order to wipe his brow, “then is our last battle fought, for, although I have that in me which could manage to slay one, I have not strength for two, much less three. Besides, my good steed is dead, and we have no time to catch one of the others.”

“Now will I become a berserk,” cried Erling, casting his gilt helmet on the ground and undoing the fastenings of his coat of mail. “Armour is good when a man is strong, but when he is worn out it is only an encumbrance. I counsel thee to follow my example.”

“It is not a bad one,” said Glumm, also throwing down his helmet and stripping off his armour. “Ha! there are more of them than we counted on—six.”

As he spoke six horsemen were seen approaching through the distant glades of the forest.

The two friends ran to the fountain before mentioned, slaked their thirst, and hastily bathed their heads and faces; then, seizing their swords and shields, and leaving the rest of their armour on the sward, they ran to a rugged part of the ground, where horses could not act. Mounting to the highest point of a rocky mound, they awaited the approach of their foes.

Quickly they came forward, their faces blazing with wrath as they rode over the field of battle, and saw their slaughtered comrades. Hake the berserk rode in front, and, advancing as near as possible to the place where his enemies stood, said tauntingly:

“What, are ye so fearful of only six men, after having slain so many?”

“Small meat would we make of thee and thy men, so that the crows might pick it easily, if we were only half as fresh as ye are,” said Erling; “but we chose to rest here awhile, so if ye would fight ye must come hither to us on foot.”

“Nay, but methinks it would be well for both parties,” returned the berserk, “that they should fight on level ground.”

Erling and Glumm had thrown themselves on the rocks to get as much rest as possible before the inevitable combat that was still before them. They consulted for a few seconds, and then the former replied:

“We will gladly come down, if ye will meet us on foot.”

“Agreed,” cried the berserk, leaping off his horse, and leading it to a neighbouring tree, to which he fastened it. The others followed his example. Then our two heroes arose and stretched themselves.

“It has been a good fight,” said Erling. “Men will talk of it in days to come, after we are far away in the world of spirits.”

There was deep pathos in the tone of the young warrior as he spoke these words, and cast his eyes upwards to the blue vault as if he sought to penetrate that spirit world, on the threshold of which he believed himself to stand.

“If we had but one hour’s rest, or one other man on our side; but—” He stopped suddenly, for the six men now stood in the middle of the little plain where Erling and Glumm had fought so long and so valiantly that day, and awaited their coming.

Hastily descending the mound, the two friends strode boldly towards their opponents, scorning to let them see by look or gesture that they were either fatigued or depressed. As they drew near, Erling singled out Hake, and Glumm went towards a tall, powerful man, who stood ready with a huge sword resting on his shoulder, as if eager to begin the combat. Glumm had arranged in his own mind that that man and he should die together. Beside him stood a warrior with a battle-axe, and a steel helmet on his head. Before Glumm could reach his intended victim the tall man’s sword flashed in the air like a gleam of light, and the head with the steel helmet went spinning on the ground!

“That’s the way that Kettle Flatnose pays off old scores,” cried the Irish thrall, turning suddenly upon his late friends, and assailing one of them with such fury that he cut him down in a few seconds, and then ran to draw off one of the two who had attacked Erling. Glumm’s amazement at this was, as may well be believed, excessive; but it was nothing to the intensity of his joy when he found suddenly that the fight was now equalised, and that there stood only one man to oppose him. His heart leaped up. New life gave spring to his muscles; and to these new feelings he gave vent in one loud shout, as he sprang upon his adversary and cleft him to the chin with one sweep of his sword!

Meanwhile Kettle Flatnose had killed his man; and he was about to come up behind Hake and sweep off his head, when he was seized by Glumm and dragged violently back.

“Would ye rob Erling of the honour of slaying this noted berserk?” he said sternly.

“Truly,” replied Kettle, somewhat abashed, “I did not know that he was noted; and as for the honour of it, I do think that Erling seems to have got honour enough to-day (if all this be his work) to content him for some time to come; but as ye will,” he added, putting the point of his sword on the ground, and resting his arms on the hilt.

Glumm also leaned on his sword; and standing thus, these two watched the fight.

Now, it may perhaps seem to some readers that as the other men had been disposed of so summarily, it was strange that Erling the Bold should be so long in dispatching this one; but for our hero’s credit, we must point out several facts which may have perhaps been overlooked. In the first place, Kettle Flatnose was a thoroughly fresh man when he began the fight, and although he killed two men, it must be remembered that one of these was slain while off his guard. Then, Glumm did indeed slay his man promptly, but he was one of King Harald’s ordinary men-at-arms; whereas Erling was opposed by one of the most celebrated of the King’s warriors—Hake, the berserk of Hadeland—a man whose name and prowess were known far and wide, not only in Norway, but in Denmark, and all along the southern shores of the Baltic. It would have been strange indeed had such a man fallen easily before any human arm, much more strange had he succumbed at once to one that had been already much exhausted with fighting.

True to the brotherhood to which he belonged, the berserk attacked Erling with incredible fury. He roared more like a mad bull than a man as he made the onset; his eyes glared, his mouth foamed, and he bit his shield as he was driven back. Being fresh, he danced round Erling perpetually, springing in to cut and thrust, and leaping back to avoid the terrific blows which the latter fetched at him with his weighty axe. Once he made a cut at Erling’s head, which the latter did not attempt to parry, intending to trust to his helmet to defend him, and forgetting for the moment that he had cast that useful piece of armour on the plain. Luckily the blow was not truly aimed. It shore a lock from Erling’s head as he swung his axe against his opponent’s shield, and battered him down on his knees; but the berserk leaped up with a yell, and again rushed at him. Hake happened just then to cast his eyes on the two men who were quietly looking on, and he so managed the fight for a few moments afterwards that he got near to them. Then turning towards them with a howl of demoniacal fury, he made a desperate cut at the unsuspecting Glumm, who was taken so thoroughly by surprise that he made no movement whatever to defend himself. Fortunately. Kettle Flatnose was on the alert, but he had only time to thrust his sword awkwardly between Glumm’s head and the descending weapon. The act prevented a fatal gash, but it could not altogether arrest the force of the blow, which fell on the flat of his sword, and beat it down on Glumm’s skull so violently that he was instantly stretched upon the green sward. Erling’s axe fell on the helm of the berserk almost at the same time. Even in that moment of victory a feeling of respect for the courage and boldness of this man touched the heart of Erling, who, with the swiftness of thought, put in force his favourite practice—he turned the edge of the axe, and the broad side of it fell on the steel headpiece with tremendous force, causing the berserk of Hadeland to