For The White Christ Part 55

He did not return to the ill-omened villa, but moved the court direct to Mayence. Leaving there the royal household in the charge of Queen Bertrada his mother, who came from Saint Denis at his asking, he embarked with his war-counts for Cologne in Olvir's long-s.h.i.+ps.

Yet with all his eagerness to meet and crush the harrying forest-wolves, the first day of summer found him encamped at the Lippespring with but thirty thousand warriors,--only a few more than those with whom he had set out from Cologne. The greater part of the expected levies had been delayed by lack of forage and by the all but impa.s.sable mora.s.ses which covered the land during the heavy spring rains.

Far from damping his ardor, however, the delay and disappointment had served only to harden his resolve and call out his energy. Already he had swept across the mark from the Ems to the Weser, and back again to Paderborn, devastating all the southern s.h.i.+res of Westphalia. Where he had pa.s.sed, the Saxon hamlets, scattered through the vast woods and on the broad heaths, were left as heaps of smouldering ruins. Their defenders lay slain among the ashes; while all others of their inhabitants whom the Franks could take thrall--man and woman and child--were being dragged away to exile and slavery in the South.

Had the forces of Wittikind been united, even so great a leader as Karl could not have thus harried the land unchecked. But the Frisians were yet making their way around the north of the Teutoburger Wald, and Bruno and Hessi had marched with their tribesmen, the Eastphalians and Engern, to foray along the northern borders of Thuringia. So, with only his Westphalians and Nordalbingians, Wittikind, no less wily than intrepid, had withdrawn into the hills which form the southern termination of the Teutoburger Wald, and awaited attack near where the Roman Varus perished with his legions. Though his host was smaller than the Frank's, it held the vantage of position.

Before he learned of the delayed levies, the king had sent Olvir into Thuringia, to aid Count Rudulf against the harrying Engern and Eastphalians. But when the vikings had marched clear across the forest land to the Saale, they found that the Grey Wolf and his little host of five thousand Thuringians had gone north and west into Eastphalia, worrying the rearguard of the retreating Saxons.

Eager to bring word to the king before Hessi and Bruno could join their large host to that of the war-earl, Olvir marched straight across country to Paderborn. But he reached the Lippespring with even his iron followers outspent, only to learn that Karl had met the war-earl on his chosen ground, and forced the pa.s.sage of the mountains. Stubbornly as the Westphalians and their Nordalbingian allies had fought, the Franks had driven them back through their sacred forests, and wrested the holy Burg of Teu from their grasp.

Defeated but unrouted, Wittikind had withdrawn with his host along the farther slope of the mountains, to meet his Frisian allies on the Haze bank; and there, upon the arrival of his belated levies, Karl had followed, to give him battle the second time.

Such were the tidings that were poured into the ears of the eager sea-wolves as they lay panting after their long chase. Nor had they rested two days before Count Gerold came racing to the Lippespring with word of the first great battle on the Haze bank. By forced marches, the king had come upon the Saxon host before the juncture of Hessi and Bruno. The forest-dwellers, surprised in their camp, had been driven across the Haze, with great slaughter. But the outworn Franks were unable to follow up their victory, and Karl, learning in the night that Hessi and Bruno were about to join the war-earl, at once set to replacing and strengthening the broken war-hedges of the captured camp.

The immense host of the united Saxons now outnumbered the Franks by ten thousand men. The Grey Wolf had not yet come up with his Thuringians when Gerold left the Haze, and his whereabouts were unknown. There was pressing need for every man who could swing sword. But Gerold might have spared himself the urging. The vikings were wild to take part in the blood-game. There were no laggards when, at dawn, Olvir gave the word to start.

Freshened by their rest, they swept over the hills, past the Teutoburg and through the wooded valley country along the base of the Teutoburger Wald, like wolves on a blood-trail. Even hors.e.m.e.n could not have outdistanced them on that first day's march. Night fell upon them, but the beams of the rising moon glinted on the bright steel of their war-gear as they trailed across the open glades. When at last they flung themselves down among the alders, to gnaw at their cold food and stretch out for a half-night's rest, Gerold sprang from his horse, with the welcome call that the Frankish camp could not be distant over three hours' march.

But when, at dawn, the vikings would have rushed on swifter than ever, Olvir checked them. If the hosts had again joined battle, it was well he should bring his sea-wolves into the field unwearied. So, chafing at the restraint, like hounds in leash, yet bending to the will of their earl, the vikings swung on at the pace he set, until through the oak forest there came rumbling a sound like the bellow of angry bulls. It was the deep battle-note of the Saxons, roaring in the hollow of their s.h.i.+elds.

After that, Olvir no longer thought to hold his followers. Silent, but with eyes gleaming and blades bared, the sea-wolves broke into a run, and charged hotly after Gerold and their earl. It was not long before they had burst out from the oak forest and were rus.h.i.+ng across a stretch of yellow gorse toward the war-hedges of the Frankish camp, on the nearer bank of the Haze.

A belt of trees shut out all view of the battle which raged on the farther side of the stream; but above the dull rumble of the Saxon s.h.i.+eld-roar sounded the furious shouts of the Franks, the harsh braying of horns, the shrilling of the Saxon fifes, and the terrific clash of s.h.i.+elds and helmets struck by the whirling blades.

The Frankish host had left the shelter of the war-hedges to meet the Saxons in the open field; but the ghastly heaps of Saxon slain which half choked the bed of the Haze showed that the Franks had not been the first to attempt the crossing.

"Look, lad!" shouted Olvir. "It must be old Rudulf has come before us.

The king has driven back the attacking foe, and followed after, across the stream."

"If such has-- Saint Michael! Who are those come flying from the field?--the Neustrians! G.o.d grant we 're not too late--"

"None too late for the sword-play!" answered the Northman, his nostrils quivering, and then, silent as his men, he led the way past the Frankish camp. As they skirted the war-hedges, the charging warriors were greeted by a welcoming hail from the frightened camp-followers within, and Pepin Hunchback came racing out to meet Olvir and Gerold.

"Turn back, king's son! We go into battle," commanded Gerold. But Pepin urged his horse close in beside Zora, and rode along with Olvir.

"Hero," he pleaded, "let me go with you. My father left me to hold the camp. What place is that for a king's son?"

"Come, then, king's son," answered Olvir, and the boy's face flushed with joy. Then his horse leaped with Zora into the Haze, and close after dashed the vikings, panting with eagerness for the blood-game. As they floundered across the stream, the glimpse which they caught of the retreating Neustrians down the bank served only to whet their temper the keener.

But on the farther side, Olvir wheeled the red mare, and sprang to the ground.

"Hold, men!" he commanded. "Form wedge. Afoot, Gerold. You 'll stand behind me at the fore, with Floki and Liutrad. The king's son rides beside the 'Gleam'--stay! he himself shall bear the banner. Put Zora and the count's horse in the midst. So; well done! Now for Odin's game. Keep close, all. When my wedge strikes, it should be with the weight of every man linked to his fellows."

"Lead on, son of Thorbiorn!" croaked Floki, and the men burst into a roar: "Lead on! Lead on, ring-breaker! _Haoi!_"

Al-hatif glittered above the sea-king's head, and he sprang about, to lead his band at a half run through the screening coppice. A few swift strides, and he burst from the thickets into full view of the battle.

Before him on the trampled gorse heath stretched out the vast disordered ma.s.s of the battling hosts, locked fast in the death-grapple and reeling to and fro with the stress of their mighty struggles.

The Saxon warriors--Eastphalian, Westphalian, Nordalbingian, and Engern--were mingled in a shapeless horde, which sought to thrust back and overthrow the equally disarrayed ma.s.s of the Frankish footmen. But to the left, the Frisians, most stubborn of all fighters, stood firm in orderly array against the ferocious attack of the Grey Wolf and his Thuringians, while across on the far side of the battlefield, where the left wing of the Saxons had been thrust back, could be seen the Frankish horse, with Karl himself in command, vainly striving to break the ranks of the mail-clad Danes in Wittikind's s.h.i.+eldburg.

Here was the key to the battle-scheme. None need tell Olvir where to strike. The first glance had shown him how the battle went. He must strike, and strike quickly. Already the Franks were giving back before the Saxon wolf-horde, and even as the vikings burst from the coppice after their leader, from the willows on their right a Frankish horn sounded the retreat, and Count Hardrat came leaping into the open, to fall headlong among the yellow gorse.

Bewildered and dismayed by the call to flight, the last ranks of the Neustrians wavered and broke, and the yelling Saxons leaped forward to slay the fugitives. But at sight of the band of mailed warriors who came charging from the thicket not a spearthrow distant, they halted and closed up their ranks to meet the coming shock. As well might they have thought to check the mad rush of an aurochs herd. The vikings, though still locked in solid ranks, were now charging at full run.

As they swept down upon the Saxons, arrows streamed from their midst into the thick of the enemy; but they cast no spears until their leader was within twenty paces of the Saxon line. Then at last Al-hatif swung up, and a deadly flight of darts and javelins whirred into the dense ma.s.s of the Saxons. Pierced through their half-mailed war-jerkins of wolf and boar hide, scores of the forest-men fell dead or wounded, and the wedge hurled forward to strike the line where weakened by their fall.

"Thor aid! Thor aid!" roared out the viking battle-shout, and then, with a frightful rending crash, the wedge smashed in among the Saxons.

Fiercely as the forest-men leaped to meet the attack, they were like children before the mailed vikings, who numbered in their midst many of the most famous champions of the North. Through the rift opened by Olvir and Floki, the Northmen followed hotly, roaring in grim delight as they hewed wider the battle-path.

To the very heart of the Saxon host the wedge charged without a check in its terrible course, and the ground behind it was covered with fallen warriors. Here and there a steel-mailed figure lay among the trampled corpses, but for every such one there was to be counted a dozen of slain Saxons. Even the savage Nordalbingians were appalled by such slaughter, and sought to give way before the vikings, thinking that they would swerve and pa.s.s through to the Frankish lines, where Worad and Amalwin were bending every effort to hold their own. But the Norse wedge crashed on its way straight for the rear of the Danish s.h.i.+eldburg.

A few more brief moments of b.l.o.o.d.y slaughter, and then Northman was face to face with Northman. Here was no longer the formless horde of half-armed berserks, to be hewn down like cattle by the viking blades, but Danes trained in s.h.i.+eldburg and armed like their a.s.sailants in scale-hauberks or mail-serks.

As the Danes faced about to meet the rear attack, Olvir thrust forward through the last ranks of the Saxons, smiling like a guest newly come to the feast. Protected alike against point and edge by his threefold mail, the blue steel of his helmet, and the little blade-glancing s.h.i.+eld, he had come through the midst of the Saxons without a wound.

At either flank of their earl, Floki and Liutrad swung their great weapons with unflagging vigor. At every stroke of the young giant's axe, a man went down, cleft through s.h.i.+eld and helmet; while the long-shafted blade of the strutting Crane rose and fell with still more deadly effect. Floki did not strike downwards, but whirled his halberd with a peculiar backhanded stroke, as erratic as the man's nature.

Unlike their earl, neither had come scatheless from amongst the Saxons, nor had Gerold. The young Swabian was gashed in the shoulder and thigh by thrusting spears, and the bell-like rim of his casque had been broken by a sling-stone, which, had it been aimed a handsbreadth lower, would have beaten in his face. Liutrad's serk beneath his axe-arm showed a long rent, where a sword had bitten through to the bone,--the blow of a berserk-mad Nordalbingian. But the look of Floki was most terrible of all. His cheek had been laid open by a glancing sword-stroke, and the wound gave to his long wry face an aspect of ghastly grotesqueness. As yet, however, none of the three felt his wounds, and all alike sprang eagerly after Olvir, as he rushed upon the Danish s.h.i.+eldwall.

"_Hei_, vikings, follow!" croaked Floki. "Leave the cattle. Here are men!"

"Men--Danes--sons of Thor!" echoed Olvir. "After me, sea-wolves! Here are players. Hail, Danes--folk of Sigfrid! Odin calls you!"

"Hail, bairn! Get thee to G.o.dheim!" shouted a Dane of vast girth, and he leaped forward from the s.h.i.+eldburg to meet the Norse earl.

"Lead me! I follow--in good time," rejoined Olvir, tauntingly.

The Dane whirled up his two-bladed axe, and struck with all his might.

Even Olvir's skill could not have warded such a blow. It was a s.h.i.+eld-smas.h.i.+ng stroke, such as Liutrad was swinging. But it whirled down through empty air, and the great blade buried itself deep in the turf. Olvir had flung himself forward beneath the descending weapon and on past the ma.s.sive figure of the wielder. As he darted by, Al-hatif stabbed up beneath the Dane's s.h.i.+eld. The champion fell groaning upon his axe. Without a backward glance, Olvir sprang forward to break the Danish s.h.i.+eldwall. Before they could comprehend his deadly mode of attack, two more Danes went down from the blinding stabs of Al-hatif, and then Liutrad and Gerold and Floki were again at his back.

On one side a little s.p.a.ce had been left clear by the opening out of the Saxons. This was a rare chance for the sharp-eyed Crane, who leaped sideways, and, with a full-armed sweep, sent his halberd whistling low among the legs of the foremost Danes. It was like a scythe in the wheat. The one blow crippled in its sweep no less than four warriors, whose sudden fall left a gap in the wall of interlocked s.h.i.+elds. Before the gap could be closed, Olvir had leaped into the opening, and was putting forth his utmost effort to pierce the second rank of the Danes.

Close at his shoulders pressed Liutrad and Gerold, while Floki stood back for a second leg-shearing. But, though locked so closely in their ranks that they could not leap above the terrible halberd, the Danes were too crafty to be caught as at first. Three or four instantly crouched to catch the stroke on their s.h.i.+elds, and one, a skilled swordsman, thrust out his blade to meet the haft of the halberd.

Neither his parry nor the intervening s.h.i.+elds could entirely break the blow. The swordsman's blade was dashed aside, his s.h.i.+eld shattered into fragments, and he himself hurled back among his fellows, a mangled corpse. But his skill was not without avail to those beside him. The halberd shaft, notched by his sword-edge, broke short off with the force of the blow.

"Faul!" croaked Floki, and, hurling the splintered shaft into the midst of the s.h.i.+eldburg, he drew his sword--a blade half a span longer than Ironbiter and little less weighty. He sprang forward none too soon.

Gerold had thrust himself in the way of a stroke aimed from the side at Olvir, and the fierce blow, cleaving through his s.h.i.+eld, had dinted his helmet, and sent him reeling backwards, half-stunned.

"Way, lad, way!" growled the Northman. Plucking the Swabian back, he leaped upon the Danes in a berserk rage.

Closing upon their leaders, the vikings now struck the s.h.i.+eldburg with the full weight of their charge, and the force of the shock drove the wedge's point well into the opening cleft by Olvir and his shoulder-mates. Gerold, still dazed, was dragged back beside the "Gleam" just in time to see young Pepin struck down by a sling-stone which burst the lad's helmet. As a warrior caught the gold-starred banner from the opening hand of the king's son, Gerold gave command that the boy be lashed to his horse and taken back into the midst of the wedge. He himself thrust forward again, that he might not lose his share of the fighting. He found the wedge-leaders steadily cutting their way deeper toward the heart of the s.h.i.+eldburg.

But it was steel biting steel. Once the impetus of the viking charge was lost, the advance became very slow. Even at the wedge's point, the movement, though sure, meant for every step gained a matter of fiercest struggle. Olvir and Floki yet fought as at first; but Liutrad, for all his ma.s.sive young strength, was glad enough for a time to give place to Gerold.

If, however, the viking wedge failed to burst open the s.h.i.+eldburg at once, the slaughter they had wrought among the Saxons and their presence in the Danish rear were not without effect on both friend and foe. The fleeing Neustrians had turned again, and the Saxons, disconcerted by the viking charge, no longer pressed so fiercely upon the Franks, who immediately followed up the slight show of weakness by renewed efforts to regain their lost ground.

With the attack of the vikings, Wittikind, who had been trying to single out his royal opponent, on the farther side of the s.h.i.+eldburg, quickly heeded the greater danger of the fresh attack, and hastened to the rear to aid in checking the in-thrusting wedge.