sickening jar, as Rothgar's terrible axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air.
Swish--clash! the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them.
The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster,
heavier and heavier,--they blended into a discordant roar that closed around
her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger
followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her foam-flecked
horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring, dazed, stunned.

Her wits were like a flock of birds loosed from the cage of her will,
alighting here, upstarting there, without let or hindrance. Sometimes they
stooped to so foolish a thing as a notch on her horse's ear, and spent whole
minutes questioning dully whether the teeth of another horse had made the
wound or whether a sword had nicked it in battle. Sometimes they followed the
notes of the horns, as the ringing tones passed the order along. From the
blaring blast at her ear, the sound was drawn out on either side of her as
fine as silver wire, far, far away toward the hills. It gave her no conscious
impression of the vastness of the hosts, but it brought a vague sense of
wandering, of helplessness, that caused her fluttering wits to turn back,
startled, and set to watching the pictures that showed through rifts in the
swirling dust clouds,--an Englishman falling from his saddle, his fingers
widespread upon the air; a Danish bowman wiping blood from his eyes that he
might see to aim his shaft; yonder, the figure of Leofwinesson himself,
leaping forward with swift-stabbing sword. But whether they were English who
fell or Danes who stood, she had no thought, no care; they meant no more to
her than rune figures carved in wood.

The sun rose higher in the heavens, till it stood directly overhead, and sweat
mingled with the blood. Suddenly, the girl awoke to find that Rothgar's
singing had changed into cursing.