t were in their very ears, and the
thunder of the tramp of footmen, and they knew that a fresh host of men
was upon them; then those they had been fighting with opened before them,
falling aside to the right and the left, and the fresh men passing
between them, fell on the Goths like the waters of a river when a sluice-
gate is opened. They came on in very good order, never breaking their
ranks, but swift withal, smiting and pushing before them, and so brake
through the array of the Goth-folk, and drave them this way and that way
down the slopes.

Yet still fought the warriors of the kindred most valiantly, making stand
and facing the foe again and again in knots of a score or two score, or
maybe ten score; and though many a man was slain, yet scarce any one
before he had slain or hurt a Roman; and some there were, and they the
oldest, who fought as if they and the few about them were all the host
that was left to the folk, and heeded not that others were driven back,
or that the Romans gathered about them, cutting them off from all succour
and aid, but went on smiting till they were felled with many strokes.

Howbeit the array of the Goths was broken and many were slain, and
perforce they must give back, and it seemed as if they would be driven
into the river and all be lost.

But for Thiodolf, this befell him: that at first, when those fresh men
fell on, he seemed, as it were, to wake unto himself again, and he cried
aloud the cry of the Wolf, and thrust into the thickest of the fray, and
slew many and was hurt of none, and for a moment of time there was an
empty space round about him, such fear he cast even into the valiant
hearts of the foemen. But those who had time to see him as they stood by
him noted that he was as pale as a dead man, and his eyes set and
staring; and so of a sudden, while he stood thus threatening the ring of
doubtful foemen, the weakness took him again, Throng-plough tumbled from
his hand, and he fell to earth as one dead.

Then of those who saw him some deemed that he had been striving against
some secret hurt till he could do no more; and some that there was a
curse abroad that had fallen upon him and upon all the kindreds of the
Mark; some thought him dead and some swooning. But, dead or alive, the
warriors would not leave their War-duke among the foemen, so they lifted
him, and gathered about him a goodly band that held its own against all
comers, and fought through the turmoil stout