to the Redslips, and bided there;
thence they could see the others as soon as ever they rode from the east
out of the dale.

There was sunshine that day and bright weather.

Now Thrain and his men ride down out of the Dale along the river bank.

Lambi Sigurd's son said--

"Shields gleam away yonder in the Redslips when the sun shines on them,
and there must be some men lying in wait there."

"Then," says Thrain, "we will turn our way lower down the Fleet, and
then they will come to meet us if they have any business with us."

So they turn down the Fleet. "Now they have caught sight of us," said
Skarphedinn, "for lo! they turn their path elsewhither, and now we have
no other choice than to run down and meet them."

"Many men," said Kari, "would rather not lie in wait if the balance of
force were not more on their side than it is on ours; they are eight,
but we are five."

Now they turn down along the Fleet, and see a tongue of ice bridging the
stream lower down and mean to cross there.

Thrain and his men take their stand upon the ice away from the tongue,
and Thrain said--

"What can these men want? They are five, and we are eight."

"I guess," said Lambi Sigurd's son, "that they would still run the risk
though more men stood against them."

Thrain throws off his cloak, and takes off his helm.

Now it happened to Skarphedinn, as they ran down along the Fleet, that
his shoe-string snapped asunder, and he stayed behind.

"Why so slow, Skarphedinn?" quoth Grim.

"I am tying my shoe," he says.

"Let us get on ahead," says Kari; "methinks he will not be slower than
we."

So they turn off to the tongue, and run as fast as they can. Skarphedinn
sprang up as soon as he was ready, and had lifted his axe, "the ogress
of war," aloft, and runs right down to the Fleet. But the Fleet was so
deep that there was no fording it for a long way up or down.

A great sheet of ice had been thrown up by the flood on the other side
of the Fleet as smooth and slippery as glass, and there Thrain and his
men stood in the midst of the sheet.

Skarphedinn takes a spring into the air, and leaps over the stream
between the icebanks, and does not check his course, but rushes still
onwards with a slide. The sheet of ice was very slippery, and so he went
as fast as a bird flies. Thrain was just about to put his helm on his
head; and now Skarphedinn bore down on them, and hews at Thrain with his
axe, "the ogress of war," and smote