ce.

Elfric scarcely looked where he was going. He saw a shining lance point,
about to impale him, he diverted it by his sword blade, as he was
hurried into the midst of axes, swords, lances, and beheld the warrior
opposite to him in the second rank raise his axe to inflict a fearful
blow, which would have severed his horse's neck, had not an arrow
transfixed the foe.

The wedge seemed partly broken, and the king had begun to exult in the
anticipation of speedy victory, when from behind each end of the
entrenchment rushed two bodies of hostile cavalry; they fell upon Edwy's
forces in the rear, and in a few moments all was confusion.

The warriors of Edgar rallied, drove the horse out of their lines,
advanced slowly, and the horsemen of the rival brothers, mingled
together in deadly strife, in personal combat, where each man seemed to
have sought and found his individual foe.

They moved slowly down the bill towards the brook, man after man falling
and dotting the green sward of the hill with struggling, writhing bodies.

Meanwhile, Cynewulf was attempting to rally the flying foot, which had
been cut almost in two by the charge of the Mercian cavalry: he
succeeded, with great difficulty, in doing so at the brook which ran
along the bottom of the valley, and, with the stream in their front,
they prepared to afford a refuge to their own, and to resist the hostile
horse.

Edwy saw the opportunity, and, raising himself in his stirrups, called
upon his friends to follow him: he leapt the brook, and galloped round
behind the foot, where nearly all the unwounded horsemen followed him.
He had fought well, had slain more than one foe with his own royal hand,
as became a descendant of Cerdic, and now he but retired to organise
another and stouter resistance to the daring foe.

But he was forced to admit now that Cynewulf was right in his
conjecture, and that they were utterly outnumbered, for the foe poured
forth from their entrenchment and advanced in good order down the slope;
while the Mercian cavalry, forming in two detachments to the left and
right, crossed the brook and charged along its banks upon the flanks of
the Wessex infantry, at the same moment.

The warrior upon whose advice Edwy had been told to depend had fallen:
he was left to his own resources. Alas! he forgot he was a commander,
and, waving his plumed cap as a signal for his brother knights to
follow, charged upon the horsemen who were advancing up stre