does my axe come in? You are not fair, for, by Thor's hammer,
Erpwald, both of you had been mincemeat but for that."

"Nay," said I, laughing; "you and I were those who held back the
crowd. I could not have done it alone."

"But you did, though," the Norseman answered at once.
"Nevertheless, it was as well that I happened up in good time."

Now we rode across the nearer hills until we could see into the
fair valley which men call Taunton Deane since those days, and we
saw the answering fires which told us that all was well at Watchet,
for we had saved the little town. Not until Gerent learned how few
we were here would he dare to divide his forces. Far off to the
southward in the valley we could see the blue reek of his
campfires, and it would seem that he had not yet moved on the
Wessex border.

All the day we waited and watched, anxious and restless, but no
attack came on us here, and the smoke of the camp grew no thinner
at Norton. A few Norsemen rode up to us from Watchet, and they said
that no move was on hand yet, so far as they could tell. And at
last, as the sun was setting, and shone level on the slope of the
Poldens, above which the Tor of Glastonbury sent a waving wreath of
smoke into the air to bid Wessex gather against the ancient foe, we
saw the long line of sparkling helms and spear points as our host
marched from hill to causeway to the bridge that spans the Parrett.
Ina would hold the heights above Norton before morning.

But that made it the more needful that we should bide here till we
were sent for, seeing that we guarded the flank of our advance; and
hard it was to sit still and do it, with a battle pending yonder.
It was a long night to us, and hungry.

Early in the next morning there was heavy smoke on these hills that
told of burning on the line of our march, and there was more away
toward the far Blackdown hills, as if there were trouble beyond
Tone. And in the afternoon there fell a strange stillness on the
woods round us, and I wondered. There was never a buzzard or kite,
raven or crow, left in all the woodland, and then I minded that
overhead lately the birds of prey had all flown in one direction,
and that toward where Norton lay.

It was the cry of the kite and the voice of the songbirds that I
missed. The birds of prey had gone, and in the cover their little
quarry cowered in fear of the shadow of the broad wings which had
crossed them so often. Even now two of the great sea eagle