“Thou askest not this,” answered Flosi, “because thou dost not know it already; but whose fault is it that we cannot get to the stronghold in the Great Rift?”

“It is not my fault,” says Snorri, “but it is quite true that I know whose fault it is, and I will tell thee if thou wilt; it is the fault of Thorwalld cropbeard and Kol.”

They were both then dead, but they had been the worst men in all Flosi’s band.

Again Snorri said to his men—­

“Now do both, cut at them and thrust at them, and drive them away hence, they will then hold out but a short while here, if the others attack them from below; but then ye shall not go after them, but let both sides shift for themselves.”

The son of Skapti Thorod’s son was Thorstein gapemouth, as was written before, he was in the battle with Gudmund the powerful, his father-in-law, and as soon as Skapti knew that, he went to the booth of Snorri the priest, and meant to beg for help to part them; but just before he had got as far as the door of Snorri’s booth, there the battle was hottest of all.  Asgrim and his friends and his men were just coming up thither, and then Thorhall said to his father Asgrim—­

“See there now is Skapti Thorod’s son, father.”

“I see him, kinsman,” said Asgrim, and then he shot a spear at Skapti, and struck him just below where the calf was fattest, and so through both his legs.  Skapti fell at the blow, and could not get up again, and the only counsel they could take who were by, was to drag Skapti flat on his face into the booth of a turf-cutter.

Then Asgrim and his men came up so fast that Flosi and his men gave way before them south along the river to the booths of the men of Modruvale.  There there was a man outside one booth whose name was Solvi; he was boiling broth in a great kettle, and had just then taken the meat out, and the broth was boiling as hotly as it could.

Solvi cast his eyes on the Eastfirthers us they fled, and they were then just over against him, and then he said—­“Can all these cowards who fly here be Eastfirthers, and yet Thorkel Geiti’s son, he ran by as fast as any one of them, and very great lies have been told about him when men say that he is all heart, but now no one ran faster than he”.

Hallbjorn the strong was near by them, and said—­

“Thou shalt not have it to say that we are all cowards.”

And with that he caught hold of him, and lifted him up aloft, and thrust him head down into the broth-kettle.  Solvi died at once; but then a rush was made at Hallbjorn himself, and he had to turn and fly.

Flosi threw a spear at Bruni Haflidi’s son, and caught him at the waist, and that was his bane; he was one of Gudmund the powerful’s band.

Thorstein Hlenni’s son took the spear out of the wound, and hurled it back at Flosi, and hit him on the leg, and he got a great wound and fell; he rose up again at once.