“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 as 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 then, 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
