And from that moment all semblance of consecutive action was lost. Yelling, shouting, groaning, cursing, the men rushed together in one blurred and furious grapple. The wrecked hut collapsed, crashing upon their heads; the fire, kicked and trampled as the fight raged back and forth, caught the thatch and sheep-pelts, and flamed up fiercely in and around the combat. They fought literally in fire—in fire and thick smoke and driving rain. The arms that thrust with spear or hewed with sword rose and fell all ablaze. Those who fell, fell among hot coals and fought their fellows—their own friends—to make way that they might escape the torment. Twice Grettir, dying though he was, flung the fight from him and rose to his full height, a dreadful figure, alone for an instant, bloody, dripping, charred with ashes, half naked, his clothes all burning; and twice again they flung themselves upon him, and bore him down, so that he disappeared beneath their mass. And ever and again from out the swirl of the onset, from that unspeakable jam of men, mad with the battle-madness that was upon them, crawled out some horrid figure, staggering, gashed, and maimed, or even dying, done to death by the great Outlaw in the last fight of his life. Thorfin, Gamli’s man, had both arms broken at the very shoulders; Krolf of Drontheim reeled back from the battle with a sword-thrust through his hip that made him go on crutches the rest of his life; Kolbein, churl of Svein, died two days later of a spear-thrust through the bowels; Ognund, Hakon’s son, never was able to use his right arm after that night. Hardly a man of all the twenty that did not for all the rest of his life bear upon his body the marks of Grettir’s death-fight. Still Grettir bore up. He had with one arm caught Thorir, The Hook’s stoutest house-carle, around the throat, while his other arm, that wielded his sword, hewed and hewed and smote and thrust as though it would never tire. Even above the din of the others rose the clamour of Thorir’s agony. Once again Grettir cleared a space around him, and stood with dripping sword, his left arm still crushing Thorir in that awful embrace. Thorir was weaponless, his face purple. No thought of battle was left in him, and frantic, he stretched out a hand to his fellows, his voice a wail: "Help me, Thorbjorn. He is killing me. For Christ’s sake——" And Grettir’s blade nailed the words within his throat. The wretch slid to the ground doubled in a heap, the blood gushing from his mouth. Then those that yet remained alive, drawn off a little, panting, spent, saw a terrible sight—the death of Grettir.