The king without tarrying pursued Amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces.
So Amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent numbers.

He put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to engage.

The wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the living.

It was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to battle, and corpses mustered to fight.

The plan served him well, for the very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams struck them.