JOURNEY.
IT was about three hours before noon that the Host began to enter into
the pass out of Shadowy Vale by the river-side; and the women and
children, and men unfightworthy, stood on the higher ground at the foot
of the cliffs to see the Host wend on the way. Of these a many were of
the Woodlanders, who were now one folk with them of Shadowy Vale. And
all these had chosen to abide tidings in the Vale, deeming that there was
little danger therein, since that last slaughter which Folk-might had
made of the Dusky Men; albeit Face-of-god had offered to send them all to
Burgstead with two score and ten men-at-arms to guard them by the way and
to eke out the warders of the Burg.
Now the fighting-men of Shadowy Vale were two long hundreds lacking five;
of whom two score and ten were women, and three score and ten lads under
twenty winters; but the women, though you might scarce see fairer of face
and body, were doughty in arms, all good shooters in the bow; and the
swains were eager and light-foot, cragsmen of the best, wont to scaling
the cliffs of the Vale in search of the nests of gerfalcons and such-like
fowl, and swimming the strong streams of the Shivering Flood; tough
bodies and wiry, stronger than most grown men, and as fearless as the
best.
The order of the Departure of the Host was this:
The Woodlanders went first into the pass, and with them were two score of
the ripe Warriors of the Wolf. Then came of the kindreds of Burgdale,
the Men of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull; then the Men of the Vine
and the Sickle; then the Shepherd-folk; and lastly, the Men of the Face
led by Stone-face and Hall-face. With these went another two score of
the dwellers in Shadowy Vale, and the rest were scattered up and down the
bands of the Host to guide them into the best paths and to make the way
easier to them. Face-of-god was sundered from his kindred, and went
along with Folk-might in the forefront of the Host, while his father the
Alderman went as a simple man-at-arms with his House in the rearward.
The Sun-beam followed her brother and Face-of-god amidst the Warriors of
the Wolf, and with her were Bow-may clad in the Alderman’s gift, and
Wood-father and his children. Bow-may had caused her to doff her hauberk
for that day, whereon they looked to fall in with no foeman. As for the
Bride, she went with her kindred in all her war-gear; and the morning sun
shone in the gems of her apparel, and her jewelled feet fell like flowers
upon the deep grass of the upper Vale, and shone strange and bright
amongst the black stones of the pass. She bore a quiver at her back and
a shining yew bow in her hand, and went amongst the bowmen, for she was a
very deft archer.
So fared they into the pass, leaving peace behind them, with all their
banners displayed, and the banner of the Red-mouthed Wolf went with the
Wolf and the Sun-burst in the forefront of their battle next after the
two captains.
As for their road, the grassy space between the rock-wall and the water
was wide and smooth at first, and the cliffs rose up like bundles of
spear-shafts high and clear from the green grass with no confused litter
of fallen stones; so that the men strode on briskly, their hearts
high-raised and full of hope. And as they went, the sweetness of song
stirred in their souls, and at last Bow-may fell to singing in a loud
clear voice, and her cousin Wood-wise answered her, and all the warriors
of the Wolf who were in their band fell into the song at the ending, and
the sound of their melody went down the water and reached the ears of
those that were entering the pass, and of those who were abiding till the
way should be clear of them: and this is some of what they sang:
_Bow-may singeth_:
Hear ye never a voice come crying
Out from the waste where the winds fare wide?
‘Sons of the Wolf, the days are dying,
And where in the clefts of the rocks do ye hide?
‘Into your hands hath the Sword been given,
Hard are the palms with the kiss of the hilt;
Through the trackless waste hath the road been riven
For the blade to seek to the heart of the guilt.
‘And yet ye bide and yet ye tarry;
Dear deem ye the sleep ’twixt hearth and board,
And sweet the maiden mouths ye marry,
And bright the blade of the bloodless sword.’
_Wood-wise singeth_:
Yea, here we dwell in the arms of our Mother
The Shadowy Queen, and the hope of the Waste;
Here first we came, when never another
Adown the rocky stair made haste.
Far is the foe, and no sword beholdeth
What deed we work and whither we wend;
Dear are the days, and the Year enfoldeth
The love of our life from end to end.
Voice of our Fathers, why will ye move us,
And call up the sun our swords to behold?
Why will ye cry on the foeman to prove us?
Why will ye stir up the heart of the bold?
_Bow-may singeth_:
Purblind am I, the voice of the chiding;
Then tell me what is the thing ye bear?
What is the gift that your hands are hiding,
The gold-adorned, the dread and dear?
_Wood-wise singeth_:
Dark in the sheath lies the Anvil’s Brother,
Hid is the hammered Death of Men.
Would ye look on the gift of the green-clad Mother?
How then shall ye ask for a gift again?
_The Warriors sing_:
Show we the Sunlight the Gift of the Mother,
As foot follows foot to the foeman’s den!
Gleam Sun, breathe Wind, on the Anvil’s Brother,
For bare is the hammered Death of Men.
Therewith they shook their naked swords in the air, and fared on eagerly,
and as swiftly as the pass would have them fare. But so it was, that
when the rearward of the Host was entering the first of the pass, and was
going on the wide smooth sward, the vanward was gotten to where there was
but a narrow space clear betwixt water and cliff; for otherwhere was a
litter of great rocks and small, hard to be threaded even by those who
knew the passes well; so that men had to tread along the very verge of
the Shivering Flood, and wary must they be, for the water ran swift and
deep betwixt banks of sheer rock half a fathom below their very
foot-soles, which had but bare space to go on the narrow a way. So it
held on for a while, and then got safer, and there was more space for
going betwixt cliff and flood; albeit it was toilsome enough, since for
some way yet there was a drift of stones to cumber their feet, some big
and some little, and some very big. After a while the way grew better,
though here and there, where the cliffs lowered, were wide screes of
loose stones that they must needs climb up and down. Thereafter for a
space was there an end of the stony cumber, but the way betwixt the river
and the cliffs narrowed again, and the black crags grew higher, and at
last so exceeding high, and the way so narrow, that the sky overhead was
to them as though they were at the bottom of a well, and men deemed that
thence they could see the stars at noontide. For some time withal had
the way been mounting up and up, though the cliffs grew higher over it;
till at last they were but going on a narrow shelf, the Shivering Flood
swirling and rattling far below them betwixt sheer rock-walls grown
exceeding high; and above them the cliffs going up towards the heavens as
black as a moonless starless night of winter. And as the flood thundered
below, so above them roared the ceaseless thunder of the wind of the
pass, that blew exceeding fierce down that strait place; so that the
skirts of their garments were wrapped about their knees by it, and their
feet were well-nigh stayed at whiles as they breasted the push thereof.
But as they mounted higher and higher yet, the noise of the waters
swelled into a huge roar that drowned the bellowing of the prisoned wind,
and down the pass came drifting a fine rain that fell not from the sky,
for between the clouds of that drift could folk see the heavens bright
and blue above them. This rain was but the spray of the great force up
to whose steps they were climbing.
Now the way got rougher as they mounted; but this toil was caused by
their gain; for the rock-wall, which thrust out a buttress there as if it
would have gone to the very edge of the gap where-through the flood ran,
and so have cut the way off utterly, was here somewhat broken down, and
its stones scattered down the steep bent, so that there was a passage,
though a toilsome one.
Thus then through the wind-borne drift of the great force, through which
men could see the white waters tossing down below, amidst the clattering
thunder of the Shivering Flood and the rumble of the wind of the gap,
that tore through their garments and hair as if it would rend all to rags
and bear it away, the banners of the Wolf won their way to the crest of
the midmost height of the pass, and the long line of the Host came
clambering after them; and each band of warriors as it reached the top
cast an unheard shout from amidst the tangled fury of wind and waters.
A little further on and all that turmoil was behind them; the sun, now
grown low, smote the wavering column of spray from the force at their
backs, till the rainbows lay bright across it; and the sunshine lay wide
over a little valley that sloped somewhat steeply to the west right up
from the edge of the river; and beyond these western slopes could men see
a low peak spreading down on all sides to the plain, till it was like to
a bossed shield, and the name of it was Shield-broad. Dark grey was the
valley everywhere, save that by the side of the water was a space of
bright green-sward hedged about toward the mountain by a wall of rocks
tossed up into wild shapes of spires and jagged points. The river itself
was spread out wide and shallow, and went rattling about great grey rocks
scattered here and there amidst it, till it gathered itself together to
tumble headlong over three slant steps into the mighty gap below.
From the height in the pass those grey slopes seemed easy to traverse;
but the warriors of the Wolf knew that it was far otherwise, for they
were but the molten rock-sea that in time long past had flowed forth from
Shield-broad and filled up the whole valley endlong and overthwart,
cooling as it flowed, and the tumbled hedge of rock round about the green
plain by the river was where the said rock-sea had been stayed by meeting
with soft ground, and had heaped itself up round about the green-sward.
And that great rock-flood as it cooled split in divers fashions; and the
rain and weather had been busy on it for ages, so that it was worn into a
maze of narrow paths, most of which, after a little, brought the wayfarer
to a dead stop, or else led him back again to the place whence he had
started; so that only those who knew the passes throughly could thread
that maze without immeasurable labour.
Now when the men of the Host looked from the high place whereon they
stood toward the green plain by the river, they saw on the top of that
rock-wall a red pennon waving on a spear, and beside it three or four
weaponed men gleaming bright in the evening sun; and they waved their
swords to the Host, and made lightning of the sunbeams, and the men of
the Host waved swords to them in turn. For these were the outguards of
the Host; and the place whereon they were was at whiles dwelt in by those
who would drive the spoil in Silver-dale, and midmost of the green-sward
was a booth builded of rough stones and turf, a refuge for a score of men
in rough weather.
So the men of the vanward gat them down the hill, and made the best of
their way toward the grassy plain through that rocky maze which had once
been as a lake of molten glass; and as short as the way looked from
above, it was two hours or ever they came out of it on to the smooth
turf, and it was moonlight and night ere the House of the Face had gotten
on to the green-sward.
There then the Host abode for that night, and after they had eaten lay
down on the green grass and slept as they might. Bow-may would have
brought the Sun-beam into the booth with some others of the women, but
she would not enter it, because she deemed that otherwise the Bride would
abide without; and the Bride, when she came up, along with the House of
the Steer, beheld the Sun-beam, that Wood-father’s children had made a
lair for her without like a hare’s form; and forsooth many a time had she
lain under the naked heaven in Shadowy Vale and the waste about it, even
as the Bride had in the meadows of Burgdale. So when the Bride was
bidden thereto, she went meekly into the booth, and lay there with others
of the damsels-at-arms.