SO wore the night, and when the dawn was come were the two captains
afoot, and they went from band to band to see that all was ready, and all
men were astir betimes, and by the time that the sun smote the eastern
side of Shield-broad ruddy, they had broken their fast and were dight for
departure. Then the horns blew up beside the banners, and rejoiced the
hearts of men. But by the command of the captains this was the last time
that they should sound till they blew for onset in Silver-dale, because
now would they be drawing nigher and nigher to the foemen, and they
wotted not but that wandering bands of them might be hard on the lips of
the pass, and might hear the horns’ voice, and turn to see what was
toward.
Forth then went the banners of the Wolf, and the men of the vanward fell
to threading the rock-maze toward the north, and in two hours’ time were
clear of the Dale under Shield-broad. All went in the same order as
yesterday; but on this day the Sun-beam would bear her hauberk, and had a
sword girt to her side, and her heart was high and her speech merry.
When they left the Dale under Shield-broad the way was easy and wide for
a good way, the river flowing betwixt low banks, and the pass being more
like a string of little valleys than a mere gap, as it had been on the
other side of the Dale. But when one third of the day was past, the way
began to narrow on them again, and to rise up little by little; and at
last the rock-walls drew close to the river, and when men looked toward
the north they saw no way, and nought but a wall. For the gap of the
Shivering Flood turned now to the east, and the Flood came down from the
east in many falls, as it were over a fearful stair, through a gap where
there was no path between the cliffs and the water, nought but the
boiling flood and its turmoil; so that they who knew not the road
wondered what they should do.
But Folk-might led the banners to where a great buttress of the cliffs
thrust itself into the way, coming well-nigh down to the water, just at
the corner where the river turned eastward, and they got them about it as
they might, and on the other side thereof lo! another gap exceeding
strait, scarce twenty foot over, wall-sided, rugged beyond measure, going
up steeply from the great valley: a little water ran through it, mostly
filling up the floor of it from side to side; but it was but shallow.
This was now the battle-road of the Host, and the vanward entered it at
once, turning their backs upon the Shivering Flood.
Full toilsome and dreary was that strait way; often great stones hung
above their heads, bridging the gap and hiding the sky from them; nor was
there any path for them save the stream itself; so that whiles were they
wading its waters to the knee or higher, and whiles were they striding
from stone to stone amidst the rattle of the waters, and whiles were they
stepping warily along the ledges of rock above the deeper pools, and in
all wise labouring in overcoming the rugged road amidst the twilight of
the gap.
Thus they toiled till the afternoon was well worn, and so at last they
came to where the rock-wall was somewhat broken down on the north side,
and great rocks had fallen across the gap, and dammed up the waters,
which fell scantily over the dam from stone to stone into a pool at the
bottom of it. Up this breach, then, below the force they scrambled and
struggled, for rough indeed was the road for them; and so came they up
out of the gap on to the open hill-side, a great shoulder of the heath
sloping down from the north, and littered over with big stones, borne
thither belike by some ice-river of the earlier days; and one great rock
was in special as great as the hall of a wealthy goodman, and shapen like
to a hall with hipped gables, which same the men of the Wolf called
House-stone.
There then the noise and clatter of the vanward rose up on the face of
the heath, and men were exceeding joyous that they had come so far
without mishap. Therewith came weaponed men out from under House-stone,
and they came toward the men of the vanward, and they were a half-score
of the forerunners of the Wolf; therefore Folk-might and Face-of-god fell
at once into speech with them, and had their tidings; and when they had
heard them, they saw nought to hinder the host from going on their road
to Silver-dale forthright; and there were still three hours of daylight
before them. So the vanward of the host tarried not, and the captains
left word with the men from under House-stone that the rest of the Host
should fare on after them speedily, and that they should give this word
to each company, as men came up from out the gap. Then they fared
speedily up the hillside, and in an hour’s wearing had come to the crest
thereof, and to where the ground fell steadily toward the north, and
hereabout the scattered stones ceased, and on the other side of the crest
the heath began to be soft and boggy, and at last so soft, that if they
had not been wisely led, they had been bemired oftentimes. At last they
came to where the flows that trickled through the mires drew together
into a stream, so that men could see it running; and thereon some of the
Woodlanders cried out joyously that the waters were running north; and
then all knew that they were drawing nigh to Silver-dale.
No man they met on the road, nor did they of Shadowy Vale look to meet
any; because the Dusky Men were not great hunters for the more part,
except it were of men, and especially of women; and, moreover, these
hill-slopes of the mountain-necks led no-whither and were utterly waste
and dreary, and there was nought to be seen there but snipes and bitterns
and whimbrel and plover, and here and there a hill-fox, or the great erne
hanging over the heath on his way to the mountain.
When sunset came, they were getting clear of the miry ground, and the
stream which they had come across amidst of the mires had got clearer and
greater, and rattled down between wide stony sides over the heath; and
here and there it deepened as it cleft its way through little knolls that
rose out of the face of the mountain-neck. As the Host climbed one of
these and was come to its topmost (it was low enough not to turn the
stream), Face-of-god looked and beheld dark-blue mountains rising up far
off before him, and higher than these, but away to the east, the snowy
peaks of the World-mountains. Then he called to mind what he had seen
from the Burg of the Runaways, and he took Folk-might by the arm, and
pointed toward those far-off mountains.
‘Yea,’ said Folk-might, ‘so it is, War-leader. Silver-dale lieth between
us and yonder blue ridges, and it is far nigher to us than to them.’
But the Sun-beam came close to those twain, and took Face-of-god by the
hand and said: ‘O Gold-mane, dost thou see?’ and he turned about and
beheld her, and saw how her cheeks flamed and her eyes glittered, and he
said in a low voice: ‘To-morrow for mirth or silence, for life or death.’
But the whole vanward as they came up stayed to behold the sight of the
mountains on the other side of Silver-dale, and the banners of the Folk
hung over their heads, moving but little in the soft air of the evening:
so went they on their ways.
The sun sank, and dusk came on them as they followed down the stream, and
night came, and was clear and starlit, though the moon was not yet risen.
Now was the ground firm and the grass sweet and flowery, and wind-worn
bushes were scattered round about them, as they began to go down into the
ghyll that cleft the wall of Silver-dale, and the night-wind blew in
their faces from the very Dale and place of the Battle to be. The path
down was steep at first, but the ghyll was wide, and the sides of it no
longer straight walls, as in the gaps of their earlier journey, but
broken, sloping back, and (as they might see on the morrow) partly of big
stones and shaly grit, partly grown over with bushes and rough grass,
with here and there a little stream trickling down their sides. As they
went, the ghyll widened out, till at last they were in a valley going
down to the plain, in places steep, in places flat and smooth, the stream
ever rattling down the midst of it, and they on the west side thereof.
The vale was well grassed, and oak-trees and ash and holly and hazel grew
here and there about it; and at last the Host had before it a wood which
filled the vale from side to side, not much tangled with undergrowth, and
quite clear of it nigh to the stream-side. Thereinto the vanward
entered, but went no long way ere the leaders called a halt and bade
pitch the banners, for that there should they abide the daylight. Thus
it had been determined at the Council of the Hall of the Wolf; for
Folk-might had said: ‘With an Host as great as ours, and mostly of men
come into a land of which they know nought at all, an onslaught by night
is perilous: yea, and our foes should be over-much scattered, and we
should have to wander about seeking them. Let us rather abide in the
wood of Wood-dale till the morning, and then display our banners on the
hill-side above Silver-dale, so that they may gather together to fall
upon us: in no case shall they keep us out of the Dale.’
There then they stayed, and as each company came up to the wood, they
were marshalled into their due places, so that they might set the battle
in array on the edge of Silver-dale.