THE BULL.
WILD was the turmoil and confusion in the Market-stead; for the more part
of the men therein knew not what had befallen about the altar, though
some clomb up to the top of that stack of faggots built for the burning
of the thralls, and when they saw what was toward fell to yelling and
cursing; and their fellows on the plain Place could not hear their story
for the clamour, and they also fell to howling as if a wood full of wild
dogs was there.
And still the shafts rained down on that throng from the Bent of the
Bowmen, for another two score men of the Woodlanders had crept down the
hill to them, and shafts failed them not. But the Dusky Men about the
altar, for all their terror, or even maybe because of it, now began to
turn upon the scarce-seen foemen, and to press up wildly toward the
hill-side, though as it were without any order or aim. Every man of them
had his weapons, and those no mere gilded toys, but their very tools of
battle; and some, but no great number, had their bows with them and a few
shafts; and these began to shoot at whatsoever they could see on the
hill-side, but at first so wildly and hurriedly that they did no harm.
It must be said of them that at first only those about the altar fell on
toward the hill; for those about the road that led southward knew not
what had betided nor whither to turn. So that at this beginning of the
battle, of all the thousands in the great Place it was but a few hundreds
that set on the Bent of the Bowmen, and at these the bowmen of the
kindreds shot so close and so wholly together that they fell one over
another in the narrow ways between the houses whereby they must needs go
to gather on the plain ground betwixt the backs of the houses and the
break of the hill-side. But little by little the archers of the Dusky
Men gathered behind the corpses of the slain, and fell to shooting at
what they could see of the men of the kindreds, which at that while was
not much, for as bold as they were, they fought like wary hunters of the
Wood and the Waste.
But now at last throughout all that throng of Felons in the Market-place
the tale began to spread of foemen come into the Dale and shooting from
the Bents, and all they turned their faces to the hill, and the whole set
of the throng was thitherward; though they fared but slowly, so evil was
the order of them, each man hindering his neighbour as he went. And not
only did the Dusky Men come flockmeal toward the Bent of the Bowmen, but
also they jostled along toward the road that led southward. That beheld
Wood-wise from the Bent, and he was minded to get him and his aback, now
that they had made so great a slaughter of the foemen; and two or three
of his fellows had been hurt by arrows, and Bow-may, she would have been
slain thrice over but for the hammer-work of the Alderman. And no marvel
was that; for now she stood on a little mound not half covered by a thin
thorn-bush, and notched and loosed at whatever was most notable, as
though she were shooting at the mark on a summer evening in Shadowy Vale.
But as Wood-wise was at point to give the word to depart, from behind
them rang out the merry sound of the Burgdale horns, and he turned to
look at the wood-side, and lo! thereunder was the hill bright and dark
with men-at-arms, and over them floated the Banners of the Wolf, and the
Banners of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull. Then gave forth the
bowmen of the kindreds their first shout, and they made no stay in their
shooting; but shot the eagerer, for they deemed that help would come
without their turning about to draw it to them: and even so it was. For
straightway down the bent came striding Face-of-god betwixt the two
Banners of the Wolf, and beside him were Red-wolf the tall and War-grove,
and therewithal Wood-wont and Wood-wicked, and many other men of the
Wolf; for now that the men of the kindreds had been brought face to face
with the foe, and there was less need of them for way-leaders, the more
part of them were liefer to fight under their own banner along with the
Woodlanders; so that the company of those who went under the Wolves was
more than three long hundreds and a half; and the bowmen on the edge of
the bent shouted again and merrily, when they felt that their brothers
were amongst them, and presently was the arrow-storm at its fiercest, and
the twanging of bow-strings and the whistle of the shafts was as the wind
among the clefts of the mountains; for all the new-comers were bowmen of
the best.
But the kindreds of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull, they hung yet a
while longer on the hills’ brow, their banners floating over them and
their horns blowing; and the Dusky Felons in the Market-place beheld
them, and fear and rage at once filled their hearts, and a fierce and
dreadful yell brake out from them, and joyously did the Men of Burgdale
answer them, and song arose amongst them even such as this:
_The Men of the Bridge sing_:
Why stand ye together, why bear ye the shield,
Now the calf straineth tether at edge of the field?
Now the lamb bleateth stronger and waters run clear,
And the day groweth longer and glad is the year?
Now the mead-flowers jostle so thick as they stand,
And singeth the throstle all over the land?
_The Men of the Steer sing_:
No cloud the day darkened, no thunder we heard,
But the horns’ speech we hearkened as men unafeared.
Yea, so merry it sounded, we turned from the Dale,
Where all wealth abounded, to wot of its tale.
_The Men of the Bridge sing_:
What white boles then bear ye, what wealth of the woods?
What chafferers hear ye bid loud for your goods?
_The Men of the Bull sing_:
O the bright beams we carry are stems of the steel;
Nor long shall we tarry across them to deal.
Hark the men of the cheaping, how loudly they cry
On the hook for the reaping of men doomed to die!
_They all sing_:
Heave spear up! fare forward, O Men of the Dale!
For the Warrior, our war-ward, shall hearken the tale.
Therewith they ceased a moment, and then gave a great and hearty shout
all together, and all their horns blew, and they moved on down the hill
as one man, slowly and with no jostling, the spear-men first, and then
they of the axe and the sword; and on their flanks the deft archers
loosed on the stumbling jostling throng of the Dusky Men, who for their
part came on drifting and surging up the road to the hill.
But when those big spearmen of the Dale had gone a little way the horns’
voice died out, and their great-staved spears rose up from their
shoulders into the air, and stood so a moment, and then slowly fell
forward, as the oars of the longship fall into the row-locks, and then
over the shoulders of the foremost men showed the steel of the five ranks
behind them, and their own spears cast long bars of shadow on the
whiteness of the sunny road. No sound came from them now save the rattle
of their armour and the tramp of their steady feet; but from the Dusky
Men rose up hideous confused yelling, and those that could free
themselves from the tangle of the throng rushed desperately against the
on-rolling hedge of steel, and the whole throng shoved on behind them.
Then met steel and men; here and there an ash-stave broke; here and there
a Dusky Felon rolled himself unhurt under the ash-staves, and hewed the
knees of the Dalesmen, and a tall man came tottering down; but what men
or wood-wights could endure the push of spears of those mighty
husbandmen? The Dusky Ones shrunk back yelling, or turned their backs
and rushed at their own folk with such fierce agony that they entered
into the throng, till the terror of the spear reached to the midmost of
it and swayed them back on the hindermost; for neither was there outgate
for the felons on the flanks of the spearmen, since there the feathered
death beset them, and the bowmen (and the Bride amongst the foremost)
shot wholly together, and no shaft flew idly. But the wise leaders of
the Dalesmen would not that they should thrust in too far amongst the
howling throng of the Dusky Men, lest they should be hemmed in by them;
for they were but a handful in regard to them: so there they stayed,
barring the way to the Dusky Men, and the bowmen still loosed from the
flanks of them, or aimed deftly from betwixt the ranks of the spearmen.
And now was there a space of ten strides or more betwixt the Dalesmen and
their foes, over which the spears hung terribly, nor durst the Dusky Men
adventure there; and thereon was nought but men dead or sorely hurt.
Then suddenly a horn rang thrice shrilly over all the noise and clamour
of the throng, and the ranks of the spearmen opened, and forth into that
space strode two score of the swordsmen and axe-wielders of the Dale,
their weapons raised in their hands, and he who led them was Iron-hand of
the House of the Bull: tall he was, wide-shouldered, exceeding strong,
but beardless and fair-faced. He bore aloft a two-edged sword,
broad-bladed, exceeding heavy, so that few men could wield it in battle,
but not right long; it was an ancient weapon, and his father before him
had called it the Barley-scythe. With him were some of the best of the
kindreds, as Wolf of Whitegarth, Long-hand of Oakholt, Hart of Highcliff,
and War-well the captain of the Bridge. These made no tarrying on that
space of the dead, but cried aloud their cries: ‘For the Burg and the
Steer! for the Dale and the Bridge! for the Dale and the Bull!’ and so
fell at once on the Felons; who fled not, nor had room to flee; and also
they feared not the edge-weapons so sorely as they feared those huge
spears. So they turned fiercely on the swordsmen, and chiefly on
Iron-hand, as he entered in amongst them the first of all, hewing to the
right hand and the left, and many a man fell before the Barley-scythe;
for they were but little before him. Yet as one fell another took his
place, and hewed at him with the steel axe and the crooked sword; and
with many strokes they clave his shield and brake his helm and rent his
byrny, while he heeded little save smiting with the Barley-scythe, and
the blood ran from his arm and his shoulder and his thigh.
But War-well had entered in among the foe on his left hand, and
unshielded hove up a great broad-bladed axe, that clave the iron helms of
the Dusky Men, and rent their horn-scaled byrnies. He was not very tall,
but his shoulders were huge and his arms long, and nought could abide his
stroke. He cleared a ring round Iron-hand, whose eyes were growing dim
as the blood flowed from him, and hewed three strokes before him; then
turned and drew the champion out of the throng, and gave him into the
arms of his fellows to stanch the blood that drained away the might of
his limbs; and then with a great wordless roar leaped back again on the
Dusky Men as the lion leapeth on the herd of swine; and they shrank away
before him; and all the swordsmen shouted, ‘For the Bridge, for the
Bridge!’ and pressed on the harder, smiting down all before them. On his
left hand now was Hart of Highcliff wielding a good sword hight
Chip-driver, wherewith he had slain and hurt a many, fighting wisely with
sword and shield, and driving the point home through the joints of the
armour. But even therewith, as he drave a great stroke at a lord of the
Dusky Ones, a cast-spear came flying and smote him on the breast, so that
he staggered, and the stroke fell flatlings on the shield-boss of his
foe, and Chip-driver brake atwain nigh the hilts; but Hart closed with
him, and smote him on the face with the pommel, and tore his axe from his
hand and clave his skull therewith, and slew him with his own weapon, and
fought on valiantly beside War-well.
Now War-well had fought so fiercely that he had rent his own hauberk with
the might of his strokes, and as he raised his arm to smite a huge
stroke, a deft man of the Felons thrust the spike of his war-axe up under
his arm; and when War-well felt the smart of the steel, he turned on that
man, and, letting his axe fall down to his wrist and hang there by its
loop, he caught the foeman up by the neck and the breech, and drave him
against the other Dusky Ones before him, so that their weapons pierced
and rent their own friend and fellow. Then he put forth the might of his
arms and the pith of his body, and hove up that felon and cast him on to
the heads of his fellow murder-carles, so that he rent them and was rent
by them. Then War-well fell on again with the axe, and all the champions
of the Dale shouted and fell on with him, and the foe shrank away; and
the Dalesmen cleared a space five fathoms’ length before them, and the
spearmen drew onward and stood on the space whereon the first onslaught
had been.
Then drew those hewers of the Dale together, and forth from the company
came the man that bare the Banner of the Bridget and the champions
gathered round him, and they ordered their ranks and strode with the
Banner before them three times to and fro across the road athwart the
front of the spearmen, and then with a great shout drew back within the
spear-hedge. Albeit five of the champions of the Dale had been slain
outright there, and the more part of them hurt more or less.
But when all were well within the ranks, once again blew the horn, and
all the spears sank to the rest, and the kindreds drave the spear-furrow,
and a space was swept clear before them, and the cries and yells of the
Dusky Men were so fierce and wild that the rough voices of the Dalesmen
were drowned amidst them.
Forth then came every bowman of the kindred that was there and loosed on
the Dusky Men; and they forsooth had some bowmen amongst them, but cooped
up and jostled as they were they shot but wildly; whereas each shaft of
the Dale went home truly.
But amongst the bowmen forth came the Bride in her glittering war-gear,
and stepped lightly to the front of the spearmen. Her own yew bow had
been smitten by a shaft and broken in her hand: so she had caught up a
short horn bow and a quiver from one of the slain of the Dusky Men; and
now she knelt on one knee under the shadow of the spears nigh to her
grandsire Hall-ward, and with a pale face and knitted brow notched and
loosed, and notched and loosed on the throng of foemen, as if she were
some daintily fashioned engine of war.
So fared the battle on the road that went from the south into the
Market-stead. Valiantly had the kindred fought there, and no man of them
had blenched, and much had they won; but the way was perilous before
them, for the foe was many and many.