THE din and tumult still came from the north side of the Market-place, so
that all the air was full of noise; and Face-of-god deemed that the
thralls had gotten weapons into their hands and were slaying their
masters.
Now he lifted up his face, and put his hand on Folk-might’s shoulder, and
said in a loud voice:
‘Kinsmen, it were well if our brother were to bid the banners into the
Mote-house of the Wolf, and let all the Host set itself in array before
the said house, and abide till the chasers of the foe come to us thither;
for I perceive that they are now become many, and are more than those of
our kindred.’
Then Folk-might looked at him with kind eyes, and said:
‘Thou sayest well, brother; even so let it be!’
And he lifted up his sword, and Face-of-god cried out in a loud voice:
‘Forward, banners! blow up horns! fare we forth with victory!’
So the Host drew its ranks together in good order, and they all set
forward, and old Stone-face took the Sun-beam by the hand and led on
behind Folk-might and the War-leader. But when they came to the Hall,
then saw they how the steps that led up to the door were high and double,
going up from each side without any railing or fool-guard; and crowding
the stairs and the platform thereof was a band of the Dusky Men, as many
as could stand thereon, who shot arrows at the host of the kindreds,
howling like dogs, and chattering like apes; and arrows and spears came
from the windows of the Hall; yea, and on the very roof a score of these
felons were riding the ridge and mocking like the trolls of old days.
Now when they saw this they stayed a while, and men shielded them against
the shafts; but the leaders drew together in front of the Host, and
Folk-might fell to speech; and his face was very pale and stern; for now
he had had time to think of the case of the Bride, and fierce wrath, and
grief unholpen filled his soul. So he said:
‘Brothers, this is my business to deal with; for I see before me the
stair that leadeth to the Mote-house of my people, and now would I sit
there whereas my fathers sat, when peace was on the Dale, as once more it
shall be to-morrow. Therefore up this stair will I go, and none shall
hinder me; and let no man of the host follow me till I have entered into
the Hall, unless perchance I fall dead by the way; but stand ye still and
look on.’
‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘this is partly the business of the War-leader.
There are two stairs. Be content to take the southern one, and I will
take the northern. We shall meet on the plain stone at the top.’
But Hall-face said: ‘War-leader, may I speak?’
‘Speak, brother,’ said Face-of-god.
Said Hall-face: ‘I have done but little to-day, War-leader. I would
stand by thee on the northern stair; so shall Folk-might be content, if
he doeth two men’s work who are not little-hearted.’
Said Face-of-god: ‘The doom of the War-leader is that Folk-might shall
fall on by the southern stair to slake his grief and increase his glory,
and Face-of-god and Hall-face by the northern. Haste to the work, O
brothers!’
And he and Hall-face went to their places, while all looked on. But the
Sun-beam, with her hand still in Stone-face’s, she turned white to the
lips, and stared with wild eyes before her, not knowing where she was;
for she had deemed that the battle was over, and Face-of-god saved from
it.
But Folk-might tossed up his head and laughed, and cried out, ‘At last,
at last!’ And his sword was in his hand, the Sleep-thorn to wit, a blade
of ancient fame; so now he let it fall and hang to his wrist by the
leash, while he clapped his hands together and uttered the Wolf-whoop
mightily, and all the men of the Wolf that were in the host, and the
Woodlanders withal, uttered it with him. Then he put his shield over his
head and stood before the first of the steps, and the Dusky Men laughed
to see one man come against them, though there was death in their hearts.
But he laughed back at them in triumph, and set his foot on the step, and
let Sleep-thorn’s point go into the throat of a Dusky lord, and thrust
amongst them, hewing right and left, and tumbling men over the edge of
the stair, which was to them as the narrow path along the cliff-side that
hangeth over the unfathomed sea. They hewed and thrust at him in turn;
but so close were they packed that their weapons crossed about him, and
one shielded him from the other, and they swayed staggering on that
fearful verge, while the Sleep-thorn crept here and there amongst them,
lulling their hot fury. For, as desperate as they were, and fighting for
death and not for life, they had a horror of him and of the sea of hatred
below them, and feared where to set their feet, and he feared nought at
all, but from feet to sword-point was but an engine of slaughter, while
the heart within him throbbed with fury long held back as he thought upon
the Bride and her wounding, and all the wrongs of his people since their
Great Undoing.
So he smote and thrust, till him-seemed the throng of foes thinned before
him: with his sword-pommel he smote a lord of the Dusky Ones in the face,
so that he fell over the edge amongst the spears of the kindred; then he
thrust the point of Sleep-thorn towards the Hall-door through the breast
of another, and then it seemed to him that he had but one before him; so
he hove up the edges to cleave him down, but ere the stroke fell, close
to his ears exceeding loud rang out the cry, ‘For the Burg and the Face!
for the Face, for the Face!’ and he drew aback a little, and his eyes
cleared, and lo! it was Hall-face the tall, his long sword all reddened
with battle; and beside him stood Face-of-god, silent and panting, his
face pale with the fierce anger of the fight, and the weariness which was
now at last gaining upon him. There stood those three with no other
living man upon the plain of the stairs.
Then Face-of-god turned shouting to the Folk, and cried:
‘Forth now with the banners! For now is the Wolf come home. On into the
Hall, O Kindred of the Gods!’
Then poured the Folk up over the stairs and into the Hall of the Wolf,
the banners flapping over their heads; and first went the War-leader and
Folk-might and Hall-face, and then the three delivered thralls,
Wolf-stone, God-swain, and Spear-fist, and Dallach with them, though both
he and Wolf-stone had been hurt in the battle; and then came blended
together the Men of the Face along with them of the Wolf who had entered
the Market-stead with them, and with these were Stone-face and Wood-wont
and Bow-may, leading the Sun-beam betwixt them; and now was she come to
herself again, though her face was yet pale, and her eyes gleamed as she
stepped across the threshold of the Hall.
But when a many were gotten in, and the first-comers had had time to
handle their weapons and look about them, a cry of the utmost wrath broke
from Folk-might and those others who remembered the Hall from of old.
For wretched and befouled was that well-builded house: the hangings rent
away; the goodly painted walls daubed and smeared with wicked tokens of
the Alien murderers: the floor, once bright with polished stones of the
mountain, and strewn with sweet-smelling flowers, was now as foul as the
den of the man-devouring troll of the heaths. From the fair-carven roof
of oak and chestnut-beams hung ugly knots of rags and shapeless images of
the sorcery of the Dusky Men. And furthermore, and above all, from the
last tie-beam of the roof over the daïs dangled four shapes of
men-at-arms, whom the older men of the Wolf knew at once for the embalmed
bodies of their four great chieftains, who had been slain on the day of
the Great Undoing; and they cried out with horror and rage as they saw
them hanging there in their weapons as they had lived.
There was the Hostage of the Earth, his shield painted with the green
world circled with the worm of the sea. There was the older Folk-might,
the uncle of the living man, bearing a shield with an oak and a lion done
thereon. There was Wealth-eker, on whose shield was done a golden sheaf
of wheat. There was he who bore a name great from of old, Folk-wolf to
wit, bearing on his shield the axe of the hewer. There they hung, dusty,
befouled, with sightless eyes and grinning mouths, in the dimmed sunlight
of the Hall, before the eyes of that victorious Host, stricken silent at
the sight of them.
Underneath them on the daïs stood the last remnant of the battle of the
Dusky Men; and they, as men mad with coming death, shook their weapons,
and with shrieking laughter mocked at the overcomers, and pointed to the
long-dead chiefs, and called on them in the tongue of the kindreds to
come down and lead their dear kinsmen to the high-seat; and then they
cried out to the living warriors of the Wolf, and bade them better their
deed of slaying, and set to work to make alive again, and cause their
kinsmen to live merry on the earth.
With that last mock they handled their weapons and rushed howling on the
warriors to meet their death; nor was it long denied them; for the sword
of the Wolf, the axe of the Woodland, and the spear of the Dale soon made
an end of the dreadful lives of these destroyers of the Folks.