CHAPTER XLVII. THE KINDREDS WIN THE MOTE-HOUSE.
THE din and tumult still came from the north side of the Market-place, sothat all the air was full of noise; and Face-of-god deemed that thethralls had gotten weapons into their hands and were slaying theirmasters.
Now he lifted up his face, and put his hand on Folk-might’s shoulder, andsaid in a loud voice:
‘Kinsmen, it were well if our brother were to bid the banners into theMote-house of the Wolf, and let all the Host set itself in array beforethe 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 ofour 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 setforward, and old Stone-face took the Sun-beam by the hand and led onbehind 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 crowdingthe stairs and the platform thereof was a band of the Dusky Men, as manyas could stand thereon, who shot arrows at the host of the kindreds,howling like dogs, and chattering like apes; and arrows and spears camefrom the windows of the Hall; yea, and on the very roof a score of thesefelons 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 againstthe shafts; but the leaders drew together in front of the Host, andFolk-might fell to speech; and his face was very pale and stern; for nowhe had had time to think of the case of the Bride, and fierce wrath, andgrief unholpen filled his soul. So he said:
‘Brothers, this is my business to deal with; for I see before me thestair that leadeth to the Mote-house of my people, and now would I sitthere whereas my fathers sat, when peace was on the Dale, as once more itshall be to-morrow. Therefore up this stair will I go, and none shallhinder me; and let no man of the host follow me till I have entered intothe Hall, unless perchance I fall dead by the way; but stand ye still andlook 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 willtake 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 wouldstand by thee on the northern stair; so shall Folk-might be content, ifhe doeth two men’s work who are not little-hearted.’
Said Face-of-god: ‘The doom of the War-leader is that Folk-might shallfall 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, Obrothers!’
And he and Hall-face went to their places, while all looked on. But theSun-beam, with her hand still in Stone-face’s, she turned white to thelips, 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 fromit.
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 bladeof ancient fame; so now he let it fall and hang to his wrist by theleash, while he clapped his hands together and uttered the Wolf-whoopmightily, and all the men of the Wolf that were in the host, and theWoodlanders withal, uttered it with him. Then he put his shield over hishead and stood before the first of the steps, and the Dusky Men laughedto 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, andlet Sleep-thorn’s point go into the throat of a Dusky lord, and thrustamongst them, hewing right and left, and tumbling men over the edge ofthe stair, which was to them as the narrow path along the cliff-side thathangeth over the unfathomed sea. They hewed and thrust at him in turn;but so close were they packed that their weapons crossed about him, andone shielded him from the other, and they swayed staggering on thatfearful verge, while the Sleep-thorn crept here and there amongst them,lulling their hot fury. For, as desperate as they were, and fighting fordeath and not for life, they had a horror of him and of the sea of hatredbelow them, and feared where to set their feet, and he feared nought atall, but from feet to sword-point was but an engine of slaughter, whilethe heart within him throbbed with fury long held back as he thought uponthe Bride and her wounding, and all the wrongs of his people since theirGreat Undoing.
So he smote and thrust, till him-seemed the throng of foes thinned beforehim: 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 hethrust the point of Sleep-thorn towards the Hall-door through the breastof another, and then it seemed to him that he had but one before him; sohe hove up the edges to cleave him down, but ere the stroke fell, closeto 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 eyescleared, and lo! it was Hall-face the tall, his long sword all reddenedwith battle; and beside him stood Face-of-god, silent and panting, hisface pale with the fierce anger of the fight, and the weariness which wasnow at last gaining upon him. There stood those three with no otherliving 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 theHall, 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 andFolk-might and Hall-face, and then the three delivered thralls,Wolf-stone, God-swain, and Spear-fist, and Dallach with them, though bothhe and Wolf-stone had been hurt in the battle; and then came blendedtogether the Men of the Face along with them of the Wolf who had enteredthe Market-stead with them, and with these were Stone-face and Wood-wontand Bow-may, leading the Sun-beam betwixt them; and now was she come toherself again, though her face was yet pale, and her eyes gleamed as shestepped across the threshold of the Hall.
But when a many were gotten in, and the first-comers had had time tohandle their weapons and look about them, a cry of the utmost wrath brokefrom Folk-might and those others who remembered the Hall from of old.For wretched and befouled was that well-builded house: the hangings rentaway; the goodly painted walls daubed and smeared with wicked tokens ofthe Alien murderers: the floor, once bright with polished stones of themountain, and strewn with sweet-smelling flowers, was now as foul as theden of the man-devouring troll of the heaths. From the fair-carven roofof oak and chestnut-beams hung ugly knots of rags and shapeless images ofthe sorcery of the Dusky Men. And furthermore, and above all, from thelast tie-beam of the roof over the daïs dangled four shapes ofmen-at-arms, whom the older men of the Wolf knew at once for the embalmedbodies of their four great chieftains, who had been slain on the day ofthe Great Undoing; and they cried out with horror and rage as they sawthem hanging there in their weapons as they had lived.
There was the Hostage of the Earth, his shield painted with the greenworld 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 donethereon. There was Wealth-eker, on whose shield was done a golden sheafof wheat. There was he who bore a name great from of old, Folk-wolf towit, bearing on his shield the axe of the hewer. There they hung, dusty,befouled, with sightless eyes and grinning mouths, in the dimmed sunlightof the Hall, before the eyes of that victorious Host, stricken silent atthe sight of them.
Underneath them on the daïs stood the last remnant of the battle of theDusky Men; and they, as men mad with coming death, shook their weapons,and with shrieking laughter mocked at
the overcomers, and pointed to thelong-dead chiefs, and called on them in the tongue of the kindreds tocome down and lead their dear kinsmen to the high-seat; and then theycried out to the living warriors of the Wolf, and bade them better theirdeed of slaying, and set to work to make alive again, and cause theirkinsmen to live merry on the earth.
With that last mock they handled their weapons and rushed howling on thewarriors to meet their death; nor was it long denied them; for the swordof the Wolf, the axe of the Woodland, and the spear of the Dale soon madean end of the dreadful lives of these destroyers of the Folks.