CHAPTER XLI. THE HOST DEPARTETH FROM SHADOWY VALE: THE FIRST DAY’SJOURNEY.
IT was about three hours before noon that the Host began to enter intothe pass out of Shadowy Vale by the river-side; and the women andchildren, and men unfightworthy, stood on the higher ground at the footof the cliffs to see the Host wend on the way. Of these a many were ofthe Woodlanders, who were now one folk with them of Shadowy Vale. Andall these had chosen to abide tidings in the Vale, deeming that there waslittle danger therein, since that last slaughter which Folk-might hadmade of the Dusky Men; albeit Face-of-god had offered to send them all toBurgstead with two score and ten men-at-arms to guard them by the way andto 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 undertwenty winters; but the women, though you might scarce see fairer of faceand body, were doughty in arms, all good shooters in the bow; and theswains were eager and light-foot, cragsmen of the best, wont to scalingthe cliffs of the Vale in search of the nests of gerfalcons and such-likefowl, and swimming the strong streams of the Shivering Flood; toughbodies and wiry, stronger than most grown men, and as fearless as thebest.
The order of the Departure of the Host was this:
The Woodlanders went first into the pass, and with them were two score ofthe 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 Vineand the Sickle; then the Shepherd-folk; and lastly, the Men of the Faceled by Stone-face and Hall-face. With these went another two score ofthe dwellers in Shadowy Vale, and the rest were scattered up and down thebands of the Host to guide them into the best paths and to make the wayeasier to them. Face-of-god was sundered from his kindred, and wentalong with Folk-might in the forefront of the Host, while his father theAlderman 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 ofthe Wolf, and with her were Bow-may clad in the Alderman’s gift, andWood-father and his children. Bow-may had caused her to doff her hauberkfor that day, whereon they looked to fall in with no foeman. As for theBride, she went with her kindred in all her war-gear; and the morning sunshone in the gems of her apparel, and her jewelled feet fell like flowersupon the deep grass of the upper Vale, and shone strange and brightamongst the black stones of the pass. She bore a quiver at her back anda shining yew bow in her hand, and went amongst the bowmen, for she was avery deft archer.
So fared they into the pass, leaving peace behind them, with all theirbanners displayed, and the banner of the Red-mouthed Wolf went with theWolf and the Sun-burst in the forefront of their battle next after thetwo captains.
As for their road, the grassy space between the rock-wall and the waterwas wide and smooth at first, and the cliffs rose up like bundles ofspear-shafts high and clear from the green grass with no confused litterof fallen stones; so that the men strode on briskly, their heartshigh-raised and full of hope. And as they went, the sweetness of songstirred in their souls, and at last Bow-may fell to singing in a loudclear voice, and her cousin Wood-wise answered her, and all the warriorsof the Wolf who were in their band fell into the song at the ending, andthe sound of their melody went down the water and reached the ears ofthose that were entering the pass, and of those who were abiding till theway 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, thatwhen the rearward of the Host was entering the first of the pass, and wasgoing on the wide smooth sward, the vanward was gotten to where there wasbut a narrow space clear betwixt water and cliff; for otherwhere was alitter of great rocks and small, hard to be threaded even by those whoknew the passes well; so that men had to tread along the very verge ofthe Shivering Flood, and wary must they be, for the water ran swift anddeep betwixt banks of sheer rock half a fathom below their veryfoot-soles, which had but bare space to go on the narrow a way. So itheld on for a while, and then got safer, and there was more space forgoing betwixt cliff and flood; albeit it was toilsome enough, since forsome way yet there was a drift of stones to cumber their feet, some bigand some little, and some very big. After a while the way grew better,though here and there, where the cliffs lowered, were wide screes ofloose stones that they must needs climb up and down. Thereafter for aspace was there an end of the stony cumber, but the way betwixt the riverand the cliffs narrowed again, and the black crags grew higher, and atlast so exceeding high, and the way so narrow, that the sky overhead wasto them as though they were at the bottom of a well, and men deemed thatthence they could see the stars at noontide. For some time withal hadthe 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 Floodswirling and rattling far below them betwixt sheer rock-walls grownexceeding high; and above them the cliffs going up towards the heavens asblack as a moonless starless night of winter. And as the flood thunderedbelow, so above them roared the ceaseless thunder of the wind of thepass, that blew exceeding fierce down that strait place; so that theskirts of their garments were wrapped about their knees by it, and theirfeet were well-nigh stayed at whiles as they breasted the push thereof.
But as they mounted higher and higher yet, the noise of the watersswelled 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 brightand blue above them. This rain was but the spray of the great force upto whose steps they were climbing.
Now the way got rougher as they mounted; but this toil was caused bytheir gain; for the rock-wall, which thrust out a buttress there as if itwould 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, andits stones scattered down the steep bent, so that there was a passage,though a toilsome one.
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nbsp; Thus then through the wind-borne drift of the great force, through whichmen could see the white waters tossing down below, amidst the clatteringthunder 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 ragsand bear it away, the banners of the Wolf won their way to the crest ofthe midmost height of the pass, and the long line of the Host cameclambering after them; and each band of warriors as it reached the topcast 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, nowgrown low, smote the wavering column of spray from the force at theirbacks, till the rainbows lay bright across it; and the sunshine lay wideover a little valley that sloped somewhat steeply to the west right upfrom the edge of the river; and beyond these western slopes could men seea low peak spreading down on all sides to the plain, till it was like toa bossed shield, and the name of it was Shield-broad. Dark grey was thevalley everywhere, save that by the side of the water was a space ofbright green-sward hedged about toward the mountain by a wall of rockstossed up into wild shapes of spires and jagged points. The river itselfwas spread out wide and shallow, and went rattling about great grey rocksscattered here and there amidst it, till it gathered itself together totumble 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 theywere but the molten rock-sea that in time long past had flowed forth fromShield-broad and filled up the whole valley endlong and overthwart,cooling as it flowed, and the tumbled hedge of rock round about the greenplain by the river was where the said rock-sea had been stayed by meetingwith 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 therain and weather had been busy on it for ages, so that it was worn into amaze of narrow paths, most of which, after a little, brought the wayfarerto a dead stop, or else led him back again to the place whence he hadstarted; so that only those who knew the passes throughly could threadthat maze without immeasurable labour.
Now when the men of the Host looked from the high place whereon theystood toward the green plain by the river, they saw on the top of thatrock-wall a red pennon waving on a spear, and beside it three or fourweaponed men gleaming bright in the evening sun; and they waved theirswords to the Host, and made lightning of the sunbeams, and the men ofthe Host waved swords to them in turn. For these were the outguards ofthe Host; and the place whereon they were was at whiles dwelt in by thosewho would drive the spoil in Silver-dale, and midmost of the green-swardwas a booth builded of rough stones and turf, a refuge for a score of menin rough weather.
So the men of the vanward gat them down the hill, and made the best oftheir way toward the grassy plain through that rocky maze which had oncebeen as a lake of molten glass; and as short as the way looked fromabove, it was two hours or ever they came out of it on to the smoothturf, and it was moonlight and night ere the House of the Face had gottenon to the green-sward.
There then the Host abode for that night, and after they had eaten laydown on the green grass and slept as they might. Bow-may would havebrought the Sun-beam into the booth with some others of the women, butshe would not enter it, because she deemed that otherwise the Bride wouldabide without; and the Bride, when she came up, along with the House ofthe Steer, beheld the Sun-beam, that Wood-father’s children had made alair for her without like a hare’s form; and forsooth many a time had shelain under the naked heaven in Shadowy Vale and the waste about it, evenas the Bride had in the meadows of Burgdale. So when the Bride wasbidden thereto, she went meekly into the booth, and lay there with othersof the damsels-at-arms.