CHAPTER XLII. THE HOST COMETH TO THE EDGES OF SILVER-DALE.
SO wore the night, and when the dawn was come were the two captainsafoot, and they went from band to band to see that all was ready, and allmen were astir betimes, and by the time that the sun smote the easternside of Shield-broad ruddy, they had broken their fast and were dight fordeparture. Then the horns blew up beside the banners, and rejoiced thehearts of men. But by the command of the captains this was the last timethat they should sound till they blew for onset in Silver-dale, becausenow would they be drawing nigher and nigher to the foemen, and theywotted not but that wandering bands of them might be hard on the lips ofthe pass, and might hear the horns’ voice, and turn to see what wastoward.
Forth then went the banners of the Wolf, and the men of the vanward fellto threading the rock-maze toward the north, and in two hours’ time wereclear of the Dale under Shield-broad. All went in the same order asyesterday; but on this day the Sun-beam would bear her hauberk, and had asword 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 fora good way, the river flowing betwixt low banks, and the pass being morelike a string of little valleys than a mere gap, as it had been on theother side of the Dale. But when one third of the day was past, the waybegan to narrow on them again, and to rise up little by little; and atlast the rock-walls drew close to the river, and when men looked towardthe north they saw no way, and nought but a wall. For the gap of theShivering Flood turned now to the east, and the Flood came down from theeast in many falls, as it were over a fearful stair, through a gap wherethere was no path between the cliffs and the water, nought but theboiling flood and its turmoil; so that they who knew not the roadwondered what they should do.
But Folk-might led the banners to where a great buttress of the cliffsthrust itself into the way, coming well-nigh down to the water, just atthe corner where the river turned eastward, and they got them about it asthey might, and on the other side thereof lo! another gap exceedingstrait, scarce twenty foot over, wall-sided, rugged beyond measure, goingup steeply from the great valley: a little water ran through it, mostlyfilling 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 atonce, turning their backs upon the Shivering Flood.
Full toilsome and dreary was that strait way; often great stones hungabove their heads, bridging the gap and hiding the sky from them; nor wasthere any path for them save the stream itself; so that whiles were theywading its waters to the knee or higher, and whiles were they stridingfrom stone to stone amidst the rattle of the waters, and whiles were theystepping warily along the ledges of rock above the deeper pools, and inall wise labouring in overcoming the rugged road amidst the twilight ofthe gap.
Thus they toiled till the afternoon was well worn, and so at last theycame 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 thebottom of it. Up this breach, then, below the force they scrambled andstruggled, for rough indeed was the road for them; and so came they upout of the gap on to the open hill-side, a great shoulder of the heathsloping down from the north, and littered over with big stones, bornethither belike by some ice-river of the earlier days; and one great rockwas in special as great as the hall of a wealthy goodman, and shapen liketo a hall with hipped gables, which same the men of the Wolf calledHouse-stone.
There then the noise and clatter of the vanward rose up on the face ofthe heath, and men were exceeding joyous that they had come so farwithout mishap. Therewith came weaponed men out from under House-stone,and they came toward the men of the vanward, and they were a half-scoreof the forerunners of the Wolf; therefore Folk-might and Face-of-god fellat once into speech with them, and had their tidings; and when they hadheard them, they saw nought to hinder the host from going on their roadto Silver-dale forthright; and there were still three hours of daylightbefore them. So the vanward of the host tarried not, and the captainsleft word with the men from under House-stone that the rest of the Hostshould fare on after them speedily, and that they should give this wordto each company, as men came up from out the gap. Then they faredspeedily up the hillside, and in an hour’s wearing had come to the crestthereof, and to where the ground fell steadily toward the north, andhereabout the scattered stones ceased, and on the other side of the crestthe heath began to be soft and boggy, and at last so soft, that if theyhad not been wisely led, they had been bemired oftentimes. At last theycame to where the flows that trickled through the mires drew togetherinto a stream, so that men could see it running; and thereon some of theWoodlanders cried out joyously that the waters were running north; andthen 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 meetany; because the Dusky Men were not great hunters for the more part,except it were of men, and especially of women; and, moreover, thesehill-slopes of the mountain-necks led no-whither and were utterly wasteand dreary, and there was nought to be seen there but snipes and bitternsand whimbrel and plover, and here and there a hill-fox, or the great ernehanging over the heath on his way to the mountain.
When sunset came, they were getting clear of the miry ground, and thestream which they had come across amidst of the mires had got clearer andgreater, and rattled down between wide stony sides over the heath; andhere and there it deepened as it cleft its way through little knolls thatrose out of the face of the mountain-neck. As the Host climbed one ofthese and was come to its topmost (it was low enough not to turn thestream), Face-of-god looked and beheld dark-blue mountains rising up faroff before him, and higher than these, but away to the east, the snowypeaks of the World-mountains. Then he called to mind what he had seenfrom the Burg of the Runaways, and he took Folk-might by the arm, andpointed toward those far-off mountains.
‘Yea,’ said Folk-might, ‘so it is, War-leader. Silver-dale lieth betweenus 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 thehand and said: ‘O Gold-mane, dost thou see?’ and he turned about andbeheld her, and saw how her cheeks flamed and her eyes glittered, and hesaid 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 themountains on the other side of Silver-dale, and the banners of the Folkhung 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, andnight 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-wornbushes were scattered round about them, as they began to go down into theghyll that cleft the wall of Silver-dale, and the night-wind blew intheir faces from the very Dale and place of the Battle to be. The pathdown was steep at first, but the ghyll was wide, and the sides of it nolonger straight walls, as in the gaps of their earlier journey, butbroken, sloping back, and (as they might see on the morrow) partly of bigstones and shaly grit, partly grown over with bushes and rough grass,with here and there a little stream trickling down their sides. As theywent, the ghyll widened out, till at last they were in a valley goingdown to the plain, in places steep, in places flat and smooth, the streamever 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 grewhere and there about it; and at last the Host had before it a wood whichfilled the vale from side to side, not much tangled with undergrowth, andquite clear of it nigh to the stream-side. Thereinto the vanwardentered, but went no long way ere the leaders called a halt and badepitch the banners, for that there should they abide the daylight. Thusit had been determined at the Council of the Hall of the Wolf; forFolk-might had said: ‘With an Host as
great as ours, and mostly of mencome into a land of which they know nought at all, an onslaught by nightis perilous: yea, and our foes should be over-much scattered, and weshould have to wander about seeking them. Let us rather abide in thewood of Wood-dale till the morning, and then display our banners on thehill-side above Silver-dale, so that they may gather together to fallupon 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, theywere marshalled into their due places, so that they might set the battlein array on the edge of Silver-dale.