Yet was the heart of the War-leader troubled; for he wotted that it might not last forever, and there seemed no end to the throng of murder-carles; and the time would come when the arrow-shot would be spent, and they must needs come to handy strokes, and that with so many.
Now a voice spake to him as he gazed with knitted brows and careful heart on that turmoil of battle:
“What now hast thou done with the Sun-beam, and where is her brother? Is the Chief of the Wolf skulking when our work is so heavy? And thou meseemeth art over-late on the field: the mowing of this meadow is no sluggard’s work.”
He turned and beheld Bow-may, and gazed on her face for a moment, and saw her eyes how they glittered, and how the pommels of her cheeks were burning red and her lips dry and grey; but before he answered he looked all round about to see what was to note; and he touched Bow-may on the shoulder and pointed to down below where a man of the Felons had just come out of the court of one of the houses: a man taller than most, very gaily arrayed, with gilded scales all over him, so that, with his dark face and blue eyes, he looked like some strange dragon. Bow-may spake not, but stamped her foot with anger. Yet if her heart were hot, her hand was steady; for she notched a shaft, and just as the Dusky Chief raised his axe and brandished it aloft, she loosed, and the shaft flew and smote the felon in the armpit and the default of the armour, and he fell to earth. But even as she loosed, Face-of-god cried out in a loud voice:
“O lads of battle! shoot close and all together. Tarry not, tarry not! for we need a little time ere sword meets sword, and the others of the kindreds are at work!”
But Bow-may turned round to him and said: “Wilt thou not answer me? Where is thy kindness gone?”
Even as she was speaking she had notched and loosed another shaft, speaking as folk do who turn from busy work at loom or bench.
Then said Face-of-god: “Shoot on, sister Bow-may! The Sun-beam is gone with her brother, and he is with the Men of the Face.”
He broke off here, for a man fell beside him hurt in the neck, and Face-of-god took his bow from his hands and shot a shaft, while one of the women who had been hurt also tended the newly-wounded man. Then Face-of-god went on speaking:
“She was unwilling to go, but Folk-might and I constrained her; for we knew that this is the most perilous place of the battle—hah! see those three felons, Bow-may! they are aiming hither.”
And again he loosed and Bow-may also, but a shaft rattled on his helm withal and another smote a Woodlander beside him, and pierced through the calf of his leg, as he turned and stooped to take fresh arrows from a sheaf that lay there; but the carle took it by the notch and the point, and brake it and drew it out, and then stood up and went on shooting. And Face-of-god spake again:
“Folk-might skulketh not; nor the Men of the Vine, and the Sickle, and the Face, nor the Shepherd-Folk: soon shall they be making our work easy to us, if we can hold our own till then. They are on the other roads that lead into the square. Now suffer me, and shoot on!”
Therewith he looked round about him, and he saw on the left hand that all was quiet; and before him was the confused throng of the Dusky Men trampling their own dead and wounded, and not able as yet to cross that death-line of the arrow so near to them. But on his right hand he saw how they of the kindreds held them firm on the way. Then for a moment of time he considered and thought, till him-seemed he could see the whole battle yet to be foughten; and his face flushed, and he said sharply: “Bow-may, abide here and shoot, and show the others where to shoot, while the arrows hold out; but we will go further for a while, and ye shall follow when we have made the rent great enough.”
She turned to him and said: “Why art thou not more joyous? thou art like an host without music or banners.”
“Nay,” said he, “heed not me, but my bidding!”
She said hastily: “I think I shall die here; since for all we have shot we minish them nowise. Now kiss me this once amidst the battle, and say farewell.”
He said: “Nay, nay; it shall not go thus. Abide a little while, and thou shalt see all this tangle open, as the sun cleaveth the clouds on the autumn morning. Yet lo thou! since thou wilt have it so.”
And he bent forward and kissed her face, and now the tears ran over it, and she said smiling somewhat: “Now is this more than I looked for, whatso may betide.”
But while she was yet speaking he cried in a great voice:
“Ye who have spent your shot, or have nigh spent it, to axe and sword, and follow me to clear the ground ’twixt the bent and the halls. Let each help each, but throng not each other. Shoot wisely, ye bowmen, and keep our backs clear of the foe. On, on! for the Burg and the Face, for the Burg and the Face!”
Therewith he leapt down
