Lieth
Silver-dale anywhere nigh to Rose-dale?'
She said: 'It is the next dale to it, yet is it a far journey
betwixt the two, for the ice-sea pusheth a horn in betwixt them; and
even below the ice the mountain-neck is passable to none save a bold
crag-climber, and to him only bearing his life in his hands. But, my
friend, I am but lingering over my tale, because it grieveth me sore
to have to tell it. Hearken then! In the days when I had seen but
ten summers, and my brother was a very young man, but exceeding
strong, and as beautiful as thou art now, war fell on us without
rumour or warning; for there swarmed into Silver-dale, though not by
the ways whereby we had entered it, a host of aliens, short of
stature, crooked of limb, foul of aspect, but fierce warriors and
armed full well: they were men having no country to go back to,
though they had no women or children with them, as we had when we
were young in these lands, but used all women whom they took as their
beastly lust bade them, making them their thralls if they slew them
not. Soon we found that these foemen asked no more of us than all we
had, and therewithal our lives to be cast away or used for their
service as beasts of burden or pleasure.
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