There then we gathered our
fighting-men and withstood them; and if we had been all of the
kindreds of the Wolf and the fruit of the wives of warriors, we
should have driven back these felons and saved the Dale, though it
maybe more than half ruined: but the most part of us were of that
mingled blood, or of the generations of the Dalesmen whom we had
conquered long ago, and stout as they were of body their hearts
failed them, and they gave themselves up to the aliens to be as their
oxen and asses.
'Why make a long tale of it? We who were left, and could brook death
but not thraldom, fought it out together, women as well as men, till
the sweetness of life and a happy chance for escape bid us flee,
vanquished but free men. For at the end of three days' fight we had
been driven up to the easternmost end of the Dale, and up anigh to
the jaws of the pass whereby the Folk had first come into Silver-
dale, and we had those with us who knew every cranny of that way,
while to strangers who knew it not it was utterly impassable; night
was coming on also, and even those murder-carles were weary with
slaying; and, moreover, on this last day, when they saw that they had
won all, they were fighting to keep, and not to slay, and a few
stubborn carles and queens, of what use would they be, or where was
the gain of risking life to win them?
'So they forbore us, and night came on moonless and dark; and it was
the early spring season, when the days are not yet long, and so by
night and cloud we fled away, and back again to Shadowy Vale.
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