Then I
bethought me in the twinkling of an eye, and I cried out, "The foe
are on us! take the cover of the tree-boles and be wary! For the
Burg and the Face! For the Burg and the Face!"
'So we scattered and covered ourselves with the oak-boles, but
besides Iron-shield, who was slain outright, two goodmen were sorely
hurt, to wit Bald-face, a man of our house, and Stonyford of the
Lower Dale.
'I looked from behind my tree-bole, a great one; and far off down the
glades I saw men moving, clad in gay raiment; but nearer to me, not a
hundred yards from my cover, I saw an arm clad in scarlet come out
from behind a tree-bole, so I loosed at it, and missed not; for
straight there tottered out from behind the tree one of those dusky
foul-favoured men like to those that were slain by Wood-grey. I had
another shaft ready notched, so I loosed and set the shaft in his
throat, and he fell.
'Straightway was a yelling and howling about us like the cries of
scalded curs, and the oak-wood swarmed thick with these felons
rushing on us; for it seems that the man whom I had slain was a chief
amongst them, or we judged so by his goodly raiment.
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