'
'This is no less than sooth,' said the Dale-warden, 'never have men
gone forth more joyously to a merry-making than all men of us shall
wend to this war.'
'But,' said Face-of-god, 'of one thing ye may be sure, that these men
will not abide our pleasure till we cut them all off in scattered
bands, nor will they sit deedless at home. Nor indeed may they; for
we have heard from their thralls that they look to have fresh tribes
of them come to hand to eat their meat and waste their servants, and
these and they must find new abodes and new thralls; and they are now
warned by the overthrows and slayings that they have had at our hands
that we are astir, and they will not delay long, but will fall upon
us with all their host; it might even be to-day or to-morrow.'
Said Folk-might: 'In all this thou sayest sooth, brother of the
Dale; and to cut this matter short, I will tell you all, that
yesterday we had with us a runaway from Silver-dale (it is overlong
to tell how we fell in with her; for it was a woman). But she told
us that this very moon is a new tribe come into the Dale, six long
hundreds in number, and twice as many more are looked for in two
eights of days, and that ere this moon hath waned, that is, in
twenty-four days, they will wend their ways straight for Burgdale,
for they know the ways thereto.
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