To these men also they gave a good sword and a helm each, and bade
them be brisk with their bows, and they said yea to marching with the
Host; and indeed they feared nothing so much as being left behind;
for if they fell into the hands of the Dusky Men, and their master
missing, they should first be questioned with torments, and then
slain in the evillest manner.
Now whereas things had thus betid, and that they knew thus much of
their foemen, Face-of-god called all the chieftains together, and
they sat on the green grass and held counsel amongst them, and to one
and all it seemed good that they should suffer the Dusky Men to
gather together before they meddled with them, and then fall upon
them in such order and such time as should seem good to the captains
watching how things went; and this would be easy, whereas they were
all lying in the wood in the same order as they would stand in
battle-array if they were all drawn up together on the brow of the
hill. Albeit Face-of-god deemed it good, after he had heard all that
they who had been in the Stead could tell him thereof, that the
Shepherd-Folk, who were more than three long hundreds, and they of
the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull, four hundreds in all, should
take their places eastward of the Woodlanders who had led the
vanward.
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