Now the two chiefs heard a loud blast of horns come up from the town,
and lo! a great crowd of men wending their ways down the road from
the north, and they came into the market-place with spears and other
weapons tossing in the air, and amidst of these men, who seemed to be
all of the warriors, they saw as they drew nigher some two score and
ten of men clad in long raiment of yellow and scarlet, with tall
spiring hats of strange fashion on their heads, and in their hands
long staves with great blades like scythes done on to them; and
again, in the midst of these yellow and red glaive-bearers, in the
very heart of the throng were some score of naked folk, they deemed
both men and women, but were not sure, so close was the throng; nor
could they see if they were utterly naked.
'Lo you, brother!' quoth Folk-might, 'said I not that the beasts for
the hewing should not tarry? Yonder naked folk are even they: and
ye may well deem that they are the thralls of the Dusky Men; and
meseemeth by the whiteness of their skins they be of the best of
them. For these felons, it is like, look to winning great plenty of
thralls in Burgdale, and so set the less store on them they have, and
may expend them freely.
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