Now once more was Bow-may by the side of Face-of-god; and if she had
not the might of the mightiest, yet had she the deftness of the
deftest. And now was she calm and cool, shielding herself with a
copper-bossed target, and driving home the point of her sharp sword;
white was her face, and her eyes glittered amidst it, and she seemed
to men like to those on whose heads the Warrior hath laid the Holy
Bread.
As to Wood-wise, he had given the Banner of the red-jawed Wolf to
Stone-wolf, a huge and dreadful warrior some forty winters old, who
had fought in the Great Overthrow, and now hewed down the Dusky Men,
wielding a heavy short-sword left-handed. But Wood-wise himself
fought with a great sword, giving great strokes to the right hand and
the left, and was no more hasty than is the hewer in the winter wood.
Face-of-god fought wisely and coldly now, and looked more to warding
his friends than destroying his foes, and both to Bow-may and Wood-
wise his sword was a shield; for oft he took the life from the edge
of the upraised axe, and stayed the point of the foeman in mid-air.
Even so wisely fought the whole band of the Woodlanders and the
Wolves, who got within smiting space of the foe; for they had no will
to cast away their lives when assured victory was so nigh to them.
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