But Hall-ward thrust him aback
and looked him in the face, and his cheeks were pale and his lips
clenched, and his eyes haggard and staring, and he said in a harsh
voice:
'O young man, she is dead! I saw her fall. The Bride is dead, and
thou hast lost thy troth-plight maiden. O death, death to the Dusky
Men!'
Then grew Face-of-god as pale as a linen sleeve, and all the new-
comers groaned and cried out. But a bystander said: 'Nay, nay, it
is nought so bad as that; she is hurt, and sorely; but she liveth
yet.'
Face-of-god heard him not. He forgot Dale-warden lying in his
sheath, and he saw that the last speaker had a great wood-axe broad
and heavy in his hand, so he cried: 'Man, man, thine axe!' and
snatched it from him, and turned about to the foe again, and thrust
through the ranks, suffering none to stay him till all his friends
were behind and all his foes before him. And as he burst forth from
the ranks waving his axe aloft, bare-headed now, his yellow hair
flying abroad, his mouth crying out, 'Death, death, death to the
Dusky Men!' fear of him smote their hearts, and they howled and fled
before him as they might; for they said that the Dalesmen had prayed
their Gods into the battle.
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