Long-delayed relief came in the shape of the fighting men whom Everson had sent out along the wall with ladders. These had lain in the forests until they saw the turrets depleted of their garrisons. Then they had crept up to the wall and erected their scaling ladders, choosing points a number of miles from the breach. That attack was not without its perils and losses. Scant in numbers, but desperate, the defenders sallied out on the wall to turn the storming parties. Many warriors died under the javelins and arrows from above. Comrades took their places as they fell, and at length, by dint of hard fighting, gained footing on the crest of the wall. Guessing how matters must stand at the breach, the Rutharian swordsmen paid no further attention to the turrets which lay between them and the sea, but set themselves to the taking of those toward the gap. As soon as they carried one of these they were able to augment their numbers from the forces which earlier had passed the wall through the breach, and which now were besieging the towers from the north side, where the sloping pathways were defended by gates and doors of bronze. By the time the men at the east had taken the last of the watchtowers which intervened between them and the battle at the roadway, their brothers on the western stretch of the wall had passed the ruins of the toppled turret there and fallen furiously on the rear of the Maeronicans who were baiting the trenchmen of Oleric. From across the chasm where he fought, Atlo saw the new turn of the battle and bethought him of his own flank. Too late! The shouts of dismay from his rear were mingled with the thunder of galloping hoofs. At the eastern tower the men of Ruthar had found the horses which the defenders had left behind. While the stubborn conflict of swordsmen was waging on the western wall, these warriors mounted the Maeronican steeds and charged down the stone road between the copings, sweeping everything before them. Brave men, these of the King of Adlaz. Cut off from behind and with the yawning chasm before, they arose from their crouching and turned to meet the new foe. Then a grim and pitiless struggle began on the ancient wall, in which the clangor and clash of arms and the cursing of death-locked foeman was commingled with the screaming of pain-maddened horses. To the rear, which had become the front, went Atlo. He rallied his men and charged into the teeth of the oncoming horsemen, and kept charging until he died. Neither side asked quarter or gave it. The last of the Maeronican fighting men were pushed over the brink of the gap by the rushing horsemen and died under the merciless blades in the trench. At the west the fighting was more prolonged and bitter; but the superior numbers of the Rutharians prevailed, and the end was the same. The Kimbrian Wall was taken at a fearful cost. But Ruthar paid the toll smiling. Now Oleric might push through with his wall speedily and in peace.