His big body strained against a plate of hammered iron; his helmet carried the mask of a wolf, and plumes nodded above it; a cloak like flame blew from his shoulders; he wore gilt spurs on boots inlaid with gold. He shouted and bandied jokes--the lusty mirth of a stock-breeding people--with comrades even younger than he, shook his lance to catch the sun on its metal, put the aurochs horn to his lips and blew, till his temples hammered, for the joy of hearing it. "_Hoy-ah_, there, Romans, have you any word I can take to your wives? I'll see them before you do!" And the young riders galloped in and out, back and forth, till dust grayed their banners. Boierik--huge and silent, scarred hawk face and grizzled red hair beneath a horned helmet, armed with a two-pronged spear--rode more steadily in the van of the army. And not all the Cimbri who marched after the horses owned so much as an iron head covering: there were many leather caps and arrows merely fire-hardened. Yet even some bare-legged twelve-year-old boy, wielding no more than a sling, might be wearing a plundered golden necklace. The Romans waited, quiet under the eagles, their cuirasses and greaves, oblong shields and round helmets blinding bright in the sun. Among them waved officers' plumes and an occasional blue cloak, but they seemed as much less colorful than the barbarians as they seemed smaller--a dark short race with cropped hair and shaven chins, holding their ranks stiff as death. Even their horsemen stood rigid. Eodan strained his eyes through the dust that was around him like a fog, kicked up by hoofs and feet. He could scarcely see his own folk; now and then he caught the iron gleam of chains by which the Cimbri had linked their front-line men together, to stand fast or die. He thought, with a moment's unease, that it aided the Romans, not to be able to see how great were the numbers they must face.... Then a war-horn screamed, and he blew his own in answer and smote spurs into his horse. Hoofs drummed beneath him. He heard the wild, lowing _du-du-du_ of the holy lur horns; closer now, the Romans tubas brayed brass and the Roman pipes skirled. He heard even the rattle of his own metal and the squeak of leather. But then it was all drowned in the Cimbrian shouts. "_Hau-hau-hau-hau-hoo!_" shrieked Eodan into his horse's blowing mane. "_Hau, hau! Hee-ee-yi!_" So did we shout at Noreia, when Rome first learned who we are; so did we cry on the Alps, when we romped naked in the snow and slid down glaciers on our shields; so did we howl as we ripped up a forest to dam the Adige, break the Roman bridge and wring the eagle's neck! _Hee-hoo!_