When they were halted at noon by the deepest rift they had yet beheld, there came one hastening to them and fell down by Juss and lay panting face to earth as breathless from long running. And when they raised him up, behold Mivarsh Faz, harnessed in the gear of a black rider of Jalcanaius Fostus and armed with axe and sword. Great was his agitation, and he speechless for lack of breath. They used him kindly, and gave him to drink from a great skin of wine, Zeldornius’s gift, and anon he said, “He hath armed countless hundreds of our folk with weapons taken from Salapanta field. These, led by the devils his sons, with Philpritz cursed of the gods, be gone before to hold all the ways be-east of you. Night and day have I ridden and run to warn you. Himself, with his main strength of devils ultramontane, rideth hot on your tracks.” They thanked him well, marvelling much that he should be at such pains to advertise them of their danger. “I have eat your salt,” answered he, “and moreover ye are against this naughty wicked baldhead that came over the mountains to oppress us. Therefore I would do you good. But I can little. For I am poor, that was rich in land and fee. And I am alone, that had formerly five hundred spearmen lodging in my halls to do my pleasure.” “There’s need to do quickly that we do,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “How great start of him hadst thou?” “He must be upon you in an hour or twain,” said Mivarsh, and fell a-weeping. “To cope him in the open,” said Juss, “were great glory, and our certain death.” “Give me to think, but a minute’s while,” said Brandoch Daha. And while they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, “This is without doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?” Mivarsh answered, “This is so. But never heard I of any so witless as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath harboured there these hundred years.” “Standeth it yet?” said Brandoch Daha. “For all I wot of,” answered Mivarsh. “Is it strong?” he asked. “In old times it was thought no place stronger,” answered Mivarsh. “But ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.” Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. “It is resolved?” said he. Juss answered, “Yea;” and forthwith they started at a great pace south along the river. “Methought you should have been gotten clean away ere this,” said Mivarsh as they went. “This is but nine or ten days’ journey, and ’tis now the sixteenth day since ye did leave me on Salapanta Hills.”