“That was a long ride down from Erngate End. With all our hearts’ blood drumming us to haste, we must yet go warily, picking our way i’ that tricky ground, steep as a roof-slope, uneven and with no sure foothold, with sikes in wet moss and rocks outcropping and shifting screes. There was nought but leave it to the horses, and bravely they brought us down the steeps. We were not half way down ere we heard and saw how battle was joined. So intent were the Witchlanders on my Lord’s main army, I think we were off the steep ground and forming for the charge ere they were ware of us. Our trumpeters sounded his battle challenge, _Who meddles wi’ Brandoch Daha?_ and we came down on to Krothering Side like a rock-fall. “I scarce know what way the battle went, father. ’Twas like a meeting of streams in spate. I think they opened to us right and left to ease the shock. They that were before us went down like standing corn under a hailstorm. We wheeled both ways, some ’gainst their right that was thrown back toward the camp, the more part with my Lord Brandoch Daha to our own right. I was with these in the main battle. His highness rode a hot stirring horse very fierce and dogged; knee to knee with him went Styrkmir of Blackwood o’ the one side and Tharmrod o’ the other. Neither man nor horse might stand up before ’em, and they faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and thrasting o’ the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a marsh. [Illustration: SOLDIERS OF DEMONLAND.] “So for a time, till we had spent the vantage of our onset and felt for the first time the weight of their strength. For Corinius, as it appeareth, was now himself ridden from the vanward where he had beat back for a time our main army, and set on against my Lord Brandoch Daha with horsemen and spearmen; and commanded his sling-casters besides to let freely at us and drive us toward the camp. “And now in the great swing of the battle were we carried back to the camp again; and there was a sweet devils’ holiday: horses and men tripping over tent-ropes, tents torn down, crashes of broken crockery, and King Laxus come thither with sailors from the fleet, hamstringing our horses while Corinius charged us from the north and east. That Corinius beareth him in battle more like a devil from Hell than a mortal man. I’ the first two strokes of’s sword he overthrew two of our best captains, Romenard of Dalney and Emeron Galt. Styrkmir, that stood in’s way to stop him, a flung down with’s spear, horse and man. They say he met twice with my Lord Brandoch Daha that day, but each time were they parted in the press ere they might rightly square together.