House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings (31 page)

Now the Roman captains perceived that it
availed not to tarry till the men of the Mid and Nether-marks fell
upon their flank; so they gave command, and their ranks gave back
little by little, facing their foes, and striving to draw
themselves within the dike and garth, which, after their custom,
they had already cast up about the Wolfing Roof, their
stronghold.

Now as fierce as was the onset of the
Markmen, the main body of the Romans could not be hindered from
doing this much before the men of the second battle were upon them;
but Thiodolf and Arinbiorn with some of the mightiest brake their
array in two places and entered in amongst them. And wrath so
seized upon the soul of Arinbiorn for the slaying of Otter, and his
own fault towards him, that he cast away his shield, and heeding no
strokes, first brake his sword in the press, and then, getting hold
of a great axe, smote at all before him as though none smote at him
in turn; yea, as though he were smiting down tree-boles for a match
against some other mighty man; and all the while amidst the hurry,
strokes of swords and spears rained on him, some falling flatwise
and some glancing sideways, but some true and square, so that his
helm was smitten off and his hauberk rent adown, and point and edge
reached his living flesh; and he had thrust himself so far amidst
the foe that none could follow to shield him, so that at last he
fell shattered and rent at the foot of the new clayey wall cast up
by the Romans, even as Thiodolf and a band with him came cleaving
the press, and the Romans closed the barriers against friend and
foe, and cast great beams adown, and masses of iron and lead and
copper taken from the smithying-booths of the Wolfings, to stay
them if it were but a little.

Then Thiodolf bestrode the fallen warrior,
and men of his House were close behind him, for wisely had he
fought, cleaving the press like a wedge, helping his friends that
they might help him, so that they all went forward together. But
when he saw Arinbiorn fall he cried out:

“Woe’s me, Arinbiorn! that thou wouldest not
wait for me; for the day is young yet, and over-young!”

There then they cleared the space outside
the gate, and lifted up the Bearing Warrior, and bare him back from
the rampart. For so fierce had been the fight and so eager the
storm of those that had followed after him that they must needs
order their battle afresh, since Thiodolf’s wedge which he had
driven into the Roman host was but of a few and the foe had been
many and the rampart and the shot-weapons were close anigh. Wise
therefore it seemed to abide them of the second battle and join
with them to swarm over the new-built slippery wall in the teeth of
the Roman shot.

In this, the first onset of the Morning
Battle, some of the Markmen had fallen, but not many, since but a
few had entered outright into the Roman ranks; and when they first
rushed on from the wood but three of them were slain, and the
slaughter was all of the dastards and the Romans; and afterwards
not a few of the Romans were slain, what by Arinbiorn, what by the
others; for they were fighting fleeing, and before their eyes was
the image of the garth-gate which was behind them; and they
stumbled against each other as they were driven sideways against
the onrush of the Goths, nor were they now standing fair and square
to them, and they were hurried and confused with the dread of the
onset of them of the two Marks.

As yet Thiodolf had gotten no great hurt, so
that when he heard that Arinbiorn’s soul had passed away he smiled
and said:

“Yea, yea, Arinbiorn might have abided the
end, for ere then shall the battle be hard.”

So now the Wolfings and the Bearings met
joyously the kindreds of the Nether Mark and the others of the
second battle, and they sang the song of victory arrayed in good
order hard by the Roman rampart, while bowstrings twanged and
arrows whistled, and sling-stones hummed from this side and from
that.

And of their song of victory thus much the
tale telleth:

Now hearken and hear

Of the day-dawn of fear,

And how up rose the sun

On the battle begun.

All night lay a-hiding,

Our anger abiding,

Dark down in the wood

The sharp seekers of blood;

But ere red grew the heaven we bore them all
bare,

For against us undriven the foemen must
fare;

They sought and they found us, and sorrowed
to find,

For the tree-boles around us the story shall
mind,

How fast from the glooming they fled to the
light,

Yeasaying the dooming of Tyr of the
fight.

Hearken yet and again

How the night gan to wane,

And the twilight stole on

Till the world was well won!

E’en in such wise was wending

A great host for our ending;

On our life-days e’en so

Stole the host of the foe;

Till the heavens grew lighter, and light
grew the world,

And the storm of the fighter upon them was
hurled,

Then some fled the stroke, and some died and
some stood,

Till the worst of the storm broke right out
from the wood,

And the war-shafts were singing the carol of
fear,

The tale of the bringing the sharp swords
anear.

Come gather we now,

For the day doth grow.

Come, gather, ye bold,

Lest the day wax old;

Lest not till to-morrow

We slake our sorrow,

And heap the ground

With many a mound.

Come, war-children, gather, and clear we the
land!

In the tide of War-father the deed is to
hand.

Clad in gear that we gilded they shrink from
our sword;

In the House that we builded they sit at the
board;

Come, war-children, gather, come swarm o’er
the wall

For the feast of War-father to sweep out the
Hall!

Now amidst of their singing the sun rose
upon the earth, and gleamed in the arms of men, and lit the faces
of the singing warriors as they stood turned toward the east.

In this first onset of battle but twenty and
three Markmen were slain in all, besides Arinbiorn; for, as
aforesaid, they had the foe at a disadvantage. And this onset is
called in the tale the Storm of Dawning.

Chapter 29

Of Thiodolf’s Storm

The Goths tarried not over their victory;
they shot with all the bowmen that they had against the Romans on
the wall, and therewith arrayed themselves to fall on once more.
And Thiodolf, now that the foe were covered by a wall, though it
was but a little one, sent a message to the men of the third
battle, them of Up-mark to wit, to come forward in good array and
help to make a ring around the Wolfing Stead, wherein they should
now take the Romans as a beast is taken in a trap. Meanwhile, until
they came, he sent other men to the wood to bring tree-boles to
batter the gate, and to make bridges whereby to swarm over the
wall, which was but breast-high on the Roman side, though they had
worked at it ceaselessly since yesterday morning.

In a long half-hour, therefore, the horns of
the men of Up-mark sounded, and they came forth from the wood a
very great company, for with them also were the men of the
stay-at-homes and the homeless, such of them as were fit to bear
arms. Amongst these went the Hall-Sun surrounded by a band of the
warriors of Up-mark; and before her was borne her namesake the Lamp
as a sign of assured victory. But these stay-at-homes with the
Hall-Sun were stayed by the command of Thiodolf on the crown of the
slope above the dwellings, and stood round about the Speech-Hill,
on the topmost of which stood the Hall-Sun, and the wondrous Lamp,
and the men who warded her and it.

When the Romans saw the new host come forth
from the wood, they might well think that they would have work
enough to do that day; but when they saw the Hall-Sun take her
stand on the Speech-Hill with the men-at-arms about her, and the
Lamp before her, then dread of the Gods fell upon them, and they
knew that the doom had gone forth against them. Nevertheless they
were not men to faint and die because the Gods were become their
foes, but they were resolved rather to fight it out to the end
against whatsoever might come against them, as was well seen
afterwards.

Now they had made four gates to their garth
according to their custom, and at each gate within was there a
company of their mightiest men, and each was beset by the best of
the Markmen. Thiodolf and his men beset the western gate where they
had made that fierce onset. And the northern gate was beset by the
Elkings and some of the kindreds of the Nether-mark; and the
eastern gate by the rest of the men of Nether-mark; and the
southern gate by the kindreds of Up-mark.

All this the Romans noted, and they saw how
that the Markmen were now very many, and they knew that they were
men no less valiant than themselves, and they perceived that
Thiodolf was a wise Captain; and in less than two hours’ space from
the Storm of Dawning they saw those men coming from the wood with
plenteous store of tree-trunks to bridge their ditch and rampart;
and they considered how the day was yet very young, so that they
might look for no shelter from the night-tide; and as for any aid
from their own folk at the war-garth aforesaid, they hoped not for
it, nor had they sent any messenger to the Captain of the garth;
nor did they know as yet of his overthrow on the Ridge.

Now therefore there seemed to be but two
choices before them; either to abide within the rampart they had
cast up, or to break out like valiant men, and either die in the
storm, or cleave a way through, whereby they might come to their
kindred and their stronghold south-east of the Mark.

This last way then they chose; or, to say
the truth, it was their chief captain who chose it for them, though
they were nothing loth thereto: for this man was a mocker, yet
hot-headed, unstable, and nought wise in war, and heretofore had
his greed minished his courage; yet now, being driven into a
corner, he had courage enough and to spare, but utterly lacked
patience; for it had been better for the Romans to have abided one
or two onsets from the Goths, whereby they who should make the
onslaught would at the least have lost more men than they on whom
they should fall, before they within stormed forth on them; but
their pride took away from the Romans their last chance. But their
captain, now that he perceived, as he thought, that the game was
lost and his life come to its last hour wherein he would have to
leave his treasure and pleasure behind him, grew desperate and
therewith most fierce and cruel. So all the captives whom they had
taken (they were but two score and two, for the wounded men they
had slain) he caused to be bound on the chairs of the high-seat
clad in their war-gear with their swords or spears made fast to
their right hands, and their shields to their left hands; and he
said that the Goths should now hold a Thing wherein they should at
last take counsel wisely, and abstain from folly. For he caused
store of faggots and small wood smeared with grease and oil to be
cast into the hall that it might be fired, so that it and the
captives should burn up altogether; “So,” said he, “shall we have a
fair torch for our funeral fire;” for it was the custom of the
Romans to burn their dead.

Thus, then, he did; and then he caused men
to do away the barriers and open all the four gates of the new-made
garth, after he had manned the wall with the slingers and bowmen,
and slain the horses, so that the woodland folk should have no gain
of them. Then he arrayed his men at the gates and about them duly
and wisely, and bade those valiant footmen fall on the Goths who
were getting ready to fall on them, and to do their best. But he
himself armed at all points took his stand at the Man’s-door of the
Hall, and swore by all the Gods of his kindred that he would not
move a foot’s length from thence either for fire or for steel.

So fiercely on that fair morning burned the
hatred of men about the dwellings of the children of the Wolf of
the Goths, wherein the children of the Wolf of Rome were shut up as
in a penfold of slaughter.

Meanwhile the Hall-Sun standing on the Hill
of Speech beheld it all, looking down into the garth of war; for
the new wall was no hindrance to her sight, because the Speech-Hill
was high and but a little way from the Great Roof; and indeed she
was within shot of the Roman bowmen, though they were not very deft
in shooting.

So now she lifted up her voice and sang so
that many heard her; for at this moment of time there was a lull in
the clamour of battle both within the garth and without; even as it
happens when the thunder-storm is just about to break on the world,
that the wind drops dead, and the voice of the leaves is hushed
before the first great and near flash of lightening glares over the
fields.

So she sang:

Now the latest hour cometh and the ending of
the strife;

And to-morrow and to-morrow shall we take
the hand of life,

And wend adown the meadows, and skirt the
darkling wood,

And reap the waving acres, and gather in the
good.

I see a wall before me built up of steel and
fire,

And hurts and heart-sick striving, and the
war-wright’s fierce desire;

But there-amidst a door is, and windows are
therein;

And the fair sun-litten meadows and the
Houses of the kin

Smile on me through the terror my trembling
life to stay,

That at my mouth now flutters, as fain to
flee away.

Lo e’en as the little hammer and the
blow-pipe of the wright

About the flickering fire deals with the
silver white,

And the cup and its beauty groweth that
shall be for the people’s feast,

And all men are glad to see it from the
greatest to the least;