In a dark and narrow glen, wild with rocks and trees, with a mountain wall at his back and steel death, many-handed and triumphant, closing in along his front, a tawny-haired giant crouched warily among his thinning ranks of fighting men. If ever a man was hard beset, it was the king of Ruthar. Hemmed in where there was no way of escape, he waited with his dwindling company the fifth charge of a horde of Maeronican warriors, who were forming for the rush at the mouth of the glen. Gone wild with glee were the sons of Ad. They had trapped the king of Ruthar like a wounded bear. Great would be their reward from Bel-Ar if they took him.
Among the rocks and bushes lay a grim reminder in shattered men of four previous charges. Some comfort it was to those who waited above to know that for every one of Ruthar who had gone to the stars, at least two of Bel-Ar's men had traveled the same path—or perhaps to the sun; for the Maeronicans prayed to Shamar.
After leaving Barme, Polaris had led his followers along the main road, and they had almost reached the end of the pass, where it debouched into the forests of upper Maeronica, before mischance overtook them. It came in the shape of that same Captain Broddok, whom they had driven from his blazing hold at Barme.
Broddok had ridden through the pass at speed, and beyond it had met a strong outpost of cavalry and five regiments of foot-soldiers, sent up to hold the passes. For Captain Fanaer had already arrived in upper Maeronica.
Scouts brought word of the advance of Polaris with the most of his force through the principal pass. He, too, had sent out small parties to explore through the outer defiles, of which there were four, and bring him word of the lay of the land.
"Now let him come on," counseled Broddok to the Maeronican commander, "and we shall have a surprise for him."
Swiftly galloping riders at once swarmed into the four smaller passes, overwhelmed the Rutharians whom they found there and drove them into the hills. The horsemen then joined forces and swept down the road in the rear of Polaris, having come into the defile by bridle paths over the hills which were known to them.
Turning his front to meet this menace, the son of the snows was beset from behind by both cavalry and infantry, and his force was split up before it could be massed or a place be found suitable for defense. With nearly a thousand of his men of mixed armament, Janess had been driven into the glen, discovering too late that it was a cul-de-sac, from which there was no escape.
Four charges the Rutharians had met, and their numbers were now less than three hundred. But Jastla's ring of steel still held, and Polaris himself was not even wounded. Where the fighting had been the thickest, there he had gone; but ever when some perilous blow fell, there was one of Jastla's mountaineers to meet it or to die under it. Of the hundred men less than fifty lived, and scarcely a score of those were scatheless.