"All that you can do here, you have done, O king," said Jastla earnestly, as they waited for the fifth charge. "A man unhindered might scale yonder rocks and escape into the hills. Do you make the attempt? I and these with me will hold back these howling whelps of Bel-Ar. Haste you, or 'twill be too late."
Polaris turned on him sternly.
"And you have been comrade to me, Jastla, and did train and make me skilled with arms, and yet think that I am so small of spirit," he said. "Jastla, I take it ill of you. You and these men are fighting for the man whom Ruthar has crowned king. What sort of a king would he be, think you, who deserted when he had those still lines yonder before him for example?" He pointed down where the dead warriors lay.
"Here I may die, and here I may buried be; but I will not turn back."
Under his shaggy brows old Jastla's eyes were moist.
He grunted loudly.
"I didn't think that you would go. Forgive me that I spoke of it," he said. He turned to his hillsmen, and the word went round that every last one of the wolves of Ruthar was to die in his tracks. There would be no giving back before the next charge.
Broddok on foot waved his sword and gave the word, and the Maeronicans raised their battle-cry and came swarming up through the rocks to the attack. The mountaineers answered them with a deep-voiced shout:
"For the king! For Polaris!"
None of the combatants heard a thin cry far above them at the brink of the cliff and the frenzied barking of a dog.