"Daughter, they told me that I would find you here—in the forefront of the battle," he said. "And so it is. Your zeal for Ruthar has carried you far—so far that Oleric the Learned could not follow, and sent Father Zoar to find you." He laughed in his bell-like tones.
"But for the King of Ruthar and these brave men here, you would have had a longer journey, Father Zoar," Glorian replied. "It might have been to the camp of Bel-Ar yonder, or—to the stars. Take me up with you, Zoar, for I am weary."
"Stekkar deen!" commanded Zoar, and Ixstus looped his trunk and swung Glorian gently to a seat beside his master.
Glorian looked around at the little circle of wearied men—so wearied that they reeled in their saddles. She looked at those others, who lay where they had fallen, and to whom the long rest had come. Her eyes filled with tears.
"I thought to thank you," she said, "but I find no words splendid enough."
Old Jastla lifted his arm in salute. "Lady, to those of us who live, it is sufficient to know that you live also. Those who are dead, died gladly to make it so. We have held our goddess safe, and our king has held himself." And he turned and saluted Polaris.
Of the hundred zinds and fifty tall hillsmen who had formed in Jastla's ring, five and twenty were left. Not one was unwounded. Jastla's beard was red with blood, where a spear-point had penetrated through the bars of his vizor and torn his mouth. In addition to the bruised and stiffening shoulder caused by the blow of Bel-Ar that had broken his armor, Polaris had been gashed on the cheek by an arrow. Otherwise he was the least harmed of the party.
It was midafternoon when Ixstus set foot in the circle. Presently Oleric arrived in his chariot. Behind him came the host of Ruthar—weary and with many of its battalions sadly thinned, but still a host, and ready to go on if need be.
Another amaloc rolled up alongside of Ixstus. Over the edge of the wicker basket it bore, a white old head bobbed up with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box.
"Hey, son," said Zenas Wright to Polaris, "will you never quit your foolhardy ways? Look what you have made me do—come a-hunting you, riding on the back of one of these animated stacks of red hay, that should have been dead and fossilized six thousand years ago. Well, well; we've given his majesty Bel-Ar a bellyful, I'm thinking." Out of his basket and down the rope-ladder Zenas clambered to shake Polaris by the hand.