“There’s need to do quickly that we do,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “How great start of him hadst thou?”
“He must be upon you in an hour or twain,” said Mivarsh, and fell a-weeping.
“To cope him in the open,” said Juss, “were great glory, and our certain death.”
“Give me to think, but a minute’s while,” said Brandoch Daha. And while they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, “This is without doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?”
Mivarsh answered, “This is so. But never heard I of any so witless as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath harboured there these hundred years.”
“Standeth it yet?” said Brandoch Daha.
“For all I wot of,” answered Mivarsh.
“Is it strong?” he asked.
“In old times it was thought no place stronger,” answered Mivarsh. “But ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.”
Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. “It is resolved?” said he. Juss answered, “Yea;” and forthwith they started at a great pace south along the river.