“Better rede we cannot offer.”
“Then so it shall be,” said Feargus, “and how far doth their host lie from the river?”
“Twenty miles from Witham by the water.”
“And dost know the ground?”
“None should know it better.”
“Then thou canst place us all around his camp, that we may attack together?”
“That can I, if thy men can keep silence.”
“As silent as the stars they can be, or as the fish that swim in the sea. Let us row up to the point where Witham joins the Bane Water, and there leave the boats in among the reeds.”
That same night they hied them back to the boats and rowed up among all that fen water, and no man spoke, and no sound broke the night save the cry of the peaseweeps and the whaups which anon flew across the boats’ track as they rowed. And the osiers swayed in the night wind and the long train of boats full of giant forms glided up the grey water. At length they landed and marched northward along the bank of the river Bane which flows into Witham. At daybreak they halted and lay in a small wood hard by until nightfall, then on. And when they drew nigh to where the host of Osbert lay, Feargus bid Duncan cross the stream to the west side and there strike through the wood a piece, when they were to turn them east till they saw the camp of the enemy. Edwy he sent also on along the other bank to return upon Osbert when he had won north of his army, while Alastair was to close in likewise from the east shielded by the osiers. And Feargus himself held the south with the road to their boats. And so each force was to wait till its captain heard the signal from the other three, which he was to answer with a wolf’s cry, at which they were to close in and attack, Edwy first with his Lindeseymen.